Pandora's Closet

WHAT QUIG FOUND by Chris Pierson

This all happened at a restaurant in Rhode Island, the name of which I don’t care to recall.

Well, actually I do recall it. I just can’t tell you what it is.

I’ll explain.

What happened there caused a bit of what my mother would call a foofaraw, which means publicity, and not the kind a major restaurant chain enjoys. So the first time I tried to get this story published, I mentioned the name, and next thing there were cease-and-desist orders flying, and… well, they’re a multinational corporation worth billions. I’m a database programmer with student loans and a car to pay off. You tell me who’d win in court. So turns out I can’t tell you where the story takes place.

Ah, narrative in the modern era.

But I can tell you the type of restaurant I’m talking about. It’s the sort of joint that always springs up in that special kind of strip-mall hell you find in the suburbs. The kind you find next door to the mini-golf course, where they play bad classic rock and serve fajitas and triple cheeseburgers and other things sure to kill you before you start collecting Social Security.

They’re also the kind where there isn’t a square inch of wall that isn’t covered in some old piece of random junk. Pair of snowshoes, washing board, stuffed wolverine, Alaskan license plate. You know the sort. They always have a cute name, like J.P. Fern-stubble’s Goode Tyme Emporium, or Holy Crap, It’s Still Thursday’s. You’ve probably eaten there, then spent the evening scrounging for antacid.

Anyway, I used to work about half a mile from a place like that. Little startup company, sold baby products online. I’ll spare you the glamorous details. This was back in ’99, before the tech bubble popped, and half of America was made up of little places like that, with way more venture capital than clue. Since Footwell McBucketfish’s Olde-Style Roadhouse was just down the street, my team went there for drinks after work. A lot.

So there we were, five of us. There was me-I’m Jered, by the way-and the rest of my crew. Rick was one of the company founders, a burnout who didn’t get any work done. Gabby was the best user interface programmer I’ve ever met, but she hated her job and spent half her time using the office copier to make dupes of her résumé. Ravi did server work; he moved to Canada last year after some drunk morons who thought he was Iraqi set fire to his lawn.

And then there was Alex Quigley. We called him Quig. He was our project lead, and he was older than us-fiftyish, a bit fat and nerdy (in a tech company, you say? Egad!), on his second career. Good guy to work for. He used to be an actor, when he was my age; he even did a little off-Broadway before he got tired of being poor.

We were regulars at the Muggawugga Gulch Saloon, which meant we had a regular booth, with a waitress named Do

“Rough day?” she asked that rainy night, setting down our second round of drinks. “You all look like you just found out Jar Jar Binks was going to be back in the next Star Wars.”

Nerd humor. Usually it got a laugh, but all we could manage were pained grimaces.

“God,” said Ravi. “Don’t depress us even more.”

“Quig got yelled at,” Gabby said, and shrugged. “But what else is new?”

Rick took a long pull off his beer. “Nah. It’s bad this time.”

We all looked at Quig. He and the CEO had had a blowup that afternoon. See, the CEO thought we should all be working sixteen-hour days until we shipped our product. Quig thought that was just going to make us tired and sloppy, which meant delays. It got to shouting, and Quig lost. Now he looked as though someone had stolen his car in order to run over his dog.

“You go

Quig shook his head and sighed, watching his margarita melt. “That’d be too merciful.”

“They’re setting him up to fail,” I said. “They want someone to blame.”

“I told them from the start: Fast, Cheap, Good-you only get to pick two,” Quig said, and shook his head. “But these guys have MBAs, so they knew better.”

“So now we’re go

That got a few morbid laughs. We toasted with Rick-everyone but Quig. He just sat still, moping.

“Jeez.” Do

Quig looked up at her and managed a smile. “Thanks, D. You’re a peach.”

Off she went, dodging a table of half-drunk biker-looking dudes a short way away. There was a lot of shouting, and one of the bikers tried to grab Do

“Jackasses,” Gabby muttered, giving the drunks a dirty look.

“Do

“I can’t do that to you guys,” Quig replied. “They’ll ride you into the ground without me there.”

Rick finished his beer. “It’s happening anyway. It’s not like you’re protecting us from anything.”

“Jesus, Rick,” Gabby said.

“What?” he shot back. “It’s true. Or are we not staying for ‘Productivity Nights’ starting next Monday?”

“All right, enough,” I said. “We talk about work any more, I’m going to jam this fork in my eye. Who’s up for a game of Spot the Tchotchke?”

I’d come up with Spot the Tchotchke one day after realizing the stuff on the walls of Q.T. von Thunder-pants’s Publick Haus wasn’t always the same from one week to the next. Believe it or not, they add and remove things on a regular basis-I don’t know if they rotate it between restaurants, or buy new junk, or what. I suspect magic gnomes are involved, but that’s just a guess.

Anyway, in Spot the Tchotchke, you take turns trying to find stuff that wasn’t there last time you visited. Whoever finds the weirdest thing gets their meal paid for by the rest of the table.

“I’m in,” said Ravi, and pointed across the room. “New traffic sign over there. Armadillo Crossing, I think.”

“That’s an aardvark,” Gabby said, squinting.

“Even better. Beat it.”

“Easy,” she said. “There, behind that flock of teenagers. That’s an old medieval instrument called a serpent.”

I looked. The teens were busy throwing food at each other and generally acting like idiots. Hanging nearby, smeared with ketchup, was a wavy thing that looked like a clarinet that had been in an accident.

“Advantage: Gabby,” I said. “Obscure musical instrument beats road sign.”

“Does not!” Ravi protested.

“It’s in the rulebook.” There was no book, of course, but as the game’s creator, I made the call. “Anyone else?”

“Got you all beat,” said Rick. “Look up.”

I did, and flinched. Poised above me, like I was Damocles or something, was a huge pair of old, rusty blades. I mean, the suckers were big. “What the hell?” I asked.

“Gelding shears,” Rick said. “They used to use ’em on horses.”

There was a moment’s silence. I shuddered.

“… a