If You Think This Is A Happy Ending
“If you’re just joining us, a stunning
development from downtown—a would-be workplace shooter is thwarted by a local
hero. WRNW’s Stacy Burkholder has more at the scene.”
“Thank you, Ken. I’m standing here outside
the Trade Building on Lincoln Avenue where Terence Davis entered Markowitz,
Markowitz & Zytnick approximately one hour ago. Davis, a former attorney
with the prestigious law firm, brought an assault rifle and a homemade
explosive device. But because of a man employees are calling an angel, no
deaths or injuries took place.”
“I really thought that was it for me. I
swear, when Terry pulled out that rifle, I saw my life flash before my eyes. I
just prayed that God would give me one more chance to hug my husband, children,
and grandchildren. And then He sent me my guardian angel.”
—Elaine Robinsky, receptionist
“That’s
enough fucking hoagies to feed an African village.”
“Man, why you gotta talk about Africa like
that.”
I roll my eyes. “Why you gotta take
everything about Africa so personally. You’re from Willowbrook, not Zimbabwe.”
“Fuck you,” my coworker shoots back, wrapping
up the last of the Italians. “Every time you got some smartass shit to say,
it’s always about Africa. Imma call HR on your pasty ass.”
Kim’s not really going to call HR, but that’s
the game we play.
“Fine. Allow me to restate. That’s enough
fucking hoagies to feed an Armenian village.”
“Where the fuck is Armenian?” she asks.
“Forget it,” I say. “It’s a lot of hoagies.
Like, a stupid amount of hoagies. That’s all I’m trying to say.”
“Is the catering ready yet?” That’s John
rolling into the kitchen as we are finishing up, too late to help in any
substantive way.
“It’s ready,” I say.
“Are you sure?”
I roll my eyes at Kim. “Yes. Twenty chicken
bacon ranches, twenty cheesesteaks, twenty veggie speicals, twenty buffalo
chickens, and twenty Italians.”
“Silverware? Napkins? Plates?”
“Yes, yes, and yes.”
“You double-checked everything.”
“I triple-checked everything. It’s a
lot of hoagies, John.”
“Yeah, enough to feed an African village,”
Kim says. I unceremoniously give her the finger.
“You aren’t complaining, are you, Luke?” John
asks.
“You know I’d never complain. About anything.
Ever.”
“Good. Because you’re delivering these.”
“The fuck I am,” I scoff.
“Billy’s late. And I need these delivered
within the next ten minutes.”
“Sounds like a general manager problem.”
“And now I’m making it your problem. Perks of
the job. It’s a fancy law firm, so they’ll probably tip you.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine. Where’s the cart?”
“Broke yesterday.”
“So you’re telling me I have to lug these four
big ass bags across town without the cart.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“Fuckin’ bullshit,” I say under my breath.
“What was that?” John asks.
“I said, I’m really looking forward to doing
this.”
“I’m gonna make you employee of the month.”
“You don’t do employee of the month.” I pick
up the bags—they are large and heavy, awkward to hold standing
still, to say nothing of having to carry them all the way to—
“John. Where am I going?”
“Oh yeah, I guess I should tell you that,
huh?”
“It would be helpful.”
He picks up the catering slip at the end of
the line. “The Trade Building. Markovitz, Markovitz & Zytnick. Fifth floor.
Go right there and come right back.”
“It’s downtown. Where else am I going to go?”
“I seen him do it. I swear, he didn’t even
hesitate—he just, pow, went after the guy. Ballsy as hell. Sorry—can I say
‘ballsy’ on the news? Anyways, I seen this guy’s eyes, and there was no fear at
all, I swear. He just did the thing. Did what needed to be done. This day and
age, you don’t see that too much.”
—Edgar Lyman, custodian
As
predicted, these bags are a delightful combination of both heavy and awkward
that makes me want to take a few short steps to my left, placing me in the
middle of the busy city street where a port authority bus will do me the
personal favor of putting me out of my misery. I know what you’re thinking—ha
ha, that’s funny, you’re so sarcastic and edgy. Well, guess what, toots. I’m
not trying to be funny or sarcastic or edgy—I’m being 1000% serious. I would
love nothing more than to walk out into a busy intersection and be done.
But I haven’t.
Probably won’t.
Everybody is wearing a suit and tie—and nobody
wears suits and ties anymore. This is the fancy-shmancy part of downtown,
where the lawyers and financial advisors and corporate executives work. Go back
twenty years and I was in the same high school classes as most of these people,
went to the same colleges, had the same GPAs, the same hopes and dreams. And
here we are, in the very same place—except they are wearing five-thousand
dollar suits, and I am wearing sweatpants, a black undershirt, and an apron
stained with mayonnaise and Italian dressing.
I’m sure that everyone who knew me way back
when wonders “What happened?” when my name gets brought up, like there was one
particular event in my life that made the whole thing go awry. But I don’t
think that’s how things went down for me. Like, I don’t think it was one event.
I don’t think there was this singular, dramatic moment when the lights dim and
the music modulates to a minor key and the actors speak in hushed tones. I
think it was more like a really boring book that you don’t want to read but you
have to, for some reason, and then when you get close to the end you realize
that what you’ve been reading is completely and utterly fucked up but you can’t
stop now because you’re pot-committed and you might as well see it through to
the end.
If you ask me, Jack Kevorkian didn’t go far
enough with the whole assisted suicide thing. He had all these rules in place
about only accepting people if they were terminally ill, like in the anatomical
sense. He wouldn’t take people if they were only depressed. Why not? Who was he
to decide? Depressed people kill themselves all the time, leaving behind a physical
mess in addition to the emotional trauma for their loved ones to deal with. They’re
going to do it anyway, why not afford them and their families the same dignity
as someone with Lou Gherig’s or late-stage cancer?
I won’t do it myself. Why? If I’m lying, I’ll
tell you it’s because I don’t want the few people I have in my life to grieve,
to deal with the messes I’ll leave behind.
But if I’m telling the truth, it’s because
I’m a coward.
These people all have something I don’t have.
Here’s me, carrying a stupid amount of hoagies because for reasons I cannot
articulate, that’s all I have to offer society: putting meats and cheeses and
dressings in between two pieces of bread for sixteen dollars an hour. These
other people have figured out something that has eluded me to this point: how
to exist in society. They have figured out how to choose a job, how to get
training for said job, get training for said job, then get the job, do the job
every day—day after day after fucking day—for thirty to forty years, then
retire, then die. And if you said to one of them, “Hey, good on you for
figuring this out,” they’d look at you like you were crazy because to them it was
easy. It’s what they were born to do. An exquisite combination of their
genetics and upbringing has gifted them the ability to thrive by doing nothing
more than simply being themselves.
“Be yourself,” people say. It’s great advice
if you’re a part of the aforementioned, but not so great if you’re me. I’m not
a bad guy. I’m not a great guy, either, but I’m not a bad person. This is
me—for almost forty years, I’ve been myself and it just hasn’t worked out yet.
I don’t think I’m lazy, but some days I can’t motivate myself to care. I can’t
stop thinking about the math: billions of people times billions of years equals
why does anything I have ever done or will ever do matter. At all.
These people have figured out a way to trick
themselves into believing that what they are doing—advising a client on their
financial portfolio, suing a doctor for medical malpractice, rebranding a
century-old company—matters. But I can’t ignore the truth, which is that it doesn’t.
We are a society of go-getters racing each other towards oblivion—in five
billion years the sun will run out of hydrogen and grow to such a massive size
that all of this will be eviscerated into constituent atoms, completely
eliminating any evidence that we were ever here. You and everyone you know will
be nothing more than protons, electrons, and neutrons meandering aimlessly
through space…although if you ask me, that’s all we’ve ever been.
Anyways, the Trade Building. The largest
building in the city, tallest between Chicago and New York City. When I was in
sixth grade we took a field trip here, went to the very top and took in the
view: x number of counties and y number of states on a clear day.
That was exciting. I don’t remember anything else we did, but seeing the world
from that perspective was like seeing something from a movie.
How is it possible to be in the same place
two different times and feel two completely different ways?
“Hello, can I help you?” The overweight
security guard takes a break from reading In Touch to discern my
intentions.
“Yeah, I’m here to drop off some hoagies at
Markowitz, Markowitz & Zytnick.”
“Ah, yes, the hoagie guy.”
The hoagie guy.
“They’re expecting you, Mr. Hoagie Guy. I’ll
send you up. Fifth floor.”
Thanks, Mr. I Wanted To Be A Cop But The
People Who Tell People They Can’t Be Cops Told Me I Couldn’t Be A Cop Guy.
Perhaps the elevator cables will snap.
Crazier things have happened.
“I am confident that I can speak for everyone
here when I say we owe a debt to this man that we cannot repay. If not for him,
how many of our families would be receiving that dreaded phone call right now?
I cannot fathom it. All I can say is for the rest of my life, I will get down
on my knees and thank God that he sent us our hero. Amen.”
—Alexander J. Markowitz IV
Ding, goes
the elevator, and I am suddenly transported to a completely different
planet—Markowitz, Markowitz & Zytnick is one of those places that has
clearly spent the GDP of a small island nation on interior design. The
lighting, furniture, and color scheme are all evidence of some Los
Angeles-based firm that specializes in catering to the important needs of
high-end law firms like this. I want to throw these hoagies on their Nero
Marquina marble floor and leave.
There is a narrow corridor that leads into
the open, high-ceilinged reception area; but before I can get that far, I am
drawn by something from my peripheral vision. To my left, there is a portrait
of a man dressed in turn-of-the-century garb: a faded black suit, flat bow tie,
top hat, the whole gamut. The portrait is at least eight feet high, maybe three
and a half feet across. As far as opulence goes, it matches the rest of the
interior, but what I can’t get past is that the dapper gentlemen depicted looks
exactly like me.
It's like one of those time travel movies
where the guy sees himself in an impossibly-taken image from generations past. The
nameplate at the bottom reads: Alexander Jacob Markowitz. A myriad of insane
thoughts race through my mind. Am I Alexander Jacob Markowitz? Or, at least,
related to him. An heir, perhaps? This might explain why my life is such chaos,
because this is where I am supposed to be. I’m not Mr. Hoagie
Guy. Some bizarre situation worthy of a Lifetime movie has occurred, separating
me from my people. But I’m here now, and I’ve arrived to take my rightful
place—
Fast and heavy footsteps sound from behind
me, a distinctly articulated metallic sound that bears resemblance to the
reloading sound effect of the KF7 Soviet on GoldenEye for Nintendo 64.
“The history of saints is mainly the history
of insane people! The truth is men are tired of liberty. Inactivity is death. The
Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding
behind which there is no building!”
Clearly, something is amiss. Turning from my Teddy
Roosevelt-era doppelgänger, I peer into the main reception area where I see an
in-shape man wearing black military gear and wielding what, to my inexperienced
eyes, appears to be an assault rifle, shouting far-left and/or far-right
extremist manifesto-sounding statements at the poor woman sitting at the
receptionist desk and the fleet of lawyers behind her.
Well, it’s finally happened. After spending
the entirety of my life watching this shit on television, I’m finally in the
thick of it. My initial feeling is frustration—it seems as though because of
this country’s fetishization of guns, I’ve lugged this stupid amount of hoagies
all the way down Lincoln Avenue for fucking nothing.
The man continues shouting nonsense, and at
some point while he is comparing war to maternity, the receptionist makes eye
contact with me. A custodian over to my left does the same. They say nothing
and makes no obvious gestures, but their eyes scream volumes. This guy has
his back to me. He has no idea I’m here. He didn’t notice me ogling
Alexander Jacob Markowitz like a Penthouse spread.
What must happen next becomes so obvious.
I set the hoagies down, and the release of
weight gives me a strength I’ve never felt before, like a Kryptonian basking in
the rays of Earth’s adolescent sun. I do not hesitate, I have no fear, because
I’ve dreamed of a moment like this. Electricity coursing through my
cardiovascular system, a noose pulled taut around my neck, a bullet tearing its
way through my flesh, a fistful of pills shutting it all down organ by organ.
The Terminator couldn’t self-terminate, and
neither can I. I’m far too cowardly to do it myself.
But perhaps this fascist wannabe will do it
for me.
I’m upon him now, so close to him that I can
smell his panic sweat. I’m ready. I’m so ready. I’m so close to being free of
all this I could cry. I can see the stock of his rifle—the instrument of my
salvation, inches away.
“It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded
while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great
it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the
pants. That is what I shall do.”
I grab him around the neck with both arms and
pull backwards, surprised at how easily he goes down. From far away, he seemed
like the type who hits up the gym on the regular. I land on top of him—he is
nothing more than a skinny middle-aged weakling. His facial hair is overgrown,
his light-brown hair wild and frayed, but beneath the rough, there is nothing
frightening about this man.
Our eyes lock. He is bewildered, perplexed,
enraged. He’s been dreaming about this, perhaps gratified himself to this exact
moment, and I’ve ruined it. His open hands find the base of my chest and he
pushes—I don’t resist and fall on my knees two feet from him. He lifts the
rifle, points it right at my face, and I swear I can feel my pupils
dilate from the explosion of endorphins that are now racing through my veins.
He wants to shoot me so badly, but not as badly as I want him to shoot me.
This is it. Seconds left. I don’t know what
is next, but whatever it is, I’m ready for it.
He pulls the trigger.
Click.
Nothing.
“At approximately 11:57 a.m., a former
employee of Markovitz, Markovitz & Zytnick entered the main office with the
intentions of committing a workplace shooting. A visitor to the firm, Luke
Connors, surprised this man and subdued him, at which point it was realized
that the shooter’s assault-style rifle had jammed. Employees of the law firm
were then able to detain the shooter until law enforcement arrived.”
—Commissioner Albert Windows, Metropolitan
Police
I’m
sitting in the back of an ambulance on Lincon Avenue. Not because I’m hurt.
Because I’m a fucking idiot.
A million people are talking to me. Asking me
questions. Telling me how great I am. Calling me all sorts of things I won’t
repeat. They have no idea what they’re talking about.
They love me. They’re thankful for me. They
think God, of all people, sent me.
But it was just John, general manager of a
crappy hoagie restaurant four blocks away. Just because Billy was late. These
people don’t even know Billy.
I don’t need medical attention. I don’t need
attention of any kind.
“It’s standard procedure,” the EMT says,
completely uninterested by all of this.
The mayor’s coming to meet me, they tell me.
Maybe the governor, too, they’re saying.
I don’t want to meet anybody, I tell them.
But they think I’m being humble.
If you think this was a life-altering
experience, there is no such thing.
If you think my life is going to be different
after this, it’s not.
If you think I’m happy now, I’ve never been
and never will be.
If you think this is the resolution, you
weren’t paying attention.
If you think this is a happy ending, you
don’t get it.
