www.sadbastard.co.nz

“NAKED MAN ALERT!” Tania had called out from her cubicle one morning.

“Where?” Carolyn said, over her monitor.

“Top floor, left-hand window.”

“He’s disgusting!” Carolyn said, squinting through the tinted window.

“Look at the beer belly on him,” said Melinda from her desk. “Why don’t we ever get a buff one?”

It was her perpetual lament.

Nudes at windows are fairly commonplace at Hermes Travel, it seems. The company’s head office overlooks a number of apartment buildings but, until that morning, these peepshows had strictly been once-only performances. It was always Tania who provided the naked man alerts — or so Carolyn claimed — and the unscheduled appearances livened up monotonous workdays on the phone or at the PC. The girls would have a front-row seat for the hairy-backed, bare-chested kettle filling, dish drying or fry-up tending.

“At least he’s house-proud,” Carolyn said to Tania. “Look, he even wipes down the draining board when he’s finished. Not your average slob.”

Over lunch on the waterfront one day, watching young bucks in striped shirts swigging bottled designer beer and brandishing camera-phones to take up-the-skirt shots of the waitresses, the girls’ conversation returned to what was now a regular morning occurrence.

“What should we call him?” asked Tania.

“Sad bastard,” Melinda suggested. “He never goes out. Sickness beneficiary, probably. Obviously doesn’t work.”

“What do you think, Carolyn?” Tania was saying.

“About what?” Carolyn had replied, as she held a forkful of rocket to her open mouth and kept an eye on the guys at the bar sinking tequila slammers.

“A name for the sad bastard, Bob the Slob,” said Melinda. “Have you noticed he’s got man breasts?”

That afternoon, Tania and Melinda were looking out of the window when Carolyn got back from the café with frappuccinos and muffins. “Hairy, isn’t he?” said Tania, absently.

“You like hairy men, Carolyn. Reckon he works out?” said Melinda.

“The only exercise he gets is opening the fridge,” said Tania, “and shaking the Gaviscon.”

“He must save heaps of money on washing powder.”

“Not to mention hot water. He obviously feels at home, being naked. He never seems to get any visitors.”

“He takes care of his complexion, though,” Carolyn had felt bound to add. “I saw him wearing a face mask last week. And maybe he works from home or goes to his job while we’re not here.” She had started wondering about possible professions, too; bouncer, baker. Night watchman, maybe.

Carolyn says a homely man can be very attractive when you’re stuck in an office with people like Tania and Melinda all day and the only men in your life hang out on the waterfront in stripy shirts.

The apartments in this building have no names next to their door buzzers, just numbers, so you have to admire her determination. Having worked out which one was mine, she spent an afternoon on the internet, typing the address into Google and trying to match it to a name.

That was how she found my website.

—0O0—

(www.sadbastard.co.nz was first published in the Random House New Zealand short-short story anthology Home in 2o05.)