Commencement

by Lawrence Cherry

  ****

  As Tim worked through the rest of the afternoon, he couldn’t help but be haunted by the images from the status report meeting with Standoff. Most vivid was the impression of Preston’s voice as he asked Tim if he was happy now. Tim felt that he should have been happy. After all, Preston got exactly what he deserved and Tim got a chance to see it. It was providential retribution, but Tim was more unsettled by it than anything else. It reminded him of what happened to him barely two months before, but not in the way that he had expected.

  Tim now knew why Standoff wanted him there. He wanted to humiliate Preston in front of his subordinate as a way of punishing him for his failure. Hadn’t Standoff done something similar to him almost two months ago? Tim was angry with Standoff for manipulating them against one another. It made Tim lose respect for him. At the same time it made him feel bad for Preston. The pained look on Preston’s face said it all. It reminded him of his own pain and humiliation. No longer could he see Preston as simply “The Jerk”. He was just another brother with the same struggles and problems that he had. Maybe that’s why he spoke up for Preston at the meeting the way he did.

  Just then, Tim was hit by a sudden wave of nausea, not as bad as the one he had this morning, but it unsettled him nonetheless. He needed some air and perhaps a drink of water. Tim went over to Preston’s office to let him know that he would be stepping out for a few minutes. He knocked but he heard no response. Then he tried the door, which was open. Tim stuck his head in. Preston was sitting at his desk with his head in his hands looks as dejected as ever.

  “I’m going to take five, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Yeah, that’s okay with me, Tim. You take five. In fact, I was thinking you take as much time as you want. I’m done” said Preston somberly.

  “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about all this. The corner office and all that”, replied Preston whose manner became more peculiar with every word.

  “Look man, maybe you should just take the rest of the day off. Get some rest. I’ll handle things while you’re gone.”

  “Yeah, I think it’s best that you handle everything from now on. You win brotha! You win! It’s all yours!” exclaimed Preston.

  Without warning Preston darted toward the window.

  “What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?” yelled Tim trying to keep Preston from jumping more than 18 stories to his death. If this had been about six months earlier, Tim would have been able to take him without breaking a sweat, but in his current condition, it was taking everything he had.

  “Get off me or you’re going with me!”

  “Preston, don’t do this”, said Tim as he backed off.

  “Now you want to be the hero, too! Not if I can help it.”

  “Preston, this isn’t about me. It’s about you. Think about what you’re about to do to yourself. Once you go off that ledge there’s no turning back.”

  “Don’t try to use psychology on me! You’re no saint! You don’t give a damn about me!”

  “Preston, you may not be my favorite person in the world, but I do care about you. If I didn’t then I’d just walk out of here and let the police or whoever pick up your broken pieces, and try to take your place, but that’s not what I want to happen. I’m pretty sure your family and friends don’t want that to happen either.”

  “My family doesn’t care about me. All they care about is money. And I don’t have any friends.”

  “What about all your friends here at Herns and Marshall?”

  “Since Standoff’s started to give me the business, all of my former associates have been acting as if I caught the plague. And you heard him today. In two weeks, he’s gonna put the word about me in the street. Then what am I going to do? What’s left for a black man once his reputation is marred.”

  “Preston, H&M is not the center of the universe. This may be a powerful company but not powerful enough to determine the rest of your life. I have a friend, and she believes that there is more to this life than our jobs, or money, or anything else we can see. There are infinite possibilities, things that defy our sense of logic or what we can reason. You talk about the next two weeks as if you know you’re going to fail, but you don’t know that for sure. You won’t know until you go through it and come out on the other side.”

  “There’s no way I’m going to get everything together in two weeks. It’s not humanly possible.”

  “Still, we could try. I’ll help you. We’ll work it one task at a time until we’re done.”

  “And what if it doesn’t get done?”

  “Then there are other options. Preston, you’re not the only person on Standoff’s hit list. I’m on borrowed time here, too. Remember? So if you’re gone, that doesn’t mean they’ll automatically have me take your place. They’ll just hire someone else for your position and I’ll still be out in the cold.”

  “Yeah, but a guy like you must have a lot of fancy connections. Don’t act like you don’t have someplace else you can run to.”

  “To tell you the truth, Preston, I don’t. I’m in the same situation that you’re in. I can’t depend on my family, and my friends couldn’t help me find another job even if they wanted to. Truth be told, I might end up with my best friend as a janitor in the hotel downtown for all I know.”

  “So what keeps you going?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the hope that there’s someone or something out there that’s bigger than me who can handle what I can’t.

  Someone or something that can work things out in ways I could never expect.”

  “What? You mean like God?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. All I’m saying is this project isn’t worth throwing your life away. This is just one moment in time and you don’t know what the future holds.”

  “You mean like more misery.”

  “Look, Preston, everyone has good and bad times, but if we don’t hold on through the tough times, we’ll never be able to reap the benefits when the good times come. C’mon, Preston. Come down from there and let me call someone who can help you.”

  “I don’t want those doctors to come and take me to the loony bin.”

  “You can check into a hospital yourself for a few days. Then you can see someone as an outpatient. No one’s going to lock you up, and no one here has to know. You could just say you had a medical emergency.”

  “Why should I trust anything that you say?”

  “O.K., Preston, I’ll be the first one to admit that I’ve been a jerk in the past, but one thing we both know is that I’ve never lied to you. I always say what I mean and mean what I say.”

  It took some time before Tim’s words were actually received by Preston. He had a pensive look on his face, as he thought about what Tim said.

  “I’m still the boss though”, Preston remarked apprehensively.

  “Fine, just come down.”

  Preston began to come down from where he was at the window, looking almost as if he were coming out of a daze.

  “I think I had too much to drink during lunch. I don’t feel so well.”

  “If you want to go home, I’m sure everyone will understand.”

  “Standoff wouldn’t. Just give me some space for a minute. I’ll be okay. I just had a little too much to drink at lunch.”

  “Are you sure? I promise, I’m not going to do anything behind your back. If you need to go home or if you need to see a doctor…”

  “I’m not crazy, Tim! I told you…I had too much to drink at lunch. I need some rest. Who knows, maybe this is some kind of hormone imbalance. Maybe I will see a doctor.”

  “That’s a good idea. Is there anything that I can do for you in the meantime?”

  “I need you to help me put together the final presentation. It’s all there. Somewhere. You’re a big boy. You can figure it all out.”

  “Alright….just go and take some time for yourself.”
>
  Preston grabbed his suit jacket, coat, and brief case and left leaving Tim still feeling a little weakened and shaken by the ordeal. The adrenaline rush was wearing off now, and Tim was dizzy from being emotionally spent. He just needed some time to process everything that had just happened. But before he could gather his composure, there was a knock on the outer office door. Tim didn’t want to answer it, but he knew there were probably some people in the other departments who heard all of the yelling (although they should have been used to it by now). Tim had to do damage control. He got up from his chair went out and closed the back office door to hide the mess that was inside. Then he went to the front office administrative area and opened the door.

  “Hey, Tim. Is everything okay in here? Sounded like Preston was having another meltdown.”

  “That shouldn’t be unusual.”

  “True”, laughed Frank “That guy’s something else, isn’t he?”

  “He’s just under a lot of pressure, trying to get his big presentation together before the deadline.”

  “So it seems from the looks of the way he just stormed out of here. He taking yet another lunch break?”

  “I don’t know. We really don’t talk much except for business.”

  “I don’t blame you. Word has it, he’ll probably be gone after the end of the month.”

  “Really?” sighed Tim who was tired and showed almost no interest. He really wished that Frank would just go away. Tim just wasn’t in the mood for the gossip right now.

  “Yeah, everybody knows he’s not even close to finishing the presentation. Standoff’s already got his eye on his replacement. Everyone’s saying it’s going to be his niece who just got out of Yale.”

  “Interesting. Well, I’d love to chat, but I’ve got a lot to do right now.”

  “If it’s something for Preston, don’t sweat it too much. But take care of yourself. I don’t think that guy’s playing with a full deck if you ask me.”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks for looking out.”

  “See ya ‘round Tim.”

  Tim closed the door and headed back to the back office. The wind coming through from the open window had blown papers everywhere. Tim went over and closed the widow, stooped down to the floor and tried to put everything together including his own sanity in the process.

  Everything had happened so fast. Tim needed time to go over it all. If he was correct, Preston had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown of suicidal proportions, and he had just reached out to keep his worst enemy from a catastrophic end. How did this happen? How did he even know what to say? Where did it all come from?

  Tim couldn’t help but see a lot of himself in Preston. There was a time in his life when he was Mr. Popular: confident and self-assured with lots of friends, or so it seemed. Yet on the inside he was nothing but an insecure mess always in need of constant reassurance and validation by others. So Tim was driven to perform; to be the best; to be ‘successful’. To be honest, he was still like this. Like himself, it seemed that Preston was always chasing the carrot of success. The problem was that with each accomplishment, more would be expected. You always had to keep working, keep striving. And what happened when you couldn’t keep up anymore? For Preston it seemed that life wasn’t worth living. Tim himself understood that feeling and had contemplated suicide himself on more than one occasion in the distant past. But he was thankful for friends like Tamiko and Allen who were some of the few people in his life who didn’t have expectations for him, or hoops for him to jump through. They taught him that there was more to life than accomplishments. Tim knew they would stick by him even if he were the biggest loser on the planet. Tim was now beginning to understand that who he was as a person was more important than any accomplishment. Most of all, he was beginning to see that there was indeed more to this life than just work, being successful, and accumulating wealth. After all, what if you didn’t have these things? Or what if one had all these things and then suddenly lost them all? What was this life all about then? Thinking back on all of those philosophy classes he took at Harvard, not one provided him with an answer to that question. That’s partly why he became an agnostic. For years, Tim had been satisfied to just believe that there was no reason for life and no need for God. However, now this theory bothered him. A lot.

  There had to be some meaning to it all. There had to be some definite answer, otherwise, why not jump 18 stories to one’s death. If life is meaningless, then why hold it to be so sacred?

  Perhaps there was something to the religion that Allen, Tamiko, and the Pastor believed in. Maybe that God was in work in him right now. How else could he explain it?

  Looking through the folders, there was not much to be had. There was still so much that had to be done. It was already almost 3:30, and Tim didn’t even know where to begin. He had promised Preston that he would help him and he meant it. The present moment conjured memories of Pastor Bynum’s prophetic word for Tim a month earlier. He had said that Tim needed to love his enemies and to do good for them. If anyone had told Tim back then he would be in the situation he was in now, he would have laughed. He had just practically saved Preston’s life, and now he was going to save his job. The presentation was due in two weeks. It would take nothing short of a miracle to get even a half-baked presentation finished by then. Tim was just one man, and he couldn’t count on Preston to fill in the gaps especially given what happened just moments ago. Then Tim remembered what Tamiko said that night that he took her to Manna’s after work. She believed that God was there to do the things that she couldn’t “for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”1 This mess was way bigger than Tim. “If there is a God, I sure need him right now”, Tim thought to himself.

  Forty