The Killing League

24.

Family Man

Brent Tucker sat down at his computer and fired up the screen. His cubicle was impeccable. Stacks of papers, manuals, charts and catalogues all sat in their proper places, edges neat and aligned.

The shelves held books; dictionaries, thesauruses, AP style guides, the Elements of Style. Everything else held pictures. Photos of his children. His wife. The family on vacation. Sports photos. Birthday cards made by his kids for him.

He was the ultimate family man.

Brent Tucker was also a technical writer for a company that specialized in computer peripherals. He neither liked nor disliked his job. It was simply his job, no more, no less. He received his assignments from the new products group, downloaded all of the information regarding the latest routers and cables and motherboards, and assimilated that information, formatted it, and turned it into a logical flow of description that the end user could understand.

It was a job he did well. His documents were always error-free, properly formatted, and never late. His superiors loved him. His coworkers respected him. But no one really knew him.

As his computer screen blinked on, he thought about his lack of passion for the job. Love and passion, he thought, interesting concepts. Yes, he did his job well. It wasn’t important whether or not he liked it. He just did it. End of story. Every day. Every week. Every month. Every year now for almost twenty years.

His real love, his real passion, well, that was something no one else knew about.

At least, that’s what he thought until he saw the message pop up in corner of his screen. It was a simple statement: “Check your top drawer.”

And then the message was gone.

Someone from IT, maybe? Sometimes they monitored people’s computers and would control them remotely if they wanted to install software updates.

But he felt a surge of anger as he reached for the top drawer and began to pull it open. He had a mailbox — why wouldn’t they put the message there? Or in an interoffice envelope? This was an invasion of privacy. And if there was one thing in the world Brent Tucker loved with a deep passion, it was his privacy.

He slid open the drawer and saw the card sitting peacefully on top of a neat collection of Post-It notes, paper clips and push pins.

The cover said, “Family Man.”

He opened it.

Dear Family Man,

It is my honor and privilege to welcome you to another family. You have been selected as a competitor in the Killing League. I have marveled at your ability to hide your secret life under the screen of such a wonderful facade: you are Ward Cleaver incarnate! Please find your travel information and tickets enclosed. Can’t wait to welcome you to your new family! Please join us, we would hate to have to turn in a family member to the police!

Sincerely,

The Commissioner

Tucker slammed the drawer shut and carried the card over to the company shredder.

His hands shook as he fed the document into the machine. When it was over, he went into the bathroom, found a stall, closed the door and sat down.

And wept.