It’s five o’ clock and as much as Carson wants to pack up his briefcase and drive carelessly home, he stays. He pulls on the knot of his tie, lets it sag a bit. Who cares? It’s five o clock. No one is coming to see him now. No one will give a shiny shit.

He hears Olivia, his secretary, pack up her things outside his door. So he thinks once more, Jesus, I have a secretary. My own secretary! He says oddities like this to himself over and over, while in the car wash or eating cold macaroni. Things like, I have an office, or I’m the district manager or, I owe ten grand on my car and the bank boys could call it in any day.

Carson hears Olivia turn off her small radio, push in her chair, fumble papers into a tray. He hears her computer flick off, the tiny fan cease spinning. He wonders, can a brain shut down like that too? Vurrumm brrrrrrrr. Then silence. Stillness until the next morning, when it’s another day of keeping things cool all day long. If I don’t spin, things overheat and catch fire.

Carson thinks, I’m a fireman. I’m the fireman with a Ralph Lauren tie.

He sings to an empty office. “I don’t want to grow up, I just want to go home.”

The tie was given to Carson by Tia. Tia gave him the tie, a blue silk number with R. Lauren stitched into the back loophole. “A special tie from a special girl,” but to Carson it is nothing special at all, just another tie to add to the rack of ties hanging on the back of his closet. They all match with his suits. Sometimes he fusses through his collection at night trying to find one that doesn’t go with the pin stripe or the bottle green Armani he dropped a bundle on when he became a manager. He thinks, Someone will notice. Someone will notice the tie doesn’t go.

No one notices.

“Good night, Carson.” Olivia sticks her pretty face into his office, gives her baby wave, the fingers clenching as if she was grabbing the butt of some male stripper. She’s not too bright, Olivia. Pretty, in the too much makeup manner, but not too bright. She likes Kevin Costner and nail polish on her toes. A good read is Mademoiselle and lunch is a low fat creamy Caesar with bacon bits.

Simulated bacon bits.

“Have a good evening, Olivia.” She’s got a nice body and a boyfriend. Carson is not ashamed to admit he’s undressed Olivia several times in his daydreams, undressed her next to Tia who is clothed, watching Carson unsnap Olivia’s bra, slip off her panties.

He’s had sex with Olivia on his desk. It was a daydream, in full erotic colour, but as far as he’s concerned, it happened and now he wants to put it out of his mind. He pulls the keyboard drawer of his computer towards him as if he’s about to begin a barrage of work. The sex was empty. Dirty.

“I left the Hatcher file on the fileserver, you can look it over.” Olivia rummages through her bag as she finishes up with Carson. He knows she is looking for cigarettes and it disgusts him. He feels an erection begin to flow.

“I’ll do that. Thanks.” He doesn’t look at her.

“Don’t stay too late,” Olivia advises. She gives him the baby wave again and takes her short skirt and ankle cracking shoes down the corridor and outside. The glass door buzzes like an old alarm clock as she lets herself out of the locked office. Wake up and get to work, the buzzer says. Olivia is gone and the office is quiet.

“Don’t stay to late.” The words are empty, like his imaginary sex. Olivia has chubby legs. It ruins his dream every time he sees those legs wrapped around his head.

Nothing is perfect. Nothing ever is. He will be staying late.

Rappity rappity, rap. Rap. Rap. He types in his password, takes the Hatcher file off the fileserver. It pops onto his computer like a Porsche cutting you off on the freeway. Deserved. I belong here, not you.

Tia has great legs, maybe the best feature about her. No makeup, no toe nail polish, no brain dead magazines. No hot corn bread baking in the oven on Sunday nights like his mother would do. No dirty sex, no stretched nylons, no garters or taking out the garbage. No secrets, no hidden love letters, no improper use of the English language. No French, no French kissing, no French fries during her period. No dust on the TV, no pets, no toilet brush left out for all to see. No car, no mortgage, no credit line. No long vacations, no flying, no allergies. No to films with subtitles.

No.

“No!” The pointer on Carson’s computer freezes in mid screen. His computer gurgles, churns. The fan is silent. He wiggles the mouse. He slams the mouse. Dead.

“Fuck!” He restarts the computer and pushes himself away from his desk, stands looking out the window into the parking lot. The snow falls lightly as the temperature stoops. He realizes, Winter’s coming. He can see Olivia, standing on the curb by the crosswalk, waiting for Donny or Danny or whatever name it is etched on his butt for retrospection. Smoke and the cold congregate, blow from her mouth. Donny/Danny is big, not fat big and he could pick Olivia up like a fireman and carry her over his shoulder out of a burning building. Carson doesn’t like him. Undoubtedly, he drives Olivia into the headboard every night.

Fire.

Carson has the biggest office in the regional headquarters. He has the biggest window to the outside world. This is a distraction for Carson. He would rather see what’s out there than what he faces in here. In here it is white papers and makeup and whirring fans, clicking mice and bullshit out of the corner of your sealed lips. Out there, out there, it is everything else.

It is the one place where no one says no.

His computer sings its availability and state of readiness. Touch me, work me.

I’m the fireman.

I’m a fireman and this is my fish tank. Carson abandons his view of the promising outside world, the sugar-sprinkled cars in the lot, the dipping sun, the recycling bins by the doorway where he’s told Janitor Jack not to leave them.

He thinks, I should fire his ass.

But he won’t.

He won’t because he has to fire Olivia first.

He diverts his thoughts to the surrounding office, determined to see the reflection of himself in the walls, on the desk, under the desk.

Under the desk is another fantasy of his.

A photo on top of the desk gleams a margarine smile from Tia. There are two other photos, one of himself giving Tia a bear hug from behind, another of the Grand Canyon. Only once has Carson been to the Grand Canyon, once as a boy with his parents and his retarded brother. David drooled and threw rocks over the side. Carson found a spot to himself, looked down and saw the Colorado River winding its way through the canyon, the blistering sun pouring red rays into the canyon walls. How far, he wondered? How far would I fall before hitting a big rock and ending my life? What would it feel like? Would I feel pain or nothing at all? He watches David whip another rock, sees gravity pull it down. How far? The rock drops out of sight like that Porsche, thinks Carson. He flicks the cursor over the Hatcher file once more. Like that Porsche that cuts you off on the freeway.

His computer is a hunk of junk which he defends to anyone who cares enough to ask what he uses. The desk is replaceable, easy to burn with a sharp axe and a flammable solvent. There is nothing in the desk as there is nothing memorable worth keeping. Pens, a pencil, a throw away note pad with Russel-Baker Inc. stamped on each page. At the bottom are the words, “Get with the plan!” suggesting one should plan their life out in detail on the Russel-Baker deck. Carson wonders why they provide so much room?

He drags the Hatcher file around his screen, daring his machine to crash again. He closes the open drawer, slides open another. A stick of gum, paper clips. Yawn. He wants to be surprised by something he finds about himself. A couple months ago, he and Tia ransacked his old apartment for shreds of a life he was giving up, tossing the pieces down the garbage chute. She was in communications class when he found his old notebooks, brain diaries he kept during university. He sat on the hard wood floor, the burner hot in the back of his mind. He was leaving this apartment. The new digs had carpet and gold faucets in the bathroom like his Aunt Ezra sold. In the notebooks there was someone he didn’t recognize, a sample of handwriting he could not place, thoughts he’d never had. Who was this? He read some more. He could not recall writing these things. A stranger’s diary with his name on the front.

Some people need to take a vacation every day.

But he had written them. The notebooks were his refuge. This quote, from a rock star’s mouth, tagged the corner of the first page.

“Balloons!” Finally something that didn’t fit. Carson found the rubber party favours in the back of the drawer, hidden amongst mail-in offers he kept because they seemed plausible at one time, only to look ridiculous now. Time brings everyone to their senses, he muses, flapping the leaflets to his recycle bin. He is ecstatic to find the balloons as he cannot remember putting them there in the first place. One red, one yellow. He pulls them out and stretches them as his father had shown him. “Stretch them first,” he’d say. “Save your cheeks.”

And Carson inflates the red one, letting it grow bigger with each breath. He is punch drunk, dizzy from the lack of air. Blow ‘em up, blow ‘em up good. He pushes more air into the red balloon, watches it ripen in front of his face. Where did these treats come from?

The party.

Bam! The balloon tears with too much air and slaps his chin. One moment it is there, the next gone. Just like the Porsche.

He laughs uproariously. It feels good. The party, that’s where. He bought them for the party. He resolves, Laugh some more, Carson. Laugh it up. It feels good and you deserve to feel some good.

The yellow balloon didn’t fit the colour scheme Olivia planned for the party. That’s why it was there, stuffed and forgotten into the back of the drawer. Carson can’t remember why they didn’t use the red balloon. He assumes, Too many. We had too many red ones.

Olivia does the office up, red and blue. There’s a cake and some punch with Niagara white wine for a buzz. The sales force comes and they’re all older than Carson. Old men and ladies who earn two-thirds of what Carson makes sitting in his fishbowl, being the fireman. He’s two-thirds their age and he is pleased about this. He thinks, I’m a man now. I’m the man. Shake my hand and kiss my ass. Eat my cake and drink my punch. I’m the man.

The party is a meet and greet, meet the new district manager, meet the new guy from the city. Olivia hangs balloons and streamers like it’s a birthday. It is a birthday, Carson’s twenty-eighth, but he tells no one. Tia knows and she gives him a tie. The Ralph Lauren tie. He wears it and drinks punch. He forgets everyone’s name the moment they introduce themselves.

He laughs some more and puts the yellow balloon back in the tip of the drawer. Someone else will find it. Some other fireman will find it and wonder, what the fuck? He laughs again.

“What’s the joke?”

Mayer Browne. The deep voice of Carson’s boss pops the room with a pin. “You were laughing so hard.”

“An Email.” Carson ticks open his Email on the computer, pulls up his proof. “Just an Email someone sent me.”

“Forward it to me. I could use a laugh.” Mayer slouches in Carson’s doorway, double-breasted in blue, a fat gut of steak and potatoes adding forty bucks to his tailor’s fee. He’s all business, greased hair and a prattling cell phone. Time for no one unless there’s something amiss.

“Staying late?” Mayer lets himself in, stands by the window as Carson had done earlier, surveying the parking lot. The sky darkens and the lot empties. Snow refills it.

“Putting out some fires.”

Mayer nods. He approves. He approves of putting out fires and staying late. He rattles his lungs with cough. “You haven’t fired Miss Butter Knees yet.”

Carson hates his boss. He rarely sees him, gets commands from HQ via Email or the phone. He’s left to his own devices to run the district, and he likes it that way. Mayer drops in once and awhile, puts his fingers in the pie. Mayer invites Carson and Tia over for dinner one night. He serves them roast beef, alone, snorts coke at the dinner table. He offers them a line and they decline. He runs them out of his house before midnight.

“You mean Olivia?” Carson knows who he means.

“Yeah. Whatever. I thought we agreed to get rid of her.”

There was no we. It was HQ and Mayer who wanted Olivia gone. “I thought I’d wait until Friday,” says Carson.

Mayer breathes like a pregnant cow. “Why? So she can screw something else up?”

Olivia screws things up. Now and then. Carson has to agree. A month ago she mailed out the invoices without the proper postage. They all came back and no money came in.

We feel Miss Haney is a liability to the company. This is not her first mistake. Termination may be the best solution.

This is the Email Carson reads, reads it over several times as if he doesn’t understand it. But he understands it. Crystal clear.

Termination may be the best solution.

Nice tits or not, fire the bitch. That’s an order.

“I think she’ll be fine until then, Mayer.” Carson refuses to be pressed. He doesn’t want to fire Olivia. He doesn’t want to fire anyone. He hates doing it. It’s maggot filled hamburger that sits in your mouth until you have to swallow and fight the squirming cramps.

Because he’s the fireman.

Another time, after the balloon and cake party, an even fatter Mayer lumbers into Carson’s office. Carson is straightening around, putting papers in the right files, getting his head on tight. It’s his ship now.

“You met that guy, Jenkins, didn’t you?” Mayer plops his weight into one of the two chairs facing Carson’s desk. He’s got a smoke and it lingers blue over his head.

“Jenkins? Which one was Jenkins?” They’re all faces and different handshakes to Carson.

“Sales rep for Wentworth. Red hair. Bad teeth.”

This means nothing to Carson. “What about him?”

“He’s gonna have to go. Hasn’t met his quota in three years. The company wants you to sack him.”

Carson closes his file drawer. There are red and yellow balloons sitting on his desk and he throws them in a drawer. “I don’t even know the guy.”

“All the better. You know him. You met him today.”

Carson doesn’t know him. He strains to see red hair and bad teeth but it’s all a mess of pleasantries and tales.

“Get him in here and let him go.” Mayer gets up and looks at Carson’s degree on the wall. “Western,” he says. “Fine school. Good broads.” He goes out.

“I’ll let Olivia go on Friday,” says Carson. “Easier that way.” He presses this decision into his boss’ head. He knows Mayer doesn’t agree, but fuck him. He has to do the dirty work and he’ll do it the way he wants to.

Mayer rubs his hands, picks up a piece of paper sitting on the side table by the window. Carson groans inwardly for leaving it out.

“What’s this?” Mayer reads it with bleary eyes.

“My will.” The words taste salty in Carson’s mouth. Yessir, that’s my will. I’m such a big man now, such a big fireman that I need a will, in case I die. I could die and things would need to be wrapped up. Ship shape. Screw the cap on tight.

Fucker.

He knows why it is on the side table by the window and not on his desk. It belongs there. The will belongs over there. Not here.

He lets another oddity of his life ripple across his mind. A fucking will! How did I get here?

“It’s a good thing to have, a will.” Mayer flips the page for further inspection. “Keep the lawyers busy.” He puts the form on Carson’s desk. “Better get that filled out.”

Tia wants a house, not a marriage. For reasons unknown to Carson, he thinks this is just fine. He’s a business major and a house is good business. A marriage is not.

They go house hunting on Sundays. Sundays the realtors are out and the competition is in church. Good deals come on Sundays. They find the good deal, two bedrooms and a back yard. Space for the barbecue and a garage for two cars. His and hers.

“I want it,” screams Tia in the car on the way home. The real estate agent can hear her, could hear her when she stepped inside the house. Sucker, the lady agent thought. A sucker and her man.

But Carson is no sucker. A fireman yes, but no sucker. He squeezes the agent for all she’s worth, squeezes the home owner twice as hard. He’s a business major. He plays for keeps.

“I’ll do that, Mayer,” says Carson. He takes the will form and puts it on top of the papers on his desk. It’s on the tippy top.

“Hey, if you want to wait until Friday to let Butter Knees go, you do that. It’s your office.”

But it’s not his office, really. Carson is the big man with the big desk and the big chair, but he hasn’t had a fresh thought in his head for years. It’s all recycled from HQ. Push the commands down the tube. Push the buttons, push ‘em out.

Harry Jenkins. Mayer is right. He does have red hair and bad teeth. But he brings Carson a basket of peaches and waits to be asked to pull up a chair.

“Pull up a chair, Harry.” Carson puts his hands on a slick desk, paperless and clear. Harry Jenkins is fifty-two, bang-on, same age as Carson’s dear old dad.

“Gonna let me go, aren’t you?” Harry scratches his head, glances at his peace offered peaches. “Gonna ship the old man out.”

Carson thinks, He’s making it easy on me. He’s firing himself.

He had no idea what to tell Jenkins, no idea how to start off. You’re fired, formed loosely on his lips. I’m sorry but goodbye.

“I want to hear you say it.” Harry Jenkins grows agitated and puts a sweaty hand on Carson’s desk. “I just want to hear you say it.”

“Mr. Jenkins, I’m sorry but we’re going to have to let you go. This isn’t easy for me, but it has to be done.” It rolls off Carson’s tongue like red carpet, like the Lord’s prayer. Not a problem. I’m the fireman.

Harry Jenkins doesn’t stick around. He takes his peaches back and walks out of the office. Buzz goes the front door as he leaves. Carson puts papers back on his desk, wipes away the sweaty palm print left by the older man. He tells Olivia to do the paperwork and send Harry the placenta package of his new life- one with no job.

“You fired Harry Jenkins?” Olivia stands in his doorway, eyes wide and skirt short. Carson thinks, No one figured me for the fireman.

No one.

He is glad to see Mayer Browne go. He waits to hear the electric buzz of the door, but then remembers Mayer has a key and can avoid the alarm. The boss comes and goes as he pleases.

Carson pulls the noose of his tie even looser. Screw it. He pulls the damn thing over his head and throws it at the glass window.

The will. “You’re a property owner now, Mr. Lane.” His lawyer, their lawyer, is a wisp of a human being, skin and bones without a heart. He runs court documents under Carson’s nose, now you see them, sign them, now you don’t. That damn Porsche on the freeway again.

“You should have a will.” The stick lawyer co-signs the pages, licks his thumb and flips. “Sign here, please.” The pages keep coming. “I can help you with that. The will.”

Carson feels sick at the mention of a will. The maggot hamburger returns to his throat. “How necessary is that?” His business major degree slips behind his mind’s couch.

“Necessary. Sign here. Right here.” A bony finger taps another contractual agreement. “Very necessary. This is not a game anymore.”

Alone in his office, Carson wonders what the skeleton lawyer meant by that. “This is not a game anymore.” Two questions: Whenever was it a game and when did it stop being one?

He thinks no more of Jenkins, pushes the geezer completely out his mind like a fart he doesn’t want to smell. Tia shrieks once more when they take possession of the house. It is empty and flat, her freedom and delight bouncing off the cream drywall and throughout the house. “All ours,” she says.

“Let’s christen it, right here.”

Surprisingly, Tia is agreeable and she slips off her jeans. Carson is bleached. No, no. She doesn’t say no.

The fireman is done, his hose empty and his woman happy. She has a new home. They lie on the wood floors and look around at the things they need to purchase. Linen. Curtain rods. Hooks. Paint and brushes. Toilet paper.

Canadian Tire has it all and Carson wanders the aisles, looking for wire wool. Jenkins has his hands full.

“Hey.” Carson recognizes his handiwork before he can escape. Jenkins stacks boxes of wire wool four high at the foot of the aisle. His red smock fits poorly but optimizes his red hair.

“Hello.” Iceberg. Jenkins seems unimpressed to come face to face with the fireman. He continues to stack boxes.

“Funny thing. That’s what I’m looking for,” says Carson without thinking. Babble. It’s not that he’s not thinking, he’s thinking about something else. Seeing Jenkins sucks it out from behind the couch and onto his lap.

A house. The will.

Jenkins tosses him a box. “Ain’t that a switch,” he says without interrupting his stacking rhythm. “Ain’t that a switch. I have something you need.”

Carson puts the wool in his basket.

I fired this man.

He wants to help Jenkins, stand beside him and pass the boxes over. Anything to make his life easier. “I’m sorry,” is all he says. He walks around the corner to the next aisle, slips down it, mentally checking his list.

“Matches... matches....” He is not looking for matches. He is not looking for anything.

He returns to Jenkins. “I just bought a house. I’m not married but we bought a house anyway. Her name is Tia and she says no a lot. And a will. I could die now. I have to make out a will. Do you have a will?”

Jenkins stops his stacking. He gives Carson a dazed look. “What the hell are you talking about? Wills and houses?” He climbs off his step ladder. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

It is Carson’s turn to be confused. “What?”

“I have a will. I’ve left everything to my children because I love them. That’s what people do.” He folds the empty cardboard boxes of his load. “That’s what people do.”

Carson bows his head like a guilty son. He wishes, Chop it off. “I’m sorry. I hated doing it.”

“It’s your job.” Jenkins is leaving. “It’s your job and it goes with the house and the will.” He takes one more look at Carson. “Good luck.”

They spend the rest of the day scraping old wallpaper from the walls, Tia and he. Carson feels pieces of his brain go with each strip.

Spin back to the window. The snow comes in gobs now. Carson will not be able to drive carelessly home. He will have to go slow, around the corners like an old man terrified of speed. He will slip without the snow tires on.

He thinks, Good thing I’ve got a will. All is covered.

He turns and opens the Hatcher file. The words and numbers dance clumsily in front of him. Uninspired, he finds himself picking up the will form.

To _________________ I leave _________________

He picks up a pen. To Olivia Haney I leave whatever’s left after the lawyers pick off their share.

He dots his entry with a full period. He thinks of Tia reading this document after identifying his peaceful corpse. “No. Nooooo!” she’ll scream. She’ll scream.

He is struck with an inspired notion. He double times out of his seat and into the outer office. There is a list of emergency numbers somewhere. He ransacks Olivia’s desk looking for it. He thinks, Someone else will have this desk next week. Olivia will be gone and the scavengers will swoop in.

He looks at all the other desks in the office, the computer monitors, the family photos, the coffee mugs with Number One Mom etched on them. He wonders, Who’s next? Who’s next for the fireman?

Carson finds the list of numbers. He takes it back into his fishbowl and scans the page for the number he wants. Haney... Haney... Haney....

He dials.

Donny/Danny answers. “Hello?” His voice is gruff and challenging. He’s having sex.

“Is this Donny? Is it Donny or Danny?” Carson talks to the man at the other end of the line, fireman to fireman.

“Dudley. Who’s this?”

“Carson. From the office. Is Olivia there, please?”

“Hang on.” He puts the phone down and shouts for Olivia. Carson knows she is in the bathroom, cleaning off. He waits patiently for her to pick up the phone.

Termination may be the best solution.

Because he’s the fire man.

She picks up the phone. “Hello?” she repeats. Her voice is sleepy and sweet.

“Hey, Olivia. Hi. It’s Carson. This may sound a little odd, but are you free tonight. I’d like for us.... well, just for us to get together.”

Tia says no.

But Olivia doesn’t.