by Mike Heppner
After all that, I don’t even get a callback. No come-back-and-see-us-next-month. This is some twenty-five-year-old kid telling me to drop off an application at the main desk, they’ll keep me in mind. I know what that means—the big blow-off. Look, I say, I’ve got more than ten years’ experience working high-level retail management. That’s the real deal, pal! I sold over a million dollars in merchandise last fiscal year alone. My store led the region in opportunity-to-conversion ratios—you wanna talk about that? Three Hawley Cain Trophies for Sales and Leadership—three! ’92, ’93, and ’95, right on my desk, I earned those. He’s smiling at me! Very impressive, Mister Muld—I know your CEO, we have lunch once a month. Twenty-five years old, he’s doing lunch with Cam Pee, the richest little son of a witch this side of Ho Chi Minh City, meanwhile I’m living in a rented kitchenette, weekly rates, no hot water after eleven p.m. This I don’t need. Not my style! Steve Mould is not a charity case. If you don’t need my services, fine. I’ll go across the street, talk to the boys over at Groovy UV’s. Can do, m’friend, can do. I’m halfway out the door, he’s got a stack of coupons: Oh, don’t go—look, thirty percent off, prescription flexy shades, what a deal. I don’t like sunglasses, I say. This is what I tell him. I don’t wear sunglasses. I don’t like people who wear sunglasses. Hanh? I think they’re all a bunch of pretentious, upper-class snobs! This is what I say, right there in the vestibule. That was a tense situation right there. I mean, I got out of there quick!
That’s where I lose my cool. I’m a very tolerant man. I say live and let live. Peace ’n’ love ’n’ the whole nine yards. But you take it to a point, I’m bound to blow my top. And when that happens—watch out! ’Cause I just turn into a whole ’nother person. And that’s all there is to that.
Of course, soon as I get out the door, my briefcase breaks. Ain’t that a treat? Handle comes right off. That there is just what the doctor ordered. And then, the combination—I can’t get the darn thing open! I’m yanking on it, got it braced up against a fire hydrant. Finally I said to heck with it. Cheap Japanese piece of . . . they make it so, if you forget the combination, there’s no chance of getting it open. I think that’s ridiculous.
So I chucked it! Goodbye to you. Steve Mould is a man. I can speak for myself. That’s what these young kids don’t know. Twenty-two, twenty-three years old, think they’re gonna take over the world—well you’re not! All you’ve got is yourself. And the best schools in the world aren’t gonna help you. If you can’t look at a man—if you can’t look at him right in the eye and say: I’m good. I can get the job done. Then you don’t even deserve to be alive.
So I start walking. I figure while I’m in Vega I might as well check out the old store. Place looked about the same. They’ve got some woman working there now. I hope she does a good job with it. She’s got a decent team, and that’s all that matters. Even the troublemakers had their moments. As long as everyone focuses on the task at hand. And for the most part, we did that, when we were really working together. ’96, ’97. That was probably our high point. The early part of ’98.
I’m standing in the parking lot, thinking maybe I’ll go in, take a look at the joint. I had to hold myself back. There’s a mystique associated with certain people when they go away, particularly when that person is well respected and well liked, and I don’t want to distract anyone from what they’ve got to do. This new gal’s got enough on her hands. If I went inside, it might cause certain employees to question—well, maybe things weren’t so bad when Mr. Mould was here, that sort of thing, and I don’t want to get into that. Nope, time to give somebody else a chance.
It’s pretty, though, where you can see the whole store from far away.
They need to fix their aisle banners.
I’m all set to leave when I see one of my old cashiers coming off shift. I always liked Scarlet, despite the obvious sexual chemistry between us, which as a married man really got on my nerves. Anyway, that’s in the past. Time to lay off the women for a while. I wave and say hi, no big deal, just on my way to the mall, doing a little shopping for my wife. She looked disappointed, so when she offered to give me a ride, I said sure, what the heck. We’re pulling out of the lot—it turns out, she just gave her two weeks’ notice. I’m about ready to go through the roof. That’s time wasted! You get on over to store sixty-one, I tell her. I’m being the father figure now. Women like that sometimes. You talk to Jim—he’ll put you in with Rick Mars at the zone HQ. Nope, not interested. Already she’s got this new job—dancing, right? A bunch of girls onstage. Well, good for you. Still, that’s no reason to stop working. I mean really working. You try putting in fifty hours per week as a first key assistant. That’s serious business . You gotta do the drawers twice, three times on the weekends, you gotta deal with part-time cashiers who don’t know what the heck they’re doing, and you gotta make sure the back door is closed at all times—it’s a big job! Then she tells me how much these gals make. Six nights a week, but only four hours per night. It’s unbelievable—sixty-two thousand dollars a year. That’s more than we pay our regional reps, and those fellas are trained professionals! Most people can’t handle that kind of responsibility. You have to have an associate’s degree from a certified community college; you have to attend the six-day Power of Potential conference in Calumet City, Illinois; on top of that, you’ve got to pass an eye examination, which a lot of the guys can’t do!
So what I tell Scarlet is, just be careful, that’s all. If you take care of yourself, everyone else will leave you alone. That’s how I became store manager. I said to heck with this, I’m just gonna do my job. And this was in the days when guys were stealing merchandise left and right. Oh yeah! Living Arrangements in the late eighties, early nineties was not a very nice place to work. Used to be, three-quarters of the store managers were heavy-duty drug users. And I’m talking serious stuff—not just a little reefer, but cocaine too. They’ve cut that number way down.
Finally we pull up to the mall. I get out, shake her hand. For a minute there, it looked like—well, never mind. In my opinion, one-night stands are a bad idea. How do you get rid of the girl without hurting her feelings? That’s the conundrum. Sometimes it’s best just to play it safe. Stick with what you know. Take me, for example. I’m a manager. That’s what I’m good at. And that’s still what I’m good at. To heck with Cam Pee, Jim Carroll, all those guys. The furniture business is in for a big surprise, anyway. In two, three years, everyone’s gonna be selling kitchen gadgets. Now’s the time to get in on the ground level, take a drive down to the home office, Hello, my name is Steve Mould, wait for someone to make you an offer, you say I’ll think about it, then BAM! two days later you’re running the entire region. I can do that, no problem. I’ll ask for a catalog, do a little research first. I wonder what it pays? Clerk—that’s probably three-fifty a week. I can’t swing that for very long. A month, maybe. A month, then I’ll call for an appointment, talk to the senior veep. He’ll recognize my name. These guys all know each other. I’ll have to lay low for the first few days. Don’t want to give myself away. Once they see you’ve got potential, they start to wonder: What’s he doing here?
XXII
Fuck Technology
I Had an Unpleasant Conversation Today
T. Kenneth West sat in his office, his feet on the desk. “I’m not interested in your excuses. All I know is, I’ve got five separate attorneys working on this, I’m buried in lawsuits, and I can’t deal with it anymore!”
Gray leaned forward in his chair. “If you’ve got lawsuits, Ken, then just give them to the legal department and forget about it.”
Lifting a manila folder, T. Kenneth gestured at a stack of papers and threw it back on the pile. This motion suggested a task of great magnitude, futile to even contemplate. “It’s gonna take five years to pay this thing off, Gray. I’ve got to stick with this company. I can’t just pack up and leave.”
“You should’ve thought about it when you—”
“Oh, don�
��t give me arrogance. I’ll take care of myself, and that’s the end of that. You give me arrogance, we end this discussion right now.”
“I’m not being arrogant, Ken! My God!” Gray knitted his eyebrows, shaking his head. “What is your problem?”
T. Kenneth swallowed and started again. “If we have a disagreement on certain issues, that’s fine. But we’ve already made some decisions here—”
“You don’t find this a little unprofessional?”
He began to speak, paused, then laughed bitterly. “I am not here . . . to defend my actions. That’s not what I’m here to do. I am so angry with you right now that I can’t even . . . talk.”
“Well, how do you think I feel?”
“Probably pretty angry! And that’s understandable, but the facts are the facts.”
“Oh, come on. You know as well as I do, if you can show an eleven-year-old kid on television simulating masturbation—”
“He wasn’t simulating masturbation.”
“Yes, he was. I know—I wrote the script. What I didn’t do—”
“He wasn’t simulating masturbation. That certainly wasn’t my understanding, and if I’d had even an inkling—”
“You would’ve said, ‘Rah-rah-rah! Let’s make some money!’ It’s okay, Ken, you don’t have to pretend. But when a client asks me to use their own talent because someone on the board of directors gets a blow job, then I have to do it!”
“Not necessarily. You have an obligation to do your homework. It’s not the client’s job to research their own staff.”
Waving both of his hands, Gray stammered a bit, his raised eyebrows expressing a lack of comprehension, an eagerness to understand. “Wait a minute. Let me, let me . . .”
“That’s our job! To make sure all the bases are covered.”
“It’s not the client’s job . . . ?”
“The kid was moonlighting, for Christ’s sake! Not only that, he was working on a subversive project which you knew would cast a negative light on this company.”
“I guess I don’t get it. Why is it okay for me to put a kid in a leopard-print G-string—”
“Because bad taste is one thing, subversion is another. Bad taste doesn’t mean anything. You of all people should know that. No one feels threatened by it, no one takes it seriously and no one cares. This is different. Cam Pee won’t even talk to me anymore. He gets a stack of angry letters in the mail, and now he wants to keep me in court for the rest of my life.”
“Then why did you . . . when this campaign started—”
“I was very supportive.”
“You were very supportive.”
“Because the client was happy and I assumed that everything was in order.”
“And that’s good leadership?”
“It may not be. I am not a perfect person, Gray. And God knows—”
“It’s got nothing to do with being a perfect person. If you have a situation where a client is not forthcoming—”
“Then you talk to them. You talk to the store manager, you talk to the kid, you talk to the kid’s mother.”
“If I’d actually done any of that, Ken, you would’ve said why are you wasting your time—”
“I would’ve said good for you, because—”
“You would not have said good for you.”
“—because I’d rather have it done properly than six months later, here we are, every day I’ve got to see this nonsense on the evening news and everyone’s running around saying why the hell didn’t you do something about it?”
“So I gotta be the fall guy.”
“So you’re the fall guy, Gray. If you want to put a real fine point on it. That’s right.”
“So why don’t you acknowledge that?”
“Acknowledge what?”
“Why don’t you publicly acknowledge—”
“You want me to go out there—”
“If you’re going to terminate me, Ken, I’d think you’d at least have the decency to—”
“I’ll do it right now!”
“Good!”
“I’ll send out an e-mail.”
“Fine.”
“You can write it yourself.”
“I don’t work here anymore, that’s not my job. I don’t have to do that.”
T. Kenneth glanced at his computer screen just in time to see the message docket change from eight to fourteen. “Well, I can’t do it now, I’ve got . . . too many things going on. Give me till five.”
“I want it spelled out, because this is my reputation we’re talking about, and if I’m the fall guy—”
The conversation lurched; both men seemed to check themselves before moving on. “Gray, when I say that you’re the fall guy, yes, that’s true. But that’s not the whole story.”
Gray’s facial expression changed from one look of amazement to another. “So you’re saying I botched it.”
“I’m saying that you, in part . . . yeah.”
“And I can’t make a mistake?”
“Of course you can, but when it becomes a legal issue, then I have to take action. I’m gonna be tied up with this thing for the rest of the year. That’s at least nine months’ worth of lawyers, and suits, and countersuits. We may not even have a company when this is all over!”
“Well, you can’t blame me for that.”
“Why not? You were the one who went out there—”
“Under your direction.”
“That’s implicit! I’m the goddamn CEO. That still doesn’t absolve you from—”
“A good leader would assume responsibility for—”
“What, you want me to resign?” Touching his chest, T. Kenneth hunched over the desk, his eyes wide with good intentions.
“I don’t want you to resign, I want you to take charge of the situation in a way that’s fair.”
“I’m being very fair to you. I’m not suing you!”
“Why would you sue me?”
“Because of the incredible damage your behavior has done to this company.”
“Oh, that is the most horseshit—”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
The tempo picked up; both men snapped, shouting at each other.
“Since the day I walked in here—”
“I’ve been very nice to you.”
“—you’ve been nothing but an obnoxious, overbearing—”
“Fine!”
“And I dealt with it, because I didn’t care!”
“And now here we are! Isn’t this wonderful? We can all sing and shout and dance around.”
“Oh, no, that’s great! I can do that just fine, so long as you know—”
“I don’t need to know anything!”
“—that it’s a goddamn bullshit—”
“Lower your voice or get out of here.”
Gray stood up; his chair tumbled over, striking a display of glass knickknacks. “You, and all of this . . . hoopla crap! It’s all garbage! ”
“Good! I’m happy! I’m real glad!”
“Yee yee yee!”
“We can all go home and jump out the window!”
“And if it wasn’t for your incompetence—”
“Gray, I’m about five feet away from—”
“You wanna punch?”
T. Kenneth leaned over his desk; he could smell Thousand Island dressing on Gray’s breath. “Oh, boy, you need a slap.”
“Let’s do it!”
“Oh-kaay, oh-kaay.”
“Cah-mon. Cah-mon.”
“Let’s stop. You get out.”
“Fucking idiot.”
“That’s right!”
“Look at you. You don’t know the first thing about . . . life!”
“I know I don’t.”
“Gimme my arm!”
“Here, move, move.”
“Don’t touch me, you retarded piece of shit!”
Walking quickly, T. Kenneth guided the other man down the hallway and into a freight elevator. Gray rode
alone, smiling at his own reflection in the copper-burnished doors. He’d deliberately prolonged the conversation, not out of any conviction, but simply for the fun of it. It was fun to argue, he felt, especially from the perspective of sheer apathy. Besides, he had no reason to disagree. After all, he’d gotten what he wanted, and now he could return to his former life of failure and exile— two essential criteria if one wants to say something meaningful and put it on the page. Success had stolen his ambition, and now he had it back. He had to tell Olden.
He arrived in Big Dipper Township thirty minutes later, driving east across the state highway. Spring had come early to the country; the trees were still bare, but the lake had thawed to a blue shimmer. The sunshine was very warm; patterns of hot and cool flashed across his face as he headed along a winding road, then turned off and steered down a hill, where a narrow drive stopped short of the lake.
The front door to Olden’s shack was open, the entryway partially blocked by a pile of clothes. Gray parked his car and approached the house, calling out his friend’s name. Inside, the place looked abandoned. Olden’s computer lay in pieces, its broken monitor leaking snarled cables. Someone had taken a mallet to the hard drive; its vented panels bulged near the center. Stepping over the mess, he felt something under his shoe—a square of plastic, the letter F printed on one side. Other letters lay nearby, here an M, there a backspace button, the 7, the Tab, the Scroll Lock. Butchered, the keyboard hung from its coiled cord, rotating solemnly as it dangled over the edge of the nightstand. He picked up a few letters; they seemed to wriggle in his hand. Leaning outside, he tossed them onto the front porch, where they struck the step and ricocheted in all directions.
Back inside, he found the telephone and called the police. A dispatcher took down his report. “We will be there in under ninety seconds,” she said, talking away from the receiver.
“Fine, do you need me to answer any—”
“Stay where you are. Do not attempt to leave the premises. If we do not arrive in under ninety seconds, it does not mean that we are not coming.”
“It does not mean that you are not coming.”
