The Xtra- Volume One

by Oliver Willis

  He would agree with that.

  Why couldn't the paper just have reported that? He would have supported that. Fire those guys. Get them out. But keep the mine open.

  Corchoran is too old to learn how to do something else. He has spent the last few months looking at hiring managers just a little older than his daughter tell him "no." He knew that as the door closed they were laughing behind his back.

  No, the paper has to pay. The Herald-Examiner has to be held accountable.

  He checks again for the gun. It's still there.

  I'll just go in and show them the gun. Tell them they have to do a good story. Take back what they said. Then everyone will see.

  Corchoran thinks about the moment when everything would go back to normal. He'd be back, covered in soot. Marie will complain about it. He'll laugh her off, things will be normal again.

  I just have to make them listen.

  He sees a police officer walking his way. A tall black man with mirrored sun glasses.

  He knows, Corchoran thinks.

  He starts breathing heavily.

  He knows.

  He's going to get me.

  Then the paper will get away with it.

  Everything will be over.

  Corchoran decides. The cop has to die. He can't be allowed to prevent his meeting at the paper. Anything that gets in his way has to die.

  It's the only way to fix things.

  Chapter 25

  I think I've made it back to my desk without Taylor giving me the third degree. I'm just about to sit down when I hear her.

  "Why?"

  Almost made it.

  I sit down and stare ahead of me. I start typing, going on sort of auto-pilot. I don't know precisely what I'm doing or working on, something that is the equivalent of busy work requiring almost none of my brainpower.

  "You have to tell me why," Taylor continues.

  I don't respond and I lean in to the screen, as if I am working on the most important document in the world. I hear Taylor sit down and I hear the squeaking of her chair as she rolls over to me.

  She has no respect for my personal space as she leans in. I can smell her perfume, a really strong aroma that smells like roses and bubble gum. I could never pull it off but it really is perfect for her. She has a skill with things like that.

  "Fine. The silent treatment. Perfect," she continues, clearly ramping up to rant. "You drive me crazy, girl. Crazy."

  "You run circles around the rest of us. Me? Definitely, but that's not hard. But the rest of them. These are elites. Elites. And you make them look like dummies."

  She pounds her little fist on my desk to emphasize the point. She didn't need to but it makes an impression nonetheless.

  "Yet every time – unless it’s a direct order to do something – you hide. You slink off into the shadows and out of the spotlight. You fade into the background like you're a piece of furniture. Like a chair."

  I rub my temples. She is on my last nerve. There's truth to what she's saying. But.

  Taylor wears her emotions on her sleeve. She doesn't know how to bottle them up and store them down deep like me. She was like this in college. I remember when they were trying to cut the funding for the women's athletics program.

  I found the rules and regulations showing they had no legal basis for their actions. I found the data that showed their sexist assumptions were based on lies and half-baked hunches.

  But it was Taylor who brought the fire-breathing passion. She took the stuff I found and made the case. She raised hell. Made a fool of those who opposed us, and kept hands off our funding. Future women will benefit. She's great. Amazing.

  But she doesn't understand.

  "I can't do this kind of thing like you do," I finally explain.

  "What thing?"

  "You know what I mean. Make noise. Make waves. Make a ruckus."

  "You should. Unlike me, you know what the hell you're talking about. You're not just spouting off about God knows what like I do."

  Taylor puts her hand on my shoulder.

  "I'm just winging it."

  "I know," I reply. I smile, hoping this breaks the tension. She's still serious. I'm not used to being on this end of the emotional spectrum with her. Usually she's the one that sounds like a Hallmark card and I'm doom and gloom.

  "I am winging it. But I'm tired of my friend not stepping up to the plate. Carla, there's a stampede of people for that project. They're going to win awards. Big ones. And good things will follow. Things you deserve."

  "I know."

  "I know you know, which makes it even more frustrating when you act like you don't know."

  "But—"

  "But nothing, girl. The bottom line is this: Those white boys are eating your lunch."

  Ouch. I feel that one. Direct hit.

  I lean back in my seat, as if I'm absorbing the impact of the truth she dropped on me.

  "I get it. Really. I do."

  "Do you? Because it doesn't feel like you do, Carla. We're behind the eight ball here. There's not many of us around here. I'm just getting by. I'm a few bad Google searches away from being asked to pack my bags and make room for somebody who knows what they're doing. But unlike me, you have 'it.' And you're letting some – frankly – mediocre boy cut in line in front of you."

  I feel this one too. Taylor's usually blunt to a fault, but not to this level. She clearly has had her fill and needs to vent. And I am feeling it. She's a volcano and I'm the villagers down below getting wiped out.

  "Wow."

  "Yeah. Wow," she replies, heavy on the sarcasm.

  You just don't understand. You just don't—you can't understand.

  "Look, I know you mean well."

  "But?"

  "But, well, if I do things like what you want –"

  "Use your brains to advance your career. Let them know that the women and minorities that work here aren't just around to fill a quota or look nice on brochures –"

  I give her some side eye. Can I finish? My look tells her. She rolls her eyes in response.

  "If I do things like what you want," I continue, "I put myself out there. I set myself up. What if it all blows up in my face? What if I make a total mess of it? What if it's a disaster and everything goes to hell?"

  "So what if it does? We're not on Earth to just cover ourselves in bubble wrap and bounce around safe and sound until we're dead. We're here to do stuff. For some of us – people like you – that's important stuff."

  "Not everyone. We can't all go over the edge."

  "We should though."

  "You can get hurt. I can't handle that. I know I can't."

  "You can, though. I know you. You're tough. Behind that pretty face and giant brain there's a bad ass who kicks ass."

  "That's a nice thought, and from you, that's a compliment."

  "Hell yes, it is."

  "But it's not realistic. In the real world things don't work like that. It feels like a good thing to say, but –"

  Out of nowhere Taylor slaps against the wall of the cubicle. Hard. The whole thing shakes and the reverberations ripple through the entire row. In her own cubicle some of the pictures she has tacked to the walls fall down.

  I shoot her a dirty look. She's making this into a spectacle, again. It's her nature. But, come on.

  "Let them look," Taylor says. "I don't care."

  She turns around and addresses her comments to the entire floor.

  "I. Don't. Care."

  She turns her attention back to me.

  "I really don't. You shouldn't care either. This stuff is more important than hurt feelings and bruised egos."

  "That's easy to say."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. It's easy to say when if this all falls to pieces, you can just go home to your big house and the safety net that was rolled out for you. I'm not trying to be mean, but—"

  "Well, you're failing."

  "I'm really not trying to be. But you've got a distorted view about these
kinds of things. It's not your fault. It's where you come from. Your heart's in the right place, you want to do what's right. But if you fail, you have somewhere soft that you can fall."

  I stop and stare at Taylor, looking for a sign as to how she's feeling. As I finish speaking, I immediately worry I went too far. Overstepped boundaries. But sometimes she needs a reality check. Gets her head stuck up in the clouds, assuming everyone is in a world like hers.

  But when the moment passes, her expression is not what I expect. Instead of being angry or sad she looks at me with pity. Like the way someone looks at a person with an illness. Like I'm suffering and helpless.

  "Ridiculous," she finally says. "You're being ridiculous. I'm usually the dumb one here but you really took your stupid pills today. Wow. Dumb, dumb, dumb."

  She rolls her eyes and puts up her palms, as if to say, "what can I even say." Then she continues to rant.

  "You're trying to seal yourself off from the world and the money my dad has – hell, that I have – doesn't change that fact. If anything, it puts a finer point on the opportunity you're tossing away. Why? Because you're scared? I know who your parents are. Where they come from. They didn't produce a coward. Or at least, I thought they didn't."

  Taylor grabs the arms of my chair and pulls me toward her.

  She is at maximum intensity and the look she gives me goes into my soul.

  "Don't sabotage yourself. And definitely don't use me as a convenient excuse to sabotage yourself. You're going to have to deal with the world, at some point. If I have to shove you to make that happen, I will."

  Chapter 26

  The cop walks past Scott Corchoran, barely even noticing him even though he's got a gun underneath his jacket.

  Corchoran feels his heart beating heavily. He is ready to act. Ready to do this. The desperation holds on to every cell in his body. He sneaks a quick glance behind him. The cop has moved along, oblivious to his presence.

  He never wanted to be here, this desperate, ready to spill innocent blood. Corchoran can count the amount of times he has raised his voice on one hand. He is a pushover for his children. Back down in the mine, he was the one everyone counted on to remember birthdays and anniversaries. He never clashed with his bosses.

  But things have spiraled.

  The bills are piling up. Every phone he receives is from a bill collector. He is tired of explaining to them that he doesn't have it. That he can't afford to pay them, that his steady source of income, the thing that the entire house of cards that was his life rested on, was now gone.

  And why? For some hipsters to get clicks on a website. So they could waste money on toys and God knows what other useless trinkets they spend their time with.

  They don't have families. They don't have obligations. They don't care.

  He feels for the gun again.

  He thinks about how he bought it, filled out all the forms, used the emergency fund to finance it. His wife will understand. This is for her benefit, right?

  He remembers practicing to fire it, squeezing the trigger, feeling the power it gave him. It produced a spark, made him feel after all these months of lying about and being utterly useless, that he could be somebody again.

  Scott Corchoran could matter.

  He will walk in. He will brandish his weapon. He will make them fix what they did and the mine will reopen.

  It will give him some kind of relief, if only for a few months. Just enough to get by. Maybe he'll buy some lottery tickets from the money he starts making again. Don't want to waste it. Just a dollar or two each week.

  Then he'll hit it big and all the problems will be truly completely solved.

  He's here.

  He looks up at the gigantic stone letters above the entrance. "Washington Herald-Examiner."

  This is where they took his life away.

  He steps toward the front door, ready to take it all back.

  Chapter 27

  I'm just staring at the digital display in the elevator as we head up toward the ground floor, trying to pass time. I'm not even paying attention to what floor we're on. My mind is far away.

  Behind me, Taylor is still pissed, still going on about her disappointment.

  Maybe she's right.

  That's something I hate to consider. If Taylor's right about something, I never hear the end of it. It's one thing when she crows to everyone within earshot when a celebrity romance falls apart, but this is a bridge too far.

  She can't be right about me being a chicken, right?

  I like to think so. But then again.

  The floor vibrates a bit as we move up a floor and I think back to what I've been like. Ever since Mom.

  I feel a gross feeling in my stomach, just thinking about it, and I want to avoid it. The crying. The emotion. The loss of control over everything in the world. If I'm inside a shell, nothing can hurt me. I don't have to put any of myself out there and risk feeling a sting like that again.

  If I just retreat, I can't get hurt.

  But then, that means Taylor is right. Jesus.

  She's still going on behind me. I don't pay super-close attention to it, but there's a lot of "you have to" and "you need to" and "you better." I know she isn't going to relent. When she gets a notion like this stuck in her brain, there's no getting her to move on.

  I probably move on too much. I remember after dwelling in the darkness for days, telling everyone we knew Mom was gone, burying her, holding Dad's hand as we remembered the lifetime of good memories, finally deciding: No more hurt.

  And it just happened. I made an executive decision. I'd go through the motions, do what needed to be done, even have fun on occasion, but I couldn't bring myself to a point where I could be any sort of vanguard, take the first step.

  That was for others. They were here to win.

  I am just about surviving.

  Taylor doesn't get that. She thinks she gets me. Usually on most things, she does. She tends to understand me better than I understand myself.

  But now, I insist to myself, she's got it wrong. She must. She's appealing and fighting and fussing with a fantasy version of Carla Logan that exists solely inside her head.

  That's definitely not me. I couldn't step in front of the freight train. I can't get hurt in any way, ever again.

  Especially not if I can avoid it. That's the worst idea I've ever heard.

  The elevator dings again and I steel myself for the lunch conversation I've got to have with Taylor. It will take work. She won't accept "no" for an answer, at least not right away. I know her.

  She'll tackle this like one of the debates she had back in school. She is the kind of person, if told they had to argue in favor of the Holocaust, would give it her all even if the premise disgusted her to her core. She's dedicated to winning the rhetorical fight and it's even worse when she knows I don't like to engage.

  Sometimes I wonder why we're friends. Oil and water. Hot and cold.

  But really, what if she's right?

  I shudder at the idea because I know if I concede I'll never ever hear the end of it. We'll be on our joint deathbeds, facing the light before we cross into the next world, and she'll yell out, "I told you."

  Ugh.

  Before I even start this doomed conversation, I think I should call Dad. He'd probably agree with Taylor (he thinks I am the best and brightest at everything) but he'll support whatever I ultimately choose to do.

  I think.

  The elevator dings one more time and the door slides open on the lobby. We step out.

  Chapter 28

  Scott Corchoran is extremely aware of the weight of the handgun on his body as he walks into the Washington Herald-Examiner lobby. It was older looking than he had assumed it would be. He imagined some kind of hipster hangout, somewhere with modern edges and clean lines, playing music he couldn't possibly understand through ubiquitous speakers.

  He scans the room and imagines what they're thinking. Deep in their little left-wing bubble, laughing at people
like him, looking down their noses at people who work hard for a living. He thinks of those nights where he had to scrub the soot out of his skin, watching black water swirl down the bathtub drain, and how these people have never worked with their hands.

  They don't care, they don’t' even know we exist.

  His cheeks flush red with anger at the thought. He can feel his ears grow warm. He has played out the next few minutes over and over in his head a million times since he made the decision to act but now that he's here, in the belly of the beast, he feels tension that he hadn't anticipated.

  Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe not all of them are bad. Maybe.

  Corchoran considers for a sliver of a second that this might be the wrong path. He's just one guy. How could he be dumb enough to believe he could go against the grain, get these people to change their minds, get his life back on track?

  He turns his attention to the door he just walked through. He could just walk right on through it. Nothing would happen. He'd be in the car in minutes and back on the highway, tail tucked between his legs.

  Corchoran isn't sure he even has enough gas in the tank to get home.

  Wait. Wait. Stop being stupid. You came here for a reason. To fix it. I have to fix it.

  There has to be justice in the world or else there's no point. If he just lets the newspaper run all over him like roadkill, allow them to destroy miners' lives without a second thought, there's no point.

  They have to see.

  Even if this whole thing goes belly-up, if it fails spectacularly and he gets a bullet to his brain, he has to do this.

  He turns away from the door.

  The security guards are standing on either side of a metal detector. Both of them are bald and it's clear they have long been bored with their work. One guard holds out a basket for people to put their cell phones and other metal objects in. The other guard eyeballs people as they walk through the detector, pulling out his wand to check them over if the machine happens to ping them.

  Four people are between Corchoran and the detector. They make small talk with the guards. Weather. Sports. Other meaningless, idle chatter.