Sam Lipsyte - The Ask

A shout went up, followed by applause. Llewellyn did his best imitation of bashful.

"So, give that man a potato chip!" said Cooley.

Many of us laughed, applauded anew. I joined them, a shamed heat rising in me. Would Cooley mention that the Teitelbaum ask had once been mine? I'd screwed that one up good at a lunch, made the mistake, in listing the kinds of exhibits that might be mounted in a proposed gallery space, of mentioning the work of a Polish artist who built a model Treblinka with Tinker Toys. The camp guards were freeze-dried ants. Teitelbaum, a Holocaust orphan, was not amused.

"What did he make the Jews out of?" the old man snarled over his salade Nicoise.

"Vintage coins from the Weimar Republic," I mumbled.

"Money? He made them out of money?"

"It was a point about historical perception. The artist is Jewish himself."

But Teitelbaum, who'd made a fortune in optics, was not so intrigued by this notion of perception. He charged off to the toilet. I ate some slivers of his hard-boiled egg.

People still clapped but Cooley had a new stern look.

"No, really," he said. "Give him a potato chip."

Sean slid a rippled mesquite-flavored chip from his bag, passed it down the table to Llewellyn.

"That's your bonus," said Cooley, and the room got quiet.

We did not get bonuses. But something about hearing the word seemed to drive the fact home. I wondered what management technique this was that Cooley had decided to employ, though after some years in this business, I'd come to suspect there were no techniques, or none that really traveled well out of books and conference seminars. The kiddie-diddler was right, it was all just people doing kindnesses, or smearing each other into the earth, usually both at the same time.

"That's your bonus," said Cooley again, and I remembered that I had actually gotten a bonus, from Purdy, half a year's rent in an envelope in my desk. Grounds for dismissal. I'd already been dismissed, of course. But it could also be grounds for a prison sentence, if it constituted defrauding my employer.

"I'll treasure it," said Llewellyn, the chip aloft.

"Frame it!" somebody called.

"Bronze it!"

"Stick it up your butt!"

"That's your bonus," said Cooley, "but that's not your only bonus."

The room hushed down at these last words. This was the original management technique. It was also, if you substituted the word "candy" for bonus, a pleasant way to torment your child on a Sunday afternoon.

"What's the rest?" said Llewellyn. He seemed jumpy, a bit slopped by an overspill of ego fuel.

"The rest of your bonus is your ability to sleep at night, knowing that you have done your part in keeping hope-hope for a great fucking human flowering-alive and well. Darkness is falling, my friends. Our job is to put the Maglites in the hands of the people whose ideas, whether in the realms of business, medicine, law, or science, pure and applied, will lead us through the black hour."

"Let's not forget the arts!" called Vargina, with rare or, rather, meeting-specific cheer.

"Sure, the arts, too," said Cooley. "Hey, we've always made room for you self-involved little people, haven't we? No need to be upset. We get it. Even cavemen needed their cave paintings, right?"

"Hooray," whispered Horace.

War Crimes wheeled.

"What was that, Slick?"

"Nothing."

"I got a question for you. A quiz. Answer this correctly and I'll give you a twenty percent raise right now. In what year did Bertolt Brecht create the vaccine for polio?"

"Sorry?"

"In what year did Bertolt Brecht create the vaccine for polio?"

"No year?" said Horace.

"Say it like you got a pair."

"No year, sir!" said Horace.

"Good work. The raise thing was more of a hypothetical. But keep up the nice effort. Anyway, you all get my point. Though I guess I've made several today. Mainly I just wanted to let Llewellyn here know how much we appreciate his top-notch performance. But he's not the only one. There are others here who deserve singling out. Before we get to that, however, I have some sad news. It concerns a family very close to our hearts. I received word this morning that Shad Rayfield is very ill. Collapsed on his catamaran. We will wish the best for him, reflect on his mighty accomplishments, most notably his design and production of some of the world's best attack helicopters, and in the great works of philanthropy he has undertaken, as well as pray for his speedy recovery. I know Shad considers the Rayfield Observatory the crown jewel of his gives, despite the fact that it's never worked properly, and was unfortunately erected too near a large lime works, so that visibility is a severe problem. Still, the building stands as a symbol of all that is possible, even as we possibly depart the age of the big give. So, let us lower our heads and send good thoughts to Shad Rayfield in whatever mode of spiritual contemplation we happen to choose. Martha, am I to understand you are Wiccan?"

The woman with the cat glasses glanced up.

"Well, we don't have a broom for you here, but we welcome your style of worship. And let us not forget the suffering of poor McKenzie Rayfield as she endures this very fraught time. Mr. Burke, you know her a bit. Maybe you have a few words you'd like to share with us?"

"Excuse me?" I said.

"Got your attention now, haven't I? Nice to have you at the meeting."

"Thanks. I wasn't sure if I. ."

"Oh, I made sure you didn't know about it. But you're here anyway, aren't you?"

The whole room stared, and it occurred to me that my mishap with the Rayfield girl must have been the gossip item of the year. This had all come together quite nicely, I realized, the Teitelbaum celebration, the announcement of McKenzie's father's collapse. Next would come my crucifixion. But I wasn't dying for anybody else's sins, just mine. I'd get my due, my due diligence.

"Yes," I said. "I guess I am here."

"You guess?" said Cooley. "No, I would say you are definitely here. Do you know why you are here, even though you were purposely excluded from this meeting? Would you like me to tell you why you happen to be here even though you weren't invited?"

"Yes," I said.

"The reason is quite simple, my friend."

"It is?"

"Yes, it is. The reason you are here is that you, Milo Burke, are a fucking development gladiator."

"I am?"

"You say nuts to defeat. You laugh at the grave."

"I do?"

Cooley glanced over at Vargina, who nodded, swiveled toward me.

"Milo," she said. "Maybe you've thought about what happened with McKenzie. Because she is so talented and ambitious, it was hard to remember she is really just a kid, still growing in certain emotional areas, but maybe now you've concluded that despite all of that there was no excuse for the way you spoke to her. And maybe it's even been a kind of watershed for you, a blessing in disguise. Perhaps it's forced you to confront some demons of your own, and now you feel more complete and healthy and happy. You no longer harbor the negativity that was affecting your performance and your general well-being. If you could just find a way to make it up to McKenzie, and you are eager to work with the rest of us to find such a way, maybe the whole ordeal, unpleasant as it was, could be put to rest."

I clasped my hands on the table.

"Milo?"

I heard the click of a salad lid, the scrape of a soda can.

"I couldn't have said it better," I said. "Thank you, Vargina."

The room broke into applause again. Horace patted me on the back.

"Pathetic," he whispered.

"Outstanding," said Dean Cooley. "Give that man a potato chip."

Sean slid another chip from his bag, sent it down. I held it aloft, near my chest.

"First off I'd like to thank my agent!"