Authors: Cliff Hicks
The two split apart and moved to each find one of the two remaining empty seats. As they had moved into the room, a suit had checked their badges and then crossed their names off of a big list.
“
Is that everyone?” Andrew had a soft way of speaking to him, which was especially funny when he tried to get ‘jazzed up’ as he put it. It was like watching a kitten convinced it could kill an elephant. Jake would’ve felt bad for him if he hadn’t seemed to enjoy the limelight so much. But this is what Andrew seemed to want out of life, so no pity for him. “Okay then, let’s call the meeting to order.” He coughed a bit, as if he wanted people to quiet down. The echo of his cough resounded like thunder in the unbearably silent room. They couldn’t have gotten any quieter if they were dead. “Right. Okay, so I just wanted to tell you guys that you kicked ass last month!”
He started clapping, and glanced around the room, then started pumping his hands in the air while he clapped, in an effort to get people to join in his applause. A few people did, but it was a lackluster attempt at best. Really, the night crew was too tired to care and the morning crew hadn’t woken up yet. And the suits didn’t seem to be clapping, so the common workers figured why should they?
“
Alright!” Andrew had his ‘fired up’ voice on, and was trying to incite the crowd into energy, which never worked at these morning meetings. Frankly, they never worked at any meeting with this crowd, but morning meetings were the worst. The one time they had wanted to film a corporate video at their office, they had done so in the afternoon, so that people would seem, in the video producer’s exact words, ‘more lifelike.’ The sales manager was hopping on the stage, trying to build even the slightest hint of energy, but on a Monday morning, he might as well have been asking a chain smoker for his last cigarette. “Yeah! Your numbers were through the roof! They were the best numbers we’ve ever had!”
Andrew could see that he wasn’t getting any energy, and for the first time ever, Jake saw Andrew’s energy falter. The little mouse that roared seemed… nervous. At that moment, Jake sensed things were going south. Or had already gone south. The look on Andrew’s face made him wonder how much further south they could go. Andrew’s applause slowed down and then stopped altogether. His eyes looked out over the crowd and he put both of his hands on the podium. He was wearing his Daffy Duck tie, and Jake was trying to remember the last time he’d seen Andrew wearing it. But the minute he started to speak again, Jake not only knew where he’d seen that tie last, but he immediately knew what was coming next. He rolled his eyes closed and then shook his head. This was going to be a massive train wreck waiting to happen. And, for just the briefest of moments, Jake felt sympathy for poor, poor Andrew.
“
Yeah…” Andrew continued. Jake could see the energy just draining out of him. “You… you guys did really well last month. And that… well, that makes this even harder. So…” he inhaled a breath and then let it out in a long sigh. “Well, I’m just gonna read you corporate’s letter.” The Daffy Duck tie was his layoff tie. He’d worn it a year ago when they’d cut loose a third of the workforce. But apparently that wasn’t enough. The corporate division was clearly out for blood, which struck Jake as odd, considering how well this particular office had been doing month-over-month for the time he’d been here.
Andrew reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, unfolding it. Judging by how folded it was, and how well the folds seem to take, Andrew had been carrying that piece of paper around for a few weeks now. “From Corporate, To Andrew Reynolds, Division Manager, Omaha, NE Call Center. Dear Mr. Reynolds, As you know, we are entering a time of great strife for the company.” There were a few gasps as more people seemed to realize what was happening, but no one could seem to stop Andrew. No one stood up. No one interrupted. They simply let him carry on reading. Perhaps, Jake thought, they were all in a state of shock, or was it relief?
“
Because of this, and because of the excellent efficiency you and your team have done in documenting your highly successful procedures, we launched an off-shore calling group headquartered in India approximately four months ago. Using the fine techniques your group pioneered, they have achieved sale numbers the likes of which we have never seen, surpassing even your teams’. Because of this, and because of the amount of savings we are able to offer our investors by using the India group’s salary, and by setting up similar calling centers similar to the existing India group in other overseas nations, we have no choice but to close the Omaha call center.”
He looked up from the paper, and there were tears in his eyes. From his appearance, he expected people to be moaning and wailing, and instead he saw only aghast silence.
“
As thanks for your team’s service to us, we are sending you a case of complimentary mugs, and extending you and your team four weeks of severance pay instead of the company’s standard two. We expect you to notify your team two weeks from today and then have the office closed up the following day. If we can offer you any references…’” He picked up the paper and shook it. “References! Can you fucking believe these people?!”
That outburst made more than a couple people sit more upright in their chairs. Andrew had never sworn in the entire time he was at the company, at least as far as Jake could remember, and here he was, blasting away at the corporate office, suits just off to the side of him.
“
I’m sorry, guys. I tried. I really tried. But they wouldn’t listen. They can get people like us cheaper, and we made it easier for them.” He lifted a hand up and rubbed his head, looking a little lost for what to say next. “So I don’t know about any of you, but I’m going to pack up my crap, toss it into my car, then walk down the street to the Welsh pub and get myself utterly shit-faced. Okay guys, that’s it.”
One of the suits moved over to put a hand on Andrew’s shoulder and Andrew shrugged it off angrily. “Get the fuck off me!” Andrew glared at the man, before turning back to his crowd, the life from his eyes totally gone, as dead to the world as the people he’d managed for years.
He took the letter which he’d so meticulously unfolded and tossed it up into the air, then stormed off stage, down the aisles past newly unemployed people and kicked the doors open. They swung open banged against the walls and bounced back at him, slamming into his shoulders, but he was determined to keep walking out, no matter how much it hurt. And Jake had been hit by those doors once before; they had hurt like hell.
Jake slowly rose to his feet, one of the first ones to do so, rubbing his eyes, chuckling just a little bit. He tried to keep it in his mind, that single thought that had kept him going for the two and a half years he’d been here – fuck it; it’s just a job.
The mass of people slowly shuffled out of the room. There was no righteous indignation. No riot. The meek did not inherit the earth; they quietly moved to their cubicles and began to pack things up into the boxes that had been so thoughtfully placed next to each of their desks.
There wasn’t a whole lot to pack in Jake’s cubicle. He picked up the picture of him and his fiancée and tossed it into the box first. He slowly began to peel down the various comic strips he’d push-pinned to the foam of his cube’s half-wall. After two of three of the strips, he just grabbed them all into one big handful, crushing them and tossing them down onto the floor, next to, not in, the trashcan. He scrunched his face up and opened up his desk drawers, taking out all of his pencils, pocket change and notes. He lifted the coffee mug, considering it in the light, then put it into the box. It would hopefully remind him that just doing what it took to get by wasn’t enough, and that was something. Hard work, indeed.
It was a sea of faces, a few people crying, most people shaking hands and exchanging phone numbers, but Jake paid no real mind to them. Even Nathaniel, who was patting Jake on the back, was talking in a sort of droning monotone that Jake had just tuned out. It was all so much noise now. Jake felt a little bad that he didn’t care more, but these people were really just coworkers, not particularly friends, and it wasn’t like he’d seen much of them outside of work in the years he’d been here. Jake thought to himself that the only difference between working here and not was that he wouldn’t have money coming in (negative) and that he wouldn’t constantly be calling people to get yelled at (positive). So, it evened out. Still, not having a steady income for at least a few weeks would suck, that much he had to admit to himself. There would always be other jobs, though, he supposed. With a sigh, he hoisted his box up and walked out, leaving the office mostly with a sense of resigned listlessness.
His car, the rust-colored rust-covered beat-up Chevy Nova, still waited for him in the parking lot and he fished his keys out of his pocket and opened the trunk, putting the box into it. He slammed the trunk shut and then walked around and got in the car, buckling up and turning the key to the sound of a dead battery. Jake closed his eyes and banged his head once against his steering wheel.
His horn didn’t work either.
Twenty minutes and one jump later, the Chevy Nova was on its way. Jake hadn’t really felt like going back to his house, so he’d decided to head over to his fiancée’s apartment. She’d suggested they keep separate places until they were married, as her folks were something of religious sticklers, and two unmarried people living together would cause quite a ruckus with their friends at the country club. He’d kill a few hours at her place and when she got home, she could help him get his strength back and feel better about the day.
As his car pulled into the guest parking space at her apartment complex, he noticed that her car was in her parking spot. He wondered idly if she wasn’t feeling well and had stayed home from work today, but figured she was just home getting some lunch.
He picked up the box of his stuff from the trunk and walked into the building and up to the apartment on the third floor. It really wasn’t that big a box, nor really did he feel like he’d lost all that much of himself when he’d been laid off, or “cut back” as the company preferred it said. He unlocked her front door with the key she’d given him and let himself quietly into her apartment.
Her place was one of those places that revealed she’d always been aiming for social climbing. Her family was well off to begin with, but that never seemed to be enough for her, always wanting more. And rich by Omaha standards wasn’t exactly rich by, say, Hollywood standards. The apartment was in a posh neighborhood with posh neighbors who were talking about what arthouse film they’d seen lately, how the value of the Yen was rising and how it was hurting their business, how the country club’s pool had gotten too crowded since they’d lowered admission costs, how the tax breaks weren’t enough for them and too much for the “lazy lower class”… it wasn’t Jake’s world, and he knew it. Hell, he felt uncomfortable just being in the neighborhood most days, but today was a particularly bad day.
Worse than he’d yet realized, in fact.
The first thing he was confronted with was a thong on the floor inside the hallway of her apartment. Right next to a pair of jockey briefs. And Jake only wore boxers, so he knew they weren’t his. And Jake could put two and two together. “Oh no,” he muttered to himself quietly.
“
Yes yes yes oh fuck yes! Fuck me!” his fiancée’s voice screamed from her bedroom. He could hear the sounds of her bed shaking as the headboard slammed up against the wall, something she’d told him never to do as it bothered the neighbors, and they wouldn’t want that. Apparently that didn’t apply during the day, though. Or to other people, he guessed. She’d never talked to him like that. (He probably would’ve liked it if she had...)
Jake inhaled a long breath and turned right, moving directly into the apartment’s kitchen. On the counter he saw her stack of keys and her engagement ring right next to one another. He set the box quietly down on the floor and pulled the mug that read “Thanks For All The Hard Work” out from it. He put the mug down on the countertop then picked up the engagement ring and put it into his pocket. He unspooled the keys to his house from her keyring and put them in his pocket right next to the ring. He took her key off of his keychain and put it inside of the coffee mug. He pulled out the picture he had of the two of them from his box and deframed it, then tore himself out of the picture, and put the half with her, his arm still half-way visible in the shot, inside of the coffee mug.
And then he left.
He knew he should feel a lot angrier, and even felt a slight twinge of fury when he recognized his so-called best friend’s car in one of the guest parking spots out in the apartment building’s lot, but the rage passed as quickly as it arrived. For the most part he didn’t feel anything at all. He wondered if he should attribute it to shock or whether he truly didn’t give a shit right now.
His best friend, his fiancée… they were part of the whole wasted life he needed to get rid of. He needed to kill the old him and start a new one. It was something he had to do; he could see that now. That isn’t to say it didn’t hurt – it stung like hell. But really, he felt like he should’ve seen this coming a long time ago. His fiancée, his
ex
-fiancée, had always been trying to change things about him, make him into whatever it was she really wanted, which clearly wasn’t him. Maybe she wanted him to piss off her parents, or his stability, or his dependability, or whatever it was she felt like her life was missing. It certainly hadn’t been the sex; that much was clear. Maybe his best friend was filling her sexual needs and he was filling everything else. He would need to change all of his bank accounts, his credit cards, everything that had her name on it next to his.