Jacob Wren - Rich and Poor

2.

I am staring at my cheaper-than-cheap cell phone. It was the cheapest one they had. I remember the salesman, three or four years ago, assuring me that I would only be happy with a better one. And I remember looking him in the eyes and smiling as I told him: no, I want the cheapest one. I have no money. Whatever is cheapest will be best for me. It still works perfectly. I hardly ever use it and it always works. I am staring at the phone because I know it’s time to call him. I don’t want to, almost sure the call will go badly, but I know that now is the time.

He picks up on the first ring. Call display tells him it’s me. He’s still angry, anger edging through every word, but I have the feeling that now there’s something else. He doesn’t want to give up, still wants revenge on his former employers. My idea about him, at this moment, is that he doesn’t want to waste his anger on me, doesn’t want to waste a drop of it, still, if possible, wants to use me as a weapon against them. He wants to use me and then throw me away. Nothing he says particularly indicates this, it is simply what I’ve come to understand about Emmett. I don’t know if he was always like this. I think back to the way he first explained it to me, the way he told his own story, that from the moment he was fired he’s been whittling himself away, carving himself into a self-made shiv of bitterness. That is what I now think I hear in his voice. He is a person who uses people and then throws them away. As I explain, I realize that I also want to use him, don’t care what happens to him after.

It takes an extremely long time to explain: where I am, what I’m trying to do, what I want from him. He is listening to me but at the same time not listening, which is why I must explain slowly, repeating key details several times. Gradually he starts to get it, and I can feel him turning the question over in his mind: how might my suggestion constitute revenge? He wants revenge, something ugly, something vicious, and what I’m proposing seems somehow too noble to fit the bill. He’s trying not to turn his anger on me, keep it focused on the real enemy. At least now he knows what we want, which makes me feel that the worst of this call is over. As he continues to question me I’m almost sure it won’t work. It’s like I’ve painted him into a corner, and he’s used to being in charge, hates being painted into a corner or simply prefers to do so himself. I’ve presented him with a plan he doesn’t like, is anathema to his character and values, but it seems he doesn’t have a better plan he can get behind instead. My shitty plan might be the only one he’s got, his only shot at revenge. I can feel that he hates not having other options, that it almost makes him sick. After a long pause he seems distracted, changes the topic.

— You want to hear something strange?

— All right.

— Our rich friend thinks I hired you to strangle him with a piano wire.

— How do you know that?

— He hired a detective to track you down. The detective is a friend of mine. Told me the whole story.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to admit what I was feeling, but my pride was hurt. The plan to strangle the billionaire was my plan. I didn’t want to share it with Emmett. I didn’t want Emmett to take all the credit for a plan that had taken up years of my life. It didn’t matter if the plot had failed, it was mine and I didn’t want him to have it. He interrupted my thoughts, my self-pity.

— You didn’t manage to kill him, but you certainly made him paranoid.

— What do you mean?

— I’m still having him followed. Not all the time. Just the highlights. He’s lost his touch. It’s not like before. I don’t know what’s changed exactly. Not everything goes his way.

— I did that?

— I don’t know. Maybe he’s just getting old.

I thought I had done nothing and now here was Emmett, this bitter, angry, disembodied voice on the other end of the line, offering me a glimmer of hope. I had a thought, a spark, that every failure contains at least a seed of something else, even if there’s no way of knowing precisely what. When he spoke again he seemed even more lost in thought, somewhere off by himself in the middle of nowhere.

— I’m remembering something I read once about Roosevelt.

— Why are you telling me about Roosevelt?

— Don’t interrupt me.

— What did you read?

— That he was a class traitor. That he was a traitor to his own class. And they hated him for it.

I was making the call from a toilet stall at the library. It was the first place I could think of that was quiet and private. There was banging on the stall and, thinking someone wanted to use it, I stood up and opened the door. I was not expecting to see three large men with masks but knew exactly who they were. Suddenly, without thinking, I started screaming as loudly as I could. Just screaming. A long, loud endless sound coming from somewhere in my body, I didn’t know where. As I screamed the men began punching and kicking me. Also as I screamed I could hear Emmett on the other end of the line, swearing a blue streak, asking what the fuck was going on. I keeled over in the stall, continued to scream, as they dragged me out into the middle of the floor. Just then the door to the washroom opened and two elderly women peered in. I couldn’t get a good look at them from down on the floor but assumed they were the librarians. A heel came down hard and fast on my cell phone, smashing it to bits, crushing my hand in the process, Emmett’s voice yelling “someone tell me what the fuck is going on” smashed into bits as well. I had a feeling I would never hear that voice again as I continued to scream and the three men momentarily stopped kicking me and stared at the two older women. It was the strangest kind of standoff I could ever imagine, the two librarians wondering what their favourite pianist could have possibly done to invite such a beating, the men wondering if they should attack the women, or if attacking old women was where they drew the line. I keep screaming, and to my utter surprise, to everyone’s surprise, the two librarians start screaming as well, all three of us screaming in unison, I’m tempted to say in harmony. I’m surprised I have so much air in my lungs and have no idea how the two librarians keep up right along with me. Then some others come up behind them — a few people in the library, drawn towards the commotion, which is strange because the library is so often empty — and the three masks decide to cut their losses and push their way out. As they’re pushing through the librarians, one of them glances back at me, meets my now-watering eyes. I can see his eyes through the slots in his mask, and his look tells me that as far as he’s concerned I’m already dead. It’s only a matter of time.

1.

I arrive in Singapore and there’s no one at the airport to pick me up. This has never happened before. I scan the arrivals hall over and over again, searching for the telltale sign with my name on it, but it is nowhere to be found. I sit down in the generic airport café and order an espresso, even though it’s midnight here, then pull out the brief and start leafing through it. At the top of the last page, in bold and underlined, is the sentence: “No one will pick you up at the airport. Take a limousine,” followed by the address of the hotel. There is no explanation as to why no one is here to pick me up, only the benign understatement of this unprecedented occurrence, as if it were an unremarkable fact. (Though, in a sense, the bold and underlining does partially serve to remark upon it.) I get in a limousine, check into the hotel, and lie awake all night getting angrier and angrier that no one was waiting for me when I arrived.