by Jason Starr
“Don’t ever think anything like that, honey. We’re just going through some tough times right now, but we’re never going to break up.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Mean what?”
“That we’re never going to break up. Because that means that some day we’ll, you know...”
“I know,” I said. “Of course I know.”
“But are we going to?”
“I want to,” I said. “I mean it’s what I’m hoping for.”
“I have to know,” she said frowning. “I was talking to my friend Katey at work today. She’s forty and she’s still single and she’s afraid she’s never going to be able to have kids. I know I’m only thirty-two, but it’s like time’s going so fast and I don’t want to wind up like Katey.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “You won’t.”
“But I might. I know we have problems, but I still love you. I don’t even care if you convert or don’t convert. I still think you’d make a great husband.”
“Thanks,” I said. “And I think you’d make a great wife.”
“Does that mean you want to –”
“It doesn’t mean anything. I’ve told you a hundred times that I don’t want to get married until I get my career off the ground again. Maybe if I didn’t lose my ad job we’d be married by now, but I lost my job and there’s nothing we can do about that now.”
“So I’m just gonna have to wait until you find a job?”
“That’s right,” I said. “And I’m gonna have to wait too. But I’m going to get an ad job soon – somehow I’ll make it happen. And until then I’ve decided to go back to my telemarketing job tomorrow. So what about swallowing my pride? It’s just a job, a way to make money. And some day I won’t be there anymore and then we’ll get married. Besides, I know neither of us want to do it like this. It’s late at night and I’m drunk. When we do it I want it to be special. I want to be able to give you a ring and get on my knees and be romantic.”
“I guess you’re right,” she said. “I mean if I’ve waited this long, a little while longer isn’t gonna kill me, right?”
“Right,” I said. “It’s not gonna kill you.”
I turned onto my side and she pushed up behind me, sliding her hand slowly down my chest. We hadn’t made love in over two weeks and I didn’t feel like it tonight either.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “It’s been a long day.”
Her hand continued past my belly button and I rolled onto my stomach, moaning, “Tomorrow, tomorrow.”
3
Julie was dressed by the time I woke up. “Remember,” she said, checking her lipstick in the mirror. “You have to promise to go to a doctor today. If you don’t get stitches you’re gonna have an ugly scar there for the rest of your life.”
“I promise I’ll take care of it,” I said.
She bent over the bed to kiss me goodbye. I turned my cheek.
“Bad breath,” I said.
“I don’t care,” she said. “I want to kiss you.”
She kissed me again, this time on the lips.
“Got you,” she said. “Now you have lipstick all over.”
After Julie left, I stayed in bed for a few minutes, thinking about Lisa, wondering if I should call her after all. I glanced at the clock and saw that I’d been day dreaming longer than I thought – it was already past eight o’clock. I showered and got dressed as fast as I could. The last thing I wanted was to be late again.
I was at my office, sitting in my cubicle, by ten to nine. Like every morning, I prepared my stacks of call backs and other papers I needed on my desk, then I went to the bathroom. When I came out, Mike was waiting for me in the hallway.
“Go to Ed’s office right now,” he said seriously.
I knew I’d have some explaining to do, and I’d prepared for it. I went to Ed’s office and sat in the same seat I had sat in yesterday, and waited for him to arrive. Finally, he showed up, holding a mug of coffee.
“Bill Moss,” he said, sitting at his desk. “We weren’t expecting you here today.”
“Why?” I said. “I didn’t quit.”
“Yes, I know, and we weren’t expecting you here today.”
He set the coffee on the desk and gazed at me disappointedly. I felt like a delinquent kid in a principal’s office. What was he going to do, hit me with a ruler?
“What are you trying to say,” I said, “that you’re firing me?”
“What do you think I should do?” Ed said.
“You can do whatever you want. You’re the boss.”
He took a long sip of coffee, then rested the mug on the table and stared at me for a few more seconds.
“You’ve put me in a very difficult situation, Bill. I can either give you another chance and let you go back to work, or I can tell you to get the hell out of here. If you can’t give me a good reason why I should keep you on, I’m afraid I’ll have to go with plan B.”
It took all my strength not to leap up from my chair and attack Ed. I had to keep reminding myself that this was just a temporary job, a way of making money, that my pride didn’t matter. The important thing was that I come up with the rent next month, and the month after that, and that some day this would all seem like a big joke.
“I think there are a lot of reasons why you should keep me here,” I said tensely. “First of all, I’m one of your best workers. I won telemarketer-of-the-month last month and I’ve won the award at least five times since I’ve been here. Plus, I don’t think I really did anything wrong. I mean I’ve been late a few times before, and I apologize for that, but it’s not like I did anything to harm the company.”
“What about your behavior yesterday?” Ed said accusingly. “Do you think that harmed the company?”
“No,” I said. “I...I don’t think so.”
“You cursed out Mike to his face and embarrassed him in front of your fellow employees. Do you know what kind of example that sets? I’m asking you a question. Do you know what kind of example that sets?”
“I was upset,” I said. “I know I probably said a few things I shouldn’t’ve, but –”
“If I let you get away with that, the telemarketers will start to lose respect for their supervisors,” Ed said angrily. “They won’t make as many appointments and sales for the office will start to fall. And if sales fall eventually the company will go out of business. Then everybody will be out of work, including me. Do you think I should jeopardize my job by letting you continue to work here?”
I was about to get up and leave right then. Sometimes I think about how different my life would’ve turned out if I left, how much pain I could’ve avoided for myself and the people around me. And I would’ve left too if Ed hadn’t said:
“But there is one way out of it. I don’t know if you’re willing to do this, but if you are then perhaps we can salvage your job here without harming the future of this company.”
“What do you want me to do,” I said, “get on my hands and knees and beg?”
“Not at all,” he said, missing my sarcasm. “I want you to apologize.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll apologize to him right now.”
“Not to Mike,” Ed said. “I want you to apologize to everyone, at the morning meeting.”
“Why do I have to do that?” I said. “Why can’t I just –”
“No deals,” Ed said. “You either apologize to every-one or you walk out that door. Believe me, I won’t try to stop you.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll apologize to everyone.”
I left Ed’s office and went back to my cubicle. I was still thinking about walking out on the job and if it wasn’t for the rent coming up next week I probably would’ve done it. But I couldn’t find another part-time job in a week. If I had two or three weeks maybe, but not one.
At nine o’clock, Mike came around and called everyone into the conference room. There were only about ten chairs in the room so some people sat on the floor against th
e wall, and others stood in the back. I stood near the door, hoping that Ed would forget about our agreement.
After he gave the same sickening Twelve-Step program speech I’d heard dozens of times before, about “the professionalism of telemarketers” and how “a positive attitude breeds success, in both sales and life,” he said, “There’s one last piece of business I want to attend to this morning. Mr. Moss, would you care to step forward?”
I went to the front of the room, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. My plan was to get this over with as fast as possible.
“Yeah, I just want to apologize for what happened here yesterday,” I said. “I’m very sorry.”
I’d started away when Ed said:
“Wait one moment, Bill. Don’t you want to tell them why you’re sorry?”
“Why I’m sorry?” I said, gritting my teeth.
“The things we discussed – your unprofessionalism, your disrespect for a supervisor.”
“Right,” I said, looking down. “I’m sorry I disrespected Mike by cursing at him the way I did, and I’m sorry I was unprofessional. I shouldn’t have done those things.”
“I hope this sets an example for all of you,” Ed said. “If you follow all our rules here and act professionally you’ll be a successful worker and a successful human being. Meeting dismissed.”
People headed toward the door and I lagged behind, merging with the back of the crowd. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more humiliated.
Before I made my first phone call, Greg came over to my cubicle and crouched next to me. He was wearing a Walkman and I could hear the loud, pulsing beat of the music.
“I thought you was outta here yesterday,” he said.
“What can I say?” I said. “I changed my mind.”
“I don’t know how you got up there and said all that shit, man. If that was me I’d be out that motherfucking door, you know what I’m saying?”
“I needed the money,” I said. “My bank account’s looking pretty small these days.”
“I hear you, man, but that shit was humiliating. I mean I don’t say I’m sorry to nobody except my pops, and sometimes I won’t say I’m sorry to him neither. Ed can threaten my ass all he wants, but if he fires my ass he better have a good reason, ’cause I don’t take no shit from nobody around here.”
Ed was walking past my cubicle and said to Greg:
“No Walkmans in the office.”
“What?” Greg said like he was offended.
“We have a policy in the office,” Ed said, “no Walkmans. Wasn’t that explained to you when you started working here?”
“Nah, nah nobody told me that,” Greg said.
“Well, I’m telling you now. Take off the Walkman.”
Ed continued toward his office. Greg kept the head phones on and made a fuck you gesture with his middle finger.
“Careful,” I said. “If he sees you doing that, he’ll fire you.”
“Fuck that,” Greg said. “If he wants to fire me, let him fire me. As long as he gives me that back commission money he owes me, he can do whatever the fuck he wants.”
Greg went back to his cubicle, still cursing under his breath. He sat back in his chair with his arms folded for a while, then he took off the Walkman reluctantly and started working. I started working too, hoping it would take my mind off how awful I felt. It took a while for me to get comfortable with my pitch, but then I made three appointments on consecutive calls. During the ten o’clock break, I stayed at my cubicle and took out the napkin from my pocket where Lisa had written her work number last night. The ink was smudged, but I could still read it clearly. I debated whether I should call her. I didn’t know exactly what I would say, or what the point of the call would be. But the idea of calling her, just to see what would happen, was incredibly appealing.
My pulse pounded as I dialed the number. I wondered whether she had given me a wrong number intentionally, whether I was going to be calling the city morgue or a kennel club, when her voice mail picked up. After listening to her voice – I decided it was very sexy – I hung up. My heart was still racing, my palms were wet. I decided I’d call back later, at the end of the shift.
I had one of my best days on the phone. Every call I made seemed to lead to an appointment or a promising call back. By the end of the shift, I had made nine appointments, one shy of my personal record, and well more than any telemarketer had made in months. It felt satisfying to have such a good day and to watch the expression on Mike’s face when I dropped the stack of appointments on his desk. I didn’t say a word, just turned and walked out of the office.
Before I left for the day, I tried Lisa once more. Again her voice mail answered and again I hung up nervously without leaving a message. Remembering that she had been drunk last night, I decided that maybe she didn’t come into work this morning. Or, I considered, maybe she regretted giving me her number and she was screening her calls, hoping I’d eventually forget about her.
I walked outside into the hot, humid afternoon. It was by far the most uncomfortable day of the summer. What with the humidity, the smog, and the low ozone layer, it was almost impossible to breathe. After a minute outside, my shirt was a sweaty rag. Squinting in the glare, taking short, economical breaths, I walked toward Eighth Avenue. The streets were mobbed with business people, walking with their suit jackets slung over their shoulders. Some men were walking bare chested, and some people were pouring bottled water onto their heads to cool off. At the corner, I turned toward Forty-second Street. I started to feel light headed, like I was going to pass out. In the past I’d had anxiety attacks when I was hot or in confined places, and I felt like I was going to have one now. I was dizzy, short of breath. I bought a bottle of water from a street vendor and drank the whole thing in one gulp, but I still felt dazed and anxious. Afraid to get on the crowded subway, I decided I’d better kill some time in midtown before I went home.
I went into one of the triple-x video stores on Eighth Avenue.
I’d gone to these stores a few times before, but I never bought anything. It was just a way of killing time and, I have to admit, I liked looking at the erotic video boxes. I went into the bondage section and browsed through the video boxes and magazine covers of women in chains having sex with men in masks. After a while, I got bored, but it was air conditioned in the store and I didn’t feel like going back outside into the oppressive weather.
I noticed in the back of the store men coming in and out of the “Live Girl” booths. I had never gone into one of these booths before, but I had heard stories about them from guys at work. I knew that for twenty-five cents you could go inside a private booth and, for a few seconds, watch naked women dance on stage. The idea of actually going into one of these booths had always disgusted me, but for some reason I felt compelled to try it one time, just to see what it was like.
I exchanged a dollar for four tokens, feeling strangely embarrassed, like a teenager buying his first box of condoms. The Pakistani man behind the counter didn’t seem to care, however, as he casually instructed me to go into booth number four.
A man was busy mopping in and around the booths that weren’t being used. Surprisingly, the place was very clean and there was no discernible odor except the ammonia from the mopping fluid they used to clean the stalls after each customer. I shut the wooden door and sat carefully on the stool. I put a coin in the slot and a piece of wood slid up, revealing a small window, about the size of a porthole. A lethargic, heavy-set Puerto Rican woman was in the middle of a strip tease. She had already taken off her bra, and now she was spinning slowly around a pole, holding on with one hand as she pulled at the elastic of her panties with the other. She wasn’t attractive – in fact, she was downright ugly. Her stomach stuck out farther than her breasts and she had the beginnings of a mustache and beard. Her thighs were filled with thick varicose veins and she had the bloodshot, baggy eyes of a drug user. After a few minutes, the covering slid back down over the window. I deposited anothe
r token. When I ran out of tokens, I changed two more dollars and fed the new tokens into the slot. I couldn’t get enough of it. The woman didn’t arouse me, but it was incredibly refreshing to see a new naked body, any new naked body. There was no doubt that Julie was much more attractive than this woman, but I had seen Julie naked thousands of times and I hadn’t seen another naked woman live, in person, in years.
After about a half hour and five dollars later, I decided to go home. Rather than going down to the hot subway, I took the Eighth Avenue bus uptown. It wasn’t until I got off at Ninety-sixth Street that an intense feeling of guilt set in. I felt disgusting for getting excited watching the Puerto Rican woman. I knew another woman wasn’t the answer. The answer was getting a good job in advertising and getting my career off the ground again.
When I got home I took a long shower with the coldest water possible.
4
I spent the rest of the afternoon sending out resumes. I answered several advertisements in the Times classified for marketing positions, and I sent out several resumes to head hunters and to a few agencies I hadn’t contacted in over a year. Although most of these places had already rejected my applications, I decided it was worth taking a chance that a new person had been hired in the personnel or marketing divisions, or that the timing was right and they had a position that needed to be filled.
In my updated resumes I exaggerated my job at American Communications, writing that I had been working as a “sales and marketing executive for a national telephone company” and that my duties included, “soliciting and maintaining a new client base, and organizing and conducting a sales campaign in the New York City area.” I knew that if I was called in for an interview I’d have to explain that I’d really been working as a ten-dollar-an-hour telemarketer, but I thought I was better off lying than having a two-year, unexplained gap in my career.
It was about five-thirty when I returned home from the post office. It was still unbearably hot outside and I felt like I needed another shower. Instead, I collapsed on the couch and put on the air conditioner and television. When I woke up, Julie was in the kitchen, pouring a glass of orange juice.