i.
Not for the first time, Dwight Schrute wonders just how incompetent Jim Halpert can get.
Each customer file on Jim's account has been password protected; each password has been set to something that Dwight can't guess at, even through the password hints. What is "play ball" supposed to mean? "Grape soda"? One is even set to "Dwight will never guess these password hints". Dwight wonders how Jim could have been so stupid. It is perfectly acceptable for someone of Dwight's intelligence, capabilities, and belt in karate to make passwords no one will guess. Because if Dwight is dead, then everyone else has been dead for weeks. However, Jim Halpert is not Dwight Schrute, and now Jim Halpert is deceased, and now Dwight Schrute will potentially lose customers to competitors due to Jim's idiocy.
Dwight manages to crack one of the passwords; the hint "angriest bear alive" could only be the grizzly bear. At least one smart thing that Jim managed to glean from Dwight. The customer is one of Jim's lesser clients, an attorney's office, and one that does not buy as much paper as other accounts that Jim had managed to secure; however, Dwight is glad for a victory. He looks up the number and dials.
Authoritatively, Dwight begins his spiel. "Hello, this is Dwight Schrute, Assistant Regional Manager at Dunder Mifflin, Scranton. We supply you with paper."
"Yes," says the customer, slightly confused. "But we haven't placed any shipment orders recently. May I ask why you're calling?"
"Yes, you may. Your sales associate, Jim Halpert, who originally signed you on to the Dunder Mifflin supply roster, is now dead. Expired. I am supposed to inform you that your sales will now be handled by ... not Jim. So I will now be taking over the account. How much paper would you like to order at this time?"
"None," the customer says. Dwight smirks at the man's voice; he sounds young and unsure. "We only use your paper for official letters and form letters. We ordered from Jim quite a bit of paper about half a year ago - we figured stockpiling would be easier. May I help you with anything else?"
"Sir, you sound like you're not quite sure what you're talking about. May I speak to the attorney in charge of the office you are working at? I'm sure he would like to order more paper from us now."
"This IS the attorney," says the attorney. "James DeLuca. I always answer calls from Dunder Mifflin because I enjoy - or enjoyed - dealing with Jim personally. I'm sorry to hear of his death."
"Jim Halpert was an idiot," says Dwight irritably. "He was not as effective of a salesman as I am, and he was not the top salesman like I am. And he spent too much time being lazy. I will sell paper 24 hours a day if necessary." Dwight looks surreptitiously over at Jim's empty seat, to see if his deskmate has heard this jibe and is on the edge of some kind of response, but the seat is still empty, and now he feels a little bit like a jerk.
"Well, it's not necessary," DeLuca says, in a tone that unquestionably ends the conversation. "We won't be dealing with Dunder Mifflin anymore. Jim was the thing tying us to your company, and I'm sure we can find better deals elsewhere. Please take us off your client list." And with that, the attorney hangs up, leaving Dwight appalled. Jim? Keep a client that Dwight could not?
Going back to work on Jim's passwords, Dwight thinks that maybe Jim had a reason for taking so long on the phone.
--
ii.
When Toby hears about Jim's death, it's inside a call from Corporate. Guiltily, he winces when the first thought that goes through his head is "Pam". Jim's been a good friend to Toby: caring for Sasha, hanging out with Toby, talking to him when he needed a friend. But in the recesses of his mind, years later, Toby still cradles an old flame for his friend's girl. Not that he'd ever really taken what anyone could mistake for initiative, in light of the weird situations that Jim and Pam had managed to find themselves in over the years.
"Michael will be receiving the news in a few minutes," says the tinny voice at the other end of the line. "And Toby - we're counting on you to deal with the Scranton branch at this... unfortunate junction. Michael is not very well-equipped to handle this on his own."
And, as usual, he isn't, but the feelings he's struggling to express are understandable. When Ed Truck died, when the bird died, they are all too different from this one, stupefying event. To think that death could have happened to big, funny, easy, quick Jim Halpert is one hell of a mental stretch. And Michael, true to form, is howling on Andy's shoulder, staining his Lacoste sweater with snot and tears. Andy, also true to form, is patting him on the back and murmuring motherly sayings, but barely anyone else is moving. Phyllis is crying, and Oscar looks like he's holding back vomit. Surprisingly, it is Ryan who seems the most horrified. Toby thinks it might be because the two were so close in age.
But the day passes, and the office files out in a line. Michael is uncharacteristically silent, and so is everyone else. And Toby sits in Jim's chair, waiting for Jim to come along, smiling that big easy smile. "Hey, what's up, man? You up for a drink tonight?"
Toby is definitely up for a drink.
--
iii.
The rhythmic clacking of keys does nothing to assuage the bubbling of Ryan Howard's stomach two hours after he finds out about what happened to Jim. Not that he and Jim had been close, or anything; he simply underestimated death, he supposes, and that's why he feels close to yelling very loudly.
When Ryan's grandmother died, he was seven, and it was a mild, quiet, no-frills affair. His mother cried and held Ryan so tight around the neck, he thought he might suffocate. Ryan let her do it because he thought choking him was making her feel better. Several elderly men and women lined the front pew off to his left, and he and his mother were alone on the right side of the church. Ryan found it disinteresting, and found it odd that his mother was crying so much when she'd already been crying for days.
Even when Ryan's mother died, two months before he graduated high school, he did not think death was on anyone else's horizon. He had known it was going to happen; she'd gone into remission years before, and suddenly the cancer sprang back up before anyone could do anything about it. Six months after her second diagnosis, she was gone. Ryan wasn't surprised by her death, and though he didn't want her to be gone, he understood that she was an older woman, and cancer happens to older women, and she suffered those six months away without complaint.
But Jim Halpert was dead, and no one had any suggestions as to how Ryan should go about dealing with this. Death was a slow-moving beast, he thought; the sun sets slower, the time runs in drips, the clock runs its hands wearily across its face. Ryan and Jim weren't close. But they were close in age, and that's what freaks Ryan out the most. Ryan scrubs his forehead hard with his palms. This is not the first person he's known who died, but he was the youngest, and the one with the shortest distance between the living and the grave.
Ryan feels dirty that the deaths of his grandmother and mother of cancer didn't shock him as much as the death of a young man did: a young man who'd talked with Ryan not two days before in the break room, joking about how he was going to see the Phillies in a couple days' time.
His mother had never had plans to see the Phillies play because she'd been too wrapped up in dying already. And she hadn't bought tickets like the ones Jim wasn't using.
--
iv.
On a Thursday morning, Pam Beesly drops off the face of the earth.
Her employers called her twice this morning, but no one answered the phone. Her mother called from a restaurant in town, asking if maybe Pam wouldn't want to join her for brunch and a movie, and when Pam did not answer, she didn't call back. Michael called, which might have been a fatal mistake if Pam had picked up the phone. Someone knocked on the door earlier in the day, but the summons remained unanswered. The bedroom was empty when Dwight looked through the shades (after knocking on the front door, of course), and so was the living room and the kitchen. The bathroom window was frosted glass, so Dwight couldn't see through, but careful studying showed the light was off and no shadows moved around inside.
For all intents and purposes, Pam Beesly has ceased to exist. The credit card company and the airline are the only ones that know where she's headed. She's collected her savings and earnings from the gallery where she has been both working and being featured, and collected Jim's final paycheck from Dunder Mifflin - he'd put in his two weeks notice four days before it happened, planning to move them both to downstate New York for a job on staff at a newspaper. They didn't believe her when she tried to withdraw her check, because her last name wasn't Halpert - it was Beesly-Halpert. Jim wouldn't let her get rid of the 'Beesly' that he'd so long adored, so she'd hyphenated it, but she signs everything plain Beesly.
Pam doesn't know why she's running so far from Scranton to get away from a dead man. Maybe because he's a dead man. She can't bear to look out at the town, can't bear to look at his parents, can't bear to sign her name to checks. There is no escaping the weight of a death, no matter how long the funeral procession has been over with.
One time, Jim and Pam discussed death. Jewish law dictates that the body be buried; no visitation or wake, no music, no march, no viewing of the body. No cremation, either. These are all the things that Jim does not want to do. Jim wants to be cremated; Jim wants Dwight and Pam to eulogize him; Jim wants her to take him somewhere beautiful and drop him off where she can come visit if she wants.
For a week, Jim sits on top of her TV in a stainless steel urn she picked out for him. She thinks he would have liked where the sunlight hits the stainless steel in the morning when the light from the kitchen pours in through the window. She thinks maybe it's too nonchalant, not respectful enough, but it makes her feel safe that Jim is watching her when she's sitting on the couch they picked out together, watching a movie he would have hated. When she takes a bath, Jim is always right there on the edge of the tub; then when she sleeps, he lays on the side of the bed that she's not already on.
When she returns to Dunder Mifflin a week after Jim dies, the predictable chaos ensues. A small service is held at the expense of the company at Nay Aug Park. Michael insists on holding Jim's urn the entire time until Daryl forces him to hand Jim back to Pam.
Dwight refuses to speak until Michael shoves him up in front of the assembled Dunder Mifflin workers, and then he says, "Jim Halpert was an idiot, and he enjoyed insulating my possessions with Jello. However, I now wish to redact any complaints about Jim I made prior to his death. Thank you."
And Pam, she reads a card she would have gotten years ago at a silly work Christmas party. Everyone knows from the first sentence who it's meant for, and who it's from, but the date on the inside of the card is what throws them for a loop. She doesn't need to say anything else, but she does. Karen and her husband are there, and after all this time, Pam can still barely look her in the eye. David Wallace shows up out of respect for Jim, and offers Pam his condolences after her speech.
Pam heads home immediately after the ceremony to begin the packing she should have begun days ago. Haphazardly, she throws things into a suitcase, not packing full outfits or too much weather appropriate clothing. Her flight leaves early the next morning, a Thursday. She tosses and turns all night, her on one side of the bed, Jim on the other side, and her unzipped suitcase at the bottom of the bed. She scrambles to shove everything back in during the scant time she has before she has to leave her house when she finds she's shoved it off the bed in her sleep.
Her hotel in San Diego boasts a queen bed and a look out onto the cityscape, but she needs neither. She's tired and wan, and her eyes are underscored by purple daubs of shadow. She thinks Jim might like it here, but before she gets much farther than that, she's curled up on the bed in Jim's old University of Scranton t-shirt, clutching his urn and wondering how the hell this all happened anyway.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Disclaimer: All characters and the show The Office belong to NBC and the creators of the US Office respectively.
