the stressman

the stressman came to see me today.

what he does is, he calls you up on the phone from like fifty feet outside your apartment to see if you're home. if you pick up, forget it.

he learned that shit when he was in the fbi investigating the too hot tamales porno incident. wait, maybe i got that wrong. maybe he knew that move all along and the fbi studied him and learned it too.

so the phone rang today around 8am and i picked it up and said hello and he didn't say anything for a minute. then he chuckled.

i knew it was him right away because he's always chuckling like that. he could be playing russian roulette and he'd be chuckling every time he pulled the trigger. and not a nervous laugh, either. a knowing chuckle. he's unflappable.

i hung up and within about six seconds the buzzer rang. he's fair, i'll give him that. he always gives you a fighting chance.

i buzzed him in and went out in the hallway to see if he was coming up in the elevator. sure enough, it started coming up towards my floor. 1...2...3...

but that could be a trick. he could have sent up an empty elevator. he could be chilling in the lobby waiting for me to come running down the stairs like a fool. or maybe he's running up the stairs himself.

too late to worry about that with the elevator on 4 and a half so i took off down the stairs. there are two stairways. he could only be on one. or he could be on the elevator. or he could be in the lobby.

i got to the lobby and opened the door real quietly. i looked around. he wasn't there. i looked at the elevator floor indicator. the elevator was coming back down. so i bolted outside into the cold, wearing nothing but a long sleeve T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.

i got on the subway and walked to the end of the platform. the train was crowded when i got on. at every stop, i'd poke my head out the door and look back to see if he was coming. i thought i saw him a couple of times but by the time i got to 8th avenue everything was groovy, he was nowhere to be found.

at around 9:30am he called my work phone. i recognized his number right away but i still picked up.

"i'm very disappointed," he said. he didn't even chuckle.

i told him i was busy and asked if i could call him back later. he said he'd call me back.

i was very busy this morning, too. that wasn't a lie. I was trying and failing to catch up on a number of different things. he kept calling every fifteen minutes throughout the morning. i didn't pick up and he didn't leave any messages.

at noon i went downstairs and bought myself a slice of pizza. ok, two slices. when i came back up to my desk there was a post-it on the monitor that said, we really need to talk. the sooner the better. i crumpled it up and ate my pizza.

i think something may have been missing from my desk but it's a mess so i can't really say for sure.

he didn't call anymore for the rest of the workday.

but then tonight he kept calling me at home. it was embarrassing, actually. i had to keep telling my wife not to pick up the phone, that it was a telemarketer or something. she looked at me like i was nuts.

i turned out all the lights in the bedroom and i kept looking out the window down across the oval. on the bench right outside our building, somebody was sitting and smoking cigarettes all night. it could have been anybody, it was too dark to tell. all you could make out was that teeny, constant orange glow.

finally i went down to do some laundry. the laundry room officially closes at 11pm. the lights go out automatically but you can keep doing your laundry in the dark if you want. that's what we usually end up doing. i was putting the stuff in the dryer at around 11:15 and the lights were still on for some reason.

i was hustling to get it transferred when the lights went out. it was still noisy down there, though. a couple other people had stuff drying, i noticed. i found that comforting.

then as i crouched down to put some stuff in one of the bottom machines, i felt the tap on my shoulder. i didn't yell but i tensed up and i felt my hair start to bristle. it wasn't pyschological, my hair was actually blowing back on my head like the guy in the maxell poster.

it was him. i knew it before i even turned around.

i clenched my jaw and i brought myself to a standing position. then i turned around and looked.

yes. it was him. he was every bit as hideous and terrifying as i remembered. the pieces of loose straw coming out of his throat. the black bottomless shark eyes. the sharp protruding jaw. the way his clothes hung loosely on him like he wasn't even there. the same crusty old Notre Dame cap. he grinned.

i waited for him to talk. he waited for me to talk.

then he said, "are you using this machine?" he gestured to the machine i had just loaded. of course he knew i was using it. was he testing me?

"yeah," I said.

"that's cool, i'll use this one," he said, pointing to the one right next to mine.

then he just stood there for awhile.

"take your time," he said. he just kept hovering.

finally i said, "let's get this over with. what do you want?"

"it can wait," he said. "let's talk tomorrow."

then he kicked my dryer door shut and walked out of the laundry room.