The Card I Laid on His Desk

The Box by the Time Clock

I came in early the next morning, before first shift was even clocked out, when the floor was all noise and nobody was watching the wall by the time clock.

The Bright Idea box was still bolted there, dented, the color of split pea soup, the little slot in the top worn shiny from years of hands.

I knew Buck had emptied it in August.

I knew there was a good chance my card was in his desk or in the trash or gone for good.

But a box like that is never truly empty, because people keep feeding it.

I worked the little door on the bottom, the one that is supposed to be locked and never is, and a drift of cards slid out into my hand.

Gripes. A drawing of the plant manager as a frog. A note asking for a second microwave. Three months of nonsense since August.

And near the bottom, soft at the corners from riding around in that metal box, a folded index card with my own cramped printing on it.

He had not taken mine after all.

He had read it, memorized it, put it back, and left the original right where it lay, because who on earth would ever go looking.

I unfolded it on the top of the box with my thumb. The little sketch of the press mouth. The arrows.

The note about the part revolution clutch. And up in the corner, in pencil, in my own hand, the date.

March the ninth.

Four months before July. Four months before Dale. I stood there in all that morning noise and I did not feel angry anymore.

I felt calm, the way you feel when a thing is finally simple.