Small Places : Nick L Belardes [115 of 128]

• Me: "That's an interesting statement." I know she sits in her office and types emails to her boyfriend and writes about balloon festivals."
• The rest of the time Eliza wanders the halls and cubicles for $85,000 a year. Milt made more though. And he could speak French.
• While Milt seemed built from electricity and bug mandibles, she appears to have rolled out of an old 1970s TV set.
• After our talk she begins a new routine of staring at Mulani from her doorway. She looks like a sitcom extra. Franken TV. A caricature.
• At lunchtime, Eliza paces outside the elevator. She leans against a wall, pretends to read a novel while marking our coming and going.
• If that isn't enough, the marketing meetings have become celebrations of Post-Its and fat markers.
• "Think of your favorite color," she says. "Now, take a Post-It and describe that color.
• Take another Post-It and tell me three good things about this company.
• "Then tell me three things you don't like about the person on your left." Me: "Do you want that on a Post-It or share now?" Eliza stares.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [114 of 128]

• I'm in shock. But Eliza ignores my surprised look and babbles: "I want to travel to France to revamp Buildicon's ads." Me: "France?"
• Eliza: "I need a French countryside vacation." Me: "You just started." Eliza: "I don't like your attitude." I decide to change the subject.
• Me: "I hear you're in theatre. You going to be in a production soon?"
• I wonder if she will start performing right from her Buildicon office. Eliza: "Yes. I'm auditioning for
• 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.'" I immediately blurt: "Nurse Ratchet?" Eliza smiles: "How did you know?"
• In the afternoon Eliza calls me into her office again. "You and Mulani both took a two hour lunch." Me: "I did not." Eliza: "You did too."
• I knew better than that. It was one hour and fifteen minutes. I give in: "OK, I won't be late again since you're being so ticky-tack."
• Eliza: "Good. Two hours is too long." Me: "I was fifteen minutes late." Eliza: "If there's so much free time, we have too many workers."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [113 of 128]

• Thirty-seven
• Eliza Lumber is one of the worst names imaginable. First contact was made when I peered in the window of her Subaru in the parking lot.
• "Who in the Hell does this car belong to?" I say to Mulani after we tackle a Chinese food buffet. "The new marketing manager," she says.
• The Subaru is filled with Hostess donut wrappers and books on theatre, like: "How to Talk like You're Talking," and "Lights, Camera, You."
• More titles: "Great Theatrical Moments on Forgotten Sitcoms," and "How to Avoid Rigidity in Non-Realism: Epic Muppet Disasters."
• I’m thinking: Here’s someone who wants to learn how to fake her way through life with as much preservatives as possible.
• I'm sitting in Eliza Lumber's office when she blurts: "You know, I don't really know much about marketing and ads. I am picking up on it."
• Me: "Oh, self taught." Eliza leans forward in revelation: "Everything I've learned about advertising is from sitcoms and other TV shows."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [112 of 128]

• "I'm too much of a rebel for that. Besides, I hate meetings." Mike: "But you hate everything."
• She storms out of the cubicle for bad coffee. Mulani has a victory in the supply cabinet war after tricking office staff
• into purchasing gel pens and a high-end three-hole punch. Her deftly planed Post-Its were tactically positioned
• to make it look like at least twelve different office workers had made requests.
• In response, Gertrude Ring, sent out what Mulani giggles is a hopelessly self-defeating email on office supply procedure.
• Gertrude's email: "...in order to make for timely and accurate delivery of your order, please do not leave Post-Its in the supply cabinet."
• "It's the Post-Its that did them in," Mulani laughs. "They were forced to come up with a procedure.
• Now they want the catalog on my desk..." Me: "A catalog?" Mulani: "I ordered one when the office workers were too lame-brained to do so."
• Suddenly Gertrude walks past like a ghoul. Me: "Can't we surrender? I keep getting called into Ken Grippo's office and
• I'm tired of staring at his nose." Mulani: "Casualty of war." Me: "His nose might attack me.
• You might not like me after I'm maimed by that thing." Mulani: "Oh, don't worry yourself." She walks away.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [111 of 128]

• "To be honest, I'm not even sure if she had a neck," Mike says. "That green dress was sure tight around her gizzard."
• "They hired my third grade teacher," I say. "They went from Hollywood sleezy to Texan, to cheesy sitcom actress." Mike: "It gets worse."
• Me: "Worse?" Mike: "You'll see." Me: "How could it get worse?" Mike: "I saw the supplies she ordered. She's a live one."
• We walk to Mulani's office and she's sitting there, glasses on and staring at the computer. Me: "Oh man, she's doing global data entry."
• I peer closer. "It's that data program that's going to revolutionize how we organize. She'll never hear us. She's got the Internet stare."
• Mulani feigns a trance. Me: "She must have entered the same information twelve times. Would be easier to enter data into a sausage."
• "Mulani, come back to us," I say. She giggles. Mike: "Oh look, it's Joan." Joan: "Hi guys." She smells like stress.
• "Passed up for manager again?" Mike says. Joan: "I don't want that stinkin' job. I never applied and I never will.”

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [110 of 128]

• "Who knew she hid such a heart ailment?" Mike said. She had been walking and collapsed. Had she snorted drugs before her stroll?
• Mike: "You just don't know about people. A bodybuilder with a bad heart. Hate to change the subject. Did you hear? The Texan is leaving."
• Thirty-six
• Me: "What do you mean the Texan is leaving?" Mike: "We're getting a new manager. He was just interim. You know, a temporary stand-in."
• Me: "Who is the lucky replacement? Maybe the return of Milt Butterlink?" Mike: "I don't believe in ghosts."
• Me: "He's not dead." Mike: "Looked like a zombie at the funeral." Me: "Zombies are undead: not dead, not alive." Mike grimaces, shrugs.
• "Whatever," Mike says. "She was wearing a Little House On The Prairie dress. Sort of looked like a piano player from the Old West."
• "Oh no, not a calico dressed manager! Was her dress green? It must have been green. Tell me she didn't have a high neckline," I say.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [109 of 128]

• Social groups form among the staring, sad faces. I don't go to any of them. I notice Milt Butterlink in a black-and-white plaid suit.
• By himself, he leans against a wall and has that same boyish, wooden grin on his face. His hair is a mess.
• His fat hands stuffed in pockets. Because I know nobody else will, I walk over. "How are you?" I ask. He looks away.
• I leave him standing helplessly lost in his mortality. The next morning I find a small box on my desk.
• Inside is a black coffee mug with the likeness of Katie Starburn on it. "The ultimate in corporate farewells," I say.
• Mike: "What about a calendar?" Me: "Too much finality. Eventually you reach December."
• Mike: "Collectable coffee stirrers?" Me: "Too small to read the fine print." Mike: "Pens?" Me: "Everybody loses them."
• "I think I need a shot of whiskey. I'm gonna miss that girl," Mike says. "She sure brightened up the land of cubicles. Don't you agree?"
• "Oh sure," I lie. I can't help but think of what Katie said at the Day of the Dead party. She had spilled her hardened, dying heart.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [108 of 128]

• Memories flood of her moving against me. My stomach churns in an agonizing twist. My mouth barely forms words: "When, Joan? When?"
• "Last night. Just after work," she says. My head hurts. My heart hurts. It beats and pushes blood that pulses, stings, throbs.
• With each second my fragile heart hurts more and more. It beats harder in my chest until drums pound a deafening death march.
• Thirty-five
• Outside the funeral home a sea of cars seem to have washed ashore. Palm trees droop leafy heads like shadowy gatekeepers.
• Surrounding the red-brick walls, rosebushes seem to playfully stretch, mocking the finality of the place.
• In the distance, flat cemetery lots are covered with manicured lawns and lined with dark green hedgerows. Nearby, a crowd gathers.
• I watch Joan and a group of women make their way toward each other. Buildicon workers gather like flocks of grey, dark-eyed waterfowl.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [107 of 128]

• The offices are darkened. It's early. I continue to hum a tune as I turn on my computer. It blinks and turns off. "Damn thing," I say.
• I hit the button again. The computer turns on then flashes off. I grumble and crawl under the desk to examine connector cables.
• After poking around I realize the main power cable is loose. "Ha!" I say. As I crawl out from under the desk I notice Joan standing there.
• She's probably got fifty tasks for me. I press a button and the computer flashes on. "Yes!" These little victories can salvage any Monday.
• begin shuffling items on my desk trying desperately to remember how I am supposed to begin my day. Joan is still at the foot of my desk.
• Any early morning thoughts of a day's head start ended with the cop's loudspeaker. "You'll never believe what happened," I say.
• I continue: "I was walking on Main and this cop..." Joan isn't listening. She looks down at her feet, ignoring me. "She's dead," she says.
• I'm laughing and not even listening. Joan is crestfallen. "She's dead," she repeats. Suddenly my heart floats into the ether.
• I imagine Mulani's face smiling and then in agony. I fall onto my chair and can't breathe. I imagine her caressing me, her lips on mine.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [106 of 128]

• I give "How do you do's?" to limping bag ladies. I smile at fluffy clouds like they were put in life's playpen for me to coo at.
• Then there's the occasional near-death experience with a car not yielding to me: the unwary pedestrian. "Asshole!" I scream.
• As a suburban nearly flattens me I stomp across the street suddenly thinking: "I have the worst possible life of anyone I know."
• As I walk under my morning cloud I suddenly stop in my tracks. My name is blasted from a loudspeaker: "Willie, where are you going? Stop."
• I slowly turn only to see a cop car stopped in the middle of the road. Again I hear my name blasted along downtown streets.
• "Willie, you don't know where you're going. Stop. Think about it." I squint, wondering if God is in that vehicle or if my fly is down.
• I realize the police officer in the car is a cop I know. He's laughing because I nearly wet my pants. Thank God for the police.
• I'm miserable in fake laughter as I head up to my cubicle. The elevator is a cold, weighted ride. I hum. I giggle.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [105 of 128]

• All I know is these corporate guys won’t pay for my bus fare across town, let alone a ticket to France where I can get drunk with Ichabod.
• On top of it all Joan is back with the company. She’s already pacing downstairs in the parking garage and chain smoking.
• Did she ever leave? "There is another," Joan says. She takes a deep puff as if the garage is her office. Me: "You sound so Yoda."
• She even looks sort of green. Joan: "You're so Episode V lately." Me: "It's the best movie.
• So, are you going to be our new marketing manager?" "Now there's a cold day in the marketing department," Joan laughs.
• he looks like she just finished burying Milt in an abandoned mine.
• Thirty-four
• Some days when I walk to work I think I've got the best life. I get to release stress through a great pedestrian morning.
• I curse about my life and get angry, then grimace at birds and cats and kids walking to school. It's nice. I feel free!

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [104 of 128]

• Katie laughs and continues: "It's a dog-eat-dog world, honey. Take as much as you can while you still have time.
• "I just went to Vegas and snorted up as much as I could. I took it. You should too. I'm not going to keep offering myself to you."
• Thirty-three
• Even though I never liked Milt Butterlink, I never held it against him why the company Prez would send lowly office workers to France.
• I have never wanted to go to the French countryside or a French city, meet French people, or get kissed in Paree.
• OK, I have wanted to embark on an Indiana Jones tour of the Louvre.
• It's not that I want a free trip. I don't want to attend wireless trade shows in Capetown, Orlando or Caracas. It's the justification.
• You realize more and more the fallacy of the entire intellectual and philosophical existence of a company as you realize inconsistencies.
• I would rather eat Top Ramein and be happy knowing I didn't depend on my sexuality to get to the top. I think.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [103 of 128]

• Katie: "Is it time for everyone else to leave?" I see Mike at the skeleton tree hanging barbecued chicken legs. I pretend not to notice.
• "So where's your girlfriend?" Katie asks. Me: "I don't have a girlfriend." Katie: "Yes you do. That Mulani girl. That tramp.
• "You know it was me who caused her pay to get docked when she was sick. Serves her right. I never liked her anyway.
• "I just signed her little name to everything I could. Milt noticed and shook up her world. It's always better to embarrass someone."
• Even I'm shocked by this turn of news from Katie. I step back. "You and Milt? She never told me she had a dock in pay," I say.
• Katie: "Forget that loser. I make twice her pay. And that means I'm a better woman, right?
• "Look, her husband doesn't love her. She makes low pay thanks to me, and she has some kind of illness. Sounds mental.
• “Any day now she’s going to be hanging from that tree with the rest of your skeletons.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [102 of 128]

• In her fast talk I don’t know if she said: skeleton, gelatin, or fish. She instantly complained about a lack of excitement in bed.
• Mike and I are below the window. It’s set rather high and overlooks a narrow walkway between the apartment and a fence.
• On my tiptoes I can see the tops of two heads. Voices quickly chatter, and unintelligibly at that.
• I place a foot on an air conditioner unit, hoist my left knee onto its surface, then slowly raise myself into position.
• Katie has just unhooked a black bra revealing two huge breasts. The girl smiles, reaches over and begins to squish with nimble fingers.
• Mike and I look at each other. He's gawking too. He shrugs as if to say, "What the heck, I like these." I'm thinking: lumpy Play-Doh.
• Katie walks out of the house. She wears a big leopard-skin fur coat and walks up to me: "Hey lovely."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [101 of 128]

• The battle reminds me of Buildicon company jackets. It takes the company four weeks to decide which jacket to order for each employee.
• When workers refuse to pay, only one jacket is ordered. With all the work hours wasted, free jackets could have been distributed to all.
• Thirty-two
• "Lift me up," I say. Mike: "I'm not lifting you up." Me: "Maybe I should climb on the air conditioner for a better look."
• Having snuck around a tangerine and lime tree, we have waded through two bushes for a glance of Katie Starburn's fake boobs.
• Katie would have probably shown us had we asked. But what kind of adventurer are you without being a voyeur once in a while?
• It's the night of my annual Day of the Dead party. People file in with skeletons to clip onto a tree that dangles with fake rubbery dead.
• The grandest skeleton is a six-foot Paper Mache marionette that took a month to create. Mike had glanced at it: "Needs lipstick."
• Katie brought a ghost... or a fish. I can't tell. She handed me twine and a blob of white construction paper.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [100 of 128]

• Mulani: "You don't get it. They bring his mail. But they won't bring our mail." Me: "Why, Mulani, I think you might be jealous."
• "Jealous? I'm not jealous." Me: "I think you're wondering why they need an excuse to come flirt with one of your boys." Mulani scowls.
• Me: "Everybody knows secretaries think Vishnu is a delicacy. Even Katie Starburn can't keep her hand off his plate."
• Mulani's scowl worsens. I'm copied on a corporate email battle.
• Mulani has it in for a secretary known for her sack-time shenanigans with the Prez.
• The secretary, Gertrude Ring, has an office twice the size of Mulani's open-air cubicle. Ring's income? She has a new BMW 335d Sedan.
• In the Supply Cabinet War it's a battle of wits, a meaningless string of emails. Because we're mortals, I won't transcribe.
• I don't understand these passive aggressive corporate emails that go on and on. I'd rather Milt were back giving a speech. Scratch that.
• Second floor items are stolen, more emails sent, office workers stall in diplomatic tactics to not resupply. I imagine Mulani in khakis.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [99 of 128]

• Thirty-one.
• Latrice, one of the downstairs secretaries, holds a calendar to her chest. "Has anyone seen Vishnu? I just think he's so cute," she says.
• Me: "Uh oh. He's got fans." Mike: "He is rather cute." Secretaries make Vishnu's hands sweat so much his fingers slip off the keyboard.
• Me: "Just go out with one of them, Vish." Vishnu: "You don't understand. We're not of the same mental zipcode."
• Sometimes I wonder where Vishnu has gone when not at his desk. He doesn’t wander the halls. He’s not inside the vending machine.
• I wonder if he's somewhere, keyboard in hand, tapping away, solving the Web mysteries of Buildicon with the sparkling lights of his mind.
• Reality: He’s probably hiding from the likes of Latrice and other Vishnu groupies. Pretty soon I hear Mulani angry and talking loud.
• Mulani: "Not only have they gypped us at the supply cabinet. Now they're not bringing us our mail. Yet they brought Vishnu a calendar!"
• Me: "Well, she does have a crush on him. Why be mad? Was the calendar the wrong color? Was it missing a swimsuit model?"

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [98 of 128]

• Me: "But I don't have any markers at all, grippers or otherwise." Ken: "But you know Joan was a heavy influence. She was your force."
• He's gone Star Wars on me. I imagine his head bobbing in Yoda's big pot of Dagobah soup--his nose keeping the rest of his noggin' afloat.
• Joan is no Yoda. But she’ll have his head in a stew if she finds out he’s talking about her like this. I call her.
• Joan is furious: "He said what??" Me: "He said you're a ringleader and our department is run horribly. Something about the Force."
• Joan: "Tell me he didn't go Star Wars." Me: "He was clearly locked in an epic struggle between circus adjectives and Episode V references."
• Her voice shudders on the phone: "Well his goddam nose looks like Jabba the Hut." I have to agree come to think about it.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [97 of 128]

• I stare at his red lumpy schnoz that has veins like wolf spider legs. Where these noses come from I have no idea.
• His nose looks like it has been soaked in pale ale for a month. "I have a problem with you and your ringleader, Joan," he says.
• Me: "Ringleader? Did she perform a circus crime? She was fired." Where has this guy been? I sniff for signs of alcohol. He blows his nose.
• "When she was here she got you all hating our markers and Post-Its. I have no purchase orders for your marketing items in the past month.
• "Yet our reports on marketing expenditures are off the chart. I'm tired of this Joan character. She's a bad name," he says and sniffles.
• Me: "She was fired. Why do you want to talk to me?" I imagine Kira de Frito's birthmark above Ken Grippo's huge nose. His eyes cross.
• Ken: "I'm talking to you because you're part of the problem." Me: "Me?" Ken: "You're in the marketing department, aren't you?"

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [96 of 128]

• While Mike and I attend a hockey game we have a Katie Starburns sighting. She's in the aisles with a beer in each hand, not watching game.
• Mike: "I can see her talking from here." Me: "She could talk through a nuclear war." Mike: "I'm imagining radiated implants."
• The boards shake as a skater is crushed by a player named Rosebush. It's the most aggressive hit I ever witness. Mike drops his beer.
• Suddenly we're yelling, slapping high fives and cheering. I'm glad I'm not being scraped off the ice.
• The crushed skater limps off the rink. Interdepartment corporate war begins: 5-foot-tall secretary slacks off on supply cabinet.
• No pencils, Post-Its or gripper pens. Mulani Fumes "I can't believe the poor quality of our highlighters," she grimaces.
• I'm caught in the foray. I want to hoist a pirate flag. Mulani: "You should see tech support's double-wide Post-Its and
• two-hundred-dollar paper shredder. I think ours still has a hand crank."
• I’m called into a meeting by Ken Grippo, Buildicon’s generic office manager. He’s a rather skinny W.C. Fields in a fading suit.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [95 of 128]

• "Well I am feeling a bit interesting today," Katie says. Me: "Still striking out at the home front?" Katie: "Oh for shame!
• "I don't call it striking out. My man happens to be very busy. He works late. He's tired. I just happen to never be tired." Katie winks.
• Me: "Oh, I don't doubt you there." Katie: "You know, that Mulani. She's trouble." Me: "I don't doubt that. So are you."
• Katie: "I am not! I should spank you for making such a suggestion. I will say that I am more of a woman than you will ever know. Unless..."
• Me: "Unless what?" Great, now I'm acting powerless. I just snapped onto her bait without even thinking. Now she might double her efforts.
• Katie: "Unless you make a decision. Think about what you can have. I'm voluptuous, tantalizing, energetic. And I'm orally fixated.
• "You think you’re going to have anything like that with that little girl, Mulani? That little tramp has nothing to offer.
• "You should really think about inviting me over." Me: "Invite you over?" Katie: "For a few drinks." I'm panicking: "A few drinks??"

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [94 of 128]

• Thirty.
• "The Wicked Witch of Buildicon is dead," Katie Starburn whispers into my ear. It's early in the morning. She never liked Milt Butterlink.
• Katie in a sheer blouse shows more cleavage than Kira de Frito could ever muster in one of her super supreme pineapple push-up bras.
• She wonders out loud: "I bet he's twiddling his thumbs and pondering a quick end to crunchy peanut butter."
• Katie runs her fingers along the inside edge of her blouse to taunt me with her bosoms. I forget what I was going to say.
• "I heard Mike spotted him in a donut shop looking disheveled in a pair of dirty jeans. Milt was staring into outer space," I stammer.
• "Wasn't all there?" Katie laughs. She never liked Milt. In fact, she hated everything about him and is now overjoyed. She bounces. I watch.
• "We all know he was a bit spacey," I say, thinking about planets. Katie: "A bit?" She walks closer, turns, rubs her bottom along my arm.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [93 of 128]

• Buildicon is compelling me to do more work. Somehow, I’ve earned a raise. I shake hands with the Prez and the interim marketing manager.
• Both say I am doing a good job by tricking me with corporate lingo: "You could do a lot better. We're expecting big things from you..."
• "Team play, team this, team that, team team team..." It never makes much sense other than I know I deserve more money.
• But now I make $36,000 a year to design/copywrite ads about wireless gadgets that look like little metal boxes with holes in them.
• They don’t flash much. They don’t bleep or make R2D2 sounds. They can’t follow you down a corridor or even help pilot an X-Wing.
• They link to robot arms that build, smash, count, squirt, fry, bake—and I think—smash lemons into lemon juice.
• No one really knows all the functionality, especially the sales force. They sit around concocting fancy schematics.
• The sales guys then present customers with the idea they need forty $2,000 gizmos to run their communications network protocol blah blah.
• In other words: they just sell gadgets by the bucket loads. I suppose I do make it all more interesting and marketable. Sex sells.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [92 of 128]

• "Kira, I don't understand your email," I say outside her cubicle. "Could you explain to me again what you need?"
• Kira: "I need this. This thing. It's the Brazil need. But this thing's not American product begins to sell brochures for oil and gas logos.
• "I am an advertisement special through Latin American sales. I love working with Latin Americans and really like negligees
• for home dances." At least that's what I think Kira says. I blame Mulani. I'm cross-eyed. And I refuse to acknowledge Kira as she blabs.
• I go sit down. Kira de Frito dancing. Kira de Frito singing. Kira de Frito looking like a grin with boobs.
• I stuff her projects at the bottom of my stack. As Kira drops off another project I say: "I'll be sure to get to these."
• As she walks away I add: "Sometime next year." "What was that?" Kira asks, suddenly returning. She leans close.
• The mole on her forehead is about to attack. I'm about to panic. "Oh!" Kira starts crying and walks quickly out of sight.
• Mike: "No wonder she has no mental capacity to handle you. You give her no ground."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [91 of 128]

• Twenty-Nine.
• Mike: "Do you love her?" Me: "What the hell are you talking about?" We're watching ice hockey.
• A player gets boarded. His stick breaks. "Mulani," Mike says. "All this moping around.
• You keep talking about weird dreams and the two of you won't look at each other half the time.”
• "And that means love?" I say. Mike is working on his second beer. "Just admit it," he says. Me: "I'm not admitting anything."
• There's something in thinking about a girl when you're at a hockey game.
• You see a dazzling hip check and suddenly love is less frightening. Turk Grinn is the interim marketing manager.
• He's dashing in all the right Texan ways. Except for his hiccups. You want to Tivo those out.
• His first order of business is to consider hiring Joan back. He says he is going to make a decision and announce at an upcoming meeting.
• Kira de Frito soon starts disappearing into his office. Me: "What do you think she's doing?" Mike: "One can't predict de Frito."
• She’s already mentally unstable and now she has started emailing me project requests that make no sense whatsoever.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [90 of 128]

• Twenty-Eight.
• The interim marketing manager is a golfing buddy of the Prez with a hiccupy heave that makes his stomach seem to jump in his chest.
• A Texan, in his "no BS" manner, he hiccups and says to the marketing group: "First of all, y'all make too much noise.” Mike squirms.
• "I declare this cubicle zone a no music zone. It will also be free of talk, free of mindless chatter, and most of all, free of laughter.
• "Now, whenever I'm around and you're talkin' to me, you are in a free speech zone, unless you start laughing.
• "Let me remind you that workers in general make too much noise. Am I clear? Because I want positive production.
• "I don't want no half-assed, slippin' around on two left feet doin' nuthin' but scratching paws on carpet. Follow?" Everyone nods.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [89 of 128]

• The faces of our uncreative corporate audience are mostly disgusted during the two-and-a-half minutes of film. Mulani giggles.
• Mike and I realize we have won a minor creative corporate battle in our own rodent-like cubicles of Buildicon Enterprises. Kira storms out.
• "Not all artwork is ever respected," Mike says watching Kira and two others flee the cubicle. "It just wouldn't feel right to be loved.
• Suddenly I imagine Milt Butterlink dressed as a franken-squirrel pimping our movie on Sunset and Vine. I feel like a freakin' superstar.
• There are epiphanies to be had in the office. Realizing Kira de Frita's boobs are fake is not one of them. Unless you're in tech support.
• The meaning of life is wrapped in workplace realizations.
• My heart beats fast simply trying to understand the complexities of copy machines.
• Epiphany breeds ads. "Sleek. Robust. Sexy Data." Girl in hard hat puckers to Ethernet wireless. All after spying Mulani eat cup of noodle.
• I'm destined for enlightenment after realizing the secretary ordered stationary with company logo upside-down. Wisdom: "Not my problem."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [88 of 128]

• "The beast dances and everything," Mike says. "It moves its hips like a squirrelly Elvis. Check it out." He sets a camera on the desk.
• He's right. The squirrel doesn't just dance but plays annoying music while swiveling its hips. I'm suddenly caught up in the malaise.
• Me: “You know the office digital camera takes fifteen second movie clips.” Mike: “You don’t say? I get full credit as director.”
• In our newfound freedom from work boredom and magazine ad creation we have completed a short film titled "A Rodent Affair." It's PG-13.
• The film stars two squirrels who fall in and out of love in a matter of two and a half minutes. The dialogue is French; English subtitles.
• Mike posts the movie online and we opt for a 9 a.m. world premiere. Even Kira de Frito shows up. "I do so love the novellas," she says.
• Kira is dashing in her inability to grasp Hollywood. "I like Jamie Dupp, Harrison Fork and Rene Shellfishsugar," she says.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [87 of 128]

• Twenty-Seven.
• This is the moment where dreams melt down. Reality is no cartoon. Bagworms don't walk and talk. Beds are places for cold sweats.
• In the middle of the night I'm thinking about the office. I can barely remember the dream. I have cubicle-inspired anxiety. I see faces.
• I fix coffee, toast. I turn on late night TV. Bela Lugosi looks half dead. I switch to the History Channel. WW2 footage, canned explosions.
• I try to remember the old man, the farmer. Instead I feel three days behind in creating ad jargon for wireless industrial data streamers.
• He has already lost interest in the demise of Milt Butterlink. Boredom has set in. This is corporate boredom at its worst.
• He places a stuffed squirrel on his desk that looks like a flower child. Me: "What's that?" Mike: "It plays music."
• I'm a bit annoyed, because on my shelf of endless fast-food toys I have a stuffed squirrel too. Mulani gave it to me. It doesn't dance.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [86 of 128]

Eyed by the cat on the roof, the bagworm, along with her quiet bug friends, went into the farmhouse.

• They crawled up the wooden legs of the table and stepped onto its crumb-covered surface. Strangely, the farmer took no notice of them.
• Upon closer examination, Mrs. Bigmoth could see a pincher bug on his shoulder, whispering into the farmer’s ear.
• "What's this?" Asked the farmer. "A bagworm with an umbrella, blue bugs, a strange snail and walking sticks? What do you want with me?"
• The bagworm stood tall, right on the farmer's newspaper. "I'm sorry," she said. "But there is a grumpy-faced pincher bug by your ear."
• "Yes, I'm blind. So what? He was reading me the morning paper. What is it you want?"
• The bagworm stood taller than ever. "An end to the booms," she said. "It's disturbing the forest and knocking baby bagworms out of bed."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [85 of 128]

• The bugs didn't say a word. The forest was alive with stinkbugs, fungus spores, lady-bug-covered trees and fat aphids soaking in nectar.
• She "Harrumphed" and kept walking until it was 10:09, when she stood on the edge of cornfields that stood like rows of towers.
• "That's the place," said a curious old snail. A contraption on his back poorly mopped his slimy trail as he slithered.
• Suddenly it was 10:10. Loud booms filled the cornfields. The bagworm fell over. When she jumped up,
• far away she saw the top of a farmhouse. The farmhouse was a cobb structure built of mud and grass bricks.
• A puff of smoke went up from a crooked chimney. A cat slept on the roof. Next to the farmhouse stood an old barn.
• In between the two was an outhouse. A fence that bugs could easily walk beneath surrounded it all.
• Inside, the farmer sat at a kitchen table reading a newspaper. He oddly looked like a younger version of the old man from the walking path.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [84 of 128]

• She never ventured from the silk roads spun by the fatty bagworm spinners. They ate no less than three leafy pies before a hard day's work.
• She didn't even miss her kitchen filled with petals of pita-jingos and banana-leaf tropical bungos-
• -cooked for the most daring of appetites. There, in her roomy kitchen, sat tilted leaf-cakes as high as five bagworm hats,
• and were topped with twirlers and unlit sparklers. It was in those kitchens that made the young bagworms most happy.
• Because everyone knew they grew, and grew, and grew when they ate... They grew so much they slept on bagworm bunkbeds twenty bunks high,
• where all the bagworm children could dream about pies all night. But that was far away in the treetops.
• Mrs. Bigmoth was busily trudging her way through a forest of snakes, bugs and thistles. In fact, she was followed by snails,
• blue specks of bugs and two ancient-looking walking sticks. "Who are you??" she turned around and said.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [83 of 128]

• Suddenly the old man waved his walking stick like a ghetto AK-47: "It's a war these days with the bagworms. The entire forest is at risk!"
• He then turned and hobbled down the path. Each stab of his walking stick sounded like gravel was being pulverized into dust.
• For days afterward I dreamed about bagworms. I imagined a treetop worm colony living in silk purses and patent-leather homes,
• all bedazzled. In my dreams the bagworms were distressed. Each night at 10:10, booms rung through the forest,
• shook the webs, disturbed the baggy babies. After a bout of Nyquil, I dreamt a bagworm fell from a tree.
• Somehow she had an umbrella and floated to the forest floor during the booms. "I'm angry" the bagworm said.
• "There will be no more booms in this forest by the time I'm done." She marched past mushrooms as big as houses.
• Little blue glowing bugs floated across the forest floor. Green-lit snails oozed across paths of slimy light. The bagworm marched on.
• This marching, angry bagworm, was notably married to Eli Bigmoth. He ran the silk-spinning factory next to a huge zebra-striped baghouse.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [82 of 128]

• "Check your email," Mike says. I click on my inbox to discover the prez has actually done some work today.
• Mass email: "Effective today, and with the deepest of regrets, I have terminated Milt Butterlink's employment with Buildicon.
• "As you may recognize, this leaves us with a huge void. We will begin our search for a new Marketing Manager shortly." - The Prez
• Twenty-Six.
• I once took a stroll in Ohio forests and saw huge webs of silk filled with worms. "They're bagworms," said an old man with a walking stick.
• The old-timer's right eye was more open than his left. His wrinkled walking stick could have been a skinny arm.
• His wisp of hair was a cloud. His eye went wider: "They live in the trees. There's no spiders there."
• He bent close and breathed on me. "In fact, they kill the trees." He continued: "Years ago you'd see few bagworms.
• They spun webs, ate a few trees and went about their business. Those times are gone."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [81 of 128]

• Mike ignores the TV news: "It doesn't matter if it's my idea, your idea, or the corporation's idea. Managers are supposed to be jerks."
• Me: "You sympathetic idiot. Milt stepped on the bulldog's tail. He'll be gone within days once Joan's allies move against him."
• Milt Butterlink looks like he has the stomach flu, day four. He's a ghost-white walking stiff as he woodenly walks amongst the cubicles.
• He isn't talking, singing, saying "superstar" or even looking anyone in the eye. Even Kira de Frito looks like she's seen an apparition.
• The prez exits his office. His goggles are off. He steps in front of Kira and says to Milt: "Come, take a walk with me." Milt's eyes widen.
• Milt walks down a corridor with the prez. Mike: "That's not a good sign. A day like this needs an 80s theme song. 'Thriller'?
• Me: "I told you. Milt has been given the anvil of corporate death. Joan must have mustered some serious forces of vengeance."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [80 of 128]

• Mike: "Can anyone?" Me: "That's not the point." Mike's beer looks flat as he says, "Would life be any better under a different manager?"
• On the bar TV the evening anchorman is talking about a political tea party by the downtown civic center. "Look at that guy," Mike says.
• "That's about one political party unhappy with those in power," he adds. "They're never satisfied. It's always a power struggle."
• The anchorman has perfect dark hair, a perfect suit. He looks like he runs 20 miles a day. "Maybe he feels corporate stress," Mike says.
• Me: "That guy? He's a celebrity talking head." I chug my beer. Mike: "I bet he eats fast-food like the rest of us. He has a boss too."
• Me: "You're telling me that @KiyoshiTomono has it rough? He gets free haircuts and suit cleaning. Mike: "And that makes life easy?"
• Me: "Look, Milt is a micro-manager. How could it get any worse? I'd like a little credit for my intelligence."
• Mike: "You don't get it. Managers aren't in this world to be liked. They're here to get production out of workers like you and me."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [79 of 128]

• Twenty-Five.
• I proudly hang my Milt-moon drawing. Across from me Mike designs a poster that looks like Buildicon products actually do invade planets.
• Wireless devices appear to beam wi-fi lasers. Me: "Nice invasion ad. You should add explosions and Army tanks."
• Mike: "Invasion? There's no invasion. Well, not an intended one. Not a bad idea actually for these RadioBlast products."
• I change the subject: "So, did Joan call you?" Mike: "Yeah, but I couldn't understand her. Something about 'Kill Milt with cigarettes.'"
• "Maybe I shouldn't have jammed Joan's foot so hard in the meeting," I say. Mike: "You stepped on Joan's foot and you're alive?"
• I look at Mike and wonder why Joan let me live. "She was foaming at the mouth," I add, hoping to justify my near-death office moment.
• We take the conversation to a local bar. "Milt's gone off the deep end," I say, remembering the snail dream. "He can't manage people."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [78 of 128]

• Suddenly there are more dandelions. They're all smiling, standing over me, tickling me with their grassy feet. I can hear Milt singing.
• Milt sings: "I'll get you little snails! I'll pull off all your shells. Then I'll cook you in a pot, steam you 'til you're hot!
• "Little garden snails come to me! You'll see, I'm hungry. I've got my hoe and I twirl it so. I'll slice you into my shiny glass bowl!"
• The dandelions reach down and pick me up. They carry me to the madly singing gardener. The flowers scurry as he stops singing.
• There is a native chant sung by the dandelions hiding in the grass. I slither as fast as I can. But it's like sliding on molasses.
• I feel Milt pick me up. He's a wooden giant with horrible breath of the worst corporate manager nightmare kind.
• My shell cracks as he squeezes me too hard and drops me into a shiny transparent glass bowl filled with dead snails.
• I feel my two slimy eyes cross in fear. Dandelion heads move through the grass. I curse them and Milt as I fall out of bed and wake up.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [77 of 128]

• A ladybug has a muddy shell and twitching wing. She whimpers while water rushes into the sewer.
• A moth loses its grip, falls into the water. The bugs don't talk to each other.
• Other than water, the only sounds are Milt hacking at snails. I hear screams, shells crunched, a cackle.
• I move closer to the huddled snails. They smoke cigarettes. "Why are you here?" I ask. One of the snails turns around. It's Joan.
• Her crushed shell looks painful, like a broken Easter egg. "I once lived in a beautiful garden. I avoided poison, birds, curious children.
• "Then the gardener found me and stepped on me. He thought I was dead and left me on the sidewalk to wither. I came here."
• A snail missing an eye looks at me. "It's the only place left for us. We hang on as long as we can. When we fall, we go to another place."
• I look down at the swirling water. A roly-poly spins on its back like a boat caught in a whirlpool. It yelps for help then is gone.
• I slither my way back out of the sewer and head for an imaginary garden that only my dreams can muster. A dandelion bends to me and smiles.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [76 of 128]

• Twenty-Four.
• Downstairs Joan is lying on her back in the middle of the parking lot smoking a cigarette. "You need to get up," I say.
• Joan won't look at me. "I knew it would be me. I'll kill that no good..." Me: "I don't think Milt can be killed. He's not human."
• That evening I walk home, wondering if Joan will be lying in the parking lot covered in classifieds when I return the next day.
• Outside my front door five snails hang on the wall. I start to feel like one of them, escaping the water from the garden, barely clinging.
• I go to sleep dreaming about a starry canopy and moonlit snails on the run from a mad gardener who looks like Milt with a crooked hoe.
• In the dream I grow squishy suction cup feet that stick to the ground as I run. Milt gains on me and takes a swing with his hoe.
• He chops my feet off but I instantly grow new ones as I slither into a sewer. This seems to be the darkest place I can imagine.
• Inside the sewer are other frightened bugs. Snails with broken, oozing shells huddle in a corner. A cockroach with one antenna shivers.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [75 of 128]

• "Why do I seem to do it all?" Milt barks. I make no comment. I'm not going to talk. Besides, everyone is speechless.
• I sense Joan is about to scream a war cry. I step hard on her foot. I step harder because I don't think she felt it.
• Milt starts to mumble. This is the cosmic moment where even corporations are suddenly bad movie experiences. Vishnu actually looks awake.
• Vishnu, the Web guru of all things. He must have a delete button for this surreal meeting,
• or at least some kind of anti-virus garlic necklace. Mike knows it’s not him. He always watching Survivor and
• knows how to make his corporate life live to the last man.
• Mulani runs everything in the department and gets paid a tenth of Milt’s enormous salary. She’s safe.
• Joan is expendable simply because she is insane and is a sort of mini-angry version of Milt in a constant state of meltdown.
• Kira de Frito could lose her job but wouldn’t understand whether or not she suddenly got a promotion
• to a Brazilian office on a wireless banana plantation. Sure, it’s egotistical of me to say I’m the soul of this marketing department.
• I guess I wouldn’t blame Buildicon to go soulless. It happens.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [74 of 128]

• Katie Starburn walks past the conference room window wearing bright orange and matching fiery glasses.
• Her bright red hair is poofy. She's fabulous in her mocking of corporate attire: a poster child for rebellious cubicle-wear.
• Katie scoffs through the glass at Mulani who hasn't snapped out of her death stare with Milt Butterlink's nose.
• I can't help but think my life is crazy, even interesting, as Katie passes and gives me a wink. Milt continues to ramble.
• My mind wanders. I draw a moon-like world floating in the cosmos with a little Milt Butterlink standing on it, yelling,
• "This is my planet!" "I can't trust any of you to do your work. That's why I'm getting rid of one of you," Milt says.
• He waves a blue marker in the air. Milt believes he does all the work and thinks that teddy bear grahams have more brains
• than those of us with college degrees. As supposed non-thinkers, we have to get approval on all our daily tasks.
• Milt: the consummate micro-manager in a Cosby sweater.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [73 of 128]

• "Do you understand what I'm saying? Look, I have drawn the most important marketing strategy of our time." It looks like a bug.
• More stares. I start grabbing teddy bear grahams. I line them up against my notepad so that they stand to face Milt.
• Most have no arms. One is headless. It's as if these cookie creatures deserve to listen to his marketing nonsense.
• As I grab another, Milt suddenly stops talking and stares. Milt sees the teddy bear grahams.
• He looks at them as if they are judging the very core of his plan. There is an uncomfortable silence.
• Leaning forward, Milt suddenly says, "I can't talk to you while they're looking at me." I start crunching them.
• Milt pauses and stares again. Is he contemplating their cookie brains? I see Mulani bite off an arm.
• Suddenly it's a front row seat to corporate drama. "I'm disappointed," Milt says like a true marketing manager frankenboob.
• He adds, "Someone's going to get fired in this meeting." I stop crunching cookies. Frankenbooby has the floor.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [72 of 128]

• The snout of boredom pushes its way from the front of your face. You fight it. You try to push it back in like you're made of Play Doh.
• You miss the day when you didn't think there were Star Wars prequels and the world was like bikini-clad
• At-Ats lazing in bright morning snow. I often wonder what would happen if I fully transformed into boredom itself.
• Would I merrily drain the soda machines of corporate America? Milt stands before the meeting room.
• He turns his back on the marketing team and writes on a board with a blue felt marker.
• "This is a great color," Milt says. I'm not listening. I watch Mulani dump an entire box of teddy grahams onto the table.
• I start drawing pictures: teddy bears dancing, teddy bear balloons, teddy bear adverts, teddy bear stormtroopers and Milt as Darth Graham.
• As Milt talks, Mulani stares at something in his nose. I refuse to look. She's hypnotized. Poor thing is locked in a nostril stare down.
• "You don't get it," Milt says." There is something integral to this department that's missing. It's called family." Quiet stares.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [71 of 128]

• If Milt has a strategy then I'm in an ant farm clawing at the glass, ripping at a sea of wallpaper. "I'm going to make it happen," he says.
• He goes off the deep end: "All this Buildicon wireless is freakin' great.
• I know I was meant to be a Hollywood producer, but life changes... "I mean, I got Adobe into the business.
• I cooked macaroons with Bo Derek. She kissed me and wondered if I was made of wood. Sweet, huh?
• "I'm going to manage this wireless company right into the mystical universe! I'll market us to the stars!"
• Milt snorts and sloshes his beer. I stop listening. I look at the man's book at the next table:
• "Twenty Great Romance Novels To Scoff At" and think of Mulani's mean smile.
• Twenty-Three.
• Workplace boredom is not a fluffy little teddy bear we squeeze and blab baby talk to. Rather, it sinks its teeth in like a werewolf.
• Such a corporate infection takes root just when dreaming of Fijian jungle paradises, crushed ice vanilla Cokes and big-brained snowmen.
• Think about it. You wake up one day at your desk and find yourself transforming into the boredom monster. You twitch. You convulse.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [70 of 128]

• Milt gives me a look. His wooden-looking fingers wiggle. "French, huh?" he says. I can see the desire in his Franken-eyes.
• He grunts: "OK." The waitress has fair skin and thick blue eye shadow with eyebrows painted on.
• For some reason I want to reach over and smear them across her forehead. Milt orders a Sierra Nevada beer.
• He then looks at me boyishly: "Wow. Wow. This is so cool!" Three Sierra Nevadas later he loosens up.
• "So what's this all about?" Milt says. Me: "What do you mean?" He looks like an idiot struck him silly: "This! This right here! Right now!"
• I look at Milt: "I don't know. Still trying to ponder the ten minutes after I woke up this morning." Milt: "No!" Me: "No?" Milt: "No!"
• Milt: "Well let me tell you. It's about strategy." He's the boss. So I have to listen even though he's starting to talk like Kira de Frito.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [69 of 128]

• I imagine people pushing peas the size of planets in a mad race for my fork. This is what I do on my time off, besides bug collecting.
• I try stacking jars of bugs into a living room high-rise.
• I'm strangely envious of a caterpillar living two stories above a one-armed mantis.
• My last day off the phone rings. "Hello?" It's Mulani: "How's your week been?" Me: "Oh, just building a few things, was being productive."
• "Miss me?" I say. Mulani: "No, but Milt does. He stares at your empty chair every morning as if sad." The mantis waves its one arm at me.
• My first day back Milt finds me before I leave for an extended lunch. "Wanna have chow with me? One on one?" What can I say? "Sure, Milt."
• We head to a dive on 19th Street. "Hey, Milt. Are we going to have a drink?" Milt: "We're on company time. You know the policy."
• I remind Milt that Buildicon employs French workers and they drink like fish. "They're French!" he says. Me: "We can pretend we're French."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [68 of 128]

• There's no reasoning with melting brains. Joan has that terrible look in her eyes again.
• She's near complete meltdown--adrenaline implosion. I've only seen this kind of behavior in my psychologically impaired
• ex-girlfriend's Border Collie. Oh, and in my nephew, the freak-out king.
• Both dog and little boy are intelligent. But both are afraid of their own tails, like Joan, when shadows are cast on their dark worlds.
• Set up the perfect conditions, add a few scary 'Boos!' and you have wailing, crying and peeing. That's a complete meltdown. Still with me?
• Joan is freaking about Milt. "Why?" she says. It's written in her eyes. Her questioning his corporate worth. "I dunno," I say. Though I do.
• Twenty-Two.
• I've been off work for a week collecting bugs in jars. I line them on a shelf and wonder which one could be my little corporate cubicle.
• "I'm taking some time off to get to know myself," I told Mulani. She didn't call once. My cell phone looks like a stink bug.
• TV dinners are my escape. It's like I have Alice and Wonderland Syndrome. I shrink to the size of corn and crawl across an aluminum sea.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [67 of 128]

• I manage to flip a tricycle. I lie on my back wondering if it's the Christmas spirit I see in the wondrous eyes of children laughing at me.
• A store worker steps over me as if this is normal. A kid gives me the stare of toyshop shame,
• grabs the bike and pedals toward LEGO central. As the chaos comes into focus I notice a man standing next to the giant pink wall
• of Barbies. He has two buxom beauts out of their packages. It's Milt Butterlink. He's got a Barbie fetish. Making them talk,
• he's playing with them in the store. I have to hear what he's saying. When I wake on Christmas,
• I realize that being in the toy store was just a nightmare. I finished my shopping on time. Milt wasn't there.
• Besides, there are no Milt Butterlinks creative enough to play with Barbies in toy stores. If only I would have dreamed they came to life.
• Imagine, Barbies hungry enough to devour a sour marketing manager? Entire shelves of Star Wars action figures might get jealous.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [66 of 128]

• Twenty-One.
• I'm told that within three days I have to design an ad that can be torn out of a magazine and folded into the shape of a wireless device.
• Thinking back, I remember youthful days ripping apart cereal boxes for their intriguing back-of-the-box army diagrams.
• I always folded the cereal box army tanks hoping for truly magical war machines with big boxy cannons my plastic army men could straddle.
• Never failed. My army tanks would look like swans. Now my boss expects me to design fold-outs that engineers would love on their desks.
• Milt: "Nothing too goo gah now. I just want a wireless device people can fold together, fill with sand and place their pencils in."
• Me: "Sure you don't just want me to design a drawing they can tear out and color?" Milt: "These are engineers I'm talking about."
• The FAO Schwartz toystore is abuzz with Star Wars laser beams, action figures as tall as elves and Barbies looking like TV show rejects.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [65 of 128]

• I sit on a December bench in a mist-breathed park. Fog rolls in like smoke off fingertips. Christmas sort of flickers through it all.
• It's so late here that I don't expect her to show up. A stream nearby sounds like the Milky Way mist.
• I imagine swirls of stars pouring past. I look across the grass, out onto the car-less highway.
• Houses beyond that are blurry sparks, fireflies of a lonely holiday night. "What are you doing here?" she says.
• I can barely see her shape. She's black in the fog. Lamps nearby shine like ghosts and I shiver. I feel small again,
• like I'm inside an ant farm that's slowly filling with water. I can't think of words to say. Ants wait for my direction.
• It's like she's not there next to me on the bench in the fog. I'm guiding ants through tunnels. Each sandy cave is a dead end.
• The image morphs into a maze of cubicles. I imagine Milt chasing me like I'm some kind of
• photocopier that stole his marketing budget report. "I have to go," I say. I leave her in the fog.
• I imagine running away from corporate meetings and strange Christmas office parties. Freedom.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [64 of 128]

• Tortured, sits the receptionist, Joyce. She's a Jehovah's Witness. Joan knows this. She hangs cards from Joyce's desk, says,
• "Oh Christmas." Tinsel is spread on branches. Plastic gold ornaments dangle like costume jewelry.
• Glitter-glue-named Stockings hang misspelled and empty.
• There's nothing redeeming about a plastic corporate tree used to lure a false sense of cheer among workers year after year.
• Real trees are different. Even our marketing manager Milt Butterlink said, "We could use a really freakin' cool flocking live tree."
• But then Buildicon workers learned he wanted an eggnog sort of tree-cutting hoedown at his home in the mountains. Who wants that?
• If I wanted to socially network with coworker types, I would crash corporate Christmas parties all over the city.
• Or do some people do that? Mulani faked sick: "Mountain air makes me break out in hives." Milt's beady eyes stared:
• "There are no beehives on Butterlink Ranch." So here we are once again. Not enough tinsel from 1982 cabinet supplies.
• Not enough 1994 Kmart ornaments. It spins like a dying NY ballet.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [63 of 128]

• Katie: "You've never seen a running back until you've seen my little girl plow through several linemen.
• They cry to their mamas every time." Me: "It's good to see you've taught her a thing or two about your weightlifting days."
• We're late getting back to the office. "You can't teach an 8-year-old girl weightlifting. She's just mean and likes to make boys cry.
• I support such goals. Healthy." Me: "I wonder if you make Vishnu cry every time you leave his office."
• Katie laughs, "I do try to sway mankind. The things I tell you." I watch Katie finish her last lick of coffee. We get up and walk.
• Me: "Yeah, I often wonder that myself. So, why do you tell me everything?"
• Twenty.
• We have the best false sense of family in all of downtown, I think, as Joan stands the corporate Christmas tree onto its spinning base.
• It's the same plastic tree each year. Tall, it turns slowly like some kind of new George Foreman tree grill you can attach marshmallows to.
• Joan loathes everybody these days. Her eyes are red with hate. But for a fleeting moment, the fake decor sort of fills her with Xmas cheer.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [62 of 128]

• Katie about her man: "Oh God. Men? They're all whores. Who cares about that whore? He's nice and all. But he doesn't do it." Me: "Do what?"
• Katie: "I haven't had it in 4 days. Maybe 5. Maybe it's 6. I refuse to accept that it's been a week. I'm too devastatingly beautiful."
• Me: "No way. You? I mean you're...you didn't...?" Katie: "I'm beginning to forget what my fingers aren't like."
• Me: "Oh that's serious information." Katie: "I'm going to make Mulani jealous. You just wait. She has nothing that I don't have."
• They're both taken and unhappy. What can I say? I still want my arms around Mulani. "How's your coffee?" I ask. Katie looks angry.
• "Nice try," Katie says. Me: "How's your kid?" Katie: "She's fine. I'm beginning to think she shouldn't be playing football."
• Me: "You mean soccer." Katie: "No, I mean football. She kicks most boy's tails. Should have seen her last game." She slurps her coffee.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [61 of 128]

• Nineteen.
• At work, construction workers pound on cubicles. Milt stands over them like a mad scientist gazing into a rat maze. Me: "What's going on?"
• Mulani looks cute in her pigtails. She says, "We're downsizing. Literally. Milt wants to make the cubicles smaller." Me: "The man is sick."
• Mike: "Why not just make each cubicle the size of a yoga mat and have hard drives wired through our navels?" I pray Milt didn't hear him.
• Katie has on a fluffy leopard print coat. Her fiery hair is slickened. "I see they're fixing your kennels," she says. "Wanna see mine?"
• Me: "Hi Katie." "Coffee?" she growls. Me: "Why not? We've gone to the coffeehouse every day this week." Besides,
• I like being seen with her. We pass Mulani. I sense a disturbance in the Force.
• I smile as Katie and I head away from the cubicles into the elevator. "What's wrong with me?" Katies says as we walk.
• "No. No. Don't answer. I can take the rejection." Me: "Why aren't you happy with your man?"

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [60 of 128]

• I'm dumbfounded as usual. "What? How? Why? I say. Suddenly I feel like I'm caught in a bad cubicle sitcom. Katie seems to be fluffing.
• "Oh God you men are so dumb" she says. "What is it with my boobs you don't like anyway? See those two businessmen sitting over there?"
• Me: "What about them?" They sit drinking coffee. Katie: "They're putty. Look how they stare at me. They're wondering the eternal question."
• Me: "What's that?" Katie: "Are they real?" She looks down at her breasts then back up. "Big dumb men." Me: "Most of us are."
• Lying in bed looking at the stucco ceiling. It's like my life: a bunch of splatter in a box; white paint hides the unevenness.
• I imagine Katie Starburn crawling across the stucco like some kind of fake-boobed demon queen in a big pink coat. I turn on my side.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [59 of 128]

• Not this place with its stone floors, beat-up couch, young folk mingling at tables and a couple of women in power suits firing up laptops.
• Heads turn as we enter. Katie looks powerful in her pink coat. Her hair is flaming red and her eyes green and oceany, very mysterious.
• We get blended mochas. She licks the cream off her straw and is up front with her intentions. "What is it with you and Mulani?" she asks.
• "Nothing." That's my equivalent of "I don't know." It's evasive and Katie sitting there in her big pink frillydilly knows it.
• Katie: "I see how she looks at you. I'm not dumb." Me: "I never said you were." Katie sighs. "You turned me down, you know." Me: "I know."
• I think again, then say, "It wasn't that I turned you down. It was just..." Katie shifts in her seat. "Oh God don't say it," she says.
• We're 20 minutes into our 15-minute coffee break. Me: "Say what?" Katie: "That you love her. I'm going to make her jealous you know."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [58 of 128]

• She throws on a bright pink coat and thick black cat-eye glasses and comes back over. "You want to get a coffee?" she asks.
• Her breasts are practically lying on my desk. Mike wishes they were on either side of his ears. "Of course," I say.
• "Oh God, Katie," Mike says in mock love. "You watch yourself," she says waving a finger at him. "You're the only man I'm afraid of."
• Mike barks and snaps as if he's a dog about to bite her finger. "Be a good boy," she says, pats his head and we're off to find some coffee.
• "Mike's a crazy boy," she says as we walk. Several heads turn as she passes in her pink coat. She's a fabulous star to the sidewalk people.
• I figure they're just wondering why I'm walking with her. We pass an Asian food hideout, downtown bars and finally reach the coffeehouse.
• Most coffeehouses are strange drive-thrus in this dark commuter town. "Don't stop in, just stop through" is their motto.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [57 of 128]

• Eighteen.
• Katie Starburn talks too much. Could be the drug-induced behavior. I don't know. Her train of thought is off the Richter Scale.
• She can't keep to any one topic. Here is someone who can hold conversations with actual Greek statues, park trees and photocopiers.
• I enjoy her rants and think she's fabulous and hilarious. She thrives on talking about sex and making the men around her nervous. Not me.
• "You know how many times me and Jake had sex this week? 12," she said.
• She also told me about orgasms and her girl's weekly clarinet lesson.
• Katie builds reports related to product development issues. She gets bored, wanders into the marketing department, says "Hi slick Willie."
• She especially likes Vishnu. Before she visits, she makes sure her breasts are half out of her blouse before
• asking him some inane question. She exits his cubicle and gives me the double thumbs up,
• letting me know that she's got something else up with Vishnu. I shake my head.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [56 of 128]

• Have you ever seen Joan's eyes if leftover pizza in the break room runs out before she gets to it?
• She will send a "You jerk" email for sure. I'm like Joan. In moments like these I realize corporate America was built for people like us.
• People who need the little things. I may never be a great ad writer. I may never get break room leftovers.
• But I will threaten hari-kari in my own personal Cubepocalypse. There’s always an office worker who leaves two hours early everyday and
• no one says a thing. At Buildicon her name is Marcia. Marcia stuffs marketing literature in boxes. Those boxes get sent to tradeshows.
• Mulani answers phone calls all day about how the boxes are stuffed wrong.
• Our manager, Milt Butterlink doesn’t care about the boxes. “Too far down the totem pole,” he says. Besides, Mulani will fix it.
• Often Marcia can be seen dropping what she’s doing and walking out the door. She has the attention span of Milt minus three brain cells.
• Yet, as I sit at my desk and fume about the unfairness of not being able to leave until 5:01, I can’t help but want to be Marcia.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [55 of 128]

• Milt: "I need to fire somebody." Me: "Fire yourself." Milt seems to contemplate that idea for a moment. His wooden fingers twitch.
• Me: "I'm not in the firing business." Milt: "I need a name." I admit I'm tempted. Kira de Frito, Joan...a toss up. They're both worthless.
• Milt insists on taking the department out to lunch so he can observe everyone in close proximity. He decides on a really bad Italian dive.
• Right away, Joan starts talking about her ailments because she thinks that's what you do when you gather for lunch with workmates.
• Mike gags. I'm ignoring the latest about her fragile kidneys. Instead I'm watching Milt who watches Mike build a tower of utensils and
• other objects. Joan: "It's the third time I've gone to the hospital for this infection." Milt stares at Mike's tower.
• Joan's eyes turn red with rage. Joan: "And in the middle of the night I can barely get to the toilet."
• Milt mutters under his breath: "C'mon, Mike!" Mulani giggles. The tower crashes and Milt looks sad. He turns to Joan.
• "What?" She storms off. Kira de Frito does too for no reason. Mike: "That was cool."
• Corporate America always seems in near riot over the trivial. I call it the "Cubepocalypse." We're always on the verge of one.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [54 of 128]

• Can't picture a Wookie among them can you? Or even among rebel fishhead telemarketers. Their cubicles would stink, but not like a Wookie.
• As bad is it might get with Clone Coffee Wars and hot babes decked in grey, I just can't picture Chewie stapling forms or designing ads.
• And in this case, practically running a company? Might as well buy into Milt's philosophy that the color red is a genuine disco ad theme.
• Shoot me now because Chewie has Milt imitating her cackle in some kind of corporate code that can only mean more work and less web surfing.
• Seventeen.
• Suddenly Milt trusts me. I don't think he trusts himself. He calls me into his office. "It's time for a talk," he says. The door closes.
• Milt: "I need to know about people." Me: "You're the manager." Milt: "Tell me about your coworkers. You seem to know them all." Me: "What?"
• I suddenly want back in my cubicle. No wonder dogs like kennels. There's a degree of solace when mindlessly thrown a bone while in a cave.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [53 of 128]

• I'm still frozen, though contemplating the Cubepocalypse flag when I'm suddenly awakened by a rare sighting of the Buildicon Bigfoot.
• It's Milt's boss. Imagine that hairy schoolgirl who always followed you home, becoming a corporate chief. Now imagine a big hairy salary.
• I hear her howl from four cubicles away. It's the kind of nervous laugh you'd expect from a Wookie having to hang out with low-life Jawas.
• For a moment I think Milt's wearing earplugs. I'd go pull them out myself if I weren't afraid all my missing antfarm ants would spill out.
• Milt and Chewie disappear into his office. Her voice pierces the walls as if it were a Swingline stapler laugh.
• I wonder what they're up to. The laugh of Milt's boss sounds like the real Chewbacca's howl, so I naturally think, "Blasphemy!"
• I consider dressing like one of the Huts. Now think about any great Star Wars office.
• Imagine Death Star cubicles with Palpatine hologram clocks. Clones all working the phones.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [52 of 128]

• Think about it. What do you want from your break room? Coffee consistency. I say that over and over in my paralysis: coffee consistency.
• Email: "All: Since our coffee service, "Get a Break" seems to have gotten a break from bringing us coffee stirrers, I have ordered some."
• This is what Buildicon Enterprise has come to... Plastic or wooden stirrers, generic or non-generic creamer. I can't take it. I'm frozen.
• Has the company secretary seen that many bad movies? Because she just wrote a line out of one. This is corporate America gone mad.
• The crazy idea that workers might revolt over not having their preferred java stirrers is almost enough to make me want to carry that flag!
• New "Don't Tread On Me" banner for the modern age: Green flag with white coffee cup in the middle surrounded by a square, er... cubicle.
• It's the common good of the corporate cubicle crowd. Slogan: "Decent coffee! Decent stirrers! Sturdy cups!" Chant it! God I need a latte...
• I wonder: Does every corporation eventually face their own Cubepocalypse? Workers expected to do the mundane revolt over something trivial.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [51 of 128]

• She drove me home, unbuttoned her blouse and said, "They look real don't they? I need celery. I'm so organic. I don't even lift anymore..."
• She continued: “I was just too inhuman then. You know, all apple and no stem? Couldn’t see nothin’ but lumps I was so bloated everywhere.”
• She didn’t stop talking.
• "I had no neck. Now I eat sushi. I want to open a sushi bar but I'm afraid I might have to learn some Japanese. So, how are your apples?"
• I'll get back to the fabulous Katie Starburn. For the moment I'm locked in my cubicle, paralyzed. I think it's the email I just read.
• It's a coffee-related email sent to all Buildicon personnel. Apparently the secretary is on the fritz about coffee stirrers. Not good news.
• Like any cubicle worker, I think, "Don't mess with our coffee!" If there's a balance to corporate cubicle existence, coffee provides it.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [50 of 128]

• The entire Buildicon office is turning into a claymation of its former self.
• Milt Butterlink's spider bites have healed. That doesn't keep him from wandering over to my desk and babbling. I try to focus in.
• Milt looks like he's chewing when he talks. So I look at his nose instead. There's something hanging there like some wild flea circus.
• Even though he's still talking, all I hear is "Boogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerboogerbooger..."
• I consider telling Milt that a booger is doing some kind of high-flying act between nostrils. I almost wish I had a bag of peanuts.
• He's talking about the company party I never go to and brags about dancing in leather on a table. I consider his booger act YouTube worthy.
• Sixteen.
• Katie Starburns was once an organic bodybuilder. I guess that means everything but steroids. Anyway, she's got the body of a Greek goddess.
• She's statuesque with marble-like cleavage. Only hers? Silicon. I think her skin is real. Not that I touched it or she hasn't offered.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [49 of 128]

• I see Mulani's shape in sparks. I see her shape in the sand, in imaginary bioluminescence. I hear laughter, crackling flames, ocean roars.
• Buoys bounce in the dark sea. Waves crest and crash. The sand is cool next to me. A sand crab wanders close, moving like a sideways glance.
• I drift off to sleep feeling so infinitesimal that I can understand the small places between grains of sand. There's electricity in them.
• I can leap from each. A billion stepping stones to an uncertain future. The spaces become wider, the leaps longer. I try to grow wings.
• Fifteen.
• Working for a corporation is like taking the end result--life's grand statue of me--and re-sculpting into a big worthless block of clay.
• Some, like Joan or Milt, are practically monoliths at their desk. Think about it. What happens to our personalities in cubicle culture?
• Buildicon's idea of team-building is turning us all into big cubes. We'll never escape our cubicles: products of a product-driven company.
• I'm beginning to think there's more of me in the worthless Happy Meal toy I brought back from lunch. I put it on the shelf with the others.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [48 of 128]

• Mulani passes me. She's a faster runner, more athletic than I ever knew. I get winded in the sand and have to stop.
• I'm a failure at rescue. I never should have watched Baywatch. They were out of my league all along.
• I gasp while Mulani comforts Vishnu with kisses and hugs. I put my hands on my knees as Mike comes stumbling,
• pretending he's mental with the whole episode. For some reason he's a natural. Mike: "I murder little kids for Frisbee.
• Now I go to car and we go back to institution." Like an insane man he stumbles across the sand.
• Lying on the sand in the dark I feel like Buildicon's cubicles have been lifted from around me. I imagine them shooting into the heavens.
• I look up, play dot to dot, connect unseen lines into Mulani's shape.
• She's about to wad the moon like paper from Buildicon's faulty printer. Not too far away there's a fire in the sand.
• Mike is building it. Sparks fly. Vishnu is drinking heavily. Mulani is humming quietly. I suddenly feel small again.
• I'm the ant shaman in the tiny farm. Even a fleck of dust shines brighter than me. A star shoots across the sky.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [47 of 128]

• She wrinkles her brow in confusion. My hands never quite reach her waist as I suddenly turn and run down the pier.
• Two porpoise leap and make their way along the coastline. I know what Vishnu is thinking. The dolt thinks he sees sharks.
• Vishnu’s hands are up by his face in disbelief. He screams and runs, falls, gets up, screams and runs then repeats the process once more.
• Mike simply throws his arms in the air. He walks around clumsily on the sand for a few moments, then picks up some seaweed.
• Suddenly Mike starts screaming as if he’s seen some kind of sea creature more frightening than the sharks in Vishnu’s imagination.
• Mocking Vishnu, Mike covers his chest with his hands and falls to the ground pretending to die. He convulses. He kicks his legs out.
• A couple of kids walk up and kick sand on him then take his Frisbee and run.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [46 of 128]

• She leans over the pier railing. Her skin is dark. There is a shine to it in the hot sun and I suddenly want to hold her.
• I want to touch her shoulder, wrap myself around her waist and feel her lips. She turns and looks into my eyes.
• She gazes and starts smiling. Mulani turns and looks over the sand and sea. "China is so far away," she says.
• "Are you the kind of person who would take me there?" I don't have to think about this: "Sure. Why wouldn't I?"
• Mulani: "There are things I need to do and see but I'm afraid." Me: "I know."
• Down below, a few large waves roll across the surf. I sneak closer. I want to put my arms around her waist. She can sense it too.
• "Tell me what you're feeling," she says. It's as if she knows what I'm feeling--that I can't shake her, or this, or anything about her.
• I'm about to answer when my eyes move from Mulani down below to Vishnu who just dropped the Frisbee. He points to the ocean.
• If I had watched Mulani I would have seen something in her eyes just then I had never seen: the same adoration I feel for her perhaps?

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [45 of 128]

• "People from your city, your family, your neighborhood and outlying villages celebrate this festival for 5,000 years.
• "Customs are as ancient as the streets and air. All around you are lights and smiles. There are great temples and wide festival streets.
• "You stop for a pastry delicacy smothered in cheese. The ancients walked the same road, ate the same food,
• prepared in exactly the same way. "You see, a roll is not just a roll. It is a cultural artifact constantly remade in the likeness
• of its former self. "Every day they are reborn and you can have another. Time overlaps.
• This is the enlightenment of the roll," Vishnu says. Mike doesn't get it. On the pier I have a moment alone with Mulani.
• Far below we can see Vishnu and Mike tossing a Frisbee across the sand.
• Each dives over sea kelp and jellyfish carcasses to catch passes. Occasionally Mulani waves down to them while we walk.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [44 of 128]

• Fourteen.
• The blue-green ocean off the California coast plays like a magical song, beckoning Vishnu. It reflects deep azure in his eyes.
• There is a boyish glow that builds until he suddenly screams joyously from the back of the car: "Ocean! Ocean! Ocean! Ocean!"
• If there is a time that Webmaster meets spirituality in nature, this is the mystical moment. Sadly, there is no mouse for Vishnu to click.
• Near the pier there's a shop that makes the best cinnamon rolls I've ever tasted. The aroma fills the street as we park.
• The aroma inside is perfectly overwhelming. "Four please," I say. Four rolls are placed on plates. Icing is then smeared across the tops.
• "Let the angels dip their heavenly wings in sugar and fat," Mike says. Vishnu: "What are cinnamon rolls?" I set one in front of him.
• "Ah, a pastry treat," Vishnu says. He smiles big as he takes his first bite. Suddenly he looks like he's about to tell a wondrous story.
• Vishnu: "We have such delicacies in India. Picture a soft midnight sky. You're under the most majestic festival lights wrapped in goodness.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [43 of 128]

• In the meantime, Vishnu does double work maintaining both the old website and the new website that is never launched.
• His eyes slowly cross. Me: "Say, Vish. What do you think about a beach trip?" He gets nervous: "Did you not hear? Shark attack."
• Go figure. He's a web news junky. "They're not going to jump on the beach and bite you." Vishnu: "Oh no?
• I cannot place myself in the path of certain death." Me: "Come on!" Vishnu: "I have seen Luke Skywalker and his war of stars.
• The dark side can rear its head any time to bite off the hand of the unsuspecting.” "Did someone say beach trip?" Mulani says.
• She must already have bags packed somewhere. "Yeah you can bring your husband." I cross the line.
• Mulani is quicker than me: "Oh who needs that bimbo. He's in South America. Besides. I need some fun in the sun with my favorite boys."
• Just then we realize that Kira de Frito has been standing in the cubicle. We don't know how long.
• Her birthmark looks like seagull splatter. I give Kira a slow nod as if I'm communicating with an extraterrestrial.
• She looks like she's about to cry and bolts into a sea of cubicles. Mulani: "Maybe we should invite her."
• Me: "I thought shark attacks were terrifying." Just then Milt passes. He trips on the carpet. Karma.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [42 of 128]

• Kira: "a..." I speak slow as if to help: "A... what?" But that does no good. She suddenly bolts to Milt's office and slams the door.
• Mike: "What do you think they talk about every time she runs in there?" Me: "Maybe she can't form complete sentences in there either."
• Vishnu walks up and looks at Milt's closed door. "Who's in there?" he says. Mike and I: "Kira de Frito." Vishnu: "Why?"
• Me: "We don't know." And so this is the corporate world: incomplete sentences, mass miscommunication, closed-door meaningless meetings.
• I need a road trip. Vishnu: "Ahh. I need a graphic for our new website that never launches." I feel put out.
• Can't he see I'm surfing the Web and chatting? Along with Buildicon's old website, Vishnu works on a new company
• website that was supposed to be launched a year ago. It’s like the space shuttle. Every time they think they find a loose tile,
• the launch date is scrubbed for six months in order to procrastinate. By the time we launch the new site,
• Buildicon will be ready for a new design on top of the old design and the new design. Vishnu stares.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [41 of 128]

• I need a road trip with my office pals. I imagine Vishnu has an inflatable tube, Mulani in a bikini and Mike
• with a splatter of nose lotion. I begin to imagine Mulani blowing me kisses, sharing a beach towel, when I notice
• Kira de Frito standing in my personal cubicle space. Kira: “I need a projecta requesta.” Her Brazilian accent is extremely horrible today,
• more so than usual. Her breath is no rain forest. Me: "You have a project?" Kira: "I believe so, jes." Me: "You believe so? OK."
• And then she just stands there. Is she hypnotized? By what? I pray to God I don't have something hanging from my nose like
• Milt Buttlerlink always does. Me: "Kira?" "Jes?" she says. Me: "Kira? I can't read your mind."
• Although I am beginning to think I can see the shape of it outlined by the birthmark on her forehead.
• "I need..." Kira de Frito says. I form words as if speaking for her. I do the eternal slow nod as if to pull words from her lips.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [40 of 128]

• Milt stares at the spider. It never moves. He waits 10 minutes for it to move. I wait 10 minutes for him to move. It's a move off.
• I twitch. Milt comes back to my desk eight times. I hand him a completed newsletter that's a month late.
• "I'll look at it next week," he says. "Why is there a live cricket in your spider tank?" Milt asks. Me: "For effect.
• It helps make the spider look real." The next day the spider tank is on its side. The lid is off.
• I find Barbarella crawling on Kira de Frito's chair. I think about leaving it. Milt passes my desk.
• He has welts all over his face and neck like he has just wrestled a snake or giant spider. I take Barbarella home.
• Shark attack on a nearby beach. Some surfer was nearly chewed off his board. I click on the video link and see a chomped on surfboard.
• "Yeah broh, I was hangin' it goofy foot by the pier. Shark thought I was seal bait. But I looked into his eyes, and like, whoah, you know?"
• The closest beach is two hours away from this smoggy valley. The water is cold, the jellyfish are as big as people and the ocean is murky.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [39 of 128]

• Thirteen.
• Today I'm at work surfing the Internet. What more can I do to take up boredom than to stream mindless media straight onto my desktop?
• The Drudgereport is scamming there's been another shark attack. For some reason I think it might be my ex. Worse things have happened.
• I can imagine my ex on Oprah, sobbing, wearing a fake arm that's Gumby-like and bent to look like she's the victim of the shark kingdom.
• Ex: "I was paddling, stuck in a half circle, trying to get away. I could see my fingers wiggle as he swallowed." And then Oprah would cry.
• I'm feeling dysfunctional. It's a cubicle thing. Confined, I don't feel like I'm helping the collective. I bring my pet tarantula to work.
• The spider’s name is Ms. Barbarella Big Fangs. She’s hairy. She eats crickets. Milt Butterlink sees her and instantly stops at my desk.
• Milt: "You can't bring a spider to work." Me: "It's not real." Milt: "It's real." Me. "It's not real." Milt: "I know it's real."
• Me: "Nope."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [38 of 128]

• Mulani hangs over me. "Nice," she mocks. "And you colored in the lines." Mike shakes his head. "I need a third grader to do it," I admit.
• I need one sentence approved to finalize this month's e-newsletter. It's taken five days to write the stupid sentence. Am I inefficient?
• The problem is, each time I show the sentence to Milt he says the same thing: "It needs some shiny pizzazz. Make it freakin' Hollywood."
• This is technical data. I interviewed two product developers and a tech support engineer. It's not enough. This job is a battle.
• How can Milt expect me to know technical data when I can't even build a paper version with slots in it? And no, I can't color in the lines!
• The tech support office is a nerdy war zone with everyone on a headset solving a wireless protocol automation crisis
• somewhere in the world. I feel like Dan Rather trying to get a story. I say:
• "How does a Radioblast work over Ethernet when running twelve robo-flippers?" I’m ignored by the tech nerds.
• So I determine the only answer I can from the land of high waters: I’ll write the newsletter next month.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [37 of 128]

• Joan says the story isn't proven. But one can tell there's something in her blood that runs wild like
• her father up that bullet-ridden path. I give up on copy for a Buildicon newsletter.
• I put it down to work on a pop-up pencil holder wireless device mock-up for a possible ad.
• It's for a big wireless promotion: a life-size pencil holder punch-out. Just color with crayons, fold together, add sand for a stable base.
• Kira passes. I clearly don't know what I'm doing because I have paper cutouts all over my desk. She flings her hair in my direction.
• I want to say: "It must be easy to know where you're going when there's a map on your forehead." I bite tongue,
• consult net for paper dolls. Fold 'C' into slot 'C', 'A' into slot 'A'. How can I go wrong? Hell, I designed the slots. It will cost
• $18,000 to run the ad. No problem. And then it falls apart. Every slot rips at once. I’m not a goddam paper house architect. I know this.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [36 of 128]

• A micro-manager like Milt has to see every ad before any can leave the office. Otherwise that's trouble: my natural state of existence.
• Milt changes all the copy. It goes full circle with graphics too. He's ignorant that Buildicon ads cost $8,000 to $10,000 each.
• You can see that if we miss a deadline it's bad even if it is Milt's fault. I call it displaced blame. Others simply call it "Milt sucks."
• When I'm at home and the lights are out I stare up at the ceiling imagining pinpricks of light, the small places that represent infinity.
• Get ad copy right, or Joan says it won't mean shit from shinola. Joan: "You will piss off the entire sales force." Like I'm scared of them.
• Joan is sort of like a manager. She's also a trade industry writer, idea woman, trade show aficionado and daughter of a Korean War veteran.
• As the story goes, her father killed off his own captain for sending his platoon on a dead-end run up a Chinese-infested hamburger hill.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [35 of 128]

• He has a large nose as big as his head, narrow set eyes, and an Adam's apple that moves like the large glowing ball on Times Square.
• I'm sure Milt and Ichabod are having a lovely discussion about an ad campaign. I laugh because Milt is oblivious to Joan's ranting.
• Joan disappears down to the parking garage. She smokes two cigarettes, then screams so loud a lady walking to the bank
• trips over her heels. If there's one thing I learned how about to approach people from my previous jobs: never cross a bulldog.
• Joan, my friends, is a bulldog. How to treat Joan the bulldog: do what she says, pat her and scratch her fur every chance you get.
• Stay away from her pissing tree. Joan is from a working class cowpoke town. She's the kind of person you just leave alone.
• That's what you do with all cowboys actually. Apparently, Milt yelled at Joan for missing an ad deadline.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [34 of 128]

• Twelve.
• Joan has glazed-over eyes. They are shiny and bloodshot as she sits in my cubicle and speaks in a whisper. Her hair is a burnt frizz.
• Milt says: "I feel like a freakin' superstar. But too many tigers in those hoops while you're jumping can lead to unspeakable things."
• I write down his axiom. It's another bad saying for the book of Milt sayings. Joan continues to whisper. I don't listen. She thinks I am.
• Joan rants: "That &%$#! should be shot! He doesn't know who he's dealing with! I will lay down my resignation! He doesn't know shinola!"
• I can't understand how someone can purse their lips so much and still be able to form clear sentences. My mind wanders.
• I'm thinking about Mulani. She's dressed cute. It's formfitting. She's formfitting. Her hair is in pigtails. What happened between us?
• Joan paces. Milt's in his office speaking French to a French marketing contact who looks exactly like Ichabod Crane in a turtleneck squeeze

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [33 of 128]

• Several tables stop playing pool to stare at Mulani yelling. She smiles back innocently: "Well that's what she said!" She loves to curse.
• "She's right. The guy is like some kind of psycho babe who's constantly making false promises about gooey relationships," Mike says.
• Mulani frowns as I say, "He then forgets all about his kind gestures and goes Devil on our asses and treats ads like bad dates."
• Mulani growls: "Leave us women out! Milt is just showing poor traits common to many men. He has an unhealthy management-sized dose."
• Vishnu rolls his eyes. Mulani grins in response. He sizes up the 6-ball, but finally misses a shot. "Ha! Did you see that?" Mike laughs.
• Mike's had a few too many beers. It shows. "Vish is breakable after all! You shark! You potato drinking pool shark!"
• "Leave sharks out of this game," Vishnu says. "I am not fond of them or their many teeth." A shark's stomach isn't a small place, I think.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [32 of 128]

• "You're a baby. It's beginner's luck," I say. I turn to Vishnu. "You hung out in what place in New Delhi?" "The Punjab Potato," he says.
• "It's a drink," Vishnu says. I grimace. "The world is full of many things. One experience is but a doorway to another," he says.
• Mike: "I hate to be a ball breaker, but we do have a game to play. Break!" he yells and starts a new game. I have another agenda on my mind
• "Joan's off the deep end," I say. "No!" Mike feigns surprise. "She's near meltdown," I add. Mike waves his hands, pretends to care: "Oooo."
• Mulani nods: "It's Milt." Me: "If he didn't steal ideas, berate everyone and generally not let us do our jobs, maybe he would be likeable.”
• Mike:"Managers like Milt aren't supposed to be likeable." Mulani: "Well Joan says she's calling in fifth-column action to see he gets his."
• Mulani continues:"Well that's what she said when she was cursing like a sailor in the parking garage." OK, I'm curious: "What did she say?"
• Mulani:"She said, 'That SOB is messing with the wrong bitch if he thinks I'm taking the fall again for his boyish grasp on the department!"

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [31 of 128]

• "That is New Delhi. It is a place of ancient wonder. We even have McDonalds," Vishnu says. I am in awe of his city. He is in awe of the Web
• He humbly accepts his Web pages as his creations, his work in the corporate sphere. I can see that. I extend an olive branch.
• "Hey Vish, some of us are going to a bar tonight to shoot some pool. I thought you'd want to go." "Really?" he says. "You'd fit in," I say.
• There are now two preying mantis. They're statues, pale green, eyes like opals, with arms tucked in quiet worship of walls and windows.
• I'm fascinated with their bug world. They seem to silently socialize as if my entire living room were a lawn filled with infinite dreams.
• It's not that I always take time to think about little things. But adults no longer fascinated about small places in life tend to bore me.
• I imagine the smallest boxing match in the world. The darker mantis knocks the block off its pale friend. They both wear tiny boxing gloves
• At the bar Vishnu sinks the 8-ball before any of us get a chance to shoot. Mulani pouts, sticks out her bottom lip: "I didn't get a turn."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [30 of 128]

• "I would never. I just know you're the new guy and wanted to say hi, Vish," I say. Vishnu: "I've been here four months."
• He sits like the same preying mantis near my kitchen window. I can't ever tell that it moves, that it eats. I can't even see it blink.
• Every once in a while I notice in the small places of my house where there used to be spiders are now broken webs picked clean.
• "I just kind of wondered," I say. "Wondered what??" Vishnu sits up. His eyes are now wide. "Are you wondering the mysteries of the Web?"
• Vish "Afraid customers aren't going to partake of the Buildicon web portal?" "Nothing of the sort!" I say. "Do you hate New Delhi?" he adds
• "Let me tell you the streets are like gold. There are no huts, no barbarians, no Mother Theresa action figures, no cow trolleys...
• "We have temples for old and new religions. We have Sikh temples that sparkle with white lights and Hindu temples like mountains in the sky
• "We have an ancient red fort and much newer lotus temple that glows like a candlelit blossom on a serene body of water...

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [29 of 128]

• Eleven.
• I ask: "Does anybody know Vishnu's real name?" Mike: "I think it's Sam Vishnukuku." "Oh come on," I say.
• "Seriously. Check him out. He seems to go into hibernation at his desk. You think he's sleeping but he's not. Not at all. It's perplexing."
• Vishnu sits in near slumber. His screen changes. Updates are made, download buttons are created, links form. His lids are half-closed.
• I can hear the mouse click, but Vishnu doesn't change position. His hand never seems to move. I swear his body is about to levitate.
• Vishnu is from New Delhi, a city not filled with elephant tusks or nectar water torture. It's as advanced as the rest of the Free World.
• He sits at his Web post like a guardian to a realm of many-armed gods and says, "You think I am sleeping but I am not.
• What's your problem?" "I have no problem, Vish." "Yes, you are staring." "I don't know what you're talking about."
• "You are staring at me because I'm Indian."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [28 of 128]

• And that's OK, except now he's wearing goggles to work. He's happy we're bringing life to the land of grey. But now I call him captain.
• Up walks Kira de Frito. Dear me, did I forget to mention that she has a birthmark on her forehead? She's got that look in her eye again.
• "You do not like me," Kira says. I say in reference to her birthmark: "You're so retro Gorbachev." She doesn't get it.
• We battle with questions: "What did I ever do?" "You didn't like the song?" "Why are you so angry?" "Are you not a fan of musicals, Kira?"
• Kira de Frito once starred in a Brazilian novella. I never acknowledge her stardom. So she's overly sensitive.
• She bolts into Milt's office. "What's up with the colorful new ads?" I say to Mike. "It's like robots in dance gear."
• Mike: "It's our new look and feel." Me: "Rainbows?" Mike imitates Milt Butterlink: "Make Buildicon recognizable with color."
• He adds, "Milt can't choose one color so he goes with them all."
• Milt's door opens and out pops Kira de Frito. She bolts for her cubicle. "What's up her pineapple?" Mike says.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [27 of 128]

• Mulani: "She's only clothed from the waist up, a corset." Me: "Right now?" I look. "No, you idiot. When they, you know," Mulani says.
• As I sit down at my desk I suddenly realize that if Buildicon is the social heart of Americana I'd rather be in Brazil with Kira de Frito.
• I want to be carrying around platters of pineapples, wear an oversized cabana shirt, and see Kira scream "Carnival!" in her coconut bikini.
• I'd rather it be Mulani than Kira de Frito. Let's eat, let's dance, let's get away from the color grey in a seaside town filled with color.
• Except there will be copacabana boys by the hundreds. I can't bear the thought of losing Mulani to a pineapple plate distributor.
• "Ay!" I yell. "Is there no justice?" Mike looks at me. I don't think he cares that I yelled.
• He's busy designing a robotic ad for Buildicon. Me: "Do we have to sing a musical?" Mike: "Yes. Can we make one up?"
• Me: "Of course. I don't know any actual words or tunes. Do you?" Mike realizes he doesn't know any musicals either, but we sing.
• He leads. Next door is the president's office. He doesn't say a word. He knows we're crazy.
• He's also happy because I know Margo in Orders just intercepted a fax that he paid $300,000 for a turbo prop.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [26 of 128]

• Ten.
• Today is like yesterday only worse. I walk up to Buildicon where a bum pisses on a tire in the parking garage.
• Thank God I don't have a car. I say: "Don't you have a goddam outhouse? Or a newspaper? Or a friend to piss on?
• Cause you're pissing me off!" He laughs in my direction. I snap out of it as Buildicon's self-imposed beauty queen,
• Kira de Frito passes by. She builds spreadsheets that Mulani has to fix.
• She talks to Brazilian product buyers, perhaps about lingerie. She's the Wicked Witch of the West Indies, kind of dark, with a hook nose.
• Kira de Frito slinks by in a jaguar of an outfit, very catlike, with tight black pants and cleavage you could put a pineapple platter on.
• By the copier Mulani tells me about Kira de Frito's crisis: "I will not suffer this one alone. She has to dance for her husband." Me: "No!"
• Me: "He can't?" Mulani: "Nope." Me: "So she dances a jig each night before they salsa?" Mulani: "Every night." Me: "Horrible!"
• I mean, don't get me wrong. Shake it don't break it. "But that's not all of it," Mulani says. I run the copier again to buy more time.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [25 of 128]

• Nine.
• 2 am: I dream about my dead ant farm. I am inside it, lost. There are no ants to show me the way,
• only plastic walls and hulks of dead ants. I split open a dead dried ant and make a sort of shaman costume that I wear while I explore.
• I commune with their dead consciousness. I find a room with ant eggs stuck to the walls and ceiling. One is cracked open.
• Black lifeless eyes stare out at me. I am them. In my shaman ant dream I grow thirsty. I use two broken antenna as divining rods.
• I dig and water springs out. I wake up having wet the bed. Milt's eyeballs are nearly touching the new ant farm I bring to work.
• "Where are the ants?" he asks. "I just mail-ordered them," I say. He seems more impatient than me about the ants arrival:
• "When will they come?" Me: "Any second now." Milt stares for minutes on end. I finally get the ants and dump them into the ant farm.
• They spread throughout like they'd just been on vacation and start digging tunnels. I watch the ants watch me.
• I think they can see me. They gather at the plastic walls. No wait. It's the dead fly I put in there. Never mind.
• After lunch I see the ant farm is a complete wreck. All the sand walls have collapsed. There's no movement. A Post-It reads: "Earthquake."
• Milt walks by. He doesn't look at me but snickers to himself. I follow him to the bathroom where I can hear him laughing insanely.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [24 of 128]

• I suddenly want to create diorama of pink packaging corporate puppets, not merely for my entertainment,
• but for all bored Buildicon workers. What do you think if you see pink packaging sponges with faces:
• felt-pen grins of asinine pondering and surreal cartoonland pontifications?
• Mike and I design a character in this pink sponge puppet named Blockhead Joe. Much of his story is simple. He marries Airhead Pam.
• Blockhead Joe and Airhead Pam have a grand wedding. They appear on a sitcom. He cheats on her. She cheats on him. They have baby larvae.
• We put up a 'Free Larvae' sign. They're made out of packaging popcorn. We draw faces on them so each one is unique.
• Glen quits his job in Tech Support and takes his larvae to Mississippi. I soon get an email: "We're here!" I never hear from him again.
• Airhead Pam gets murdered. Some of the larvae turn into spawnlings that are Styrofoam, half sponge. Blockhead Joe gets framed.
• Blockhead Joe gets kidnapped. The ransom is twenty bucks. Body parts begin to arrive. How do I get away with this you might ask?
• I have no idea how I get away with this sponge show other than the four workplace axioms I defined earlier.
• I'll do some real work tomorrow.