Shooting Stars (19 page)

Every time I hear Susan talk about little Tony getting straight A’s on his report card, I fucking cringe. So what he’s getting straight A’s? It’s the fucking second grade. Has he mastered making shapes out of construction paper? It’s almost as bad as the people who bring their kids in on their days off. So you’re gonna tell me you have a day away from this place when you’re getting paid to stay away, and you decide to drive into work so you can parade your child around the office. I don’t give a shit. I don’t really want to play talk to them, saying dumb shit like, “Boy, we’re hiring younger and younger these days” or any of that. Or Mondays, when Wally talks about spending his entire Saturday at the apple orchard picking out “just the bestest Red Delicious apples.” And then spending all of Sunday making pies out of them. They’re pretty good pies, but that’s not the point. I don’t give a fuck about his pie-making hobby. He has to feel how badly I want to tell him he sounds like a gaping vagina. And what’s worse is that the old white ladies often mistake me for Wally. We look nothing alike. The only similarity is I’m black and he’s black. But he’s taller than me, which makes him oafish, dresses in the same clothes an unfashionable eight-year-old would wear, has glasses, and depending on the day of the week, he might be holding an apple pie in his hand. I hate his guts even more when they confuse us. I wonder if that’s what’s holding me back from getting my promotion. People thinking I’m Wally. Fucking Wally.

But it’s also how I don’t give a fuck about Keith giving everyone a blow by blow of his daughter’s soccer game. I don’t care if you coach. You bought a book off Amazon, now you want to diagram plays for six-year-olds. You’re a fucking dolt, Keith. Why can’t they see I’m not invested in their lives in any shape or form. And if I ever was invested, I would’ve sold my shares immediately.

And the way our freedoms are limited makes us feel like we’re in a penitentiary. Most of us have to eat lunch at a specific time. We can’t go over, or we’ll get in trouble. We have to be here at a certain time. Sometimes during lunch I even see people in groups going for a walk around the parking lot, like it’s yard time on Rikers. Some people have mirrors mounted on their computer monitors in the event someone sneaks up in their cube behind them, like the other employees are sharpening their staplers into shivs and might stab them in the neck if their timecard is late. And much like jails, this job is filled with people who aren’t supposed to be here. It’s not that they got caught during a bank robbery when they had the perfect plan. But they had a different plan for their life, and they end up here, wasting away their adulthood. There’s no child who thinks they want to grow up and sit in a cubicle pushing paper and answering people’s questions about their benefits. If there is a child who dreams of that, I want to give that kid an award for most unimaginative person ever.

And if you do have a positive concept of working, it can’t last long with the nature of this job. It’s just people constantly calling with questions about their pensions and benefits. Yes, this happens all of the time. Why? I’ll never know. Sometimes it’s a routine thing. You’ll sense a pattern of the same people calling every month, every week, or, for the persistent assholes, every day. I guess it’s a way for them to justify why they’re even working at their shitty job and to make sure their employer isn’t shorting them. It’s people your age calling with questions. Or they’re getting laid off. Which automatically forces you to think it can and will happen to you soon enough. Or disgruntled old people with their issues. Their medical coverage cost went up. They were with the company for so long and
this
is how they’re treated. It’s an endless litany of sob stories and warning tales from people who were where you are. You get a glimpse into your very own future without a visit from a creepy ghost with a British accent. The paltry pension you will be condemned to live off of. The expenses that it does not cover. Or what happens when you die and your family has to deal with your benefits. I wouldn’t want my old wife to have to call an uncompassionate guy like myself, who’s more concerned with the dangling pack of Oreos in the vending machine than her plight and sorrow. You see how people get mistreated by their former employers, who are always on a quest to save money. Their employers couldn’t care less—they’re old and all used up. They now serve no purpose to their bottom line. They’re hoping they die off soon enough so they have to stop paying their benefits. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a little secret party each time a retiree dies off.

Do I have to be here? I know I don’t have any other employment options, but do I even have to work? Maybe, I guess. But what would happen if I didn’t work? I think I might be happier. I’d get to do what I want. I couldn’t pay bills, though. Maybe I can fall off the grid altogether. I really wouldn’t have money to do what I want, or do anything for that matter. No medical insurance. If I slip and fall on a patch of ice and break my leg that could be a wrap. I’d be in debt about twenty Gs. I probably couldn’t get any chicks either. Nobody wants to fuck a jobless, homeless guy. Well, at least that’s what I thought. Maybe, on second thought, that could jump-start my sex life again. I don’t think I can live without an income. That’s me. I need certain things. My lifestyle has requirements.

But should I have to put my happiness on hold to acquire more things? And who’s to say these things will make me feel better? All they lead to is more responsibility and a great need to work at a place I don’t like. It’s an endless cycle. And we all end up playing it. I am a fucking lemming. I do what I do out of fear. Like everyone else. Fear of falling behind. But nobody knows exactly what they’re chasing.

No matter how mad I get when thinking about the monotony that comes with this job, it has never occurred to me that the people I detest have succumbed to it as I have. James eats the same tuna on a potato roll every day. And he never complains. I look in the fridge, and it’s sitting in the same spot every day. I wonder if he makes them all on Sunday night for the entire week. Such a sad-looking sandwich. But he doesn’t mind. He should. And that infuriates me.

This place looks like a fucking kennel at times. All of these sad and naive faces sitting in their little cages, waiting for someone to save them. As if they can’t save themselves. Who am I kidding? I haven’t been able to save myself.

It’s gotten to the point Mike told me he had a day of bereavement last month and I congratulated him by accident. I was so envious he had a day off that I didn’t even ask who died or what happened. I simply saw the day off, a day of not being here. The other day I forced myself to think about the last time I was happy during the work week. The only thing I came up with is when I broke my ankle helping Jake move and missed a month of work.

Once in a while when I’m walking down the steps, I contemplate taking a plunge to get injured again. Pitiful, I know. The only joys I get are few and far between. I have my little pranks that get me through the day. Sometimes when I’m down and sending out notices to retirees, I throw in a little obscene message, such as “stop calling, you fuckface,” or send a little picture of a naked woman getting fisted. Maybe they think it’s a typo. Maybe they think it’s God sending them a cryptic message. Who knows? I acquiesce in my pain, because I know no one wants to hear about it or gives a fuck, like I don’t give a fuck about theirs.

Y
ou know
how they say “Something always happens when you’re not at work”? Well, that’s never the case at STD. Nobody ever really notices that I’m not there. I guess that says a little something about my daily contribution and importance to the company. I bet nobody will ask me about my court appearance, and I don’t want them to. I want to remove that day from memory. It’s not every day you get completely shamed on national television. Luckily I’ll have a few weeks before that episode airs. At least I was justifiably excused from work because it was court. And I don’t have to hide from my manager or remember a fake illness like I do when I call out.

I didn’t come in early because I didn’t sleep well. But I wasn’t that late either, like I used to be, only about twenty minutes or so. I walk into the office and no one is sitting in their cubicles. I’m confused, because I walked pass a row of cars in the parking lot. Maybe there’s a company-wide meeting? They never have them this early; I’ve been keeping pretty good track of all meetings and appointments lately. But since I was out yesterday, there’s a possibility I could’ve missed something. I hope the company didn’t go under. I miss one day, and we fold. I guess I am important after all.

I walk over to the meeting room and no one is there. I see Barbara walking back from the ladies room. “Where is everybody?” I ask.

“The cafeteria,” she says, as she scurries away so fast that I can’t even ask a follow-up question. You would think someone told her Christian Slater is waiting for her to rub baby oil on his body. Is there a special breakfast? Maybe it’s the building’s anniversary. Those are always fun. I try to keep up with her as she rushes back to the cafeteria, where the doors are shut. She jumps in the room, and the doors shut behind her. There’s a table outside of the cafeteria, where a man and woman sit. Neither of them works here. There’s a larger man guarding the door, wearing a security-guard uniform, but he’s not our normal husky security guard with the fluorescent Crocs.

I walk over to the desk, and the man hands me a booklet and a Scantron answer sheet, with the little circles to shade, for a test. “Can I see your ID badge?” he says. I stare at him.

“Do you have a number-two pencil?” the woman sitting next to him says, as she holds out a box full of freshly sharpened pencils.

“Ummm, no. Why is everyone in the cafeteria?” I ask her. I try to peek inside the cafeteria, but the large man blocks me. Then he shakes his head.

“Today we have testing,” the seated woman says.

“Testing for what?”

“I apologize, but any further questions I’m not at liberty to answer,” she says.

I take my testing materials and walk into the room. All of the STD employees are lined up at the tables, working feverishly at their standardized tests, while men and women pace back and forth watching them. Everyone is in here, from the higher-ups to the lowest of lows. Part of me thought they were joking, and I had to see this with my own eyes.

A woman walks over to me. “I see an open seat down there.” She points to assure I know the direction she means.

I walk down the aisle and see Frank. “What’s going on?” I say to him. He has a scared look in his eye, like a runaway slave.

“They’re trying to see if we’re smart enough to do our jobs,” Frank says reluctantly. “They made us walk right in here as soon as we came in the building.” The same woman who directed me to my seat hits Frank on the hand with a ruler.

“No talking,” she says.

“Fuck this bullshit,” I say. “I’m a talk to Floyd, he can’t do this.” As Frank is about to reply, she hits him again.

I storm out of the cafeteria to the table outside of the door. “I’m not taking any test.” I drop the booklet and Scantron on the table. “I came in to work, not take tests. I don’t play games. I quit school ’cuz of recess.”

As I walk away, the seated woman says, “You’re making a huge mistake.”

I barge into Floyd’s office, even more upset than when I got passed over for the promotion. But I really, really, really don’t like tests. I don’t know how I can stress that enough. When I graduated college, I was so happy to know I’d never have to take another test again that I got a little glassy eyed. Tests would make me stay up all night, and I couldn’t eat, and even would throw up from time to time. Floyd sits with his chair facing the window, so I can only see his back.

“What’s with this bullshit? Fucking test taking? I’m not into this SAT crap. Who put you up to this? I know it can’t be your idea. Can you hear me?”

Floyd’s chair turns around, but it’s not him sitting in it. It’s a man in his mid-fifties with short gray hair, wearing a dark suit and a bolo tie. He looks more like a friend of Colonel Sanders than an executive. “Please refrain from using profanity when you’re around me, young man. Do you work here?” he says with a Southern accent.

“Yes, I do work here. But wait, who are you? Where’s Floyd?”

The man grins. “My name is Hunter Clemons. And Floyd will not be around for the foreseeable future.”

What is he talking about? “Did you kill him?” I say as I look in the closet.

He laughs. “No, but he is no longer an employee of Schuster, Thompkins, and Dykes. What you should be concerned with is me being your new boss. I must say, you’re not making a good first impression.” He gets up and extends his hand to me. I opt to take a seat, as opposed to shaking it. The feeling of shock conquers my manners. “Were you not here yesterday when the memo went out?”

“No, I was out.”

“Unexcused absences . . . trying to make a horrible first impression?”

“I had a court date.”

“And a criminal as well. Fantastic.” He takes a small black Moleskine notebook out of his suit-jacket pocket and writes down something. “When you rudely made your uninvited entrance into my office, I think I heard you mention your distaste for the testing I’ve implemented. Care to tell me why?”

How can they fire Floyd like that? Now, I have to sit here and answer to this douche bag.

“Is that so?” he says.

“Why do we have to take a test?”

“Let’s just say, I want to make sure everyone is doing a job that suits their strengths. Do we have any redundancies in roles? Who will be right for certain promotions? Those are the sort of things I hope to figure out with the test. It’s a standard way of running businesses in other countries.”

“Promotions?”

He seems alarmed this is the only word that caught my attention. “Yes, especially promotions,” he replies.

“Me and Floyd had an agreement that I’d get the next manager opening.”

He shakes his head and rubs his palms. “Please accept my sincerest apologies, but I was not privy to any prior agreements you had with previous management. If you do meet the qualifying standards, you’ll get the promotion. I believe it’s that simple.”

“But I was planning on it. I need this promotion. What me and Floyd had was like a verbal contract. You have to honor it,” I say.

“I don’t have to do anything. Because I make the decisions, and you do not,” he says.

“Oh really? I’ll see what my union might have to say about that,” I say.

This really strikes a chord with him. He sits down. “You don’t have a union.”

Okay, I guess I have to read our employee homepage a little more often to stay abreast of what benefits we have now.

“You never had a union,” he continues.

Or benefits we’ve ever had. “I see this is a battle I will not win. I’m gonna get out your hair right now.”

“Please do.”

“We’ll talk about this later.”

“No need. My stance will remain the same later as well.”

“It’s not like I don’t have options,” I say.

“What are you going to do? Get another job?” he says, laughing.

He’s right. I have no choice. I walk out of the room and go back to the testing area. The man sitting at the table outside of the testing room has a shit-eating grin on his face as soon as he sees me. “Hey, Tough Tony is back,” he says.

I hold out my hand for the testing materials. “Had a change of heart, I see,” the seated woman says.

“Give me the fucking test.” Then, I walk into the room as they both crack up.

I
can’t even
sleep tonight. My whole plan of proving I was a great employee got flushed down the toilet in one fell swoop. I’m already not that good at my job. Okay, I’ll be honest, I suck at my job. But this test is definitely gonna prove it. I’ll never get this promotion, and they might even fire me. And I’m already dodging bill-collector calls, and my mortgage is late. There’s only one thing to do. I pick up the phone and call Jake.

“Okay, I’m in,” I say.

“In what?”

“The plan. To get the promotion, but I’m doing it my way.”

“Whatever, it’s late. Unless you have some hoes with you right now. Which I know you don’t. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

I hang up the phone. I don’t know, but already I feel like I’m going to get more sleep. I feel good about myself. I think tomorrow is gonna hold a whole new journey. I’m going to get things done, but my way. And I already have a few things in mind to get rid of Chloe. I’ll give her till the end of the week.