"FUBAR" is a short story first published posthumously in Look at the Birdie in 2009 and again in Complete Stories in 2017.
Plot Summary[]
For nearly a decade, Fuzz Littler has found himself fubar ("fouled up beyond all recognition") within the General Forge and Foundry Company of the Ilium Works. This is not from malice or planning, but circumstance, inertia, and neglect. When first hired for the Public Relations Department, there was no room available in Building 22, where the rest of the staff works, and Fuzz was placed with the elevator machinery of Building 181 which housed semiconductor research, sharing an office with crystallographer Dr. Lomar Horthy for eight years. As the only member of the General Company Response Section, Fuzz's job is to respond to letters addressed the company as a whole that couldn't logically be referred to any other department. Most such letters were rambling and incoherent, but he must nonetheless answer each with professionalism and courtesy. Despite growing increasingly listless and cynical, Fuzz has kept his job in order to care for his ailing mother. Now, after Building 181 burned down in a freak accident, Fuzz has been relocated to the end of the company bus line in Building 523: the gym. Since the gym is off-limits except on weekends and after 5pm, Fuzz is at least spared the sounds of playfulness surrounding him while he works. Now without an office mate, he's also been assigned his own secretary.
The first morning in his new office, Fuzz hears the huge front door slam and the footsteps of the typist as she slowly and cautiously wanders past the basketball court and bowling alleys, briefly getting lost at the swimming pool. Expecting a "dispirited and drab woman" who would be content at the forgotten edges of the company, Fuzz instead finds eighteen year old Francine Pefko, far overdressed for what she reveals is her very first day of work. He's already worried that she'll find the job and him an awful and tedious bore and the morning's work is light even for the General Company Response Section, three letters instead of the usual fifteen. After replying by 10 o'clock to a mental patient who has claimed to square the circle, a ten year old who wants to pilot the first rocket to Mars, and a woman who's dachshund constantly barks at her GF&F vacuum cleaner, Fuzz and Francine now have nothing to do. Trying to maintain her excitement, Francine is disappointed to learn that no one from the public ever actually visits public relations, no one else works in the building, and even the mail service doesn't come out this far. She reads the company welcome pamphlets given to her that morning and learns that there's a dance in the basketball court every Friday night. Asking Fuzz if he and his wife ever dance, he informs her that he is not married, doesn't dance or play any sports, and that most of his time outside work is devoted to caring for his sick mother. Horrified and embarrassed about how pathetic his own life is, Fuzz tell Francine that she won't like working in this department and that she should request a new assignment. She's worried that she's failed in some way, but he tells her that if she doesn't leave for her own good, she'll eventually "rot" there just as he has.
Without a word she leaves and Fuzz sits at his desk, waiting to hear the huge front door slam. Instead a popular song echoes through the building. Investigating, he finds that Francine, who's nowhere to be found, must have put the record on for him before she left. As the song ends, Fuzz experiments with a couple of sad, lonely dance steps. Francine, who's been observing from the balcony above, asks if the music helped any. When Fuzz admits that it did, she points out that the room has "tons of records" for the dances, and he could listen to music at work whenever he wanted. She suggests he go swimming, using the company pool as if he were a movie star, although he replies that he doesn't have a swimsuit. She says he can skinny dip and she won't watch, suddenly turning harsh and suggesting that maybe he actually likes being so unhappy all the time. After some hesitation, he swims, finding it exciting and reinvigorating, telling Francine that the water feels wonderful "[o]nce you get in." She tells him he could also learn to bowl, shape up with the dumbbells, or any number of other things and asks if she can stay as his secretary. He agrees and asks if she'll join him for lunch. She says no, since she wants to buy a bathing suit for herself, so he goes along with her. While the two leave the building, Fuzz looks back and quietly mutters one word to himself: "Eden."[1]
Adaptation[]
The story was adapted into a 23-minute short film in 2019, also called FUBAR, written and directed by Sami Issa Mustaklem and starring Lisa Ermel, Katherine Smith-Rodden, and Lewis Black.[2][3][4]