Dirty Hands

There was an envelope on Phil’s desk, and a tan smudge ran along the top. Phil touched it with his pinky, and sniffed the residue. The scent brought back childhood memories of summer afternoons, eating sandwiches with the neighbors. He touched his finger to his tongue to be sure: it was peanut butter.

Phil stuck his head into the gap between cubicles.

“Harris?” said Phil.

“Yeah?” A balding head jutted out from three cubes down. Harris raised his eyebrows.

“Did you get peanut butter on my stuff?” Phil waved the envelope in front of him.

“Don’t think so. Why?”

“Because there’s peanut butter all over this envelope,” said Phil. He got up, and walked over to Harris’s cubicle. The desk was organized, but amess with peanut butter. It was smeared across the open pages of a binder, and crammed between the keys of Harris’s laptop. A couple globs clung to the screen, lining up with the “E,” “A,” “N,” “M,” and “F” keys.

“Harris,” said Phil, “when did you last eat peanut butter?”

“I dunno,” said Harris. The chair squeaked as he reclined to a near horizontal position. Phil thought Harris might topple over. “Breakfast?”

“It’s three in the afternoon; there’s peanut butter everywhere!” Phil said. “You still have some on your hands.”

Harris held his fingers in front of his face. He turned his hands over, looking back and forth between them. There was peanut butter residue on the tips of several fingers, his fingernails, and a few spots along his palms.

“No I don’t,” said Harris. He set his hands back on his lap.

“Yes,” said Phil, “you do. Just look around, how can you not see all of this?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Phil pointed at Harris’s laptop screen.

“What’s that, then?” he said.

“My screen’s a little dirty; I haven’t dusted it in a couple months. Here.” Harris pulled the cuff of his sleeve over his hand, and wiped it across the screen. The peanut butter spread like mud across a windshield. Some of it clung to Harris’s shirt sleeve. “Happy?”

Phil clutched his head, his throat tightening.

“You’re going to give me a panic attack,” said Phil. “It’s just making everything worse. How much stuff have you handled today?”

Phil picked up Harris’s binder, then started flipping through it. Pages stuck together and had to be pried apart. Oily stains bled through several pages past deep.

“There’s nothing wrong with me or my desk,” said Harris as he snatched the binder away from Phil. “Get out of my cubicle. I have work to do.”

Phil stumbled backwards. He didn’t know what more to say. He walked back to his own desk, and started typing up a new expense report. He had worked for about ten minutes before he spotted the dirty envelope still sitting on his desk.

Phil wiped it clean with a sheet of printer paper, but there was still a light stain on the page. Setting it aside, he got back to work. But he only lasted five minutes this time before his mind returned. It was like a horrific car accident; he didn’t want to pay attention, but he couldn’t look away. All those sticky pages.

Phil imagined everything else that Harris had touched. Doorknobs and pens and stacks of files in cabinets and books on shelves. All that peanut butter would spread and spread, and they’d never be rid of it ever. Phil imagined himself, five months from now, discovering a speck of oily brown in the margin of a report filing, or appearing on his shirt from a chair he’d sat on. He felt like his skin was about to shriven up and constrict him.

“Harris!” Phil shouted, standing. Harris’s head appeared again, peering over the top of the cloth cubicle walls.

“What?”

“Donna called me,” said Phil, “there’s a package for you in the mailroom.”

“I didn’t hear you on the phone.” Harris raised an eyebrow.

“Well, she didn’t call me now, it was around lunchtime. I just forgot to tell you.”

“Umm, alright,” said Harris. Phil heard a chair squeak, then the sound of shuffling office supplies. Harris stopped as he walked past Phil’s cube. “You know, you’re acting strange today. Are you feeling alright? You look kinda pale.”

“I’m fine,” said Phil, smiling.

Harris shrugged, then left.

As soon as Phil heard the door close, he sprang to his feet. He rushed to the bathroom, and scrunched up a handful of paper towels. After running them under the sink, he darted back to Harris’s desk. A couple of curious faces peered out as Phil passed.

Once Phil reached Harris’s cubicle, he started wiping down all of the surfaces he could find, starting with the laptop. He scrubbed at the screen until it looked clear, then turned his attention to the keyboard. With a fresh towel, still wet, he scraped at the keys, digging into the spaces between and under them.

“Phil, are you okay?” asked Marco, who sat a few cubes down.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Phil, finishing off the laptop keyboard. He laughed. “Can you believe this slob, though?”

Phil reached for the open binder. There was peanut butter smeared across the front and back cover, and all over the papers within. It was a total loss, and Phil tossed it into the trash.

“I mean, what kind of guy doesn’t notice this?” asked Phil as he began cleaning the surface of Harris’s desk.

“You’re attacking Harris’s desk. Does he know you’re over here?” asked Marco.

“No, but if he didn’t notice all this peanut butter, he’s not going to notice when it’s gone. Of course, we’ll have to clean the doors after he’s back from the mailroom, but that’s manageable. Hey, can you get me some more towels?”

“I’m getting Harris.”

“Don’t do that,” said Phil, but Marco was already gone. Phil sighed. He’d cleaned most of the peanut butter off of Harris’s space, but he needed to do another pass with a fresh batch of paper towels. Phil walked to the bathroom.

When he came back, hands packed with dry paper towels, he heard the sound of a door opening behind him.

“Hey, Phil, what the hell?” came Harris’s voice.

Phil ran to Harris’s cubicle. He started wiping down anything he saw. There was definitely still peanut butter here.

“Hey, get out of here,” said Harris. Phil was grabbed by the shirt and thrown out of the cubicle. Harris stood over him, and Marco stood beside them. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Phil looked down in horror at his shirt. There were peanut butter stains on his shoulders. He patted them down with the paper towels.

“Look what you did to me!” said Phil. There was still peanut butter, but it was on his back now. Phil clawed at his shirt to get a better look. “This was a nice shirt. Here.”

Phil tossed some of the paper towels at Harris.

“Just wash your hands or something, you monster,” said Phil. There were more heads peering from cubicles all around them.

Harris turned, and said, “Hey, Marco, can you take Phil out to his car. I can’t deal with this right now.”

“Sure,” said Marco. He approached Phil, who was in the process of unbuttoning his shirt. “Come on, let’s get some fresh air.”

Marco guided Phil away.

Harris peered surveyed the contents of his cubicle. His supplies had been overturned and roughly handled. The laptop still worked, but he patted the keyboard down with a dry paper towel anyway to soak up any moisture.

As he threw away the spent towel, Harris noticed a spot of peanut butter on his knuckle. He stuck his finger in his mouth and licked the knuckle clean. Then, he went back to work.