WEEK THIRTY-FIVE
“Phiiiil! Phil-boy! The Phil-man! How are you doing?”
Greg Samsa, one of the founders of Yossarian Samsa Pilgrim Smith, reached over his desk to extend a hand. His skin was as cracked and weathered as a southern highway in the middle of a drought. Samsa’s light blue eyes demanded your sympathy; I spent most of my time in his office looking at his golf trophies. Or, pictures of his family. Or, framed newspaper clippings touting how many awards the firm had won (the one about Auntie Dormamu’s Chocolate Chip Cookies, now laced with Prozac, was especially poignant). Anywhere but at his eyes. For the first time since I started working at the firm, I noticed that his desk was neat and tidy, unlike the desks of those of us who actually had to develop campaigns and write advertising copy. I tried not to let my realization show as I grasped his hand firmly (but not so firmly as to challenge his authority) and shook it.
“How have you been?”
I couldn’t tell how loaded the question was, so I decided to play it safe: “I’ve been resting since I got home a couple of weeks ago, and I’m fit and ready for action.”
“Ah, yes, about that…” Samsa said, motioning for me to sit as he sat. I sat. “The partners have expressed some concern about your…disappearance.”
“I was kidnapped,” I bluntly stated.
“So, you say.”
“It happened in the board room!” I tried not to shout. “Right down the hall from where we’re sitting!”
Samsa thought about this. “You ever read any of Dirk Sequestrian’s novels, Phil?”
“What?” I deflated.
“Thriller stuff. Nobody would mistake it for great literature, but, after a long day at the office, it’s a better escape than Housewives of Whatever Godforsaken City the Television Gods Are Smiling on This Year. Well, for me, anyway.”
“Greg, what does this have to do -“
“Sequestrian has a novel – Work Shirk I believe it is called. It’s about a busy executive who hires actors to play police officers who kidnap him so he can spend six months in debriefing his Russia handlers. He’s a spy, you see. A mole. Then, he returns to his home in Indiana claiming that he was kidnapped by the American government in order to make us look bad. It’s a real page-turner.”
“I don’t – you think I made the whole thing up?”
“I’m not saying that you took the plot directly from Dirk Sequestrian’s book – we wouldn’t want loose accusations of plagiarism to be thrown about the office. All I’m saying is that the parallels are instructive…”
“Why is it so hard for you to believe that I was kidnapped by federal agents?” I demanded.
“Because,” Samsa explained as if it was the most reasonable, obvious thing in the world, “this is the United States of America, Phil. We don’t do shit like that.”
I took a deep breath and avoided looking into the Eyes of Acquiescence. “It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not,” I quietly stated. “I just want to go to my office and get back to work.”
“Ah, no can do, Shamu.” He made a statement that rhymed. You knew you were in trouble when Samsa started rhyming for no particular reason.
“I’m sorry?”
“Try to see it from our point of view. You left without any sort of memo about where you were going or why. We had no idea if you were ever going to come back. So, after two months, we gave Plasterton your office.”
“Two months?”
“It may have been closer to two days, but, the important thing is that we had to make a quick decision in a difficult situation, and we made it.”
“Fine. I’ll work out of whatever space is available.”
“Big problem…uhh…diadem. The partners aren’t sure, after what happened, that you are…up to the task. Damask. You know. Do you still have the right stuff, Snuff?”
“I assure you, sir, that I am more than capable of doing my job.”
“Still not seeing it from our point of view.”
“No. I’m not. Because I am a human being with his own point of view.”
“You see? Do you see? This is exactly the sort of thing we are concerned about. Before you pulled your little disappearing act, you would never have spoken about having a personal point of view. You wouldn’t dare.”
“So, what do I have to do to get my job back?”
“In Affair in Asti Spumanti, Dirk Sequestrian’s hero has to see a psychiatrist to prove he’s fit to return to the CDIC.”
“A psychiatrist.”
“I can’t guarantee anything. This isn’t the CDIC – it has a more direct effect on the economy. But, at least it would show the partners good will on your part.”
Good will? I was the one who had to show good will? As I left his office, I resolved to never see a psychiatrist. Never.
SOURCE: Harpo’s
[http://harpos.org/archive/2012/09/02/dd-9000035]
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