TheBanyanTree: Norman -- part 1

[Monique]

(This is what happens when I start something without having any idea of
where I'm going.)
 
Norman was engaged in the business of making himself look good. It came
naturally to him, the preening and polishing, the forced joviality that
he put on in order to make himself seem someone he was not. For example,
and this is just one of many, Norman was not exactly competent to be
running his department. His subordinates had to explain how certain
aspects of his department operated, and why. Sometimes they had to feed
him small amounts of information over a long period of time because too
much information could cause Norman's head to burst into flame, which
would be a fire hazard.
 
Not that Norman's subordinates would have minded seeing Norman's head
burst into flames, they'd just prefer he not do it over their desks
where they kept the pictures of their loved ones and the pictures drawn
by the children. And Norman was always hovering over their desks. He
liked to sneak up behind them in hopes of catching them doing something
untoward and unexpected. He hoped for this desperately, for it would
give him a chance to assert himself and use his rather meager authority.
He rarely did, however, for his knowledge of his job was so poor that he
couldn't tell if his subordinates were doing what they were supposed to
be doing or not. 
 
Norman was likely to jump to conclusions. Norman also liked meetings. It
gave him a chance to rest his poor beleaguered brain while pretending
interest in his company's business. It was not, by any stretch, his
business, for he was nothing more than an insignificant middle manager
put in place to watch over nonconformist employees who were too good at
their jobs to be fired, yet too nonconformist to be promoted to the
ranks of those who were in place to supervise. That, and they lacked the
requisite education, which was merely a formality. 
 
This is not about Norman though, but about Mrs. Norman, a woman not
smart enough to be fooled by Norman's act. All of Norman's subordinates
knew that Norman was not inclined to be particularly faithful to Mrs.
Norman, as evidenced by his inclination to go chasing after every woman
he thought he might possibly have a chance with, even Collette out in
manufacturing, though even she was smart enough to run away fast when he
approached. (Bets were taken and money was lost when Collette turned out
to be smarter than many had thought.) 
 
Mrs. Norman spent her days at her job, her evenings taking care of
Norman's child, and her nights wishing Norman could stop having late
business meetings so many nights of the week. 
 
Norman never had late business meetings, never had night meetings, but
was often instead found down the street at a place called, "The Office,"
so when he went home he could say, truthfully, that he'd been at "The
Office," and it would still be true, even though he didn't say that "The
Office" was not the office she thought he was referring to but was
instead a dive bar with loose women and gambling in the back.
 
Nothing against loose women, of course. 
 
Once she'd asked him why he spent so many nights late at the office, but
he'd about snapped her head off with his reply that if she didn't want
him to go to work and earn money, why didn't she just say so? And
shouldn't she just let him be the man and go to work? And didn't she
understand he had responsibilities and things to do and that a great
many people relied upon him?
 
This was, of course, not at all true, but Mrs. Norman was not smart
enough to realize this. If Norman didn't show up at work for weeks at a
time no one would have missed him. Instead, there might be overall
rejoicing, since Norman had a way of impeding the flow of work and
preventing people from getting anything useful done at all, but without
him there, they wouldn't need to spend all their time defending
themselves and could actually get some work done. Unfortunately, Norman
rarely missed work. The company would have been better off,
operationally speaking, if Norman had been given a permanent vacation
and they sent him a check each month as long as he promised not to
interfere with the operation of the company, but since Norman needed the
social outlet and the idea would never occur to the company (which was
top heavy with box thinkers), that was not to be.
 
Back to Mrs. Norman. She had received, upon the death of her parents
several years before, the bulk of her parents' estate when they were
killed in a tragic boating accident. (They weren't actually in a boat at
the time, but were instead on the freeway, driving along as if all was
right with the world, when a speedboat being towed by a supersized
utility truck veered out of control when the hitch broke and crashed
into them before they had a chance to veer out of the way.) This was
when Norman had decided he must marry her, instead of stringing her
along until something better turned up, which had been his original
plan. Mrs. Norman failed to see the connection between the two events,
Norman's proposal falling so quickly after her parents' death, and
instead believed it to be caused by Norman's sudden realization that
life was short, and that one must get going before it is all too late
and one is run over by a speedboat on the freeway. Mrs. Norman was a
romantic. Norman himself was a cad, but romantics are loathe to see that
trait when they're being swept off their feet. 
 
Despite the substantial inheritance, Mrs. Norman still kept her job as a
matchmaker at the match factory. She wanted to save the money, to keep
it safe, while Norman wanted to invest it in important life necessities,
like speedboats and diamond pinkie rings. 
 
We never said Norman was a man of impeccable taste, did we?
 
There was much squabbling at the Norman household because of this
particular money situation, Norman pressing for her to put the money in
their joint account, Mrs. Norman wanting to turn everything over to him
but yet holding back for some reason she could not name, even if pressed
to do so. After all, theirs was a true love, a unique and romantic love
that knew no earthly bounds and should certainly not know any financial
bounds. This was the argument Norman put to her, time and again, and
while she agreed with him in theory, in practice she was a little less
forthcoming. 
 
This bothered Norman. This bothered Norman a great deal. Sometimes, on
his lunch three-hour (Norman did hold himself to the same strict
guidelines he held his employees to), he would go shopping for a
speedboat or a diamond pinkie ring or he'd stop at the pool and spa
store and ogle the six person spas. And he'd brood. Norman was, in his
estimation, quite handsome, though many people were not sure where he'd
gotten that idea from, and he thought his brooding just added a certain
element of mystery that would attract women. Instead, they found it
annoying, but Norman was so busy brooding that he didn't notice and
continued to do it. Since he was usually spectactularly unsuccessful
with women he assumed there just too many of them who still hadn't come
to their senses.
 
And so he brooded. He wanted the money. He wanted things. The child he
appreciated having around, for it proved he was indeed a man, virile and
strong and manly, but he didn't have much use for it other than that.
Some days he was hard pressed to remember the child's name, though the
child bore the name of Norman's father, a tribute that had failed to pay
off as Norman had hoped. 
 
 
 
To be continued . . .