Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

“Just now. For what I said. Not giving him hours of free overtime.”

“Can you give me his name and phone? I might like to apply for the job now that it’s open.”

“You wouldn’t like it.”

“Why? I like steady work and money coming in. Right now I’m jobless and broke. Let me talk to him and decide, unless you’re planning on getting your job back.”

“Not a chance.”

I give her his name and phone number. She says This is the best hope for a job I’ve had in weeks. Because if you just lost it, I’ll probably be the first one to apply.” She goes to a phone booth a few feet away.

“You calling him now? I’m sure he won’t be at work till tomorrow.”

“What do I have to lose? He’s not in, I’ve lost a quarter. Big deal — I’m not that broke.”

“Nobody will be in, so you won’t lose your quarter.”

“Good, then I’m losing nothing by calling him.”

“Time. You’ll be losing time.”

“What else do I have to lose now?”

“Also your common sense. Because I just said he won’t be in, yet you still want to call him. You’d think you’d take my advice because you’d think I’d know. Besides, even if he was in, I don’t think he’ll hire you. Or maybe he will. Maybe you’re just the person he wants, someone who’ll knuckle under to everything he tells you to and do any number of free hours’ overtime for him.”

“If you’re saying all this to stop me from applying for the job or just to insult me, it didn’t work.”

She puts some coins in the telephone and I go home. By next day I’ve thought about it a lot and call him and keep calling him till I get him at eleven and say “Listen, I lost my head yesterday and I’m sorry. If you give me the job back and if you still want me to, I’ll work a couple of hours overtime for nothing today and with no complaints.”

“I already hired someone you told about the job. She said she wasn’t using you as a reference, though, because you insulted her when she started to call me.”

“All I told her was that she wasn’t showing good common sense in trying to call you minutes after you fired me, since I knew you wouldn’t be back at the office right away and that you were probably gone for the day.”

“I did go back a few minutes after I left you. Went to the park but suddenly remembered I forgot something at the office, and she got me when I was coming in the door. She said you told her you got fired and that she’s exactly the opposite of you in that she’s willing to work overtime for no pay anytime I want.”

“So will I,” I say. “And me you won’t have to teach how to do the job. Think of all the time you’ll be saving — the worker’s when he doesn’t have to be learning what he already knows; and yours, because you won’t have to teach him.”

“What time? A few minutes? Half hour at the most? For what’s so complicated about the job? I’ll miss a lunch, that’s all, and what do I do at lunch but sit around and get fat and maybe take a nap.”

“You sonofabitch.”

“You know, that’s the second time you cursed me in less than a day. Yesterday you called me a bastard. I didn’t answer or turn around, so I don’t know if you knew I heard. I know it wasn’t meant for your coworker, as you’ve no reason for calling her one. How do you expect to be rehired, cursing me like that?”

“You weren’t going to rehire me.”

“You don’t know that for sure, and I won’t tell you. I’ll make you sweat, except to say I told the woman to call me at noon today to see if I still wanted her to start work tomorrow.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel as if I really lost something in not working for you. But I’m telling you I didn’t, because there are always just as good jobs and better bosses around, and for you to go to hell.”

Three times in less than a day,” he says. “I think that’s a record for me. Now I’ll level with you what was in my mind before you cursed me a second time, and still in my mind but only by a little before you told me to go to hell. I was going to ask you to come back.”

“Bull.”

“Nothing you say now will make it any worse or better for you. So if you want to stay tuned only to hear what was in my mind before, I’ll tell you, which I feel free to do now. I was going to rehire you if you agreed to working overtime for no pay whenever I needed you to, but which I wouldn’t be so excessive at, if I have. I thought maybe I’d been unfair to us both in so quickly firing you, since as workers went you were okay, and should I expect anyone better — more reliable or less complaining — in that kind of job for the pay it gets? If you agreed to my terms, then when she called I’d tell her I rehired you but would keep her in mind in case things didn’t work out. But when you called shortly before I was going to call you, I thought I’d let you shoot off your mouth and agree to all my terms without my even asking them, which’d make it easier to ask more things out of you in the future. Though I doubt it, because you’re so pigheaded, I hope you learned something from this,” and he hangs up.

I interview for a number of good jobs after that, but nobody will hire me because of the lousy reference my ex-boss gives me. So I start saying he had something personal against me, which had nothing to do with my job performance or even with reality, but none of the people interviewing me will accept that for not giving them his name and phone number. I finally land a really rotten job that doesn’t ask for any references, where I work about ten more hours a week than the last one and for much less money. I also have to put in a lot of free overtime. I never complain about it and I in fact say I’ll do it gladly, and after a year there, I get a small raise. It takes another two years before I’m making as much as I was paid by my last boss. But the cost of living’s gone way up since then, so in what I can buy with my salary I’m actually earning half what I did at the old job. But like the woman who replaced me there might still say, with so many people being laid off and looking for work for a year or more, I feel lucky to have a job.

My agent calls and says “Meet me at the Triad Perry Publishing Company right away.” I say “What’s up?” and she says “It’s very important. Just be there as soon as you can. I’m already on my way,” and she hangs up.

I think “Oh God, it can’t be anything but good news — the annual Triad Perry three thousand dollar prize and publication of the manuscript in the fall.” I leave the apartment, take a cab to the publishing house and walk into the reception room. Quite a few people are sitting on couches and chairs there and a receptionist is behind a desk, a dog sleeping on the floor near her feet. My agent comes out of an office with a man. She says This is the managing editor, Mr. Whithead,” and to him “You tell him, not me.” I say “It’s bad news, isn’t it?” and she says “Depends how you look at it or take it, but I’m afraid it is.”

He says “Once more you’ve been chosen as one of the runners-up in our annual short fiction award,” and hands me my manuscript, “If this will be any consolation to you, there were again more than four hundred applicants for the award. So take pride in knowing that for the fourth year in a row you were considered good enough to be one of the five finalists, a remarkable achievement, or at least record, I think.”

I shout “Goddamnit,” and slam the manuscript on the receptionist’s desk and keep slamming it and shouting “Goddamnit, goddamnit. For what the hell stopped you from giving me the prize this year? Because who’d you give it to? And who’d you give it to last year and the years before that? Do you remember? Does anyone here remember? What are some of the names of their books then? Why’d I even have to be dragged down here when you could have used your brains for a change and mailed me the news?” and I throw the manuscript across the room, its pages spilling over most of the people sitting on the couches and chairs. Some of them leap up and snap at the pages before they land on the floor. Others grab the pages off the floor and read them, saying “Hey, this is pretty good…. You mean pretty damn awful…. It’s stupid…. Funny…. Makes no sense…. What the heck’s this passage supposed to mean?…He’s got to be kidding himself…. No, he should have won…. You mean never have entered…. Christ, if he had taken first prize and you announced it, your whole company would have been disgraced and laughed out of the publishing business and maybe even financially ruined. Why don’t you look at my manuscript for next year’s contest if you can’t publish it sooner?” and several of them give Whithead their manuscripts.