Black Buck

by Mateo Askaripour

  This was the first time Ma had ever called out. She always managed to put the coffee on and make it to work—no matter how bad she felt. She even went to the factory the day after Pa died because she said it felt good to be needed even when you were just one out of thousands. I was worried, but I figured the best thing to do was get to Sumwun, knock it out of the park, and trust that she’d feel better soon.

  “Can I get you anything before I leave, Ma? You want some more water, coffee?”

  “No, thank you, baby.” She closed her eyes and grabbed my arm. “Have a good day at work, Dar. I’ll see you when you get back. And don’ forget about Friday. I’ll be better by then. It’ll be nice.”

  I bent down and kissed her cool forehead. “Okay, Ma. I’ll be there.”

  Down the stairs. Turn the corner. Wave to Mr. Aziz. The gargoyles were parked in their same spot. Jason wanted to talk, but I had no time, so I just ran past him and saluted Wally Cat before entering the subway.

  Like Ma, I should’ve called out sick.

  * * *

  Clyde was working on a deal with someone in London, so Charlie, the Paul Bunyan–looking guy from Monday who explained why we needed to hit our number, and my future manager, led the stretch.

  At the end, Rhett walked into the center of the circle. He was no longer pale and shrunken like he had been the previous night. He was brighter, fuller, more like the guy I pitched at Starbucks.

  Everyone stopped moving; the only sounds were rain pattering against the window and far-off voices on the sales floor from people trying to close overseas deals. Rhett closed his eyes and stood in silence for two full minutes.

  “Let me ask a question,” he said. “A simple one. Two years ago, what did we raise in our Series A?”

  “Seven million,” someone said.

  “And our Series B?”

  “Twenty million,” another added.

  “All in all, including a seed round, we’ve raised twenty-eight million dollars. Take a second to imagine what a room full of twenty-eight million dollars looks like,” he said, turning around the circle. “Someone, tell me what they see.”

  “A room full to the brim with hundreds,” someone called out.

  “Gold bars in a bank vault,” another said.

  “What else?” Rhett asked.

  “A garage full of Bugattis!” a voice shouted.

  “Sure, it could be all of those,” he said. “But when I think of a room of twenty-eight million dollars, what I see is all of you. I don’t see this office, with our perks, the MacBooks with our Mac monitors, or even Mac Jackson our trainer, though he is a stud.”

  Mac, among the kitchen spectators, waved to the circle and everyone smiled.

  “I see a room of people. And I’ll tell you, when family, friends, and investors gave us that twenty-eight million, the money was only a symbol. A symbol of the belief they had in us. In each and every one of you.” He pointed around the circle. “And what matters most is that we hit this month and show them that they made the right move betting on us even when everyone said we were crazy to think we could disrupt the world of therapy.

  “They said no company cared enough about their employees to pay for modern therapy. They said no one in their right mind would log on to a computer to speak with a stranger halfway around the world, opening themselves up like cracked fortune cookies. But here we are. The darling of New York City. Putting Silicon Alley on the map.”

  Clyde entered the circle. “Good news?” Rhett asked, everyone watching, tense.

  “Two hundred thousand from Virgin!” Clyde shouted, and raised his fist to a room full of applause.

  “FUCK YEAH!” Rhett said, picking him up and twirling him around.

  The room got quiet, and Clyde parted the sea of people, making his way toward the gong. He grabbed a rubber-tipped mallet and faced the crowd.

  “It’s just a pilot program, but Virgin is going to have one thousand of its lowest-performing employees across its subsidiaries use Sumwun to increase performance. They’ve assured us that if it works they’ll roll it out to ten thousand in the next year!”

  “We love you, Clyde!” a gaggle of girls shouted.

  “Yeah, us too, bro!” a horde of guys wearing backward snapbacks echoed.

  “I love you too, I do. I know it’s been a tough month”—he ran his hands through his hair—“and that they don’t get any easier. But I just want to thank all of you for how hard you’re working, and Rhett for helping get this deal over the line.”

  “It was all you, Clyde. Please, I was just along for the ride.”

  It was then that I first saw it. I don’t know if I can say it was the look a father gives a son or an older brother gives a younger one, but what I can say is that it was true love. The love that is exchanged between people who would do anything for each other. And, for the first time, I saw a humanity in Clyde that I didn’t know he possessed.

  “Now hit that shit!” Rhett ordered.

  Clyde cocked his hand back like a pitcher about to throw a ball at ninety miles an hour and struck the gong with a force that made the ground shake.

  “ABC, baby!” Rhett shouted. “Always. Be. Closing!”

  * * *

  “That’s how you fucking do it!” Clyde screamed, strutting into Bhagavad Gita like a colonizer.

  Frodo held his hand up for a high five. “Nice one, Clyde. Can’t wait to be able to close a deal like that.”

  “Okay,” Clyde said, ignoring Frodo. “Plan for the day is to role-play with me. Then one-on-one role-playing with a senior SDR until the end of the day. Now’s crunch time, so don’t fucking slack off. Frodo, you first. Stand up.”

  Clyde was Karl Schmitt, CEO of Schmitt Dogshit. And Karl schmitted all over Frodo. He even said, “You’re almost worse than Buck, and that’s an achievement.” Aside from “having less of a brain than a mummified corpse,” Frodo’s main undoing was ending statements with a question mark, which Clyde said introduced doubt into the conversation.

  Reader: This is one hundred percent true. If you talk like this? People will think you don’t know what the hell you’re saying? So, when speaking, picture ending everything you say with a period. Periods = confidence. Confidence = success.

  When it was the Duchess’s turn, Clyde told her to stay seated because she’d pass on Friday without any more sessions. “But you”—he kicked my chair—“get up. I’m Tyrone Williams, VP of people at Imperial Tobacco.”

  “Ring ring.”

  “Tyrone.”

  “Hi, Tyrone, it’s Darren calling from Sumwun. How are you?”

  “I’z good, Darren. Hey, now dat sound like a brother’s name. You a brother?”

  Ignore it. I wasn’t going to let him get to me.

  “Yeah, Tyrone. I’m a brother. And I’m calling you today to learn more about what you’re all doing over there to increase employee wellness.”

  “Huh, dat a funny question, Darren. Never tawt about dat one. Gez not much.”

  “Great, sounds like it’s a good thing I called. We’re working with companies similar to your own to help increase employee productivity through a more balanced, healthier state of mind. How’s that sound?”

  “Gez it sound awright to me, suh! Aye, you ever have a Philly Blunt?”

  “No, Tyrone. I don’t smoke.”

  “You don’ smoke? What kinda brother ’r’ you? We over here at Imperial Tobacco make ’em! I don’ think I can do business wid someone who’s never had a Philly Blunt befoe.”

  Fuck this. He wouldn’t do this to anyone else. Hit him and walk out. No, don’t. This modern-day minstrel show is irritating, but you can take it. Think of Ma. Think of Ma. Think of Ma.

  “Well, how about this? I get a little more information from you, Tyrone, and then whenever you’re in New York, we’ll spark up a Philly together?”

  “CLICK! What the fuck was that, Buck? You’ll smoke a blunt with him? Christ.”

  “They’re also cigars, man. I didn’t mean a blunt.”r />
  “No, you did. What else do you all use them for? Learn the difference between getting familiar and getting too comfortable. What if Tyrone was recording that and posted it online? You’d bring the fucking company down with how unprofessional that was.”

  “You were the one acting like a stereotype.”

  “Are you calling me a fucking racist, Buck? You better watch it.”

  My hand was ready, my heart was ready, and my frustration, reaching magma-level intensity, was there.

  “Please do it,” Clyde said, eyeing my fist. “I want you to. It’ll make this easier for everyone.”

  “Buck.” Frodo grabbed my elbow. “Chill out.”

  Clyde walked toward me and didn’t stop until our noses were touching. He smiled that same fucking smile, with those same sky-blue eyes, and that same stench of self-entitlement. “Sit,” he ordered.

  I was tempted to splatter his brains against the dry-erase wall, but that same voice from before said I needed to choose my battles, keep my eyes on the prize, and all of that other Rocky “Eye of the Tiger” bullshit. So, I sat.

  Reader: No matter how much it hurts, never let short-term frustration disrupt long-term gain. Sales is a marathon, not a sprint.

  “Good boy,” he said, walking toward the door.

  Doubts ricocheted inside my head. Is this really what Ma wants? What was so wrong with who I was last week?

  “Buck?” Clyde said, pausing in the doorway.

  “What?”

  “The next time you threaten me, you won’t just be fired. I’ll also have you thrown in jail. You got that?”

  No, I don’t fucking got that, you David Duke–worshipping, NRA license–carrying, “Take Me Home, Country Roads”–singing motherfucker!

  But I stayed silent.

  He turned around, amused. “I want to hear that you got that, Buck. No, I need to hear it in order to feel safe, to know you’re not dangerous.”

  I closed my eyes, imagined getting up and slamming my fist through his face, his nose cracking like ice in a plastic tray. But then I pictured Rhett staring at me with the same look of pride that he’d given Clyde that morning, the same look he’d given me after I rapped in Monday’s meeting. I don’t know why that vision held so much weight for me, but it did. And it was enough to make me swallow any trace of pride I had.

  “Got it,” I said, hating myself.

  * * *

  “Welcome to Torah,” Eddie said with outstretched arms. Torah, like every other room in the office, bore no cultural resemblance to its namesake.

  “Another religious text, cool,” I said.

  Even though I’d had only a few interactions with Eddie, I liked him. The whole hipster-punk-rock look—black ear gauges, goatee, wire-frame glasses, holey Metallica T-shirt to go with his black skinny jeans and leather combat boots—didn’t match his glittering personality, but I appreciated that I couldn’t really place him in a box.

  “Mm-hmm. When we moved offices, the almighty Rhett decreed that each room be named for one of the sacred books of our assistants’ various religious beliefs.”

  “So how does that work? The assistants, I mean. Do they find us or do we find them?”

  “A little bit of both, but we have what we call community managers who sign them up. They’re not like licensed therapists, but are totes certified in their various belief systems and can speak credibly about them. For example, our community managers may find a prominent Hindu practitioner in India via a blog post or video, then reach out to see if she’d like to become an assistant. After she accepts, her time becomes available to book for employees of the organizations who use us. And while the woman may not be certified by our American standards, her different outlook on life could still be useful to people going through hard times here or in other places around the world.”

  “I see. But are there ever any issues? You’re finding strangers online and people are paying to speak with them. They can’t always be good, right?”

  He stroked his goatee. “Yeah, of course. There’re always a few bad eggs who get into trouble, but users can review, report, or leave comments so we can kick them off the platform ASAP. But it’s obviously not in the assistants’ best interest to be assholes. They want to make money and help people.”

  “Got it.”

  That session with Eddie was the day’s silver lining. I learned that “no one’s going to stay on the line with someone as interesting as C-SPAN,” that “what and how you pitch depends on who you’re pitching to,” and that the point of speaking with someone is to have a conversation, not to conduct an interrogation. But best of all, I learned how to have fun on the phone.

  Reader: All of that is critical advice. No one is going to listen to someone who sounds like they’d rather be doing something else. And when you’re trying to convince someone of anything, you need to tailor your message to the person you’re speaking with so it resonates as powerfully as possible.

  At the end, Eddie smiled, and said, “You might just get this.” And no matter how corny this sounds, it felt like one of those movie scenes where the skinny white nerd begins to grow muscles, run faster, and lift more weights right before he knocks the shit out of his bully. Or shoots up the whole school. But you get the point.

  For the first time in my life, I was the skinny white nerd.

  * * *

  When I swung by Rhett’s office, he was in the same spot as the night before, alone with the lights low, nursing a glass of gin. His eyes were closed when I entered, as if he were praying.

  “Anything good?” I dropped my bag.

  “The usual.” He opened his eyes and patted the couch. “How was your day? Any better?”

  “Uh, sort of. At least role-plays were. Eddie set me straight.”

  “Good one. Drink?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Then pool. Get up.”

  He chucked a stick at me and racked the balls.

  “Break,” he said, bloodshot eyes glaring at the illuminated triangle.

  I’d always thought pool was reserved for white guys with tattoos, leather jackets, and asthmatic Harley-Davidsons, which led to one unfortunate outcome: I couldn’t hit a ball to save my life.

  “The aim is to hit those balls in the center of the table, Buck. Not do all you can to miss them,” he said, shaking with laughter. “Again.”

  I took aim and caught the bottom corner of the triangle. Fifteen balls inched away.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” Rhett said. “I sure hope you sell better than you play pool.”

  “This game’s fixed,” I said, after he whooped my ass. Any game where one white ball can beat the living crap out of every other nonwhite ball on the table has to be rigged.

  “It’s not fixed, Buck. You just need to change your approach. All you need is a coach.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” I said, plopping down on the leather couch. “Like God, right? The ultimate coach? Is that who you were chatting with before?”

  He grabbed a bottle off the shelf and poured himself another glass. “I guess, yeah. Are you a believer?”

  “My mom used to bring me to a Seventh Day Adventist church when I was little but stopped after I kept complaining about having to go to church on Saturdays.”

  “Brat. Does she still go?”

  “Once in a while, yeah. After my dad died, she said God and me were the only men she had time for.”

  “And what about you?” he asked, racking the balls. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “I don’t know, man. Not really.”

  “So what happens after we die?”

  “I have no idea. I mean, I hope this isn’t it. But if it is, can’t really do anything about it, right? What about you? You a ‘Man of God’?”

  He struck the balls so hard that I swore they would all roll into the pockets just to escape his wrath. “I grew up poor, Buck. And from the sounds of it, worse than you. Poor people and God usually go hand in hand because it’s easier to e
xplain why some people have so much and others have so little when there’s a master plan.

  “My parents used to bring me and my younger sister to church every Sunday without fail. We’d dress up in the only pair of decent clothes we had and walk a mile to the church, holding hands the whole way. But when we’d get in, my mother would light up like it was Christmas. She’d glow, and you’d never know that she scrubbed floors for a living or sometimes went nights without dinner so her kids could eat.”

  He continued driving balls into the pockets, one by one. Red solid in the corner. Purple and white in the side. “You still haven’t answered my question,” I said.

  “Yeah, I believe in God.” He rounded the table, getting a better angle. “Even if I’m wrong, there’s no harm in believing. When it comes to any gamble, I always hedge my bet.”

  “Even with me?”

  He laughed and chipped a ball off the table, sending it soaring toward my face. I caught it just in time.

  10

  When I woke, the kitchen was just as I had left it the night before: a solitary plate and mug resting in the sink, all of the chairs pushed to the table’s edge, no Ma.

  “Ma,” I said, knocking on her door. I hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t awake when I got home. I just shot into my room and passed out. The same fear of finding her frozen in some last, clawing gasp for air prevented me from opening the door. I knocked again.

  “Come in, Dar,” she whispered.

  I found her in the same position I’d left her the previous morning: slightly curled to the side with blankets pulled to just below her eyes. The blinds were shut, and the room gave off a sour smell, like it was rebelling against whatever was going on with her.

  I sat next to her. “Ma, what’s goin’ on?”

  “Still a bit tired,” she said, sitting up. “What time is it?”

  “6:47 a.m. You been in bed since I left you?”