We None of Us Are (Short Story)

He brought coffee. That was a bad sign right from the start. He brought coffee and he had clearly been eating some kind of a pastry. I could see the crumbs on his tie, and his fingertips were shiny with what I could only assume was glaze. His sleeves were rolled up and he had slicked back his graying hair with some kind of product, and I felt that that, too, was a less than stellar omen. He had apparently taken the time to stop for breakfast before coming to my office in the back of the old church.

"Good morning, Tim,” I said, extending my hand. I intended to try and make a real go of this thing.

“Morning,” he said. He shook my hand tough-guy style, trying to crush my fingers with his own meaty palm. He was a large man, Tim McLaughlin, and both his face and his hands were a peculiarly violent shade of scarlet. The abundant stubble along his jaw line—naturally, he had neglected to shave—was mostly pepper but with a healthy sprinkling of salt.

“I think you know why I asked you to come in today,” I said as he sat down on the other side of my small and cluttered desk. I hurriedly pushed aside several volumes by Bavinck and Warfield to make some space on its surface.

I winced slightly as he put his mug down on top of my copy of last year’s acts of General Assembly. He leaned back in the little wooden chair and for an instant I pictured his not insignificant bulk falling backward onto the surprisingly hard floor with its faded brown carpeting. That prospect did not concern me unduly.

He gave his scruff a lazy scratch as though contemplating what I had said.

“Can’t say that I do, actually,” he said meditatively, and folded both large, red hands across his belly. He gave me a snide look as if challenging me to—but that was just me being pissy. I took everything too personally. It wasn’t doing me any good to think bad thoughts about Tim McLaughlin.

“Tim, you and I both know that’s bull,” I said.

In response, he said—nothing. He just looked at me levelly and somewhat coolly. I had to admire his poise. He had a very evident and apparently unshakable self-confidence, a quality which has never been one of my strong suits. Looking at him, I could tell that he was the kind of man who thinks of himself as possessing “piercing blue eyes”—he was quite obviously trying to use them to good effect, staring at me from under hooded lids. I noticed that he was, perhaps unconsciously, rubbing the glaze off of his fingers on his pale blue shirt. I waited for maybe twenty seconds or so, but the silence persisted.

“Come on, Tim,” I sighed. “This is ridiculous. We can just talk like adults, can’t we? Does it always have to be a game like this?”

“I really don’t know what you mean,” he said slowly, the first three fingers on his right hand fiddling with a button. “Frankly, I think it’s a little inappropriate that you bring me in here—on a Saturday, no less—and expect me to be kissing your ring or something. And I think that if there’s a game being played here, it’s your game, not mine.”

“Tim, seriously. I am not going to play with you today. I’m asking you to be cooperative and agreeable, and that’s all. I am not asking for reverence, I’m not asking you to wear a hair shirt, okay? I just think it’s important that we both acknowledge that there is a problem.”

He leaned forward, putting his elbows on my desk—nearly knocking over his coffee in the process—and an exceptionally thick index finger in my face.

“I. Have. Done. Nothing. Wrong,” he said through gritted teeth, “And I do not appreciate what is going on here. I’ve been on the board for twelve years. Twelve years! How long have you been here? Thirteen months?”

“Sixteen,” I muttered, not meeting his gaze. I felt the flush—the damn stupid flush—spread across my cheeks, hot and bitter.

He leaned back once more, a look of satisfaction on his red face. He clasped his hands behind his head and his mouth twisted into a smirk. Perhaps I was still being a little pissy after all.

“Listen, Steve,” he said, “I’m willing to let this slide. You’ve embarrassed yourself, you’ve embarrassed me, but if we drop this thing right now, I’ll shake your hand and walk out that door. We’ll never have to talk about this again, and I won’t breathe a word of it to anyone else. How does that sound?”

Now it was my turn to speak through gritted teeth.

“We are not going to sweep this under the rug. We are not going to pretend that you have done nothing wrong, and you are not going to bully me into letting you go. You know as well as I do that what you did was unacceptable.”

“Unacceptable?” he snorted. “I have done nothing wrong. Matter of fact, I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about the way you cheated Mark Fincher,” I said, “And don’t pretend that you didn’t.”

“So that’s what this is,” he said, though he showed no surprise of any kind. “Cheated him? I did nothing of the sort.”

“Of course you did,” I answered. “You haven't finished the work. You told him you would, or he wouldn't have to pay for the rest of the time, but you're still charging him. Did I get everything?”

“Is that what he told you? You should read the contract. I never said I'd finish the work, just that he'd have access to the building, and I've provided that: there's a door, and there are walls." He took a long pull from his coffee mug before putting it back down. I could see a brown, wet ring developing on the copy of the acts of General Assembly.

"You’re not a man of business, son,” he said, and here he adopted a grandfatherly, didactic attitude. “You don’t understand how these things are done. I've done everything according to standard practice. Now let’s just put this matter to rest and get on with our lives. Sound good, Steve?”

“I think I understand perfectly well. All you’re doing is playing word games, Tim. You’re hiding behind a contract, and that’s as dishonest as an outright lie. It is not right for you to be doing this. It is not right. I would be saying this to you if I’d heard you were doing something like this to any man, let alone another member.”

He stood up out of his seat and looked down at me. He stared and I returned his gaze for some time. At length, he straightened his tie and reached for his coffee before turning to go. He stopped at the door to my office before turning around to look at me once more.

“I’ve been on the board here for twelve years, and I was a member for a decade before that,” he said, and his face was hard and serious. “I’ve seen five men come through and hold your job. I’ve kept my place through all those years, and you’d better believe I’ll still be here when you’re gone.”

With that, he left. I slumped back in my chair, tired and angry. After a few minutes I took my keys out of the desk drawer and got up to go.




I pulled into the driveway outside my (small, ugly) house and shut off the engine. The front door was locked, and I was angry enough still that I fumbled with the keys trying to unlock it. I dropped them, along with my briefcase and suit jacket, on the small table in our utterly unnecessary foyer before trudging into the living room and collapsing onto a musty, aging armchair, its blue upholstery rapidly approaching total disintegration. For a long while I just sat there, eyes closed, breathing deeply and doing my best (well, possibly not my best) to avoid thinking violent thoughts.

After perhaps an hour, I heard the door open and close. My wife walked in—my beautiful, wiry wisp of a wife—and I opened my eyes again. She came and sat on one of the arms of the chair.

“That bad?” she asked.

I rubbed at my temples with both hands.

She put her right arm around my shoulders. We sat that way quietly for a stretch of a few minutes.

At last, I looked up at her—into her lovely face, her nose bridged and slightly crooked from being broken years ago, her blue-green eyes, her dark hair.

“Am I a good man?” I asked.

She took her arm from around me. It looked as though she were deep in thought.

“No,” she said, finally. “But then, we none of us are.”

“Thank you,” I said, and took her hand and kissed it.