| A Day in the Life of Norman McLane |
| Less than five minutes later, he was standing on the street in front of the building, without his security card, and also without his car keys. He thought about trying to get back in to get his keys, but one look at the hulking security guards still staring blankly at him and he decided the bus wasn�t so bad after all.
During the long ride home, Norman tried to figure out what to tell his wife. He knew she wasn�t going to be happy, but then she was hardly ever happy anymore. At least not when he was around. When the bus deposited Norman at the end of the street where he lived, he had still not figured out what to tell Audrey. He trudged down the street, his mind racing to find the right words to keep her from getting angry with him for something that simply wasn�t his fault. He reached his house and almost didn�t see the plumbing truck parked in the driveway, so preoccupied was he with his problem. He thought it slightly odd that the plumber was there yet again, since Audrey had told him last week that the plumber had declared the leak plugged. He shrugged and walked into the house. �Audrey?� he called out. �Yes!� came the enthusiastic reply from upstairs. Norman headed to the stairs and started climbing them. �Audrey? I�m home a little early honey.� �Yes! Yes!� He reached the top of the stairs and headed down the hallway to the bedroom. �Audrey? What�s wrong with the plumbing? I thought it was fixed last week?� A long, low moan came from the other side of the door as Norman reached the bedroom. �Audrey?� he said more quietly as he turned the knob. When the door swung open, Norman�s world crumbled even further. His wife�s clothes were lying on the floor next to the bed. His wife herself was lying on the bed, half under the covers. This in itself wasn�t a problem, as his wife was notoriously untidy and lazy, so a pile of clothing and her lying in bed all day was not unheard of. What DID bother him were the plumber�s clothes also lying on the floor next to the bed, although the plumber himself was nowhere to be seen. There was however, a largish lump under the covers about halfway down his wife�s body. He did not remember that lump being there when he woke up this morning. In fact, he was rather certain it hadn�t been there. The lump moved. His wife moaned again. Norman�s throat closed up and he couldn�t breathe. The lump moved again. His wife moaned again, this time adding, �Yes! Yes, Larry! You are SO much better at this than my husband. Yes!� This was the life of Norman McLane. Norman backed out of the room and closed the door. He numbly wandered back downstairs and out of the house. He thought about vandalizing the plumber�s van, but didn�t. He thought about cutting the brake lines on his wife�s car, but didn�t. He thought about shooting himself in the head, but he didn�t own a gun. He sat glumly on the front steps of his house, wondering what he should do now. This was the life of Norman McLane. After sitting for a while, wallowing in his own misery, the moans from inside the house burning indelibly into his brain, a thought struck him. Norman never had learned to duck. Rhonda! He still had her phone number in his pocket. It was the only thing he had taken with him from his old office. He dug the little scrap of paper out of his pocket and stared at it. Yep, there it was, right where he had put it, at the time fully intending to throw it away as usual. Maybe he had been right this morning after all. Maybe today really would be a good day. The day his life finally turned around. He hopped up off the front step and practically skipped down the driveway, no longer thinking about being fired or about his wife sleeping with the plumber. Although first thing in the morning he WAS going to stop payment on the plumber�s check. He was NOT going to pay for his soon to be ex-wife�s extra-marital activities any longer. He strolled down the street towards the convenience store on the corner, whistling to himself the happy little tune from the elevator. And even remembering that didn�t dampen his mood any. He was on his way to a pay phone to call Rhonda, the most beautiful woman in the world. Norman reached the phone and pulled out Rhonda�s number, then fished around in his pocket for a quarter. He pulled his hand out of his pocket, and looked at the contents. There were two nickels, a penny, a piece of chewing gum, and a broken rubber band. No quarters though. He looked wistfully back at the phone number, and dug once again into his pocket. But no matter how much he wished for it, he could find nothing else in there. He then pulled out his wallet thinking to get change from the cashier in the convenience store, but the smallest bill he had was a fifty. Norman had been paid very well for working his magic with numbers. Not well enough for Audrey of course, but still rather well by almost anyone�s way of thinking. He walked up to the door of the convenience store and noticed the sign that read, �We do NOT give change for the phone. You must purchase something.� Norman stared at the sign for a moment thinking this was rather rude. But the clerk didn�t look like a man Norman wanted to irritate, so he walked into the store, picked up a pack of gum, and headed to the register to pay. The cashier rang up the pack of gum and told Norman, �That�ll be fifty four cents.� Norman handed him the fifty. The cashier looked at the bill, then looked at Norman. "What is this, some kind of joke?� asked the cashier. �Don�t you have anything larger? Maybe you�d like to write a check equal to the national debt?� He shook his head at Norman�s blank stare. �You can�t buy a pack of gum with a fifty dollar bill.� Norman told him that was the smallest bill he had, but the cashier insisted he didn�t have the change for such a large bill. Knowing the cashier was lying, but feeling his opportunity, or perhaps just his nerve, slipping away Norman quickly told the man that if he could have a quarter, the cashier could keep the rest of the change. The cashier looked almost ready to argue with this too, but at the last moment his brain finally caught up with the conversation. He quickly smiled at Norman and handed him a quarter, and Norman rushed back out to the phone, while the cashier smiled at the sudden $49.21 increase to his personal fortune. But of course as soon as Norman got outside someone bumped into him, jostling his arm and making him drop the quarter, which sailed directly into the sewer. This was the life of Norman McLane. Norman took this in stride, which is to say he freaked out about it, which in the end did him absolutely no good at all. So he was forced to suck it up, look into his wallet and see that he had already spent his last fifty dollar bill, and all he had left now was a couple of one hundred dollar bills. Sighing, he went back into the store. He approached the clerk, intending to appeal to the man who he had just given $49.21 to borrow a quarter. The cashier simply stared at him as if he had never seen Norman before. Then he asked if Norman could read, because the sign on the door CLEARLY said that no change for the phone was given, and Norman would have to purchase something. Norman simply stared at the cashier until it became apparent even to him that the man was not going to change his mind. Realizing that this was simply the way his life worked, and knowing full well that the man would claim to have no change, Norman picked up the closest item to him, which was a box of tampons, and asked the cashier to ring him up. The cashier did this, all the while giving Norman a wary but hopeful look, and he wasn�t disappointed. Norman took out one of his hundred dollar bills, and told the man he could keep the change if he would just give him a quarter. The cashier did this again, and Norman put the quarter in his pocket, checking it several times as he walked to the door just to make sure it was safe, and carried his $99.75 box of tampons out of the store to the pay phone. Taking the quarter out of his pocket, he deposited it in the phone, and with trembling hands he nervously dialed the phone number Rhonda had given him. As he listened to the phone ring, a number of thoughts scrambled through his head. What if she had been teasing him all along because she knew he was married, and it was safe to play with him? What if she wasn�t home from work yet? What if she already had plans tonight and didn�t want to be bothered by him? What if, God forbid, she got hit by a bus on her way to her own home? All these thoughts went through Norman�s mind in about three seconds. And then all thought was erased from his mind when, after the third ring, Rhonda picked up the phone. �Hello? came the soft voice through the speaker. �Um�� Norman stammered. �Hello?� �Urm�� was still all he could manage. �HELLO?� �Uh�it�s Norman,� he finally managed to blurt out. �Norman?� �Yes, Norman. You deliver mail to me,� he added helpfully. �Norman?� �Yes. On the 35th floor. Norman. Every morning at exactly 10:40. Norman McLane.� �I know who you are, Norman,� she laughed. �I just wasn�t expecting to hear from you.� �Oh.� Norman felt like someone had slugged him in the stomach 73 times with a bowling ball. �I see. I didn�t mean to bother you.� It was as bad as he had feared while listening to the phone ring. He was starting to hang the phone up when he heard her voice. �You�re not bothering me, Norman,� she explained patiently. �Just because I didn�t expect you to call doesn�t mean I�m not happy you did.� Norman just smiled, and then realized that she couldn�t see that over the phone. �But why did you call me, Norman?� she continued. �Why today? After all the times I have asked you to, why now?� Norman told her he didn�t have time for the whole story right now, since he was on a pay phone. So she asked him if he wanted to come over and with but a moment�s hesitation he said yes. She gave him the address and directions, and said she would be waiting for him. Norman said goodbye and hung up the phone, feeling better than he had in years. Nothing else that had happened today mattered anymore. He didn�t care that he was fired from his job. He didn�t care that his wife was sleeping with the plumber. He figured that she had probably also been sleeping with the electrician, the mailman, the gardener and the pool boy as well. And they didn�t even have a pool. Funny how he had never even considered that before now. But he didn�t care. None of it mattered anymore because the most beautiful woman in the world had just invited him to her place. Norman was walking on air as he headed over to the bus stop. Rhonda had told him to get on the 4:30 bus to uptown, and Norman could see it coming up the street now. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the fifty dollar pack of gum he had bought, unwrapped a piece, and popped it into his mouth. The gum stuck in Norman�s throat. He started to cough and choke, and grabbed at his throat, but he couldn�t dislodge the piece of gum. He tried pleading with the other people at the bus stop to help, but he couldn�t speak thanks to the gum stuck in his windpipe, so the other people simply backed away from him as they would any wildly gesturing maniac flailing around the bus stop, pounding himself on the back. And as he was doing this, he wasn�t paying attention to his immediate surroundings, and he tripped over the curb. The last thing Norman saw was the front grill of the 4:30 bus to uptown. This was the life of Norman McLane. THE END |