Uprush
The name was etched into each of two frosted glass doors. And, just as in the old days, it leaned forward, future-ward. At least this had been left unchanged.
Had anything else?
He pushed through the doors and got his answer.
For the waiting area he had entered bore absolutely no resemblance to the converted tenement in which he had worked and laughed and kibitzed for nine-and-a-half years. Across a broad, blond floor, glass coffee tables and leather couches mingled, while along perfectly painted walls, art-deco sconces threw off broad fans of light.
And in place of the dusty towers of books and magazines that had so typified the old Uprush headquarters, there stood only a single bookcase holding six or seven magazines. This was the main thing he noticed, as well as the hardest to look at. Because even now, after so many drugstore visits, he still found it difficult to see the name presented like that. On such wastefully shiny paper. And always atop those bizarre women, each so sullen-looking despite being young, thin, beautiful and dressed—or so he assumed—in the latest of garments.
Another thing he noticed was that the magazine women resembled an actual woman who sat behind a desk at the far end of the room. She too was young, thin and fancily dressed. And she too was sullen, particularly as he approached her, and she saw his name on the visitor ID that had been waiting for him in the lobby.
“So that’s who you are,” she said in a voice acid enough to eat through the furniture. She then held up and flapped four blood-red fingernails. “Bye-bye.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “I’m here for a meeting.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I have an appointment.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I was told to come.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“I was,” he protested. “Yesterday.”
“Yesterday? Yesterday you spoke with a temp.”
She emitted that last word with disgust, as if the information dispensed by such a person was so obviously worthless, anyone should know it. She then picked up the magazine she'd been reading, and resumed reading it.
He could see the cover with its breathless headline. “The Future,” it exulted, “Is Cuffs!”
“I wrote thirty-eight cover stories for that,” he told her.
“You did not.”
And that was that. That was all she said to him. He waited. She read. He had only begun to consider what to do next, when the frosted doors opened and three people—two women and a man—came in.
They also wore visitor IDs, but didn’t even acknowledge the receptionist. Apparently, they didn’t have to. For barely glancing up, she touched something under her desk, and the trio hurried past, through an inner door and out of the waiting area.
He couldn’t understand. What made them different from him? Was it his clothes? Yes, granted, he wasn't exactly in conventional business attire. But it wasn’t as if he'd neglected his appearance, as anyone could observe now that he'd unzipped his ski jacket.
He had put on, for example, his very finest bolo tie—turquoise just like the one Isaac Asimov used to wear—and his newest khaki cargo pants, reduced from what had been a staggeringly high price, possibly seventy-five dollars, before he picked them up at Kohl’s for $19.99.
His button-down cream shirt was newish as well. And certainly he hadn't forgotten his proudest accessory.
Made of thick, tooled leather, this was a genuine cowboy belt from Out West, but modified so that in place of a bronco on the expansive buckle, there was a 1950s-style rocket ship—the kind with prominent fins. Canted thirty degrees clockwise from the vertical, it appeared to ascend from his middle, trailing silver fire.
So what was the matter with him? Surely he wasn't going to have to leave, just for being slightly untraditional.
No way! The next time that inner door opened . . .
A door did open, but an outer one, allowing an improbably large man wearing a uniform and an earpiece to enter. He glanced at the receptionist, who swept her eyes upward, then down onto Marshall. He walked over to Marshall and took him by an arm.
“Come on now.”
Marshall showed the man his ID. Again the receptionist was consulted. She shook her head. The grip on Marshall’s arm tightened.
So that was it, then. His chance for a career rebirth ended. For no reason. So much effort wasted, not to mention money, time . . .
Nothing to tell Gina!
But what can a person do—especially a short, law-abiding person—when opposed by a massive figure of authority? Only one thing, and Marshall did it. He talked. A lot. With buckets of words he tried to win over biceps of steel, telling the security guard all about the invitation he had received, the proposals he had written, how far he had come to present them. While the guard, recalling from long experience that people almost always calmed down if given a hearing, let the little fellow ramble on a bit. He then explained, gently but firmly, that if asked by a tenant of these premises, he was required to remove any individual they might specify. And soon Marshall was in an elevator, descending with the guard past the many other media outlets with which said premises were filled.
When they reached the lobby, however, he was not permitted to exit as he had entered—through a bank of stately revolving doors. Instead, he was guided into a service hallway and towards an old fire door—not stately in the least.
Briefly he wondered if he was about to be tossed into some rat-infested alley.
But then looked up to find, looking back down at him, not the face of cold authority anymore, but of . . .
Of what?
Concern?
Sympathy even?
“It ain’t right,” said the guard, poking the visitor ID. “You would never have got that without someone up there deciding they wanted you at their meeting.”
“That’s true,” said Marshall, stunned by the fairness of what he was hearing. “As I told you, I—”
“I know, I know, came all the way from Boston. Wrote up a whole lot of stuff. And you know what? I believe you.”
“Thank you!”
“Probably thought this was your big opportunity.”
“Yes!”
“And now you’re being thrown right out.”
“Exactly!”
“I mean, throwing out a troublemaker is one thing. But I hate it when they treat decent people that way and make me a part of it.”
“Well then maybe it doesn’t have to be that way,” said Marshall, beginning to see past his astonishment to a strategy. “Maybe, with your help, I could contact someone over that receptionist’s head, the editor-in-chief, for instance, and convince him that—”
“Nah, I’ve seen that editor-in-chief. You’d have better luck with the receptionist.”
Unsure where this could be heading, except in a nicer way out the fire door, Marshall stopped talking, while the guard scanned around. “Look,” he said finally, “you and me, we need to have an understanding.”
Marshall nodded.
“What I tell you now, I never said it. If anyone asks, I put you out, exactly as I’m supposed to. True or false?”
“True,” said Marshall emphatically.
“All right then. Now what you do, soon as I’m gone, is go back to those elevators, get off at the twenty-third floor. That’s where the company has these websites. I know because I keep getting called up there for noise complaints. But I also know they do a lot of hiring, and it ain’t such a bad deal. Wages and benefits. And the folks they hire? A lot of ‘em got aspirations in other areas. Like writing, for instance.
“Like you.”
* * *
Was he really willing to change cities for employment outside his chosen field? Well, why not? he asked himself, while emerging from the elevator onto the twenty-third floor.
But even before he had reached the office he’d been told about, this willingness had begun to fade. Talk about noise complaints. The people in that office, instead of maintaining a professional demeanor, were cheering and laughing and calling out so loudly they could probably be heard at the other end of the building.
Calling out things like “Down in front!” and “There he is!” and “You did it, Melody. You saved us!”
It was so outrageous he didn’t even bother knocking. Just checked the nameplate, to make certain he'd arrived at the “prescreening office,” as the guard had called it, and started back to the elevator, wondering what else he might do in New York that would give him a reason to email—
Then he heard it.
It was another voice coming from the prescreening office, a recorded voice this time, played at high volume. “Greetings,” this voice said. “From my previous transmissions you will know that I anticipated a possible concern of yours: that for psychological reasons I would come to harm if removed from my familiar environment. The truth is, I wouldn’t, but even so offered to find a companion willing to . . .”
His hand was on the door handle, quivering, his body ready to barge. Yet his mind held his body back. Did he want to know what was going on in there? Then stealth, surely, was called for. And so he pressed the handle very slowly and pushed very gently. The door yielded. While the voice, which is to say, his voice, spoke on.
“I would have considered finding any amenable female an accomplishment. But the person I have found so exceeds my expectations that—”
“Ooh,” said a woman. “You exceeded his expectations.”
“Ooh,” echoed several people at once.
The oohing was loud enough to let him squeeze unnoticed through the partly opened door.
He was now in a large dim room, its walls lined with computer workstations, all unattended save for the one immediately across from where he stood. That one was super-attended. Nine people had congregated on the floor below it, their faces craning upward, while on either side of it, two additional people sat in chairs: a man on the right and a woman on the left. All were focused on this one particular workstation, or more exactly on the image its monitor displayed.
In other words, on him.
There he was in his apartment, describing Gina, while making sure the ETs understood that although she would be his willing partner in traveling and exploring, he did not expect her to be any other kind of partner.
“Now that’s a relief,” said the guy in the chair, for some reason.
Marshall got the impression he was young—in his twenties. Actually, he got that impression from all of them, though their carryings-on made them seem younger still. When the guy in the chair made his comment, for example, the woman in the other chair reached across the monitor and punched him in the shoulder.
Which drew Marshall’s attention to the woman. He noticed she had long straight hair like Gina’s. In fact, she had a head like Gina’s, the top sloping gently towards her face. And he had to acknowledge his good fortune at having found, out of all the women with heads like that, a Gina rather than some childish person like the one in front of him.
But if that person and her fellows seemed childish right then, that was nothing compared with how they behaved a minute later.
On screen, he had begun to make a point that could even reduce his chances of being taken. Nevertheless, he had felt compelled to make it. Indeed, it would have been inexcusable not to.
“Now please understand,” he said, looking sternly into the Handycam. “The females on my planet have endured a long history of exploitation, and are therefore sensitive regarding some matters. So just because I have given you permission to probe my rectum, should you wish to do that, that does not entitle you to behave similarly with my companion, unless you first ask politely, in a way that puts her under no pressure, and receive her full consent.”
The room exploded. Even before on-screen Marshall had finished speaking, several of the young employees were on their backs, hooting and yowling, while another had stood up and was advancing on the woman in the chair in short jerky bursts of motion. “Show me your rectum, I must probe your rectum,” this person buzzed in a nasal monotone, though not for long because the guy in the chair jumped right out of it and tackled him. “Keep your hands off her, you damn dirty alien,” chair-guy growled, as both collapsed to the carpeting. “Get your own Melody. This one is mine.”
“She’s not Melody, she’s Gina,” someone corrected him.
“Oh, well, in that case,” said chair-guy, releasing his adversary, “be my guest, probe away.”
“Oh, thanks Grant,” said chair-woman, who was pausing the video. “After all I’ve done for you.”
“Hey, guys,” said a frizzy haired woman off to the side of the group.
“You know,” said Grant, standing up. “Come to think of it, that is a very valid point. Screeners!” he called in a powerful voice that quieted the others. “Don’t we owe some serious gratitude to our amazing Melody?
“My dear,” he continued, addressing the woman who had so recently been punching him. “With your unparalleled acting skills, your willingness to go the extra mile—no, not the extra mile, the extra—how far is Boston?”
“Two hundred and fifty miles,” someone said.
“Two hundred and fifty miles,” Grant continued. “You have literally saved us from a life of . . . of . . .”
“Um, hey guys,” said the frizzy haired woman.
“Shmishlessness!” came a voice from the floor.
“That’s right, Shmishlessness,” said Grant. He bowed low, sending his right hand rotating outward in front of him. “And I, for one, love you for it.”
“Me too,” said someone else.
“Me too,” said someone else.
“Me too,” said someone else again. “With a cherry on top.”
“Hey, guuuyyys!” repeated the frizzy haired woman, shouting now.
“Brenda would you fucking drop it?” said Grant, rounding on her. “Nobody’s paying attention to you. Nobody wants to hear what you’re worrying about this time.”
“All I’m trying to point out,” said the potter with equal anger, while striding to a wall and flipping switches, “is that we have a visitor.”
Harsh fluorescents sputtered the room into light, revealing a crowd of faces that went rapidly from squinting incomprehension to slack-jawed amazement.
Then back again.
Then back again, again.
As simultaneously the same thought erupted in eleven brains, was rejected, and erupted once more. It was him! No, it couldn't be. It was! No, impossible. True, they were looking at the hair, the sandals, the belt, but how could he be here? And what was with his face? That wasn’t one of his usual expressions. What had gone wrong with his face?
Only a few had the presence of mind to follow recognition with action, but those few rushed to the figure by the door, fell to their knees, threw their arms above their heads and launched into the familiar ritual.
“Oh great Shmish, we see thee,” they chanted, bowing. “Oh great Shmish, we revere thee—”
“No, don’t do that!” cried Melody, racing up from behind and trying to pull them to their feet. “He’s a real person, don’t you see? It’s not OK.” Then, looking up, she added, “I’m so sorry. I never thought . . .”
But there was no point in continuing.
For although it had indeed been he, yea, He himself, among them . . .
He was among them no more.