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Design Flaw (Part
Two) Late Thursday evening the site was nearly done, and we had about an hour until midnight. In one hour on the East coast, people would start picking up their newspapers from airport newsstands. USA Today would be slid underneath thousands of hotel room doors all across the nation. Someone from the art department had volunteered to make a run to an all-night newsstand and wait for the first copies. The tension had broken yesterday. Geraldine and the rest of the managers stopped coming around every hour to check up on us and see if we were still working. Either they finally figured out that we were on track, or they were sick of the smell of unshowered geeks. The pressure was still on, but it didn’t seem to be as crucial as that first memo had suggested. We welcomed the relief. Paul had even begun to relax a bit. At 11:45 pm on Thursday, Paul started the process of uploading the new site to it’s permanent location. It was a sizable chunk of work. New graphics, new logos, new navigation, new look and feel altogether. The new front page contained a link to the press release that would be simultaneously emailed to our investors, and to the world at large via the affiliated press. I approached Paul as a friend instead of a co-laborer for the first time since our smoke break on Monday night. We had been working together, but since our quarrel, something in our usual relationship had been severed, or at least postponed for a while. He looked haggard. His eyes were bloodshot, and I could tell that every movement he made, every keystroke, was a sheer act of determination. I could see it in him because I felt the same way, like I had been run over by a truck. Actually, either of us would have welcomed a truck at that point in time, because at least we’d be able to lay down and rest for a good long while. “Well Paulie, we did it.” I clapped my hand on his shoulder. His eyes were still transfixed on his monitor, but he nodded his head and sighed. “New site, all the bugs whacked. We kicked it’s ass.” “Yeah,” he groaned “at midnight it’ll be all over. The final switch-aroo is already scheduled. Off with the old, and on with the new.” He smiled for the first time in days. “I have to admit that I even kind of like it. Especially with the few liberties we took.” He turned his head toward me and smiled mischievously. Marketing doesn’t know as much about web design as they think they do. They had thrown out some pretty far-fetched ideas about the underlying technology they thought we should be using to make the new site “work”. They tossed out every buzzword they had read in every Internet magazine that was aimed at high profile executives. They wanted animation, but their ideas for accomplishing it were just stupid. It would have added significantly to the load time of every page, inevitably causing many prospective customers to give up and go somewhere else. No one likes a slow page. They wanted the site designed so that even customers with older web browsers and small monitors would see the site as it was designed. What they didn’t know (and didn’t care to hear explained by us), is that only 1% of our customers were using and older browser. We had the statistics to prove it. Each of us reached a silent agreement: If it looked like Marketing wanted it to look, they’d never know that we had done it our way behind the scenes anyway. We stopped arguing with them when we realized that they would never know the difference. With two minutes remaining before the launch, Geraldine walked into our office and toward the front of the room. There were five of us chatting, our jobs finished for a little while. Silence fell on the room when she turned and faced us. She half-stood, half-sat, leaning on Paul’s desk. She opened her leather day-planner and pulled out a small sheet of paper. This was certainly for show, because she never once referenced whatever was printed on it. “I’m happy to say that together we have met our goal”, she began. I almost felt the hair prickle on each of our necks. This roomful of tired, frazzled worker bees stared at our new Queen, knowing without a doubt that this “figurehead” had done nothing more than bark orders, “power lunch” with the other execs, and sit on her pretty ass for the last four days. This was the latest she’d been here on any night, but she hadn’t come in until two this afternoon. If we had met our goal, we didn’t include her, and everyone knew it. “I hope you’re all aware that the company knows the sacrifices you have made to be here”, she continued. “Unfortunately, we have some bad news. When it became apparent that Developing would be unable to fulfill our perceived immediate demand for product, we were forced to pull the ad. It won’t be running for another two weeks, provided our engineers can complete their project by their new deadline.” There was a stunned, angry tension in the room that was palatable. The greasy pizza boxes, the foam coffee cups, the residue of our home for the last four days had suddenly revealed itself for what it was. It smelled like a locker room, and with no one breathing for a short moment, the pungent air stagnated around us like a disease. “Thankfully, this will give us time to look at what we’ve accomplished here, and take it to the next level.” I saw Paul’s grip tighten around a Happy Meal toy he kept on his desk as decoration. “The design we have reached is good, but not nearly as good as we know it can be with a little more hard work.” She looked directly at Paul. “Now, more than ever, we know that this department is capable of more than it has produced in the past.” Oh, she had no idea what we were capable of. And each of us had a pretty good idea of what we wished we could do to her right now. She began to walk away, toward the back of the room and out of our office for the last time. Passing Paul, she stopped and said “Be sure the old site doesn’t get replaced like we had planned. We’ll pick this up tomorrow morning. Drop by my office when you get in.” She eyed the toy that Paul was holding and smiled sweetly. Paul never looked up at her. “That’s cute. I got one for my niece. I’ll see you tomorrow. Be here a little early, so we can get started on phase two bright and early.” She passed my desk and glanced at me. Paul followed her gaze. She was expressionless. The smile she had worn for Paul hadn’t lasted two steps past his desk. I have never felt less welcome in my life. *** “Paul?” The rest of the guys had left, but Paul hadn’t moved. Most of the lights were out in the building. It was fifteen minutes past our cancelled deadline. “Paulie, I’m taking off. Let’s go. C’mon.” He shook his head slowly, twice. He never looked up. “Paulie, come on. You can’t stay here. Let’s go have a smoke.” “Just go”, he said. “Get the hell out of here. Go sleep. Take a shower for God’s sake.” “What about you?” “I’m just going to be here a few minutes. I stopped the clock on the rollover, but there are a few more things I need to clean up.” I couldn’t think of anything that could possibly be left to do. Paul wasn’t acting right. “I’ll stay with you. We’ll go grab a beer, or at least something to eat.” “Just go, Jeff.” He spun slowly around in his chair. He was calmer than I had seen him in a week, a new resolve having overcome him. He should have been livid, but he acted as if nothing was wrong. “I’m just not in the mood for company right now, man. Go on without me. Get the hell out of here, all right? You should be sick of this place.” “Ok, if you’re sure.” I felt sorry for him. This person sitting in front of me was just the broken, roasted husk of a guy that I really liked. “I’m sorry, man. This whole deal was wrong.” I took a step toward him, but he turned back around in his chair. I grabbed my canvas portfolio bag, and left the office. *** I opened the back door to the parking lot, and cold air clamped around me like a gigantic frozen hand. For once, the weatherman had been right. I had been watching a cold front move in on radar maps from the Internet all night long, but I didn’t realize it was going to be this damn cold. I had left my coat on the coat rack in the office. I dropped my bag just inside the back door, and made my way back through the darkened hallways, back up the staircase to the second floor. I saw Geraldine backing out of her office, holding a small file box. She had her keys in her hand. Her purse dangled from one arm, and she had a few papers clenched lightly in her teeth. She was reaching back into her office to switch off the light. She hadn’t seen me come out of the stairwell, and she never saw Paul standing behind her. Paul’s arms dangled by his sides like limp noodles, a tired, vacant look in his eyes. I black steel gun was in his right hand. It looked out of place in hands that I usually saw holding a computer mouse, or a book, or a box of software. I opened my mouth to yell, but I didn’t know what I would say if I did. Who would I yell to? Paul? Geraldine? And what to say? Stop!, or Paul, what are you doing?, or Look out! Nothing came from my throat but a short gasp of air, and I watched Paul raise the gun and bring it down on the back of Geraldine’s head. Geraldine lurched forward, banging her forehead on her doorjamb. The box she was holding fell, scattering files and papers on the floor in two directions. Her keys jangled, and fell by her foot. She fell like a marionette whose strings had been cut, and Paul looked down at her absently. I ducked back into the stairwell, still in the dark, and took the cell phone from the clip on my belt. I fumbled with the buttons, but managed to dial 911, and waited for a connection. I stole a glance around the corner to see what, if anything, was happening. Paul had picked up Geraldine’s limp body under her arms, and was dragging her into her office. My phone beeped three times, and sounded much louder than I would have liked. The display read “No Signal”. I looked up to see if anyone had heard, but they were both out of site. Paul was yelling now, worked into a frenzy and pushed over the edge. “You stupid, stupid bitch. How long? How long did you fucking know?” I saw the gun laying on the floor in the hallway. Paul must have dropped it when he had picked up Geraldine. I tiptoed down the hallway toward it, still concealed mostly in darkness. I reached the little kitchenette where I had first met Geraldine, across the hallway from her office door, when I saw Paul’s shadow begin to emerge. I ducked into the little room, but I could still see Paul. “You let us work our asses off for you and your damn site, just to see what we could do?” he was saying. He bent to retrieve his gun, and placed it on the small table. “You didn’t think we had a life outside of this office? Who gave you the right to do that to us? Why?” He went back inside, but came back out soon, dragging Geraldine in her executive leather office chair behind him. He parked her in the hallway beside a small table showcasing brochures about the company. I could see Geraldine clearly. One of her hands had begun to move slightly. Paul disappeared for a moment, but I could still hear him talking. “I will not be your pawn!” he was yelling. He came back out of her office with a roll of strapping tape. “You just can’t do this to people!” Geraldine started to move, but Paul had already begun to wrap tape around her neck, strapping her to the back of the chair. Before she could wake up completely, he had bound each of her hands to each arms of the chair, and her feet together to the pole which supported the seat. Her eyes opened slowly, and I saw her wince in pain. “Good morning, dear. You’ve had a nasty blow to your head, right about here…” Paul reached behind her head and pressed on the lump that must have been huge on the back of her head. She screamed in pain, at once completely conscious. The table beside them held a small lamp with a green glass lampshade. The light was off. Paul unplugged it from the wall outlet, and yanked the cord from the base of the lamp, baring the wires on each end. Using the multipurpose knife he always carried, Paul exposed about two feet of bare wire from each of the two strands on the cable. Geraldine’s eyes widened when he began to wrap one strand around her neck clockwise. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” She tried to sound mad and strong, but it came out in a squeak. Paul didn’t answer her, but started wrapping the other strand of cable around her neck in the opposite direction, crisscrossing over the first. “Paul”, she said. “Stop this, please. Whatever you’re doing, stop!” He looked at her face to face, eye to eye. And he hated her in that stare. “You took my work and called it childish. You raped it. You made me bust my ass to deliver this new site to you, and I did it. We all did it, yeah, but I put my heart in it! I hated you from the second I read your first fucking memo, but I worked my ass off for you, and for this company. And you don’t give a shit.” “That’s it?” she replied. “All of this because of the site?” “No,” he had finished wrapping the cable. “All of this because you are heartless. You don’t care who you hurt, and how much you keep hurting them. I’ve hated people like you all my life, but you, man, you take the prize. You knew days ago that we would be postponing the launch, and you said nothing.” He half smiled and shook his head. “If you were going to keep us on as useless slave labor, with no overtime, you could have at least offered to buy the fucking pizza.” He moved his face closer to hers, and looked her in the eyes. “Now that you have what you want, I’m sure Jeff is history, right?” Geraldine sneered and turned her face away from him. He grabbed her face and turned it back toward his. “Right?” As if it were the first time she had thought of it, she screamed for help. Paul wasted no time in backhanding her. It was a hard blow, which disturbed the chair and could have toppled it, if he hadn’t reached out to steady it. The slap shut her up long enough for him to tape her mouth shut. She banged her head over and over against the back of the chair, trying to kick, trying to break loose, trying to scream through her nose. I looked at my phone again. “No Signal”. Paul grabbed a coffee mug from a desk in the office behind him. “Have a nice day!” it said. He splashed the cold, stale contents onto her face and neck, and wiped his hand on his wrinkled khakis. He took the other end of the cord in his hand, and knelt beside the chair. I had to say something. Anything. “Paulie, wait!” I slowly emerged from the kitchenette, hands raised. Paul looked at me, startled. He grabbed the gun from the table, but he never pointed it at me. “Josh, stay back! Damn it, why didn’t you just leave!” “Paulie, you don’t want this. She’s a bitch, yeah, but this…this is too much.” “She would have fired you”, he said. “She had it out for you from the beginning. I hear she’s got a cousin, about your age. He’s very interested in learning web design.” “I don’t care, Paul.” He had already lowered his eyes, breaking the connection between us. “If you see her, tell mom I love her, ok?” I didn’t have time to respond. Paul’s left hand reached for the power outlet. Geraldine’s eyes widened, and she whimpered through her nose. When the cord made contact with the outlet, Geraldine’s body stiffened and bucked ferociously in the leather chair. Her neck popped and sizzled under the wires, and sparks flew like a miniature fireworks display around her face. It didn’t last nearly as long as I would have hypothesized. Flames poured from both the outlet and the wires around her neck. Geraldine’s blouse caught fire, and the orange blaze spread quickly across her shoulders and chest. The lights blew, and the building fell silent. All the computers, copiers, faxes, printers—a hundred or more devices, each sucking electricity and cooling themselves with tiny fans—ceased to function in one quick moment. The lack of sound created a vacuum, and nothing remained but the sound of Geraldine, and the small fire crackling on her body. The fire extinguishers came on, showering each of us. In the diminishing light of the fire, I saw movement. Paul, who had been staring silently at the spectacle he had created, slumped back against the wall across from Geraldine’s burning corpse. His arm raised. There was a strong metallic click, followed by an explosion. A plume of fire from the barrel of Paul’s gun illuminated his face, and burst from the back of his skull. Paul’s body jerked once, then fell, leaving most of his head on the wall, and in the office beyond, through the hole the gunshot had created. I sat in the darkness on the linoleum floor of the kitchenette and waited for the fire trucks and police to arrive. *** End
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