Up in the Air

by Walter Kirn

  Something’s not right here; I’ve read this story before. I try to place the source. Was it last week in a club-room U.S. News or was it the week before, in flight, in Time? The shooting happened in Oregon, I recall, at a softball game, or was it a Wisconsin soccer match? I wait for the reporter to change screens and reveal his dateline but he’s stopped writing, hung up on completing this sentence: “Such innocence—”

  I can finish it for him from memory: “dies hard.” His hands hang over the keyboard as he thinks. Here he goes now: “isn’t easily destroyed.” Same difference—I was right. I’ve read this story! Then I place it: USA Today, just half an hour ago.

  What a make-work universe this is. Judging by the fellow’s bunched-up brow, rewriting a story known to all is just as hard as composing one from scratch.

  “Got the time?” I ask, pretending to wake. I can’t let him know I’ve been spying.

  “What’s our zone?”

  “Pacific. This is a Tuesday, the third millennium, and breakfast is poppyseed muffins. That’s all I know.”

  “I guess it must be seven then.” He clicks back his digital watch but goes too far, clicks it forward, overshoots again, then finally nails it.

  “You write for a living?”

  “Try.”

  “For magazines?”

  “A Chicago afternoon paper. I’m on deadline. Can you excuse me for a few more minutes? I need to file as soon as we touch down.”

  He returns to his work, which isn’t really his, searching for transitions and adjectives that, when he finds them after much grave frowning, duplicate exactly the other writer’s, which probably came from a wire story anyway. I could just give him the paper from my briefcase, but the guy needs to feel important, like all of us.

  I shed my boots at last and flex my feet. The odor is inoffensive—warm, damp leather—but the socks, I see, aren’t my brand. I only buy Gold Toes. A hotel laundry mix-up? It happens. Still.

  I switch on my microrecorder: “Notes for book: hero floats outside of time in The Garage. The progress of his projects is all he knows. Self-management means nothing if not this—the task-centered governance of one’s very biorhythms. If not for the quarterly financial statements that come to him through the Communications Portal, which he shreds unread, then burns for heat, my hero would not even know what year it is. The man who makes history is a living calendar, his beating heart his only pendulum. When the voice in the Portal says to him “Go faster!” my hero replies with the Fourth Dictum: “Innovation spreads outward from its center, not forward from some arbitrary—”

  “Sir?”

  I look to the side.

  “Your coffee.”

  Turbulence. Before I can close my hand, the cup leaps sideways, spraying my chin and my collar. I’m wet, but not burned—the coffee was dishwater warm. We jolt again. My recorder hops off the seat onto the floor, and when I pick it up, it’s dripping, soaked. I press rewind and the capstans jerk then stop. I pop the tape out and blot it on my shirt. Thirty minutes of lost work not yet transcribed.

  I check the window: clear skies, a plane-shaped shadow gliding over a salt flat. Things are calm again. The flight attendant returns, apologizes, then hands me a pen and a voucher from the airline granting me a thousand miles in consideration for my stained clothing. I tell her it’s not enough, that I want five, but she says that the best she can do is one. I sign. The miles don’t make us even, not even close, but at least I’m not falling any further behind.

  The reporter saves his story, shuts his laptop, zips it into a padded black nylon case, and calls for a white rum and diet cola. We’re still waiting on our breakfast, but the flight attendant understands that there’s no accounting for body clocks.

  I quiz the fellow about his job, then mention that I’ve been doing some writing myself, which seems to alarm him. Another sweaty amateur. I name my publisher to prove my bona fides, but he tells me he’s not familiar with the imprint and begins to fidget with his wedding band, sliding it up and down over his knuckle as if to make sure the thing will still come off. I backtrack to my real job and propose that he do a story on CTC men, the smiling undertakers for the still-living. The reporter hasn’t a clue about what I’m referring to, but nods nonetheless, then retrieves his cased computer. Inspiration has struck, apparently. Perhaps he’ll change “leafy college town” to “shady.”

  I unlock the airphone from my seatback and steel myself for a call to ISM and the man I like least in the world, Craig Gregory, who came on the same month that I did, way back when. We underwent the same training, same orientation, and we simultaneously requisitioned the same ergonomic desk chairs and keyboard wrist-pads. After that, our paths diverged. Mine traveled flat and away, into the world, while Craig’s snaked back into the building and corkscrewed upward. He knew what I didn’t—that power in the company lay inside its walls, with his colleagues and superiors, not outside, with the clients. Craig Gregory became a virtuoso lurker in beverage nooks, stairwells, elevators, and men’s rooms, emerging from stalls to startle chatting VPs, plunking his tray down across from gossiping temps, getting the dope, remembering the dope, dishing out the dope. He never went home. No matter how early I reached the office, a coffeed-up Craig Gregory was there before me, sparking off with the latest e-mail jokes and showing off curious finds from people’s wastebaskets. I suspected he kept a small mattress in an air duct, where he’d also squirreled away chocolate bars and water. And somehow, in time, he gained leverage over me, over all of us. We couldn’t shake him, the phantom of headquarters, a pestilent jack-in-the-box with icy Certs breath, and soon quite a few of us were reporting to him, ISM’s organizational charts be damned.

  I tell him I’m on an airphone when he picks up—it’s a way to limit our conversation time. At three bucks a minute I’ll have to keep this short.

  “How’s Krusk? You talk to him about his debts? You’re at least coming back with a severed ear, I hope. Hey, I got one of those desk toys—steel ball on strings. The soothing click and clack of basic physics. It fits right in with my teeter-totter monkeys.”

  “Art’s a write-off. He’s gutted. There’s nothing there, Craig. I won’t be submitting my hours on that job.”

  “Roll the bill over to those HMO guys—they deserve it. Denying cripples crutches. You on your way there?”

  The subject of my call. Why even tell him, though; I owe him nothing.

  “California today. A little meeting.”

  “Profiting whom? Not more freelancing, let’s pray. Get this: I was in the skybox Sunday aft, grabbing some rented ass that we trucked in for what’s-his-face, the mobbed-up solid-waste king, and my guy in Internal Travel lights a Partagas and tells me ‘This Bingham of yours is on a spree; he’s taking us for a ride, hoss—shut him down.’ So I say . . . What do I say?”

  “No idea, Craig. We’re nearing twenty bucks now, with connection charges.”

  “Wherever our Bingham goes, the money follows. Let the man plant his seeds. They’ll grow to oaks.”

  “I’m thinking of putting Texas off.”

  “Unwise. They’re laying waste to their whole top floor, those boys. There’s gold in that there lake of steaming gore.”

  “I’ll see.”

  “I just set my shiny balls to swinging. Isaac Newton, I thank you. My man in Travel told me he thinks you’re gunning for big round numbers at his and my and the janitor’s expense, but I said ‘Lay off, he’s earned it.’ Hey, I crapped today. My first since the operation.”

  “What operation?”

  “A hush-hush female problem. My teenage steroid abuse grew me a uterus. None of your damn beeswax. Important thing: I crapped.”

  “That’s me, applauding.”

  “That’s me, passing blood.”

  “This is costing us, Craig.”

  “It’s costing all America. It’ll show up in next year’s productivity figures.”

  “Are you threatening to cut my travel off?”

  “We miss
ed that boat. That boat left port five years ago. We’re going to let you sail and sail and sail. Send a postcard if you ever get there.”

  “I’m hanging up on you.”

  “Good. I love that sound.”

  The reporter looks over; he’s been spying too, it seems. “Your office?”

  “For another couple days.”

  “You say your profession is dismissing people?”

  “That’s how it ended up, not how it started. I also give talks on discovering inner riches. I met a fan last night. She bought my shit.”

  “Maybe you’re right and there’s a story there. Sorry if I seemed rude before. I’m Pete. Tell me what you were going to tell me.”

  “Later.”

  “This is your chance,” says Pete. “We’re going to land.”

  “Sorry. Moody. Don’t feel much like talking. Another big shooting? I peeked at your computer.”

  “I can’t seem to find the words this morning. Stuck.”

  I open my case and hand Pete the morning paper. He’ll get the same results but get them quicker, and he’ll be able to enjoy his cocktail. We all like to think we can add that special touch, and some of us can, perhaps, just not Pete and me. I order my own drink. The flight attendant hustles. For all she knows her morning is my night.

  seven

  not every profession is fortunate enough to have a founding father who’s still alive, let alone available to visit and do business with. In management analysis—the good side—that man is Sandor “Sandy” Pinter, a Hungarian who came over in the forties and called upon his training as a philosopher to grapple with the new realities of American business. His first full-length book, Ideals and Industry, argued that the modern corporation gains its moral legitimacy from its promise to forge and sustain a global middle class. The book was ignored except by intellectuals, but Pinter’s next book, addressed directly to businessmen, created the modern science of management almost by itself. Making Work Work earned Pinter fame and riches and formed the basis for the Pinter Institute, a Los Angeles school for mid-career executives where Pinter taught, in person and by satellite, until his retirement three years ago at the age of eighty. From his modest bungalow outside Ontario, he continues to write (an article a year or so, the latest being “Managing for Meaning”), but he rarely travels. You have to go to him.

  And that’s what I’m doing. I have a small proposal. If Pinter accepts it, MythTech will take notice.

  The concept is simple: allow a corporation to endow its physical environment, floor to ceiling, wall to wall, with the philosopher’s inspiring presence. Muzak-like recordings of Pinter’s lectures will play in the hallways, lavatories, and lobbies. Ticker tapes composed of Pinter’s epigrams will run at the bottom of company computer screens. The product-package will be all-encompassing, including “Pinterized’” calendars, coffee mugs, ballpoint pens and other office supplies. Even its carpeting, should the company wish, can be woven with Pinter’s trademark “dynograms,” from the lightning-struck infinity symbol (Perpetual Discovery) to the star of five crossed swords (Team Solidarity).

  Winning Pinter’s permission to license such a product should take one afternoon, if all goes well. I happen to know that he’s under some financial strain. His thoughtful books stopped selling years ago, bumped from the shelves by his students’ shoddy quickies, and his rash investments in fringe enthusiasms such as self-cooling beverage cans and sunless tanning preparations have murdered his net worth. That he’s agreed to spend time with me at all shows some desperation, I’m afraid, but I’m not here to take advantage of him. The opposite. I’m here to glorify him.

  The problem, just now, is my health. My joints are stiff and I’m coughing up sweet phlegm after a morning of hassles and distractions attributable to the overall decline of American travel services. I was leaving the parking lot in my rental car when its orange oil light flashed on. I circled back to the Maestro garage and was given a choice by the on-duty mechanic of trading down from my Volvo to a Pontiac or changing the oil myself and billing the company. The mechanic recommended a ProntoLube just a block away from Homestead Suites, where he said I could also find a drugstore.

  I got back on my way, but formless Ontario, with its poorly marked surface roads and surly pedestrians, swallowed me whole. My gas gauge fell and fell. Three times I passed identical burrito stands before realizing they were the same establishment. Twice I nearly ran over a stray Great Dane trailing a leash that had snagged a plastic tricycle. At unpatrolled traffic lights, sloping muscle cars and jacked-up pickups gunned past me blaring rap. I felt like I was driving in Paraguay. In my idea of Paraguay, at least.

  I’m like my mother—I stereotype. It’s faster.

  Airports are often plunked down in nowhere-lands, and I navigate them by calling on my sense of which sort of businesses go along with which. Find a Red Lobster, you’ve found the Holiday Inn. But Ontario’s layout didn’t follow the rules. Its Olive Gardens were next to bleak used-car lots. Its OfficeMaxes abutted adult bookstores. I punched in Homestead’s national 800 number and had the operator patch me through to the desk clerk at the local franchise, who talked me, block by block, to the front door. When I entered the lobby, I didn’t see him anywhere, though we’d only hung up on each other moments earlier. I pushed the buzzer, waited. Ten minutes passed.

  A girl opened a door marked “Pool and Fitness” and asked if she could help me.

  “Where’s the clerk?”

  “I am.”

  “I was just talking to him.”

  “Me?”

  “A male. The voice was male.”

  “The pool guy maybe.”

  I asked if my replacement credit card had arrived that morning as promised, and it had—the girl just couldn’t remember where she’d put it. I crossed the street to the drugstore while she searched. Through the locked door I could see the teenage staff conducting inventory. I knocked and knocked. A manager came to the door and waved me off, then pushed a stack of boxes against the glass.

  Back at Homestead, the girl presented me with a fax. I asked about the card. “Still gone,” she said. The fax, marked “urgent,” was almost too light to read, and consisted of copies of copies of telephone messages taken down by my grad-student assistant. Two were from Morris Dwight at Advanta, one was from Linda at the Denver Compass Club, and the fourth read “Please call sister,” but didn’t say which one.

  I went to my room to return the calls, but the phone had no dial tone. I used my mobile. First, I called Kara at home. Her husband answered. She’d already left for Minnesota, he said. Had she heard from Julie? He didn’t think so. Did he know that Julie was missing? No, he said, but then he’d only come home an hour ago from a two-day hospital stay. I asked Asif what he’d been in for—a mistake. My brother-in-law’s a slow talker, a real enunciator, and it’s part of his caring nature to assume that others care equally about him. We do care, but not at his level. He’s unique. “They studied my sleep,” he said. “I wore electrodes. They taped a little sensor to my thumb to measure the chemical makeup of my blood. It dipped below ninety percent, which isn’t good. I snore. I have apnea. It’s very common, and not just among the obese. You think you’re resting, but actually you’re expending as much energy as a marathon runner. Every night.”

  “I was diagnosed with apnea too, once.”

  “Which treatment plan did you choose?”

  “I haven’t yet. Listen, someone’s knocking. Have to run.”

  “We think we know how we’re sleeping, but we don’t. They filmed me. I was all over the mattress.”

  “Here’s my number in case you hear from Julie.”

  At Advanta I spoke to someone under Dwight who told me he must have called me from his cell, but refused to give out that number. I pointed out that the number on Dwight’s message was the number I was calling now. “I guess this line was supposed to forward then,” the underling said. “But it didn’t, did it? Shoot.” I suggested that he call Dwight on the
road and pass on my number at Homestead. Silence. “Wait—I just found a note here. Are you ready? Can’t do Thursday SeaTac breakfast. Sorry. Will be in Phoenix on Wednesday. Can you come there? Wednesday is tomorrow.”

  “Thanks for the tip. I already told him I can get to Phoenix. What’s the hotel name?”

  “Had it, put it down, and . . . I can get it. It’s here. You’re the Garage guy?”

  “Correct. You got the manuscript?”

  “I read it. Your man in there, what exactly does he invent? I imagine he’s, like, a chemist.”

  “It’s never stated.”

  “Artistic. Cool. How big is his garage?”

  “That’s up to you. It’s a metaphor. An image.”

  “So it’s smallish, you’re saying?”

  “Have you been listening? I’m saying its dimensions aren’t physical. What’s your boss’s opinion of the book?”

  “He still hasn’t read it. He’s an editor. I take the first pass and then write up a summary. He decides from my summary whether he’ll read it, too.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “That’s the practice.”

  “I’m stunned,” I say.

  “Another question: The Second Dictum?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s a lot like the Sixth. I don’t think you need the Sixth.”

  “Tell Dwight I’ll be in Phoenix mid-day tomorrow and that I have some major concerns to share with him. Have you found that hotel name?”

  “I had it, I put it down . . .”

  “Does Advanta make a profit?”

  “It’s publishing. Profits are secondary.”

  “That’s what’s scaring me.”

  I decide that my last call, to Linda, can wait awhile. What do you owe them once you’ve screwed them? Everything. You’ve been inside their skins. You’ve touched their wombs. The only question is whether they’ll make you pay, whether they’ll call in the note. Most don’t, thank goodness. But Linda, I’ve always feared, will want full value. This doesn’t mean I’ll have to pay, of course, just that I’ll have to live with having defaulted. And I can. I’ve done it with the others. It’s a matter of rolling over one personal debt into the pooled, collective, social debt that’s the business of governments and churches. Or I could refinance, amortize over centuries.