by Robert Riche
“Move the ladder over! Don’t lean out too far!” I call.
“It’s all right!” he calls back.
I keep forgetting that he’s the stunt man. I rake there for a few minutes, sneaking looks up at him from time to time. Why? Not to check on him. Why? To admire him. His grace—at scraping. Oh, come on! But it’s true, I can’t take my eyes off him, up there, leaning out from the ladder. You can’t get him to move the ladder over. He has to do it his own way, and he does it, yes, with grace. It is like watching him with the Frisbee. He is his own man, and he brings to this new task, to him now made tolerable as a feat of derring-do, a beauty, to me, that is like, yes, a poem.
The little bastard. Will he learn anything from this latest experience at school? Can I teach him? Which way will he go?
For the moment, I suppose I will be content merely if he doesn’t fall off the ladder and break his neck.
CHAPTER X
Another day, another dollar. Here I am crawling along in a line of traffic at 8 a.m., caught in the morning rush into corporate Stamford. Since this is white-collar country in which business of the day officially begins at 9 a.m., one might think that an hour early at eight o’clock I’d have it all to myself, but these days only the secretaries get in as late as nine. The rest of us managers pull in anywhere from seven o’clock on so as to get a little something done before the phones start ringing. Twenty years ago corporate people who lived in Fair-field County were obliged to get up at six o’clock, early enough to catch a commuter train into Manhattan to be at work by 9:15, or more likely, by 9:30. Then the corporations moved to the suburbs. Anybody who thought this would mean another hour’s sleep in the morning quickly got disabused of that. The office officially is open for business at nine, but with guys like Mac McDougall getting in at seven every morning, and Frank usually at his desk by eight, the rest of us find ourselves still getting up at the old time, but spending the extra train ride hour now at our desks. Somebody knew something about productivity when they started the corporate move to the suburbs.
The only time I ever listen to the radio is in the car, and I have it on now, the AM waveband with some “talk radio” host interviewing an author of a book on how parents can deal with the problems of teen-age drug addiction. The author is solemn and single-mindedly determined to plug his book, while the talk show host, fearing that his audience may not be ready at this early hour for such heavy stuff, keeps interrupting with silly comments and jokes. Personally, I wish he’d shut up, as we parents need all the help we can get. I reach into the glove compartment, driving with one hand, and fish around for a pencil and scrap of paper on which to write down the name of the book.
There is a five-minute news summary at 8:15. A fire in Brooklyn, arson suspected. Another flare-up of military activity in Central America. Guerrilla rebels have overrun three towns, with 50 government troops killed and six civilian government employees taken hostage. I can’t make out whether these anti-government rebels are good anti-government rebels or bad anti-government rebels. They are either Salvadorans or Somozans or Sandinistas, and depending on which, are either financed and supported by our government, or are under attack by forces financed and supported by our government. I try to keep current on these things, but it is true, it is not easy, I have to make a conscious effort through a trick of memory association I have worked out to clarify who is who. Actually, I’m getting sick of all of them, but they don’t go away.
It is only after the commercial break that it becomes clear that these rebels are bad rebels, because a bulletin from the State Department has just been released and sent out over the newswires stating that two of the civilian hostages are Americans, described as economic advisors, who happened to be directing government fire at the time, and the rebels holding them are described as terrorists.
In the time that it has taken to make a pitch for a local savings bank, the Central America news story has suddenly turned serious. And before I reach Stamford, there are more bulletins released, the last one stating that the Pentagon has ascertained that the raids on the three Central American towns were designed specifically for the purpose of capturing the Americans, the attack now being referred to as a kidnapping, and that the action was conducted on direct orders from a terrorist faction with ties to Communist Cuba. An hour ago a note was delivered to Cuba through the Soviet ambassador in Washington, the contents of which are not known, but are rumored to be a statement of intention to send in American F-111 jet planes to bomb several mountain villages believed to be guerrilla strongholds. A press conference is scheduled by the Secretary of State for 10 a.m.
The talk show host, following the newscast, has moved quickly, now promising us a phone interview with a retired military strategy expert living in California (where it is 5:15 a.m.). Apparently they have given the teen-age drug addiction author the hook, as we do not hear from him again, although he was cut off in the midst of a sentence just before the newsbreak. I pull the car over to the curb to hear what the military strategy expert has to say, as I have arrived at the entrance to the subterranean parking garage underneath the building where Pro-Tec has its offices, and once inside, there is no radio reception. The military strategy expert comes on, sounding as though he’s been wide awake for hours and has had time to figure it all out, and says that a bombing of guerrilla occupied villages makes a lot of sense, as it is now possible to pinpoint targets so as to hit only guerrillas, and not civilians. The talk show host, who a few moments before was giggling and making silly jokes about teen-age drug addiction, is now warning that if we don’t wipe out this spreading cancer south of our border, we all may be obliged in a few short years to defend freedom at the steps of our own homes. I pull out from the curb, and head toward the entrance to the parking garage. I’ve got news for the talk show host. I already have at the steps of my own house my own terrorist, who right now, hopefully, is scraping paint off the side of it, which may be the best antidote in the world to the further proliferation of whatever kind of hideous growth is spreading within him these days.
There are three levels to the subterranean parking garage, and you park your car wherever you can find a space; at this hour of the day they are fairly plentiful. One advantage of an underground parking lot is you never have to worry about getting wet if it’s raining. You go directly from your car to an elevator and up. All you have to do is remember where in that vast smoggy underground cavern you parked, especially remembering the level.
Stepping out of the vast damp echoing concrete garage into the carpeted elevator with its morning Muzak and the smell of makeup and perfume somehow gives me the sense that I am about to visit Disneyland, except that almost immediately the blood starts to flow a bit faster, and in another moment, as we approach the fifth floor where the Pro-Tec offices are located, I have a new sensation, not unlike, I imagine, what a football linebacker must feel when he’s on the sidelines and getting ready to go in. Who knows, the first ball buster you meet on the floor might be Diana Payne-Pignatelli.
Today, however, it is not Diana, nor the other front-line bruisers who are on the field. Having just finished up in Las Vegas the previous day, the team probably got in late last night. That means they’re entitled to an extra half hour or so of rest in bed, and they’ll be coming in a bit later this morning. All except Frank, of course, our coach, who you can be certain will be in the office—in fact, is there, as I enter, already conferring with Mac McDougall. They are in Mac’s office, jackets off; you can see them through the glass walls of Mac’s office, behind the potted rubber plant.
One of the unspoken but nonetheless graven precepts of corporate life at Pro-Tec is that no matter what one’s private feelings, it is absolutely essential that everyone be able to work closely and cooperatively together for the better good of the company. At least, there should be the appearance of objectivity and cooperation. If it should become too apparent that two management level employees cannot work together, one or the other must yield, which usually me
ans one gets fired. Or at least, demoted. It’s why I am always smiling and simpering around Diana.
Because no one knows the rules better than Tony Passanante and Morrie Glick, they both are eager to patch up the “little misunderstanding” that took place three nights ago during the Wayne Newton “concert.” And the manner in which this is to be accomplished, I am informed at 9:30 a.m. today by none other than Diana Payne-Pignatelli, is that Morrie and Tony would like to have lunch together, if I will accompany them, or rather, in a facesaving maneuver, if I will issue invitations to them both to lunch with me. Diana spent the whole day yesterday negotiating between the two men. As much as she can’t stand Tony Passanante, she knows that Morrie must have a working cordial relationship with him.
“Diana, these guys hate each other. They won’t go to lunch together,” I say to her.
“They will. I’ve already arranged for it,” she replies. “Please, Brock,” she says. I could kill her when she presumes to address me by my last name. She must be feeling very sure of her position these days. It always makes me want to call her Payne-Pignatelli. Which is ridiculous. Or just plain Piggy. Which, you never know, maybe could get me fired. Of course, it does occur to me that if I handle this with aplomb, and possibly win her good graces, at the rate she is progressing within the company, I may be building up some goodwill that I may need one of these days, say, during a new housecleaning.
“I don’t mind inviting them,” I say. “They can only say no.”
“They won’t say no,” she assures me. “I’ve made a reservation for the three of you, in your name at The Skytop Club.”
“Who’s paying?”
“Put it on your American Express, and charge it to the company.”
“I can’t do that. What if Mac questions it?”
“It’s an investment in the future, Brock,” she says. And she looks me in the eye, the bitch, as if to say what I already know. She is on the way up, and I am comfortably perched where I am. And the time will come when my perch will remain more secure when a new team comes in if I make a little investment now. “You can find a way of burying it,” she adds.
Is this what dignity comes to? Should I say, “I’ll take my chances, Diana. So long. You invite them to lunch.” That would be a hot one.
“Okay, Di,” I say. “Good for you. I wouldn’t have thought anyone could have brought these two guys together.”
“It wasn’t easy,” she says.
And in another one of my inelegant fantasies, I suddenly picture her getting a commitment from Morrie just at the point of orgasm.
“Go to lunch with Passanante, or take it out, Glick.” I wonder if she calls him by his last name when they’re making it.
And how did she persuade Tony? Oh, my, could she have volunteered for his raffle, after all? Jesus, I really don’t have any dignity.
I have to invite these guys to lunch, but I also have to earn my keep. The mail has been piling up for three days—four, actually, if you count last Saturday. It’s stacked in a precarious pile on my desk. I have the feeling you could take all of it, and drop it into the wastebasket, and it would not matter. Nevertheless, I have to go through it, marking it appropriately so that Jinny will be able to file it (when she gets a chance, after she has filed Tony’s stuff) after which it will remain forever unlooked at again. It will take a good hour to go through it all, and then I can get down to replying to some of it, and after that I will make some phone calls to some of the press guys who attended the Pro-Tec press conference, and pick up some vibrations as to how bad they really thought it was, and whether or not that will actually affect the kind of publicity exposure we will get.
At ten o’clock Annie telephones to tell me that my father called a few minutes before to ask how Peter is doing at school.
“What’d you tell him?”
“He sort of caught me off balance. I told him he was home for a few days.”
“Oh, no! Jesus!”
“Well, he wanted Peter’s phone number. I was afraid he’d go ahead and call the school.”
“You should have told him they don’t give out the phone numbers of the kids.”
“I didn’t think fast enough. Anyway, he’s going to see Peter Saturday.”
“What?!”
“Have you forgotten? It’s your Dad’s birthday Saturday. We promised to go up and see him.”
“You’ll forgive me if I forgot. I just happen to have about fifteen million things on my mind.”
“I’m not criticizing, but I’m saying Peter will be with us when we go up. We can’t leave him at home alone. At least, I don’t think we should.”
“I agree on that. Did you tell my father why Peter was home?”
“I said there was a misunderstanding. Peter would be going back on Sunday.”
“What’d he say to that?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Something like, ‘Oh, fine.’ Or something. He doesn’t really want to know.”
“True.” My old man doesn’t need any bad news. I’m on the road there myself.
Back into the phone, to my wife. “Okay. So we’ll face up to it. Anything else? Is Peter studying?”
“Yes. He’s hard at it.”
“Good. I’ll see you later. Let’s have a light supper. I’m having lunch at The Skytop Club.”
“Oh my goodness. Don’t drink too much.”
“I won’t.”
“Who’s all going?”
“I’ll tell you later.” And we hang up.
At ten o’clock most work on the bullpen floor stops until 10:15 during which time all secretaries and bullpen denizens repair to the cafeteria for a break. The cafeteria is a sunless interior room with formica tables and chairs, a small refrigerator, a sink, an electric stove and a microwave oven. A concessionaire appears every morning at ten and every afternoon at three with coffee. If you want a donut, you purchase it from the vending machine, which also carries sandwiches that can be heated up in the microwave. This idea of a fifteen-minute break was conceived by Frank who couldn’t stand the thought of employees sipping coffee or sodas at their desks, and possibly spilling on the beige carpeting. As a consequence, from ten to 10:15 should a customer want to reach a line manager or customer service representative, no one is around, they are all drinking coffee. This happens at least once a day, and probably has resulted in the loss of a sale a day for the past two years from irate customers who have hung up in disgust.
At 10:30, with everyone refreshed and back at their desks, I wander into Morrie’s office to ask him to lunch. Morrie, of course, knows what I’m up to, and doesn’t beat about the bush. “If that son of a bitch even mentions Vegas—” he starts in.
“We’ll stay away from the subject, Morrie,” I promise him.
Tony greets me with a big smile when I wander into his office a couple of minutes later, after having stopped at the water cooler on the way so as not to appear to have come directly from Morrie.
“Brock, you big turd. How the hell are ya?”
“What time did you get in last night?”
“Late, man. Late. I’m exhausted.”
“It was a good show,” I say. “Your guys were on the ball.”
“What happened at the press conference?” he asks. “Did I see a lot of guys leaving?”
“A few.”
“I got a call from one of my salesmen who says one of the magazines is going to run a big feature on the hand job.”
“No kiddin’? You did?”
“No shit. This guy said it was a big deal.”
“Good. I’m not surprised. Most of the editors are pretty loyal to me.”
Tony grins again. “Brock, you shit, you always take credit for yourself, don’t you.”
“Listen, if I don’t give myself credit nobody else will.”
“No, you deserve credit. You’re okay.”
I love hearing it, and maybe now is a good time to mention lunch. He knows why I’m there, any
way, and is just waiting.
“Sure, hell, yes,” he says. “No hard feelings. It was just a little misunderstanding. Over a broad. It’s unimportant. We all had a few drinks.”
“I wouldn’t even mention Vegas, if I were you,” I say. “Let’s go on from here. How’s your golf game? Have you been playing much lately? Morrie likes golf.”
“Cut it out, Brock. Have you ever seen him play?”
“I don’t play, myself.”
“I mean, it’s a fuckin’ joke.”
“Really? I thought he was pretty good. He’s got a nice set of clubs. I saw ’em in the trunk of his car one day.”
“He swings at the fuckin’ ball, and actually misses it.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“He does, man.”
“Well, don’t talk about Vegas, is all.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll talk about something. It’s unimportant. Pick me up at 12:30.”
“Okay,” I say.
And not knowing quite why I am in the midst of all this, I go back to my desk, and start making some of my phone calls to guarantee that our hand job will get a fair shake in the next month’s editions of the leading trade publications.
CHAPTER XI
At 12:30 I pick up Tony, and the two of us wander over to Morrie’s office. Diana is in with Morrie, leaning over his shoulder looking over some papers with him. While I stand in attendance in the doorway, Tony holds himself a few feet back, concentrating his gaze on the ceiling, as though viewing for the first time the dome of the Sistine Chapel. Morrie keeps us waiting maybe only a minute or two, just long enough to let us know that dignity demands a certain obeisance; not so long, however, as to provoke us to say, “Fuck it,” and stalk off to the elevator without him.
Diana slips by me in the doorway, without a comment, and Morrie looks up then and makes quite a point of being surprised to see us there.
“Oh, there are three of us?” he says. I could kill him.
