He had scruffy brown hair, a ridiculous mustache, and sweet brown eyes. The bowling alley was quiet, seeing as it was a slow Wednesday afternoon. He ordered two beers at the bar, paid, and carried them over to the lane he was sharing with his brother.

He set the bottles down and looked at his brother. The poor guy was lost in his thoughts again, staring off to the right. He followed the line of sight to a couple of huddled women who were chatting furiously. Mildly curious (and prone to whims), he wandered over, pretending to check out the video games in the arcade area.

“I don’t know why you put up with him, Sylvie. I mean, come on, a bowling alley? On your birthday?” The first woman shook her head in obvious irritation.

“It gets worse. He didn’t even bring me to bowl. He brought me to cheer him on. I guess his bowling league is having some kind of championship in about an hour,” the second woman muttered. Her eyes were a little puffy, as if she’d been crying, and she sniffled quietly while her friend huffed in indignation.

“Unbelievable! He is such a…a…a jerk! Come on, Sylvie, let’s go. I am not about to let you waste your birthday on that asshole. We’re going out.” The woman stood up, grabbing her friend’s hand and pulling her up out of her seat.

The second woman smiled, her eyes still watery, and slowly reached down for her purse. “Thanks, Dee. Really.” She glanced backwards, apparently gazing at one of the guys in a group of men about four lanes over. “You know what the worst part is? He probably won’t even notice I’ve left.” She sniffled, straightened, and plastered a sad smile onto her face, then marched out the front door with her friend.

The scruffy mustached gentlemen sighed, and walked back over to his brother. He sat down heavily and crossed his legs. Reaching for a beer, he took a good swig and reached into his pocket. His brother’s eyes widened slightly when he brought the scrap of paper out.

He unfolded the wrinkled scrap carefully, smoothing it out on his knee. Scratched out in tiny, near illegible writing, was a hodgepodge list of sorts. In his mind, he brought forth the silent image of a girl with curly hair, shy and quiet, waiting in a corner for someone to talk to her. With his finger, he scanned down the list until he reached number eighty-one. He read it over quickly, tapping it with his finger, then looked up at his brother. He raised a resigned eyebrow and returned the list to his pocket. His brother scratched the back of his head.

Standing up, he reached into the front right pocket of his jeans and pulled out some coins. He walked over towards the arcade and approached the phone booth, his brother trailing slowly behind him. He grabbed the receiver, dropped a few coins into the slot at the top, and dialed. After a few rings, he heard the click as someone picked up on the other end. The voice of an older woman sweetly asked how she could be of service to him.

He cleared his throat, winked at his brother, and subconsciously patted the pocket where he kept his precious list. Then he spoke. “Yeah. Uhh, hi. My name is Earl.”

Pam giggled behind her hand, desperate not to give the game away. For the past two weeks, she and Jim had been systematically raising Dwight’s chair about a quarter of an inch each day. It was surprisingly difficult to be accurate, and they had to do it in incredibly small increments over a fair length of time to assure that he wouldn’t catch on.

As it was, the change was so gradual, he hadn’t even noticed that he was sitting nearly three inches higher than normal. Pam giggled again, wondering if his feet were still flat on the ground.

The plan was to wait it out until they had gotten the chair to its full height capacity, then wait for the perfect moment. If everything went well, Jim would get him to reach across the desk for something, effectively getting him up off his chair for a few seconds while Pam crossed behind him. As soon as he’s up, she’ll lower the chair as far as it will go. Wackiness will then ensue.

The mental image of Dwight leaning back into his chair, completely unsuspecting, and falling backwards in shock…well, it was hysterical. And every now and then, it would just randomly pop into Pam’s head, causing her to giggle.

To the entire rest of the office, it appeared that Pam had begun to laugh at seemingly unpredictable moments. Only Jim understood, and he was so amused that he couldn’t even look at her when it happened, lest he crack up as well (which could be sufficiently suspicious for Dwight to figure out that something was going on).

Pam was incredibly pleased with her role in all of it, but was also somewhat distracted by the possibility that she wouldn’t get the chair down in time, or that Dwight would catch her at it. In an effort to dispel this possibility, she’d spent the last week or so practicing on the chair at the empty desk that used to belong to Devon. She’d been pleased to inform Jim that she was doing a lot better.

Scrunching her eyes together, she pushed the ridiculous image of Dwight from her mind and forced herself to relax. She took a few deep breaths and smiled softly.

That was better.

Earl parked cautiously and climbed out of his car. Randy clambered out on the other side, straightening slowly, squinting in the sunlight. Earl glanced down. He was clutching a crumpled napkin from a really bad fast-food mexican place, on which he had written a very imporant address. He checked the address on the napkin against the address he was at and nodded at his brother.

“Looks like this is the place. I guess we’d better head on up.”

“I-I don’t like the look of this place, Earl. It reminds me of a toaster. And you know how I feel about toasters,” Randy mumbled unhappily.

Earl shrugged and shook his head. “Nothing we can do about it, Randy. She’s on my list. And the sooner we cross her off, the sooner we can head on home.”

Randy nodded in resignation and approached the building with the utmost caution, glancing around at regular intervals to make sure the coast was still clear.

***

Pam was engrossed in a deathmatch sudoku duel (identical puzzles, fastest time wins) with Jim when a couple of  rumpled-looking guys walked into the office. She sent a warning glance Jim’s way, knowing he’d attempt to use this time to cement his sudoku victory, and he conveniently managed to miss the look. But she saw the sides of his mouth turn up. She cursed inwardly in defeat and plastered a smile on her face.

“Can I help you?”

The two men strode forward. The man in front was mostly normal looking. Kind of scruffy, but probably nice-looking underneath the facial hair. The one behind him, though, seemed incredibly nervous for a grown man. Skittish, almost. It was kind of cute, considering how big he was. It gave him that sort of teddy bear quality that women love. Pam unconsciously softened her smile for him, and he visibly relaxed.

The first one cleared his throat and approached the desk. “Yeah. Hi. I’m, uh, looking for…” He dug into one of his pockets and withdrew a napkin. He squinted at it for a few seconds. “Pam Beedy?”

Pam straightened immediately, a slight frown replacing the smile. She wondered for a moment if these were friends of Roy’s, and winced at the thought. But she was moderately sure that she’d never met either of them before. She glanced over at Jim quickly, registering his slightly disapproving interest with amusement.

She let out a resigned sigh before answering. “I’m Pam Beesly.”

The man brightened considerably at her words. “Oh! Great. Well, my name is Earl. This here’s my brother, Randy.” He glanced at his brother as he gestured towards him. Bending his head, he whispered to his brother. “Randy, stop pokin’ at that plant. It ain’t real.” He straightened, clapped his hands together, and addressed Pam once more. “Sorry, he’s just a little suspicious.”

Pam’s eyebrows jumped slightly with interest. “Of what?”

“Oh, lots of things. Birds, toasters, pop rocks, fancy suits, Kermit the Frog. And also a couple of old ladies who live down the street from the motel. He thinks they’re spies.”

“No,” Randy corrected him quietly. “I think they’re being watched by spies. That’s why they’re always talkin’ in those extra-loud voices. To fool the tiny little microscopes.”

“Microphones,” Earl replied.

“That’s what I said.”

Earl rolled his eyes and smiled at Pam in an adorably self-deprecating way. He obviously loved his brother, despite his many…quirks. And Pam found it endearing. She stood up and leaned over the counter to shake Earl’s hand, glancing quickly towards Michael’s office to make sure he was still distracted from their present company. His office door was shut, the blinds closed, and she could hear him laughing uncomfortably. Good. He wasn’t using that whiney tone yet, which meant he’d probably be on that call for another ten minutes or so.

Pam shook Earl’s hand and smiled warmly at Randy, who smiled back quickly but remained behind the plant, before offering them coffee.

“No, thanks. Not much of a coffee drinker myself,” Earl replied. He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his feet. Then his face brightened. “You got any beer?”

Pam smiled awkwardly and shook her head. “Sorry. We have grape soda, though.”

Randy emerged quickly from his foliage, grabbing Earl’s arm in one huge hand. “Can I have a grape soda, Earl? I like the way it fizzes in my nose.”

Earl smiled and patted his brother’s hand. “Sure. Why not? I s’pose we’ve got some talkin’ to do anyway.”

Pam cocked her head slightly to the side, intrigued, and set her phone to automatic voicemail. Then she walked around the reception desk and led the two men back towards the break room. Jim waited until he saw them each choose a soda from the vending machine and sit down at the small table before casually following after them.

Earl chose a grape soda for himself as well, before making himself comfortable in one of the chairs around the small table in the break room. This Pam lady seemed real nice, and he already felt pretty bad about what he’d done to her all those years ago, so he was hoping to scratch this one off quickly. He watched as she made herself a cup of tea, which Randy found particularly interesting, then settled into her own chair to listen.

Earl was quiet for a minute, trying to decide how to explain his list to her, when one of the other office people walked in. The Pam lady got a little distracted when he came in, so he decided to just dive right in.

“Okay, look,” he started. “This is gonna sound a little odd, but just let me explain everything, and hopefully it’ll end up makin’ some kinda sense.” He had her attention now. “Awright,” he continued. “Well, I used to be a pretty bad guy. Did a lot of bad stuff, and had a pretty good time doin’ it, too. But all that changed a while back. You hearda karma?”

She nodded. Good. These educated types made things a lot easier on him with the explanations.

“Well, I made myself a list of all the bad things I’ve done,” he continued. “And I’ve been makin’ up for ‘em all, one at a time.”

He held up the list, as proof of his plan, since she’d gotten a little worried-looking when he’d mentioned the bad things he used to do. A lot of people got a little worried at that part. But she seemed okay now. Sorta interested. So he wasn’t too surprised when she leaned forward and asked him a question. He was, however, slightly surprised at what she asked.

“And is it working?”

He sat, silent and pensive, for a bit, but she didn’t push him for an answer. It was kinda strange, but nobody’d ever asked that before. They always wanted to know how he was gonna help them, and why’d it take him so long, and why should they help him feel better about himself when he’d done so many terrible things? Nobody ever asked him how he felt about it all.

“Well,” he said, slowly. “Actually…yeah. I think it is. I’ve been feelin’ a lot better about myself lately, you know? And I kinda like the feeling I get when somebody gets all happy about something I did for them. Even if it was just to make up for something else I did wrong. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still think about doin’ bad stuff, but…it just isn’t as much fun as it used to be. You know what I mean?”

She was quiet for a moment. She looked like she was thinking. Then she brightened.

“Yeah,” she said. “I think I do.”

She smiled at him, and he couldn’t help smiling back. Randy happily slurped at some grape soda next to him. The office guy in the corner seemed pretty interested. Looked like this would be one of the easy ones. He was actually looking forward to helping this Pam lady out.

“So,” she said. “It sounds like you’ve got a pretty good thing going here…so what do you need me for? I mean, I can’t be on your list, can I? I’ve never even met you.”

He gave a little half-shrug. “Yeah, you’ve never met me. But the thing I did to you was kinda…indirect. Like I made somebody else do something to you. But as far as karma’s concerned, it’s still  y fault, so I still gotta make up for it.”

Her eyes got a little bunchy, like she was trying to figure things out. He looked over at Randy, to gauge his expression. He was smiling happily, his teeth purple, rubbing at his nose. He really does like the way it fizzes in there.

“So…you were the catalyst for something bad that happened to me?”

He nodded, not entirely sure what she was talking about. “Uhm…yeah. Sure.”

“So then…who was the person that actually did this terrible thing to me?”

“Oh. Well, I mean, you probably won’t even remember him. I mean, it was a really long time ago. Like a really long time ago. And it was just the one time, you know? But, uh…lemme think. His name was…Troy? Tray? Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. Ray? Crap. I’m really bad with names. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, it was pretty much my fault. So…just tell me how to make it up to you and I’ll cross you off my…”

Uh-oh. She was really quiet all of a sudden. Kinda…shocked. “Uhm…are you okay? Did I explain it wrong? I mean, cuz the whole reason I came here is to make it up to you. You get that, right? Pam?”

He looked over at Randy for some help, but he’d disappeared. He looked around and noticed that he was back out in the office, talking to some funny-looking guy with glasses. He looked to the office guy for some help, but he was leaning forward, with his eyes all big and round like Pam’s. What the hell?

“Roy?”

“What?” he asked, slightly confused. “No. Earl. I told you, my name is Earl.”

“No,” she whispered. “The man who did the thing to me…was his name Roy?”

Earl thought about it for a minute, really hard. He’d been pretty drunk that night. And he’d met a lot of people. But…actually, the name did kinda ring a bell. “Yeah. Maybe.”

He was unfortunately interrupted when Roy walked into the break room. “Hey, Pam. What’d you bring for lunch today?”

The room was silent. Pam was having a hard time figuring things out. This man, this Earl, had come all the way to Pennsylvania to cross her off some strange list of misdeeds. And Roy had something to do with it? She stared up at her fiancé, trying to determine by looking at him if he was guilty. He stared back, confusion and irritation battling for dominance on his face.

She looked back over at Earl. He was looking at Roy strangely. Then he was looking at her. Then back at Roy. Then his eyes got big. He recognized Roy. Oh, god. No. He recognized Roy. This had to be some kind of mistake.

She could feel her eyes getting watery, and her throat began to ache with the effort not to cry. She looked up quickly, trying to force the tears back into her eyes. Don’t cry, she thought. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. When she felt a little calmer, she let herself look down…and caught Jim’s gaze in the process. He looked so worried. She couldn’t help a small sniffle. The expression on his face nearly broke her heart. He gestured toward the door, but she shook her head. No. She had to find out what was going on.

She looked up at Roy and forced herself to remain calm. Don’t accuse him, he’ll just get defensive and angry. And then he’ll get loud, and then he’ll get accusatory, and she’ll never get the truth out of him. Just remain calm.