on the edge of p-town

by Ben Clark

Harold didn’t give a single, measly fuck about what R&D wanted.

The same two sanctimonious assholes sat across from him at the Dr Pepper-stained conference room table just as they had every other week for the past couple of years. They were the latest in a long line of developers and QA engineers whose mission was to deflect any whiff of accountability—and their own mistakes—onto the customer support team. They’d even brought a woman with them this time, probably hoping she’d sit quietly and look feminine, but the fine lines wandering from the corners of her eyes suggested she was too experienced to be their distraction squirrel.

“I’m not going to waste any more of my time.” Harold said. “Seven customers have reported the exact same error that showed up after they followed the exact same steps in the exact same version of our software, which happened to be written by the exact same developers who have a reputation for producing code that resembles a rotting carcass.”

The engineer with the weasel face—Harold wasn’t much for remembering names—shot a What the hell is he talking about? look to his colleague.

The other QA mouthpiece, whose face was a dead ringer for Chevy Chase, studied Harold. “I think he’s implying the software is infested with bugs.”

The weasel shook his head in disgust, then tried to flick a sheet of paper to Harold, but it stuck to the cola stain. “Our procedures are clear,” he said, peeling the paper from the stain. “Before the development team is allowed to work on a customer-reported issue, we must first acknowledge that the issue is a defect. Otherwise, the burden is on the customer support team to reproduce the issue and document all steps required to do so in order to prove it is a genuine defect. It’s been that way for years. It’s really not that hard.”

Harold dragged his fingers through his unkempt hair. “But I’ve already told you, this particular issue isn’t that easy to reproduce.”

“What a shame. You and I both know those procedures are there for a reason. And I, for one, am going to stick to them.” The weasel grinned and turned his head slightly toward his female colleague, as if he was looking for a glimmer of approval.

“Really?” Harold said, his sarcasm thickening. “The procedures are your Maginot Line? I suppose there’s no possible way I’ll be able to flank such formidable defenses.” Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the edges of the woman’s mouth turn upward for a split second.

As he stood, Harold shoved down on the chair arms to prevent his hips from sticking and lifting the chair with him. “I’m done with this meeting. I expect a fix in production as soon as humanly possible.”

“We’re not done here,” said the other Research & Defects dweeb as Harold walked toward the door. “If you walk out, we’re never going to fix this bug.”

Harold halted as if he’d run into a stone wall. “And there you have it.”

Mr. Weasel huffed. “Have what?”

Harold turned his head and looked at the woman, wondering if she wanted the privilege.

“You just acknowledged it’s a bug,” she said. “And bugs, per the procedures that you, in your own words, are going to stick to, get fixed by development.”

Harold snickered. As he exited, he called back, “Let me know what date customers can expect a fix, ass wipes.”

Back in his cubicle, Harold’s eyes bounced between four monitors, each cluttered with windows displaying a mishmash of content: a streaming replay of last week’s Formula 1 race, a half-finished sudoku, a Hungarian goulash recipe, an article detailing the effects WWII submarine warfare had on commerce, and sundry other miscellany. And somewhere in the LED chaos was a small window that held a list of open support tickets—the only work-related information in his war room.

Harold felt a low-grade unease, like wearing a gently vibrating girdle. Last night’s ramen? Surely not. The meeting with R&D? Never; he relished those skirmishes. It had to be the two escalated tickets, their red eight-digit IDs disrupting the feng shui of his displays.

Harold sent Oscar a Slack message: urgneeduasap.

As if waiting for his summons, the red-haired support specialist appeared at Harold’s cubicle entrance within seconds. With him was the tallest, and possibly thinnest, guy Harold had ever seen.

“Who’s that?” Harold asked, gawking as if he’d just been introduced to someone’s pet alligator.

“Harold, meet Fernando. He’s a new hire. Shadowing me for a couple of days. Fernando, this is the legend himself.”

Harold swiveled back and forth in his chair, never taking his eyes off the man. “Do you play basketball?”

“I’ve never heard that one before,” Fernando said.

Harold shrugged, redirecting his glare to Oscar. “Why’d you escalate this to me?” he said, pointing to a ticket description at the bottom of a screen.

“Which one? 337?” he said, referencing the last three digits of the ticket number. “It’s gonna need a Python script. And nobody in P3 knows Python like you do. Right?”

Harold swiveled into alignment with his keyboard and mouse, clicked on the ID link, then began scanning the ticket details. Oscar and Fernando eased behind him to peer over his shoulder.

“What’s P3?” Fernando asked. “A nickname for Pretty Good Software?”

Oscar’s eyes remained locked on the screen as Harold conducted his orchestra of functions, libraries, and objects. “Technically, Pretty Good Software is the company name; P3 is the office space we’re in.” Oscar leaned toward Fernando and mumbled, “There are only three places in Harold’s world.”

The key clicks fell silent. Harold spun toward his window overlooking downtown and scanned the skyline. “Three places are all you need,” Harold whispered, more to himself than to them.

Fernando’s eyes widened. Oscar gave a shallow bow, as if acknowledging something larger than himself.

“It’s coded and running in test,” Harold said, strutting out of his cube. “Let it finish, run it against the customer’s system, then close the ticket.”

Oscar’s mouth hung open. He looked at Fernando. “I told you.”

“What’s that error?” Fernando said, pointing at the screen. Oscar elbowed him sharply—a silent

What the hell are you thinking?

Harold jerked to a halt, U-turned, and stalked back to his screen. Without sitting, he poked a few keys—fixing a typo—and relaunched the test. On his second exit, he tilted his head back, glaring up into Fernando’s eyes. Your sideshow physique is a distraction.

Harold’s midsection blooped. It was only 3:30, but Harold refused to use the bathroom stalls at P3. He rarely had, and he didn’t plan to break his 17-month streak today. He headed straight for P2, his studio apartment in the adjacent building.

Afterward, he sat on his couch and resumed Blue Eye Samurai, cradling a bag of potato chips against his stomach. He’d hoped the salt and grease would settle his stomach, but they had little effect.

Was this anxiety related to the second escalated ticket—the one he’d ignored? It always rubbed him the wrong way when junior support reps escalated issues directly to him. Most of the time, they could solve them themselves by following basic troubleshooting, but instead, they punted them straight to “Ol’ Harold” so he could work his magic.

Tingly stomach or not, it could wait until tomorrow.

Harold napped. He woke at 5:40, a wisp of a dream still floating in his mind. He grasped at the fading memory: his fractured foot. Two years after he’d chosen to sequester himself, he broke his foot while kicking at a spider on a baseboard in P3.

The injury had forced him beyond his self-imposed border to an emergency room, a prelude to being dragged out a year later for his divorce hearing. Why he couldn’t participate via Zoom was still a mystery.

But as his grogginess lifted, a realization dawned on him. This crinkle in his gut felt identical to the dread of leaving his territory. Weird. He had no plans to leave his compound—the three buildings that stood side by side in downtown Akron. There was no need; groceries were delivered, and in the six years since his divorce, nothing else required his presence elsewhere, although even he’d noticed the yellowing of his teeth.

He rubbed his eyes and checked his phone. There was one message from Chevy Chase: The bug is being worked on. ETA several days. Since when did they start fixing things the day they were reported?

At 7:01 Harold entered the dank chill of P1 in the same khakis and flannel shirt he’d been wearing all day. A copy of Dungeon Crawler Carl was tucked under his arm. A Yacht Rock song he didn’t recognize played from a hidden smart speaker. An elderly woman in a black Iron Maiden T-shirt unloaded glasses from a dishwasher at the far end of the chipped wooden bar. At the opposite end, an Old Fashioned waited for him. He nodded to the woman and took his drink to a table at the back of the empty room. He drew in a deep breath and expelled it slowly until every last oxygen molecule had been expelled from his lungs. Maybe now he’d feel normal again.

By half past eight, he’d finished his second drink and the remainder of his book. The bar was half full. He caught the bartender’s attention and curled his fingers into a ‘U’. She brought him a Michelob Ultra. He drank, alternating between the book’s back-cover blurbs and intricate backstories he invented for the other patrons.

As he debated whether the young couple doing shots were siblings who just murdered their parents for the inheritance or, more boringly, just newlyweds, someone entered and took a seat at the bar. It was the woman from today’s R&D meeting. A trail of stomach acid climbed into his throat.

Harold considered switching seats so his back would be to her, but had to abandon the idea when it dawned on him that he wouldn’t be able to see her either. He couldn’t have his cake and eat it, too, obviously. Had his brain blue-screened?

He tried to fix his attention on the other drinkers, a futile effort. There was something about her that commanded his attention. Maybe it was the short length of her jet-black hair—unusual for a middle-aged woman. Or could it be the smart jacket she wore over her blouse? Her look was unique, and even interesting, but, viscerally, he knew the look was not what he was drawn to.

Earlier, in the conference room, he had sensed her mind, its speed, its complexities. He’d been drawn to it immediately.

And now she sat alone at a bar just feet away.

He returned from the bathroom after trying unsuccessfully to settle his stomach via the toilet. He had kidded himself that he hoped she’d be gone, but his heart raced when she was still there. He signaled the bartender. While waiting for his beer, he realized his book was gone. He’d thought it would look awkward to take it to the bathroom, so he’d left it on the table; he was sure of it. Glancing around the room, his eyes stopped on the woman. She was reading his book.

What now? At first he thought he could sneak out without her noticing. But was that true? She had to have seen him go to the bathroom; how else could she have known when to get his book? And why should he just up and leave? It was his book. His bar. It was P1, for God’s sake.

As the bartender approached with his beer, it occurred to him that if he’d had a conversation or two with her—or even asked her name—he might feel comfortable asking if she knew the woman sitting alone at the bar. Or maybe she’d seen her take his book while he was in the bathroom. Hindsight, and all.

He drained half his beer, assuming it would help point him toward a logical course of action. But no matter how much he studied the problem, the calculus was inescapable: every solution included approaching the woman.

Harold discreetly checked his zipper, walked to the bar—without, to his relief, shitting himself—and took a seat beside the woman.

“Goddamnit, Donut!”

Harold waited. The woman just looked at him, her face scrunched in confusion.

“The book,” Harold said, nodding toward it. “That’s Carl’s catchphrase.”

Her shoulders lowered a fraction, her face smoothing as she gave a slow nod.

“Donut’s his cat,” he added, his voice trailing off as awkwardness corroded his thin veneer of confidence.

She watched her finger trace the rim of her glass. “So…I should add this to my reading list?”

Harold wasn’t sure how to answer. Duh wasn’t appropriate. So was a plain Yes. “You should add it at the very top.”

Harold watched her lips, wondering what words they’d form in reply. But, before they formed words, her lips eased into the most charming, unguarded smile he’d ever seen. Did I do that?

“I’ll be sure to do that,” she said.

Following her gaze to her glass, he realized he’d left his beer at his table. He felt suddenly, acutely self-conscious without a drink in hand. He formed a ‘W’ with his three middle fingers and caught the bartender’s eye. As she poured his whiskey, she flicked a glance at his new friend’s half-empty glass. Would she like another?

“Another?”

She turned to him and, after the briefest of pauses, nodded.

“You handled yourself well today,” she said.

“Thanks. To be fair though, those two guys—”

“—made it easy.”

Harold glanced over his shoulder at the patrons he’d earlier assigned fictional lives. Were they watching? Were they seeing this woman finishing his thoughts?

“I’m Elena. The new R&D Director.”

“Harold—”

“—Software Support Fellow. I’ve heard.”

Harold was simultaneously proud and embarrassed of his title. He was fairly certain it had been invented as a consolation gift when raises were frozen a couple of years back. Whatever.

“You’re in a unique position to offer some feedback, Harold.”

The Iron Maiden bartender dropped off their drinks and gave Harold an encouraging, almost imperceptible nod.

“They’re totally useless,” Harold said.

“Excuse me?”

“You wanted some feedback on your new team, right?”

Elena took a long drink. “Well, I was actually hoping for some additional book recommendations. Sci-fi and fantasy. But, it sounds like you’ve got strong feelings about R&D.”

Harold opined for ten minutes with an unvarnished critique of her team’s systemic shortcomings. Afterward, Elena tilted her glass, hunting for the last sip of vodka through the ice.

“That was…comprehensive. Part of why I was hired is to improve the support team’s perception of R&D, and I can’t do that without honest feedback. So, thank you.”

“Of course,” he said, suddenly backtracking. “No offense intended—”

“None taken. But can we circle back to my original request for a minute?”

Harold wondered if the drinks were why he felt willing to give her anything she asked. “Of course.”

She handed him his book. “This is the first in a series. Do you have any of the other books at your place?”

Harold froze.

Elena pushed her drink away and stood. “P2 is right next door, right?”

The next morning, Harold looked up and saw Oscar and the human pipe cleaner standing outside his cube.

“A bit early, aren’t you? Had your Fruit Loops yet?” Harold asked, laughing.

“Someone said you’re teaching a class this afternoon,” Oscar said. “I told them you never teach classes. Never.”

Harold spun two full revolutions in his chair. “Well, I’m teaching one today, my friends. I resolved the other escalated ticket this morning, and, as I was troubleshooting it, it dawned on me that the Tier-1 agents have no idea whatsoever how to solve anything other than the simplest of tickets.”

Fernando stepped forward. “Isn’t that what Tier-1 is here for?”

Harold nodded emphatically. “That’s exactly right, Fernando. Today, that’s all that’s expected of them. But with the right training, they could do so much more. So, I’m going to train them. Today: basic troubleshooting. Next week…let’s be honest, probably more basic troubleshooting. But we gotta start somewhere. Right?”

“Why are you so giddy?” Oscar asked.

“But we gotta start somewhere. Right?” Harold repeated, raising his palms in the air, asking for high fives.

Oscar sat on the windowsill outside Harold’s cube. “You’re scaring me, sir.”

By noon, Harold had visited the break room six times, hoping to run into Elena. On his seventh, his stomach rebelled again. He switched to water—which he hadn’t tasted in years—and sat at a table, halfheartedly surfing his phone while watching the door.

Returning to his cube defeated, he found a Slack message from Oscar awaiting him: thenewdirr&dhere;wantstoseeyou. Harold winced, regretting his attempt to push his invented instant message shorthand on Oscar. Where in my instructions had it said semicolons were allowed?

R&D occupied the opposite corner of P3. He hadn’t ventured there in months. The sight of their furniture—actual fucking wood—was a fresh insult compared to Support’s particleboard. At least he felt no compulsion to walk the halls, drizzling honey on the carpet like he had done a few months ago.

He followed the outside corridor of manager offices until he spotted her nameplate. Before entering, he caught sight of the weasel peering over his cubicle wall, curiosity painted on his face.

Harold gave a perfunctory knock, pushed the door open, and walked in.

“Thanks for coming, Harold,” she said, remaining seated behind her desk. Harold grinned toward the onlooker and gave him a mocking little wave.

Harold took a seat in the office’s lone guest chair. They stared at each other for a few seconds, although, to Harold, it seemed like minutes.

“Did you ask to see me?” Harold asked.

For a split second, Elena’s professional demeanor softened, but she caught herself and returned to business. “The bug you raised—I wanted to let you know myself—it is going to be more complicated than we first thought and it will take several days to resolve. We want to make sure it’s done right.”

Harold sat still, watching her face for clues.

“Will the support team be able to cover for us a few days?”

Harold could sense the weasel bracing himself for Harold’s impending explosion. “That won’t be a problem. We’ll deal with the customers until R&D can get it fixed.”

“I really appreciate that. We will get it done as fast as we can.”

Elena stood, walked around her desk, and shook Harold’s hand. Just like that, the meeting was over.

On his way back to the support area, Harold unfolded the Post-It note Elena had slipped him when she shook his hand: I’ll be in the bar tonight. 8:00.

Harold had flirted with the idea of arriving late. Instead, he was in the bar drinking scotch by 7:30. He’d never paid any attention to the green Heineken clock before, but was certain he could now draw its every detail from memory.

At 8:02 and forty-seven seconds, Elena walked in. She wore a simple red dress and carried a black clutch that matched the gloss of her short hair.

“I have one request,” Elena said as she slid into a chair. “No shop talk tonight.”

Harold wasn’t sure how to respond. “Consider me unemployed,” he said, realizing in the middle of his comment that it was more awkward than funny.

They stayed for over an hour. Part of him itched to skip the chit-chat and take her next door, but a larger, more surprising part just wanted to listen to her talk.

Harold discovered that, in many ways, they were polar opposites. She: cats, spy flicks, and European vacations. Him: lizards, rom-coms, and God forbid getting on an airplane.

“So, Harold,” she said, setting her glass down. “Why do you call this place P1?”

Harold squirmed in his chair. “Have you ever watched Formula 1?”

Elena shook her head. “Just passingly.”

“P1 is pole position—first place. P2 is second, and so on.”

“So this bar is in first place?” she said.

He nodded. “And my apartment is P2, which leaves work to finish in P3.”

“Work’s in third. Sounds about right.” Elena laughed. “What’s P4, the morgue?”

Harold produced an awkward chuckle. “There’s not a P4. Only three buildings in my—”

Elena nodded, a knowing look in her eyes. “That’s what I heard.”

“You knew about this?” Harold crossed his arms nervously across his chest. “Before yesterday?”

“Is it agoraphobia?”

“Nah,” he said unconvincingly. “It’s a choice. I choose to stay in these three buildings. Everything I need is here and there’s not really been any need to go anywhere else.”

“O…kay,” Elena said, drawing out the word, her eyebrows arched. “But choices have reasons, don’t they?”

Harold managed a half smile. Noticing his drink was nearly empty, he tried to get the bartender’s attention, but failed. “This changes things, doesn’t it?”

“Why should it change anything?” She placed her hand on his arm. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I just thought I’d try—”

“No. I’m glad you were comfortable enough to ask,” he said, still staring at the bar. “But in my experience, women don’t want to be with people who can’t function in the real world.”

“If I didn’t think you could function in the real world, would I have come here yesterday?”

Harold lifted his glass and shook it. The clinking ice caught the bartender’s attention. “You knew I’d be here?”

“Yes, I knew. I knew from that first meeting that you are…” She paused and looked into his eyes. “…more complex, more complicated than most. I like that kind of challenge.”

“You see me as a challenge?”

She placed two fingers on his chin and turned his face toward her. “Cancel that drink and let’s get out of here.”

They met each other four times in the next several days—always at P1 or P2. On days they didn’t see each other, Harold couldn’t think of anything or anyone else.

As she had two weeks earlier, Elena joined the biweekly R&D meeting.

He hardly acknowledged his two adversaries and didn’t bring them any new issues to argue about. The hotfix they had been forced into owning in the last meeting was in the final stages of testing and would be released soon. Weasel looked as if R&D had kept the Germans out of Stalingrad, and Harold was fine letting him have his victory.

All was good in P-Town.

After the meeting, Elena asked Harold to stay after the others had left.

“I almost didn’t get into work on time, thanks to you,” she said, grinning.

Harold wondered if the conference room table would bear his weight if he crawled across. “I should have let you leave earlier. But then—”

“—But then what?”

Harold shyly continued, “But then my morning wouldn’t have started with you in my arms.”

Elena’s smile widened and her face flushed. She looked over his shoulder into the area outside the conference room to see if anyone was watching them.

“Listen,” she said. “There’s something I want to ask you. Something I want you to do.”

Harold leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “Don’t you know by now I’ll do anything you want me to do?”

“It’s nothing like that,” she said, giggling. “I want you to join me for brunch.”

He suppressed a grunt as he felt a sharp staccato of pain in his abdomen. “Brunch?”

“Saturday. It’s a lovely café off of Forge Street. Only a couple of miles from here, near my place.”

Harold looked around the conference room, but no one was there that could save him. “Well, I…”

“Oh, c’mon. It’ll only be a couple of hours and it’ll be fun.”

Harold’s breath shortened and, for a moment, he thought he might pass out. He forced himself to ignore his ingrained reaction and think about the invitation logically. Leaving P-Town would not be easy, but it was only two hours. And two hours of misery seemed like an easy trade given what he felt for Elena. But if he joined her for brunch, would dinner and a movie be next? Maybe. But he would cross that bridge when he got there.

“Of course, I’ll join,” he said. “Sounds like fun.”

On Saturday morning, Harold awoke earlier than he had in years. His sleep had mostly come in fitful spurts. He tried to convince himself it was because of his excitement about seeing Elena, but the tension in his shoulders made him wonder.

He had used the extra time during the night to back-plan. If he needed to be at the restaurant at 11:00, he wanted to be in an Uber at 10:45, just to be safe. He wasn’t sure how long it would take an Uber to arrive so he would need to order it at 10:15. He decided he would need to be dressed and ready by 9:00. That would give him ample time to download the Uber app and get it set up. Taking a car made him wish he’d ordered the muscle massager he’d seen online.

Through the front door of P2, he watched the white Prius arrive over an hour before he was to meet Elena. What good is back-planning if I don’t stick to the plan? He considered going to the bathroom, but doubted his driver would wait for all that.

As he tried to open the building door, his hand slipped on the round doorknob. He wiped the sweat off his hands on the side of his pants and tried again. As he approached the car, he began trembling.

He stopped on the sidewalk.

“Harold? Are you Harold?”

Harold could hear his name, but wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Finally, he saw that the driver had rolled down the passenger window and was talking to him.

“Are you Harold? Did you order an Uber?”

Harold shook his head. “Nope. Not Harold. I’m Carl.”

Beep. Click.

Harold’s heart rate began settling as soon as he badged into P3 and pushed the front entry door open.

Saturdays were his favorite day to be in P3, partly because no one else was ever there, but mostly because he could leave the overhead lights off. He could close his window blinds and create a cave where he could exist alone.

With F1 qualifying streaming in the background—Verstappen was P2—he scribbled notes on a pad. The more he wrote the smaller the text. When he was nearly finished, there was not a single blank space on the sheet of paper.

Finally, at 11:00 he texted Elena: I thought I could do it, but I’d fooled myself. If I could have done it for anyone, it would have been for you. He considered adding an emoji but couldn’t find one that signified his embarrassment.

He stared at his phone. Three minutes later her reply popped onto his screen: Goddamnit, Donut!

Harold chuckled. The tension in his shoulders drained away.

He’d only been fooling himself for the past two weeks. Elena was bright and fun to be with; she wasn’t going to spend her time with someone who chose to—or had a condition that caused him to—imprison himself within a handful of rooms. And who could blame her?

He lowered the volume of the video stream and tried focusing on the next training class he’d teach. Should the next topic be databases? Or could the Tier-1 team get more value out of a session on reports? Would classes even make a difference, or would they learn more by doing? He knew the answer just like he knew the best way to get them to do it themselves was to not do it for them.

He scribbled a reminder to let Oscar know all training classes were canceled until further notice. Maybe he’d teach more classes in a few months; maybe he shouldn’t have taught any to begin with.

While placing his phone on a stand in front of his monitor so he’d see any additional text messages from Elena, he noticed the size of the remote customer log file was much larger than usual.

After reviewing the file he shook his head and sent a text message to Oscar’s phone: gonnaneedyouatofficetodaybringfernando.

He drafted an email to Weasel and Betty White.

I want to sincerely thank you for correcting the bug that was identified several days ago. It’s comforting to know that, when the chips are down, our R&D colleagues will step up and do what’s right. And thanks, too, for releasing the fix into production yesterday (Friday afternoon)—I’ve always argued that production releases should take place when there won’t be anyone in the office the next day to watch for issues.

That said, if you’ll kindly take a peek at our customer logs (starting Friday afternoon), you might spot some errors (there are hundreds of them) that contain a somewhat concerning message (RECORDS NOT SAVED). While having the records saved is totally overrated, IMHO, my sneaky suspicion is that our customers feel differently.

Although the evidence seems to point to it, I refuse to believe that our R&D team introduced an even worse bug while trying to fix the original defect. That would require a level of incompetence that is almost incomprehensible.

But just in case I am wrong, can you get your heads out of your asses and get this fixed immediately?

With utmost respect,

Harold

In the ‘CC:’ field, he entered the letters ‘el’ and Elena’s name popped up. He added her to the email because she was R&D—part of the problem for God’s sake.

But still.

He changed his mind, removed her name, and stared at the screen.

His phone lit up: I shouldn’t have asked.

Harold read her words over and over, more slowly each time.

No, you shouldn’t have asked. Nonetheless, Harold weighed his fear of the outside world against his occasional desire for companionship. Why couldn’t he have both?

Using one finger he deliberately typed the first letters of her name and added her to the email again. He clicked ‘Send’.

P-Town wasn’t built for everyone.

Photo of Ben Clark

BIO: Ben Clark is a writer based in North Carolina. He writes character-driven fiction about people longing for connection. He recently completed his first novel. This is his first published story.