Thomas World (12 page)

A familiar voice…frightened or desperate or…angry?

Gloria?

Not screaming but yelling.

“Thomas!”

Coming from behind me.

I realize my head is on the desk. I've been asleep. I raise up and turn around quickly, pivoting in the chair, and the room spins too fast. My peripheral vision narrows, like a tunnel, blurriness everywhere, and the only thing I can make out is Gloria standing in the doorway. Staring at me. Clearly upset.

“What are you doing?”
she screams.

I can barely hear her over the wailing, thundering sound of the
Ant Farm
soundtrack.

“Will you please turn that down?”

I pivot back to the computer and reach for the volume. During the turn my knee slams into the desk, so hard it sounds like a hammer blow, which absolutely should hurt but doesn't. My head is cobwebs. My ears buzz. The room is overbright and surreal, as if lit with an array of powerful fluorescent bulbs.

“Baby, what are you doing?”

An answer does not immediately form on my lips. I realize vaguely I've made another mistake, a big one, because the last thing I needed right now was for Gloria to see me in a state like this.

“I'm playing thish new game,” I finally say. And yes, I can totally hear myself slurring, but what can I do about it? I'm in another world. I was asleep. Passed out. I'm so drunk I might vomit.

“What's that music?”

“It's the soundtrack to the game.”

“It sounds like a nightmare.”

All I can do is nod. I'm an idiot. I hate myself.

She asks me, incredibly, “Are you drunk?”

“Yeah. I'm sorry. I had a bad day.”

“So you decided to get hammered? On a Monday?”

“I only have—had—a couple of drinks.”

“Uh-huh. Two drinks and you can barely talk?”

“Well, maybe it was three. And there is Monday Night Footballs this evening, you know.”

The look in Gloria's eyes, the slight upwards roll, only worsens my self-loathing. I wish I could go back to this morning and start over. I already lost my job. I can't lose Gloria, too. She shouldn't be seeing me like this.

“So what happened?” she asks. “Something at work?”

I'm barely able to speak. I can't possibly admit the truth. Not yet. Not now.

“It's William. He is such a pedantic
jerk
.”

“Baby, you've never liked William. Did something different happen today?”

I can't tell her the truth until I'm sober and able to explain myself. So I lie.

“He moved up the deadline on one of my projects, and he acted like I hadn't even started, like I'm a child or something.”

“So you
had
started?”

I hate this. Every time I complain about William, Gloria tries to make it seem as if the guy is perfectly normal.

“He said he wanted it done by Friday.”

“So you hadn't started on it?”

“He said he wanted to
interface
with me about the report. Why can't he just say
talk
? ‘Thomas, I want to
talk
to you about the report.'”

Gloria doesn't seem impressed by my description of the problem. I can't remember her ever looking at me with such clinical distance before, not ever.

“Look,” I say, trying to enunciate clearly without sounding as if I'm trying, “I know I'm a mess right now. I got off work a little early and I dint—didn't—have much to eat today. I shoon—shouldn't—had so much to drink. I'll take a shower and get my head clear and we can have some dinner, k?”

“Okay, baby,” she answers. “I understand.”

“Thank you.”

She stands there looking at me, a little more compassionately now, but I still feel like a science experiment.

“Thomas, are you feeling all right?”

Why does everyone keep asking me that? Yes, I know my mind is all funky right now but that's going on inside my head. They can't see that. Can they?

“Yeah, I'm fine. Of course.”

“Well, I only ask because it's a Monday and you're drunk out of your mind, upset about something at work, sitting in front of the computer listening to scary music. I'm worried about you.”

“I'm fine. I just made a decision…I mean a
bad
decision. You know how it is when you start drinking and you don't realize how much. Right?”

“Right,” she sighs. “So what do you want for dinner?”

“Dinner sounds great. How about spaghetti?”

“Sure,” Gloria says. “Let me go change and I'll get right on it.”

I glance back at the computer monitor as I stand up, and the difference in perspective nearly causes me to fall backwards into the desk. Gloria must hear the scuffle of my feet against the carpet, because she looks back into the room and notices me struggling to maintain my balance. I pretend like nothing happened and stride confidently out of the room.

But really I wish I could go back. The last thing I saw on the monitor before I turned away was prayers piling up on the screen. Prayers I cannot answer because it's time for dinner.

FOURTEEN

A
little while later, Gloria and I sit down in front of the television and eat while we watch a situational comedy. I try to act like I'm sober, but my appetite overwhelms me. I wolf down an entire plate of spaghetti while Gloria just picks at hers. We're not saying much. During a commercial I go into the kitchen for another helping of dinner, and because the bar is not visible from the living room, I decide to down a quick shot of rum to reinforce my buzz.

The
Ant Farm
game is still running, of course. I'm insanely curious to go back in the study and check on my simulated world, but I have to figure out a way to smooth things over with Gloria.

“How was work today?” I ask.

“Oh, it was fine.”

“Is Mary still dealing with that creep who peers around the wall at her?”

“Yeah. Today he said ‘Good morning, good evening, and good night!'”

“He quoted
The Truman Show
?”

“Apparently.”

Then nothing. The thundercloud of silence boils toward the sky, cottony white at the top, roiling black at the bottom. I imagine her easy conversations with Jack, the way they keep thinking of reasons to stop by each other's office. And since I am shitcanned, I imagine them closing the door and laying waste to a desk, papers and folders pushed toward the ground. This alternately makes me hate myself for being weak and resent Gloria for being so predictable.

He pulls her hair.

She whispers his name.

Their passion for each other is so intense they don't even care if someone outside the office hears them. Maybe they even want people to hear them.

I open my mouth and blurt, “You want to go to lunch tomorrow?”

“Lunch? You hate going to lunch.”

“Well, that's because I like to leave work at four. But tomorrow I'll just stay till the normal time.”

“Just so we can go to lunch?”

“Do you have plans?”

She pauses ever so slightly, stabbing me with a dagger of time.

“You're drunk.”

“And?”

“And you're trying to make up with me by suggesting lunch.”

“We haven't been communicating.”

“Baby, I asked you to lunch a thousand times,” Gloria says. “You always had an excuse. Why the sudden change?”

“I was wrong to not go, so I'm trying to make up for it. Do you not want to go?”

“I'll go.”

For a while I'm able to tolerate the silence raining down on us. But only a little while.

“I was thinking about that show we watched last night, the one about the prison.”

“You were?”

“I was thinking about how my cubicle is smaller than those cells are. Like I'm really in prison and I just don't realize it.”

“I know the feeling.”

“And it doesn't help that I get paid to be a peeping Tom.”

“Babe,” Gloria says, smiling now. “How are you a peeping Tom?”

“I review web browsing habits and try to predict how users might purchase in the future, and then—”

“Oh, babe. Stop.”

“But I don't think you understand the boredom. Every morning I wake up earlier than I want. I shower, dress, leave for battle. Except my battle is to beat traffic lights before they turn red. I hunt and gather in a six-by-eight-foot gray box. The highlight of my day is picking out what food I want in the cafeteria.”

“Babe.” Giggling harder.

“I mean, really. Do you want some Johnny snooping around the Internet, watching every little thing you look at? To send you emails because you looked at a certain sprinkler? If you need a sprinkler, you'll buy one. Why do you need me to convince you? And the more stuff I convince you to buy, the more I get paid so
I
can buy more stuff. And if I don't want very much stuff, then clearly I'm a communist who hates America.”

I'm hoping Gloria will see my position, feel empathy for me. In my wildest dreams she would tell me to quit my job if it bothers me that much, and I would tell her what happened today.

But instead she stops laughing and uses my real name again.

“Thomas.”

“Yes?”

“Are you feeling all right?”

“What do you mean? Do I look sick?”

“I don't mean physically sick. I mean emotionally. Have you ever thought about talking to someone?”

“I'm talking to you right now.”

“No, baby, I mean a therapist.”

“Why the hell would I need a therapist?”

“Well,” she says. “You seem a little upset—”

“Everyone gets frustrated, Gloria. We all have our freak-out moments.”

“Well, I was going to say—before you cut me off—I was going to say you seem a little upset over nothing. We all get tired of our jobs. We all get tired of fighting traffic. But we don't all come home on Monday and get drunk and play strange video games.”

“It's not a video game.”

“What is it, then?”

“A simulation. Sort of like
SimCity
, I guess. Do you remember when we used to play that?”

“And it's not a video game?”

“It's hard to explain. You aren't building a city but a culture. You use rules to set up a world and see how it evolves. Based on your design.”

“In any case I don't think you're handling the stress of everyday life in the best way.”

“You make it sound like I'm crazy.”

“Well, babe, when you sit there and tell me your job is worthless, that you're a caveman in a cubicle…I mean, that's not exactly the sort of thing that normally comes out of your mouth. You're my rock, remember?”

“I guess I don't really feel like a rock right now.”

For a moment we just stare at each other. I've looked into Gloria's eyes thousands of times, have read in her expression almost every emotion one can imagine, but once again I'm not sure I've ever seen her look at me so vacantly, so dispassionately. I would be much happier right now if she were sad or disappointed or even furious with me, but to see nothing in her eyes at all is horrifying.

She sits only inches away from me and yet it feels like a canyon. I want to build a bridge so we can reconnect. I want to reach for her, take her in my arms, hold her like I did when I proposed to her, when her father died, when I sang to her and made her mine. I want her to know everything will be okay, that
we
will be okay. I want her to need me again. I reach for her hand and she doesn't reach back. Not resisting me, but not encouraging me, either.

And I wonder, how do I know Gloria isn't one of them? The people watching me?

Like I said, maybe everyone is watching me.

“I think I should go to bed.”

“I thought you might,” Gloria says. “I'll get the dishes.”

I lean over to kiss her, wondering if when I do, she'll place a tracking device on my back. Maybe she'll look over my shoulder at the Stetson man standing outside the window.

“Baby, I'm sorry you had a rough day,” Gloria says. “Get some rest and tomorrow will be a better day.”

“I hope so.”

FIFTEEN

I
wake up sweating.

And my ears are ringing, whooshing, like the sound of a crowded highway at rush hour. The surge of cars grows louder, rising like waves of static, and a wail of violins rises up over these atmospheric sounds, the strum of a chorused guitar, fattened by an overdub or two or ten, and—

I wake up sweating.

The room is dark and crowded with hulking rectangular shapes. That shape over there could be a dresser or an audio mixing console. That other one could be an armoire or a mainframe computer. That could be a television or a two-way telescreen, it could be broadcasting my every move to some faraway server, and I must assume every sound I make is overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

That music, those violins and discordant guitars, it's from the
Ant Farm
game. I heard it earlier today or yesterday or whenever that was.

I look over at the alarm clock and the blue numbers read:
3:14
.

Gloria is sleeping next to me, on her side, facing away, breathing slowly. I carefully slither out of bed and watch for her reaction, but she doesn't stir at all. I could probably do cartwheels on the bed and she wouldn't wake up, so powerful is the Ambien effect on her.

My head throbs and swims. I take a step forward and list immediately to the right, nearly running into the doorframe as I pass through it. In the hallway I stop and put my hands on my knees, but that makes me feel like throwing up. I stand up straight and lean against the wall. My mouth is sticky and cottony. I'm starving.

I lurch toward the kitchen and flip on the light. I take a large cup out of the cabinet. It's an awesome cup, issued at the first home game ever played at Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington. I fill it with ice and water and stand at the island, sucking it down. You know that feeling you get when you're hungover, where it seems like no amount of water will ever be enough?