Jumper by Jim Etchison This story is not a work in progress, but it's never been published.

My wife doesn't seem to understand why I quit my job last Friday. I've been trying to explain it to her, but I don't think she'll ever get it. It had a little to do with the fact that Anil is such an ass, but the whole deal with Angel and the dead body was the final straw. Angel's a busboy at the hotel -- he's from Guatemala and I'm pretty sure he's illegal. He makes minimum wage but sends most of his money to Guatemala so his wife Rosita can afford a "coyote" to smuggle her into the states. So the guy really is an angel in a way. I'm not being cute, though, that's really his name -- even though he looks a little rough around the edges. Scruffy haircut, a hint of a mustache. Anyway, last Friday we were getting some F&B ready for a big convention in the lobby. Usual shit -- pastries, coffee, juice. Way overpriced. Angel was the busboy, but was officially called a "service assistant," which in the convention business means he was basically a slave to the waiters. But waiters aren't really waiters, either. We're called "Food servers." It's like the hotel had something against normal job titles. The money's good, though, because there's an automatic 15 percent tip that we all split so no one complains. Now, you got to understand what this lobby is like. This is a five-star hotel. The lobby has an atrium that goes up fifty floors. No shit. Fifty. Rooms all the way up. Glass ceiling lets in just a tiny amount of light. But there's lots of plants, water, fountains, tilework and shit. It'd be a pleasant working atmosphere if it weren't for all the asshole customers, and we had about 800 hungry ones sitting in the Grand Ballroom. They were in there listening to some speech called "Strategic assessment -- Trends and Analysis." (It was an insurance convention, by the way, which sort of adds to the irony.) I figured they probably weren't listening. They were in there waiting to get their hands on our food, looking around wondering who they were going to screw. The only doors to the Grand Ballroom led into the lobby area where we were. So anyway, I'm working with about four other waiters. Angel and some other busboy are our slaves. I go to the buscart and get a stack of plates to carry over to the pastry table. I hear Angel walking up behind me -- talking some shit in Spanish to the other busboy. I stand up holding a stack of white China dessert plates, turn, and collide head-on with Angel. The plates hit the floor. Big noise. Both of us -- first thing -- look around to see if Anil heard. Sure as shit, he's stomping over to us. His face is red. I roll my eyes. He's got his walkie-talkie and his suit. Stands over the pile of plates, surprisingly few of them broken. "Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight. Eight," he says. He seems oddly pleased. "That's forty dollars even. I'm taking twenty dollars out of each of your tips today." Then he walks away. I look at Angel. Twenty bucks is a lot of money for him. Shit -- me too. "Don't worry," I say, feeling tough. "I'm gonna talk to him. That's not legal." I have no idea what's legal and what isn't. I start fussing over the napkins. I figure I'll wait until the rush is over, then I'll talk to Anil. Hopefully things would go well and he'd be in a good mood. So ... I'm looking out over the atrium, feeling a little pissed off, folding a napkin into some fancy-ass pattern without thinking about it when a body falls out of the sky. I am actually looking straight fucking *at* the guy. He's falling diagonally, head-first, with his face toward me. His expression is completely blank. Blonde guy. I see that he's got his right arm stretched downward to break his fall -- pretty useless gesture. It seemed strange because he was silent. You'd think he'd be screaming or something. But when you're ending it all, why scream? Then again, why not? His hand hits first, right on the top edge of a big tile planter -- the *edge* mind you. His body crumples over it, and makes a sound so sickening that I won't even get into it. But then he bounces toward me and lands pretty much in the middle of the dining area we're preparing. Naturally, all of our work stops. I'd never seen a jumper before. I'd heard that it happened a lot at the hotel, since the atrium made it so convenient. One of the maintenance guys who'd worked here since the place opened told me he'd seen so many that he could tell about how many floors they'd jumped. Twenty was different from thirty, he said. Forty was even worse, and fifty, he said, was amazing. He said people who jump fifty floors are so decimated you can barely tell what they are. That's the word he used: decimated. But I think he was fucking with me. I'm a student and understand about terminal velocity and stuff. Anyway,I didn't know how far he had fallen but this guy was pretty decimated. Like I said, he tried to break his fall, but his locked arm basically plunged through his chest cavity like a spear. His short hand protruded from his shoulder as if it were frozen in a parade wave. He was face up, his legs akimbo, his torso bulging and misshapen. The guy is wearing a suit. Sure enough there is a badge pinned to his pocket, only the little card with his name on it has fallen out. I look around, see the pink card on the ground near where he landed. I guess it gets pretty windy when you fall that far. Someone is vomiting. I pick up the card. Darin something. I'm thinking about "Bewitched" when I slip it back into his little plastic name badge. I admit I was fascinated with the guy. I wondered who had done him so wrong that they made him want to die. I feel a sickening surge of emotion, just for a second. "Don't touch him!" screams Anil. Oh my god is he freaked out. Hotel security is coming, he says. Get the hell away. I take a step back. All of us are just standing around gawking at the guy. I look at the ballroom doors and realize we've got a big problem. Any moment those doors are going to open and 800 rich hungry insurance salesmen are going to spill out. We couldn't have them walk out and see their mangled colleague oozing all over the lobby floor. Five-star hotels are supposed to protect you from that stuff. But there he is. Oozing. And the only other exit led through the back of the hotel where it stinks like rotting milk. It's for emergencies only. The security guy is there now, telling us we can't move the body until the police arrive. Throughout all of this, Angel is still cheerful. Still smiling -- only now there's a painful sympathy to his smile. Anil's face is white. I look out and see the general manager of the hotel coming. He's talking on his cellular in one hand, holding a walkie-talkie in the other. Great suit, I had to admit. Anil tries to regain his composure. The sales manager and the convention manager are also there. The convention manager motions toward the doors to the Grand Ballroom. Angel stands next to me. "They don't want the peoples to see him," he says. "Bad for business," I say, nodding. He smiles. "Yes, betty bad. But the peoples are trap inside." Just as he says that, one of the doors opens a crack. Anil practically leaps out of his shoes he gets there so fast. I see him peek his wide face into the crack and say something to the person inside. Then he shuts thedoor, turns, and looks at the general manager with a relieved look. Angel furrows his brow for a moment. "We should just put de table with de pastries on top of heem. No problem," he says. The table with the pastries has a white tablecloth that reaches all the way to the floor. Not a bad idea. "You should tell Anil," I say. "Sure," he says. He walks over to Anil, tugs on his sleeve. Anil turns away from the general manager, listens for a second, then turns back to the G.M. After a second, I see Anil motioning toward the pastry table, talking excitedly. The G.M. nods. Anil turns and says "Angel! You and Edgar cover up the body with that table." Angel smiles, and waves Edgar to one side of the table. They lift the table up high, and carefully lower it over the body. Angel says something in Spanish and they both laugh. Once the table is situated, Angel straightens a few of the cheese danishes that had been jostled out of place. The G.M.comes over to me, leads me over to the pastry table, looks at my nametag and says, "Jim ... stand here and take care of the customers, okay?" He smiles. I smile back. He touches my arm, (something hotel executives are trained to do to engender loyalty.) "Most of these folks will be in sessions by the time the coroner gets here." "No problem," I say. The G.M. isn't such a bad guy. Then the G.M. waves to Anil, who opens the ballroom door wide. People come rushing out. The lady in the lead has a tight green dress on, a very authoratative look. She comes straight toward me. "What is the deal" she says. "What is the holdup?" She grabs a cheese danish and shoves it in. "Oh, just getting everything ready," I say. She doesn't acknowledge me.Somebody is shaking her hand. They start talking and walk off. Pretty soon hundreds of people are milling around me. They're all very conscious of how they look and who is around. Several ask where the bathrooms are. I look down and some clear, yellowish liquid is seeping out from under the tablecloth. It could be urine, but I'm not certain. I stand on the puddle, hoping it will be less noticable. I realize I look like I've peed my pants, but couldn't care less. Most of the waiters keep nervously glancing at me and the table. The coffee urn goes empty. I wave at Angel to bring over another. He carries one over, holding the silver handles with pot holders. He sets it down next to the empty one. There are still a few dozen people within earshot when he says to me, "Don't look under de table!" I give him a dirty look and he flashes his big grin. A guy grabs a croissant and hands another guy his card. "Sure, call me," he says. "I'm always up for racquetball." I lean lightly on the table, then straighten. It's over in about 15 minutes. Anil and the other managers ingratiatingly ask a few lingering guests to kindly take their conversations to the session rooms. The customers see the policemen, and have confused looks in their faces. They don't argue. After that it got boring. Dead bodies don't do much. The coroner came and pretty soon the body was gone and maintenance was cleaning up the mess. Anil figures up the accounting shit, and doles out the tips. He doesn't give us actual cash -- he gives us these little receipts. The money will actually end up on our paychecks. I figure it's a way for the hotel to skim. Anyway, I compare receipts and figure out that -- sure as shit -- I'm twenty dollars short. I ask Angel. He is too. I go up to Anil. "Hey Anil," I say, with a little bit of a tone in my voice."I don't think it's legal for you to deduct the cost of those plates." It gets suddenly quiet. Anil looks at me with a blank expression, as if he were pretending that he hadn't been upset at all by the dead body. "You broke five plates," he says coolly. "The hotel shouldn't be expected to pay for your clumsiness." I couldn't explain why, but I was disgusted. Not angry, really. Just disgusted. I took off my apron and tossed it into his lap. Then I stuck my middle finger right up into his face ... which pretty much meant I didn't work there anymore. Copyright 1998, Jim Etchison