Chronic Blues

“How could you possibly let such heinous swill out of the doors of this office, you cretin?!” roared the fleshy lips from underneath the walrus mustache, dusted in a thin layer of crumbs for later consumption.

“Sir, it was an honest mistake. I really didn’t mean- …”

“Oh. It was a mistake. I didn’t realize that.” Mr. Bartley’s demeanor softened.

“Th-thank you for understanding, sir.”

Ericson stood up from the folding chair in front of the desk, splintered pieces poking out from the faux wood vinyl. The rusted “Editor” desk plate off-center and crooked sat just in front of an overflowing ashtray.  Meekly he crept towards the door. A thrown mug exploded inches from his head, showering him in bits of ceramic and soaking his already stained shirt in stale coffee.

“ANOTHER BLUNDER LIKE THAT AND I’LL PUT YOU THROUGH THE FUCKING WINDOW!”

Turning towards the too late perceived threat, he looked to see Mr. Bartley crimson face sizzling in intense anger. The gauchely ringed finger pointing at him in predatory warning. The mammoth editor turned, facing out the large floor-to-ceiling window into the grey Chicago day, acrid blue smoke from his menthol cigarette rising into the yellowed ceiling, muttering angrily about mongoloids and other harsh racial slurs. His massive frame was silhouetted by the dim afternoon sun, but Ericson could still make out his greasy hair matted down with handfuls of Brylcreem and his too-tight tweed jacket, blemished throughout with unsolved oily mysteries.

Creaking open the door, Ericson submissively tried to past Mrs. Bartley, the editor’s wife and secretary, whose overly painted plump face smirked at him like an orangutan employed at the Moulin Rouge, as he slunk into the office.

“Sounds like you fucked up again, Ericson,” sneered the she-ogre, her sausage fingers playing with her already greening ersatz gold jewelry like Lenny with a mouse. The vacant faces of his co-workers, illuminated by the glow of their computers, glanced up at him for a moment before returning to the clacking of their keyboards. Crossing the office, he looked around to see his coworkers’ deadpan expressions. They were more than used to the editor’s tantrums and Ericson taking the brunt of the offensive was old hat. “Better him than us,” someone would eventually shrug. “He’s a magnet for that stuff.”

The staff of The Windy City Weekly, a tabloid dedicated to gossip and exaggerated local stories that was lucky to actually put out an edition every week, were an expressionless lot, made up of men and women whose dead-end aspirations amounted to little more than getting their work done for the day before going home to wallow in self-pity. Conversation in the tiny break room, the odor of which was permanently appalling due to many a burnt tuna melt, was limited to never-changing weekend plans to watch the latest episodes of cop dramas and idealized dreams of a holiday vacation to Green Bay. The drab dialogue never plumbed the depths of anyone’s ambitions or personal life, perhaps out of a fear of realizing their own ineptitude. The office had all the personality of an SS commandant.

Attire was conservative at best, destitute at worst. Oversized polyester suits dominated the office, providing a genuine fire hazard. Mr. Bartley, the slave-driving editor insisted on professionalism in dress, at least among the men. The few women of the office were constantly derided for not “dressing as professionally and comfortably as Mrs. Bartley” whose low-cut tops exposed vast swathes of oleaginous cleavage. Often times the editor would stand at in his doorway, observing the employees as he stroked his dandruff-speckled mustache in horny contemplation.

The office building, of which the newspaper occupied the seventh floor, was a cement tower of lazy Brutalist architecture, rivaled only by Soviet apartment buildings. The ten floors of the structure were home to a slew of failing businesses, mafia fronts, and pseudo-crack dens. The building owner and manager, a Chinese man by the name of Mr. Fong, endlessly walked the halls, silently scowling at receptionists. Most of the rent he collected was spent on high-stakes mahjongg games instead of fixing the leaky pipes or clearing out the infestation of rats threating to form an LLC. The Windy City Weekly’s floor was much like the others. Gray in color and humor and lit by cheap bright fluorescents that flickered like the beat of a Bee Gees song and jeopardized one’s sanity.

Ericson haplessly sighed to himself as he sidled into his lone cubicle. “Just Hang in There,” reminded the cat poster tacked to the felt wall.

Eric Ericson, known primarily by his last name shouted in anger by everyone from his first-grade teacher to his step-mother to his current employer, was a timid, spindly man of thirty-three year of age, awkward proportions, and receding hairline. His slate-colored eyes saw the world in greys, including his pallor. Those sad eyes had, however, once seen life through rose-colored glasses. He had studied journalism at community college, spurred on with the ambitious possibility of being the next Ted Turner, of exposing hidden truths and spurring progress, but his dearth of charisma hamstrung any attempts into broadcasting. He did well in his classes and had graduated “cum loud” (an egregious misspelling by the school administration that proved too costly to fix). After college, he had mailed his resumé to several major networks in a Hail Mary attempt at getting a job. Unfortunately, due to a number of mis-labelings and a stroke of bad luck, most of the envelopes had ended up in the hands of a family in the Marshall Islands who promptly trashed them. The rest made it to various buildings in New York City where they were shredded by striking mailroom workers.

His life came to a not-so-screeching halt when he accepted a job found in the Help Wanted ads of the same newspaper he was now working for. In between the ads for openings of “clothing optional live-in maids” and “dive bar B-drinkers,” a lone block promoted an opening for “journalist extraordinaire.”  His heart had nearly skipped a necessary beat. Yet the role was loosely named. Instead of dedicating his working hours to writing editorials, his responsibilities primarily involved running errands for the Bartleys, such as buying cartons of menthols for his bosses’ already over-taxed lungs or doing their overweight children’s homework as both parents possessed a combined IQ of barely room temperature. On occasion he was blessed with an assignment to write about a supposed bum-fighting ring or an imaginary spotting of a celebrity in a local pizza joint. Though he wrote with disinterest, his pieces smacked of veiled knowledge. Fortunately, most of the readers of The Windy City Weekly were either inmates at a medium-security prison in Michigan with no other entertainment options (a business deal derived from the warden’s penchant for large women and Mr. Bartley’s penchant for financially gainful cuckoldry) or mentally ill homeless who used the advertisement-thickened newspaper for blankets. Despite the over-whelming odds against his viewership, Ericson strove to compose pieces of gravitas.

The articles and op-eds that he wrote were subject to barely a modicum of scrutiny; his porcine employer preferred to read harlequin romances, whose pages were stuck together when returned to the library. However, this week he had made the near-fatal mistake of slipping in an article of actual depth on the potentially burgeoning black neo-Impressionist movement in the area. The paper had been printed, released, and distributed before Mr. Bartley had unpredictably decided to read a copy, leading to his erupting in racist vitriol; his worldview of white supremacy juxtaposed with his dysfunctional frontal lobe and face like paraffin wax severely beaten with shovels by a team of blind Little Leaguers. This led to Ericson’s near assassination by coffee cup that afternoon. Fortunately, it was Friday evening, which meant a few days respite from the ceramic missiles and endless insults spewed from the cruel lips of his Simon Legree-esque boss.

Ericson lived in a small apartment in a smaller building in Englewood, one of the few white people in a predominately black neighborhood. Upon moving in, his neighbors initially eyed him with caution, but soon discovered his docility and mostly left him to himself. He did receive occasional insults from the men sitting on the stoops in the afternoon, empty bottles of Steel Reserve sometimes crashing into glassy explosions at his feet among the scattered cigarillo butts, yet his self-awareness was so decimated that wouldn’t have noticed a difference between Sing-Sing and the Ritz Carlton. His landlady, Irma Washington, was a stout black woman whose jiggling arms and swaying breasts gave credence to her ability to cook sizable meals of caloric intensity. The rent she charged him was minimal and, as he always paid on time and never made any problems, they had developed a decent relationship. A milquetoast man of mild manners, Ericson was content to fill out sudoku puzzles on his tattered sofa with his gaunt cat on his lap, purring away contentedly. 

“How ya doin’ Mistah Ericson?” came the voice of molasses consistency, as he walked into the building that evening. Mrs. Washington was standing in her doorway in her usual attire of bathrobe, flip-flops, and hairnet. “Thank lawd it’s Friday, huh? …Mistah Ericson?”

“Yes,” was the quietly muttered reply, his eyes slightly downcast to avoid the warm gaze.

“Ya wanna come in foh sum dinnah, hun?” she asked, her maternal instinct tended to kick in whenever she saw the poor man trudge in after work as she wasn’t quite sure if he was sixteen or forty-five.

His ears perked up slightly at the offer, before shaking his head. Why was she so kind to him?

“Oh. Uh… no thank you, Mrs. Washington, I believe I have some leftovers from the other night. I appreciate your offer, Mrs. Washington. Good evening,” came the stuttered, shy reply.

“Okay then, you evuh need anythin’, don’ be ‘fraid to holler.” Ericson was the only tenant she kept an open-door policy with.

“Yes, of course. Th-thank you.”

Mrs. Washington walked back inside, the apartment gushing out the aroma of fresh cornbread and stewed meat. The idea of joining her had snuck into his head on occasion, but he feared that he wouldn’t know what to say. Ericson took a heavy whiff before fumbling with his keys to unlock the door to his apartment. He stepped inside the dark kitchen where he was greeted with a low mewling.

            “I’m sorry, Ollie, I got held up at work.” He palmed the wall in search of the switch, then squinted as the vivid white light hummed to life. The kitchen was simple. An old refrigerator bustled like a box of angry bees in a vain attempt at keeping its contents cool and fresh. A lone aluminum table and chair stood off to the side; a copy of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man lay on the table, bookmark stuck halfway in. Opening the pantry door, Ericson found the bag of dry cat food and poured some into the metal bowl on the ground, which the thin black cat nibbled on.

            The shower spurted out a jolt of brown water before clearing into a relatively clean looking stream that Ericson stepped into. He shivered from the shock of the cold. The water heater in the building worked on a coin-flip. He had struck tails today.

            Clad in his cotton pajamas and slippers, Ericson sat on the sofa and clicked on the bleary television. CNN reporters flickered to black-and-white life on the screen, broadcasting the latest tragedies of the day. Breaking news scrolled across the chyron below them. “Dog finds lost boy in well. Hero canine nicknamed Lassie by local Kansa community. Boy’s remains to be interred in family plot.” “Drone strike in Afghanistan kills 2 potential terrorists. Another victory in the war on terror. 45 civilian casualties.” “Drug dealer arrested in $2M sting operation. 3 ounces of highly dangerous marijuana found on his person.”          

            “Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not in broadcasting, huh Ollie?” The cat nestled into his lap as he clicked off the TV and picked up his dog-eared copy of the Basquiat biography. The microwaved dinner of mac n’ cheese slowly cooled on the milk crate that doubled as coffee table and album case as he read in the dim light of the reading lamp.

            “A-WOP-BOP-A-LOO-BOP-A-WOP-BAM-BOOM!” Little Richard roared Ericson awake with his ecstatic cries of licentiousness. “6:00” flashed the bright red numerals inside the face of the cheap black clock. He had forgotten to turn it off for the weekend. His hand slapped at the snooze button, but dull Saturday morning sun had pushed through the dense Chicago clouds into his window, washing over his insipid face in a slight glow. With a stretch and yawn, he swung his legs over the side of the bed into his slippers. Shuffling into the kitchen and opening a cabinet door, he lazily grabbed the container of instant coffee. Two spoonfuls slumped into a mug that read “I Hate Mondays.” He filled the electric kettle and pushed the “On” button. Moments later the steam whistled shrilly. The water swirled into the mug, producing a brew of sepia-colored liquid energy. A few sips soon after and Ericson’s heavy eyelids finally began to open for the day. Mug in one hand, he thumbed through the dozen or so record albums in the milk crate with the other. He pulled out a square piece of cardboard with a strip of duct mark labeled “John Coltrane Black Pearls.” A thin disc of vinyl slipped out of the package into his hands. Setting the scratched album onto the record player, he watched the crooked lines start spinning. Immediately he was met with a loud crescendo of saxophone and collapsed into the buckling couch.

            “How am I going to write anything decent with that obese bigot running the paper into the ground?” he sighed to himself. “All he wants me to write is meaningless drivel for idiots.” Ollie sat obediently listening to the complaints of his patient, a small furry Freud happily working overtime. “Maybe I should just quit.” Ericson knew there was little chance of that happening. He had attempted job searching before, but the name of his current employer on his resumé worked like poison. One receptionist had greeted him warmly though, despite his downtrodden eyes and forced smile. She was even kind enough to trash his resumé after he had left. Thus, his gainless employment at The Windy City Weekly was assured a bit longer.

Lately there had been some rumors in the office about a five-legged dog wandering the alleys of Chinatown, maybe he would head down there to write an article. Mr. Bartley might scoff at the article and deride its credibility, claiming the dog would most likely have been picked up by one of the restaurants, but would run it anyway. A falsified article about dog dumplings would have to be run the week after to solidify the theories of the conspiratorial readers. “Fuck him, I’m finding that dog.” Donning a pair of Dijon mustard-colored chinos and boxy green flannel, Ericson slipped on his half-size too large, white canvas sneakers and set out in search of his canine Watergate.

The bus was late, according to his faded calculator watch, but arrived eventually to transport him into the city. He stepped into the miniature vestibule and instantly handed the driver exact fare. Ericson took a seat across from a passed-out transient with an abundance of gin blossoms and dribbles of vomit on his scruff-covered face. The rosy-faced urchin lifted a leg, releasing a gust of grain alcohol-fueled flatulence that heartily found its way up Ericson’s nostrils. He gagged and drew a frayed handkerchief from his pocket, covering his mouth to prevent further aromatic surprises. His mind drifted to the motivational poster in the office breakroom. “Life’s not fair; get used it.”

            Bus stops came and went, people getting on and off. His farty companion across the aisle remained steadfast in his slumber and barely stirred, shifting occasionally to release another paroxysm of Zyklon. Finally, the bus arrived in Chinatown. Ericson stood up from his seat and moved to step out of the open bus door, when the drifter, now awake with turgid vigor, pushed past him violently, releasing a final goodbye issuance of odor.

In spite of the grubby stranger’s battering, Ericson walked with newfound gusto. He plodded along Chinatown, eyes peering down the alleys he passed in hope of seeing the five-legged dog. Finding this mutt could be his golden ticket out of The Windy City Weekly and maybe even Chicago. Unfortunately, the most interesting thing he saw on his investigative stroll was two junkies engaging in savage copulation. Doggy-style, but no dog.

            Arriving in Chinatown, Ericson pushed into the first restaurant he saw, the bell jingling to announce his entrance. The gold writing on the red sign above the door read “Jade Lotus II.”

            “Hi, I’m looking for uh a dog.” The words stumbled out stupidly to the slender young Asian woman looking at him in confusion. A gruff looking man with a wispy goatee stomped up to him.

            “What you want?”

            “Oh. Hello. I’m looking for a dog- …” He extended a limp hand in anticipation of greeting.

            “No dog here,” came the man’s embittered reply, shaking his head crossly. “We good restaurant. You go now. No make bad joke on us.” The restauranteur began shooing the unwanted guest towards the door.

            “No, please, you don’t understand, I’m a reporter. I would like to write a story.”

            This seemed to anger the man even further. “No dog here. No write story about dog. You leave.” The man started pressing the unwanted guest towards the exit. Ericson groaned and wilted, he escaped the man’s pushing hands and walked back out the door.

            “Perhaps I should order food first or break the ice better, that was stupid. Have some tact, Ericson,” the reporter thought to himself. He dusted off his shirt and began walking again. He had only gone a few meters when his ears caught the sound of shouting around the corner. Picking up pace, he peaked his eyes around the side of the building to see the commotion.

            A bulky man in a discolored suit, coarse mustache hairs poking out from both sides of his bloated head, with his back towards him, was shouting something unintelligible at a young black man, saxophone strapped around his neck and battered case open at his feet; the case contained a few crumpled bills and a menagerie of coins. The young man’s hands were motioning wildly in obscene gestures and threats while his giant brass instrument flung around dangerously.

            “Man, fuck out my face before I drop ya old ass! Tryna catch these hands…”

            “I will be contacting the authorities!” the man-hippo yelled indignantly. Then, swinging his heaving mass, he stamped away, testing the structural integrity of the pavement with each step.

            Ericson stepped out from the corner of the building. The young man was muttering swears and shaking his head.

            “Hello there.”

The musician turned angrily to see his newest enemy. His flaring temper cooled when he saw the drooped shoulders of the pale man in mismatched socks and off-color wardrobe in front of him.

“Man, what the fu-…”

            “Please don’t yell, I’m a reporter. I just wanted to ask you a question.”

            “Yeah okay, white boy, whatchu wan’? You not a cop, huh?” The last question was mostly joking, the man in front of him looked about a buck ten soaking wet and had the street sense of a turnip.

            “Oh gosh no. I’m a journalist, I’m trying to write an article.”

            The young man eyed him suspiciously. The guy wasn’t a threat, provided he wasn’t crazy considering his bizarre outfit. “Willy Wonka-looking ass…”

            “I’m in search of a five-legged dog. I heard there might be one lurking in the alleys here.” Ericson was fidgeting with his hands, unsure of what to do with them. They kept cavorting between hiding in his pockets, swinging at his sides, and pulling at loose threads on his shirt.

            His request was met with a hearty laugh as the young musician leaned his head back, exposing his white teeth and pink tongue.

            “Who the hell told you that? That story been told by erryone. It’s sum bullshit, man.”

            “Oh…” The reporter looked more defeated than before.

            “Hey, come on man, it’s just some bullshit people say to fuck witchall, ahright.”

            “O-okay, uh thank you.”

            Ericson turned to walk away, when he stopped and faced the musician.

            “Would it be alright if I asked you some questions?”

            The young musician looked taken aback.

            “Me? The hell you wanna talk t’me foh?”

            “Well you seem really interesting. A young uh bla- uh col- uh African-American man playing saxophone in Chinatown could be a good article.” Ericson looked at his potential interviewee hopefully. Mr. Bartley would hate this kind of article, but the likelihood of him reading it was already extremely low. The dog article might be a bust, but this guy looked like he might be more noteworthy.

            “Man, you can jus’ say black. What paper you write foh?”

            “The Windy City Weekly…”

            The young man laughed again. “Man, you fuckin’ wit me. The WC? Ain’t nobody read that shit, ‘cept maybe the fuckin’ crack heads. No wonder you believed that shit about the dog.”

            Ericson’s eyes turned towards the sidewalk again and he began to walk away.

            “Ay man, relax. I’m just fuckin’ witcha. I’ll answer some questions. I’m Davis.”

            “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Davis. I’m Ericson… uh Eric. Eric Ericson.”

            Davis shook his head in sympathetic grief as he shook Ericson’s hand. “Of course, that’s yo’ name…” he muttered. “Yeah pleasure to meet you Mr. Ericson. So whatchu wanna know?”

            “H-have you always played the sax?”

            “Man, please tell me the whole interview ain’t gon’ be like this.”

            “You’re right, I’m sorry. Why don’t you start from the beginning and we can go from there?”

            The two men walked down the street before stopping in front of a restaurant. Ericson stopped momentarily, in fear of the red sign with familiar golden writing before realizing this one read, “Jade Lotus III.” Entering, they were sat by a surly waiter in a black vest who brought them Chinese beers with an oily film on the green bottles.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t think I should be drinking on the job…”

“Look, if we gon’ talk, we doin’ this on my terms.”

            Ericson conceded reluctantly, bringing the chilled bottle to his lips and taking a sip of the skunky beer. His gaze then fell to the menu in front of him, the greasy laminated page consisted only of indecipherable symbols.

            “Do uh do you know Chinese?” Ericson whispered to the musician.

            “Nah man, I brought you to a Chinese restaurant with errythin’ in Chinese, but don’t speak the muthafuckin’ language. Damn son, of course I speak the language. Also, iss called Mandarin.”

            “Wow, that’s very impressive!” he exclaimed. “Um do you think they have chicken fingers?”

            Davis rolled his eyes and sighed again, this time a slight smile breaking out on his lean face. The gruff waiter returned and barked a question in his native tongue. Davis replied in fluent Mandarin, then leaned back in his chair sipping his beer as the server marched away into the kitchen. Loud yells in the sharp Asian language emanated from the swinging door, aromatic steam cascaded into the compact dining room.

As plates of fried rice and bowls of vegetables and enigmatic meat in fragrant brown sauce arrived at the table, Davis regaled Ericson with his life story. The reporter dug into his shirt pocket, producing a dull golf pencil and small yellow paper notebook. As the interviewee spoke, the interviewer scrawled away furiously. Davis was taken aback at the man’s ability to catch everything he was saying, Ericson felt he was in the presence of an artistic genius.

Three hours later, the men were still sitting at table. Green bottles littered the table like miniature towers of emerald. Laughs swelled up from the two. Ericson’s pencil had been shaved down to a nub; the notepad was crammed with chicken-scratch notes. Davis waved his hand up at the waiter. The man brought over a piece of paper strewn in emblems indecipherable to Ericson; he could, however, clearly read the numbers at the bottom: $84.32.

            Davis reached across the table and picked up the check, now blotted with brown sauce. He looked at the number, then began fumbling to open the instrument case at his feet.

            “Woah, woah, woah. You’re not paying for this.” Ericson put up a hand to halt the financial transaction from occurring. “Please, let me foot the bill. You’ve been kind enough to favor me with an amazing interview. And, well, it was very nice to sit and talk with someone.”

            “Hey come on, don’ say that. I drank and ate too, man.”

            “Please.” Ericson looked at him with supplication.

            “Awright, I ain’t gon’ argue too much ‘bout no free meal.”

            Ericson dug out a handful of bills from his sweat-stained leather wallet and placed them on the counter. Like a hawk watching an injured rabbit, the waiter swooped over immediately to grab the cash before retreating to the kitchen.

            “I’ve got more than enough for a very good article. Thank you, Davis. You’re a lifesaver.”

            “No worries man, just make me sound good, awright?”

            The two men walked out the door into the cool Chicago evening.

            “Um, before you go, would it be alright if I heard you play a song?”

            “Shit yeah man, be my pleasure.”

            Davis set the case down on the sidewalk and flipped open the latches. He carefully removed the shiny brass sax. He looped the strap around his neck, fingered a few of the keys, and licked his lips. Putting his mouth lightly on the mouthpiece, he flicked the reed with his tongue a few times to build some moisture. Ericson watched the preparation ritual with palpable fascination. A few more adjustments later and Davis again put the mouthpiece to his lips.

            A single long deep note leaped from the mouth of the golden apparatus. Then, like fireworks exploding, Davis plunged into a frenzied refrain. The saxophone went high and low, slow and fast, soft and loud. Moving rhythmically with the instrument, Davis danced around the sidewalk, bobbing in time to the beat. Within moments, a small crowd had gathered in appreciation of the artistic talent, coins and cash flew from hands into the case. Ericson stood, wide-eyed, absorbing every drop of sound blasting into his eardrums. He fished a disposable camera out of his other shirt pocket and shkshkshsk *CLICK* began taking pictures of the passionate jazz performer.

            Finally, brow dripping sweat, Davis stopped. Pulling his mouth away from the saxophone, he grinned at Ericson. A heartbeat passed. Then Ericson started clapping and cheering with gusto. The audience around him joined in, while Davis took a sweeping bow.

            “That was incredible! Cannonball Adderly, right? Bangoon?”

            “Shit man, you know your stuff!” Davis exclaimed, eyeing the smiling, gangly man in front of him in a new light. 

“Oh, uh yeah, I like jazz. Plus, I mean Somethin’ Else is THE album. That’s Adderly’s Kind of Blue. Heck, it has Miles on it!”

Davis grinned at him again, Ericson realized his own rising tone and smiled sheepishly.

“You really ain’t so bad, Eric. Just gotta break out that shell, man.”

The men exchanged phone numbers and shook hands. Ericson watched as Davis boarded the bus, heavy sax case in hand. He looked down at his shoes and smiled. It was the first time in a very long time that someone had called him by his first name.

Pushing in through his apartment door, Ericson could still feel the buzzing effects of the beer. His head spun as he poured himself a glass of water, knocked it back, then poured another one.

“You’ll never guess what happened, buddy!”

“Meow?” Ollie answered enthusiastically, sensing the glee in his human companion.

“An interview! A really, really good interview. Oh man. Just wait, this is going to be my best piece yet.”

           

Sunday morning. “A-WOP-…” Ericson’s hand shot out at the snooze button and silenced Mr. Penniman before he could launch into the opening line. Pushing out of bed with intent, he opened his closet. A purple corduroy shirt and loose jeans were selected for the day’s attire. Ericson stepped into the kitchen, poured a large bowl of kibble for the waiting cat, and grabbed a granola bar from the cabinet. Moments later, he was down on the sidewalk in front of the building. The stoop next door was empty except for a handful of empty beer cans. “Phew.”

            By 8:30 AM, Ericson was angling the spare office keys from his jean pocket as he entered the building. Mr. Fong was standing in the lobby, glowering at a spot on the wall that had disappointed him simply by existing.

            “Good morning, Mr. Fong.” The greeting was briefly met with a furrowed brow before the man’s gaze returned to the chipped paint on the wall.

            Ericson hurried into the cramped elevator. He stepped back against the wall, avoiding the mysterious black grease dripping from overhead, and pushed the “7” button. The clouded button lit up in faint promise of his destination; thirty seconds passed before the doors slowly closed in reluctant acceptance, creakily sighing. The elevator shook in laboriously as it ascended, as if being hoisted on a chain pulled by a tired old man in the sub-basement whose only assignment was to lift the metal box skywards.

            As he stepped into the office, the motion sensors recognized his arrival with a flickering of the sanatorium lighting. Ericson walked through the empty office to his cubicle. His ancient computer lit up his dark cubicle, as the one light out in the ceiling was directly above his workspace. With notepad at his side and Fats Domino banging away at the ivories in his headphones, Ericson began writing Davis’s story.

            A rough childhood growing up in the Southside being raised by a jazz-obsessed single mother, lulled to sleep by the eruption of gunfire, whistling bullets, and John Coltrane every night, education in graffiti-decorated schools with metal detectors at the entrances, stop and frisks on his way to and from school by snarling cops in starched uniforms, a cheap saxophone purchased at a pawn shop by a lotto-winning uncle. The sorrowful words flowed out of his fingertips. By the time the article was finished, the clock in the corner of his screen showed 6:40 PM. Ericson looked over the writing one last time to ensure perfection, then saved it into the shared drive. The title of the article read “Rebirth of the Cool: On the Corner with Davis.” But to prevent the prying eyes of his supervisor, the file’s name was “Mutant Canines on Archer Ave?”

            On Monday, Ericson entered the office with a newfound swagger. He smiled cheerfully at the receptionist who met his beaming grin with her own puzzled smile. Mr. Ericson had never entered looking so happy, in fact, no one had ever really come into the office looking happy.

            The dead fish faces of his coworkers stared blankly at their screens as he walked to his cubicle. He was determined not to let their daily grief affect him today.

            “I think Mr. Bartley is looking for you…”

Ericson turned his head to see the pretty brunette from accounting lean past his partition for a moment before leaving. He stood up from his thinly cushioned office chair, the mechanism squeaking loudly. He bent over and locked his computer from any potential espionage into his private affairs.

Mrs. Bartley stared at him with gleeful arrogance as he walked up to the editor’s office, her overly rouged lips twisting into a triumphant smirk.

            “Can’t you do anything right, you weird little faggot?” she questioned sotto voce, smiling maliciously. She rose from her chair, a testament to the cruelty of office supply designers against her lady-like figure, as she strained with much twisting to force her overflowing sides from between the arms of the chair.

            Mr. Bartley was sitting at the desk with his sausage fingers crudely crossed together.

            “Ericson. Why the fuck did I hire you?”

            “Well sir, you needed a- …”

            “It’s a rhetorical question, retard. I don’t actually care what you think. I’m really not sure why the hell I hired you. This is a respectable journal of proper news reporting,” Bartley bragged. “We want to give people the truth and some certainty. Yet every time I ask you to write an article, you present me with some pile of shit that you strained out after eating beaner food. What the hell is this shit?” He tossed an open newspaper onto the desk; the page showed a picture of Davis playing saxophone above Ericson’s article.

“Some spear chucker thinks he’s the next Charlie fuckin’ Parker, so what? No one wants to read about some darky hanging around ching chong town with the gooks.”

            Mr. Bartley now rose his colossal figure out of his oversized chair, breaking into a light sweat from the effort, breathing laboriously. Ericson hunched over in the folding chair, anticipating a swat to the head from the meaty paws. Instead, the elephantine editor turned to look out the window.

            “I want you out of this office immediately, Ericson. You’re fired.”

            Mrs. Bartley’s beady eyes lit up as she moved over to her husband’s side. Ericson looked up in petition.

            “Please sir…”

            “Don’t you ‘Please sir’ me. I am sick of your poor attitude and your constant writing about those fucking monkeys. This is a paper for the modern gentleman.”

            “You tell him, sweetie,” trilled his whalelike wife.

            Ericson glumly stood up and moved toward the door. A wave of anger unexpectedly washed over him. For years he had been receiving abuse and never defended himself, stumbling in defeat time and again. Now, suddenly, a voice of power, of resistance rose in his chest. He glanced around the room for something to throw in protest of this unfair firing. His gaze landed on a Vietnam War Remembrance Beanie Baby bear. He snatched the stuffed animal from the top of the filing cabinet where it sat and spun to throw it with all his might. Mr. Bartley turned just in time to take the bear right in the face. His center of gravity, already struggling to find equilibrium among his rolls of fat, kiltered backwards. His swinish arms flailed in confusion, desperate for something to grab onto, before falling backwards. He slammed into his wife causing them to careen into the window. The cheap frame, never reinforced for the sake of cost-savings, gave way and both corpulent man and woman plummeted to the ground below, shattered, falling glass shimmered in the afternoon sun.

            Screams of terrors echoed up from the sidewalk below. Ericson stood like a deer in headlights, eyes wide, neurons firing in an attempt to relay what had just happened to his brain. He stepped carefully to the edge of the now broken window. Looking down below at the ground, he saw two large splatters of visceral human salsa. Onlookers were already gathering around them.

            He stiffly turned and walked to the office door. Ericson walked into the room of his coworkers who were now all at the windows, looking below with disbelief at the exploded remains of their former boss. Their frightened faces turned towards him, like mice in front of a barn cat. Ignoring their panic, he walked into his cubicle, picked up his phone, and slowly dialed the number.

            “Mrs. Washington? Hi, this is Eric. Yes. Eric Ericson. Would it be alright if I came over for dinner tonight?”