I was shoved against the wall, and before I could speak, or start crying, the lights came on. As best I could tell I was in a bar.
There was a pool table, a ping pong table, a full-sized refrigerator, along with a couch, and a couple of big easy chairs. Some guy was asleep in one of the chairs. And oh yeah, there was a flat-screen TV that took up a full wall. A replay of a Jets game was on, which may have explained the sleeping guy.
But it didn’t explain the other guys staring at us. I recognized a couple from around the office. There was Mike, and Andy the Suck Up. And there was the guy who never said hello back to me when we passed in the hall.
And then there were two other guys who looked vaguely familiar. One might have been the UPS driver, but he wasn’t wearing brown so I wasn’t positive. Either way, I hadn’t seen any of these people since March, back just before the virus hit the fan.
Mike came toward Wilson, brandishing a pool cue. “Why didn’t you text,” he asked him. “You know the drill. You damn near gave us a heart attack.”
“I thought I did text,” Wilson said, like he meant it.
Wilson was the one doing the talking, but their attention was on me. It was that uncomfortable moment when the members of the secret club wonder if the new guy was going to mess the whole thing up for everybody.
“Who’s he,” Possible UPS guy asked, motioning toward me.
“Yeah,” Mr. No Hello, chimed in. “And what’s with the get up?”
“What do you guys mean?” Wilson asked. “You know him.”
I occurred to me that I may have looked a bit odd, what with my lab goggles and breathing straw. I took off the goggles and lowered my face mask, and everyone started smiling and laughing.
“Oh, hey,” Mr. No Hello said, speaking to me for the first time ever. “You’re that guy.”
“Yes, the one who always says hello to you,” I said, pulling my face mask back up.
“Get ‘em a beer,” someone yelled.
Napping Man woke up and took in the scene. “Why are you wearing a hairnet?” he asked.
“And a weighted vest?” Possible UPS guy asked. “You in some kind of extreme training regimen, or something?”
Before I could say a word, I was handed an ice cold beer, some sort of craft beer with a growling grizzly bear on the label. Wilson came up alongside me with a beer of his own and we clinked bottles, lowered out masks and took a quick sip.
“Welcome to the Hideaway,” he said. “We were gonna call it the Man Cave, but some guys on the railroad took that first.”
“Explanation, please,” I said.
“Well, Tyler over there in the easy chair got the idea,” Wilson said.
“Yes, that figures,” I said. “The guy in the easy chair usually is the mastermind of harebrained schemes. I’m pretty sure that’s been researched.”
“And just so you know, if anyone asks, we’re just going to deny everything.”
“Of course,” I said, “that always works.”
“The plan is to say we found the room all set-up just like this. We’ll say somebody pre-pandemic was probably using it as a kind of unofficial lounge,” Wilson said.
“And on what planet do you think someone will believe that?” I asked.
Music came on, and the sound of pool balls clacking into one anther was heard. There was laughter, and trash talking. It had the look and feel of a place at happy hour. Wilson left to grab a pool cue and play winner, and Mike sauntered over, with a beer in hand.
“How do you like our little hideaway?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to say. It’s pretty…what’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Clever?”
“No, I was think more along the lines of brazen,” I said.
“You mean like, ballsy?”
“That would work too,” I said. “How long has it been going on?”
“Ever since a few of us came back to the office in May,” Mike said. “Hell, there were only like two dozen of us back at first. It was weird with no one around. So, I started walking around the building, you know just to see who and what was around, what kind of stuff people left behind when we all fled.”
“Please don’t tell me someone left behind a pool table,” I said.
Mike explained how all that was secured by Andy, apparently head of procurement for the group.
“You guys, you know, worried about someone discovering this place?” I asked.
Mike lowered his face mask, had a swig of his beer, put the mask back up, shook his head and chuckled.
“Nah,” he said. “When was the last time you saw the top leadership team in the office?”
“March,” I said.
“Exactly.”
I looked around at the guys all seemingly having a good time. It seemed harmless, or maybe not.
I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder.
“Of course this all stays between us,” Mike said, in a low, threatening voice.
“Ah, of course,” I said. “Wouldn’t want anyone else crashing the party.”
“They can have their Zoom happy hours,” he said. “But we got the real thing.”