wasn’t important.’
‘Swell. Try running that down on Kammegian. By the timeyou get back here to your desk, I’ll have your shit packed up and you’ll be ready to rejoin that sparkling-fucking, unique-fucking, thrilling-fucking team of cocksuckers selling vacuum cleaners and home maintenance crap where you worked before. You’re history at this company, asshole!’
I had tried to call Jimmi all weekend. Once an hour. Twenty or thirty times. I kept getting her answering machine. I knew the locations of all the AA meetings she attended: the one at Twenty-sixth and Broadway in Santa Monica on Saturday night and the other one on Sunday at twelve thirty on Ohio Avenue. She hadn’t showed up at either place. I had even driven by her house, but her car was not in her sister’s driveway or parked on the street. All weekend I had stayed in my dormitory room near the hall pay phone, smoking cigarettes and trying to read. Waiting. She never called back.
The owner of Orbit Computer Products was on the telephone at his PC when I knocked and came in. I let the door hiss closed behind me. Looking up, Kammegian motioned me to a chair.
Behind him at eye level on the Orbit Trophy Wall of Champions was an imposing World War II photograph of Winston Churchill. I hadn’t noticed the picture at my job interview, because it was blocked by his big leather chair. General George Patton was up there on the wall too. His photograph was even bigger than Churchill’s. And Colin Powell. And Norman Schwarzkopf. All part of my boss’s military armed-forces-self-improvement obsession. When I leaned close to the desk, I was able to make out the engraving on the brass plate below Churchill’s image. It read: ‘Never give up—Never, never give up.’
Kammegian ended his phone call, then rolled back behind the center section of his desk. ‘Okay Mister Dante,’ he said,‘let’s hear your version of what happened at the Payroll Department on Friday afternoon.’
‘My version is—I picked up my biggest paycheck yet.’
My reply induced a smirk. He rocked forward and let his elbows come to rest on the desk pad. ‘Exactly. First things first. Right?’
‘One day at a time,’ I chimed back.
Kammegian stood up and extended his hand. ‘I would like to personally recognize you for your outstanding work last week,’ he said. ‘Winning the cold-call bonus again was an impressive accomplishment. Over two thousand dollars in commissions for five days work. Right?’
I shook his hand. ‘Right. All solid deals. Everything verified.’
We both sat down.
While I watched, my boss resituated a paperweight by his telephone, rocked back again in his big chair, then tucked his legs back under the desk.
Withdrawing a custom-imprinted pencil from a shiny metal holder by his Rolodex, he began toying with it, running his manicured finger over the lettering on each side, then pricking his thumb with the point. I was starting to relax when, suddenly, in a kind of fit-outburst, my boss slammed the spine of the fucker straight down at his desk. Yellow fragments detonated and flew everywhere. A good-sized chunk zinged past my cheek.
‘Equivocation is disloyalty, Mister Dante! You’re full of shit, and your two-thousand-dollar-a-week job is on the line here this morning. Let me caution you, I have zero tolerance for what took place on Friday afternoon. So, let’s back up. What happened in the Payroll Department?’
‘You mean outside Payroll?’
‘Do not fuck with me, Mister Dante.’
‘Okay look,’ I said, brushing remnants of pencil shit off my sleeve, ‘the whole deal was a misunderstanding. A miscommunication.’
Kammegian rocked backward. ‘Explain your version.’
‘I lost my temper.’
‘And—what happened when you lost your temper? Did that contribute to further miscommunication?’
‘Okay, I made a remark. Several remarks.’
‘I see. And you made these remarks to another trainee or to a supervisory person?’
‘To Jimmi
‘Swell. Try running that down on Kammegian. By the timeyou get back here to your desk, I’ll have your shit packed up and you’ll be ready to rejoin that sparkling-fucking, unique-fucking, thrilling-fucking team of cocksuckers selling vacuum cleaners and home maintenance crap where you worked before. You’re history at this company, asshole!’
I had tried to call Jimmi all weekend. Once an hour. Twenty or thirty times. I kept getting her answering machine. I knew the locations of all the AA meetings she attended: the one at Twenty-sixth and Broadway in Santa Monica on Saturday night and the other one on Sunday at twelve thirty on Ohio Avenue. She hadn’t showed up at either place. I had even driven by her house, but her car was not in her sister’s driveway or parked on the street. All weekend I had stayed in my dormitory room near the hall pay phone, smoking cigarettes and trying to read. Waiting. She never called back.
The owner of Orbit Computer Products was on the telephone at his PC when I knocked and came in. I let the door hiss closed behind me. Looking up, Kammegian motioned me to a chair.
Behind him at eye level on the Orbit Trophy Wall of Champions was an imposing World War II photograph of Winston Churchill. I hadn’t noticed the picture at my job interview, because it was blocked by his big leather chair. General George Patton was up there on the wall too. His photograph was even bigger than Churchill’s. And Colin Powell. And Norman Schwarzkopf. All part of my boss’s military armed-forces-self-improvement obsession. When I leaned close to the desk, I was able to make out the engraving on the brass plate below Churchill’s image. It read: ‘Never give up—Never, never give up.’
Kammegian ended his phone call, then rolled back behind the center section of his desk. ‘Okay Mister Dante,’ he said,‘let’s hear your version of what happened at the Payroll Department on Friday afternoon.’
‘My version is—I picked up my biggest paycheck yet.’
My reply induced a smirk. He rocked forward and let his elbows come to rest on the desk pad. ‘Exactly. First things first. Right?’
‘One day at a time,’ I chimed back.
Kammegian stood up and extended his hand. ‘I would like to personally recognize you for your outstanding work last week,’ he said. ‘Winning the cold-call bonus again was an impressive accomplishment. Over two thousand dollars in commissions for five days work. Right?’
I shook his hand. ‘Right. All solid deals. Everything verified.’
We both sat down.
While I watched, my boss resituated a paperweight by his telephone, rocked back again in his big chair, then tucked his legs back under the desk.
Withdrawing a custom-imprinted pencil from a shiny metal holder by his Rolodex, he began toying with it, running his manicured finger over the lettering on each side, then pricking his thumb with the point. I was starting to relax when, suddenly, in a kind of fit-outburst, my boss slammed the spine of the fucker straight down at his desk. Yellow fragments detonated and flew everywhere. A good-sized chunk zinged past my cheek.
‘Equivocation is disloyalty, Mister Dante! You’re full of shit, and your two-thousand-dollar-a-week job is on the line here this morning. Let me caution you, I have zero tolerance for what took place on Friday afternoon. So, let’s back up. What happened in the Payroll Department?’
‘You mean outside Payroll?’
‘Do not fuck with me, Mister Dante.’
‘Okay look,’ I said, brushing remnants of pencil shit off my sleeve, ‘the whole deal was a misunderstanding. A miscommunication.’
Kammegian rocked backward. ‘Explain your version.’
‘I lost my temper.’
‘And—what happened when you lost your temper? Did that contribute to further miscommunication?’
‘Okay, I made a remark. Several remarks.’
‘I see. And you made these remarks to another trainee or to a supervisory person?’
‘To Jimmi
Similar Books
