** Story ** Noodles's Revenge

This is a story I dashed off after speaking to one of my coworkers. That guy, also called Noodles, is very disgruntled, and speaking to him set my wheels turning. At any rate, this is one of my favorite stories so far. Thanks once again to John Barrett for his editing suggestions, and thanks also to my wife, Anne, for her input on the story as well. Obviously some names have not been changed to protect the guilty or the innocent.

By the way, I just noticed that some of the formatting was stripped when I pasted this. Perhaps I'll get back and fix it at some later date but not right this second.

Now I hope you'll enjoy...
Noodles’ Revenge
by Curtis Lee

“For he’s a jolly good fellow,” they sang, staggered voices off-key. The din echoed nauseatingly in the small office, not that perfect acoustics would help this crowd. Noodles was sure he would much rather listen to the noise of a dozen cats on the boil.
A jolly good fellow? Him? Howard Numeyer, whom they had called “Noodles” for so long that it just didn’t bother him much anymore; Noodles for so long he didn’t even recognize his own name sometimes. They didn’t really think him jolly or good, not behind their eyes. Their plastic smiles and hunched shoulders as he looked from face to face told him that much.
There was Ella. Almost-pretty, empty-headed Ella, who couldn’t be bothered to look at him with those glazed-over blue eyes. Instead, she toyed with her bleach-blonde hair, just like she always did behind the reception desk. Soon she would glance toward Josh and sigh while she smoothed her ghastly floral skirt over her just-too-wide hips. Just wait. Yes, there it was, like clockwork.
And Josh, everyone’s favorite guy. The office stud. He looked directly at Noodles and sang the loudest of all. Arrogant and obnoxious and falsefalsefalse. That was Josh. He had been in the meeting when they’d demoted Noodles back to Sales, when they had effectively taken away his life. He had smiled a fake sad smile and said fake comforting words and run his hands through his thick fake dark hair.
Why did they always want to remind Noodles that he was waning while they all waxed? His glasses got thicker every year, and had become trifocals while he hadn’t been paying attention. His face had a worn, slept-in look that got more wrinkly every day. His hair, lost to cancer, had never really come back, not even given it the old college try. Well, that, Noodles supposed, could be laid at his old manager Gyles’ feet. His incessant smoking in the office, it’s no wonder Noodles got cancer. But, Gyles was dead, and Noodles was the last of the old guard.
Speaking of the changing of the guard, there was Pat. Noodles’s teeth, so often repaired on the bottom and not his at all on top, hurt like fire as he ground them together. Pat the Rat. Pat the Brat. Pat, who made him want nothing more than to run out to his car and kick this birthday farce into a higher gear. Pat, with his trendy little glasses over his empty black eyes and his ridiculous spiky black hair. Pat, ink still wet on his stupid degree in business management, had taken Noodles’ job.
Didn’t they understand that there were nuances in this business that you just couldn’t learn from books? So what if the branch’s sales figures had not been stellar while he was managing it, he was a people person! He had managed the office through some hard times, and they’d survived. Wasn’t that enough for the wage-masters upstairs?
They were there, too, slumming from up on the third floor. In their neatly pressed suits and hundred dollar haircuts, they stood aloof from the gathered first-floor workers and politely mouthed the words, but they didn’t sing. They were a faceless, indistinct group for which Noodles had nothing but disdain. Sure, they had come for his party, since he had been around this place longer than almost everyone, but they didn’t really care. He hoped they dithered down here among the lowly slugs who earned their salaries for them for just long enough to enjoy his long-planned surprise. After all, they had backed the Rat, hadn’t they?
Holding the gaudily decorated cake, singing in that too-low voice that Noodles found so enticing, was Ann Marie. She was not even as pretty as almost-pretty Ella. She wasn’t obnoxious or vulgar like Josh, nor was she a hipster weasel like Pat. She was just Ann Marie, plain and plump and mousy. Behind her glasses, her misty-morning eyes sparkled, and she alone in the room was most definitely not invited to the other party, the secret party that none of them knew would happen after lunch break was over. He had made his plan knowing that on Tuesdays, Ann Marie always went to the bank halfway through lunch. She would be safe.
That secret party would be Noodles’ going away bash, his retirement gift to himself. And no one would forget. Howard “Noodles” Numeyer would be a name that these people remembered. He was absolutely certain of that. His feet itched to run to his car and grab his duffle.
“...nobody can deny!” At last, the cacophony ended, and Noodles put on his best Josh imitation. They had used mean, hurtful words like “surly” and “hostile” and “petty” when they had taken his job and given it to Patty Fatty Brat Rat.
“Thanks a lot, everyone,” he said through the perpetual frog in his throat. “I just don’t know what to say.” How about Wait until after lunch, you pack of scabs and traitors.
“It’s not every employee who celebrates their birthday on the same day as the anniversary of their hire date,” said the Rat, his voice squeaking like he was still fighting puberty. He probably was. “You’ve officially been with M&K Sales half your life!” His words were perfectly corporate-friendly, but those little rodent-eyes behind his glasses laughed at the thought of twenty-five years in this shabby little office. The Rat had big plans, on which he expounded frequently. This job was just a pit-stop on his climb to some far off glory. The job he had stolen from Noodles. He really wanted to punch the little creep in his mealy, backbiting mouth.
“Thank you, Pat. I’m real touched .”
Maybe some of his distaste for this lot of toads and buffoons had leaked into that accidentally, because Ann Marie said quickly “Let’s cut the cake!” in that voice that always soothed his temper.
"Great idea, Annie,” Josh said, his voice dripping schmooze. He still never listened when Ann Marie told him that she didn’t like to be called that, and she didn’t look in the mood to keep trying. Yet another reason to look forward to this afternoon. The pretender’s cubicle was right next to Noodles’.
“Howard, which piece do you want?” she asked, knife in hand.
He was entranced by the image; sweet, mousy Ann Marie, big kitchen knife in hand, eyes the color of fog turned toward him questioningly. Almost as if she were saying Which one of them would you like me to kill first? He didn’t even remember the question, suddenly.
“Just give him the big flower, Annie,” Josh said loudly. “You know how much old Noodles loves that frosting.”
“I want one without so much icing, Ann Marie,” Ella said, her voice as brainless as she was. As everyone crowded in to get a piece of his birthday/anniversary cake, Noodles was jostled, and he dropped his empty paper plate. He snatched at it, his hand reaching it at just the same time as Ann Marie’s did. They touched for the first time ever, but there were no sparks, no angelic music, nothing but her soft, cold fingers touching his warm hand. As always, she smelled of lilacs. She smiled a tiny smile and mouthed a silent “Sorry” then plunked a huge flowered square of cake onto the plate they still both held.
“Thank you.” It came out a whisper.
“Aw, ain’t that sweet!” Josh could go from a three to a nine on the obnoxious meter fast, and he was going for a record just now.
“No PDA, you two,” the Rat said, only half joking.
For her part, Ann Marie turned red and continued passing out cake. Noodles again ground his teeth painfully and pushed through the milling clowns to sit at the break table.
For the next half hour, he endured mocking congratulations and counterfeit praise while he picked very slowly at his cake. Most of the nameless, faceless office zombies didn’t even have the civility to stick around to eat his too-sweet cake, instead retreating back to the safety of their cubes. Oh, but they wouldn’t be safe for long. As small as this office was, no one still in the place at the instant of retribution would be spared. More and more, he needed to go to his car and get his bag. It was a constant gnawing desire which he valiantly smothered under methodically consumed shortening and sugar until he saw Ann Marie check her watch. She would be heading for the bank any second now.
Nearly choking on the last big bite of cake, he bobbed to his feet, as close to running as his fifty-year-old legs could get him. Before she had even retrieved her sweater from the coat rack by the back emergency doors, Noodles had returned from his car and was placing his duffle on the chest-high dividing wall between his and Pretender Josh’s cubes. It definitely looked out of place, but he had taken to putting it there three or four days out of the week just so no one would be suspicious.
“See you later,” he said to Ann Marie as she passed by his desk on her way to the doors that led to the parking lot.
“Oh. Okay,” she said, slight confusion on her face. She hurried for the door. She always seemed to be in a rush when she did her weekly bank run.
As soon as the door closed behind her, he unzipped the bag and clicked a button on a digital clock inside, then pulled the zipper closed.
The information he had needed to make a timer was readily available on the Internet. He had spent a great deal of time lovingly crafting a pair of timers. The one in the bag would set off the explosive charge inside in five minutes. The explosive was simply a taped-together double handful of the large but simple firecrackers he had bought on a weekend trip to Wyoming. He had gone into the desert outside the city for several more weekends in a row to test different configurations for best blast radius. Three weeks ago, after having hit on what he felt was the best configuration possible, Noodles had used the first timer for a real dress rehearsal. Everything had worked flawlessly. The charge would ignite when the alarm circuit pulsed power to the little electric blasting caps--the hardest items to procure--and would blow the bag and its contents apart, spreading his message all across the office. The chest high dividing walls should be no protection from Noodles’ ire.
He was a phone salesman, not an engineer, so he hadn’t been able to figure out how to make the timer tick down less than five minutes. It was a lot longer than he needed to get out of the office, so he had worked out a charade to waste the time. He patted his pockets, trying to be obvious, and fiddled around his desk. He had timed his farce over and over, knowing that he would have to be in the parking lot when the whole thing touched off. He really wanted to see it happen, but that wasn’t feasible, so he would settle for hearing the blast. He could already smell the results.
He had been defecating into sandwich bags for some time now. He had found--also on the Internet, an invention for which Noodles had previously found no use--a diet to maximize the efficacy of his “ammunition”. And to make sure that nobody could possibly question who or why, he had spent a number of evenings boiling and bagging various pastas he had no intention of eating. All of those little pouches of his contempt now lined the inside of his duffle. This den of maggots, losers, and backstabbers would finally get what it deserved, and the man they all called “Noodles” would deliver their reward.
When his rehearsed putterings had taken him to the four minute mark on his timer, he headed for the door. Past Ann Marie’s blessedly empty cube, past a few more cubes where the anonymous wound down their lunch breaks.
His broad smile felt odd, so out of practice was his face at such expressions. His heart hammered in his ears, and he felt a searing, soaring joy. With a sense of release unlike anything Noodles had ever felt he passed Ella, the last obstacle. She sat at the reception desk, barely nibbled cake set aside, gaze longingly fixed on the nearby cube where Josh stood making an off color joke to one of his lickspittles. For once, the brainless tart was observant. She noticed his smile, and a confused look settled over her that pushed her appearance from “merely dim-witted” all the way up to “regularly licks windows”. He didn’t even slow down, just pushed the lockbar on the front door and exited into glorious, bright, fresh-aired freedom.
And he almost walked right into Ann Marie. Why was she walking toward the building? She was supposed to be safely away by now. The smile turned sickly on Noodles’ face.
“Forgot my keys,” she said sweetly, her smile responding to his.
“I could--“ he began, but she grabbed the door handle just behind him, and before he could say another word to stop her, she was inside.
Noodles was still staring at the door, smile slowly sliding off his lips, when thirty seconds later there was a muffled boom.