The day that Roger was born, a terrible, unforgivable mistake occurred at a small-town hospital maternity ward. Two babies were born two minutes apart, two doors down both with the given name of Roger. A hapless candy-striper named Constance Black somehow managed to switch the name tags, and happy go lucky infant Roger Goodspeed became Roger Devland, an Irish surname that meant Misfortune. Two sets of parents left the hospital none the wiser, and the candy-striper turned in her apron for her day job at the canning factory across town.
The trail of misfortune that followed Roger Goodspeed (nee Devland) was easy to catalogue if you knew where to look. For example, he was once stood up on a blind date with a woman who lived in the next town over. Unbeknownst to Roger, the acquaintance who’d fixed him up, had really just been desperate to force his anti-social cousin out of her house, so he lied to her and said that she was going on a museum tour. As soon as she discovered the truth, she went ixnay on the ateday and refused to leave her apartment again for anything other than work.
Roger went to see a therapist after this unfortunate dating disaster, who turned out to be a dog walker posing as a doctor in a storage unit. Undeterred by the unusual background and convinced that the half price coupon made the counseling session a deal in any case, Roger paid the young man $200 to learn that he suffered from clinical depression.
The diagnosis did not come as a shock. Nothing came as a shock to Roger, because nothing could outweigh the ennui that was his life. Every day of Roger’s life felt exactly the same as the one before. As assistant supervisor pro tem, he would sit at the desk in his glass box/office and wait for the agency to send in new temps. Yesterday, he met with a young man named Arlo Black. Strangely enough, Roger would have sworn that he’d met with Arlo before. In fact, déjà vu could not begin to describe the feeling that Roger got when he saw Arlo’s cheerful face pop up outside his office.
The face wasn’t overly remarkable. More like: average in every single way that mattered, and some that didn’t. And yet, Arlo’s face elicited images of a hundred yesterdays in Roger’s mind, all filled with an anxious chuckle. All trying so very hard to be special. Roger was beginning to worry that he might be suffering from paranoid delusions. Perhaps he should dig out his yellow pages and ring up his old shrink.
As a bit of light amusement, Roger had pawned Arlo off on… what’s her name… Janice? Talk about a match made in Hell: a woman who just wants to be left alone and a man who can’t stand to be ignored. Roger smiled faintly. That was almost fun.
The lights in Roger’s office subtly brightened, signaling that his 7:30 appointment had arrived. He cleared his throat and shuffled the stack of papers on his desk. The click of the latch on the door around the bend sounded the same as any other day. But when the footsteps rounded the corner, it wasn’t a part-time temp desperate to prove himself. It was the receptionist, Bertha.
Bertha tilted her head to peer at Roger over the tops of her cat’s eye spectacles, massive beehive hairdo wobbling dangerously.
“Roger,” she said. “Your 7:30 hasn’t shown up.”
“Who was it?” Roger asked in a bored voice.
Bertha glanced at the clipboard clutched in her arms. “Arlo Black.”
There must be some mistake. Arlo always shows up, Roger thought. Sometimes he’s a bit early. Sometimes he’s covered in coffee. Sometimes he’s babbling that his whole life is just a nightmare, but he always shows up.
Roger began to sweat, the yellowed stains on his too big work shirt getting yellower and damper by the second. Convinced now that he really should ring up that discount shrink, his heart began to palpitate in a most unhealthy way.
“Check the can,” Roger said. “Or the lobby.”
“I did. He’s not there. Gillian isn’t at her desk either.”
Roger blinked slowly. Just how many people were missing today? Turning his head to the right, he gazed on the glowing red numbers reflected on the glass wall. 7:31.
This was bad. Someone higher up the food chain was going to blame him, Roger knew. Straightening his tie and sighing sadly, he pushed the padded chair back from his desk, wobbly wheels grating across the carpet. It looked like the Mountain was going to have to go to Muhammad.
Roger Goodspeed plodded despondently along the sidewalks between the firm and the watering hole, aka: Forever Pharma and Java Joe’s Coffee Haus.
Roger hated being responsible for other people. The idea that his job depended on whether or not someone else was doing their job was hell for Roger. But it wasn’t as though he had a lot of options. There was just so little that he was good at. He used to work in acquisitions, but he’d failed miserably at that job, seeing as he was sorely lacking in interpersonal people skills. He was quickly replaced and shunted down to the firm where he was given a job so easy that a trained monkey could do it. In fact, a monkey was who Roger replaced when the charming chimp got promoted to accounting.
As Roger approached the watering hole, commuters moved haphazardly along the sidewalks according to their individual programing. Roger paused outside to read the sign on the door. Joe liked to write anti inspirational messages on the bulletin board. Things that usually gave Roger a teensy bit of amusement. Things like ‘Never. Give up.’ or ‘Thank you for smoking.’ Today, he’d written a slightly longer message on the white board. Two-inch red letters spelled out ‘It’s okay to quit. Nobody really expected you to succeed anyway.’
Roger pushed the door open and glanced around the mostly empty room. No Arlo or What’s Her Name. Joe Jr was waiting behind the
