ORANGE. At least that was what Graham thought when he first saw her. She sat on a barstool in a skin-tight orange dress, and he immediately ordered a Screwdriver without realizing why. She was the reason he dreamt entirely in orange later that night. A hazy, ruptured dream. A faceless girl with endless tan legs and her foot sliding up his leg. A bar bathed in orange. The most surprising thing was when he woke up. Her orange dress dangled over his bedpost but he couldn’t remember if that girl had left the bar with him. He surveyed his studio apartment from his bed, but there was no sign of her. Not in the shower, not anywhere. So he did what anyone would do in that situation. He went to the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of orange Pow! Soda from a can sitting on the top shelf.
–
Later that morning, Graham entered Warton, Mind, and Donovan Advertising and Concepts in an upbeat mood. He smiled at co-workers passing by. Normally he felt defeated each morning in the elevator. But that day he whistled. He never remembered whistling before. At his desk, he buzzed with energy and sped through the day’s workload. The orange girl didn’t spring up in his mind until lunchtime. Paradise in the office cafeteria.
“Take,” his friend Mick said, presenting him an orange.
He studied Mick’s face. Hair combed over a receding hairline. A war zone of dents from popped pimples that made him look ten years older than he was.
“You don’t want it?” Graham asked.
“Nah, it’s your healthy snack,” Mick replied, rolling the orange across the table until it stopped at Graham’s tray.
A flash of the girl from last night exploded in his mind. He found himself peeling the orange passionately, digging in and getting rind in his fingernails, thirsting for its tartness. He shoved a slice into his mouth and then proceeded to devour the rest.
“What really gets a consumer to choose a certain product?” Mick asked, his eyes all over the room. A lady with thinning hair glanced up from her newspaper.
“Like they’ve always told us at Warton, Mind and Donovan, ‘Quality is secondary as long as the advertising is good enough’.”
“Spoken like a ideal employee. How’s the orange, my friend?”
Mick swept up the discarded peel and held it out to Graham as an offering. “Go ahead. Finish it all.”
“Eat the peel?”
“Why leave anything left over? The peel is the advertisement after all, is it not? Meet me for Tequila Sunrises after work today. The Citrus Club. Eight o’ clock at the bar.”
The lady with the thinning hair licked the lipstick off her teeth, staring them both down. Graham shrugged his shoulders and ate the peel.
–
The jazziness of Graham’s mood pumped up a notch. The day began to have a soundtrack to it as he walked back to his desk. The floor was one big piano and Graham a musician, making the air into songs that mirrored his outlook – normally a slow-tempo beat, but now horns blared.
A blur of faces passed by. Linda, the lady with a limp. Jerome with his bad teeth. Larry the liar. Josephine the office gossip. And Marlena, the new office intern, pocket-sized and perky with a cute button nose. She was dressed from head-to-toe in a knockout orange dress and winked as she passed by him. Her cool hand touched his elbow and he got lost in her wide smile until she kept on walking and was gone.
He sat in his cubicle, reading through advertisement reports: the Pow! Soda campaign, candy bars, Dirt Devil vacuum cleaners. Down the hall, the copy machine whirred. It had been whirring for an awfully long time. Graham thought that its incessant buzz used to annoy him, but now it sounded like a soothing melody. He craned his neck to see who was there. A woman in a green and orange striped dress leaned against the machine with a stack of papers in her arms. Her hair was cut short and pulled back with emphasis into a professional ponytail. She had pointy cheekbones and a long, graceful neck. He was immediately drawn to every bit of orange on her. She beckoned him to come over.
“Me?” he asked, and she nodded. “I don’t believe we’ve met before–”
“Just come here.”
“I have reports…”
“It’s alright, Graham. Just a moment of your time.”
He left the reports on his desk and found himself next to her. Sweet orangey perfume emanated from her neck.
“How are you feeling today?” she asked.
“Great, I mean…” he began, fixing his glasses. “Well, I’m doing well.”
She leaned in close to him.
“Somebody has something up their sleeve.”
He checked his own sleeve in anticipation. The woman flashed her green eyes at him. She then went back to making copies from her stack of papers. Graham noticed all the pages were blank.
“My name is Gayle.”
She resembled a centipede to Graham, orange and green twisting up her body.
“Walk back to your desk and count the number of sodas on it. All the ones you drank today.”
“Why?”
A face flew by from around the corner. Mick in his badly buttoned suit and his coffee breath. Gayle grabbed her stack of blank documents and slid away. Mick took her place over the copy machine.
“Hey, buddy, ya-know I came over to tell you something and then completely forgot what it was. If my dick wasn’t screwed on…” He jabbed Graham in the arm with a laugh, but Graham was looking down the hall to see where Gayle went.
“So, Lime Club at eight?” Mick asked.
“What?”
“Lime Club. Eight.”
“Right. Sure. Umm…do you know Gayle?”
“Who the fuck is Gayle?”
And later that day back in his cubicle, taking his jacket off, and having to take his glasses off in disbelief at the ten empty cans of orange Pow! Soda in two lines across his desk. A feeling of bubbles sloshing around in Graham’s stomach and a violent ocean in his belly, but he had energy, boy did he have energy!
–
Marlena, the intern from Connecticut College, originally came from Florida with a self-designed major in Urban Advertising. She had a smiley personality and styled her hair differently everyday. That day she had put it into a sexy librarian bun. Graham saw her over by the water cooler in a sweltering orange dress that seemed to melt into her body. Checking his breath, he popped an orange Tic-Tac into his mouth that instantly got caught in his windpipe. He gagged.
“Omigod, you’re choking,” Marlena cried.
Graham flailed his arms around as the Tic-Tac refused to slide down. Marlena stepped behind him, placed her hands around his waist, and thrust him up against her.
“Jesus…” he wheezed, as she lifted him off his feet.
“Jeeza…” he gasped, as she did it again and one of his wing-tipped shoes came off.
She gave one last thrust, her breasts mashed into his back, his feet in the air. With one final thrust, the rogue Tic-Tac shot out of his mouth and he came in his pants with an orgasmic moan. She let go of him with a yelp as he looked down at his wet crotch. Both were frozen with no idea what to do or say. Marlena finally went to speak, but he pushed past her and bolted down the hallway before he could see her reaction. Co-workers flew by him in a blur as he ran with a panic-stricken look on his face.
When he reached his cubicle, out of breath and turned to ooze, two lime green Pow! Sodas were waiting on his desk dripping with condensation. He fought the impulse to drink one. He told his brain to chill and figure out what was going on, to take stock of the last twenty-four hours, but his hands didn’t listen to his brain anymore so he chugged down each one in a fury.
–
A velvet green carpet made Graham feel underdressed. He walked on it in his decent suit amongst those he dubbed “The Financial Elite.” Guys that made quadruple his salary and didn’t appear out of place. The minute he stepped onto the green carpet he felt jealous as hell. Inside Mick was taking up space at the bar with his large shoulders and a Gin Ricky with an array of limes around its edge. He shook Graham’s hand with a firm handshake.
“Graham-O! I’m already laced, catch up.”
They found their way to a table. Mick nabbed a waitress and ordered two more Gin Rickys.
“That’s for you and you,” he said, firing at Graham with his index fingers.
Graham’s mind was plagued by what had happened by the water cooler. He’d never experienced a loss of control like that before. He imagined Marlena’s repulsed reaction and wished it had happened to Mick instead.
“I think I need a drink,” Graham admitted. “I think I need two.”
“You always need two. Not you in particular, but you in general. Life takes a double.”
“I’ve been having a weird day.”
“Weird in the sense of…”
Graham pulled at his collar, feeling hot. His throat was incredibly dry. He wanted the waitress to bring over his drinks already.
“There’s this intern. I had a candy stuck in my throat, and I choked on it. She gave me the Heimlich, and after the third thrust I came in my pants.”
“That’s a pickle. Did she see?”
“Yeah she saw and…what’s wrong with me?”
“Was it Marlena?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I cream in my pants every time she walks in the room.”
“Well, not literally.”
“No, I do. Others have as well. One time she even smiled right at it.”
“Get out.”
“Larry in Licensing and Liability, same thing. He was reading a report, she walked by, and boom. Welcome to the club, and I’m not only the president, but a member as well…”
Mick went on a tangent, but Graham wasn’t listening. He thought about the community of horny guys at Warton, Mind, and Donovan, and Marlena in her tight orange dress, pressing against his stomach with her fists hard and then harder and then…
“Shit,” Graham said, as a rush of jealousy poured over him and a wet spot appeared around his crotch. The waitress placed the two Gin Rickys in front of him. The bubbles snapped around his reddening face. “I have to use the bathroom.”
“It’s through the restaurant.”
“Fuck, through the restaurant. Isn’t it foolish to have a bathroom that is only accessible through the restaurant?”
Mick stared blankly.
“Finish your Rickys,” Mick said, sliding the drinks under Graham’s nose, and since they were inviting, Graham leaned in and took a sip.
–
At a different bar on a stool, he nursed a green drink. The walls oozed green, the floor and ceiling was the color of emeralds, and everyone dressed as if it was St. Paddy’s day. The orange girl from his dreams the other night sat next to him, except now she was decked out in green, her face a blur except for inviting green eyes that matched her dress and high heels. Mick weaseled his way in between them. He nodded at Graham and then turned to the faceless girl. He fondled her breast with one hand as if he was turning on a shower faucet and then stuck his other hand up her dress. She arched her back against the bar, those green high heels in the air now while she gyrated along with his jabs. Mick began kissing her blurry face like he was devouring it, his tongue everywhere as the girl scratched his back with her long green fingernails. All Graham could do was boil with envy, clenching his fists as blood trickled down his chin from biting his lip so hard. Mick then yanked down her green dress and his own green pants before fucking her right in front of Graham and all the other green souls. Graham watched and wanted to be in his buddy’s shoes more than anything…
He blinked and was suddenly back in his apartment, unsure how he even got there. His living room was pitch black, but he could hear the sounds of someone being tortured in his alcove bedroom. He searched for the light switch but there was none. He felt his way through the dark, the screams closing in on him.
In his bedroom, the moonlight creeping in through the blinds was a putrid green. Mick and the girl were groping each other on his bed. She was completely naked except for her green high heels. His fat, naked body pumped her from behind. Graham let out a tormented scream but neither Mick nor the girl paid any attention. He lunged towards them with the intent of causing Mick immeasurable pain. He wanted to wrap his hands around his friend’s fat throat and choke him for taking his girl. The moonlight’s greenish tint blinded Graham as he moved towards the bed, and then the blinds snapped shut and they were all left in a debilitating darkness with only their screams to locate one another.
He woke up in a fit. He sat up, rubbed his head, and put his face in his hands; his head heavy like a medicine ball. He could taste a dry trickle of blood on his bottom lip. He placed his feet on the floor and almost tripped over the dark green high heels lying beside his bed. Hung over, he meandered into the kitchen, oblivious, the light of the morning an evil curse and the girl’s screams still faintly ringing in his ears. Opening his refrigerator, he saw three lime Pow! Sodas sitting on the top shelf. He considered the sodas and hesitated, but couldn’t help himself. He cracked open each one and gulped as the sweet venom trickled down.
–
The note on his desk later that morning read: See me immediately! – Mr. E.
With a lime Pow! in his hand, he headed into his boss’s office. A few black leather sofas sat in one corner, along with a personal bathroom and a stocked mini-bar. Graham couldn’t help but simmer with resentment at his boss’s daily utopia.
Mr. E sat behind his massive desk munching from a bowl of prunes and fixing his green tie. A framed picture of Sigmund Freud was next to him, staring Graham down.
“Want?” Mr. E asked.
“Want what?”
Mr. E held out the bowl of prunes but Graham shook his head. Mr. E shrugged and then tucked a Wall Street Journal under his arm before heading into the bathroom.
The toilet flushed after a few minutes and Mr. E walked back out.
“How are you doing today, sir?” Graham asked, nodding his head.
“Just call me Mr. E, Graham.”
“Sure, Mr. E,” Graham replied, wondering why Mr. E had called him in.
“You are a smart boy, Graham Wiggerson.”
“That’s not my last name, sir.”
“I told you you were smart.”
They shared in a forced laugh that continued for too long.
“Do you realize, Graham, that this company is about to blast off into new territories?”
“I see that we’ve been doing very well as of late.”
“Splendid, and in with the new and out with the old, right?”
Graham felt a twitch in his left temple.
“Settle down. I’m certainly not firing you, and I’m also not implying that due to my age I’m leaving. I am talking about the new.”
The word rolled from Mr. E’s tongue and seemed to bounce off the walls in whispers as if everyone was talking about “the new,” “thenew”.
“Do you realize I’m a genius, boy?”
He placed a bony arm around Graham, blabbing about this new, but Graham couldn’t pay attention. His eyes wandered around the room. Framed pictures of Pow! Sodas like movie stars adorned the white walls in conjunction with portraits of Freud in various thinking poses.
“…Like Sigmund would say,” Mr. E chuckled, finishing his long speech. “Am I right, my boy?”
“Why did you call me in here, Mr. E?”
“Well, mostly your ol’ boss is just checking up. Knocking on your noggin to make sure everything’s rattling around like it should.”
“I am…fine,” Graham said, but the words were shaky as they escaped from his lips. Mr. E’s eyes were locked deliciously on the Pow! in Graham’s hand as Graham cracked it open and comforted himself with a slow metallic sip.
“I am fine,” he said, after draining the can completely.
–
Heading towards his cubicle, all of Graham’s co-workers appeared out of focus, just green blobs whizzing by at a super speed.
“I am fine, I am fine, I am fine,” he murmured. The lime’s tartness still hung on his taste buds. His steps were weighted with longing. “Fine through the halls, fine past the walls, fine with my balls.”
The soundtrack to Graham’s day was no longer an upbeat jazzy tune. His steps had weight to them and produced hard, menacing notes of longing. Oh did he long, but for what? When he got back to his cubicle, ten empty cans of lime sodas sat in two rows at his desk, and the same bubbling frenzy of nausea erupted in his belly. But before he could apologize to his stomach, Mick whipped by in a shade of green suit. He stumbled into Graham’s cubicle like an oaf, his hand extended to punch fists.
“Graham-O! What’s the word?”
Graham refused to respond to Mick’s high five. He opened up another can of Pow!, each succulent sip drawing him further back into last night’s mind-fuck. The girl in green who he craved as much as a Pow! Soda. Mick taking her from behind in Graham’s own bed as her green high heels dangled in the air. The putrid moonlight and their demented moans filling the air.
“You fucked that girl!” Graham thought. His eye began to twitch, flapping up and down with increasing speed until it hurt.
“Dude, you’re eye is twitching real bad,” the oaf said.
“I am aware of this.”
“You gotta get some sleep, man. Let’s get lunch.”
Graham followed him like a drone, his eye becoming a separate entity. Mick lumbered in front of him, loud and obnoxious to the co-workers passing by all dressed in greens. They acknowledged Mick but barely looked at Graham, and Graham felt an overwhelming sense of envy like he did the night before at the Lime Club. Now Mick was the star, and Graham wanted to take a knife and plunge it into Mick’s back and twist it around, one twist for every time he fucked the faceless girl.
In the cafeteria, they sat at a booth across from each other scarfing down salads full of lettuce, broccoli, celery, and green peppers and ate, and ate, stopping for brief moments of small talk.
“So what did you do after the Lime Lounge?” Mick asked.
Graham took a large gulp of another Pow!, his eye resuming its chronic twitch.
“What did you do?” he growled, between more sips.
“Eh, met this girl at a bar,” he smirked.
“Did she have a face?” Graham asked, the words spitting from his mouth.
“A face? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He knocked back the rest of the Pow! as Mick’s shade of green suit became electrifying, all encompassing. Suddenly it was the only color in the room, the only thing he cared about.
“Your eye is twitching again, man. I’m getting you some dessert.”
Graham heard those words but they were so far away. A wall of green separated him from what was concrete. Green was in his veins, his blood, flooding his brain until Mick stepped through that wall with a blue-raspberry Pow! and two plates of blue Jell-O. Graham reached through the primordial green, the blue can cold and numbing his hand. He wanted a green Pow!, but this would have to do for the moment. He knocked it back in three large swallows and was enamored with the new flavor, the extra sweetness of the raspberry making his lips pucker. His green world got sucked up into the vents along the cafeteria’s ceiling. Mick sat across from him now wearing a blue tie that was in contrast with his green suit. Graham hadn’t noticed that blue tie before.
“Here you go, my friend,” Mick said, passing him the blue Jell-O. Graham picked up a spoon. He stared at the blue Jell-O demoralized, but Mick was coaxing him to take a bite, so he did. He finished one serving and swiped another, the sweetness melding with the blue-raspberry’s kick as a tear, solitary and also blue, zigzagged down his cheek and was caught between his lips.
–
Graham moved through the hallways like he was underwater. There was a chilling sadness to each step as if he was anticipating melting into the marbled floors and disappearing entirely. His eyes were outlined with violet circles and tears were forming. His co-workers passed by in blues: navies and midnights, aquamarines and royals. As each one glided past, he felt like breaking down even more. Something twisted was churning inside of him.
Gayle and the copy machine were like an oasis in the middle of an office desert. Graham slouched over to her and stared at the way her tight, aqua power suit clung to her body. He hoped that Mick wouldn’t show up.
“Hi, Graham,” she said. “I thought I might run into you at the copy machine.”
“I must confess I have no copies to make.”
“Oh,” she said, lowering her eyebrows in confusion.
“Can I talk to you?”
“We are talking.”
“Privately.”
“Listen, I have a fiancée–”
“I’m not trying to….you said something to me yesterday…”
“I say a lot of things,” she replied, cutting him off with her intense green eyes.
“You said someone has something up their sleeve.”
“I was high yesterday, okay? I smoked up with Julio the janitor. I wouldn’t have known my ass from my elbow. I’m sorry.”
She scooped up her blank pages and shuffled away, her dark-blue high heels clomping down the hallway until he could hear her no more. He needed a soda bad.
He watched the empty hallway, broken.
After a few seconds, Marlena turned the corner in an ocean-blue blouse and matching skirt like she was timed to do so, or maybe that was just his creeping paranoia. He tensed up as she approached. The unfortunate incident by the water cooler still sat like a stone in his chest.
“Hi, Graham,” she said.
He couldn’t tell if she was disgusted and only acting polite.
“Marlena.” He avoided her eyes. “I feel like I should…”
He stopped, woozy from the glare of the blue Xerox light that still flashed in front of his eyes. The tears built up from deep inside of him and rushed to escape out of his body.
“Listen, what happened the other day–” he continued, fighting hard to keep those tears at bay.
“Oh, Graham, no.” She touched his hand delicately. She was warmer than anyone else who ever touched him. He wondered what it would be like for her to save him like this every day. “Really, it’s fine, it’s no big.”
“You don’t have to say that.” He allowed himself to look in her eyes and was relieved to see no judgments there.
“I know I don’t, but I mean it. Really.” She rubbed his shoulder now. “You’re shaking, Graham.”
“Am I?” he asked, managing a slight smile. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being so nice.”
“Why don’t we get a drink tonight after work?” she asked.
“A drink?”
“Maybe two?” she said, showing off a few teeth with a quick smile.
“I don’t know how smart that is. I mean–”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Graham, but you’re not the first guy who hasn’t been able to control himself around me.”
He swallowed hard and let out a mumbling of words that sounded like an alien’s language.
“There’s this place downtown called Blue Moon. I’ll buy.”
Her ocean-blue blouse fluttered from the cool air conditioning and an immense calm settled over him.
“I could really use an ear,” he admitted, and she cupped her hand around her right ear with a smile.
“I’ll email you the address,” she said. “Let’s say six o’ clock. ‘Kay?”
She rubbed his arm.
“”Kay,” he said, no idea of what he was getting himself into.
–
Marlena was only twenty-one, but when he saw her sitting at a table in Blue Moon with a knockout blue dress and a long cigarette, she looked dignified, confident, and someone he wanted to get to know. She spotted him and smiled with a wave.
“You ever been to Hawaii?” she asked, crossing her legs.
“No.”
“You’re about to.”
Graham imagined the two of them leaving behind lines of footprints along a tropical beach. Marlena called over the waitress and ordered two Blue Hawaiians.
“So listen, Graham, I don’t know if you could tell, but I was intrigued by what happened yesterday.”
She smoked her cigarette like she was sucking it off.
“I am so embarrassed,” he said. “I mean it was completely unprofessional…”
“I don’t get intrigued often. ‘Kay?”
“I’m ten years older than you.”
“Well, I love people who’ve lived. A guy my age will just fuck me like a rabbit and belch in my face as he comes. There’s wisdom behind your eyes.”
She took his hand, smoothed her fingers over his palm, traced his lifeline.
“There’s history in your lines.”
Their Blue Hawaiians arrived. Graham sucked his down with determination.
“I think you’d enjoy me once you knew me.”
“I’ve never had anyone be so forward,” he said, almost to himself.
“Do you, like, believe in opposites?” she asked.
“What do you mean, opposites?”
“Well, like somewhere in another galaxy there’s another you and that you does everything that the you here could never do. That you is everything you want to be but can’t.”
She got excited as she talked, and he wanted to get wrapped up in that excitement as well. Besides the faceless girl from his dreams, it had been so long since anyone had taken his hand, paid any attention, made him quiver.
Marlena touched his hand again with her ice-cold fingers, and he felt like he could just melt. His mind was firing in a million different directions, the insanity of the last few days beginning to seep in, but somehow as she caressed a wet index finger over each of his knuckles, it seemed as if everything would be all right.
“Good drink?”
“Yes. Great drink.”
At the bar, a posse of drunks sang along to the old time jukebox.
Blue Mooooon, you saw me standing alo-o-one. Without a dream in my heart, without a love of my o-o-own.
–
Back in his studio, he left her ocean dress crumpled on the floor. Blue Hawaiians swam in their heads and the room was a quiet, mesmerizing, moon-tinted blue that outlined their bodies, tangled in the sheets, tangled in each other, but Mick was on his mind. Why the fuck was Mick on his mind? Mick with the faceless girl at his dreamed bar and green dancing like ballerinas around them as Graham watched, and watched, and watched the blue Marlena beneath him. The twenty-one-year-old who stared at the sky outside of his window as they went at it. He knew he didn’t want the faceless girl now that a real one swam beneath him, but he still had an unbreakable longing that he couldn’t shake. It lingered throughout their lovemaking and that night he dreamt of sad oceans that sang sullen songs and waved at him to join. A bar submerged in water. An underwater watering hole as fish swam around the barflies. A girl crying water into a glass. He moved in slow motion towards her, but she turned her faceless face and swam the breaststroke away from him and out of the bar’s doors leaving him alone with the fishes.
“Fishes,” he said, as a cloudy morning filtered through his blinds and his sheets felt claustrophobic.
“It’s fish, not fishes,” Marlena corrected, slipping her ocean dress over her naked body and fumbling with her high heels.
“Huh?”
“The proper pronunciation for the plural of fish is also fish, just like deer and sheep. We don’t say sheeps. I should go. I…have to swing by my place and change before work.”
Graham nodded and lunged for the blue raspberry Pow! waiting for him on his nightstand.
Marlena looked at him as if there was something she wanted to say, but she didn’t, which made him sad. She leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, but her lips felt distant, as if she realized she had done wrong by coming to his apartment, as if she wanted to confess a slew of secrets but was petrified.
“I’ll see you at work, Graham.”
She was out the door, leaving him clutching his Pow! Soda. He craved a sip but there was nothing left. He turned the can upside down and became a mess of tears all over again.
“Sheeps,” he said, sinking into the covers and shutting out the world until the alarm clock blared and he was forced to face the day.
–
The day had an ominous melody to it. A Blues instrumental soundtrack that weaved in and out of his steps. People spoke slowly to him, and he found himself crying in his cubicle over some more blue raspberry sodas later that morning. Mick found him.
“What’s wrong, bud-O?”
“I can’t stop crying.”
“Life is not all sunshine and roses.”
“I used to be so indifferent towards sodas in general,” he said, looking with contempt at the empty blue cans on his desk. “I prided myself on eating healthy, but now…”
He pointed in disbelief at the Pow!s.
“Yeah, they’re good all right.”
“No, they’re really not.”
“I think the public will beg to differ.”
“I can’t stop crying, Mick. Look at me! I’m a waterfall.”
He wiped away tears as more appeared.
“What…the…fuck. WHAT THE FUCK?”
“Listen, kid, the workplace is not a time for personal traumas. We’ll go to Red Rum after work, you’ll calm down and…”
“Red Rum?” Graham shouted. “You’re talking about getting a drink?”
“Red Rum. It will be okay. I am your best friend, Graham. We’ll talk it out. Get to the bottom of whatever’s been troubling you.”
Gayle passed by on the way to the copy machine with a stack of papers. She gave a quick smile, but Graham’s incessant tears made her stop.
“Are you all right, Graham?”
“He’s fine,” Mick said.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Graham replied.
“It’s a guy thing,” Mick said, giving her a little push out of the cubicle. As she walked away, a blank piece of paper from her stack floated to the ground.
–
Red Rum was filled with rows and rows of elegant red carpets and tall wax candles that looked as if they were begging to be knocked over. A pompous waiter led Graham past walls painted the color of blood. At their table, Mick hunched over two viscous Bloody Marys.
“I was with Marlena last night,” Graham said, sitting down.
“Hi-Five. Cream in her this time?”
“That’s vulgar,” Graham said. A tear slid down his cheek and rested on his upper lip. He cleaned his glasses and inspected the menu.
“I think I need something else,” he said.
“What? They don’t have it here?”
“Not this, what’s here now…I mean what my life is all about. I’m feeling very introspective lately. I might take up therapy, or painting. I’ve always enjoyed painting.”
“Did Marlena give you the cold shoulder this morning?”
“The fact that I’m crying has nothing to do with her.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I would never let anything or anyone play with my emotions.”
“Really,” Mick said again, cocking his head to one side like a trained seal.
“Truly,” Graham replied, looking up from the Bloody Mary with a red mustache.
–
In his dream later that night, he sank his teeth into the faceless girl’s neck and licked the blood off her salty skin. They sat at a bar with red drinks all around. The red carpet below was moist; the red velvet covering his stool was sticky.
“Show me the way,” he asked her, but she just stuck her neck out for more. “It’s a…”
Mr. E appeared between the two of them doing body shots of blood off of her. The faceless girl opened her eyes, beautiful and green, an oasis amongst all the red, the blood, the chaos.
“I slipped inside your mind,” Mr. E said, before lifting her scarlet dress over her head, pulling down his trousers, and humping her madly.
“What are you doing, sir? I don’t mean to be blunt but–”
Mr. E ignored him and continued humping.
“Sir, I beg your par…sir, please. Mr. E stop! MR. E STOP!”
Graham clenched his finished shot of blood, the glass cold in his palm, and thrust it at Mr. E. The glass broke, slicing his neck, which pumped up Graham, making him feel alive, not just energetic, but alive for the first time in his life.
Upon waking up, morning greeted him with a red sun cracking through his blinds, and red earrings on his dresser. He downed two cherry Pow! Sodas, put on his suit, took a knife from the kitchen, and skipped off to work whistling.
–
The soundtrack to his day sounded like nails scratching down a chalkboard. Everyone at Warton, Mind, and Donovan in red. What a fucking surprise. Linda the lady with a limp in an oh-so-red power suit. Bad teeth Jerome decked out in red. Larry the Liar in…could it be…red? Josephine the office gossip in red, red, redderific RED.
But Graham had a knife, and he had a plan, and that plan made him angry. But if he didn’t follow that plan he’d be angrier, and that would be bad. Real bad.
Gayle stopped in front him in a subtle red with red cherry-shaped earrings dangling from her earlobes. She looked worried and almost dropped all of her blank documents because of her shaking hands.
“Hello,” she said, casually.
He kept walking. Her green eyes could do nothing to keep him there.
Marlena passed by next, dressed like Mrs. Claus with a red jacket and a snow bunny hood hiding her face. She gave him a quick smile and picked up her pace.
“Hi,” he said, standing in her way.
“Oh…hey, Graham.”
“I need to ask you a question.”
“I’m super busy today–”
“Why are you wearing red?”
The moment of truth. An answer to explain the last few days. Sense in the senselessness that had consumed his life. She took a long breath, as if she was deciding how to answer. Finally, she pointed in the direction of Mr. E’s office and swallowed hard.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered with watery eyes, but he moved past her without responding. She grabbed his arm. “Graham, please, wait.”
“Let go of my arm.”
“Graham…”
“Let go of my arm!”
He yanked his arm from her grasp so hard she stumbled. He charged towards the office. A man with a mission. A goal. He slid the knife out of his pocket and opened the door. Mr. E stood at his desk with a bowl of prunes in his hand.
“Graham!” Mr. E said, choking on a prune. Graham lunged at him, grabbing his neck. Mr. E. fell backwards, taking Graham with him to the floor. They wrestled around before Graham sliced Mr. E’s throat without a second thought. Mr. E gagged as blood spurted from his neck and formed a puddle around them. The blood was all over Graham. He tried to catch his breath between sobs.
Mick and Gayle stood at the door. Graham held the knife close to him. He could tell that Gayle wanted to scream. He sank to his knees, shivering, shutting off all sounds. Everything now was silent, different.
“What did you do?” Mick said, as all deafening sounds around him returned.
“What is going on?” Gayle yelled.
“Close the door,” Graham said, holding up the knife.
“Easy now,” Mick said, shutting the door, too relaxed through all of this. “Put down the knife, we’ll start there.”
“Where’s Marlena?”
“Mar…I don’t know. Why? Why do you need her?”
“I just do,” he said, truly meaning it and wanting her close. She seemed to be the only one he might be able to trust, the only thing in his life preventing him from turning the blade on himself.
“Page her, Gayle.”
Gayle hesitated for a second before calling her name over the intercom. Her voice trembled, afraid of him. No one had ever been afraid of him before.
There was a knock at the door and Marlena stepped inside. Immediately, Graham grabbed her and clamped his hand over her mouth. Her sweat smelled like a sweet candy.
“You are in red, Marlena. You are all in red. Somebody tell me why.”
“We were told to,” Marlena said, the words barely audible. “I don’t know why. Red today, blue yesterday, green before, orange…”
“Let go of her, Graham,” Mick said, easing towards him. “I will explain.”
“Am I losing it?” Graham asked, his eyes trained on Mr. E’s dead body.
“No,” Mick continued. “This will all make sense. Just calm down. You need to calm down.”
He tried not to look at Mr. E, but the reality of the situation was too difficult to avoid.
“How am I supposed to be calm?”
“I’ll explain things, okay? Just give me a moment. How about putting the knife down?”
Graham shook his head.
“All right, that’s fair. Just listen, though. You were a guinea pig.”
“A what?”
“A guinea pig. Pow! is blasting off into new territories–”
“So what does that have to do with me?” Graham cried, barely able to see from the blur of tears clouding his vision.
“A lot, buddy. You were a model for the new campaign. It needed to be tested.”
“What new campaign?”
“Mr. E. recently acquired the majority of Pow!s stock. He is…was a pioneer. He saw what the company is capable of.”
Graham rubbed his eyes until Mick became clear. He was grinning like a politician.
“It’s all about making the sodas more addictive. There is a large percentage of the population that needs a Diet Coke every morning to start their day. Sure, it’s never advertised as a fix, but it is for some people. They wake up craving its taste. That’s what Pow! is after.”
“Nobody will ever touch Coke,” Graham replied, retreating back to what he knew: advertising, figures and numbers, safe and concrete things.
“Oh no, not with this vision. In this last week, how much did you crave Pow!s?”
“A lot.”
“You wanted them more than you ever wanted anything else, am I right?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a federally approved drug called Carcynol. It’s a mood enhancer, completely safe. Normally the studies haven’t shown a major difference over the placebo, but when mixed with carbonation, it’s another story. Our scientists have found that the bubbles unlock its magic.”
Graham’s throat felt dry. As much as he hated to admit it, he wanted an orange Pow!.
“When Carcynol is combined with carbonation, a visual sensation occurs as well. The eye becomes drawn to color and begins to crave the sight of certain hues. Right now the scientists believe that those desired colors are dependent on a person’s mood. Orange, for example, was supposed to trigger passion. The lime sodas should have made you introspective, the blue raspberry should’ve made you calm, and so on and so forth. A special ingredient added to the mix is what causes this. Does this sound familiar at all?”
Graham shook his head as the knife became slack in his hand.
“Please hand me the knife, friend. I will continue.”
The knife slipped to the floor. Marlena ran over to the other side of the room next to Gayle. Mick stepped over and picked the knife up with a handkerchief.
“It was Mr. E who discovered this special ingredient. He is…was a genius, and despite this setback, his legacy will live on. So not only does one crave a certain color of Pow! sodas because of the flavor, they crave it because it will alter their mood. Not a bad advertisement, huh?”
“What is that ingredient?” Graham asked, as Mick held out Mr. E’s large bowl of prunes.
“Taste familiar?”
Graham accepted a prune and rolled it around his tongue.
“Why was I the guinea pig?”
“You’re ordinary, Graham. You are entirely average. There was nothing exceptional about you, and therefore, you were a perfect specimen. You had no family who would notice these abrupt changes in your character, and from being your friend, I knew you were searching for something to give your life an extra kick. Mr. E was going to reward you handsomely as well, but of course we couldn’t let you in on the secret until all tests were completed.”
“Specimen…?” Graham asked, still grasping for the reality of the situation around him.
“He needed to make sure that there were no kinks in the recipe.”
“But…the sodas didn’t change my emotions in the way you described. Orange made me unable to control myself, lime made me jealous, blue sad, and cherry caused me to be angry, really, really angry.”
“Well, obviously we’ll have to discontinue cherry. This is a mood that we wouldn’t want to spring upon the world.”
“He’s dead,” Graham said, running his fingers through the pool of blood surrounding him. “Isn’t anyone going to acknowledge this? Is anyone aware of what I have just done?”
“I know, Graham. It’s a tragedy. But Mr. E. did anticipate kinks. The Red Button Policy is to be activated if circumstances get too far out of control. Too much is riding on this being a major success.”
“Red Button Policy?”
“Sweeping this all under the rug. Mr. E. included. We’re not about to involve the police or anything. This will be kept quiet.”
“But I killed him!”
“He is a martyr, and even though he is not with us anymore, his greater vision was of higher importance. We’ll put the formula right back in the hands of our scientists. They will fix the kinks.”
“You’re not aware of what I’ve gone through this past week, Mick. This is not something you want to spring upon the public. There will be chaos.”
“You were also given a maximum dosage, the public wouldn’t be drinking Pow!s like you have. We plan on tempering the drinks.”
“It’s still ludicrous!”
“Calm down, Graham.”
“Stop telling me to be calm.” He turned to Marlena and Gayle. “And you both knew about all of this as well?”
“I was there to watch you at night, Graham,” Gayle said. “Make sure you were okay. I mean…we never did anything…I was just there to monitor. I work for the Pow! Corporation, but I started to feel bad about this. I don’t think it was right to do this to you.”
Mick shot her a look that warned her to be silent. She lowered her head. Graham thought of his dreams over the past week, of the faceless girl, but she didn’t matter anymore. She wasn’t the one he wanted.
“You too, Marlena?” he asked, almost too choked up to get the words out. Marlena’s tears stained her face red. She shook her head.
“I just received a memo last week,” Marlena said. “To wear orange. That’s all I knew.”
He remembered the first orange dress she wore. Nothing had ever excited him as much as the way that dress clung to her body. For his entire existence, he had avoided truly living and had been content with the sidelines: lonely dinners, nights of television as a familiar presence, the deafening sound of his own tired thoughts. And then Marlena came along. So young. So beautiful. So hopeful of the future. She could be a part of his life too.
“And now,” Mick said. “We must implement the Red Button Policy.”
Marlena started crying more than before. She was screaming so loud that Graham had to cover his ears. She was telling him to watch out and shaking her head in disbelief. What was going on? The room spun around him as Mick leapt on top of him, his body heavy and disorderly, his face vicious and red. Out of the corner of his eye, Graham could see the gleam of Mick’s knife before he felt it in his back. Mick twisted it around, and the pain was unbearable. A silent scream echoed from Graham’s throat. His eyes started to close. A red blur moved towards him with warm hands on his cheeks and pretty nails scraping lightly against his temples. The smell of sweet candy circled up into his nostrils.
And there she was, drenched on a beach in an orange bikini, but bright as the sun. At that moment, he understood what it was that he’d been looking for all his life but never found. And now it was too late. Somewhere, another Graham in an opposite world would get to be with her. A different, bolder Graham without a knife in his back and an addiction that made him spiral. But the Graham on this planet would hold onto her tan body for one last thrill as she kissed his nose and then his lips, before she slipped away, the orange faded, and then everything turned to black.
Lee Matthew Goldberg’s novel THE MENTOR is out from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press and has been acquired by Macmillan Entertainment with the film in development. It has been published in multiple languages and the French translation was nominated for the 2018 Prix du Polar. His debut novel SLOW DOWN is an acclaimed neo-noir thriller. His pilots and screenplays have been finalists in Script Pipeline, the New York Screenplay, Screencraft, and the Hollywood Screenplay contests. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his writing has also appeared in The Millions, The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, Essays & Fictions, The New Plains Review, Verdad Magazine, BlazeVOX, and others. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series (guerrillalit.wordpress.com). He lives in New York City. Follow him at leematthewgoldberg.com and @LeeMatthewG
