Come see me as soon as you get in.
Two hours later, he arrived.
“Did you want to talk about something?” I asked him.
“No no, forget it, it’s nothing,” he muttered.
I went back to my desk. Barry came by a few minutes later and asked, “Can we talk?”
“Sure, what’s up?” I asked.
“Um… I don’t know quite how to put this to you. But, where were you yesterday?”
“Remember I called and said I had to go to a funeral?”
“Oh yeah… Okay, sorry. Totally cool. Understood.”
I found a co-worker and asked if he’d heard anything.
“He was complaining that you’re always taking days off.”
“But I had to go to a funeral,” I protested.
“He didn’t know about it.”
I got a phone call from Helen, a manager over in the compatibility division. Despite the fact that she had three kids and was nearly double my age, she looked younger than me, energetic, sprightly, always wearing tight jeans as she heaved around old computers.
“I know how picky you are about food so I got us lunch reservations at Karmatica,” she said. “I’ve also invited Jerry and Tina.” Both VPs in the company.
I wondered what it was going to be about.
The restaurant was swank, a French Italian place with the lunch prix fixe menu set at $122.86. Cilantro-roasted shrimp, osetra caviar crowned with seared scallop and a lemongrass infusion, tartare or foie gras? It was a delectable heaven.
Helen said, “You know there’s been some organizational shifts happening. We were wondering how you’d feel about transferring over to compatibility. I’d love to have you on board and you’d be bringing your expertise to our team. I wanted Jerry and Tina to meet you too because they’re going to be overseeing the department.”
“Byron, we’re really excited about all the new developments we’re going to be introducing,” Tina said with her blazing red hair and her pristine Colgate smile. “SolTech is all about talent and creativity. We feel the company has been so bogged down in the amplification of existing technologies, it hasn’t really had the chance to get back to its roots: innovation. We want you to be part of this new team because we only want the best of the best.”
Four waiters brought four plates, simultaneously placing the dishes before us. Helen, Tina, and Jerry used their tiny knives to cut their scallops into tiny slivers and used their tiny forks to take tiny bites of caviar. I grabbed my own scallop with my fingers, shoved it into my mouth, and swallowed it whole. They stared at me, surprised. When the steak arrived, I ripped it apart with my bare hands, chewing savagely with my mouth wide open.
“Byron is such a food snob, he eats with his fingers,” Helen joked, trying to bring levity to the lunch.
Tina and Jerry simpered. “I guess that’s the new chic, eh?”
I nodded while dipping my finger in the sauce and licking the remains directly off the plate.
On Friday, I got called to Barry’s office. A representative from HR was with him, a young Asian girl ten years younger than me. “I’m glad you came. We wanted to talk with you,” she said.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“When a company of our size has a bad year, we have to make cutbacks. It’s inevitable and an unfortunate aspect of a…”
“Can you get to your point?” I asked, cutting her off.
“Even though we feel you’ve been a valuable member of our company and a very important asset, we have to let you go.”
“I thought I was being transferred to compatibility.”
“That didn’t work out, sorry,” she informed me.
“Meanwhile, you’re hiring all new executives and paying them millions?”
“Excuse me?”
I laughed angrily. “What kind of compensation package do you have?”
“Two months automatic, one week for every year you’ve been here, an additional two weeks if you agree to sign a contract promising not to bring legal action against us.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want to go over our reasons?”
“Just give me my money.”
I stormed out without my belongings. Headed for my car. Hit the alarm, no response. My battery was dead. I gripped my key, flung it at the flower garden our environmental committee had recently planted. Pacing back and forth, I knew I should have been more thoughtful, not so stupid at that lunch. My key had fallen on top of a cactus, ‘self-sufficient’ despite its artificial inception. I hit the alarm again. With what little juice was left, it unlocked my car, and I sped away.
V.
I gave Stan a call.
“Yeah, we’re hiring,” he said. “You interested in testing games?”
“Absolutely. It was my childhood dream.”
He laughed. “It might sound like a dream job but it gets repetitive really fast.”
“You don’t understand. I’ve always wanted to do this.”
“I’ll do my best to make it happen.”
I went to June’s grave, sat down next to her tomb with some chocolate ice cream, ate it using a plastic spoon, and dumped some scoops on her piece of grass. A few hours later, I went home and lay down, wondering what it would be like testing games for a living.
Fatigue finally seized me and I couldn’t hold back any longer. I went to bed and was dozing off when I felt something crawling on my cheek. I slapped my face. Something crushed in my palm. I went to the bathroom, saw the leveled remains of my spider. Wiped it off, washed my face several times. Of all the millions of places it could have gone, why the hell did it have to crawl on my face? I was irked but relieved as well, now that it was gone. About to sleep, I thought of June, the last time I saw her.
I slept like a dead spider.
The Buddha of Many Parts
I.
Anonymity was my secret identity. I was lost in the sea of Beijing, a nonentity in the metaphor of a metropolis crammed with millions. I spent my days tumbling in the morass of Mandarin, trying to learn and extract the seeds of obscure characters. The library of unknown Chinese tomes seemed endless and questions of my identity withered, solitude keenly evolving into a familiar sense of irony. I relished my isolation, thrived in being unknown even if I was never alone in one of the most populated cities in the world. Enthusiastic vendors sold bronze mirrors that could capture a reflection of your future self while secret restaurants offered kung pao duck heart to help you understand ancient Eastern rites lost over the sieve of time. I saw so many familiar faces I didn’t know, extracts, shadows of ruins, smashed to pieces then reconstructed in the illusory nostalgia of longing. Hair came in all shapes and sizes, and the Chinese were like a lottery from the cauldron of humanity, every brushstroke of human calligraphy breathing in blood. I walked past the elderly, their skin marred by scars and the revolution of balding scalps. Young lovers whistled to the memory of gutter dogs while arguing over misplaced lipstick stains. A mother fed her baby milk directly from her pimply breast, careful to ward off germs from hordes of workers rushing home.
It was evening and I was heading for the subway through ‘Worm Street,’ a hutong that writhed and twisted like a worm from one end to the other. A grandmother with the spine of a boomerang was selling a love potion for 100RMB that’ll make someone fall completely in love with you. A bunch of men were gathered around a xiangqi—Chinese chess — table, analyzing every move, several juggling toughened peach cores inside their palms as they muttered assenting Ahhs and disapproving Ah-yahs. I reached the station, got on a train, grabbed an English translation of one of the four principal classics of Chinese literature from my backpack, Hong Lou Meng — The Dream of Red Mansions. The ride was jittery and tumultuous; the train, almost empty because it was late.