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BIG MAN
by
N Quentin Woolf
Here he is, The Man in the
Hat, says Mike Spencer, who at ten to nine is established in
the work canteen with an agglomeration of amanuenses and
henchpersons: my managerial colleagues. Both the conference
room and the management suite are undergoing refurbishment.
Mike, bald and squat, who both in appearance and power but
most especially in size has always reminded me of the Wizard
of Oz, sits at the centre of a row of people ranged along
one side of an MDF breakfast counter like some spoof of the
Last Supper. He’s five feet four. He’s got the prime spot,
near the espresso machine. He looks like it means something
to him. Hapless workers hoping for an early-morning brew
wander in, grunt to themselves, and bugger off.
I exchange pleasantries
with several of my co-managers, and look for somewhere to
sit. Mike pointedly ignores me. Thanks to the delay from my
Turkish friend at the coffee shop, I have been the last to
arrive; consequently, all the stools of suitable height for
use with a breakfast bar have been snaffled by the
Disciples. The only option is to fetch an ordinary office
chair and pump it as high as possible. Even with my
biological advantage, I am left barely able to rest my nose
on the counter.
– Very nice, mocks Mike
Spencer, a lot better. I consider it best not to guess what
he might mean by that. Shall we begin, he says. Management
meeting, Monday the fourth, he says. Present are myself,
Bob, Anne, Philida, Greg, Robbie, Tania, Bryony, Phillipa,
Tyrone, Anjan, Ainsley and the Man in the Hat. Item one is
the ongoing refurbishment of the management suite. We were
told this would be completed in a week, and it’s been a week
and a half now.
Ouch. This is how every
Monday should start.
– That figure is
incorrect, I venture. Two weeks is what we’ve been working
to –
– Can you speak up, says
Mike. Can’t hear a word you’re saying.
– The timescale for the
refurbishments works–
– I still can’t hear you,
says Mike. The counter’s in the way. It’s muffling you.
Can’t you stand up and speak? You’re tall enough.
– With respect, there’s
no need to refer to my height, I say, feeling a surge of
adrenaline make the pain in my neck pound.
– Stand up, if you want
to say something.
I’m committed, now.
Standing, noticing that everyone else has averted their
gaze, I repeat, there’s no call for referring to my height.
– How about I decided
what there’s call for? he says, going the shade of crimson
which anyone who’s worked in the company for any length of
time knows only too well. If I say there’s call for
something, there’s call for it. I say there’s call for us to
be back in the management suite, for instance, instead of
stuck out here in the fucking canteen. A week, you said–
– Two.
– Don’t fucking interrupt
me. Who do you think you fucking are, interrupting me?
– Sorry.
– I said shut up! Stop
fucking talking and listen. You said one week. I heard you
say one week. I’m sorry you’ve got such a poor memory that
you can’t remember. Maybe it would help if you stopped
dressing up like a lanky fucking Dick Tracey and started
remembering what you’ve said.
First minute, I tell my
wife on the phone, later that day.
I’m at the pub, come
tea-time, rehearsing ways to tell that tin-pot little tyrant
where to stick his job, when a skinhead in his forties
sidles into my peripheral vision. He raises his eyebrows at
me. I look away.
Strangers catching your
eye is normal, at the jump, of course, but he doesn’t leave
it there. He drifts closer.
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