Squish Me

Monday morning a lady calls from Tallahassee. Apparently her kid ate his SquishMe® thinking it was candy. I say we don’t make candy, we make Smart Toys For Smart Girls and Boys!, and we can send out a replacement right away. But she says it’s too late because he’s already dead.

Jack calls me into his office on the twentieth floor.

“There’s no such thing as bad press,” says Jack. “Except when it involves a kid dying. Christ, Sissy. You’re supposed to put a lid on these things.”

The next day it’s all over the news: EDUCATIONAL TOY COMPANY RESPONSIBLE FOR INFANTCIDE.

“We may want to change the packaging,” says Debb from Packaging.

My team and I decide to change the recommended age from six to nine. We run this by Gilman in Numbers on the sixth floor, who says changing this will have detrimental effects on our gross sales. Debb does this thing where she chews on a paperclip until it’s as flat as a ruler.

“What if we print ‘Do Not Eat’ on the packaging instead?” says Debb So we do that instead.

Then lunch.

Afterwards we get a call from the Federal Consumer Safety Commision (FCSC) demanding six million dollars in damages. I remind them the going rate for dead kids is two million. We negotiate, and settle upon four million, which still seems like too much.

Back on the twentieth floor Jack breaks out the sangria and congratulates us for settling the matter in a timely and somewhat cost-efficient manner.

“To Creative Solutions!” he says.

We tip our glasses.

—

At home Mom is on the couch watching Oh My God Who Cares? They invite people who've endured intense personal tragedies to tell their stories in front of a live studio audience. Host Trevor Kilgore wheels in a woman who lost both her legs in a skiing accident. Her husband left because she wasn’t able to hike up Kilimanjaro with him for their anniversary. Now she’s depressed, aimless, contemplating waiting out in the snow and letting the December chill finish the job. Then Trevor says Oh My God Who Cares, and the audience cheers.

“Look at her,” says Mom. “She’s got both arms and complaining about legs? What she really needs is a brain.”

The trick to the show is that they tell everyone they’ll receive a hefty cash bonus for their troubles. Except this actually segues into the next portion of the show, PITY OR PUNISHMENT. Audience members get to vote whether the participant gets a prize or gets to endure more pain. The legless woman pleads for enough cash to buy hiking prosthetics. But the sign behind her already flashes: PUNISHMENT. Then Trevor comes out with a hacksaw.

While we’re watching TV Mickey comes through the front door. Mickey is nineteen and entering his Marxist phase. He has a peach fuzz goatee and works once a week at a pet store with burnouts twice his age. He brings home all kinds of junk; rubber chew toys, aquarium gravel, ziplock bags of frozen mice. Today he’s brought home what looks like a homeless person.

“Hey, Sissy. Hey, Ma,” says Mickey.

“Who is that?” says Mom.

“It’s my buddy Jeremy. From up the block. Remember?”

“That hobo who sleeps in the park?” says Mom.

“They prefer to be called ‘unhoused individuals,” says Mickey. “And Jeremy’s a stand-up guy. He served his country. Tell it to my Ma.”

“I used to work for the Salvation Army,” says Jeremy.

“Get him out,” says Mom.

“Aw c’mon Ma,” says Mickey. “I told Jeremy he could spend the night here. He didn’t feel safe sleeping at the shelter. A bunch of these guys? They cornered him and took his bible. While we got this big TV, all Jeremy’s got is his bible, and they took it. See?”

“This whole block’s been going to the shitter,” says Mom. “I’m not letting our house turn into a shanty town.”

Mom believes our neighborhood is experiencing what she calls reverse-gentrification.

This all started when the Whole Foods shut down and a pack of feral kids on roller skates moved in. Pretty soon the boba place, the spin class, and expensive backpack store also closed up shop.

“That’s so discriminatory of you,” says Mickey. “These people have illnesses. Where else are they supposed to go?”

“A halfway house,” says Mom.

“That’s such typical negative projecting,” says Mickey. “They don’t have any positive outlets to express their creativity.”

“You call shooting up in driveways creative?” says Mom.

“Not everyone got to go to a fancy private school like I did,” says Mickey. “Not everyone’s lucky like us.”

“Lucky?” says Mom. “You call your father emptying out our retirement plan and taking off to Europe with his little tart lucky?”

Dad took everything except the house when he left. He gave Mom a list of reasons that included blue balls, burnt steaks, and not crying when the Yankees lost the World Series. He ran off to Greece with his nineteen-year-old student who writes shitty poetry. And since Mom can’t work due to a past pilates injury, and Mickey’s job barely covers anything, I work for the both of them, putting my own dreams on hold and silently building up resentment.

Maybe someday I’ll run away to Europe too.

I go upstairs to my room and read my book: The Seven Mantras of Personal Fulfillment. I’m on chapter six: “Not Letting Other People’s Problems Yuck Your Yum.” I put some CBD oil in the humidifier and close my eyes, remembering the last letter my dad sent me. Dear Sissy, my beautiful daughter, it said. I’m not paying alimony anymore. I’m not trying to be Mean Dad, I just want you to be self-sufficient, like I am.

Then as per usual I pop a Raderall™ and wow, do I suddenly feel fantastic. And all my concerns and anxieties dissolve as I frantically reorganize my room, look up some old pals, find out there are none, then pass out before the break of dawn to wake up and do it all over again.

—

At work we go up on the sixteenth floor for Mingle Jingle, where Jack has prepared one of his motivational spiels.

“Our enemies may try to fell us,” says Jack. “But SquishMe® remains the top selling educational tool for children ages 6 to 13, three years running!”

Jack has a low brow with deep set eyes and thick patches of beard. He mentions in the company bio that he has Cro-Magnon in his blood, which is what gives him the vitality and strength to come to work everyday.

“Unlike other offices, we endorse inter-worker relationships,” says Jack. “So go for it! As long as we respect our individual PDA’s. For example, Tara there might not mind Juan and Julian kissing in front of her desk, but Marco could have a problem with it, and we should respect his boundaries.”

Our company follows the Corporate Constructive Conduct model (CCC). That means nobody gets their own office, not even Jack. During the day you can find him making sand angels in the rock garden on the thirteenth floor.

Moses from Consolations comes over to talk to me about the Tallahassee kid.

“Really unfortunate,” he says. “I had a brother with epilepsy? When he was nine he had a seizure in the bathtub and drowned.”

I nod along, looking for a way out. Moses always chooses the workstation closest to me. He has the charisma of a shelter puppy. Rumor is he served prison time for certain knife-related charges, until finding God and lasering off all his facial tattoos.

“My Nana?” he says. “Last month we had to get her right foot amputated. Diabetes. If you know anyone who needs a shoe in size seven, email me.”

Thankfully Jack pulls me aside.

“Need you in the MultiPurposeRoom,” says Jack.

I follow Jack to the MultiPurposeRoom. It’s the only place besides the bathroom stalls with doors that close. There I find Debb, Gilman, and Tobin. Tobin’s from Development. Rumor is he used to work for the Department of Agriculture developing genetically enhanced cows that can regrow lost muscles as a sustainable food source. Today they’ve called us in to talk about SquishMe®. The toy looks like a silicone breast implant and comes in three colors: Magenta, cyan, and marigold. It’s labeled The Thinking Kid’s Game!

“This can’t leave the room,” says Jack. “But we think we know why the Tallahassee kid ate his SquishMe®.”

“Placentas,” says Tobin.

“What about them?” says Debb.

“The secret ingredient in SquishMe® is placentas,” says Tobin.

There’s a brief silence in the room.

“So what?” says Debb.

“The pro-lifers,” says Gilman. “They’ll freak if we find out we use aborted fetuses.”

“We get a deal from abortion clinics,” says Tobin.

“The placenta feeds the fetus,” says Gilman.

“The kids in Testing find it irresistible,” says Tobin.

“It’s a little Freudian,” says Gilman.

“It’s also potentially lethal to swallow,” says Tobin.

I ask why we don’t simply recall this toy if kids will eat it.

“Do I support killing kids?” says Jack. “Of course not. But we need to address the bottom-line here, which is: We’ve developed a product that consumers are literally dying over.”

“This is more of a marketing issue than a safety issue,” says Gilman.

“If only we could get the FCSC off our ass,” says Debb.

“They’re sending over a representative this Friday” says Tobin.

“Oh frick,” says Jack. “Just what we need, another nanny telling us what toys are safe and what’s not. My grandfather designed rifles for children for chrissakes. Maybe some of them accidentally shot themselves in the foot, but that’s childhood, baby. Risks and rewards.”

After the meeting I go to Pharmaceuticals on the fourth floor. “Refill?” says Jo from Pharmaceuticals.

I get a refill on my Raderall™.

Debb and I go to Tiki Shack for happy hour. The bartenders wear grass skirts and skin-tight flesh suits to simulate naked skin. We get a cabana and order a Filipino Body Wax, which comes in a big bowl and looks like windex. It has twelve shots of vodka and rum in it and gets you tipsy pretty quick, enough for Debb to confess she’s leaving the job.

“Don’t tell Jack,” she says. “I got a better offer from Quik Stream. But I’m going to use up all my vacation days first. This time next week I’ll be in Barcelona with Ramirez.”

I ask who Ramirez is.

“Some guy I met on EZ/Love,” she says. “Owns a bull-fighting rescue. Can you imagine me with a guy like that?”

I can’t. This is a person who shot and killed a deer in her own backyard because it ate her plants. Before this Debb worked at a restaurant chain called HarlotVille where she wore a polyester corset and a powdered wig. She got fired after shivving the manager with a salad fork when he groped her breast. She’s the closest thing to a friend I have. Not that it means much.

“You should come,” says Debb.

I’m tempted. I’ve worked at SquishMe® for six years and the glass ceiling isn’t going anywhere. But I’m not taking any risks in this economy. So I tell Debb she’s going to have to ride solo.

Debb chews on her straw for a bit.

“I have an idea,” she says. “Let’s snort some Rad’s in the bathroom.”

We crush up our Raderall™ and snort it off the toilet rim.

—

Friday morning Moses walks around the office with a shoebox that has a polaroid of his Nana taped to it. He’s trying to raise money so he can buy new locks for their house. Two weeks ago the helper they hired stole her wallet, her phone, and his dead grandfather’s war medals.

Jack calls me to come up to the twentieth floor. When I get there I find Jack with a woman I’ve never seen before.

“This is Gloria Valentine,” says Jack. “She’s from the FCSC. Here to do a routine inspection.”

Gloria is a hunched over middle-aged woman with silver hair and a weird milky stare. “Debb’s on vacation now so Sissy will show you around,” says Jack.

I show Gloria around. I take her to the kitchenette for a cup of coffee. While stirring two packets of Splenda into her coffee, Gloria catches me staring at her eyes.

“They’re glass,” she says.

“I wasn’t staring,” I say.

“Yes you were,” she says. “Don’t be embarrassed. I was born like this. I taught myself to read braille at a very young age.”

“It must be tough,” I say.

“I have a hunch about certain things,” she says. “I can walk into a place and automatically sense what’s unsafe about it. Like here: There’s cross-contamination going on between the coffee filters and someone’s spicy-tuna they brought for lunch.”

Indeed, Gilman left a tray of spicy-tuna rolls on a stack of coffee filters over by the counter.

“Now take me to the child-killer,” says Gloria.

I take her down to Testing where we have these kids in a room playing with SquishMe® while their parents watch behind a two-way mirror. The point is we don’t give them any instructions. They try to figure it out themselves. It’s supposed to engage their critical thinking skills. In reality it’s just a sparkly sack of jelly. Then we give them a questionnaire at the end that asks: Is the toy fun? Is it inclusive to all genders and ethnicities? The parents bet whose kid is the brightest. I doubt any of them are.

“Something’s wrong,” says Gloria.

A little redhead with a bob haircut is trying to eat her SquishMe® and choking, so Gloria runs in and administers CPR. The little redhead spits it out and this gelatinous glob hits the floor, looking more placenta than ever. Her mother asks if they still get their fifty bucks.

Gloria’s dead eyes stare at me. “Recalled,” she says.

Afterwards Jack has me come up to the rock garden on the thirteenth floor.

“You were supposed to put a lid on this,” says Jack. “I know,” I say.

“And I have a sneaking suspicion that Debb won’t be coming back,” he says. “Frick. This is what I get for relying on people. I had a girlfriend once who I drove to work every morning. I’d get up at five o’clock and fill her thermos with oatmeal. I did this for three years. And then she gets a promotion, and what does she do? She moves to St. Louis without me! I was just a fricking chauffeur the entire time. Are you listening to me, Sissy?”

Sometimes I feel like Jack is an over-sharer.

“All I wanted to do was introduce a toy to the world that I found to be fun and educational,” he says. “Now we have to recall and destroy every unit.”

Jack puts me and Moses on destruction duty. We go around the building with a mail cart and collect every SquishMe® we can find and deposit them at Incineration in the basement. It’s a furnace the size of an SUV to destroy defective products. As we toss each SquishMe®, Moses cries a little. Jesus. He’ll never make it in this business.

—

At home Mickey cradles a black kitten in his lap. He adopted it before the shelter sold all their animals to Maybelline for testing. This one is named Buckie 2. As kids we had a cat named Buckie 1. We found him in the parking lot of an Ishmael’s Sea Shanty and took him home. It was our responsibility to empty his litter box, but when we forgot once, Buckie 1 pooped on the living room rug. So Dad drove him far out into the desert and left him there.

Having thought about Dad again, I run upstairs and pop open The Seven Mantras and skip ahead to chapter seven: “Forgiveness in the Face of Extreme Depression and Peril.”

When this doesn’t work, I pop a Raderall™. The popcorn ceiling starts to drip and fills my room. I’m on a beach off the coast of Mykonos. I see Dad snorkeling with his new girlfriend. A stingray swims through a sea of blue. Like Steve Irwin he tries to grab hold of it for his marine taxidermy collection. I call out to him but he can’t hear me. This was when he stopped answering my calls. That’s when they find his limp body floating to shore with the stinger still lodged in his lungs.

And then he pops up again in my bedroom. “Hi, kiddo,” says Dad.

I hate when this happens. Ever since he died, he’ll show up if I ingest too much Raderall™. And always to ask me for help.

“Have you thought about what I said?” he says.

“No,” I say.

“Please, Sissy,” he says. “They won’t let me Upstairs unless I’m granted forgiveness for all my earthly transgressions.”

I kindly tell him to fuck off.

“Oh, get off it,” he says. “I always looked out for you. Remember when we went to the state fair when you were thirteen? When those creeps were staring up your skirt on the Whirl n’ Hurl? I told them to knock it off, or I’d give them something to hurl about.”

“I remember you were drunk and started a fight with the ride operator,” I say. “Then the controls got stuck and they had to call the fire department to get us down.”

“We can split hairs all day, but the guys Upstairs are saying my time is almost up. That means they’re going to send me Downstairs. I’ve seen it, Sissy, and it’s not pretty. They make you relieve your greatest regret for an eternity. For me it was when your mother got pregnant and I knew we would be stuck teaching at a community college forever. You wonder why I was so grumpy all the time? There you go.”

He hands me the slip of paper again, which I ignore, and even if I wanted to sign it, how could I? Both he and the paper are ethereal and pass right through me.

“You make me out like I’m some sort of monster,” he says. “I’m sorry. I never wanted to be a father. I’m not father material. Friend, yes. Uncle, maybe. But not a father. I was a good friend though, wasn’t I? I bought you your first cell-phone. I showed you records I liked. I took you to PlayDungeon for your birthday. Wasn’t that enough?”

“I wanted a father. Not a buddy,” I say.

Then Dad does this passive-aggressive thing again where he pulls the stingray out of his lungs and blood starts dripping out onto my carpet, until his body is completely drained and he collapses on the floor like a dried raisin. He expects me to feel sorry for him. Not likely. Then in the morning everything disappears, and when I check the clock I’m already running an hour late, so I grab a NotTart® and race to work.

—

Moses’ workstation is empty.

This isn’t like him to disappear and not tell anyone. For his half-birthday he brought us all tamales and booked an escape room at an old missile silo, which nobody went to. I ask around the departments but nobody seems to know where he went. Part of me worries he auditioned for Oh My God Who Cares. Jack calls me into the MultiPurposeRoom.

“We’re saved,” he says. “Numbers are up,” says Tobin.

“New and improved,” says Gilman.

I ask why the hell everyone is so chipper.

“Because our friend at the FCSC left her post,” says Jack. “And her report went missing. Which means SquishMe® is back on shelves!”

I ask if there was a bribe involved.

“Absolutely not,” says Jack.

“Practically no persuasion at all,” says Tobin.

“These things have a way of working themselves out,” says Gilman. “To Creative Solutions!” he says.

After work we go to Tiki Shack to celebrate. Gilman drinks too much and throws up on a waitress's shoes. Jack’s on his phone the whole time and hardly talks to us. I ask Tobin about Moses and he says he got a better offer in Florida.

On the train home I notice someone following me in a dark hoodie. When I get off at my stop he trails me out the station and up my block, so I pull out my pepper spray and get him in the face. After he goes down and I kick him once in the stomach, I notice it’s Moses.

“What the hell are you doing?” I say.

“I need help,” he says. “I messed up real bad.”

“What happened?”

“I was supposed to scare the lady from the FCSC,” he says. “So I put on a mask and followed her to her car.”

“Mo-”

“But she started yelling, so I took off my mask and stuck it in her mouth.”

“Mo-”

“And then I realized she could see my face, so I panicked and stuck her in the trunk.” “Mo-”

“And by the time I got home I realized she wasn’t breathing.”

“-ses?”

“And when I called Jack, he said he had no idea what I was talking about, and his lawyers would prosecute me if I said anything.”

“Jack put you up to this?”

“He told me it would save the company,” he says. “And he’d hire a full-time staff for my Nana.”

Right now Mykonos sounds pretty good.

“I don’t know what to do. I can’t keep her body in my trunk forever,” says Moses. “Weren’t you in jail for stabbing someone once?” I say.

“I stole a kitchen knife at Bed Bath & Beyond in high school,” says Moses. “It was a birthday present for my nana. Please Sissy, I’m looking for some mercy here.”

I can’t bring him inside the house with Mom there. So I take Moses to the homeless shelter down by the trainyard where Mickey likes to hang out. It used to be a Lululemon store. There’s an overflow of sports bras and bicycle shorts in the donation boxes. Men and women sleep in cots stacked on top of each other. Porta-potties without doors line the walls. We make up a fake name for him and I leave him in his bunk.

“Don’t let the police question my nana,” says Moses. “It’ll trigger memories. Awful, awful memories of the old country.”

—

That night I take too much Raderall™ again and dad shows up in my room. “You’ve got to turn in that boy,” he says.

“Go away,” I say.

“It’s not worth covering for him,” he says. “Then you’ll both go down. Didn’t I always tell you not to let other people drag you down?”

“Right now you’re dragging me down,” I say.

“How could you say that?” he says. “I’m family. I’m talking about everyone who’s not myself or Mickey or your mother. Okay maybe not your mother, but the rest of us? Super important.”

I used to imagine what my life would be like if dad stayed. It was in the middle of high school, and I was already getting self conscious about my babyface and splotches. Maybe he would’ve stopped me from dating thirty-year old Robert Wolken who used to hang out at our volleyball games. Maybe he would’ve stopped me from getting hooked on prescription opiates in college, and having to move back in with Mom. Maybe I would’ve become a therapist like I always talked about.

Maybe I can do something about Moses. “Enough,” I say. “I’ll sign your paper.”

“Really? You have no idea what this means to me,” says Dad. “Just don’t ever come back,” I say.

He unrolls the paper from his back pocket. It reads: I, the child of the DECEASED, thereby forgive them for all their earthly transgressions, including, blaming, shaming, and complaining.

I sign it with my finger. Surprisingly the signature holds. “Thanks kiddo,” says Dad.

Then poof. He disappears.

—

The next day I show up at my workstation and find Debb and Moses have already been replaced by two new hires. One was formerly an occupational-health expert. The other did PR for South-American militant groups. They’re young and super enthusiastic to be working here and glad for me to know it. They ask me what my favorite part of the job is. I say murdering children. They look at me like they’re not sure if I’m being sarcastic. I excuse myself to pay Jack a visit on the thirteenth floor, where he’s eating a poke bowl next to the rock garden.

“I know about your arrangement with Moses,” I say. “Who?” says Jack.

“He solved your problem,” I say.

“I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “And I would advise, in the best interests of your career, that you forget what you’re talking about.”

“It’s not my problem,” I say. “But give him what he’s owed. At least do that much.”

“I simply cannot,” says Jack. “Since that would be an admission of guilt. An admission that we had a prior agreement, which we did not. All he did was ask me for more overtime and I said I’d look into it. That was it. But I could offer you a career incentive, in the form of unlimited paid time-off, if we can agree to put this all to rest?”

Unlimited PTO. I could stay home for months and still get paid. I could look into some hobbies to take my mind off of things, maybe even a passion. I could start my life again.

“Think it over,” says Jack.

I go to the bathroom to snort some Raderall™ but I’m out. So I sit in a stall and picture Moses being defiled at the shelter by some toughs with syringes sticking out of their necks; his nana participating on Oh My God Who Cares and getting punished by Trevor Kilgore; Gloria’s body rotting in the back of a Nissan Sentra somewhere; Dad’s widow living it up in their seaside villa with his money and a new boytoy; a million children across the country eager to shove SquishMe® into their mouths.

And when I return to Jack I tell him the truth. Which is:

I simply don’t care anymore. “Is that a yes?” he says.

I nod.

“That’s a fantastic answer,” he says. “Like, wow. I knew I could rely on you. You’re so unlike other people in my life. And you came at just the right time! I have to see to some business overseas, which has nothing to do with the FCSC, but fun new opportunities, so I lead you in charge while I’m gone. It’s vacation time, baby.”

Then it’s home where Mom’s asleep on the couch and Mickey’s writing his manifesto on a typewriter. In bed I start thinking: I don’t have to go to work tomorrow. Or the next day. Or ever. I could even take a trip. But I would have no idea where to go. And maybe tomorrow some other kid will die and Jack will want me to put a lid on it. So I should stick around and sit on my haunches for a bit. And that night I have a terrible dream where dad is having a blast Upstairs with a throng of strippers who get horny listening to him talk about Beckett and Barthes.

Meanwhile I’m Downstairs in a tiny room that looks like our Testing area at work. Behind the glass are the outlines of people I’ve known and people I will know, all blackened and indecipherable. And in the room with me is a SquishMe® growing bigger and bigger, to the point where I’m the one squished up against the glass, begging for help. But nobody helps.

Because who does anything except for themselves?

Sean Nishi

Sean Nishi is a Japanese-American writer from Los Angeles, CA. He completed his MFA in creative writing at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. He has forthcoming work in STORGY, Ember Chasms, and Poydras Review. He lives with his partner and two cats, Toby and Waffles.