The Anarchist

The night had been cold. The heat was not working properly in the bedroom, and when Joe awoke he discovered that the comforter was on the floor and that his hands were missing. He looked down at where his hands had been for more than thirty years and instead saw two bloody stumps. At first, he thought that his two cats (who he had forgotten to feed for the past two days) sitting at the foot of the bed might have gnawed them off, but there wasn’t any blood on their fur or whiskers. He looked under the bed for his hands. He looked behind the busted-up, broken-down, rusted radiator. He even looked in the bathroom, for he remembered having relieved himself during the night, and they may have fallen in the toilet. He looked at the blinking, orange glow of the alarm clock. The forsaken thing had never been trustworthy. Over the past few months, Joe had been late to work more than a dozen times, and his supervisor told him that if there were one more infraction, his tardiness would be grounds for dismissal. He tried to remove his boxer shorts and undershirt only to no avail, then he jumped into the bathtub, but he could not properly regulate the water with his feet, scalding his chest.

Joe thought that if he was going to be late it would be best to at least put on a suit, giving his boss the impression that he cared about his appearance. He managed to place a pencil between his teeth and wedge it into the crevice of the closet doors, but they would not give way. He spit out the pencil, accidentally hitting one of the cats, and approached yesterday’s wrinkled, gray suit that was flung over the recliner. Joe placed the suit jacket between his teeth, pulled it off the chair, flattened it out on the floor, and slipped both arms inside. He was unable to button his pants and tighten his belt, so when he stood up his pants fell to his ankles. He took them off. He ran to the door and wrestled with the chain. Ever since the unfortunate burglary, he placed the chain on the door every evening. The burglar ran off with a beat-up, dusty acoustic guitar that Joe hadn’t played since high school, but more importantly a manila envelope filled with credit cards and the rent money he had yet to deposit. He stood on his tiptoes and tried to nudge the chain with his nose but could not get it off the latch. He ran back upstairs and stood before the bedroom window that had been cracked just enough for the cats to wedge themselves into. He was able to prop it open with his feet. Then he kicked out the screen, leaped onto the fire escape, and climbed down. Both cats crawled outside and watched him run up the street.

It took him more than two hours to get to work. He entered from the loading dock, walked up fourteen flights, and waited for Tina Tewksburry to leave the copy room before he slipped into his corner cubicle without any of his co-workers having noticed that he hadn’t any hands. He sat down and stared at black screen of his computer. He managed to turn it on with his elbow, and once the cursor started blinking, he leaned over his desk into the keyboard and started typing with his nose, slowly and steadily, occasionally hitting several keys at a time. While he was typing the report that had been long overdue, Jim Oversham popped his head over the cubicle wall. “Whatcha doin’, Joe boy?” At first, Joe feared that he had seen his two bloody stumps, but then remembered that both arms were hidden underneath his desk. “Trying something new?” Jim asked. “Looked like you were typing with your nose there, Joe.” Joe paused and then said, “That’s exactly what I was doing, Jimmy boy.” He saw the baffled look on Jim’s face, but did not hesitate to bend over the keyboard and resume typing the report with his nose. “Is it dress-down day today, Joe boy?” Joe looked Jim directly in the eyes and simply stated, “No, it’s not, Jim. Now if you will excuse me, I’d like to get back to work.” Jim gawked at Joe for another minute, before he disappeared back into his cubicle. Jim mumbled something from behind the wall about not telling the boss that Joe had been late to work again.

It was lunchtime, and Joe had been left alone all morning to work on the report that his boss had demanded three days ago. Surely, he would stop by to pick it up at some point in the day. There it was, five pages in twelve-point new courier font. It was stapled in the top right-hand corner.

Joe sat at his desk for a long time just staring back and forth from the computer screen to the report in the outgoing box when the telephone had given him such a fright, sending him backward, unable to grab the arms of the chair because he no longer had hands, and the fragile fellow plummeted to the floor, causing a tremor. Someone screamed, “What was that?” The phone continued to ring. Jim Oversham shouted, “Will you answer the damn phone already?” For fear that Jim would enter the cubicle, Joe kicked the phone to the floor: “Hello. Hello, Joe? Are you there?” It was his boss. He said “hello” a few more times before hanging up. Surely now he would come by. Joe made certain that the report was in clear view so when his superior entered the cubicle he would see it prominently displayed on his desk next to the photograph of his two cats. Joe dashed out of the cubicle and ran to the men’s room, but he could not turn the knob on the door, so he ran to the stairwell and when he shoved the door open, he saw Suzy Magnitude sitting on the top step smoking a cigarette: “Please don’t tell anyone Joe. I promise this will be the last time. I didn’t mean to put your life at risk. It’s just that I have a problem. I’m addicted to nicotine. I’ve tried the patch, but it doesn’t work, and…what the hell happened to you?” Joe thrust his arms behind his back. “What on earth are you wearing? Is it dress-down day?” Joe was ready to come clean and tell his boss’ administrative assistant about his extraordinary tale when the fire alarm went off. He and Suzy dashed down the stairs, and when they got to the bottom, Suzy took a right, while Joe made a left and darted onto an open, empty freight elevator. He took it back up to the fourteenth floor. When the doors opened, Joe poked his head out, saw that nobody was there and sprinted to his cubicle. He noticed that the telephone was back on his desk, his chair was turned upright and the report was missing. His boss had stopped by.

A few minutes had passed, and Joe’s colleagues were heading back to their respective cubicles, so he darted underneath his desk. Just as he had gotten his legs tucked in, Bob Felldrip popped in. “Where is that rascal?” When Felldrip bent down to pick up a pen that was by filing cabinet, he spotted Joe underneath the desk: “Did you lose something Joe?” Joe didn’t take any time to respond, as he spoke over Bob’s question: “I can’t find my pen, Bob. My favorite pen. I can’t seem to find it.” He saw Bob Felldrip’s curious stare: “Well, it’s right here Joe. Here you go.” Joe reached out for it, then pulled his hand back, but not before Felldrip’s mouth dropped open: “Is it dress-down day?” “No, Bob, it’s not dress-down day, so if you will excuse me, I’d like to get back to work.” Bob nodded, “Of course,” placed the pen on Joe’s uncluttered desk and departed, “I’ll just leave your pen right here, Joe.”

It had been a day of close calls. Joe hoped that it was his supervisor who had taken the report from his desk and not someone like Jim Oversham who envied his work habits. Four more hours and he would be free. When he stood up, he saw Tina Tewksburry who had her head perched on the cubicle wall. She tilted her head and asked, “What in the world happened to you Joe?” Joe had been working so diligently the entire morning that he never concocted a legitimate story, so he settled for brutal honesty: “You see, I’m not entirely sure, but I think it’s a rare disease. The tissue attacks itself. It’s a kind of rapid-atrophy where limbs just fall off rather than simply deteriorate.” Tina stared at him in silence for what felt like an eternity. She wasn’t sure how to respond, but neither of them would be prepared for what had happened next. Tina must have placed all of her weight — she was a large woman — onto the cubicle wall, because the entire cubicle collapsed, and she came crashing down onto Joe’s desk. Joe had seen dozens of heads pop up from their cubicles. Jim Oversham yelled, “Will you keep it down over there. I’m busy.” Joe seized the opportunity and scampered into the kitchen. It wasn’t the most surreptitious place to hide. “Too late,” he uttered. It was lunchtime.

Joe was met with long, fixated stares. Jaws dropped. There were audible gasps. Peggy Viscosity vomited. Noel Kleindorf had dropped his coffee all over Bob Felldrip. Then someone asked, “What the hell happened to you?” Someone else asked, “Is it dress down day?” Joe didn’t know what to say. Once again, he settled for brutal honesty: “It’s the funniest thing, well, perhaps funny isn’t the word I’m looking for — peculiar — yes, peculiar is a more appropriate word. It’s the most peculiar thing…I woke up and I couldn’t find my hands. I looked everywhere, but they were nowhere to be found. I thought that maybe my cats had chewed them off, but I don’t think that’s likely.” There was a brief moment of silence before everyone erupted into laughter. “Imagine that,” Suzy Magnitude said, “waking up and your hands are gone. I guess it could have been worse. Your penis could be missing.” The laughter was so contagious that even Joe had joined in, but the frivolity came to an abrupt end when the boss entered the kitchen.

It was a long walk home for Joe. The longest of his young life. The boss was pleased with his report. He said that in the ten years Joe had been with the company, this particular report was his finest work. He had even been sympathetic to Joe’s missing hands. He promised to send out a search party with a team of hunting dogs, and if they weren’t discovered he promised to give Joe his left hand. The boss felt that it was the least that he could do for the man he had to fire. The company had a stringent dress code. One must dress for success! If Joe had been excused for having worn boxer shorts then perhaps the entire firm would have shunned the company policy. That kind of rebellion only leads to anarchy.

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Richard Fulco’s plays have been presented and developed at The New York International Fringe Festival, The Playwrights’ Center, The Flea, Here Arts Center, and the Dramatists Guild. His play Swedish Fish was published by Heuer Publishing last August. He received his MFA and was the recipient of a MacArthur Scholarship in playwriting from Brooklyn College. His poetry and reviews have appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Failbetter, Nth Position, Poetz, Thirdrail, Serpentine, and Propaganda. He is an editor at Coral Press and teaches at Pace University. He also blogs about music at Riffraf.com.