“We need the quarterly numbers on Ramapo Industries,” Kenny, his manager, says, standing in his office doorway.
“Okay. I’ll have them before the weekend.” It is Thursday afternoon, so Kenny won’t have to wait long.
“And the year-to-date projections based on cash flow for Constantine. How you coming on that?”
“That I have for you now,” he says, digging around on his desk and finding a folder.
“My man, Hardy,” Kenny says.
“Paper copy, and I’ll e-mail you the file,” he says, handing over the folder.
“Good deal,” Kenny says, and leaves.
Later, he is heading to the kitchen for a coffee and comes upon a group of five people from his department. Claudia and Beth, Tom and Grant, and Kenny. They shift and get a little quiet when they see him, but he’s heard what they are talking about: their plans for the evening. He knows he makes them uncomfortable. He is a bit older than most of them, maybe that is why. Or maybe it’s the hair, the eyebrows, the alopecia universalis from which he suffers. All the hair on his body started falling out in clumps in his early twenties right when basic training ended. The doctors couldn’t explain it. It was some sort of immune system failure, they said, and suggested it could have been brought on by stress. It was right around the time of Mother’s illness and death, and grief, they said, could be a trigger. What they didn’t recognize was that it was basic itself, with all the talk of killing and the shooting and bayoneting and hand-to-hand, that had lit a magnesium fire in him, and that checking his urges was the stressor. If he’d only recognized what was happening and started in on his life’s work sooner, it would have abated, and his whole body wouldn’t have become smooth. But it had happened the way it had happened, as all things did. Regardless, the younger set these days expects everything and everybody to be perfect, and turn away from anyone who isn’t.
After a moment Kenny clears his throat. “Colts game at eight twenty, NFL Thursday-night edition down at Scotty’s. Are you in?”
“Thank you, Kenny, guys, for the invite, but I am not in. I’ve got some stuff to do tonight.”
“All right, Hardy,” Kenny says. If there is relief in Kenny’s eyes, he can’t see it. “Next time.”
“Indeed,” he says, and goes to fix his coffee. He watches them break up and go their separate ways. He does have something to do. He has a busy night ahead of him.