disturbance at the end of the hall,’ she says. She walks to her seat, almost talking to herself. ‘The boss ended the meeting to go handle it.’ We realise she’s angry. ‘He wouldn’t let me come down and see.’ She puts on her headset, already dialling the number at the top of the list. Percy, Maryam and I look at one another. We listen for sounds from the end of the hall but hear nothing. Maryam reaches over from her seat to shut the door.
Tammy’s phone picks up. ‘I know you’re alone, Mrs Wilson,’ she says.
12
Ten minutes later, the boss comes in.
‘Stay in your office,’ he says. His face is set, worried. ‘Don’t leave, no matter what you hear.’
‘What’s going on?’ says Percy.
‘Just stay here,’ he says. He looks over at Tammy. She holds his eye for a moment, then raises her eyebrows before looking back to her computer. The boss closes the door behind him. Percy looks at me.
‘What’s going on?’ he says again.
‘How should I know?’ I say.
‘Best to leave it,’ says Maryam from Africa.
‘What do you mean Best to leave it?’ Tammy says, spinning round to face us.
Maryam’s posture straightens. It suddenly looks like she’s a whole lot bigger.
‘Exactly what I say, Little Madam,’ she says. ‘Best. To. Leave. It. Get back to work.’ She looks at Percy. ‘Some of us have quotas to meet.’ Percy turns back to his terminal and starts dialling the next number.
‘Aren’t any of you curious?’ says Tammy, looking at us, exasperated. ‘They tell you to avoid the end of the hall, and you just say, Fine by me?’
I look at Maryam, who still has her eyes locked on Tammy. I look back at Tammy.
‘It’s not quite like that,’ I say.
‘Then what is it like?’ Tammy says. ‘What’s wrong with you? Don’t you want to know?’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘the reality of it is -’
‘Go look yourself if you’re so interested, Miss Missy,’ says Maryam.
‘Maryam!’ I say. Maryam looks at me.
‘The woman is not going to be satisfied until she has a look,’ Maryam says. ‘She is just gathering her courage. Well, I say leave us be with your courage-gathering and just go if you’re going to go.’
Tammy takes off her headset. She stands. ‘All right then,’ she says, ‘I will.’
‘Tammy,’ I say, ‘I really wouldn’t.’
‘And yet you can’t, or won’t, tell me why,’ she says.
Percy is also trying to mouth at Tammy not to go, but he’s on a call. It’s company policy that you never disconnect a call. Percy over-balances and hits the floor with a thud. ‘No, madam, I’m still here,’ he says, waving his hands at Tammy to stay put.
‘This is ridiculous,’ Tammy says. She looks at each one of us in turn, then opens the door and steps out.
13
‘I wish you wouldn’t have let her go,’ says Percy, finally through with his call. It was successful, leaving just three to go to make quota.
‘There is no letting involved,’ says Maryam. ‘A person chooses their own actions. We chose to stay here. She chose to go.’
‘She wouldn’t have listened to us, Perce,’ I say.
‘I suppose not,’ he says. ‘But the end of the hall,’ he says to himself, shaking his head as he starts dialling again.
14
Through the still-open door, we hear a distant scuffling, then something that might be a muted voice or it could be the air conditioning malfunctioning like it often does, then a faint crash, followed by a few more crashes, then an uncomfortable high-pitched sound, which again could be the air conditioning.
We all carry on with our calls. Maryam reaches out and closes the door.
15
Much later, the boss comes in. There is a cut across his cheek and a bandage peeking out from his shirt collar. He is walking with a limp, and there is a funny smell. Without saying a word, he walks over to Tammy’s table, folds up her jumper, puts it in her bag, picks it up and leaves. We watch him go. Percy looks at his watch.
‘Where did the day go?’ he says.
We get ready to leave, and one by one we enter today’s sales numbers on the weekly quota sheet, first Maryam, then me, then Percy.
It takes us a minute to realise we’ve had our best day ever.
Nabbed! The Groomgrab1 Phenomenon at the Turn of the Millennium
For fulfillment of the requirements of SOCI 917, ‘Methodologies, Dichotomies, Paradoxes, Iconographics, and Uncomfortable Shoes: The Millennial Nonsense and Why Everyone Made Such a Big Deal Out of It Instead of Pretending It Was Just Another Stupid Year, Which It Was.’ Professor Megan Woodhall/Sjoboen-Pimlico/Wren, Instructor, University of Western Los Angeles, Including Brentwood, Malibu, Santa Monica, and Scattered Portions of Ventura County November 30, 2015
It seems to have begun the way all trends do, with whim meeting opportunity.
The first groomgrab2, as they came to be known3, can be traced back to July 14, 1999 to an area of Los Angeles then known as Westwood. James Roddick, 28, gay, single, and Anton Marshall, 27, also gay, also single4, were driving home from a movie when they spotted seven-year-old Aaron Booher playing ball by himself on the sidewalk. ‘“Desultory” was the word that came to mind,’ Marshall is reported to have said. Some eleven weeks later, just when groomgrabs were on the upswing, Roddick and Marshall appeared on the Sally Jessy Raphael Show to describe that historic first occurrence.
Roddick: [Booher] was just bouncing the ball, all by himself.
Marshall: It was the saddest thing.
Roddick: So Anton goes, ‘Poor kid, doesn’t look like he’s having any fun at all.’
Marshall:
