roots eventually broke through the black top.
The floor imperfections increased so quickly as he went along Tom had to step up over the crackling tile and concrete. As he finally approached the supervisor’s office, the dismembered floor formed a gradual platform you had to climb up to reach the door.
A voice came from the other side of the door, “We do not cow-tow to rowdy loud-mouths, pal!” making Tom question whether entering was a good idea. The voice finally bellowing, “You gonna block the door all day?” drew him into the office.
A bald man in a gray three-piece held the receiver in a death grip, his face growing ever pinker with rage as he howled in the mouth-piece, “You tryin’ to tell me about the rain in Spain, buddy? Well it’s rainin’ cats and dogs where I’m comin’ from!”
“Mr. Bob Johnson, the Supervisor in charge of Unrecognized Occurances?” Tom said, like the scarecrow in front of the wizard.
“No, the name’s Woody Roberts,” he said in a surprisingly cordial tone, with a toothy cheshire smile. “The Supervisor in charge of Occurrences That Aren’t Recognizable. Have a seat.” He pointed to the gray plush empirial he set out for company. “You want me to be oral?” he bellowed into the telephone again. “Well, I ain’t bein’ telepathic, that’s all I gotta say! Yer damn right, you better believe me! Does the pope shit in the woods?”
“Mr. Woody Roberts, I have a problem.”
“Have a crispy rice cube.” He pointed to the bland white marshmallow treat he put out for company. “And you can take that to the bank and smoke it, buddy!” he screamed into the phone.
“No thank you. I have a problem ...”
“Your name is John, right?” the supervisor interrupted.
“No. My name is Tom.”
“Was it John at one point before you changed it?”
“No.”
“Well, anyway, listen up, John, a sociologist once told me that a person’s name is the most important word they know. If you forget a person’s name, that’s a horrible insult to them, John. Just a little advice ... Yeah, well the sun doesn’t shine there either!”
“So, anyway, I have a problem, and I was told to come to you.”
“Drugs will have that cleared up in no time, son,” the supervisor said in his Jekyll voice grinning. “So you think that’s the top bananas, buddy?” he bellowed in his Hyde voice. “Well, every cloud has a silver lining!”
“Nuh-no, it’s not medical, it’s ...”
“Go see Dr. Timothy James, does wonders with self-actualization and anger management ... Well, elephants and rhinoceroses to you, buddy!”
“No, it’s not psychological, it’s ...”
“Eat more fiber.”
“No. There’s a flower growing out of my computer.”
The supervisor paused and stared at Tom, amazed for a while. “I’m ... I’m gonna have to call you back, Mom ... Yeah, I love you too.” He hung up the phone. After one more stupefied moment, “Well, ain’t that the damn weirdest bull I’ve ever heard.”
“What?” Tom said, confused as usual, afraid perhaps that the words that came out weren’t the words he was thinking.
“Get out of here.”
“Okay, sorry.” Tom stood up to leave.
“No, son, sit down. That’s just a way of me saying that’s the damn weirdest bull I’ve ever heard.”
“Is it?”
“You don’t find it weird, boy? I mean, a flower spontaneously sprouted from your computer. You don’t find that a little odd?”
“Actually no. When I was fourteen and a half, a swingset fell on my head and dislodged my ability to find things bizarre.”
“Really? Now, I find that bizarre.”
“Is it? I can’t tell.”
“Of course not. So it was dislodged you say?”
“Yes, actually, it looks like a square plate of granite. Not many people know that.”
“See, I find that very odd.”
“Really? I don’t. Oh, and it also dislodged my ability to get the punchlines to jokes, pay attention to long speeches, and pronounce the letter X without imagining the letters K and S together”
“So you can’t find anything weird?”
“Right.”
“What if ... I were to jump over this desk and start making out with you? You wouldn’t find that odd?”
“Rather uncomfortable, but not odd.”
“Okay, bad example. What if ... there was this dog here, right, and he started talking?”
Tom scrunched his eyebrows and shook his head. “You mean, like, barking or something?”
“Naw, I mean like there was this dog sitting here on my desk, right,” he put his left hand up like a puppet indicating where the hypothetical dog would be. “And he was just, ‘Hi, there John,’” He moved his hands like the mouth of the dog, using the cartoon voice all dogs evidently have. No response from Tom. “ ‘Hi John. I’m a dog. I’m a dog, and I’m sitting here talking to you. I’m not a normal dog, John. Normal dogs don’t usually talk.’ No? That doesn’t strike you as out of place?”
“Um ... no.”
“What about ... sex? You don’t think that’s odd and kinda gross?”
“No. Is it supposed to be?”
“Uh, no, no, I mean,” he scratched his eyebrow. “Wuh-well, um, no, I mean .. nevermind. So, my gir... uh, my wife, Ro... Roberta! Right, Roberta. What a lovely lovely woman. That’s a picture of her.” The frame was a solid green, but Tom didn’t notice the inconsistency. “Boy, I love her so. Do ... do you have a girl, John?” He winked.
“No.”
“Don’t mean to get personal here but ... not popular with the ladies, John?”
Tom didn’t find the near stranger’s personal questions odd at all. He basically recited excuses he had memorized and rehearsed. “No. I’m always attracted to women who have the same problem as me. It never works out. Every time everyone tells me it’s a very dangerous relationship and we could get ourselves killed.”
“So you end up breaking up?”
“No. They die. I guess everyone was right. We can’t break up because we never notice anything wrong with the relationship. They just wander into abandoned buildings or dangerous neighborhoods. I suppose the sense of strangeness is an important survival mechanism.”
“Damn.”
“Every time everyone tells me I need to find a girl who’s able to find things odd, so maybe she could teach me how, or at least keep me safe. But the problem is I’m unable to tell the difference.”
“Wow, how tragic and sappily sentimental of you. That reminds me of a pointless story I tell all the time ... Seven years ago my wife Roberta and I were in Amish country churning milk ...”
Tom’s unfortunate accident kept him from being able to pay any more attention. The attention detached from the supervisor and drifted slowly downward like a feather until it fell on the desk. He stared at it a moment in contemplation. “Ooh ... oak ... nice,” he said in his brain. “I thought all the desks were supposed to be plastic. Well, I suppose he has all sorts of special privileges as a supervisor.” Then he saw leaves protruding from the legs and front and thought about how horrible the craftsmanship was. They didn’t even pay enough special attention to their work to cut the leaves off before they made it into a desk. In fact, they neglected to cut off the bark. They neglected to cut off anything for that matter. Just then a bug buzzed around his head, surely springing from a hidden nesting spot in the poorly made oak desk. As the bug slowed its pace, Tom could see it was no bug he recognized, certainly no form of lightening bug or butterfly he had captured and categorized as a kid. It was most like a lightening bug, but the entire thing illuminated like only the butt of the lightening bug. But of course Tom didn’t find it odd. He just thought it was one of those killer insects/viruses the news reports always talk about, coming from South America/Africa/Mexico destined to wipe out the entire human race, but in reality as harmless as a fa
iry or wood nymph. “Those news reports,” he said in his brain. “Always trying to scare us.”
“And that’s why I’m never allowed back into Pennsylvania without a police escort,” the supervisor said as Tom finally tuned back in. Unnoticed by Tom, he had stood up dramatically and was staring out of the window, a dramatic technique he surely picked up from his favorite nightly courtroom dramas. “Damn it all to hell!” he bellowed suddenly. “Damn it all to hell!” he repeated, surely another technique he picked up from his courtroom dramas.
“What is it?”
“I’m going to have to call somebody to come fix my window.” He picked up the receiver and asked for the repairs department.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, look at it.”
“What?”
“All you see is blue sky,” the supervisor waved his hand around like a game show hostess. “And a few of those little puffy clouds.”
“Cumulo nimbus.”
“Right, cumulo ... whatevers. That isn’t right ... Yes? Is this the repairs department? I need somebody to come down here and fix my window. Right. So I’m not the only one?”
“What about that problem of mine Mr. Woody Roberts?”
“What problem?”
“The flower on my computer.”
“Oh right. Pluck it out! If that doesn’t work, you need to go see James Timothy. He fixes the computers around here.”
“Thank you,” Tom said.
And, of course, he heard more bellowing as he backed precariously out of the office. “Oh yeah buddy? You tryin to tell me, ‘Sic sempur es decorum’? Well, ‘Conquito ergo sum’ to you!”
As he made