So there I was, in the offices of what I'll call the Winkyshock Regional Directory, and my title was Editorial Assistant. Of course, on my resumé (which I was sending out every day like a deli lunch specials menu) I called myself an Assistant Editor.

We weren't allowed cubicles, and were penned in like veal calves in rows. And unless you were situated at the back of the row, everyone could see what you were doing. We were constantly encouraged to rat out our coworkers. It was like the Stanford Experiment, but with mainframes.

Our department was helmed by a woman of a size and demeanor so terrifying that I appended a "the" in between her first and last names, a la Star Wars villains. Thus, when she was in her office chainsmoking Virginia Slims and eating bacon and creamcheese sandwhiches, she became Ursula the Kostrubala.*

But she wasn't even the worst of the lot at WRD. Behind me sat two women, clearly lesbians in deep denial, who talked all day long about how faggots were going to hell. (One of them also told me about her best friend died from AIDS because he got pricked with a needle that was hidden in the change slot of a payphone. Sure. I couldn't tell if she was lying about having said friend, lying about how he contracted "the AIDS," or just delusional.)

And even those two were tolerable in comparison to my greatest adversary, one Ben Herman.

Ben Herman joined our office one late spring morning. It was only 9:15 and he was already sweating profusely, and in places I didn't know one could sweat. He was a tall kid, maybe 6'2, with the dumpy pear-shaped body and carriage of a middle-aged insurance salesman. He wore his pants too high. And he had the craziest cowlick that spanned the back of his head. It was always there.

I soon discovered the reason his cowlick never went away: the guy did not bathe. He smelled like he was smeared head to toe with fromunda cheese.** Had he never attended hygiene class in junior high? Had his parents (whom he lived with, in Orange County) never told him about cleanliness? They certainly doted on him--his mother made his lunch every day, packed in a brown bag with the name BEN written on it.

(No shit.)

Anyhow, in addition to being smelly, Ben was a total drip. He enjoyed role-playing games and collecting fantasy figurines. When I told him where I'd gone to college, he asked me if I knew some friend of his who'd also attended. I didn't recognize his name. Ben told me that I'd recognize this friend if I saw him, as he always wore a cloak and carried a staff.

I grimly tolerated Ben until one day, when he got on my last fuckin' nerve (as the two ladies behind me were wont to say) when we were discussing...I don't know...places we'd lived? I had said that I lived in Georgia for a couple years. He replied, "Oh, I hate the South. They're so stupid and intolerant."

"Have you ever been to the South, Ben?"

"No, never been further than Maryland. But I can tell."

I gritted my teeth. "Ben," I said calmly, Ted Bundy-style, "If you haven't even visited there, I don't think you're qualified to make such a sweeping generalization, and I suggest you shut right the fuck up lest I come over there and punch you in the mouth, you fuckin' pantywaist."

Even the churchlesbos behind me were stunned into silence. Ben Herman never said much of anything to me again. Of course, he didn't have much opportunity to, because Ursula the Kostrubala canned his ass a week later. Apparently he was the first person in years to be fired from the editorial department of WRD, where half the staff was functionally retarded.

I hadn't thought about Ben Herman in 7 years. Until this morning.

I saw him on the downtown platform at Grand Central Station.

Yes, there he was. All growsed up. Same posture, same body shape, same sartorial shortcomings. His hair looked a little better. I ran and hid behind a column at first, but my curiosity got the better of me. When the train pulled in, I got on the same car, and sniffed the air. I wondered: Could he still be as malodorous as he was 7 years ago? Sadly, the combination of the already-magnificent stench of the station and the distance between us on the crowded car meant that I would never, ever find out.

So, I must ask: Is there anyone out there unfortunate enough to work with one Ben Herman? If so, pls. advise.

*Not her real name. A very close approximation thereof.
**Thank you, N, for introducing this bit of vernacular into my vocab.