In Anthony's lab, in front of the door, there sits a crate. It is large enough to hold twelve ten-year-olds (three across and four deep). It is a rather rough pressboard which gives about half the people who touch it splinters, some quite long and deep. It is about two feet from the door, which opens in to hit it. Most people can squeeze in. It arrived during Anthony's vacation, the one he takes when he's finished his audit. Beth, who uses the lab over the graveyard, insists that she was gone when it was delivered, so hadn't Anthony better talk to the person who signed for it?

The invoice on the crate is written in an illegible cursive. No one knows what it says, except that there are at least two (maybe five) t's and seventeen j's, g's, p's, q's, and/or y's. No one will admit to signing for it, not that anyone blames them. UPS and FedEx don't have a clue about it, and everyone knows better than to ask the post office.

When Anthony reentered his lab, he bumped into the crate he had not accounted for. He wanted to open the crate but he couldn't do that without Union permission. He knew what happened to Amit in Marketing when he tried to fix his AC. Normally these things just appeared, hooked up and ready to go. Anthony supposed Beth was the one who set them up, or knew who did, but she wasn't speaking to him about the crate. She refused to admit it was there or that it might, in any way, be her responsibility. Anthony understood. His Union contact was Jim, the janitor. Rumor had it he was the one who stole from the soda fund in the refrigerator. Still, Anthony had no one else to talk to.

"No," Jim said.

"Why not? It's your job isn't it?" Anthony asked.

"My job is to clean up the lab. Your job is to run the lab. This is a piece of equipment for the lab. Therefore it is your job."

"You don't know that. It could be for you. It could be cleaning supplies."

"In that?"

"Maybe a gross of sponges, I don't know."

"If you can prove that, I'll admit to it. But you know, I don't seem to remember a gross of sponges."

"Let's open it and see."

"It's in your lab," Jim poked Anthony in the chest, "so it's your concern, not mine."

"It's your job."

"No, my job is cleaning up after you. You haven't touched this yet. You make a mess of it, like everything else that comes through here, you spray grease all over it, you spill Coke on it, I'll clean it up. 'Til then, you are stuck with a crate."

Anthony started whistling "Kalamazoo."

Since Jim wasn't going to be any help, Anthony decided that he would go see Jim's supervisor. He had never needed to find out who his super was, and Jim was "Damned if I'm going to tell you." Payroll had to know, but they didn't tell anybody anything. Getting W-2s from them was painful enough. Anthony had the interns stalk Jim. He didn't tell them why, of course. Anthony was a firm believer of need-to-know. They found the super, or rather, the super found Anthony.

"Why have your kids been following my man? He's had an Escort parked outside his house for three days now. He can't sleep except with his curtains closed. His wife went and bought herself a gun."

"I got a crate I need opened. You think he could open it for me?"

"You'll stop your kids following my Jim?"

"Of course. It's in my lab, blocking the door. He knows which one."

"Prove to me its yours, then I'll have him open it."

Purchasing had never heard of the crate. Or Anthony's lab. Or, for that matter, Anthony. "But I've been buying through you for twenty years," he protested. "Show us the billing slips, then we'll talk." Anthony spent days whistling calliope music. Accounting remembered him.

"Was it in your audit?" they asked.

"No. It arrived afterwords."

"And why didn't you submit an addendum?"

"Maybe I missed it, maybe it was ordered while I was gone." Anthony was guessing, and he hoped they wouldn't smell his fear.

"Is there anything else in your lab you might have missed?"

Anthony started backing out the door of their office, away from their ever so curious eyes. "No, just the crate."

"I see. Well, you can't be too careful. We'll be by to check for you, ok?" They smiled at him.

Anthony's wife started to complain that Anthony whistled "Rhapsody in Blue" in his sleep.

Anthony was whistling "Route 66" as he looked harder and harder at the crate, trying to find a way to make it open "accidentally". If he slammed the door into it hard, he just knocked off the stacks of paper that had been left on it. The floor around it already had an August 5th USA Today, a scattering of McDonald's Monopoly tickets, seven Dilbert clippings, and the meds for that intern with the gunshot wound. Ever since Anthony's discussion with him, Jim gave the crate a wide berth whenever he cleaned.

Anthony crouched in the taller power closet. No one opened it except to turn it on and off. It shorted whatever was plugged into it, but the hum was nice. He had bought a crowbar at lunch and smuggled it in in his briefcase. Security never looked under paperwork. He spent the time in the cabinet pealing the shrink-wrap off the metal and piling it by his foot.

When shift change came, an intern opened the cabinet. She looked at him. He smiled at her. She looked at the crowbar. He started whistling "At Last." She shut the power, picked up the pile of plastic wrap at his foot, closed the cabinet and he heard the door slam shut.

"Sir, what are you doing here?

"Sir, you must leave. No one is supposed to be here.

"Sir, put down the crowbar and please leave.

"I'm sorry, sir. Try not to struggle.

"Stop whistling, please, sir.

"You drive home safe, sir."

"I got a call from the Union rep last night. He said Security had found you in your lab after hours trying to open a box. With a crowbar, no less. Do you normally use a crowbar in your lab, Anthony?"

Anthony sat in silence. He hadn't had a chance to go to the lab yet and see his crate in the light of day.

"The Union rep wants me to fire you. He says you clearly stepped into his people's province. I think he's right. I don't remember seeing anything in your contract that allows for this kind of behavior."

"I wanted to see what was in the crate, sir."

"And why couldn't you just have gone through the proper channels, eh? You have to make me clean up after you. Well, I've had the thing put in storage. Jim was quite happy to help move it. If you want it, you'll just have to go through the paper trail like anyone else."

Anthony walked out of the office, his left hand crumpling a sheaf of carbon paper.

© 1997 Joseph Cadotte

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