big hand print

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T. K. Lee

Big Hand Print

I

This man, Bill Lexx, as I was about to find out, was standing in

front of the third story men's bathroom window when I went to

use it this morning. Outside the window, not inside the bathroom,

but on the outside, in a suit, which I might add was not a three-

piece, and he had taken his tie off; his socks didn't match the

color of his suit. I only noticed that because I sit down when I

pee. I know a lot of men don't do that, or would never admit it,

but I do. My grandmother taught me it was impolite to be heard

using the bathroom, period.

So, I'm sitting on the toilet, and this man, Bill, I guess he

heard me, because I had to put the toilet seat down, you know,

so I could sit on it, and it clanged against the porcelain base of

the toilet. And he turns around and stares at me. Thank God I

hadn't taken my pants off yet. I'd sat down on the toi let to retie

my shoes.

I forgot to mention that.

See, Margie, the secretary in my office, made me untie my

shoes when she was getting off the elevator. I mean, accidentally,made me untie them. She goes down to the basement to smoke

instead of outside, says she can't completely appreciate a

cigarette outside. I had walked a little past the elevator, not

meaning to not speak, and then felt guilty and didn't want to be

rude so I turned around to speak, and in the process of turning

around, I stepped on my left shoestring.

She couldn't have cared less.

The elevator doors shut. So, I took the stairs up to the next

floor to go to the bathroom. The bathrooms weren't designed

with common sense in mind, just the safety of each gender. The

building itself has only had one renovation, and that was out of

necessity due to Camille, back in 1969. Nothing else has ever

been done to alter its appearance, not even for convenience. It

found its way onto the National Registry, about a hundred years

after it housed Confederate soldiers; now, it exists to depreciate

history.

The men's bathrooms are on every other floor.

And right as I got to the third floor, I saw Mr. Yola and got

nervous.

That's how my other shoe got untied because I stepped on my

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Stories: Big Hand Print by T. K. Lee http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/BigHand

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right shoestring when I saw him, but I couldn't stop right then to

tie either of them back because I thought Yola had seen me, and

even though I was just going to the bathroom, he'd find some

way to make me feel guilty for it. He's now the number one man

at the Shipping office, and has been since Mr. Leman was found

dead floating around Lake Tia O'Khata, last July. Yola's a true

Mississippi gentleman; he doesn't have any children. He was

mumbling to himself and had a rather glossed look to his face; I

just went on to the bathroom, and sat down on the toilet to tie

my shoes.

And I don't know what I was thinking. But after I tied my

shoes, and this man, Bill, you know, is still staring at me I told

him his socks didn't match his suit.

"What?" Bill mouthed.

He couldn't hear me; the window was closed. I got up and

opened the windowhowever, it's that old kind of window that

opens out instead of raises up, so I had to ask him, I had to raise

my voice, to scoot over to the left a little bit so I could push the

window out.

"What!?"

I tried not to raise my voice, first, and mouthed back at him,instead. You know like you do when you're in a car and you're

talking to someone else in another car, like at a stoplight, and

maybe you know them.

"Scoot over to the left. I cannot open the window. It opens

out, not up."

I motioned with my arms to indicate what I was asking him to

do. After a second or two, he caught on.

I pushed the window out, and then we had another problem.

The window got stuck. See, the windows are tall, and they'replain glass, by the way, not frosted like in the ladies' which all

bathroom windows should be, and when I pushed them open,

they split, you know, one went out to the right and the other to

the left. And the left one, on Bil l's side, got stuck. I did try to

close it back when I realized he couldn't then step around it, but

it wouldn't budge. If the left window had gone all the way back to

the wall of the building, he could have gotten around the window

and crawled back into the bathroom. But, as it was, he couldn't

move, and the men's bathroom on the third floor is the last room

on that floor, on the east side of the building.

Basically, he was trapped. There wasn't any other window for

him to go to.

I forgot all about peeing.

I leaned out the window, and looked through the glass at him.

"Hey! I was just trying to tell you your socksdidn't

matchyour suit."

I don't know what the hell I was thinking.

Then, you know what he did; he started to cry. And I don't

mean simple crying, I mean deep crying drool was stringing

down from the sides of his lips, cutting off into drops falling

the length of three floors.

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I can't believe I told him his socks didn't match.

I don't know what the hell I was thinking.

II

Eight minutes ago, Mr. Yola fired Bill, without remorse, without

regret. I'd passed him, Yola, on his way back from Bi ll's office,

apparently. The things I wouldn't have known if I hadn't gone to

the bathroom, huh?

Bill Lexx (and he was very exact with this, methodical) said it

took him six and a half minutes to climb out of the break-room

window and around to this side of the building. He took two steps

a minute, precisely, except at the corner. Bill Lexx was very

thorough about this process; I imagine he's rather good at his

job: an accountant. Or, you know, used to be. He was also very

anxious to explain himself.

Of course, this side of the bui lding faced the executive

parking lot.

I didn't know why that was important, at first.

Bill Lexx's wife is pregnant with twins. She doesn't have a job.

Bill had a wonderful health plan through the company. Two

months away from five years in the same position. Raises usually

start around then. It was the perfect job for a man of exactitude,

as he seemed to be.

Bill says he has no idea what happened to the money. I

believe him.

Then, again, the tears.

"I signed the papers, I signed off on them, the papersI know

that it it it it it came to the office. Alicia knows. She canshesheshe'll tell you that!!" Margie may smoke, but at least she's

efficient. But, then, I didn't really know Alicia, other than she'd

worn a cotton antler headband with bells on them, at the last

three Christmas parties.

It must have been a large amount of money.

I looked down below us. You know, three stories is not all that

high. I mean it's not so high that people can't notice you,

especially when you're standing on the ledge outside of the

building. But nobody even looked at us; none of the people

walking by paid any attention.

He quit crying.

And, then, Bill Lexx asked me to forgive him.

"Tell me you forgive me!" He was becoming irrational.

So, I told him.

"I forgive you."

What harm could it do? If it helped him to realize what he

was doing, if it helped him think rationally, you know, why not,

I'd do it. I mean, I did it. Maybe in a bizarre way I was speaking

for the company, you know, to him. I don't know. At the same

time, and it hit me all of a sudden, itit seemed an enormous


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responsibility for me to forgive this man.

You know, when I first came to work here, the Crisis

Management Team, from Community Counseling their offices

are across the street in the Bancorp South building was hired

by this company to conduct a seminar on "Suicidal Tendencies in

the Workforce."

I didn't go.

I didn't have suicidal tendencies.

I don't think outside the box very well, I guess.

"Bill, I know you haven't mentionedjumping off, from, from

here, and I am hoping it's because you are changing your mind if

that was your original intention."

"I, I.I just, I" He stuttered. I waited for more.

There was no more. He just stood still.

I couldn't help but feel frustrated. Then, he started sobbing

again.

"Your wife is pregnant, Bi ll! You can't forget about that! She

needs you; those babies will need you! So you lost your job.

You'll get another one!"

I didn't believe that myself. It's hard to come back from being

fired.

He got so mad he hit the window.

Glass splintered everywhere, down to the ground and all over

the ledge.

Then, I peed my pants. I have a fear of ingesting glass; my

father was an alcoholic.

Thank God none of the glass hit me.

This would have been a lot worse if we'd been in a kitchen, I

thought, Be glad we're not in a kitchen.

His hand was bleeding, naturally. I ran to the sink, to the

towel dispenser and ripped out one of those big rolls of brown

paper towels that seem to thrive in industrial buildings. God, I

bet that company makes some money.

Maybe they were hiring.

I tried to tear off a large sheet of it, but Bill Lexx reached

through the broken window, grabbed that whole roll and threw it

straight to the ground. He didn't seem to care that he had glass

stuck in his hand, a few brittle shards embedded around his

knuckles.

"Bill. Come inside. Please. Don't jump. I mean, look, look! You

popped out the glass, you can crawl through, at leastI can get

an ambulancethe hospital's only a block or"

"Shut the hell up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up."

And I'm thinking it's amazing that not one single man has


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walked into this bathroom yet. We must have some powerful

bladders in this building. I was actually starting to get pissed off,

you know? Why did I have to deal with this? I wasn't all that

close to Bill Lexx; we don't even work in the same department.

God, why did I even look at his damn socks.

Still, I was in the middle of it now.

Here I was petitioning for an arbitrary man's life, rallying for

his unborn twins and pitiful wife, for his seemingly indiscriminate

purpose for living.

Bill stopped crying and stood up. He had alternated half-stand

to crouch for most of his confessional. He was bleeding all over

his suit, it was navy, a polyester blend, and the empty window

frame. He put his hand on the brick wall of the building,

preparing to fully stand, I thought.

His hand had such a large spread.

His shoulders relaxed, and he leaned against the wall,

standing straight up. He must have been over six feet tall. I

guess that's how I saw his socks to begin with; his pants didn't

quite fit the length of his legs. He grabbed onto the window

frame.

My left hand had been holding, white-knuckled, to the

glassless frame stuck on the ledge; my arm shot out to grab it

when he first started to stand up, for support. I guess I was so

nervous, I'd forgotten as I backed away, you know, to give Bill

Lexx room, I backed away holding to the window frame. That

with the pressure of Bill's weight must have been exactly the

force needed because we dislodged the window. And while I was

standing there, my crotch wet from urine, unable to let go of the

window frame, Bill Lexx sucked in a quick breath, his hand

slipped from the brick, and over the side he went, without

exhaling.

I want to say he fell at the same speed as the brown paper

towel roll, according to physics, but he didn't. He fell in slow

motion, he did.

I watched him all the way down to the pavement; he landed a

few feet from an illegally parked dark blue Lexus. Not too many

shades different in color from his suit. A passer-by might have

assumed he came with the car, or had tripped out of it, consumed

by an aneurysm that had caused a terrible nosebleed. For the fall

to be such a significant one, the result was relatively neat and

contained.

I guess I killed him. Not that I like admitting that to myself.

It certainly hadn't been my intention. And, I suppose it

doesn't even matter now what color his socks were. But, so you

know, they were a light green, like a pistachio.

Argyle, even. Never seen a pair like them since.

I hope I never do.

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