B Farmer - Descent

“Shut up, Titouan. Now,” I said, taking a step towards him just in case he refused.

Avery began to speak, but I told him to shut up too. Turning to Jack and Tom, I said, “I’m glad to see you guys.”

Jack nodded, a big smile plastered on his face. Tom, on the other hand, looked on in pure disgust.

I explained what had happened, but I wasn’t in the mood for many words. I asked Jack to take Avery back to the COM shack and stay there until Titouan and I got there. We were going to get a satellite phone, and we were going to call Miley. Finally, I told Tom to work with Sam in moving people to the Commons. The worst-case scenario was upon us.

As Jack guided Avery towards the COM Shack, I heard Avery say something under his breath. “Arnie was special needs. Not Gilbert Grape.”

Fucking asshole, Titouan.

“What do you mean yours doesn’t work either? That’s impossible.”

“It means exactly what I said. It doesn’t work.” I held my satellite phone out for him and tried to power it on so he could see. This was after we both put in our spare batteries. “Did Avery sabotage these too?”

“Things don’t happen just by chance, William.”

“Look, scapegoating Avery isn’t going to help you, Titouan.”

“Why would I need to scapegoat him? He’s just bad at his job.”

“I’ve seen the damn reports you send to corporate. If you knew how to do your job, you’d taken my credentials away when you took over.”

Titouan’s wind-burned face turned pallid. He began to speak, but then stopped. I let him linger on his thoughts for a few ticks before retaking the conversation and redirecting it in what I hoped would be a more productive direction. What we were dealing with was much bigger than falsified reports and fragile egos. We were dealing with a real emergency, where real people could freeze to death if we didn’t act appropriately. I hated the idea of it, but I needed Titouan to come on board, be on the same page as me. Fighting only wasted time. Time we didn’t have.

“Besides these phones, did he sabotage my watch and alarm clock, too, Titouan? And maybe it’s sheer coincidence, but Simon told me Harvey’s tablet died when the power went out—”

“Your watch?”

“And alarm clock and everything else. All dead.” I picked up my watch off the table and tossed it to him. I then pulled the power plug out of the wall, walked over to my desk, grabbed a new battery out of its package, and inserted into the clock. I then tried to give it to Titouan for his inspection.

He tossed my watch back, but refused to take the clock. Apparently, he got the point.

Titouan had a seat at my desk. The lamp cast his face in a wicked shadow. He sat there seemingly deep in thought, possibly collecting his next wave of irrational thoughts and readying for the next tirade that would make him forget how he wouldn’t be able to scapegoat his way through this.

Then something unexpected happened. He rubbed his bare wrist and said, “My watch stopped working too. That’s why I didn’t wear it.”

“Avery’s my best friend, but I assure you if you had evidence in lieu of irrational hatred, I could easily be swayed away from defending him. But that really doesn’t matter, and neither does the fact that you didn’t order replacement boards. It fucking doesn’t matter. We’re past that. Right now we can only take care of the only variable that matters. Our people. Either of us getting fired or barred from the industry won’t mean shit if someone freezes to death. You can find another damn line of work. If someone dies, well, we can’t let that happen.”

He got up and walked over to the window. There was nothing to see outside besides snow and darkness, but that didn’t stop him from looking for something. “I don’t know what to do, William.”

That was the first sign of unfettered weakness I’d ever seen from him. There is such a thing as a leader who is hard, demanding, and difficult to please but who still manages civility and decency. Titouan was rarely civil or decent. He represented everything people hated about their bosses. He was smug, arrogant, and worse, entitled. He got into Wharton because his dad signed some checks. He took my job at the Patch weeks after graduating from Wharton because his dad was friends with Miley, and because he was the largest shareholder besides Miley.

Titouan thought he’d promenade into the Patch like he did everywhere else, and his dad’s power, money, and influence would allow him to do as little or as much as he wanted and succeed no matter which option he chose. He was surprised when that didn’t pan out. People like Titouan blame other people when things don’t go as planned. People like those who worked at the Patch didn’t give a rat’s ass about people who blame other people for their own problems. My main role at that point was playing translator and arbiter between the two disparate worlds.

I wanted to hope that maybe he was coming to his senses. I saw a twenty-five-year-old kid with barely any experience asking, even if it weren’t outright, for help. I could let him drown because of his prior transgressions and potentially cause needless pain for my friends and coworkers, or I could help him swim and cause them as little pain as possible. I chose to help him. It certainly wasn’t because I had suddenly become deluded enough to think he had a moment of life-altering clarity. I didn’t buy that for a second. Potentially humbled for a short time was much more likely. I helped him because of the very reason I was there in the first place, and that was solely because of my friends. Otherwise, I couldn’t have cared less if he floundered until he drowned in his own wretched bile.

I told him to go to the Commons and make sure people were as comfortable as possible. I also told him to omit the part, unless asked, about the satellite phones not working. Was that the right thing to do? Probably not, but then there didn’t seem to be any easy or obvious ways of handling crap like that. I was flying by the seat of my pants – we all were.

Stone-faced and pale, Titouan shook his head and left without saying another word.

I decided to check the screwdriver wound before talking to Avery. I pulled my parka off, peeled off the thermal shirts I had on underneath, and saw to my surprise that Avery had inflicted a gnarly wound on my shoulder. I probably needed a couple stitches but decided that was too much of a luxury at that point. I couldn’t find any Band-Aids, alcohol, or essentially anything I might’ve used to clean or dress the wound. I ended up using a makeshift bandage fashioned from a strip of cloth torn off a shirt I found lying on the floor. Sanitary? Probably not. It would absorb the blood, though. That was good enough for me.

I got dressed and grabbed the phones. I hoped Avery could make up for stabbing me by fixing one of them. The way things were going, I had my doubts.

I noticed someone standing outside the COM shack. The visibility was so bad I couldn’t see who it was until I got within a few feet.

“What are you doing out here, Jack?” I asked.

“I had to step out a couple minutes. I think Avery was getting ready to, uh, talk to me about Jehovah.”

“Never a bad time for the Lord,” I said, patting him on the arm. “Let’s go in. I’ll bring up my shoulder. That’ll take his mind off proselytizing.”

Jack didn’t laugh. “I need to talk to you.”

Jack was a chill California guy, or at least that’s what he would say about himself. He didn’t normally get excited about much of anything. He looked like he was sober, too, which in of itself was odd. He was well on his way to being shitfaced an hour earlier. “What’s up?” I asked.