The Phone Company
Page 3
Glancing into the booth behind him, Steve checked on his kids. Sarah rested her head on the table, sleeping, glasses crooked on her face. Their German shepherd, Barksdale, lay curled up next to her against the wall. JJ, however, was shoveling pancakes into his mouth, fixated on TV.
Great, Steve thought.
He turned back to the news. At least they had stopped showing those poor people piling up.
Apparently, the factory was in Louisiana, in a poorer area of New Orleans that was, all these years after Katrina, still in disrepair. USconn had purchased a bunch of adjacent neighborhoods covering a giant tract of land. They’d fenced off the entire acreage, turned the abandoned houses into living quarters, and, without any zoning at all, they’d built the huge factory to crank out phones—using nothing but undocumented workers.
According to the report, most of the workers had developed some form of cancer due to factory runoff. Even their families had been affected, the pollution had spread so far.
Now the Louisiana Workforce Commission, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, ICE, and a host of other federal and state agencies were investigating the practices of USconn and the major clients it supplied.
“Just goes to show you,” Mr. McLean said from the next table over. “Doesn’t matter whether it’s a sweatshop overseas, or if you’re an illegal alien here. Same terrible work environment.”
“It wouldn’t happen if they’d just fix our immigration laws,” Mrs. McLean said. “If they’d just hire real Americans.”
“That’s what the news said,” Steve replied, checking his watch. He almost added “must be true,” but didn’t want to disrespect the McLeans. He’d known them since he was a kid. They were like an aunt and uncle to him.
Steve just disagreed with the media’s spin. Sure, immigration needed some sort of reform, and, yeah, Americans needed jobs, but when a company pushes its employees to suicide and the news incriminates immigration laws? Spotting logical fallacies was part of Steve’s job, and this angle felt too much like blaming the victim.
He started to count out some cash for the ticket and tip.
“I got this,” Bill said. “Guy never jumped.” He laid down his own money, leaving ten dollars for the tip. Then he slid out of the booth, knocking his giant knees against the table leg. With a smile and a nod at the McLeans, Bill put on his cowboy hat with its big golden star.
Steve stood too, looking out at Harcum Cemetery across the street as he pocketed his wallet.
Next to the marble angel, he saw a man in a suit, talking on a phone. Except it didn’t look like a cell phone. It looked like an old handset from a landline.
“You know what,” Steve said, “I’ve always loved graveyards.”
“I know,” Bill said, brushing stray crumbs off his black tie. “Creep.”
“It’s one place where things truly are at peace.” Steve nudged his daughter’s elbow. “Come on, kids.”
JJ gulped down the rest of his milk and hopped out of the booth. Sarah dragged herself out of the seat, groaning, hair mussed on one side, worse than usual.
“I’m so tired.”
“You got to sleep in all summer,” Steve said. “How tired can you be?”
She grumbled and trudged on, and Steve turned once more to the booth. “Come on, Barksdale. Come on, boy.”
The dog didn’t even lift his head. He just looked sideways at Steve, who patted his thigh and said, “Come on.”
The German shepherd’s head finally rose when Bill stepped up, whistling. “Here,” Bill said, pointing at the floor near his boots. At his own pace, Barksdale jumped down from the bench and padded over to the deputy sheriff.
“Sit,” Bill said. The dog gave him a significant look before deciding to lie down.
Bill smirked over at Steve. “Huh? What’d I tell you?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said, waving away his friend. They had an ongoing debate over who was Barksdale’s master and who was the sucker who picked up the dog’s poop.
“He respects the chain of command is all,” Bill said.
Barksdale didn’t stay on the diner tile long, though. He got up and made his way to the bar, to an elderly woman sitting there in a knit cardigan.
“I could have sworn,” the lady said, rummaging through the hundreds of lipstick tubes and cough drops cluttering her purse. Her eyes were welling with tears.
“Hi, Mrs. Hayworth,” Steve said, laying a hand on her bony shoulder.
“Oh, hi,” she said brightly, forgetting all about her purse and trembling hands. Her smile gleamed a garish red.
“It’s me,” Steve said, “Steven Gregory. From your fifth-grade English class?”
“Oh, yes, little Stevie. Yes, I remember now. How’s that darling wife?”
Steve frowned. He and Mrs. Hayworth had the same conversation almost every day of the week. She rarely had money in her purse, and Steve always helped her out. Half the time Bill pitched in too. Once, when Steve fell short of the grand total, even JJ had kicked in a bit from his allowance. And JJ was a notorious penny-pincher.
For about a year now, this had been their routine. In all that time, not once had Mrs. Hayworth asked about Janice.
Steve forced a smile. “Let me get this for you,” he said, laying cash on the bar next to her ticket and empty plate.
Hayworth Diner once belonged to the schoolteacher’s late husband, before Mr. Hayworth sold the business for a mansion on the hill. The new ownership hadn’t changed the name, but that didn’t mean they cut Mrs. Hayworth any breaks when she couldn’t pay up.
Steve didn’t care for the new owners—if not for Bill lying about Barks being an official police dog, they never would have allowed the shepherd inside. But the diner wasn’t just a community establishment, it was tradition. You went no matter who owned it, and whether or not you liked the food.
“Why, thank you, young man,” Mrs. Hayworth said. She picked up the money, counted out a few ones, and tried to hand them back to him. “And here’s a tip for you. Great job.”
Steve tried not to let the sadness creep into his smile as he leaned down by the barstool and patted his dog.
“Just leave it under your cup for me, okay, Mrs. Hayworth? I’ll be sure to pick it up.” He shared his smile with the waitress who actually deserved the tip and then turned to follow his family out the door.
Mrs. Hayworth had been a terrible teacher, with a hard-edged ruler for the knuckles of rotten boys. Steve had grown to like her anyway, once he was older and she was retired. Senile, she was actually pretty nice.
“Hey, check this out,” Bill said, pointing at the TV from his spot by the door. A segment about the presidential candidates had just begun. “Ah, man, you missed it. Apparently we’re getting a PCo.”
“What do you mean?” Steve said.
“The Phone Company. We’re getting one.”
“Yeah, but a tower, a store? What?”
Bill shrugged. “They just said we’re getting a PCo.”
“Isn’t that exciting?” Cathy said on her way by with a tray of breakfast plates and orange juice.
“Actually, no,” Steve said, even though Cathy had bustled by. “They just got done telling us on that report. The factory is one of PCo’s major suppliers.”
“I want one,” Sarah said.
“The Tethers look awesome,” JJ added.
Steve shook his head. “That’s like supporting human trafficking. No.”
“Plus the increase in distracted driving and vehicular manslaughter,” Bill said. JJ laughed.
Just by the way the boy chortled and wore his black cap like some junior deputy, Steve could tell JJ thought Bill’s dark joke was cool enough he’d be repeating it to the guys at school.
“Sorry,” Bill said when Steve shot him another withering glare.
“Whatever. Let’s go.”
They glanced once more at the TV, where the libertarian Frederick Hill was giving his campaign speech about his stance on the war overseas. Steve wonder
ed how long it would take after this USconn tragedy before politicians started taking pokes at immigration.
He took a quick look around the diner to see if anyone else seemed upset. Most of them had gone back to their omelets. A few of them, though, were comparing their old phones, looking extremely excited that they might soon get new ones.
Steve began to regret eating such a large breakfast. Sometimes even the people he had known the longest made him sick.
* * *
Bill left on patrol, and Barksdale wandered out into the old headstones of Harcum Cemetery, as was his wont. Not even Bill could coax him into Steve’s car.
After dropping Sarah off at Burnt Valley High, Steve and JJ drove to the middle school, HMS. Steve’s favorite talk show was hosting a panel of experts on the USconn debacle. He listened in while JJ ignored everything except his MP3 player.
According to the panel, the investigation was exploring who actually owned USconn. The inquiry turned out to be difficult to answer, as the manufacturer was owned by a company that was owned by a company that was owned by a shell corporation. One of the directors from the Securities and Exchange Commission called it a nesting doll.
Of course, PCo execs pleaded ignorance beyond their client/supplier relationship with USconn; with a multinational conglomerate such as The Phone Company, how could the executives possibly keep track of everything?
“Typical corporate amnesia,” Steve said to the radio.
As they passed through town, he spotted Marvin Jones, wearing his customary CIA hat. Marvin and his big, bushy red beard had become a permanent fixture near the courthouse, always picketing.
PCo Phone Bill: $140
PCo Tether: $750
300 dead USconn employees? Worthless
Usually it took Marvin a week to cook up a topical sign that good. His one-man protests were always at least a couple days behind the times.
Good for him, Steve thought. For once, he actually agreed with the crackpot.
At school JJ went off with his horde of friends toward first period, and Steve went to his own classroom. It teemed with eighth graders, chatting, laughing. A lot of them still wore earbuds, and most of them were playing with their phones. He recognized about eighty percent of them.
Steve didn’t say anything. He went to the whiteboard and wrote “Langage Arts” in big black letters. Underneath that, he added his name, then took a seat at his desk.
As he collected his lecture notes, Steve eyeballed the students to see whether any of them had caught on. He smiled to himself when he saw a few girls and at least one boy reading what he’d written.
“Hey, look,” a kid with a New Zealand accent spoke up. Steve knew him. Richard Clement, one of JJ’s friends. “An English teacher who can’t even spell language arts.”
Several of the boys, friends of Clement’s, all laughed, and quite a few of the girls giggled too.
Steve looked at the board, pretending to be shocked. He took the marker from the tray and held it out. “If you want to, Mr. Clement, you can fix it. Can you tell us what’s wrong with it?”
Everyone was looking at Clement now. Before the kid had a chance to reply, Steve laid the marker back in the tray.
“If anyone wants to fix it, there you go.”
A few students immediately pulled out their phones, glancing at the misspelling on the board as their thumbs worked little keypads.
“Hey, no cheating,” Steve said.
The phones didn’t entirely go away, but some of the wind in the kids’ sails did.
As Steve moved on to his introduction, a little blonde—the younger Disney girl, Meg—approached the white board. He watched Meg, but kept talking.
She uncapped the marker and studied the word for a second. Between the “g” and the “a,” she drew a caret and inserted the letter “u.” With a nod, she returned to her seat.
Steve smiled. He knew one of the quickest ways to get kids’ attention was to indulge their belief that they knew everything. It worked almost every time.
He gestured to the Disney girl. “This is what our class is about. Words. Language. Meaning. And correcting people.”
A few of the kids laughed, as if it were funny, but not that funny.
Steve got an idea and wrote a pair of phrases on the board:
Illegal aliens
vs.
Undocumented workers
He tapped at the words. “These both refer to the same thing, but what’s the difference?”
“What kind of aliens?” one of the students asked, earning a few snickers.
Steve replaced the word aliens with Martians, smiling the whole time. He looked forward to another year of making students think they were smarter than he was. Because at least then, he was making them think.
* * *
In computer class, JJ and his friend Mini Mark had already figured out how to log in, even though they were supposed to be listening to the teacher’s introduction.
A link popped up in JJ’s instant messages. Mini Mark had sent him a meme. The picture showed the Chinese guy crying up at the sky atop the USconn factory, with a caption that read,
“Excuse me,” the teacher said, striding over. “What are you two doing?”
JJ and Mini Mark clicked out of the windows. By the time the teacher got there, he was staring at two blank screens.
He and JJ met eyes, and JJ tried not to smirk. The teacher took the keyboard and mouse from him and opened the internet browser.
Damn it, JJ thought.
At home he usually set his browser to clear all history automatically. He had forgotten to set that preference here. And, of course, the teacher went straight to JJ’s history, straight to the memes.
* * *
At the end of the period, Steve sat in the faculty lounge with two other instructors. They all looked up from their lunch when Mr. Beach from computer science poked his head in.
“What’s wrong?” Steve said when he noticed JJ in the hall behind Mr. Beach.
“Your son and his friend were goofing off in class, and apparently they thought this was funny.” Beach handed a stack of printouts to Steve. “I would have sent him straight to the principal’s office, but . . .”
“No,” Steve said, staring down at the terror, grief, and hopelessness wrenching Huan Kong’s face in three different directions. “I’ll take care of it. Thanks.”
Beach nodded and left JJ to his dad.
They went to Steve’s office, where JJ took a seat and Steve stood by his desk.
“What is this?” he asked, gesturing with the printouts.
“I didn’t do it.”
“I don’t care who did it. You think this is funny?”
JJ squeezed the bill of his hat, sharpening the bend in it.
“This man lost his family,” Steve said. “His wife, his son. I can’t believe you’d think this is funny.”
“I told you I didn’t do it.”
“But they were on your computer.”
“So?”
Steve sighed. He had always considered himself a patient parent, but it took every muscle in his body. And in the end, he wasn’t sure his patience did anything to make his kids better people.
“Look, JJ, I don’t care. Forget who did it. I just hope you get why this kind of thing isn’t funny.”
JJ sighed, glanced around at Steve’s Shakespeare posters, then met his dad’s eyes, brows raised. “Yeah. Got it. Can I go to lunch now?”
Steve stared
at him for a second, and JJ stared right back. Finally, Steve leaned against his desk. “Go. We’ll talk about this later.”
JJ left and Steve sat there, looking at the memes. His son should have known what it felt like to lose someone. After all, Mrs. Kong had died of cancer.
Then again, JJ had been in Cracked Rock Elementary at the time; he hadn’t lost friends at HMS like his sister had. And Steve sometimes wondered whether sheltering the boy from his mother’s slow death had left him distanced even from his own terrible loss. Which made Steve sad and angry with himself.
Because when he looked at Huan Kong’s face splitting open to the utter void, Steve saw his own reflection there, and he would never understand why JJ had become so desensitized that he couldn’t see his own face there, too.
Steve stopped on the last meme in the stack. He stared at something in the picture, then looked back at the others, confused. Aside from the captions, they were all the same image of Kong. Except for the last one.
At first Steve assumed the photo had been cropped differently than the others, but it hadn’t. They were all exactly the same, except . . .
In this last one, right behind Kong, and mostly out of frame, stood a man in a black suit. Just the man’s shoulder and side, and the blue square in his breast pocket. He was much taller than Kong, so the camera had cut off his head, but Steve could tell the man was holding something up to his ear.
Something black.
CHAPTER 3
“Hey, Bill,” Aaron said over the deputy sheriff’s radio, “time to take out the trash.”
“Again?” Bill said, checking his rearview.
“Yep.”
“Crap.” He put on his blinker and brakes.
“Neighbors said they heard gunshots,” Aaron added.
Bill said crap again and pulled into the bank parking lot. His tires chirped as he spun around on the blacktop.