Andrés Vaccari

(This is the first chapter of a now abandoned novel, Company Man, which was intended as an extended version of “Rotting in the Office”)

People called me Matt. I had been at the Office for as long as I could remember. For all I know, I might have uttered my first words there, ventured on my first steps, scored my first screw in the confines of that corporate cell. Memory fails me, mercifully. This shall also spare the reader from tedious reminiscences of childhood, family, and other unpleasant subjects in this vein. The important thing is, I got out. AND SO CAN YOU!

My name was Matthew Lionel O’hara. This is his story.

It all started going weird the day he decided to die. To Matt, death was nothing dramatic. Like everything else in life, death was basically an economic transaction; no pathos here, let alone bathos. To die meant taking early retirement, getting a permanent redundancy out of this world. It was an admission of terminal bankruptcy. Matt’s wanting to die was not a whim, and stemmed in part from his abject financial situation. Over the previous years he had watched his living standards decline. The struggle to keep up had driven him deeply into debt, and into a descending spiral of unprofitability. He blamed this state of affairs on a complex confluence of global and local trends, factors mostly beyond his control. For instance, on the previous quarter, the Universal Index had recorded the lowest level of consumer confidence in seven years. There had also been rises in petrol prices and leisure time taxes. On top of that, Matt had been repeatedly penalised for his long periods of non-productive consumption, and had now officially entered the ranks of those suspected of being poor.

Financial matters aside, there was another, more basic reason for abhorring the thought of going on living. This reason had a name: James, his Executive Supervisor. It wasn’t really until they gave James the promotion that Matt came to realise his insignificant role in FutureCorp. He felt something cracking, giving way under his feet. After seven years in the same position Matt’s career was well and truly over. And now he faced a decisive forking in the path. On one side of the path there was death—a productive and useful death, to be sure, but with some disagreeable details. The other path led deeper into the Office. Ahead, he saw an endless corridor lined with glass walls, doors and cubicles. The eternal return of the hours faded into the vanishing point of a tomorrow that never came. Behind the glass, the ageing faces were the only indication that time dragged on. It seemed that the only real choice was between a slow, grinding death and a swift, explosive one.

As is well known, all things in the universe obey the principles of economics. These principles are simple. Essentially, the core of any financial transaction is the act of exchange; I give you something, you give me something back. Each agent strives to get more value out of this transaction, to outsmart the other party and maximise returns. (This is, incidentally, why the essence of salesmanship is deceit). Thus, permanent retirement presents its own peculiar difficulties, since, once out of the picture, one of the agents is not around to collect the rewards from the exchange. However, this fact had not impeded the creation of a booming business around retirement services. Most companies in the business of death offered a double package. First, they provided generous posthumous rewards, ensuring a safe financial future for the immediate torchbearers of one’s genetic lineage. Secondly, they covered image management services, arranging a way to die famously and be remembered as a hero.

Matt had given the matter a great deal of thought. He had spent the previous two weekends on the internet, and had researched intensely during his work hours. He had no progeny to speak of, and had not contacted what nebulously remained of his family in a long time. He had nobody to leave the money to, for he hated pretty much everybody. Yet, even for a loser like Matt, there were some attractive ways to make the money work to his advantage, and to collect some handsome rewards before fulfilling his part of the bargain.

It was now Wednesday, another quiet night in the suburbs. The lethargic, secretive atmosphere was a perfect haven for lonely, low-income knowledge workers such as himself. Matt slouched on his couch at his Liv-In® KITCHEN DINING LIVING IN ONE COMPACT FUNKY COMBO, thumbing through a pile of glossy brochures. The promo brochures were very glossy, very promising. His clumsy fingers soiled the shining laminex blades, leaving greasy marks on precisely color-graded faces and the raised gold print of mission statements. This one in his hands was from Collateral Damage Recruitment, a government subcontractor specializing in the staging of counterfeit terrorist strikes. YOU CAN NOW CHOOSE HOW THEY WILL REMEMBER YOU. The cover montage showed a large, expensive funeral by an equally large and expensive memorial monument. The picture of a smiling young man took up the sky. EVERY VICTIM IS COURAGEOUS, EVERY SUFFERER A CELEBRITY. The deal was you signed up, turned up at a specified address and assumed the role of casual victim, a passer-by hero. The bad side was you were blown up, or shot, or whatever. But most companies offered a No Pain Guarantee, assuring clients they would hardly realize what was happening. You provided the photos and home films and they handled the media aspect of things. YOUR SACRIFICE WILL PROUDLY SWELL OUR GROSS DOMESTIC SPIRIT. This kind of operation had been an open secret for many years, although the media still reported them as fact. As the Just War stretched into its fourth decade, event management companies had sprouted like fungus on the fat government contracts. It cost nothing to join, and the money was good, except Matt had no one to leave it to. His plan was to arrange something with one of the girls at work, exchange the cash for a sweet and long end of the world fuck. He thought of that petite dark-haired girl who got off every morning at level six. He had never gathered enough courage to speak to her, despite the fact she was obviously a clerk or at most an Assistant. If money could get you everything, he assumed it could also buy him the balls to speak to her. For, let’s be honest, paying for it was the only way he was ever going to get laid again. Because Matt was the Technical Officer, you see, the Dork of the Office. Matt was an awkward eeky-geeky heap of loathings and introversions. James regularly beat him up to the amusement of the women, and so had a procession of supervisors and managers throughout the incalculable years before James had joined the dynamic team at Accountability Nonessential Services. Craig Nolan, the present Delegate Overseeing Officer, was more affectionate about it, and occasionally threw him a gentle suck or two. James, on the other hand, was a plain sadist. Matt’s face had changed since his arrival, becoming an angular and misshapen palimpsest of violence. It was true that the lottery of nature had been unkind to Matt to begin with, and was to blame for his other shortcomings, such as his pimples—those hateful constellations of pus. But James had finished the job. And although nature could be counteracted with state-of-the-art pharmaceuticals, nothing could save him from James or alleviate the pain of James’ existence. Even though the prick was soon to disappear from Matt’s life, this was no consolation either. For someone would take his place, possibly someone worse, and the cycle would continue.

Matt had always been faithful to the company and done his work to the best of his ability. Now, after a lifetime of brain-stifling slavery and a meagre trickle of promotions, this was how they rewarded him, by promoting that cunt less than a year into the job. Matt hated most people, it is true; but most of all he hated James. This was weapons-grade hate—you could have bottled it and made millions. Sure, James talked the talk and dressed the part. But there was no substance beneath the façade of clockwork smiles and macho strutting around, nothing that could pass as an asset to the company. Matt, on the other hand, could count among his assets dedication, flexibility, expediency, efficiency and submissiveness. At the end of the day, Matt had proven his worth, and the company could not survive without him, for he fulfilled the most important role in the power chain. Everyone knew that without the shit at the bottom the whole hierarchy went to hell—try playing chess without pawns.

This was a good example of the kind of reasoning Matt had been fooling himself with all his life. It was sounding less convincing every time. After so much thankless work, who did he feel superior to? Who did he get to beat up?

Okay, he admitted he frequently had feelings towards Ray, yet he had never acted on them. Ray was Strategic Network Support. They shared a five-square-metre area behind the back partition of the Office. He was also, like Matt, a subjugated IT nerd. If only Matt knew how much Ray got paid, maybe he could get an objective assessment of their comparative worth. But Ray was elusive on this matter. Ray, in fact, was elusive on a wide range of matters. Matt had to watch his back; he could never be sure on whose side Ray was.

Matt realized he was utterly alone. He understood, with bitter vividness, that FutureCorp did not love him, and that his managers, overseers and supervisors did not love him either. He saw that the world was made for other kind of people, willing to adapt to the heartless race of supply and demand. It wanted people who did not need love because the love of themselves was all that mattered.

He realized he was going to rot in there, in the Office. And he saw his dead rotting body crumbling to bits in fast motion and his fluids fouling the new carpet, trodden on by rushing clerks and Area Officers, his remains slowly seeping into the ground but nourishing no new life.

He went online and accessed the website advertised on the brochure. Collateral Damage were one of the few companies to offer a ten percent of the payout in advance, awarded twenty-four hours after enlistment. He registered his details and attached some photos from his young days at Assessment Research. He would be remembered as he had been in his prime, a hopeful youth, pimples digitally removed. He downloaded the encrypted access pass to the payout on a CD and printed a copy of the contract. He tried to estimate the value of each byte in that CD in hard sex currency. There were at least twelve hours in there, he reckoned. He e-signed the affair and ticked it off for processing.

Now that the deal was done, all that remained was to plan the party. His contract said that processing would take between one and two weeks; he had to hurry if he was to secure a lucrative deal. First he tried calling Monica, one of the girls at the Office.

“Can you keep a secret?” he said.

“No.” Monica was playing bitch, as usual.

“I’m going to die a hero, and I’m going to have lots of money to leave for a special somebody.”

“Where is all this going?”

“I have a business proposition.”

“Oh, really? Let me guess. You are going to pay me to have sex with you.”

“Put simply, yes.”

“How original. How long is that going to take? Three seconds?”

“There’s more, Monica. Think of the media coverage. You will be the ex-lover of that great passer-by hero whose face is all over the news. You can sell our romantic secrets to the weeklies.”

“And what after that? Everybody will have forgotten you the morning after. Matt, you’re a loser. Why don’t you just try dying for free?”

She hung up. “Well, fuck you too,” he said to the dial tone.

He tried calling two old girlfriends from his Network Planning days and got one wrong number, and a message saying the line had been DISCONNECTED WE HAVE CHARGED YOU FOR THIS CALL. He considered calling random numbers from the phone book, but he could not tell the sex and appearance of the person from the initials. He looked at the ads under SEX, but the sheer number of them, the onslaught of all those numbers and wet promises, left him feeling dizzy and cold. There was time yet, he told himself.

He turned to his SmartLogic® DVD CDR TV AI OVEN WASTE NUKING IN ONE SHOCK VALUE PACKAGE. Television was an exemplary form of non-productive consumption, but tonight Matt was not worrying about being fined. Yes, tonight everybody could go to hell. He was a free man now. He was going to a place where nobody could hurt him anymore. He skipped channels for a while before settling on the news. His porn channel subscription had been cancelled, since he owed ALL-TV Ltd. three months worth of fees. But Matt had learned to console himself with simpler pleasures. There was enough sex on the free-to-air channels, and sometimes all you needed was some imagination. He turned to Guy’s Edition, a news program in which half-naked “journalists” (or half-dressed, if you were a pessimist) posed in war zones or touched themselves while reciting the sports results.

Halfway through a vigorous attempt at sexual arousal, the phone function on the SmartLogic® began to ring. At first he thought it was Monica, changing her—yes, oh yes—mind. He felt vaguely ashamed, caught in the act, as if she could see what he was doing.

He pressed a button on the remote, and a suspiciously computer-like voice purred from the speakers.

“Hello,” it said. “My name is Mark Thomson, Customer Service Representative at Collateral Damage Recruitment. How are you tonight?”

“Gee, that was quick.”

“I’m happy to hear. Having selected the Prompt Deployment option, you have presently been chosen to take a special part in our next managed event, which is to take place at the Global Foundation for Foreign Resource Requisition, situated in Splendorous Meadows, south of New Hayektown. You are required to present yourself to any of our friendly management assistants at three am local time for debriefing.”

Matt checked the SmartLogic®. “But it’s ten-thirty!”

“… and to carry ID with you for prompt post-event identification.”

“Wait a second! You said between one and two—”

“Failure to turn up will be considered a breach of contract, and will result in automatic annulment of CDR’s obligations towards yourself and a hefty fine being imposed…”

“But… New Hayektown? That’s two hours away.”

“…CDR wishes you a profitable evening.”

“Wait! Any human operators in there?”

“We pride ourselves in our personal…”

Matt switched the phone off. Fuck. He had clicked the box for Prompt Deployment. But they had assured him it would take at least one week. He checked his copy of the contract and, surely enough, it said he had one to two weeks before they found him a placement. This was truly fucked. It seemed that in death, as in life, Matt was failing to secure the upper hand in his dealings with the world. His whole life could be seen as one long and disastrous financial transaction.

He examined his options. New Hayektown was a two-hour cab ride away. This meant he had about two hours and a half to get ready.

It was crazy. He couldn’t renege on his contract, yet he was not ready to go yet, not without first having a good farewell party. Then, it dawned on him. What he had done. He felt, suddenly, afraid. He didn’t want to die, not just yet. He could get used to life after all. He had made it this far, hadn’t he?

But it was too late for that. He sank deeper into his couch and tried to revive his erection, as if nothing had happened. It looked like this was his party. On the news, a topless presenter interviewed the Minister for Gainful Employment, who was dressed in a priest’s black robes.

“Poverty,” the Minister was saying, “is a person’s moral failing. In a society that grants the individual every opportunity for self-advancement, financial solvency is a personal and moral responsibility. It follows that the poor are, by nature, morally deficient.”

In his mind Matt was giving it to James up the arse hard and fast. He imagined that he was holding a gun to James’ head at the same time. Matt stuck the dark nozzle deeper into James’ right ear as his cock pumped him full of his hate. Aggression and sexuality are often difficult to distinguish, if at all, in the human mind. Often they mingle with territoriality and desire for power. Matt had found truly intimate moments, absent of power plays or manipulation, hard to come by. He knew that mastering the game of social adaptation implied the ability to channel these subterranean forces in socially sanctioned ways, such as going into business. And if you failed at this game, like Matt had, there was always the privacy of your own apartment, the boundaries of your own skull.

At the point of orgasm, Matt pictured in burning detail the resistance of the trigger mechanism to the pressure of his finger. There was a soundless bang, and imaginary blood and real sperm spurted out on the floor. Afterwards the elation quickly waned and only the sad reality of his stained carpet remained. “But who is going to wash our toilets and do our laundry?” the TV said. In a an emotional void, Matt laid back on the couch and watched the financial news, the omnipotent, meaningless struggle of the Nikkei, the CAC, the DAX and the Dow Jones.

He cleaned himself up ritually with tissues he always kept at hand. It was time for the weather now. Tempestuous rains, unprofitable snows. He shook some AMAZING! Powder® onto the carpet and watched it fizzle and smoke.

Back in his couch, Matt listened to the buzzing in his head become louder, gradually drowning out all other sounds. The time was now 11pm. He had two hours of leisure time left, the last he would ever enjoy. Splendorous Meadows, south of New Hayektown. He closed his eyes, and a deep underwater sleep washed him away almost immediately.

Matt did not stir for another seven hours.