Spring 2006 Sisyphus - St. Louis University High School

28
that I had never noticed before.
“I take care of the file room,” Jeff explained,
and swung open the doors.
I stepped inside the file room, expecting to
see a few cabinets and boxes lying unordered
on the ground. Instead, an enormous expanse
of shelving met my eyes, row upon row upon
row of folders, doubling the area of the rest of
the basement itself. The rows of shelves were
so long they seemed to extend into nothingness,
and they were much taller than I was. Each one
was like a vaulted corridor.
“What is all of this?” I asked, awestruck.
There had to be thousands and thousands of
folders in front of me.
“My friend, you are looking at the records
of every single property exchange that occurred
in the city or county of St. Louis in the past
century.”
I paused in disbelief. So there were thousands,
even hundreds of thousands, of folders
in front of me, and each one of these folders
held within it the forgotten documentation of
some important decision, the remainders of a
life choice carefully tucked away and filed and
never seen again. As I stood there in absorption,
I felt as if a weighty truckload had been lifted
from my rigid shoulders.
“They put you in charge of this?”
“Yes sir they did.” He didn’t seem offended
by my incredulity.
“Just how long have you been working
here?”
“Uhh…Since I was about seventeen I
guess.”
I was still wandering down the rows. I could
get lost in there. Apparently Jeff had not gone to
college. Or maybe he had. Whatever the case, I
struggled with the idea that this bumbling character
stuck between adulthood and childhood, this
half-assing, beach-barbecuing bungler who once
tried to freeze a coworker’s office supplies into
a block of ice could be given such a profound
task. It seemed that in my search for the adult
mentality I had been looking in the wrong place
all along.
“Don’t go too far, there, Magellan. We
shouldn’t have left someone like Todd in charge
of the grill. He’s totally mental. We gotta get
back there.”
“You know, that’s a good idea,” I said. “Did
you ever think about putting some lawn chairs
out there too?”
“No, man, but I like the way you think…”
So we went back out to the beach and relieved
Todd of his duty, but not without first listening
to a vintage Todd story, which I didn’t seem to
mind all that much anymore. After he left, Jeff
assumed his former position at the head of the
grill.
“For Christ’s sake, I knew Todd would burn
the piss out of ’em.”
Just when it looked like Jeff would indulge
in yet another tirade on proper meat-grilling
protocol, the door to the basement opened and
the boss sauntered out, gawking at us.
“What is this, some kind of barbecue?”
“Uhh…hey, Boss…I thought you said you
were going out of town.”
“What is this, some kind of beach?” The
boss seemed more confused than pissed off.
“And where did we get a grill from?”
“Don’t ask me,” Jeff said. I looked on silently.
“Well, at least give me one of those burgers,”
the boss snorted. “Pullin’ a stunt like this, they
better be damn good.”
Jeff hastily scooped up a burger from the grill
and tucked it inside a bun. The boss snatched it
up and took a bite. He looked up at Jeff with an
exaggerated expression of gustatory disappointment.
“You really burned the piss out of it, didn’t
you?”
Jeff tightened his grip on the spatula.