BARTLEBY THE TEMP, Part II
I kept a close eye on Bartleby for the next few days but there wasn’t much to see. He always seemed to be working and his speed and accuracy continued to amaze me. At the rate he was going, I could see that we would finish the project well ahead of schedule and just in time for my annual review. The temps all seemed to be getting along better as well-which is to say that everyone else was ignoring Bartleby. I decided not to stir up trouble and just got used to letting Bartleby do his own thing. Every once in a while, I’d forget and ask him to help me realphabetize some forms, only to be greeted by the familiar, “I would prefer not to.” Finally, I started to take him for granted.
But then one Sunday I had plans to meet some friends for brunch at a restaurant near the CircuCorp building, and I thought I’d pop in before meeting them and catch up on my email. Of course, when I turned on my computer, I saw that the server had crashed. I knew better than to expect any of the engineers to be around on a Sunday morning, so I resigned myself to cleaning my office instead, and then decided to make a cup of tea. I walked into the break room where I saw Bartleby in a light blue bathrobe standing by the refrigerator.
“Just give me a couple minutes and everything will be all set,” he said, walking out of the room and closing the door.
I suppose I should have been scared, running into him like that. But I was too stunned and Bartleby had been too nonchalant to frighten me. I stood there trying to make sense of what I had just seen. What was Bartleby doing here on a Sunday? How did he even get in? Why was he wearing a bathrobe? And what did he mean that “everything will be all set” in a couple of minutes?
I don’t know how long I stood there, but finally I worked up the courage, or maybe it was the curiosity, to open the door and walk out into the hallway.
“Bartleby.” No one answered. “Bartleby,” I said more loudly, and still no answer.
I looked into the storage room and saw that it was empty. Bartleby wasn’t at his workstation. I made my way into my office. Glancing at my computer, I saw that it had been rebooted and that the server was up.
“Bartleby!” I yelled.
I marched into the storage room and stepped over to Bartleby’s terminal. He wasn’t there, and I noticed that I never had gotten him a chair. He was still sitting on boxes of software manuals. At first, everything looked normal, but then I saw that there was an unfolded cardboard box screening from view the void beneath Bartleby’s desk. I bent down and pulled out the cardboard. I couldn’t believe what I saw.
There, neatly stacked on makeshift cardboard shelves, were the bare necessities that one would need to live: clothes, a razor, a towel, soap, a couple of cans of soup, some change, and a CircuCorp coffee mug. Then I noticed a small sleeping bag tossed into the corner of the room. Apparently, Bartleby had moved in. I knew right away that if anyone found out that one of my temps was living in the office, I’d be fired. I was supposed to be supervising Bartleby, not providing room and board. Who knew what he could have stolen, never mind that he could have hacked his way to the credit card numbers of our entire customer list by now.
But that didn’t seem likely. If that was what Bartleby wanted, he could have taken the information long ago. No, as I picked up a comb and a travel pack of tissues that had fallen off the cardboard shelves, I decided that Bartleby was simply someone with no place to go. I had heard about people who worked in the Valley but couldn’t afford to rent an apartment. Some of them rode a bus around all night, catching what sleep they could between stops. Real estate was insane around here. I was barely able to afford my tiny, one-bedroom place.
He must have hidden when everyone left at night, shut in the storeroom waiting for the cleaning people to finish. Then he’d just sit here by himself with the computers. He was like some character in an end-of-the-world movie where everyone is dead except one person who remains to walk the empty streets. Only in this case, all Bartleby could do was drift from cubicle to cubicle.
I didn’t make it to brunch with my friends that day. For a long time, I sat on Bartleby’s boxes and tried to figure out what to do next. When I left, having not seen Bartleby again, I headed home and spent a distracted day there, then came in early the next morning. I found Bartleby, alone in the storage room, entering data.
“Bartleby,” I said, in what I hoped was a sympathetic tone.
Bartleby stopped typing but didn’t say anything.
“Bartleby, I’m not going to ask you to do anything. I just want to talk.”
Bartleby stood and walked out from behind his station. He kept his eyes fixed on the dumpster outside the window. Standing next to him, I wondered how old he was. He had one of those uncertain faces that really didn’t show his age.
“Bartleby, do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“I would prefer not to.”
“I want to help, Bartleby, but you need to let me. Will you let me help?”
“I would prefer not to.” Bartleby went back to his keyboard and started typing.
“Look, you can’t live here. It’s wrong for so many reasons, and it’s not the only option you have.”
Bartleby typed.
“Bartleby, stop typing and turn around. Just be a little reasonable here.”
Bartleby paused.
“Right now, I would prefer not to be a little reasonable.”
“Bartleby!” I shouted.
He continued typing.
“Bartleby, stop!”
Immediately I realized I should not have screamed. Bartleby didn’t even miss a keystroke, but Taylor ran in from the break room carrying a broom like a club, thinking, apparently, that Bartleby was attacking me.
“Get away from her!” Taylor yelled.
“Taylor, put that down! Everything’s fine.”
“What did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything. Really. Taylor, he didn’t do anything. I’m sorry I yelled.”
Taylor peered over the terminals at Bartleby, who still hadn’t stopped typing.
“Just give me five minutes with him and he won’t give you any more trouble.”
“Taylor, put the broom down. I’m sorry I yelled. I appreciate your concern, but this is really unnecessary.”
Taylor glared at Bartleby before lowering the broom to the ground.
“Fine, I’ll leave. But you’re crazy to stay alone in a room with this guy. I wouldn’t turn my back on him. You hear that?” He was now shouting toward Bartleby.
“Taylor,” I said, ushering him to the door. “I would prefer that you give us a minute alone.”
I wasn’t sure what to do next. I didn’t want another useless confrontation. So I got a cup of coffee and went to my office to consider my next move. I was halfway through the cup, and still hadn’t made up my mind, when Clover knocked on my door.
“Yes, Clover, what is it?”
Clover had a half-smile on her face and was twirling her hair in her left hand. I couldn’t tell if she was laughing or nervous.
“Hey, come check out Mr. Personality. Something’s not right.”
“What’s not right?”
“Come see.”
I followed her into the storage room where I saw Bartleby standing and staring out the window. Nancy and Taylor stood next him, examining him as if he were a statue in a museum.
“He’s been like that for five minutes,” Nancy told me. “He won’t tell us why.”
“Bartleby,” I said tentatively. “Bartleby, what are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you need a break, or do you want to sit down?”
“I’ve decided to stop,” Bartleby said, his eyes fixed on the window.
“Um, okay. Is there a reason?”
At this, Bartleby wheeled around and faced me. “Can’t you see the reason?”
I wasn’t sure what to make of this and I could see that none of the temps did either. I could also tell that they were starting to get unnerved, so I led them out into the hallway and made up a story about Bartleby suffering from eyestrain. Staring off into the distance was supposed to help. It sounded plausible. I wanted to believe it myself.
“Just try to ignore him,” I said.
They were already adept at ignoring Bartleby, so they wrote this off as another one of his eccentricities. When all the temps left for lunch, I snuck back in to see Bartleby.
“It’s probably a good idea for you to take a break,” I said to the standing Bartleby. “I know this kind of work can get monotonous. Why don’t I just sign your pay slip through the end of the week and give you a few days to get yourself settled? You can come back as usual next Monday and we’ll forget all this ever happened.”
“I’m going to stop for good.”
“Well, if that’s the case, Bartleby, I’ll be sorry to see you go, but I do want to thank you for everything you’ve done. I’ll just sign that time sheet for you and you’ll be all set.”
Bartleby said nothing, which I decided to interpret as a sign that he was leaving. I went back to my office, found Bartleby’s time sheet, and filled it out through the end of the week, even adding on some overtime. Of course, just as I was about to check up on him, my supervisor popped in to tell me that I needed to come help him immediately find a report that had been misfiled. I didn’t want my supervisor to know anything about my little problem, so I just left Bartleby where he was standing. It wasn’t until after lunch that I was able to get back into the storage room.
Bartleby was still standing, surrounded by the other temps who were typing away. “Hey,” Clover said as I walked in. “I’ve got a problem with my wrist. I think I’m going to lie down and stare at ceiling tiles for the rest of the day.”
“Very funny,” I replied. “Why doesn’t everybody do some scanning for a while?”
The temps rose reluctantly and grabbed some sheets on their way out. I stood next to Bartleby and spoke to him softly, informing him that his time sheet was signed with some extra hours logged and that he was free to go. Bartleby didn’t take the sheet from me, so I put it next to his computer.
“Now you can just gather up the things you have under the desk and be on your way.”
Bartleby didn’t move.
“Bartleby, it’s time for you to go. You’re all finished here.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a packet I had put there if it came to this.
“Here’s some cash to get you by until your next check clears. And here’s a list of area homeless shelters. I can call the temp agency and tell them what a great job you’ve done. But, Bartleby, you really need to go.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“Bartleby, you have to.”
He remained still.
“I’m going to come back in five minutes. Get your stuff together and do what you have to do, but you need to be gone in five minutes.”
Of course, Bartleby wasn’t gone in five minutes, and I started to panic. I could have called my supervisor, but what if he discovered that Bartleby had been living in the building? I had let this situation get out of hand and it could cost me my job. I needed to think fast. I went into the break room and told the other temps that I was moving them onto another project. They started to complain at first, but when I told them that they would have nicer computers and more comfortable chairs, the grousing stopped. I set the temps up purging duplicate names from our main customer database. It was one of those jobs that was supposed to get done once a month but could go neglected for a year before anyone noticed. It didn’t take long for them to get up to speed but I stuck around to make sure there wasn’t too much talk about Bartleby. I left him in the storage room behind a closed door until the end of the day when everyone had left. When I opened the door to the storage room, I expected to see Bartleby, but that didn’t stop me from being annoyed by his presence. He stood, staring vacantly, the time sheet and money next to him, untouched.
“You know, I expected better than this from you. I’ve treated you fairly, and you’re making this as difficult as possible for me. Let me ask you one last time. Are you going to leave?”
“I would prefer not to leave,” he said, emphasizing the not.
“What right do you have to stay here? You don’t own this place. It’s not your personal condo.”
Bartleby said nothing.
“Well, let me see then.” I was getting really angry. “Will you do data entry? Or maybe reconfigure the whole computer system? Here’s one for you. Will you place one paper clip on these reports? Will you do just one thing to justify your being here, or for that matter to justify your being anywhere?”
I stormed out of the storage room and slammed the door behind me. I left the building on the verge of tears, unsure of myself and unsure of what to do the next day. But, as you’ve probably heard, there was no next day, at least as far as CircuCorp was concerned.
The following morning I arrived to find the building padlocked. Employees were not permitted inside for any reason. Uniformed police and angry-looking men in dark suits were strutting all over the parking lot. I tried to sneak a look inside the window by the dumpster to see if Bartleby was still in the storage room but a guy with a big gun in a holster stopped me. He asked if I was a CircuCorp employee, and when I said I was, he escorted me over to a trailer in the parking lot where the police were conducting interviews.
I had no idea what was going on, but I immediately thought Bartleby must be involved. I began to worry that I could be arrested. After all, I had known he was living in the office and I didn’t do anything about it. I told the police about everything: his sleeping in the storage room, his messing around with the computers, his refusal to leave. The officer I spoke to took detailed notes but didn’t say anything. When I said that I feared Bartleby wasn’t mentally stable, the officer asked if Bartleby had ever threatened me. I said no but that he had made me uncomfortable at times, which he had. The officer nodded and kept writing down notes. Then he thanked me and let me go home.
Over the following days, more of the story came out. It turned out that CircuCorp had been involved in some serious stockholder fraud, money laundering, and selling classified encryption software; and that’s just what the police made public. The CEO left the country before the bottom fell out, though the police did nab a couple of the senior management felons. It looked as if the rest of us could kiss our 401(k) plans goodbye. I heard through the ex-employee grapevine that the cute guy who had been hired a few months earlier as a systems administrator was actually an FBI plant, but other than that there wasn’t much news. I kept looking in the newspaper for some mention of Bartleby, but there was nothing.
It was another week before I was allowed into the office, under police escort of course. Like most CircuCorp employees, I had nothing to do with the illegal side of the company. But my being an unwitting lackey didn’t mean that the police were going to cut me any slack. I was given fifteen minutes to clean out my desk and forward my email. On the way in, I noticed that the storage room door was closed. I lied to my escort and said I had some files in there, but he told me his orders only allowed me access to my office.
So, here I was, out of a job and marked as having worked for a criminal company. I sent my résumé around and got a headhunter, but I wasn’t holding my breath. The dot coms had started to collapse, and layoffs in the Valley were as common now as stock options had been a few years before. I knew finding work was going to be tough. In the mean time, I had bills to pay. So, swallowing my pride, I called the same temp agency I had used for CircuCorp.
I’m not sure what kind of response I was expecting from Ashley, my contact at the agency, but it wasn’t the one I got when I told her my name.
“Oh, my God, I’m so glad you called. I tried to get in touch with you, but I had no idea where you lived. Let me have the police talk to you. They’re right here.”
“Police? What? Ashley, what’s the matter?”
The police questioned me about Bartleby, first on the phone and then at my apartment. I couldn’t tell them much more, though, than I had already. They wanted to know everything I knew about him-his habits, any views he expressed, what he did when he wasn’t working. I tried to help, but I really knew so little about Bartleby. Finally, after what seemed like hours of grilling, the police said they had all they needed.
“What’s he done?” I finally got to ask.
“Nothing,” one of the officers told me. As it turned out, Bartleby had been in the CircuCorp building the night the police raided it, so he had been under suspicion, but he had been cleared and released. The problem was that Bartleby wouldn’t leave the building, and when he got thrown out, he kept coming back.
“It’s too bad,” the officer said. “They finally had to admit him for observation.”
“For observation?”
“He’s in the county mental health facility. We’re just trying to track down some relatives or friends, but this guy doesn’t seem to have anyone.”
“Did you find out anything about him?”
“Parents passed away a while back in Michigan. No other family. He seems to have been a drifter for a while. That’s all we’ve been able to turn up. Well, thank you for your time, ma’am.”
I let the police out, repeating in my head, “This guy doesn’t seem to have anyone.” That’s right, I thought. Bartleby is about as alone as you can get, even more alone now than he was at CircuCorp. It took me a little while to discover where he was “under observation,” but eventually I found the address. I decided I could wait to look for temp work.
It was a nice day to be driving, particularly since it wasn’t rush hour, so I took my time heading out to the facility. It wasn’t as dingy as I thought it would be and the staff all seemed friendly. I guess I had seen too many movies about places like this. I expected barbed wire fences and sadistic nurses. I was led instead into a yard where Bartleby stood next to a low brick wall, looking out toward a parking lot. I went over to him, coughing so that seeing me wouldn’t startle him, but he didn’t move.
“Bartleby? Bartleby, it’s me.”
“I know,” he said without turning to face me. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Hey, don’t be mad at me. I just came to see you. I don’t have anything to do with this.” We stayed silent for a few seconds, and then I said, “Well, hey, at least this is nicer than looking out at a dumpster all day.”
“I know where I am,” he replied, and that was it. He wouldn’t say anything more, despite my attempts to get him to talk. Finally, I gave up and said goodbye. Even the good day seemed ruined now. I thanked the orderly who brought me over and asked him to keep an eye on Bartleby. At the mention of the name, a doctor nearby looked over at me.
“Excuse me. Are you a relative or friend of Bartleby’s?”
“Well, no. That is, I don’t really know him. He used to work for me as a temp.”
I introduced myself and the doctor looked down at a file he was carrying.
“Are you the one that claimed Bartleby threatened you?”
“What? I never said that. I guess I did tell the police that he made me uncomfortable at times, but he never threatened me. I hardly know him.”
“Oh,” the doctor said, sounding disappointed. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me something about him. He’s refused to eat since he was brought in.”
“I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“I don’t think it is,” the doctor said. “Being sent here can be a disturbing experience for some people. I’ll give him a chance to adjust before we put him on an IV.”
“Well, let me give you my cell phone number. If there’s anything I can do, please give me a call.”
Later that night I got a call from the doctor. Bartleby had escaped, he said. Did I have any idea where he might be? Of course, I told him about the CircuCorp building. He said the police were already looking there. The doctor asked if Bartleby knew where I lived. I said I didn’t think so. The doctor said he didn’t believe Bartleby was dangerous, but he asked if there was anyone I could stay with for a couple of days, just in case.
The couple of days turned into an awful week. I packed a bag and crashed on a good friend’s couch, all the while wondering whether Bartleby would turn out to be a stalker psycho killer or something. I still didn’t have a job, so there was nothing for me to do but sit around and worry. I’d watch the news to see if they’d report on Bartleby or drive by the CircuCorp building, half-hoping, half-afraid I’d see him. By the end of the week, my “good friend” suggested I move on soon.
That night, I got a call from the doctor at the facility. He spoke quietly and informed me that Bartleby had not escaped. He had been found, dead. A janitor had discovered him in an old air duct that hadn’t worked for years.
“We’re not sure why he was there. This facility isn’t gated. He could have walked away at any time. I’m not even sure he actually got stuck in the duct. He seems to have just stopped. I’m very sorry.”
“Yes, so am I.”
There wasn’t much more to say, so I thanked the doctor and hung up. Bartleby’s death got a brief mention in the paper two days later. The day after that I went to his cremation. So did the doctor, which I thought was nice on his part. We chatted briefly and then parted. I went back to my apartment with nothing to do and nowhere to go. I still hadn’t unpacked the box with all the stuff from my desk at CircuCorp, so I decided to file through that. It had all been important once, but I found myself throwing out just about everything but a coffee mug, a couple of pens, and a pack of gum.
Then, in a pile of papers, I saw a fax that I had missed before. It was the copy of Bartleby’s résumé I had requested from the temp agency. I remembered asking for it, but I had forgotten all about it. According to the document, Bartleby had grown up in Michigan, went to college there, and worked as a programmer for a while. It seemed like he had a good job writing some kind of automotive software. From the description, it had something to do with automating the welding process. I remembered reading somewhere that computers handled almost all the welding done on cars now.
And then something just clicked. Somehow that made sense. I began to envision his whole life story in my mind. I saw Bartleby as this smart, quiet kid whose dad worked for one of the big auto companies. The family scrimped and saved to send him to college. He made them all proud, graduated and got a white-collar job, and then wrote the software that destroyed his father’s livelihood. The father got a pink slip then had a heart attack. Or maybe the father just retired and puttered around the house for a few years, growing more bitter all the time, taking it out on Bartleby’s mother. Bartleby would come to visit and see his family imploding. Then he’d just started to drift away from them. Pretty soon both his parents were gone, and he felt like he’d hardly known them in the end.
But who’s to say that’s what happened? Maybe he just had some kind of chemical imbalance. On his good days, he was fine, but on his bad days, his world fell apart. Someone like that would estrange his friends and family and have trouble holding down a job. Or maybe his was just another story of coming west with visions of becoming a dot com millionaire, only to find himself temping and unable to save enough for a security deposit on an apartment.
I couldn’t know for sure. But I felt that I had to find a way to explain Bartleby as I looked around my apartment and realized that I didn’t have any money to pay next month’s rent. I could have broken my lease and moved, but where to? I had already spent too much time on one friend’s couch. If I wanted to work in the Valley, I would have to live here. My parents had long ago retired and moved South. They couldn’t help me. Where else could I go?
Not that long ago I felt pretty secure. My career had been on track, my student loans almost paid off. I was about to start trying to save some money. Everything wasn’t perfect, but at least I had a sense that things were going in the right direction. Now I didn’t know what to do. I stared out the window at the fence separating my apartment building from the identical one next to it and tried to figure out what my next step was. All I knew for sure was that I’d prefer not to have to do anything.
