Tradesright around the time that the World Wide Web was just taking off big time, and how was he to know that the handyman biz would burgeon online? After Pogatchnik registered the domain name www.handiman.com (www.handyman.com had already been taken, but they got all the clients who couldn’t spell; this being America, that hadn’t curtailed their business in the slightest), their customer base exploded. Pogatchnik took all the credit, as if he’d invented the Internet itself, like Al Gore. Now the company was probably worth four times what that pond scum had paid for it, and Pogatchnik had started running television ads of himself tunelessly belting an excruciating variation on Sammy Davis, Jr., “The handyman, oh, the handyman can!” that drove Jackson to change the channel with an urgency bordering on hysteria. It had seemed so cool at the time, that check for a million smackers, and now it turned out that selling Knack was the dopiest thing Shep had ever done.
When the two grabbed their customary sandwiches at a café up the street—Jackson could have lived without all the buffalo mozzarella and prosciutto nonsense, aka ham and cheese—he had to ask: “What was all that mea culpa ass-lick with Pogatchnik?”
Shep was always a contained character, but even for Shep his affect all morning had been inhumanly flat, cooperative to the point of nonexistence. As if you could run him through the paces of a DUI stop and he’d touch his nose for you and stand on one leg and count back from a hundred by sevens and it wouldn’t matter that you weren’t a cop and he hadn’t even been driving.
“Oh, that,” said Shep in a monotone. “When I left Handy Randy on Friday”—the guy never called the company Handy Randy, he always called it Knack; Christ, the poor chump sounded like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke after he’s been in that tiny sweat box for days and he says, Yah sir, yah sir , because his will is broken—“I think I said something like, ‘So long, asshole.’ It was an indulgence. I didn’t think I was coming back.”
“Okay, I can see saying sorry, but did you have to crawl?”
“Yes, I did.”
Jackson thought about it. “Health insurance.”
“That’s right.” Shep took one bite of his sandwich and put it down again.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I got the impression that my colleagues were aware that I’d originally planned on an excursion. The fact that I came to work today seemed to be the source of some amusement.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Last week Mark was being sarcastic again, and—I guess I should have kept my trap shut. But I was so sure you were really going to go this time…I’m not making any excuses, but it would have been easier on both of us if you’d kept your grand plan to yourself years ago until you were good and ready to press the Eject button.”
“Years ago there was no reason for me to keep it quiet. It was just what I was going to do.”
“Still, I wish you’d let me tell the staff at Knack, about Glynis. Not let them think you didn’t go to Pemba because you’re chicken, or some loony fantasist. They’d give you a lot less grief.”
“Glynis doesn’t want it out. I got permission to tell you and Carol. But otherwise, it’s her business. I’m not going to use her to make my work life more agreeable. It isn’t agreeable anyway and it never will be, so really it doesn’t make any difference.”
“Why do you suppose she wants to keep it a secret?”
Shep shrugged. “She’s private. And letting it be common knowledge makes it real.”
“But it is real.”
“All too,” said Shep.
“Listen,” said Jackson as they headed back. “You want to swing by the house for a beer before you drive back to Elmsford?”
It was obvious that the prospect of doing anything for fun or for comfort or for any reason that had to do with himself and what he might “want” had become foreign to Shepherd Knacker overnight, but Jackson had asked him to do
When the two grabbed their customary sandwiches at a café up the street—Jackson could have lived without all the buffalo mozzarella and prosciutto nonsense, aka ham and cheese—he had to ask: “What was all that mea culpa ass-lick with Pogatchnik?”
Shep was always a contained character, but even for Shep his affect all morning had been inhumanly flat, cooperative to the point of nonexistence. As if you could run him through the paces of a DUI stop and he’d touch his nose for you and stand on one leg and count back from a hundred by sevens and it wouldn’t matter that you weren’t a cop and he hadn’t even been driving.
“Oh, that,” said Shep in a monotone. “When I left Handy Randy on Friday”—the guy never called the company Handy Randy, he always called it Knack; Christ, the poor chump sounded like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke after he’s been in that tiny sweat box for days and he says, Yah sir, yah sir , because his will is broken—“I think I said something like, ‘So long, asshole.’ It was an indulgence. I didn’t think I was coming back.”
“Okay, I can see saying sorry, but did you have to crawl?”
“Yes, I did.”
Jackson thought about it. “Health insurance.”
“That’s right.” Shep took one bite of his sandwich and put it down again.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I got the impression that my colleagues were aware that I’d originally planned on an excursion. The fact that I came to work today seemed to be the source of some amusement.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Last week Mark was being sarcastic again, and—I guess I should have kept my trap shut. But I was so sure you were really going to go this time…I’m not making any excuses, but it would have been easier on both of us if you’d kept your grand plan to yourself years ago until you were good and ready to press the Eject button.”
“Years ago there was no reason for me to keep it quiet. It was just what I was going to do.”
“Still, I wish you’d let me tell the staff at Knack, about Glynis. Not let them think you didn’t go to Pemba because you’re chicken, or some loony fantasist. They’d give you a lot less grief.”
“Glynis doesn’t want it out. I got permission to tell you and Carol. But otherwise, it’s her business. I’m not going to use her to make my work life more agreeable. It isn’t agreeable anyway and it never will be, so really it doesn’t make any difference.”
“Why do you suppose she wants to keep it a secret?”
Shep shrugged. “She’s private. And letting it be common knowledge makes it real.”
“But it is real.”
“All too,” said Shep.
“Listen,” said Jackson as they headed back. “You want to swing by the house for a beer before you drive back to Elmsford?”
It was obvious that the prospect of doing anything for fun or for comfort or for any reason that had to do with himself and what he might “want” had become foreign to Shepherd Knacker overnight, but Jackson had asked him to do
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