Only twenty-one hours had passed since I embarrassed myself in front of the higher-ups, the heavys, the hotties, and worst of all, Harold. I knew that mongoloid wasn’t about to let this one go. I would have to work extra hard to avoid him. I wasn’t about to give his pea brain any more satisfaction than what it had already globbed onto.
The worst was facing Tav. He told me not to do it, like he always did. And as usual, I ignored him, but that’s how it’s always been, ever since we were kids. I’d kick out the ideas and Tav would tell me why they weren’t good. I would fail, he wouldn’t say anything and life would go on. He was good like that.
I still thought the idea was pretty good. And for eighty yards, it was.
“Mooorning,” Stewie said.
“Hey, Stew.”
I could always count on good old Stewie. He understood my situation, the boredom and contempt one could have for their job.
“Smell you later,” he said with a slight chuckle.
Wait…did Stewie just take a cheap poop shot me? I think he did. Sonofabitch.
All around me I noticed Teleco employees whispering and pointing. Even Izzy, Tav’s friend, seemed to be giggling. Isn’t that a no-no? I’m sure we’re connected via LinkedIn through Tav.
I picked up the pace, stabbing the ground in front of me and swinging forward. I wanted to get into the elevator as fast as possible. I never thought the comfort of my cubicle would be something I would yearn for.
I quickly tapped at the elevator button, repeatedly. More like a nervous tick. I didn’t want to be trapped in that steel box with a coworker staring at the floors light up while they stared at the loser on crutches.
Ding! The doors opened and I quickly crutched forward, spinning around without my feet so much as grazing the elevator floor, and hit the sixth floor button.
As the doors started to close, I took a deep breath and relaxed. Suddenly a thick arm dressed in navy blue polyester like material shoved its way in at the last second reversing the direction of the doors. My stomach tightened as I waited for the mystery passenger to reveal himself. Are you there God? It’s me, Darby…Margaret’s friend. I need you to do me this one solid and not let it be Harold….
Crap.
Thanks for nothing.
Harold took his time as he sauntered into the elevator in his off-the-rack suit from Sears, the husky section, with a big stupid grin that said, “Hi, I’m a chronic masturbator.”
While his beady eyes got busy beading, I spied a red BIC pen peeking out of his blazer. It accented his red and blue striped tie. Way to accessorize, dick.
“Tough break, huh, shit face?” Harold said as he burst into laughter. “You get it? Tough break…shit face,” he said as he pointed to my foot and then my face.
I wanted to shove my crutch down his throat. He kept repeating his stupid joke all the way up to the sixth floor. Seconds felt like hours. Keep calm, I told myself. He’s got the upper hand now. It took all I had to ignore him.
Luckily, Harold was heading up to twelve, land of the heavy hitters, probably to kiss a bunch of ass. I let a silent but deadly squeak out as I exited the elevator. It was the little things that made life at Teleco bearable.
My feud with Harold had gotten worse over the last year. The politicking had become public. The backstabbing had elevated to backhacking. Any opportunity to make the other look bad in front of our peers was taken advantage of. I do, however, take full responsibility for throwing the first barb.
Wanting to get back at Harold for screwing me on the Gopher account, I started sniffing around the company for dirt. A guy like him always had skeletons. After two weeks’ worth of neatly disguised interrogations resulting in absolutely nothing, I nearly gave up, until I bumped into Linda Sawyer.
Linda headed up Teleco’s recruiting efforts. I had met her briefly when I was first hired but had never interacted with her since. She had been with the company since its inception, close to twenty years. She was highly valued and highly tapped in is what I was soon to discover.
Linda was in the second floor kitchen fixing herself a latte with a fancy barista machine Teleco had recently installed. Lattes, cappuccinos, Americanos… it made everything except a good, old-fashioned coffee.
“I’m getting pretty good at making these. You want one?”
“Sure,” I said.
We sat at one of the tables and chit-chatted about everyday stuff, but eventually the conversation turned to recruiting. Linda was looking for sales associates. “You can make three thousand dollars if a person you recommend is hired. Keep your eyes peeled,” she said.
“Does everyone in sales department start off selling?” I asked her.
“You betcha,” she said. “It’s mandatory.”
“What about Harold? He’s a manager and he wasn’t in sales.”
“Of course he was,” she shot back. “Everyone starts off selling. Harold was no exception.”
This conversation made a turn toward interesting and I hoped it intersected with How to fuck Harold Street.
“Wow, I had no idea. He must have done well to get bumped up to management.”
“Quite the opposite,” Linda said as she sipped on her latte. Her tongue darted out ever so slightly to erase a bit of foam from the corner of her full lips.
“I’m not following,” I said innocently.
“Cut the crap, Darby. I know you and Harold can’t stand each other. The only reason why you’re chatting me up is because you hope I might turn over some information you can use to chuck a spear into his back.”
That’s what I liked about Linda: her no-bullshit attitude.
Linda motioned for me to lean in closer. The scent of lilac filled my nostrils, most likely left over from some sort of shower gel. Linda wasn’t the type to drown herself in heavy perfume.
“Look, Darby, I think you’re a smart guy. Lazy, but smart. And yes, you should be a heavy hitter right now running the Gopher account but you’re not. Do I believe Harold had something to do with you being taken off that account unjustly? I do, but he’s got his tracks covered. So because I feel pity for you, I’m going to make your day. But if anything of what I’m about to tell you comes back to me, I’ll deny it. Then I’ll have you publically escorted out the front doors during the lunch rush and blackballed from the industry. Understand?”
I nodded.
“Seven years ago I was told to give Harold a sales job. A five-minute conversation with the guy told me he wasn’t the right material. Too simple minded––”
“You got that right,” I added.
Linda stared at me with the seriousness of a school teacher.
“Sorry,” I said.
“––but I had no choice. Apparently he had an uncle who worked pretty high up in the operating echelons of IBM, our biggest client at the time. So I did what I was told.”
“Was Harold aware of all of this?” I said.
Linda almost choked on her latte from laughter.
“Aware? Geesh, he must have mentioned his uncle’s name at least five times,” she said as she took a moment to clear herself of the giggles.
“Needless to say, I was right. He flailed around in the deep end of the pool from day one. After six months of constant screw-ups, the decision to cut him loose was made. He wasn’t sales material. In fact, he wasn’t even Teleco material.” Linda tapped a finger on the table. “You getting all this, Darby? You look like you’re lost in La-La Land.”
“I’m listening,” I said. “Go on.” Truth is, I was thinking how I would unleash this info onto the rank and file.
“It gets a little cloudy at this point, since I wasn’t involved, but from what I heard, Harold begged the VP of Sales, Gerald Thorn, to give him another chance. Apparently the master of the sell was so taken back by Harold’s plea and loyalty to the company, he created the job Harold has now.”
Well it makes sense. Sales Manager, Tier 2, sounded like a bullshit title. To be honest, I was surprised Gerald fell for Harold’s lin
e. The seller got sold.
Linda stood up and adjusted her ash grey skirt and tugged gently on the bottom of her matching jacket. The two top buttons were undone, enough to reveal the low-cut, black lace blouse coddling the weight of her full 38Cs. At forty-eight, Linda was a striking woman.
“That’s all I got,” she said as she tucked her chocolate brown locks behind both ears. “Do what you want with it Darby but remember what I said.”
The very next day I did exactly what I had always wanted to do: I screwed Harold over. Embarrassment was a great form of revenge.
Chapter 9
I decided to leave the office early so I could work from home and let the laughter at Teleco die down. A few days out of the spotlight would do my ego some good.
However, sitting at home with a large cast on my foot wasn’t exactly going to save my job either. I knew that much. I need motivation. I need another idea. But Goodfellas was on.
Watching Paulie’s crew relay messages back and forth in the rain was one of my favorite parts. Though coming from a phone guy, it didn’t strike me as the most efficient way of communicating. I could think of a dozen better ways but I guess it worked back then.
I took the last swig from the beer bottle in my hand, my fourth so far. Warm and sudsy. Only two left to keep company to the condiments in my fridge.
I needed to get some food. I thought of ordering in but convinced myself the fresh air would do me some good. It was only six. Plus, I was on crutches. Fun.
The latest one-hit wonder began playing on my iPhone. I could see on the caller ID it was Tav calling.
“Hey, Tav. What’s up?”
“How are you holding up? You want me to come over…bring a few beers?”
“I’m doing fine. Got my night planned already. Going to rearrange the furniture in my apartment.”
“Darb, you’re on crutches.”
I admit it: I didn’t want Tav coming over. I had thinking to do, and he would be a distraction.
“Look, I need some time alone. It’s been a long day. I’ll see you in a few. Doc says I gotta stay off the foot.”
I hung up feeling a bit guilty. I didn’t like lying to Tav. But my situation at Teleco was the worst it had been since I started. The show I put on at the picnic provided days of water-cooler fodder. Plus Harold was spending every day building a case to fire me.
Uncle Fu’s was my favorite restaurant. It was a small dive place in Chinatown on Washington Street, tucked in between Waverly and Grant. The food wasn’t extraordinary but it was decent.
Ever since I discovered it a few years ago, I’d managed to eat there at least three times a week by myself, more with Tav. Chicken chop suey was my standard.
I hopped on to the Muni Bus, No. 1 line. I liked to call it the Old Chinese People Bus. From where I lived in Pacific Heights, it was roughly a fifteen-minute ride.
The No. 1 was the main vein into Chinatown from the inner Richmond area, which coincidentally was the second Chinatown in the city. By the time the bus reached Sacramento and Fillmore, most of the seats were taken by the People’s Republic of China. Not today, though. I got crutches. Move over, little ones.
I brought the Teleco Sales Manual along with me, thinking it would be a good idea to brush up on some sales techniques. What can I say? I was desperate.
The sales manual for Teleco was the Bible for the heavy hitters; they swear by it. I, on the other hand, had not once cracked the spine on this monstrosity. Bound by metal loops, the puke-green manual weighed close to three pounds and detailed sales advice for every single one of Teleco’s products.
Tav always bugged me to take it seriously. I would then remind him I had already reached heavy hitter status once without the manual’s help. I wasn’t ignoring him; I just felt like I didn’t need it.
Yeah, right. Fast forward ahead two years and I’m sitting on a bus surrounded by sniffing, sneezing, coughing, burping, farting, Mandarin-speaking, elderly folk and nowhere near my goal.
Help me, Gerald, I thought as I slipped the manual out of my backpack.
Gerald Thorn, the vice president of sales at Teleco, wrote the manual almost fifteen years ago. He was the brightest salesperson to pass through Teleco’s front doors. He could close anybody.
I flipped through the manual, releasing old library book smells. From the get-go, I noticed it wasn’t about how Teleco’s products could help a company but how a company’s problems could suit our products needs.
While everyone else was trying to find a way to make their products the solution to a company’s problems, Teleco’s manual was telling us to find a way to tailor the client’s problems to fit the products.
Rule No. 1: Don’t look at their business for what it is but look at it for what it can become.
Gerald argued that it was always easier to make their problems fit our products rather than make our products fit their problems. He said, “You can’t change the cell phone. It is what it is. But you can change a problem so it fits the functionality of the cell phone.”
Maybe that was my problem. I wasn’t looking at the big picture. Step back, look at the situation from every angle and make it fit my problem.
Perhaps Gerald did know a thing or two.
Chapter 10
“Stockton Street,” the bus driver called out. I, along with most of the Asian Nation, began shuffling off one by one. Normally the bus wasn’t too crowded at this time, but there was a festival that night in Chinatown.
This was where the majority of the fresh produce and live meat markets could be found and where most of San Francisco’s Chinese community did their daily shopping. The Chinese were more obsessed with freshness than a douche commercial.
I headed south from the markets, hobbled along Clay Street, and then cut across Waverly Lane. It was the most direct path––something my crutch-working arms appreciated.
The only way into Mr. Fu’s restaurant was through the kitchen. Entering the five-foot-wide space was like squeezing through a narrow hallway full of chopping, dishwashing, and stir-frying. The size of the space permitted no other options.
Toward the back where the owner, Mr. Fu, worked the wok was a steep, narrow flight of metal stairs leading to a tiny, but cozy, dining room on the second floor. Only eight wooden tables fit the space. Each of them sat unevenly on the aged linoleum floor. But I liked the place. It fit me.
Plus, I got to know Mr. Fu by walking through the kitchen. That’s if you call saying hello along with some polite chitchat and nothing more getting to know someone.
As usual, Mr. Fu stood behind the hot wok stirring and scooping when I entered the kitchen. Yellow and brown stains covered most of the apron double-wrapped around his waist. A cotton undershirt and a hair net completed his daily uniform.
“Darby, what happen?” he said.
Perhaps it was the daunting task of hiking myself up the stairs, but I stopped and answered him. “Bad potato bag.”
Mr. Fu looked at me for a second, confused. I thought he might ask me to explain but he waved off my answer.
He stopped playing Iron Chef long enough to motion me toward a bunch of white buckets in the corner. A soybean flew off his metal spatula in the process. I watched it sail across the kitchen and stick to the wall.
“Sit,” he said.
I took a seat on one of the five-gallon buckets of soy sauce wondering if there was such a thing as bucket etiquette.
From there I had a front row seat to Cooking with Mr. Fu. Mostly he did the same moves over and over. Holding the wok in his left hand, he would jerk it back and forth, flipping the veggies and meat on every second push forward. His right hand controlled the round, metal spatula. It was also used for everything else. To add broth, oil, and food––even to turn the water faucet on and off when he needed to rinse out the wok. It was an extension of his arm.
When he reached for the faucet, I noticed his tattoo. With each shake of the wok, his shirt rode up on his shoulder giving me a peek. I had never seen it befo
re. Then again I’d never paid this close of attention to Mr. Fu.
I lifted up a crutch and pointed. “You got a tattoo?”
Consumed with his cooking, Mr. Fu didn’t answer.
I made my point a bit louder. “Mr. Fu, you have a tattoo…? On your shoulder?” Still silence. Was he deaf or ignoring me? I tried once again, practically yelling.
Mr. Fu grabbed a bowl and scooped my chop suey into it. He looked at the ground as he handed me the bowl, still not saying anything. I greedily attacked the bowl while trying to keep the conversation going between bites.
“I said…you have a tattoo…? Wasn’t sure if you heard me.”
“I hear. I not deaf,” he said accenting his point with his spatula.
“Oh…”
“From long time ago. When I live Hong Kong. Not important now.”
“Can I see it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why? Why? That all you know?”
A blank look appeared on his face. I assumed his mind was busy processing my request. And just like that, he put the spatula down and pulled the back of his shirt over his shoulders.
First off, Mr. Fu appeared to be in tiptop shape. Surprising for a guy who looked to be in his fifties. Muscles popped out of his back––even his arms were well toned. The cook get-up definitely camouflaged his physical prowess.
The highly detailed black tattoo crawled across his entire back: a scaly serpent with a snakelike tail that coiled on forever. The claws looked as if they were hooked into Mr. Fu’s skin, giving the impression the animal was climbing up his back. The head twisted its way up onto his shoulder, where the mouth showcased a row of razor-sharp teeth. There were also a bunch of Chinese characters stacked vertically.
“Mr. Fu, that’s insane. How? Why?” I blurted.
“This long time ago…from Hong Kong. Young and stupid,” he said.
He held out his spatula, waiting for me to place my empty bowl on it. He flicked the dish into a nearby sink and turned the faucet on to rinse it out.
Darby Stansfield Thriller Series (Books 1-3 & Bonus Novella) Page 3
