CODE DATES

I don’t like it when the M&Ms look like someone else had a turn at them first. I suspect all our snacks are knock-offs or retreads, past expiration or otherwise defiled, and repackaged by the delivery guy in his basement. Look at his truck. There’s not a mark on it, not a logo, not a decal, not a hand-lettered hint it’s part of a business. I know he bought it from the newspaper. Their whole fleet was exactly that model, painted industrial blue with The Speculator in gold on the two sliding doors. He’s spray-painted it white, and even two or three coats can’t stop the blue showing through. It looks like pale bruises unsure if they want to heal or get worse. They might be cancer, just waiting, or tropical infections, the kind people suffer for years and finally stop noticing because everyone’s got it. The air brings it on, or the water, or probably the food. It’s in their diet, tangled after generations in their DNA, so there’s no pulling apart the strands anymore, and everybody’s crazy by the time they’re 50, or they jerk and stagger when they walk, or maybe their stomachs fall apart or swell up like balloons thicker than sponges. That’s the food problem for you. Every bite is poisonous, we’re all eating it, and this guy restocks the machines every two or three weeks.

There’s not a one of us who couldn’t stand to trim down the old waistline, except, of course, for Fritz and Harold. Fritz used to be fat but had a diabetes and heart attack scare a couple years ago and suddenly got religious. He lost 60 pounds in under three months. Everybody thought he was sick and dying. His formerly chubby face hung slack on his jaws. He looked exhausted all the time. The carrots and celery he nibbled at lunch seemed like more hard luck and not part of a plan. He’d taken up bike-riding, which nobody knew until he came in with half his face scraped off and a really stiff knee. He’d hit a rock and gone flying, landing on asphalt. That’s when he confessed all, the diet and exercise and need for new clothes. Cinching his belt only made him look skinnier. His eyes got baleful. He said he felt better than ever, but no one believed it. Sticking full-time to self-control and discipline turned him cranky. Make the slightest mistake, and he’d crawl down your throat to look for the reason. People liked it better when he was still fat. His disposition was more tolerant and easygoing when he gobbled down the same rat poison snacks as everybody else.

Harold’s another one who pretends he’ll live longer than 90% of the people he knows, then holds it against them that he’s got the gift of eternal life. He’s also short, and I think he’s color-blind. He wears blue shirts, all solids, no stripes or checks, and gray or black slacks. His ties without exception are maroon. He doesn’t even wear white shirts. They’re so bright he’s afraid they’ll clash with the safer colors he can grab out of his closet and never have to ask his wife if they match. He’s so sure of his weight that none of his trousers have belt loops. I’ve seen him in the restroom, checking his rear in the mirror. You can peer through the crack of the stall door. He never seems to know he’s got company. Maybe he does and he’s just showing off, but I doubt it. He smoothes his hand down his butt like a woman checking for panty lines. He smiles a lot, but never in public, and he doesn’t eat, not his own food, only what he can snitch. On food days he’ll poke at a meatball or a cocktail wienie or dip a chip in some salsa as he passes the table, but he won’t load up a plate. He’ll go by the table fifty times and do some sleight of hand for a sample. He packs his cheeks like a squirrel.

His wife’s even worse. She’ll take a plate and let it get cold. Her mouth never opens, not even to speak. When she shows up at parties, she sits by herself like an eavesdropper. No one’s worried, though. She and Harold have got hating each other down to a science. It’s a dead heat who wants to do the other one damage. The only gossip she’d report would have to guarantee he’d be gutted like a fish.

Fritz lacks the courage or he’d whisper right in her ear. He’ll stick out his tongue behind Harold’s back, or did when he was fat. Now he grinds his teeth. His dental bills must pile up like mud slides. He’s evolution gone backwards. He’s losing his spine. If ulcers could fossilize, his stomach would be little stone knots.

We’re all a bunch of hunched-over skeletons, except for Harold, who’s Mr. Perfect Posture, but somehow he’s the throwback. He doesn’t know how to do anything. He didn’t even earn the money that let him buy the place. That was trust fund cash and shrewd advice from the man who administered it, Harold’s father’s former partner. He looked like pig in a suit. His chins billowed in the breeze, but every ounce came to him the hard way, by dint of his own voracious effort. He ate everything in sight to keep up his energy and strode like an emperor showing off the grounds. Harold’s father always lagged behind. One day he put his head on his desk just to rest a moment and never lifted it again. Harold was five or six at the time, heartbroken, scarred for life, a bully against his better nature because he so desperately craved order and control. That’s the version people trot out after two or three drinks if they want to be charitable and he’s paid for the party. The flip side says he’s a jerk, who cares what caused it. He’s got all the money he needs and worries every second it will blow away while he’s not looking.

Gordon does the books and advocates upgrading the equipment, both for the tax writeoffs and the boost in production capacity, but the company’s cash flow he thinks is fine. It could always improve, but so could the weather. If he had real qualms everyone would know it. Stand beside him in the restroom, and he’ll make some snide remark about Harold’s competence and judgment. Other guys talk about sports. He throws a small fit. It’s how he passes the time. Even people who agree with him shrug it off. Temper tantrums keep him peaceful. He shouts and tosses his stapler and pounds his desk so hard his mouse jumps. Then he pops a quarter for some M&Ms or buys a couple bags of chips. He’s good for the afternoon. He wipes his fingers on a paper towel and stabs new numbers into the system, and half the time he’s still at it when everyone else is clocking out.

He was more or less thin until three years ago. Boom—he started gaining weight. He said his metabolism changed as a natural part of aging, but really it adjusted after a sudden intake of Tootsie Rolls and candy corn, somebody’s Halloween leftovers. Only two or three kids came to the house. The year before there were dozens. The candy not taken was brought in to work. The candy corn was loose in a big wooden bowl, easy to grab by the handful. The Tootsie Rolls were those inch-or-so stubby things the size of cat turds. Gordon swung by like a comet on a short leash and put on ten pounds before the turn of the year.

He was too skinny anyway, from childhood on, a sickly runt who couldn’t swing a baseball bat without losing his balance. He’d turned to math to keep the stats, and other kids quit laughing. His specialty was player-by-player breakdowns at the end of the game, completed before the lined-up teams were done shaking hands. He got too good. The coaches just expected his reports, and no one thanked him ever. A little luxury now was more or less his due. He’d been a sack of bones until he was 20. It wasn’t as if watching every dime and dollar earned him any gratitude.

Woe is me—this is our daily bread. Not a one of us feels rightfully appreciated. Every job in America is probably the same. Harold tries, though, in his own pathetic fashion. About once a month, call it every three weeks, he brings us day-old strudel. It comes in a cardboard box with a cellophane window. It’s heaped in grocery store carts once the code date has passed. The price goes down an extra 15% every two days it stays in the cart. He’ll bring in a box with five or six price reduction stickers, one on top of the other, orange and green and pink. Once somebody gets up the courage to open the box, there’s a plastic knife left inside so people can saw off whatever size hunk they want. It seems pretty chewy. Some people work it for two or three minutes. Most have a can of pop right at hand to wash it down. Harold’s all smiles, setting it out on the counter. It’s supposed to be a treat.

Folks huddle close, jostling to prove it. Nobody’s fooled, but the stuff is free. Gift horses are meant to be opened. Fritz looks on as if watching the ghosts of his own greedy self. What rabble they are, snatching at pastry, pressing crumbs to their lips. He snaps off bites of celery and retreats to his office. His desk is an island where he sits by himself until Harold drops by with his latest commands and complaints. Fritz shucks and jives to Harold, then implements his desires with a looming scowl at everyone else. No one really minds. With Fritz up close Harold’s kept at a distance. Once a project’s announced as due by Tuesday Fritz heads back to his desk and picks through scraps of lettuce he drizzles with low-calorie dressing, leaving the scheduling to us.

Overtime for everyone. It makes Harold squeal, paying time-and-a-half, but he makes a lot back. Extra hours mean extra snacks, and Harold’s the company store. People who don’t eat still have to drink, and he owns that machine, too. He bought it off a routeman who said those outdoor models weren’t known to break but occasionally they walked away. Once they wandered they stayed out of sight. Who could say what brands of pop occupied a Pepsi machine in its new location? Coke and Shasta and Dr. Pepper might all have equal footing. Cut away the monopoly and free enterprise might have a chance.

Fritz watches the food brought in and then the pop. Everything’s in a gray plastic tub the size of a laundry basket the delivery guy hauls in one hand. He’s a tuskless walrus with flat, shiny glasses and a nose as round as a golf ball. He breathes through his mouth and gets noisier with each item he slides in the machines. He used to bring cigarettes, too, but even Harold’s banned the use of tobacco. The health insurance premiums on smokers about gave him a heart attack. Now he’s protecting his investment. He sidles up to somebody’s car to take a peek at the ash tray, see if it’s open, maybe sniff at the window. He’ll tug at the door if he thinks no one’s looking. He especially keeps his eye on Fritz. There was a time the man sucked down six Pall Malls a day. He tapped them on the back of his hand and lit up from matchbooks he took from restaurants. He quit cigarettes the same day he started his diet, tossing an unopened pack in the trash bin outside the doctor’s office, but Harold’s convinced he’s a backslider. He’s got no evidence. It’s just his assumption. Everyone’s weak and waiting to crumple. Look at his father. Look at his wife. Fritz is just one more example. He stares at food installed in the machine and moves his lips reading the nutrition labels. It looks like silent prayer.

Harold’s face lights up with a blackmailer’s smile. The right temptation will make anyone fold. He corners the delivery guy and hands him a sheet of long yellow paper. It’s filled with tiny handwriting Harold particularly admires. He’s spent hours deciding what people can’t resist and maybe should be in the machines. There’s a tentative replacement plan in case he’s guessed wrong. Tastes vary. Popularity runs hot and cold. Still, he’s written out two months of suggestions in sentences so dense they look like solid ink.

The delivery guy nods like his head’s on a spring. A customer gets ideas, he’s got no choice but to listen. Then he takes the returns back to his basement and steams open or slits every package and trades old chips for new, mixing and matching whenever he can so no one can possibly complain a whole bag has gone bad. In front of his glasses, a magnifying lens as big as a dinner plate hangs on a gooseneck arm attached to a bracket apparatus he wears like a hat. A single hot bulb throws down a cone of white light. There’s no squinting at all. He reseals the wrappers with a needle-nose glue gun, crimping them tight with a thumbscrew device he machined out of scrap. Then back in the truck, recycled to Harold and customers like him. The M&Ms are chipped. The doughnuts are stale. His nostrils are filled with salt and Dorito dust. The hot glue is perfume. He’s paid cash in an envelope he stuffs in his pocket, down past his keys. They’re hooked to a rabbit’s foot dingy by now but originally dyed pink.

The truck drives away and Harold heads for the restroom for a glance in the mirror. His fingers tip-tap their way down his pastel blue shirt front. He notes that his abdomen’s flat, his buttocks are trim. Not even billfold bulges in back. Walk in on him and he’s drying his hands, he’s on his way out. A smile sticks to his lips a good 30 seconds after he’s slipped through the door.

Then he disappears for the day. Morale improves by a notch. It takes a while for people to realize he’s actually left. They glide by the windows to hunt for his car. They whisper the question, in case he’s skulking nearby. Is he gone or just hiding? No one’s ever quite sure. If he weren’t such a cheapskate, unblinking cameras would watch us all day. His departure, confirmed, allows time to relax. Fritz strolls through the building, carrot in hand. He smiles like a tourist and returns to his desk. Solitaire pops upon his screen. He’ll answer the phone if it’s someone he knows. To strangers he’s as absent as Harold. He calls jokes to Gordon. They banter back and forth. Invoices flip-fold out of the printer, and Gordon tears them apart like a cook shelling peas. It’s got to be done, but it’s not exactly hard work. The envelopes are stuffed and run through the meter. More cash, he announces, for Harold to hide. He hasn’t got tax shelters. They’re underground bunkers. Every dime he makes loses a third of its value before it’s recorded.

Remarks of this nature wash Fritz’s face of all color. His eyes go wide and blank. His breathing’s reduced to a flutter. Hasn’t Gordon noticed Harold’s wife walk in the door whenever he’s absent? She’s got a sixth sense and probably spies. Maybe she waits in the parking lot in a wig and dark glasses. The smart money says someone gives her a call. It’s a 20-minute drive, and she’s mostly on the dot. Isn’t he here, she says, and wanders the place as if we’re surely mistaken. In Harold’s absence she chirps and chatters without taking a breath. Her clothes are scarlet and saffron and cobalt and plum. She pokes high and low in case the scamp might be hiding. So she says, but Fritz is in tow to answer her questions. Those people look busy: are they always working so hard? Is this equipment new? How many hours a day does it operate? A full workload means money’s coming in despite Harold’s claims. Exact figures aren’t available, at least not to her, but a walk-through once a month gives her an idea. She says thank you, oh, thank you, I thought we’d do lunch, but I guess he’s not here. She sucks breath mints and cough drops and still smells like smoke. Her teeth are as yellowed as her skin and her hair.

By the time she’s gone Fritz is soaking in sweat. He hides in his office the rest of the day. Not even solitaire helps. Gordon smirks the whole time, but he’s not in her clutches. He’s a functionary she completely ignores while Fritz she pumps for information. The money’s going somewhere, she just knows it. Fritz, she’s decided, is a mountain of evidence. He feels instead like a terrified turncoat. He knows just enough because he suspects so much more. Harold’s flirting with disaster out of sheer spite, with tax dodges the least of his shell games. Revenue lost or even better unreported is income unavailable to his wife, who thinks she might leave him when she’s sure of her take. She has accountants on retainer as well as attorneys whose mouths water for a lunge at the books. He’d love to keep them snapping, driven mad by the scent. Emptying the larder while they’re barking outside is sweet beyond words.

Nonsense, says Gordon. No one would risk a fortune, a whole business, for a squabble at home. He hoists his zipper and washes his hands. Harold’s just adding some spice to his life. He enjoys a taste of mischief. Gordon pats his hands dry. Sink the place? That’s crazy talk. His head shakes in the mirror.

But Fritz is not fooled by common sense. Obsession is as real to him as dread. Harold despises his wife. The feeling is mutual. If they’re careful they can make each other miserable for decades to come. She will pry open every box she can find. There’ll be a stock certificate here or a wrapped packet of bills, but she’ll breathe dust and dead insects more often than not. He’ll make her sweat until she’s parched. The money will sift away like sand.

Alone in his office, Fritz will hear the company totter and creak. He’s already listening. He’ll think again he wants to smoke, and Harold in the restroom will lift his chin and pet his flat gut. His day-old strudel will attract us like flies. He’ll spring for doughnuts as dry as dirt and show his bone-chip teeth every time we feed our faces, Gordon first in line, a paper napkin for his plate.

Fritz scurries past, eyes wide, flesh gray, gnawing on a stalk of celery. He’s clutched it like microphone. I’m not sure he’s not mumbling. I step out of his path and stare at the new candy and chips in their paper and cellophane. All of it is battered and delicious. I count out my quarters to plug in the slot.

James Reed's work has appeared in such magazines as J Journal, Raritan, Coneflower Café, and The Gettysburg Review, and among other honors he holds a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.