Black Rain Frog
“You like baseball?” Andy asked Bob. “Sure. Yankees.”
This post is a little different from the recent ones. I’ll return to Timoran next week, but I hope you enjoy this little intermission.
The door opened and Andy hustled in with his two briefcases. “Sorry,” he said when he plopped his stuff onto the fourth desk of their quad. “I’ve got to piss,” then he was gone.
“Is he always late?” Bob asked. The clock showed half past ten. “This is the third day in a row.”
The man across the desk, Craig, grunted. He was a larger, bald man with rough hands from his history in construction.
“Whaddya think his excuse will be? Overslept?”
“It’s last night you have to ask about. Never knew a married man to oversleep.”
Bob blinked. “He’s married?”
“Believe it or not.”
“But he doesn’t wear a ring.”
Craig shrugged. “Look at his pictures.”
Bob did. “She’s pretty.”
“A shame, isn’t it?”
Andy returned with a soda can from the break room. He was a thin man of twenty-five, wearing a wrinkled shirt under his tailored suit. His hair was freshly cut and his beard regularly shaved. He wore blue lens glasses no matter the occasion.
“Where’s Frank?” Andy asked.
“He told us he couldn’t make it today. The flu,” Bob said.
“Him too? The boys in marketing got hit last week.”
“Is that why you’re late this time?”
“No, it was nothing. I’m just late.” Andy opened his briefcase and sifted through papers. He pulled one out and read it.
Craig took his feet off his desk and let his pencil clatter to the floor. “Nothing? Just woke up late?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s it.”
“Yeah.”
“Stayed up too late then.”
“A little.”
“Doing what?”
“What’s it matter?”
“It doesn’t, except that you showed up late.”
Andy rolled his eyes and turned on his computer.
“Andy, what’s your wife do? For work, I mean,” Craig asked.
“Why do you care?”
“Just trying to get to know you. We are friends, right?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“So what’s your wife do?”
He hesitated. “She’s an anthropologist. Studies culture and stuff. It has her travelling around all over, sometimes to Africa or to Asia. She’s in Vietnam right now, I think. Might be one of the other ones around there.”
“I bet those places are pretty interesting.”
“Probably.”
“Better than working in this office, right?”
Andy shrugged. “I’ve never actually been. The trips are for documentation, not for leisure. That’s what Helen tells me.”
“I’m sure you could hang around in the tourist area while they do their bullshit. Just ask your dad for a few days off, he’ll give it to you.”
“He wouldn’t let me.”
“Sure he would. He gives you anything.”
Andy shrugged. “I guess I’m just not interested.”
Craig’s eyes bulged and his jaw slackened. “You could travel around the world, and you’re fine just staying here? If it were me, I’d want to get the hell out of this place for a week or two.”
“I’m not you, Craig.”
Craig scowled. They worked for a while in silence. He went outside to smoke a cigarette.
“You like baseball?” Andy asked Bob.
“Sure. Yankees.”
Andy opened his second briefcase and removed a binder of baseball cards. “Look at these.”
Bob peeked over. “Shouldn’t we be working?”
Andy shrugged. “Here, look at this Bernie Williams rookie card. And David Cone.” He handed them to Bob to examine.
“Where did you get all these?”
“Collected them over the years. Who’s your favorite player?”
“I don’t know. Babe Ruth.”
Andy sighed. “I wish, man. A Babe Ruth card would be killer.”
Craig returned from his cigarette. “Andy, what are you doing?”
“Looking at baseball cards.”
“At work?”
Andy shrugged. “Bob, look at this one. Paul O’Neill.” He passed it over.
Bob looked it over and said nothing.
“Andy, do you really think this is okay?” Craig asked.
“What?”
“Dicking off at work. You think your dad would like to see this?”
Andy snorted. “Whatever, Craig.” He flipped through another page in the binder.
“Don’t give me that! When you don’t work, I have to pick up your slack. Me. If you don’t get your ass on that computer, I’ll-I’ll . . . ”
Craig eyed the boss’s door. He sighed, sat down, and got back to work.
Andy raised an eyebrow. A smirk slowly appeared on his face.
Bob handed him back the baseball cards and turned to his computer. Andy did likewise.
“Craig, you ever heard of a black rain frog?” Andy asked half an hour later.
Craig exhaled and looked over. “What do you want?”
“A black rain frog. You ever heard of it?”
“No,” he said. “I’m trying to work.”
Andy looked from his computer screen to Craig and back. He chuckled.
“Bob, look,” he said, rotating the display towards Bob.
Bob glanced over at the image of a black rain frog. He snorted. It was bald, frowning, and obviously overweight.
“Andy, this is ridiculous!” Craig shouted. He stood up and leaned over his desk to get a look at the screen, but Andy closed the picture. The computer displayed a schematic like the one on his own screen. He scowled at Andy’s innocent expression.
“Something wrong?” Andy asked.
Craig pounded his fist on the table. “I’m trying to get work done and you sit here, doing nothing and poking fun at me!”
“Doing nothing?” Andy gestured to his computer. “I’m hard at work.”
He grinned.
“Alright, that’s it,” Craig said.
He stomped to the boss’s office and knocked on the frosted glass door. Mr. Kertz said a muffled “come in” and Craig opened the door. He slipped inside and shut the door behind him.
Andy put a finger to his lips, then he winked at Bob.
Bob scratched his chin, eyes worried.
A minute later, the glass door opened and both men walked out. Craig returned to his seat.
“Andy, Craig said you’ve been antagonizing him. Is this true?”
Again, Andy’s face displayed innocence. “I’ve done nothing to him.”
Mr. Kertz turned to Craig. “What did he do?”
Craig sputtered. “I don’t, it’s just, he’s just not doing his work. I’m trying to focus and he’s giving me these looks and making these comments. Half the time he spends looking through baseball cards.”
“I do not!”
Mr. Kertz sighed. “Andy, get back to work.” He turned back to his office and shut the door.
Craig glowered at Andy.
When his dad was safely away, Andy reopened the image of the black rain frog and started chuckling.