Sutterfeld You Are Not a Hero Read online

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  Copyright © 2015 by Tom Stern

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  Set in Minion

  ePub ISBN: 9781940207803

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

  Stern, Tom R.

  Sutterfeld , you are not a hero / by Tom Stern.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 9781940207797

  1. Business—Fiction. 2. Businesspeople—Fiction. 3. Corporations—Fiction. 4. Meaning (Philosophy)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3619.T47865 S88 2015

  813.6—dc23

  To C and R

  Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  1.

  Charleston Sutterfeld hated having to go to work with a black eye. Every person he saw would immediately gasp and query, “Are you all right?”

  To which Charleston would have to reply with an explanation of the events that transpired so as to bruise and malform his eye. “I was throwing a softball with an acquaintance and my acquaintance threw when I was talking to someone else,” he would say, as if to declare that, “I am not a fool, my acquaintance is.”

  Why, Charleston would wonder about himself, must I explain myself at all?

  For a while, in revolt against having to explain himself, Charleston began making up stories about his black eye: bar fight, jealous girlfriend, traffic accident. But such responses seemed to provoke further inquiry as to the details of the assumedly catastrophic event. This not only ultimately required additional explanation in its own right, but it also seemed to Charleston that forging these details was just a little too much like lying.

  In the year and a half since his being hired by Thundercom Corporation as an Assistant Consultant in the Menswear Manufacturing Department, Charleston had acquired no fewer than seven black eyes. And while such a statistic would seem to suggest a certain aggressiveness or downright proclivity for violence in a person’s character, in Charleston’s person quite the opposite happened to be true. Charleston was a gentle and considerate man, nearly impossible to anger. And although he was deep down quite codgerly, to the uninformed witness (which, regarding Charleston, entailed veritably all of mankind) he was quite the optimistic participant in life’s not-at-all-lost-to-him parade. He would listen to all of people’s variegated tales of life and living with a nod, a smile, and an encouraging “Yeah” or “Right.”

  The reasons for Charleston’s seven black eyes were, from least to most recent, as follows: a door, a door, a door (the first and third of which were the same door), the edge of a box packed with pictures and photo albums, a sneeze (which burst several capillaries), a softball to the face, and something in the night. It was this last black eye that was the most disturbing for Charleston (although having hit three doors in a row got Charleston a bit concerned as well), because this last black eye was immaculately conceived, and this after a most unthinkable day. A day made unthinkable by a one Mr. Twytharp, a man whose reputation was downright legendary.

  Inevitably, particularly in the earlier days of one’s employment at Thundercom Corporation, the topic of Mr. Twytharp would be broached. The fresh, young recruits would ask, “Who is this Twytharp?”

  And the answer would always be the same: “He’s the president.”

  “I know that,” the recruit would then reply, “but who is he? I’ve never seen him.”

  But no one would discuss this topic any further because no one at Thundercom Corporation had ever met Mr. Twytharp. And furthermore, everyone had been instructed not to speak about this man that they did not know, irrespective of what they may or may not come to know about him, although their reticence did not seem so much a fear of any consequence or persecution as a resigned acceptance of the indubitable truth that no one, ever, would be meeting Mr. Twytharp. He was not a normal man. He was the man whose vision, hard work, toil, and sacrifice brought unto the world Thundercom Corporation: “Mass Manufacturers of All Things Material,” as The Washington Post dubbed it in June of 1997. The Post reported that:

  Amidst the towering eighty-six floors of the Thundercom building, there is even a division for everything…literally. Harold Blatt is the Operations Manager for the Everything Department.

  Charleston was never sure, though, what exactly Harold did.

  Thundercom made: men’s clothes, women’s clothes, batteries, tools, electronics, soft goods, cookware, shoes (sport and dress), toys, accessories, automotive parts, books, musical instruments, hair product, computer software, furniture, butcher’s block cutting boards, candy, carbonated beverages, concrete, straws, stools, doormats, garden supplies, paper, windows, ink (pen and printer), pet supplies, pharmaceutical packaging, plastic, watches, fiber-optic cable, drill bits, stuffed animals, coffee stirrers, parking barriers (concrete and plastic), knit caps, door handles, tea sets, end tables, light fixtures, buttons and other fasteners, meaning, diapers, forensic pathology kits, surgical tools, everything, and a whole lot more. And they sold all of these products directly to retailers.

  In this same article, Mr. Twytharp had been quoted as having cheekily said about The Everything Department, “But having an Everything Department does not necessarily make you happy.”

  Charleston often wondered who heard Mr. Twytharp make this comment. It certainly was not anyone Charleston had met since coming to Thundercom. He knew this because he would always, upon meeting someone new, inquire of them whether ever before they had laid eyes on the mysterious man. The answer always came the same: a silent, almost terrified, shake of the head.

  On the day before Charleston got his seventh black eye, he went to the water cooler from which he conventionally took his drinks of water. The cooler sat in the northwest corner of the third floor of the Thundercom Tower. Typically, Charleston had one glass of water in the morning, one forty-five minutes before lunch, and one at around 3:00 p.m. (give or take a few minutes). While on this day Charleston’s first two drinks went off without a hitch, it was his third drink that proved problematic. Not only was the water cooler empty upon his approach, but Jane Dubrway was also standing, shell-shocked and empty-cupped, in front of the drained-dry cooler. Charleston knew that this could mean only one thing: a conversation was about to transpire.

  “It’s empty,” Jane said, her back still to Charleston.

  Charleston could not help but wonder if she knew it was him behind her. He considered asking her some sort of verifying question, but he could think of nothing, given the factual and sterile nature of their relationship (if one could even call it a relationship), that he could ask.

  So, instead, Charleston said, “What?”

  It seemed a docile and amenable enough response. And Charleston, when in doubt, was always polite. This was why he was always explaining himself.

  “It’s empty,” Jane reiterated, this time peering over her shoulder at Charleston.

  Charleston always forgot about how pretty Jane’s green eyes were and how not pretty the rest of her was.

  “Is there a refill?” Charleston asked optimistica
lly, when in truth he was marveling at how anyone could come to an empty cooler and not look for a refill.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  So Charleston looked beside the cooler, where the refills were kept. But he saw none there.

  “Looks like it’s empty,” said Charleston.

  “I’m so thirsty,” said Jane.

  “There’s another one on the fourth floor.”

  “Have you been happy here, Charleston?” asked Jane.

  Charleston failed to see how this was relevant to the conversation they had been having.

  “I’m sure it’s irrelevant,” explained Jane, “but I was just wondering.”

  Charleston thought for a moment over his past year and a half. Interestingly, he realized that in so thinking he did not think at all of his black eyes. Instead, when he thought of himself as an employee of Thundercom, he saw himself unblemished and dressed in pressed clothes, even though Charleston was never fully unblemished and his clothes were always wrinkled by the time that he had finished his morning walk to the office.

  “I suppose I am,” said Charleston.

  “I don’t think I am,” replied Jane. Then she looked about and asked, “Do you have a minute?”

  Charleston sometimes hated his impulse to be polite.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I’m lonely and feel unfulfilled. I want to do something with meaning,” began Jane.

  “Why don’t you apply for a transfer to the Meaning Department? They’re sure to have an opening sometime soon,” offered Charleston.

  “No, I mean real meaning. Not the stuff Thundercom manufactures.”

  “Oh yeah,” conceded Charleston. He frequently forgot that there was a difference between Thundercom products and reality. He always hated it when he did this.

  “I want to do something,” Jane went on, “that lets me feel like I’m helping others, not just facilitating their spending.”

  Charleston laughed because he found this funny, but he quickly realized that his laughter could have been interpreted as caustic. So he did what he always did when he feared his behavior potentially interpreted as impolite: he explained himself.

  “I’m only laughing,” he said, “because I was thinking the other day about how people say that money is the root of all evil…”

  “It’s a saying,” interrupted Jane.

  “Yes, that one,” continued Charleston. “And since money is so…prevalent a…presence…in contemporary times, I was thinking, Is everything evil then?”

  Charleston then laughed again.

  “That’s so sad,” said Jane.

  “I know,” laughed Charleston.

  He hated explaining himself. It never sounded the way he meant it to sound.

  “I want to do something not so sad,” continued Jane.

  “Less sad than this, anyway,” said Charleston.

  “Yes, I guess. I find this all very sad.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  Then it was silent. It was also 3:07 p.m., and Charleston was not only thirsty but he was also now running behind schedule.

  “I’ve got to go,” said Charleston. And he turned and left.

  By the time Charleston made it to the fourth floor water cooler, it was 3:09 p.m. He filled his cup and headed immediately back to the elevator.

  Once upon the elevator and with a sudden, sobering jolt, Charleston recognized that in the haste of his attempt to return rapidly to work so as to compensate for the time lost on the water cooler mishap, he had failed to notice that he had stepped onto an elevator that was not only going up instead of down, but that also happened to have its red light on. (On page number one, and in bold, of all of company employee contracts, a paragraph clearly explains how Thundercom elevators are equipped with a red lightbulb which, when illuminated, indicates that “no one, no one, no one” is to board the elevator. Although no one knew why this was so important [the bolded paragraph offered no explanation] everyone nevertheless knew that it was so important.) Charleston first noticed that his elevator ride was proving exceptionally long for merely downwardly traversing one floor. An instant later he noticed the heretofore perhaps apocryphal, but now downright undeniable, red light recasting the hue of his skin.

  “Balls of shit!” Charleston exclaimed.

  And though he tried pressing buttons, none of the buttons would illuminate, nor would they stop the elevator. The numbers above the door kept growing larger and larger. Already it was in the fifties.

  And there are only eighty-six floors in total, thought Charleston.

  Watching the numbers increase, and increase, and increase, Charleston realized that he had never before observed how quickly and quietly the Thundercom elevators moved. After all, he had never been above the fourth floor before, and he had never traveled more than three floors total in a single elevator trip. He supposed that he had never really thought much at all about the floors above the fourth floor, and had consequently limited his awareness of this building by adhering to certain presuppositions ingrained into his behavior through the empirical revelations of his individual pattern of elevator use.

  A most unenlightened behavior, he noted of himself.

  And then the elevator stopped. Charleston looked up at the glowing red letters above the elevator doors.

  Eighty-seven, the letters read.

  But this floor, thought Charleston, doesn’t even exist.

  And Charleston was right. His contract as well as The Washington Post had corroborated this fact, not to mention the buttons on the elevator.

  And then the doors opened.

  And standing in the space just behind the open doors was a two-foot-tall, hairless, man-like thing whose pink-gray body lacked any and all musculature. The man-like thing also happened to be entirely naked, but this seemed ultimately quite insignificant in contrast to the frighteningly uncommon and seemingly vulnerable shape, size, and texture of the being’s body. Charleston was really only able to see the mushy entity for about a second and a half because it, upon seeing Charleston in the red light of the elevator, screamed, “Oh my fuck!” in a screeching falsetto and scurried off. Although the little being’s scurry was not so much a scurry as it was a squishy-sounding reformation of mass that somehow moved the little man-like thing’s body through space with rather astonishing rapidity and economy.

  “I didn’t mean to get on the elevator,” called Charleston after the squishy mass, even though he had intended to get on the elevator, he simply had not realized that the red light in the elevator was on. But explaining all of this was not as conducive as a short, emphatic, declarative statement.

  It was silent then for a moment. Until the elevator beeped, and the doors shut. Before the doors shut, though, Charleston could not help but notice that off against the entire back wall of the eighty-seventh floor, which did not exist in the first place, were a handful of absolutely massive and glisteningly well-oiled metal cogs turning, if at all, almost imperceptibly slowly around the teeth of one another. And also that it was hot, almost moist: a good, solid ninety degrees probably. Charleston had always been acutely sensitive to temperature and, as a result, had developed a very refined and accurate ability to estimate them. He had found that he was typically plus or minus three-quarters of a degree in any given environment.

  Once the elevator doors closed, the red light flicked off. It was 3:12 p.m. Charleston felt not at all the same as he had felt just three minutes ago.

  2.

  When he stepped from the elevator, everything on the third floor seemed almost caustically just as it had been before; everything except Charleston and a red square of card stock that sat on his desk and read:

  Mr. Sutterfeld,

  Tomorrow, at 3:17 p.m., the red light will come on in the elevators. Please take an elevator up to the eighty-seventh floor. Your position at Thund
ercom will be discussed.

  Timothy Spall

  Vice President and Special Assistant to Mr. Twytharp

  Please bring this card with you. Please show this card to no one. Please do not discuss the contents or existence of this card with anyone.

  Charleston folded the card over once and placed it in his pant pocket, looking about to make sure that no one had seen him with the card.

  The timing of the card’s arrival upon his desk made Charleston unclear as to whether or not this had anything to do with the little man-like thing he had just seen. The reaction time seemed a bit fast for the card to be about this jolting incident, but this incident seemed a bit jolting to not receive a fast reaction. Either way, Charleston was back at work now. He had never before noticed how truly quiet it was on the third floor. He felt guilty of being offensively loud with every move he made. An overwhelming uneasiness was tugging at his chest and throat. He was sure that he looked a fright to any and all passersby. Fortunately, though, no one was passing by.

  Whenever Charleston got uneasy, he made a practice of extrapolating upon the potential causes of his uneasiness. This exercise always created a long list of concerns while failing ever to abate the feelings it was meant to extinguish. Indeed, if anything, Charleston’s lists often just made him all the more uneasy as it made him systematically aware of those things about which he was uneasy. More often than not, time, and only time, would bring Charleston back to a reasonable state (even though Charleston hated resigning himself to something so uncontrollable and unreasonable as time).

  Nevertheless, as the day grew later, time’s healing powers helped Charleston grow more and more relaxed, even though his ominous morning meeting was drawing perpetually nearer.

  Time, thought Charleston, cannot be counted upon to make any sense at all.

  As if to further his hypothesis, Charleston slept surprisingly soundly that night. It made some sense in that his sheets had been laundered but two days before and his bedclothes, too, were fresh and clean. But none of this alone could even possibly account for the lucid, almost enlightened, and certainly uncharacteristic moment Charleston experienced in the instant before he drifted off to sleep.