Fifteen years later, a man in his late twenties stands in the kitchen of his apartment as his pregnant wife, still in her bathrobe and matching powder-blue fuzzy slippers, gazes. Clean-cut and wearing a navy pinstriped suit with a crisp blue shirt, he pensively paces through the apartment, only stopping for his wife to straighten his cornflower necktie.
“Slow down, honey,” she says. He keeps frantically moving back and forth across the living room, putting papers and folders into his briefcase. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worrying.”
She puts her hand on his shoulder to get him to stand still for one moment. “You’re going to do a great job,” she says. “You always nail these presentations.”
He smiles. “I know I do, but everything is different now,” he says as he places his hand on her stomach.
“Everything will be okay.” She hands him his overcoat and puts his scarf around his neck. He moves toward the door.
“Forget something?” she says. He doubles back and leans in for his routine goodbye kiss.
His wife gushes from the kiss. The pregnancy has her hormones teetering on the brink of salaciously tearing his clothes off one moment and hysterically crying about an opened jar of peanut butter the next. “I liked that, but I meant this.” She holds up his briefcase. “No nerves, huh?”
“Well, maybe a little.” They both laugh. The piercing ring of the telephone brings their intimate moment to a halt.
“I’ll get it. You need to go,” she says, as she shoos him out the door while picking up the phone. He doesn’t budge.
“Hello,” she says into the phone. “Are you kidding me? This is the third time in two weeks.”
He rescues her and holds out his hand for the phone. She passes it to him. “You have to stop doing this,” he says into the phone. “He’s a grown man. We’re not his personal wake-up service.”
He walks over to the window and looks down at the parking lot that looks like it’s been covered with a freshly washed fluffy white comforter. “His car’s out there. . . . Okay, but this is the last time, and I mean it.
“This is bullshit,” he says to his wife.
“You’re going to be late, honey,” she tells him.
“Don’t worry, it’ll only take me a few minutes,” he assures his wife. “I do this so often now. I’m starting to get a routine going.”
The man walks out of his apartment, across the hallway of their garden-style apartment building, holding his cordless house phone. The walkway in between the two apartments has a light dusting of snow on the ground. He proceeds to knock on the door across from him. No one answers.
Inside the apartment sits thirty-two-year-old me. I hope you didn’t think I was the man knocking. First of all, I would never involve myself in someone’s personal matters like Cliff does at every opportunity. Don’t knock on my door, unless you have gifts or something funny to say. Those things make my day better. You knocking early in the morning for anything else, I guarantee, makes it a whole lot worse. Secondly, I’m not going to attack his lifestyle choice or anything, but I’ve never fit that Everybody Loves Raymond sit-com lead role. The pregnant wife who considers it her job to professionally nag me, the henpecked husband, to fucking death, and the borderline alcoholism that it drives me to. I’ve never actually seen Cliff drink, even at their New Year’s Eve party I crashed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he keeps a little flask of brandy in his desk drawer and takes a nip right before he has to come home. He most likely spends all day at the perfect job that he’s good at, where everyone loves him, laughs at all of his corny jokes, expects the world from him, and he consistently delivers on those expectations. That’s not my job. Truthfully, I don’t know exactly what he does for a living. And that’s not from a lack of him telling me either; I just didn’t care enough to pay attention or remember. My don’t-care-enough-to-pay-attention nature accompanied with my leeriness of people who seem too perfect forces me to keep my distance from the two of them. The way he and Janet look at me is not in an outright judgmental fashion, but it’s as if they’re both silently recording all of my inadequacies so they can discuss them over dinner conversation in large groups or among themselves. It’s people like that who always have the biggest cracks in their own personalities and lives. I’m upfront. All of my flaws are visible for all to see.
The closed shades give my living room a cheerless feeling, which mirrors how I feel every morning during the work week. The climate is cool because I keep the heat on very low. Don’t want to give up all of my pennies to NJ Electric. POWs are happier than I am to wake up every day. This bowl of Fruity Pebbles might as well be my last meal before I’m relegated to a waterboarding session. An episode of SportsCenter is the last moment of enjoyment before my day begins and, for all intents and purposes, ends simultaneously. And all of that is being ruined by this fuckhead knocking at my door. His pounding gets louder; I turn the volume up on the TV. He doesn’t get the hint. Being perfect must mean there’s a certain density in your skull that’s impervious to the idea that someone doesn’t want to be bothered with you.
“I know you’re in there. The TV’s pretty loud, as always. You’re watching sports highlights. Just open the door.”
I give in and come to terms with the fact he’s not going away. He’s so committed to disturbing me; no wonder he’s great at everything he does. Probably approaches every single task in his life with this same zeal. As I walk toward the door, the sports anchor gives an update on a professional basketball coach who got fired with three years left on his contract that guaranteed him $15 million. So he’ll get paid the same $5 million each year for the next three years for sitting at home on his ass. I can do that; I’m overqualified as an ass-sitter. That’s more money than I’ll ever make in my life, and he got canned. Lucky son of a bitch. Then, I swear, the anchor says, “Kevin, don’t you wish that shit would happen to you? Nope, you’re a sorry bitch. Go to work, punk-ass.” I double back to the TV, but it must be the sugar rush from the salad bowl of cereal I’m eating that has me going delirious.
The banging continues as I open the door and, as expected, an exasperated Cliff is standing there. He doesn’t even comment that I’m wearing a collared shirt under my robe and no pants, only my boxers. I wonder if I showed up with a visible boner if he’d ever knock on my door again. Something to think about for the future interruptions. I thought there was a chance he might’ve been here to reprimand me again for the noise I made this morning listening to my music as I took my shower, but I see the phone in his hand. I know exactly why he’s here even before he thrusts the phone into my chest.
“Thanks, how’s Lynn doing? Is the baby okay? Sorry, I can’t babysit. I have to go to work,” I say.
“Cut the shit. You know she still hasn’t delivered.”
“Why would I know that? Hey, I told you if the baby’s skin tone comes out black or looking the slightest bit beige don’t come looking for me,” I say as I laugh it off. He doesn’t laugh. He never laughs. Such a joyless man. I keep catching him glancing at his watch, so I know he’s in a rush to get to work; even if he wasn’t he’d want to get there early to organize his desk or some bullshit like that. Knowing this, I make my personal quest for this morning to keep him here as long as possible.
“Just return my phone back to my wife when you’re finished.” Cliff begins to leave, but returns and points to the two black trash bags sitting outside of my doorway. “Can you please take your trash to the dumpster? You leave it out here for days. Last week my wife almost got attacked by a family of raccoons who were rummaging through your garbage. She had to stay in the house for five hours until they left . . . my pregnant wife.”
Always going out of his way to emphasize that he has a wife and that she is indeed pregnant, like he wants me to spearhead a committee to throw a parade because his sperm works and he’s found someone willing to house his spawn for nine months. Get over yourself. The Maury Povich Show is filled with assholes with working sperm.
But I keep it cordial with him. “Sure thing. Trash to the wife. Phone to the dumpster.” My grin incenses him. “I kid, I joke. I’ll take care of it. And you have a splendid day at work.”
I gently close the door—even though my initial inclination is to slam it in his face. I then catch my breath before putting the phone up to my ear.
“Hello? I was about to head out the door. You’re lucky you caught me.” Lie number one.
“Yes, I heard the phone ringing earlier, but thought it was a bill collector.” Truth, then partial lie number two. I kinda knew it was her, but it could’ve been a bill collector.
“You called three times?” That’s how I knew it was her. Nobody calls you three times back to back to back unless they have a strong hunch you’re home.
“Well, I thought it was a very aggressive bill collector.” Lie number three.
“I’ll get to work on time, don’t worry.” Lie number four. I know how long it takes me to get to work, and I’m way too behind on my schedule to get there on time now.
“No, they still haven’t told me if they’re giving me the promotion. I have to go now. Or you’ll make me late. See you later tonight, bye.” That was semi-painless. And I ended the call with some truths sprinkled in. I put the phone down on the coffee table and turn the volume back up on the TV.
Twenty-three minutes pass, and I get up from the couch and put my pants on. I would’ve left sooner, but the P90X workout infomercial was on, and I can’t help watching it. Makes me feel like I’m working out too. I might get it one day; don’t know when, but one day. I walk toward the door and slide on my already tied shoes that are neither dress shoes nor full-blown sneakers, but they would probably be found in the sneaker section of the shoe store if you were looking for them. They’re made by Puma, but no one hassles me about the dress code; they look dressy enough and they’re black. Plus, they’re a big step up from the Vans I used to wear. Even used them for a wedding and Alexis’s uncle’s funeral. I grab my coat and coast out the door to begin my daily grind.
Hoping the snow isn’t frozen solid, I make my way down to the parking lot and slowly scrape snow off my teal Nissan Sentra. I wanted red, but only teal was left. Teal, the “sexy color for this millennium” according to the salesman. I’ve had it for about two years, and even splurged with all the trimmings: satellite radio, moonroof, rear spoiler, semi-fancy wheels. I don’t need a huge SUV as a declaration of my ultra-masculinity. This is all I need, but with weather like this I sometimes wish I had four-wheel drive at my disposal. I clear only a foot-wide path on the windshield, so I can get a good idea of what’s directly in front of me. It takes too much effort to stand there in the cold scraping off ice from an unforgiving sheet of glass. My hope is either the defroster will take off the rest of the ice or the wind will blow it off once I start moving.
I gotta be cautious the first few residential miles, because children are running to bus stops early in the morning and might come out of nowhere. Wouldn’t want to slightly bump a child with my car again; that’d only make my commute worse. I leave the back window covered, because I only reverse out of the spot. And the top of the car and hood is still blanketed with snow as well; no time for that. Plus, when I drive, the snow flying off the car into my windshield makes me feel like I’m being pelted with asteroids. I need to have some semblance of fun on my way to work.
Each time I get into the car, a huge part of me wishes it won’t start, resulting in a valid reason to stay home for the day. But it always starts, no matter how much I hope. Every morning I fiddle with the radio for anywhere from thirty seconds to a minute, which also serves as the time I allow the car to heat up. My mechanic, Darius, tells me I should let the car run a little bit longer, especially in the winter, but I always think, what’s the worst that can happen? The car breaks down. That’s well worth it, in my mind. The radio stations vary from day to day, and the satellite radio gives me a nice variety of options. Some mornings I like alternative-rock hits from the nineties, and other days it’s sports talk when I’m feeling particularly jock-like. But since I don’t really watch sports, much of the conversation goes over my head. I do get to pick up key topics so I can nod my head if a sports conversation ever comes up at work, which is the same reason I watch SportsCenter. The people who call into sports radio shows are more entertaining than the radio personalities. There’s nothing like an overweight forty-year-old who wants to shout his perspective as to why a highly conditioned quarterback sucks when he hasn’t done as much as a jumping jack since sophomore phys ed.
As I settle for the alternative rock from the early 2000s (yep, that’s a station), a scraggily voice comes from the back of the car. “Put it on the eighties R&B station.” Now, a strange voice from the back seat a car would definitely startle most people, but I don’t even have to turn around to match a face to the voice.
“Couldn’t get into the shelter last night?” I say.
Robbie Brown, a black man about fortyish (his age always changes when I ask, so I stopped asking), with bushy facial hair and an eighties old-school geometric Gumby haircut. He’s wearing multiple layers of clothing, a variety of colors: a light blue jacket, a purple hoodie over the jacket, an orange bulky vest over the hoodie, yellow Fila headband, maroon neckerchief, and jeans underneath a pair of brown cutoff sweatpants. He looks kind of like a black Ken doll whose owner put all the doll clothes she had on it.
“Got there too late,” he says. “Had a gig that ran over. Fucking encore. The natural entertainer in me always pleases the crowd, so I stayed for three more songs.”
“They allow encores at the bus station?” I say.
“How many times do I have to tell you? I get actual gigs. But thanks for leaving the car unlocked. I still don’t know why you won’t let me sleep on your couch.”
He can’t be serious. “We’re cool and all, but why in the world would I let a homeless Bobby Brown impersonator sleep in my apartment?”
Robbie looks at me as if I just spat in his face. “How many times do I have to tell you? He’s impersonating me! I’m an entertainer, goddamn it! Lyrics, mine. Songs, mine too. Those dance moves, mine. This haircut was mine—”
“No, that was Gumby’s, actually.”
“He jacked my complete style, and that motherfucker used it to catapult himself to stardom. Even married Whitney Houston. So, in fact, I should’ve been married to Whitney Houston.”
He pulls out a picture of Whitney that he ripped out of an old issue of Essence and starts singing to it. “And I . . . will always love you.”
I don’t have time for his bullshit, and it’s too early for his yelling, singing, and carrying-on. I know he’s harmless for the most part, but he’s making me uncomfortable. I do what I always do when it’s time for me to go to work, unless it’s one of the days when I’m generous and let him borrow my car; I point for him to get out.
But he doesn’t leave.
“Can you do me a solid?” he says. I hate when he uses that term, solid; that always means he’s gonna inconvenience me. I keep pointing for him to get out.
Robbie lowers his voice. “Okay, this morning we got off on the wrong foot. And I’m sorry for that. I haven’t had my coffee and stale donuts from the soup kitchen yet.”
“I have to go.”
He doesn’t budge one bit. “Please. It’s Tuesday.”
I shrug my shoulders.
“That means the nursing homes in the area drop their patients off at the mall today so the nurses can go shopping while the patients wander around the food court.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but like always, he keeps talking anyway.
“That means I have the undivided attention of an audience for at least four hours, or until one of them starts spitting at the employees at Saladworks.”
“That’s weird,” I say.
“I agree. I don’t know why it’s always Saladworks, but—”
“No, the whole performing-at-the-mall thing. And no, I can’t take you. I’m already running late.”
“You hate your job,” he says. I really have to stop sharing too much with him. “Can I borrow your car today?”
“No, nope, not at all,” I say. “The last time I lent it to you, you brought it back smelling like weed and cold cuts.”
“Oh, King Kevin. Please tell me, how many sorrys do you need? Okay . . . okay . . . how about drop me off? That’s it.”
I think about it.
He continues, “I know what this is really about. You’re gonna get the promotion. I’m sure of it. You deserve it.” Yep, I definitely have to learn to keep some things to myself. “Plus, we’re friends. Friends help friends.”
“I know I don’t like my job, but it’s my duty to get there on time. People are depending on me. I’m in charge of too many things.”
“Are you serious? I’ve been to your job,” he says. I always forget I got him a temp job at my company last summer for a few days, until he got fired two days later for allegedly giving a co-worker a drawing of him going down on her accompanied with an actual signed photograph of his exposed pubic hair. He said he thought of it as a tasteful invitation, but it made me look bad nonetheless.
Robbie doesn’t believe the bullshit I’m spewing, and neither do I. He figures he can win me over with a sympathetic puppy-dog face, which is even all the more peculiar coming from a scraggly middle-aged homeless man. Now, I just feel uncomfortable and want him to stop. While I’m trying to figure out the best way to get him out of my car without hurting his feelings, our awkward silence is interrupted by the humming of my cellphone. It’s Alexis again. I motion Robbie to be quiet as I pick up the phone.
“Hello.”
“Yes, baby, I just made it into the office.” About a month ago I started routing my office phone calls to my cellphone every day before I leave, in case she tries to monitor if I went to work or not.
Robbie threatens to open his mouth. I put my finger over my mouth. He looks at me as if asking if I’d drop him off. I nod my head.
“Of course I made it in on time.” She also knows exactly how long it takes me to get to work. “The roads weren’t that bad at all. I hope you have a good day too. I have to go to an urgent meeting.” I hang up and put my phone away.
Part of me can’t believe I’m driving Robbie to the mall when I had to be at work fifteen minutes ago. My streak now pushes to four consecutive latenesses, but the bigger part of me knows Robbie is right. I don’t like my job and will do anything to avoid going. All I needed was the excuse to delay my working day, and he provided it.
I’m astonished as I pull up to the mall, not only by the fact there are actually people waiting in the freezing cold but by the age of these people waiting to see Robbie. This has to be a breach of their nursing-home contract to leave these old people in the elements under these conditions. About twelve geriatric nursing-home patients with their assorted illnesses stand outside in the frigid morning with their heavy winter coats, wheelchairs, and breathing equipment, some still wearing pajama bottoms. I guess the nurses didn’t bother to dress them today, or their families, who sentenced them to the home, don’t provide casual clothes. They start to cheer when they spot Robbie in the back seat of the car. Initially I wanted him to sit in the front seat, but he pleaded to remain in the back. I rationalized it in my head, because he probably smells, as he always does, and I didn’t want that scent to latch on to my work clothes. Halfway through the ride he asked me to put on a chauffeur’s cap he had made out of black construction paper, and I almost kicked him out of the car for that. I look back at him, and he has a big I-told-you-so shit-eating grin on his face.
“Thought I was bullshitting?” he says. He puts on his black shades and a microphone headset he found in a RadioShack dumpster, which is not plugged into anything, so it’s only for appearance. He hops out of the car and dives right into his routine.
“Every little step I take. . . . You will be there. . . . Every little step I make. . . . We’ll be together.”
I can’t believe my eyes. The senior crowd is going crazy, or about as crazy as a bunch of seniors can get, depending what medication they’re on, and their hands are in the air about as high as they can lift their arms given some of their physical limitations. And some of them look actually crazy, as evidenced by the one woman ballroom dancing with the plastic tree outside of the mall entrance. I couldn’t stay for any more, so I peeled off before his dance solo.
Finally made it to work. Since everyone actually started an hour and fifteen minutes ago, vacant parking spots are scarce. Even my often-frequented visitor’s spots were taken. I am a visitor; it’s not like I live here. Anyway, I had to scavenge through rows and rows of neutral-colored mid-sized sedans and minivans in the back of the parking lot for an open space. I have to park so far away from the entrance that I’m winded as I approach the door. My company’s building sits in a campus of eight other identical cold gray buildings. It’s the middle of a fierce northeast winter, but the building’s appearance looks frigid in the middle of July. The grounds are well kept—in my opinion, too well kept. It seems like landscapers are mowing the lawn or digging up some bushes to put in new bushes or shrubs every other day during the spring, but today they have salt duty to clear the pathways into the building. I wouldn’t mind a nice slip on some ice to get out of work today. Each company has a flag on its building, which I always found quite odd. It’s as if they’re all independent nations. I wonder what would happen if a corporate war broke out for turf in the complex. Would there be mayhem in the parking lot? Brawls with staplers and three-hole punches as weapons?
As I walk past the brand-new sculpted sign with our new and undoubtedly expensive Schuster, Thompkins, and Dykes logo, which isn’t much different from the old logo except a snazzy underline under the three names (probably the reason I didn’t get a raise), I realize I forgot my ID badge at home. It’s definitely not on my belt loop, and I refuse to wear the badge around my neck. I gotta have some sort of dignity, instead of walking around all day with my name tied to my neck like a third-grader on a field trip to the aquarium. I probably left it right on the coffee table. Fucking Cliff got me off track with his bullshit this morning.
Now, I’m going to have to deal with the security guard at the entrance who acts like he’s guarding the Oval Office. First of all, I’m not sure how qualified he is to be a security guard at the front entrance of a professional office. He’s young and overweight, so that goes to show he doesn’t make great decisions at an early age and lacks self-control. Second, what type of training does he have to defend us from anything? What if some Hans Gruber terrorists storm into this place? What will he do? Unless he knows aikido or some other fat-friendly martial art like Steven Segal. He might even be too out of breath to sound an alarm. Third, his work shoes are a pair of Crocs. Yes, a fat young guy in Crocs protects our building. Crocs are one step above furry bunny slippers on the non-fear-inducing footwear-choices depth chart. Those aren’t professional or uniform shoes. How does he get away with that? And he doesn’t even have the wherewithal to have a black or navy pair of Crocs so they can sort of blend in with his pants. He goes with neon-green Crocs.
“Sorry, I don’t have my badge.”
“Where is it?” he says.
“Home, I guess.”
He lets out a big sigh, but I don’t know if he’s upset at me for not having my security badge or if that’s the normal way his lungs desperately manage to get oxygen that’s trapped underneath all of his layers of fat skin.
“What’s your name?”
“Kevin. Kevin Taylor.”
He types on his keyboard. It sounds like he’s hitting way more keys than it takes to spell my name. I’m silently questioning whether he knows how to use a computer. This marks the first time I’ve ever witnessed someone sweat profusely solely from typing.
“Sorry, no Kevin Taylor in here. You sure that’s your name?”
The stink eye suffices as a reply to his moronic question.
“Can I see some ID?”
With my face revealing my increasing frustration, I reach into my pocket and pull out my wallet and slam my driver’s license down on his desk.
“Maybe your badge is in your wallet? You might want to check in there,” he says.
“You’re right, it is in my wallet. Jousting wits with a sloth is something I like to do for fun.”
It appears sarcasm and the feeling that I’m irate weren’t a part of his flashlight-cop training, because he looks at me as if he’s waiting for me to pull it out.
“You know you should wear your badge on this necklace like so,” he says. He shows me his security badge nestled in his buxom man cleavage, jettisoning from his policeman light-blue short-sleeve shirt. Maybe he thinks if he looks like a cop he’ll actually get treated like a cop. That has to be the rationale for his outfit, but I’ve never met a police officer with a fanny pack or the aforementioned Crocs. So he kinda ruins it.
He reads my license and looks up at me to make sure the picture matches my face. He does that three times. And to his dismay, it’s me, even though I didn’t have my current fuck-you expression on my face at the DMV that day.
“See, I’m showing a Kevin Taylorr in here.”
“And that’s me,” I say.
“No. You’re not hearing me correctly. Taylorr, with two r’s. The picture does look exactly like the one on my screen, except with glasses. But that can also be a coincidence.”
I lean over his desk to look at his screen. I forgot I wore glasses for my company ID photo in an attempt to look smarter.
“Obviously someone made a typo when entering my name into the system. It was probably you, you fucking idiot.”
The guard reaches for his fanny pack. “Am I going to have to get backup?” he says.
I can only imagine who’s backing him up. A man with two baby arms in a wheelchair flinging water balloons filled with Yoo-hoo? I see I’m getting nowhere with him, and this whole interaction compounds on the prior stress from my lateness. I look around and recognize a woman passing by.
“Barbara, can you help me?”
Barbara, mid-forties, short boyish hair, wearing dress slacks and a horrible-looking Christmas sweater with reindeer and bells that actually jingle when she moves, comes over to the security desk.
“Can you please tell him my name?” I ask her. She looks confused. “I forgot my badge.”
“Kevin,” she tells the guard.
“And my last name?”
“Taylor. Kevin Taylor.”
“And will you vouch for him?” he says.
“Sure . . . I guess.”
“Sign here.” He slides a clipboard over to her. She signs the log, and I follow. The guard hands me a guest badge.
“Don’t forget to return it at the end of the day. I don’t want to have to look for you tomorrow morning or file a police report,” he says as I walk away.
He’s serious, but I’m not responding any more to my early-morning tormentor.
Most people who are late to work go directly to their desk when they get in. I guess I’m the exception. The first logical move for me is to head to the cafeteria, where I gather from the wafted scent of bacon that they’re still serving breakfast. I did finish my bowl of Fruity Pebbles this morning, but that seems like it was hours ago. It actually was hours ago. And Cliff interrupted me halfway through. So I didn’t enjoy the full experience without disturbance; I need something else. As soon as I walk into the cafeteria, I see my closest work friend, Jake McMahon—two years younger than me; tall; women find him good-looking, especially the slutty Hooters waitress types; always flashing a sly smile; and wearing a suit, tie, and expensive freshly shined Italian shoes, as opposed to my usual khaki-slacks-and-nondescript-plaid-shirt ensemble. He pays more attention to those types of things. Always wanting to discuss skin products and new colognes, even though he knows I have little to absolutely zero interest in that sort of stuff. He’s over at the breakfast station chatting up one of the newest servers, a Latina named Maria. Although he’s white, his playboy nature crosses all color boundaries.
“Come on, two extra pancakes,” Jake says.
She looks around to make sure no one hears him. “I can’t. I’ll get in trouble.”
“No one is going to know.”
“I can get fired. I need this job.”
Jake puts his hand on the counter to ease her worries. He probably read about that technique in a Maxim or one of his other semi-douchey monthly men’s magazines. “You think I’d let your boss fire someone with such a sweet smile?” She could get fired and, even if Jake had any pull with her boss, he probably wouldn’t even notice she was gone until he wanted extra pancakes again. Not to mention, if they hired someone who looks as good as or slightly better than her he wouldn’t give a fuck.
Maria blushes at his seemingly kind words. She plops three extra pancakes onto his plate.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” he says as he walks away after caressing her face.
“Papi, are you gonna call me tonight?” she whispers.
Jake stops for a split second, because he does hear her. But he keeps on walking without responding. She goes back to serving the next customer, believing he will call.
“When are you gonna stop messing with that poor girl?”
He turns around, not knowing I was right behind him the whole time. “Hey, give me a break. I only mess with her for two reasons: head and pancakes . . . both with a lot of syrup.” He smiles. We both laugh. He always has a way of phrasing things. I had no idea they were fucking yet. Thought he was just getting free shit. I should’ve assumed it anyway with his track record.
“Took you long enough to get here. I thought you were calling out again and I’d have to actually pay for my breakfast,” he continues.
“Use me much? Glad to see you care about my well-being. I could’ve been in a ditch somewhere fighting for my life after a horrific accident with a tractor trailer.”
“Or glued to the couch, playing Xbox. Which is the likelier scenario,” he says.
“Touché.”
I grab an apple from the fruit section as we get in the register line.
“You’re not even going to eat that,” he says.
“It’s all about the principle.
“He’s with me,” I say to the checkout clerk while pointing to Jake as we walk out without paying.
Getting free food at the cafeteria for life is my most successful venture since starting at STD. I challenged the company, saying they were causing a monopoly on food in the building because they were forcing me to pay for food in the cafeteria. I simply explained to them how they could not guarantee if I placed my lunch in the community refrigerator no one would put boogers, pubes, or other foreign objects in it when I’m not watching. It was too tough for them to rebut. So after two long months of sending daily e-mails to the corporate office, they gave in and created this little free-lunch card for me, like I’m in second grade.
“What’d you get into last night?” I say.
“Had to go to my tailor’s and pick up some new suits I got altered. What do you think?” Jake strikes a few generic model poses, while I laugh and shake my head. “Hey, you gotta look the part. You know I can’t go the Dockers route. It has to be GQ.” He stops posing. “What’d you do?”
I pause and try to remember. Last night feels like so long ago. “Nothing really. I started to read this new book, but then I wasn’t really feeling the first two paragraphs, so I put that down. I picked up an issue of Newsweek and flipped though that for a few minutes—”
“That subscription is such a waste. They sit in a pile underneath your coffee table until you throw them away. Why’d you get them?” he says.
I say nothing.
“Now I remember why you got that subscription. Some man rang your bell one Saturday afternoon, selling subscriptions to fix the roof of his church. Didn’t you get a four-year subscription? Didn’t even know they had those. That shit is like a car lease,” he says.
I was hoping he forgot that story. Jake has a tendency for remembering all of my embarrassing mishaps. But that wasn’t the only reason, just the biggest reason why I got Newsweek. As I was approaching my thirtieth birthday, I thought it was about time I kept up with current events and world affairs. Makes good for dinner conversation or simply shooting the shit with strangers. Not being lost when other adults are talking seemed like a step I needed to make. Who knew I wouldn’t actually want to read them?
“You lead an exciting life, my man,” he says.
“That’s not all. I got a phone call from an Army recruiter. So we talked for a little while. About forty-five minutes or so.”
“About what?”
“He was telling me about all the great things the Army can do for my life. He must’ve had the wrong number, because I think . . . well, now I know he thought I was in high school. As soon as I told him I was thirty-two, he got really upset, muttered something about eating camel flesh during Desert Storm. I didn’t mean to lead him on,” I say. Jake laughs hysterically. “He said he’ll be waiting for me to come home tonight. Said he was gonna trace my number and come find me. Will he follow through? Who knows, but what kind of selling tactic is that to a potential recruit? I mean, if I was seventeen, I definitely wouldn’t trust him with my future goals and aspirations.”
A loud voice breaks up our conversation about Army recruiting procedures: “You doggie dudes came out for breakfast and didn’t holla at a brotha?”
Jake and I turn around. It’s Floyd Grafton, a late-fifties portly white man with peppered gray hair, wearing a navy-blue pinstriped three-pieced suit. But more importantly, he’s the president of the entire Northeastern Operations at Schuster, Thompkins, and Dykes (our office is the only office in the northeast).
Floyd thinks we’d come get him for breakfast, because he believes we’re a lot closer than we actually are. He’s our boss, so we have to be nice to him, but it ends there. And his pitiful attempts to seem urban when talking to me are a bit off-putting and a tad racist.
“We were going to come and scoop you up, but we thought you’d be busy this morning,” Jake says.
I nod my head in agreement to build a unified front of deceit. We gotta keep him on our good side, even if his behavior, for the most part, is disconcerting.
“Good point, J-Smoove, you know I’ve been planning like a muthafucka for the quarterly town-hall meeting today,” Floyd says.
He never calls us by our regular names. It’s always a grossly unhip nickname he’s made up and no one else follows. It would help if the names were consistent, but they change daily and he never remembers them. I believe he talks to all of the young minority employees that way, and to Jake because he’s always seen with minorities.
Pointing to me, Floyd says, “And I have big news for you today, K-Deazy.”
“Can’t wait.” Neither of us knew there was a town hall today, and I don’t do a decent job of faking it.
“I got that new Hov album last night, and boy is it banging,” Floyd says. “Played it in my Bentley on full blast while driving in this morning. It’s got me juiced!”
I can tell he’s not lying by the devilish red hue of his face. And as ethnic as he’s always attempting to sound, his age and culture always end up showing, and he uses a word like juiced. It’s like cornball old-white-dude Tourette’s.
“You had the new Bose speakers bumping?” Jake says.
“You know how I do Jake Boogie. And I gotta thank you again for setting me up with your car stereo installation guy. He hooked it up!,” Floyd says.
“Anytime,” Jake says.
“I was using the song for inspiration for the quarterly meeting today. Hov freestyles all his rhymes when he gets in the recording booth, so I’m gonna freestyle my presentation,” Floyd says.
“Nice,” I say.
“You hear it yet?” he asks me.
I have no idea what or whom he’s talking about. After all these years of working for him, he still doesn’t realize I’m strictly an alternative-rock guy. It’s simply my personal taste and a product of growing up in the suburbs. If he wants to talk about Ben Folds, I’m game. All about the Benjamins? Crickets. I don’t know shit about, or play, basketball, but ask me about the English Premier League and I won’t stop talking. My only response is to nod in agreement; he senses I’m lost.
“You know, Hov? Jiggaman? Jay-Z?” he continues.
The last name he said is familiar. I don’t know the other two guys, though. But as I’m drowning to find a response, Jake throws me a life jacket. “Kev isn’t up on that, but I heard the album. And you’re right, it’s off the hook.” Bucking all stereotypes, two white men discuss rap music while a black man stands confused. They exchange a pound, which looks ever so awkward coming from a fifty-year-old gray-haired white man dressed like a modern version of the Monopoly man.
Our bullshit conversation is soon interrupted as Chloe Ramsey approaches. A tall blond with long toned legs peeking out of a black business pencil skirt, her glasses making her look librarian sexy. Not to be confused with a porno actress playing the role of kinky librarian for a scene. There’s not excessive cleavage or boobs smashed into her blouse, but she walks the fine line up to that point and teases it. She looks at that fine line and begs for it to sexually harass her. Then, saunters away. All three of us are thinking the same thing, because we all know she’s attractive. And you kind of get that feeling when you’re with a group of men and we’re all on the same page about a woman. If someone told me she was the best-looking woman to ever graduate from Cornell, I couldn’t argue, even without proof.
Floyd clears his throat as I bask in her fresh citrus-smelling perfume.
“Hi, fellas,” she says. Always chipper like a Reese Witherspoon rom-com character.
“Good morning.”
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“You look awfully nice today, Ms. Ramsey,” Floyd says.
He never calls me by my last name. Why can’t she get her own ridiculous nickname?
“Thank you, sir. I got up extra early today. Couldn’t get much sleep in anticipation for your town hall. I’m not sure how you’re going to be able to top last quarter’s. You know, sometimes I still chuckle to myself when I think about your dolphin joke.” She makes a crazy facial gesture that must’ve been a part of the joke.
Floyd grins. “All I can do is try.” He’s eating this bullshit up. What dolphin joke? Has there ever been a funny joke that included a dolphin?
“I only wanted to say hello. I have to get back to my desk and finish some work before the meeting starts.” Chloe leaves the group, as all three of us watch her walk away. Eventually Jake and I stop looking. We don’t want to look like total office pervs. But Floyd doesn’t get the message and still stares at her. Must be one of the perks of being the man in charge.
“We should get going too,” Jake says. This snaps Floyd out of his Chloe’s-ass-induced daze.
“Yes . . . yes, that’s a good idea. I’ll check you guys out on the flip side,” he says.
Jake and I disperse back to our working areas. “I gotta go eat my food before this meeting starts. Come and get me before you go,” he says.
We don’t have the same job. He’s a technical systems analyst, so he doesn’t sit by me. The techies have a section all by themselves on this floor, but closer to the elevators. I once sent an e-mail on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to the entire office stating techies, administrators, and customer service all sitting in their own areas was indeed segregation. That’s not what Martin would’ve wanted, and I questioned if they were going to have water fountains with signs on them next. Only two people got the joke. Jake didn’t go to a four-year college like me; he went to one of those technical schools that beat you over the head with their commercials about learning a skill post–high school. It must’ve worked, because he makes significantly more than me. Fancy suit versus wrinkle-resistant Dockers.
Our office is set up pretty strangely. Everything, from the walls to the furniture, is either gray or white. I’ve never been inside of a mental institution, but I can imagine the color scheme is close. Each cubicle has a low wall and there’s nothing impeding your line of vision. So you can clearly see not only the person sitting in the cubicle attached across from you but everyone all the way to the back wall of the entire floor. Have to pick your nose? You better duck underneath your desk, or everyone will see it. Either that or be a midget. And we do have one of those. They claim the office was designed this way in order to endorse the feelings of community and solidarity. It’s more like no privacy for eight hours of your life each day. Must be some type of European concept. The ceilings are extremely high, and the lustrous fluorescent bulbs make the lightly colored desks and white walls glow like something out of a science-fiction movie. If someone from ten years ago came out of a time machine and into our office, they’d think they’ve been transported into the far distant future instead of into a shitty office complex in suburban New Jersey full of miserable people only a mere three presidential terms later.
What did Floyd mean by having big news for me? I wonder if it’s the promotion. I think that’s what he meant. Being in the dark is killing me. I don’t think I want to go to the meeting now. But I have to. He’s already seen me, and he knows I’m here. I think it has to be something good. Floyd wouldn’t play me like that. We’re friends. I mean, in his mind we’re friends, and that’s what matters.
I get to my desk and see it’s exactly as I left it when I escaped the office yesterday. I think the cleaning crew refuses to fix it up now. I throw my jacket over the wall of my cubicle. Then, I stop for a minute. I look over at the cubicle next to me. I see a young man in a suit who looks no older than fifteen.
I look over at Barbara, a forty-something chain smoker with the voice of an aged Delta-blues singer, who sits across from me, and ask, “Who’s this?”
She gets up, wearing one of her trademark free-flowing silky outfits that makes her look like she’s going to an Egyptian slumber party at a pharaoh’s house. “Don’t know, why don’t you ask him?” she responds.
The young man stands up and extends a hand to me. “Good morning, my name is—”
I cut him off and go back to Barbara. “Where’s Earl?”
“Gone.”
“Gone?”
“To a new job over at Zincon,” she says.
Get the fuck outta here. I applied to Zincon. They didn’t even call me back. He better not have gotten the Pension Data Manager position.
“Do you know what he’s doing over there?” I ask.
“Managing data or something,” she says.
I plop down in my seat and let that new piece of information sink in. The boy-band auditioner, who’s still standing with his hand extended and a huge smile on his face, takes this as his cue to sit down as well.
“He got a new job, and I didn’t know anything about it?” I say. “Earl? Slow Earl? I-trained-Earl Earl? Dumb-as-shit Earl? What the fuck?”
“I don’t know why he didn’t tell you, considering how happy you are for him,” she says. She always has the habit of needling me when I’m emotionally vulnerable. “We had a going-away party for him and everything,” she continues.
That’s what that was? Now, I’m glad I didn’t go. Even gladder than I was before, when I didn’t know what it was for and didn’t go. That piece of shit.
About two hundred employees sit in the Americas Room, the biggest conference room in the building, on the third floor. The room is only used for really big meetings. And it’s two rooms, the North America and South America rooms, minus the big divider in the middle. Attribute that to the clever genius of the planners of the building. They also came up with the idea of naming each floor after a continent and every room after a country. This frequently leads to one STD employee coming up to another and asking questions such as “Do you know where Japan is?” Awkward, but everything here is awkward.
The seats are in rows like a movie theater, except this is a feature absolutely no one wants to see. Think, watching a video of yourself being mauled by a pride of lions. People typically sit in the same sections for these meetings. At the front of the room is Floyd, waiting for everyone to get seated so he can begin. In the first row is Mort; he works in my department, but that’s not the interesting part about him. He’s either a dwarf or a midget. I always get it mixed up, and it pisses him off. He needs special help all around the office. Drives a little scooter around the building most times. But then there are the occasions he walks, but it’s easy not to see him. I once almost kicked him square in the face. But can you blame me? You don’t expect someone to be three feet tall, or whatever he is, right around a corner when you’re rushing to the bathroom. Come to think of it, I hope Floyd doesn’t give him the promotion. I mean, he’s always in the front of these meetings. How can Floyd not feel bad for him? I don’t even know how he’s effective in his job, with his little hands typing on his little scaled-down keyboard. He better not get the promotion over me. Anyway, I always sit in the back. Sometimes I nod off. But now sitting in the back will work in my favor, because Floyd’s giving me good news. And I’ll get a good walk up to the front of the room.
They’ve brought a few refreshments and set them up on a table as soon as you walk in. Before I take my seat, I notice Chloe viewing the crackers and cheese.
“What do you think about today’s meeting?” I say. I think I caught her off-guard from the way she looks at me.
“Oh . . . um, yes, I think it should be quite good,” she says.
She’s not giving me much, but I press a little more. “You know that management position in our area hasn’t been filled yet?”
She smiles. “Of course I know. It’s been open for exactly seven months. I’ve been waiting to hear about it. I hope today is when we find out.”
“Think you have a shot at it?” I say.
She looks around. “Sorry, looks like it’s about to start. I’m going to find a seat.” She scampers off.
All the employees sit with the same dazed look on their faces while Floyd gives his PowerPoint presentation. The only twist to the meeting that would get the listeners’ attention would be the mention of layoffs. If that were the case, the room would smell like perspiration and desperation and the refreshments would be left uneaten. But, for once, there are no such rumors, resulting in everyone being at ease. We sit and watch various charts and graphs of the company’s goals and expectations for the quarter. Although, if we meet said financial goals, it never translates into more money for the workers. So why bother?
My ass now feels as if I accidentally sat on a hypodermic needle filled with Novocain. I’ve been sitting here for about forty-five minutes already, and these normally go an hour. I positioned my cellphone on my lap so I can check the time without being too obvious. The only thing that’s keeping me awake is the occasional wisecracks from Jake. I can tell the meeting is coming to a close, because the PowerPoint is displaying the announcements for the quarter. First, Floyd brings attention the employees whose anniversaries with the company occurred in the last quarter. He starts off honoring the employees celebrating five years, then ten years, and so on. They stand and each grouping gets a round of increasing applause. Floyd ends with a man who’s been with the company for forty-five years, and he gets the biggest reaction from the room. I sit here wondering if these people even should be admired. What honor is it in staying in the same place for more than ten presidential administrations? I feel it teeters more on the pathetic side of things. What was the business even like when this relic started? When did the abacus give way to the calculator? Did they all dress up in suits with fedoras like in black-and-white movies? How was it when the first computer showed up in the office? Did all of his co-workers stand around in awe when the first Post-it note was used, admiring the way the yellow piece of paper stayed affixed to the wall of the cubicle? I hope I never ever get to that stage in my career.
“I want to do something different today,” Floyd says. “I want to talk about the people who currently make this company thrive. The people who’re going to take us to the next era of Schuster, Thompkins, and Dykes’s history. Who is going to write the new chapter? Who is going to be manning the ship?”
This is it. My coronation.
“The new pension operations manager, or POM, because you know we love to use acronyms here . . .” says Floyd with a snicker. There are scattered, hopefully forced laughs in the audience. “. . . will be Aida O’Connell.”
I place my hands on the plastic arms of my chair and propel myself out of my seat. A few people’s eyes shoot up at me in a way that makes me realize what I actually heard, and my name wasn’t called. I try to play it off by stretching, but the humiliation has already been done.
I don’t know exactly how old Aida is, but it’s anywhere from seventy to one hundred ten. She always wears dated Laura Ingalls Little House on the Prairie dresses. She doesn’t realize her name was called either. She’s sitting there near the far wall, looking out of the window and counting cars in the parking lot below, wearing an outfit that looks like she lifted it from Betsy Ross’s closet. The woman sitting beside her taps her on the shoulder. Then, she follows the tap by whispering into her ear. A big grin appears on Aida’s face. You would think we’ve just told her World War II was over and the troops were coming home. She slowly shuffles her boney frame up to Floyd at the front of the room. She begins to cry as everyone gives her a standing ovation. The only things missing from this scene are confetti and balloons falling from the ceiling. She’s so frail, that party favor combo dropping down might knock her unconscious.
I turn to Jake and mouth the words what the fuck? I probably could’ve screamed it and nobody would’ve heard me in here. He shakes his head.
“I know you want to rush out of here and get back to work. But I do have one more important announcement,” Floyd says, hushing the crowd. “The fun isn’t done yet.”
Jake elbows me in the arm. My demeanor slightly changes.
“Kevin Taylor, come on up here,” Floyd says.
I hop up out of my chair even faster than I did the first time, but this time, when I get on my feet, I add a little quick spin.
“I knew it, I knew it. It’s my time. My time to shine,” I say as I prance up the aisle like a Southern Baptist preacher, to the front of the room with Floyd. I’m smacking people’s hands along the way. If I knew Floyd was up for it, I would’ve given him one of those jumping high-fives, like we were in an eighties chewing-gum commercial. I stand there with a big Kool-Aid smile on my face, like a contestant on the Price Is Right waiting to find out what I won.
“Wow, he’s the most enthusiastic person ever in one of my meetings,” Floyd says.
“Hey, I knew it would be a special day when I woke up today,” I say. “I knew it.” I pump my fist into the air. Some would think I’m laying it on pretty thick, but I’ve been waiting for this for years. A wonderful feeling courses through my body. I’ve never accomplished anything like this. I’ve never won. Never got what I wanted. I can’t act like I’ve been here before, because I haven’t.
“We also have a new employee starting today. Eddie Kaufman, come on down here,” Floyd says.
The young man who was sitting in Earl’s seat comes to the front of the room. The pure joy on my face turns to confusion.
Floyd continues, “With all of our new employees, we need one of our most experienced employees to help them navigate the ins and outs of our complicated business operations. For Eddie, that person will be Kevin. Kevin will be the first mentor in our inaugural STD Mentor Program. He’s an ideal candidate because he’s been at the helm of the same position for seven years now. If anyone knows what a pension administrator has to do, it’ll be Kevin. He’ll serve as Eddie’s flashlight to help guide him. He’ll be Eddie’s machete to chop down the jungle.”
If I was indeed a machete, I’d stab both of them with myself right this moment. Floyd has to be joking with me. He’s a prankster at times, but the more I wait, it doesn’t seem like this is one of those times. Everybody was looking at me excitedly, but now it’s a totally different look on their faces.
“Eddie will shadow his mentor. Do everything the learned professional does, in order to make himself an efficient employee with Schuster, Thompkins, and Dykes.”
This little shit stands right next to me and attempts to put his arm around me. I’m too shocked even to fight off the arm of my new force-fed Siamese twin, like I was just slipped a roofie by a date rapist. And that’s the last thing I remember about today’s town-hall meeting.
My first inclination is to quit, but I need this job for the time being, until I can find another. I’d like to go into the men’s room and cool down, but that never works. Someone’s always in there. It could be Creepy Chuck following me in there. That’d do the opposite of cooling me down. Or worse, the Booger Bandit might’ve struck again. I don’t know who it is, but there’s an employee, presumably a man, who’s always putting boogers on the wall facing the urinals. And they’re not normal-sized boogers either. These suckers are huge and sometimes bloody. And they always sneak up on you. Because you’re taking a piss, and then you notice the big booger is there, staring you dead in the face. And you can’t look away; it’s kind of like an eclipse or a car accident. And that’d only make me more furious than I already am. I don’t know what would possess a grown-ass man to do such a thing in a public place, especially a professional man. But they must hate this job as much as or more than I do. That’s one unhappy bastard.
I’ve never been disrespected in front of the whole company like that before. That’s why I’m back at my desk; I don’t want my emotions take over and to make a hasty decision. I see people walk by my desk, unsure whether to congratulate me or say they’re sorry. Now, I have to be a mentor to someone I don’t even care for. I refuse. So I’m gonna handle it like I do all other tasks I don’t agree with: completely disregard it.
Jake is the only one who doesn’t fully realize I want to be left alone.
“That’s so fucked-up, bro,” he says.
I don’t respond.
“What are you gonna do about it?” he continues. “I hope you’re not gonna sit there and take it. Are you?”
I know he will not go away until I say something to him. I figure if I say anything, he might simply go away. “What else can I do?” I say.
My words seem to make him dig in even further. “You need to take action, man. Fuck that shit.”
“There’s nothing I can do,” I say.
“Go into his office and tell him how you’re feeling right now. Tell him you ain’t gonna keep taking him fucking you over like this,” he says.
Jake is pretty adamant, and most times I would take this as him talking shit. But he has a valid point. I should stand up for myself, or else Floyd will keep passing me over. But what I should do and what I’m gonna do are two different things. I‘m not gonna get into it with Floyd. Maybe this is a test and he wants me to take charge.
“You’re acting like a real bitch right now, all passive and shit. You should be fuming. And he needs to know it,” he says.
I’m getting increasingly madder the more Jake emphasizes how bad I got screwed. He’s describing exactly how I feel. It’s really like Floyd came into my house and stole something from me, then sold it right in front of my face. “I deserve that promotion. And on top of that, he turns me into a babysitter for this jerk-off,” I say as I point to Eddie, who can hear our entire conversation. “I’m tired of them stepping over me.”
“He basically spat in your face, bro,” adds Jake.
“Exactly.”
“Wipe it off.” He hands me his lavender Italian silk handkerchief to wipe off the imaginary spit. “Go in there and let him know you ain’t having it.”
I rise up with a new sense of purpose and storm off, while Jake looks on as if he’s just sent his son off to fight the town bully in order to get his bike back.
I stand outside of Floyd’s office, with all of my emotions brimming inside of me. I contemplate kicking the door down, but settle for releasing all of my frustration on the unsuspecting door with three thunderous knocks. I don’t even wait for him to answer. Or maybe he did answer, and it was muffled by my pounding heartbeat. I barge in like a one-man SWAT team ready to break up a hostage situation. I’m met with the loud bass thumping of Floyd’s music. I’ve seen this before. When he has a good day or is feeling really positive about a presentation, he blasts music in celebration. It’s so loud he doesn’t recognize I’m in here amid his arm-waving and shouting at the top of his lungs.
Floyd yells: “I call shots—like a Boss. . . . Stack knots—like a Boss. . . . Cop drops—like a Boss. . . . Paid tha cost—like a Boss. . . . When I floss—like a Boss.”
He makes a horrible attempt to cover up his embarrassment when he notices me in the room with him. “K-Deezy, what up, my playa?”
“Don’t start with that,” I reply.
He has a blank look on his face.
“K-Deezy, K-Dawg, Special K, K-Smoove, K-Slice. All of that. My name is Kevin,” I continue.
“Okay, didn’t know it got to you.”
“That, among other things,” I say.
He realizes this is unlike any other jovial visit from me when we can shoot the shit about last night’s episode of Entourage. “Well, sit down. We can talk about it.”
I look at the chair and think about sitting.
“I’ll stand.” I don’t want him to have any kind of advantage over me, and I want to harness all of this anger I have right now. Relaxing might take a bit of the edge off. “Aida? Let’s be serious. Why’d you give my promotion to a corpse?”
“I know you’re upset,” he says. “But it had to be done. I don’t know how to explain it to you,” he says.
“Give it a shot. Help me understand, ‘cuz from where I’m standing, it looks like you screwed me.”
“Listen, I wanted to promote you, but even though I’m the boss, I only have so much leeway. You’re a tough sell to the rest of upper management right now.”
Floyd’s words are like a fire hose to the face. I haven’t felt this way since my dad told me professional wrestling wasn’t real. See, I know I’m not a great worker and basically don’t give a fuck about this job or the company. But I didn’t know management knew I didn’t give a fuck. I always thought I hid it pretty well with my smoke-and-mirrors approach.
“‘Tough sell’?” Still doesn’t mean I’m willing to give up my charade. I’m a ride this bitch out till the wheels come off.
“Not everyone . . . well, mostly everyone doesn’t believe you’re suited for the job. And you can’t really blame them, with the way you’ve performed.”
“‘Performed’? I’m one of the best employees out there. I bust my ass every single day for this company. Sure, I march to the beat of my own drum, but that shouldn’t be used against me. My out-of-the-box thinking should be viewed as one of my merits.”
Floyd doesn’t look like he agrees with me. He rifles through the piles on his desk and pulls out a thick red folder that’s held together with several pink rubber bands. Then, he holds it up and shows it to me.
“And that is?”
“Your file,” he says.
“Didn’t know I had so many positive recommendations.”
He opens it up and starts reading from its contents. “You often turn down work that you don’t want to do. Citing, and I quote, ‘That’s not in my job description.’”
“My role has a very specific outline of my duties and responsibilities, which are clearly outlined in the STD employee manual on the company’s webpage. It’s not my fault others want me to step out of my role and do their tasks or something. That’s not what I’m supposed to be doing. I should be commended for knowing the company’s rules and not allowing myself to be taken advantage of.”
“Because of you we had to fix the computers to ensure nobody would change the clocks on them in order to leave early,” he says.
“That’s me helping with a process improvement.”
“Three times you’ve tried to collect workmen’s comp,” he says.
“I know it’s hard for you to believe, in your cushy office, but out there”—I bug my eyes out for emphasis—“it’s a war zone. And sometimes the workplace isn’t safe. Like the time I slipped on water and tweaked my back.”
“You were having a water fight in the men’s bathroom,” he says.
“Witnesses. Do you have witnesses?”
He holds up a piece of paper. “Yes.”
Touché.
“You argued the monitors were turning you blind.”
I laugh because I forgot about that one. “That would’ve worked. I should’ve committed the whole way and got the Seeing Eye dog instead of only the cane.”
“You argued for paid pregnancy leave,” he says.
“Why not paternity leave? That rule is fundamentally sexist to the very core of humanity.”
“You don’t even have kids!”
“And I won’t until they amend the policy. I’m still mulling over taking that one to the Supreme Court, so I’m going to stay mum on it for now. Quite frankly, I’ve probably said too much as is.”
He can’t have much more in there. I think that sums up everything he could have against me.
Or so I thought, because he continues, “You have extremely low evaluation scores from your peers. Managers say you’re ‘below expectations across the board.’ Even subpar customer-approval scores.”
“No way. That’s a lie. I know for a fact I have a few good customer-call reviews.”
“I’ll give you that,” he says and smiles. “But only when you have friends call in and fill out the survey for you. And even then, you’re only getting average scores.”
I need better friends.
“You barely talk to anybody in the office and never have any good input in meetings. Most of the time you’re completely silent in them,” he says.
“What do you mean? I’ve had some great one-liners in meetings. Those don’t count now?”
He says nothing.
“And don’t forget my awesome suggestions to improve workers’ morale in the office.”
“I’m not talking about suggesting we have freestyle-dance battles every Friday before lunch between departments to see who can leave at noon,” he says.
“Everyone knows that was vetoed because people knew I’d win. But how about Spandex Day? Or Robot Day?”
He cracks a smile. “Well, I did like Robot Day.” He does the robot dance around his office. “See, I’m not your enemy, but we have to prove to the others you’re up to the task. That’s why I created this mentorship for you. By succeeding with Eddie, you’re guaranteed to get the next promotion in three months. Everyone’s pushing for Chloe, but I make the final call. And I can hang my hat on your mentoring and get you the job.”
“I need money now. I’m not sure if I can wait.” He gives me a look to tell me that’s the best he can do. “Okay, here’s my suggestion, because that is what I do. I tap into my brain and great ideas seep out. You know how we get paid every two weeks?”
“Yes,” he says.
“How about if you pay me daily?” He just looks at me. “Weekly?”
“Are you okay?” he says. “Gambling debts?”
“No, bills. I got a lot of bills.”
“We all do, K-butta. Penthouses have bills. Big ones. Much bigger than small houses.”
“Try one-bedroom apartment,” I say.
“Really? One bedroom? What’s that like?” he says.
I see I’m getting nowhere with him. “All I have to do is show this kid the ropes. Make sure he doesn’t fuck up, and I got it? You’re sure about that?” Now all of my hopes and dreams have been linked to the idea of helping someone I do not know. It seems easy, but so hard at the same time.
“You have my word,” he says. And we shake on it.