Chapter Text
Outgoing Email To: All BG&E Employees
An issue has come to our attention that some employees are not following the proper chain of command with regards to communication with our Corporation Officers. Please remember that this chain exists for a reason, and to not bother our board, including CEO Edward Bonnet, with questions that are beneath them to answer, regardless of any relationship outside of the company you feel you might feel you have with them. Instead, all queries should go through my personal secretary so they can be prioritized and addressed in the right manner.
Nigel Badminton, VP of Corporate Affairs
The first time it happens, Ed doesn’t say anything. It’s a normal day. Boring. Maybe he has a hangover, maybe it’s time to stop getting black-out drunk the night before work. But it’s been a while since he’s gotten into trouble for it. He doesn’t have as much to be angry about these days, not anymore. Depressed? Possibly. Feeling like he’s wasted his life? Oh, absolutely, that’s just a fact. He’s 45 years old and working in a dingy, dusty strip mall, living vicariously (at the moment) through a man in a $3000 bespoke suit taking a sledgehammer to a microwave.
Well, the man is trying to, at least. He certainly has the upper body mass for it, with broad shoulders and clear upper body strength. And he did remove the coat jacket, wouldn’t want to sully that. He left the jacket in Ed’s care as if it weren’t the most expensive item of clothing Ed had ever touched. Guys like that don’t tend to really see people like Ed, though. They just hand off whatever they please to the help and expect it to be waiting for them later. And it’s just part of Ed’s job here to do that kind of thing. He isn’t a servant, he’s providing a service, a fact which he has to remind himself of as he figures out the best way to fold the jacket into a cheap plastic temporary storage bin without wrinkling it.
Ed gives up the effort and turns back to the security panel to keep watch on the room’s interior. The problem is, this guy just doesn’t have the will to really do it. The man in the room swings the sledgehammer, but when it gets close to the microwave it loses momentum, knocking against the appliance weakly. The man in the video puts the hammer-end of the sledge on the ground, leaning with both of his hands on the top of the handle.
This guy has no idea how to cut loose, Ed thinks to himself, smiling. Those types aren’t used to it. And yet, somehow, 20 minutes previous he had entered this crappy establishment on the ass-end of a disgusting strip mall in an area he had no business being in, and asked for 40 minutes in the room. And Ed did his job and got him set up. Didn’t ask questions, it isn’t his job to ask questions. All sorts of people come through here to spend time destroying everything they can. Bachelor parties, women having a post-divorce bash with their friends, college students who are too straight-edge to do real damage but still want to feel badass, incels who pretend that every broken plate and smashed mirror bears the face of the women they perceive to have wronged them.
And it isn’t healthy, Ed knows this. He’s learned the difference between healthy and unhealthy outlets for anger. But business is business, and this is his. The big neon sign outside reads Blackbeard’s Breakery: Adding Injury to Insult (all letters properly lit up again as of last week, because Ed has his shit mostly together, mostly). It’s a stupid name, because Ed was an idiot when he named it, but he figures it’s good to have a daily reminder to be less of one going forward.
Anyway, it’s been 10 minutes since the clock has started, and the man in the room sets the sledgehammer daintily against the wall and tentatively grabs the baseball bat. He places a drinking glass on a small waist-high platform. He takes a step back, preparing himself, hips wiggling a bit like he’s preparing for a home run. His form isn’t perfect, but Ed thinks that maybe at some point he had some pointers in baseball, as a kid or something, because it’s a decent swing that ends roughly where it should. Only the man is still holding back, so when the bat hits the upper edge of the glass it just sort of knocks the glass off the table and onto the floor. The glass shatters upon hitting the ground and the man stops, as if in total shock that this happened, and puts his hands over his mouth like he didn’t mean to do it. Like he’s afraid his mom is going to come in and find her favorite vase in pieces. And then he’s running his fingers through his blond curls with either shame or anxiety.
Part of Ed just feels so bad for this guy. He wants to pipe his voice into the room and say, listen mate, this isn’t for everyone, don’t try to be someone you’re not, just get therapy but that is not his job and isn’t good for business. Everyone passing through here needs therapy. Hell, Ed’s cat probably needs therapy.
Rich boy (he’s not a boy, he’s gotta be at least Ed’s age, but he carries himself like an insecure teenager) adds more glassware and crockery to the pile and takes a few more experimental swings. He seems to be gaining a bit more confidence, so Ed smiles and goes to pump some encouraging music into the room, something with a rhythm that can help the man focus. He picks This Corrosion by Sisters of Mercy (he read about it on a music blog he follows), and while the opening of the choir normally elicits confused looks from those in the rage room, it causes this guy to stop dead in his tracks, look up towards the crappy wall speaker, and smile. And Ed thinks that it’s a great smile, the first time this man has seemed anything less than completely miserable. Rich Boy immediately grabs whatever he can (the remnants of the microwave, a cheap 25-inch computer monitor, a pile of empty beer bottles) and gets to it.
It’s times like this that give Ed the smallest hint of job satisfaction. Sure, it’s great to stick it to the man or whatever and destroy consumer goods, to take a stand against the mass production of… well, Ed doesn’t remember the tirade he heard from the last group of wannabe warriors who came through (and Ed didn’t have the heart to tell them that it all ends up in a giant ocean trash-pile anyway, broken or not). But what he really likes is when people seem happy doing this. Legitimately happy, not drunk or high or a mess of artificially-raised testosterone. Just a sober man who maybe is finally having a good moment in his day. Ed doesn’t get many of those here. And this is how he lives his life vicariously through the rich man in the battered room.
Boarding School Billy (Ed bets his name could also be something like Tom, or Steve, and he could look at the information the man left but that would be weird, right?) spends the next 10 minutes absolutely wrecking the place, to the best of his ability. Ed watches the pit stains growing under the arms of his expensive shirt, the cathartic way Billy/Tom/Steve finishes a swing with the bat and then wipes sweat from his brow. Ed knows it’s unprofessional to stare, but nobody else is here, nobody else knows, and nobody else cares. Ed will never see this guy again, this businessman who is just passing through, so there’s no harm in adding this view to his mental spank bank for later.
It’s hard to focus over the sounds of the screaming coming down the hallway, though. Coming from the only occupied room in the joint. Billy/Tom/Steve is raging against the machine, raging against something at least, and Ed can’t make it out, but boy is this guy pissed. Ed had better listen in, just to be safe, you know? Doesn’t want this guy to hurt himself, can probably afford expensive lawyers to shut the business down. Ed puts on the headphones he can use to listen in to the rooms and strains to hear over the music.
“You’re my father! You’re my fucking father! And you’re going to use him of all people as a barrier to ignore me and… fuck you! Fuck!” After that it’s a string of expletives and sounds of breaking ceramic. Ed rips the headphones off and decides to give the man some peace. Ed already has enough daddy issues, no need to carry this guy’s as well.
Whatever the daddy issues are, they aren’t enough to grant this guy 40 minutes worth of destructive stamina. His swings get weaker, he pants harder, he rests his hands on his legs for a minute and breathes, only to stand up and try again, a marginal attempt at gusto, but it isn’t long before his arms seem to give up. He puts his hands over his face (and under his safety goggles), shaking, and Ed realizes that he’s crying. Not an unheard of reaction, nothing to be embarrassed by, really. Except the man has 20 minutes left on the clock, and instead of raging he’s sinking to the floor, weeping.
Ed generally doesn’t intervene when this happens. People in the room can be out of control, they can be a flood of emotions and adrenaline, and anything could be going on in their lives. Ed isn’t a therapist or a counselor. So he just stands there awkwardly, wishing he had another customer to watch instead, wishing he could look away. But it would be rude to look away, wouldn’t it? Maybe Ed can be there in solidarity for his fellow man.
This lasts all of five minutes before he’s putting on the headphones and flipping the switch to speak into the room. Except he doesn’t really know what to say.
“Hey man… you good?” Smooth, so cool. The man in the room looks up like he’s heard the voice of God himself.
“Um…” and he raises a hand and gives a thumbs up to the universe.
“All right, sounds good, you still got 15 minutes.”
Billy/Tom/Steve nods and moves himself against the wall, still crying, absentmindedly spinning his gold wedding band back and forth.
Ed could take him out early and refund the time he didn't use, but he doesn't. This guy can afford it. Ed has a business to run. When Billy's 15 minutes are up he is let out of the room, returning his borrowed safety gear and quietly putting on his expensive suit jacket. He looks down, brushes himself off, gives Ed a quick nod without really looking at him, and exits into the night.
And that’s another wasted day of Ed’s life.
Excerpt from the blog Hear Something Weird:
Hi all! Do you want to hear something weird?
You ever just want to feel a song in your bones, like a deep pulsating rhythm that floods your entire body? You ever want to feel it in your fingernails and the pads of your feet? This one requires headphones, I think.
It’s An Animated Description of Mr. Maps, by The Books. This one’s a bit weird, but I love it. Open it up and close your eyes, lean your head back. There’s a rhythm to everything that makes a sound. The spoken word can become the rhythm of a song, and it can seep deep into your brain until you aren’t sure what words are being spoken anymore. I love to listen to songs like this when I need to feel it all coming together, when I need to feel like everything is in tune. The song starts out with a strange snare beat, and it’s hard to follow at first, but…
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