The Bewildering Effect of Cabbages

By Michael Rymaszewski

Do You Really Know What Will Happen Next?

A young man lands the job of his dreams, and discovers dreams can come only half-true.

An orphan inherits a million dollars from a mother he'd never met.

A corporate executive who specializes in firing people loses his job.

A wedding goes awry, waking up a ghost.

Four stories told in four distinct voices, but with a common theme: the magic unpredictability of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barfly Books
• Release date: Jul 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223309208

Michael Rymaszewski

Michael Rymaszewski was born in Poland, grew up in Ghana, and spent most of his working life in Canada. He writes in not just one but two difficult languages: Canadian English, and Polish.

Book preview

The Wanton Desires of Joachim Kroeg

The bitch. The bitch . Oh, that bitch... What is she doing to me?

I saw her again today, returning from lunch. The crowded elevator took nearly two minutes to arrive on the twentieth, and throughout that time her ass was squished against mine. She was wearing a black leather mini—she had plans, that girl... I got off last and had to scuttle half-sideways, like a crippled crab, to hide my erection from red-haired Daphne, the X-ray eyed receptionist. I dived into the old cubicle, sat down, pushed my chair right up to the desk, and hastily spread some papers over the desktop. My groin throbbed. That bitch. What is she doing to me?

I’ve been here for a month now, working at Grumble, Crinkle, & Paloma Advertising as a junior media person, or media nonperson. She has been here for two years, or so I heard. She treats me—we’ve never actually spoken, apart from the one time I said hi passing by in the corridor, and turned red like a fucking tomato—she views me like a grizzled veteran would a diapered recruit. I thought of going up and introducing myself: Hi, my name is Joachim and I’m new here, you look like someone who knows a lot about this place and I wondered perhaps you could tell me a thing or two—you know, I mean it’s easy. But it’s not easy with a name like Joachim, let alone Joachim Kroeg. I’m commonly known as Joe Craig, and it irritates the shit out of me. I hate the name Joe, it makes me think of slobbering old drunks blacked out on top of trash heaps. That’s all I need, her looking down on me and calling me a Joe.

I wanted to be a copywriter, like that Alec Pingle whom I’d spied lunching with her last week. And I have no hope of scoring with her against someone like Pingle. I mean, I’m an ill-paid nobody, while here’s this artist with long blond curls and wistful good looks—his face says, I’m so full of soul—what do you call that?  At least a demigod. My only hope is that he is queer.

I wanted to be a copywriter. Creative director Brian Paloma, well known for his riveting work on ketchup (‘Taste the tomatoes’—you know that shit. Legend goes it made some grandmothers start putting ketchup on salads)—the great Brian Paloma sniffled over my portfolio like a tired old dog catching an agreeable scent, and even said ‘nice’, twice. Then he told me to talk to the personnel manager next Monday. The manager—a stern old hag in a Chanel dress—told me there were no creative openings at present, maybe some time down the road, but that there was a junior position open in media. Would I want to start there? I didn’t have a job. I had been to interviews with creative dicks all over town, and none of them had sniffled promisingly like Paloma did. So I said, sure.

And now I’m stuck. Boy, am I stuck. There are two media guys here who joined Grumble, Crinkle and Paloma in the hope of becoming copywriters, and one of them has a flowing white beard—well, a good three inches at least. The other guy is about my age. He joined two years ago, after a year in college. We don’t talk much; we keep away, we look away when passing. I caught him sneaking calculating looks at the back of my head. When there is  an opening—which one of us will it be? Not the white beard; he has wanted to be a copywriter for thirty years now, and when you’ve wanted to be something for thirty years with no success, it’s over. But that other guy, that... His name is Jonathan. Joachim, Jessica, Jonathan; when I tell you my girlfriend’s name is Jenny, you’ll agree with me there has to be a conspiracy in it somewhere.

When I first saw Jessica, I wasn’t overwhelmed. A week later, I noticed her. The evening of my seventh day at Grinkle, Crumble and Paloma found me sitting on the can, wanking savagely to the image of Jessica’s bulging boobs. A week later, I stopped having sex with Jenny. Poor Jenny, she had been so devoted throughout the last two years, she’d even read Linda Lovelace’s autobiography to improve her fellatio (it didn’t work; she went off sex for two weeks). She’s getting alarmed, Jenny. My new abstinence is not the kind she wanted. She’s asked me a few times, and I’m running out of excuses. The last one was that it’s probably simple lack of food, with my being constantly broke. When Jenny heard that, she fell strangely silent. She had just seen me tip a pretty waitress five bucks on top of the twenty that I drank away, and my excuse didn’t quite work.

I look up and around my cubicle. I inhale its stale-coffee smell. There’s an old post-it note clinging to the cloth wall:

Tim,

Did you see Walter lick the floor last night?

L.

I wonder about Walter. Then about Tim, and L.

Today, as I was leaving work, I got another prod from Fate or Destiny or whatever that old bitch is called—an expert three-knuckler driven deep into my soft, defenseless stomach. There, by the elevators (I think I’ll start taking the stairs from now on) stood that pig Pingle talking to Jessica. I tried not to listen to his self-congratulatory jabber all the way down. They left the elevator together and I followed them, clinging to walls and scurrying between potted plants across the entire main floor lobby. Then Pingle waved down a cab and they rode away, hopefully driven by a drunken retard. I was sure she had put that leather mini on for Pingle, and it drove me nuts. Jesus, that Jessica. What is she –

I went to the liquor store and used some notes of the legal tender to acquire a big bottle of wine. Then I went to the room I’m presently renting in a house inhabited, or rather haunted by artists. I thought it was a great deal, when I found that room. I’ll tell you this: don’t live with artists. Artists, they’re funny guys.

The house was mercifully empty. I holed up in my room, took off my jacket, took off my tie, took off my shoes, and opened the wine. I drank half the bottle looking at the tree in the back yard. Its limp, sparsely leafed branches hung helplessly over the yellowed grass; it was hunched like the guys that hang around the liquor store, that tree. Its sap has been poisoned; no one seems to care. The other night I stood at my window looking at that tree, and listened to the stoned beery voices downstairs discussing the sanctity of the natural environment. I saw a pissed, vegetarian Green stumble out into the back yard, put a hand against the tree’s