I clear my throat and say, “You’re going to fucking fire me, Derek?”
He’s almost smug about it. He leans back in his chair and folds his hands together behind his head. “You heard what I said. If you want permission to go, I’ll need a reason.”
I think it’s the word “permission” that does it. It’s in the same league with “guardian.” Suddenly the ridiculousness of it all comes into diamond-hard focus. I am literally embarrassed by the way I have spent my working life.
I want to bash Derek’s face in. There hasn’t been a newsroom punch-out since the old days, when boozing chain-smokers would mix it up and then buy each other drinks after hours. Now nobody smokes, and nobody fights. The reporters belong to gyms and exercise in spandex pants, to the barking commands of their personal trainers. When conflicts arise, they phone their lawyers. I know that if I touch Derek, I’ll wind up in court. Enraged as I am, I remain sane enough to know I don’t want to go to court, so I can’t hit him.
All I can do is leave. In my head, I can hear the drumroll that precedes my next words.
“I’m going now, Derek.”
“You’re fired, Sullivan.”
These are the words every man in the world is supposed to fear, right up there with “It’s inoperable,” but the first thing that hits me is the absurdity of the fact that this little weed should have the clout to speak such a sentence. A short, perfect sentence, noun-verb, bang-bang. Hemingway couldn’t have put it more succinctly, and Derek Slaughterchild is no Hemingway.
I look at my hands, where I can feel a tingle of blood flooding to my fingers. Without realizing it I’d balled my hands into fists and loosened them at last at the words “You’re fired,” and what, I can’t help wondering, would a body language expert have to say about that? (“Loose hands? Well, it’s clear that deep down, you’d been clenching your fists for many, many years, and not until you were free of this miserable job did you finally relax….”)
I rub my hands together, push the blood along. “So that’s it? That’s all there is to it?”
“Give your notes to Hoffmann.”
“There aren’t any notes, asshole!”
I’m practically shouting. Derek picks up his phone and dials. “I’m calling security,” he says, his voice suddenly gone shaky. “You’ve got five minutes to pack up.”
I walk back to my desk, every eye in the newsroom on me. The only good thing is that a few years back, when the thrills had gone out of my job, I got rid of all the shit that had accumulated in and around my desk, so I have nothing to pack—no files, no personal effects, nothing. It’s as if I always knew my departure would be sudden and ugly.
And I have no photographs to take off my cubicle walls, because I never hung any pictures here. I hate the whole idea of trying to turn the workplace into a little piece of home. This was never home, it was where I went to make money.
Until today.
Hoffmann is looking at me over the border between our cubicles, both fascinated and scared, as if getting fired might be contagious. He’s about fifteen years younger than me, single and wild, a true cowboy of tabloid journalism. His blind quotes always sound as if they’ve been spoken by the same person, a person who sounds a lot like Hoffmann.
I put on my jacket, straighten my tie, tap on the partition separating me from Hoffmann. “Feel free to knock this down and make a duplex, Hoff.”
“Are you really fired?”
“I am canned goods, man.”
“Aren’t you going to appeal it?”
“No.”
Hoffmann extends a hand over the partition to shake with me. “I’m really sorry, Sammy.”
“Water my plants, would you?”
“You don’t have any plants.”
“Good point,” I say. “Good luck with the Britney story.”
I walk to Derek’s desk for the last time. His hands are trembling as he pretends to read the latest edition of the newspaper.
“Hey Derek—”
“Don’t come any closer! Security will be here any minute to escort you to the sidewalk.”
“Fuck security, I’ll be gone before they get here. Listen to me, Derek.”
He sighs with mock impatience as he looks up at me, feigning courage. “I’m listening.”
“I’m sorry I fixed your fire engine that time.”
He stares at me in genuine wonder. He doesn’t remember the favor I did him, all those years ago. “Fire engine?”
“Never mind.”
I flip him the bird and begin my final walk down the long hallway to the elevator. The walls are covered with framed front-page stories from years gone by, three or four of them written by yours truly, back in the days when my heart harbored something that resembled hope.
I have been a reporter at this newspaper longer than I have ever been anything else. I didn’t love the place, and much of the time I didn’t like it, but I did fit in here, and now I’ll never be coming back. I guess I should be crying, but I’m not. I’m just numb over how such a momentous thing could happen so abruptly.
I don’t know what my next move will be. For that reason I’m almost glad I have to go to my son’s school, to find out what this fuss is all about.
CHAPTER TWO
Being fired doesn’t fully hit you until you leave the building, look around, and take your first breath as an unemployed person. I’m standing there on Sixth Avenue and Forty-sixth Street, and the sidewalks are jammed with people, and all I can think about is whether or not they have jobs. They’re all in motion, and they all seem to have destinations. You know you’re in trouble when you’re jealous of strangers.
It’s Friday, and Friday is a big day for firing people, if only for clerical purposes. I can’t be alone in this fix. I don’t want to be alone in this fix.
I head west and north, in the general direction of my son’s school, my blood tingling as if it’s been carbonated. The sidewalks are peppered with young people wearing Walkmans, or iPods, or whatever the hell they call the latest thing they need to ensure that they’re amused every waking hour of the day. The sight both bothers and pleases me. On the one hand, these kids are missing out on the sidewalk sounds I’ve loved my whole life. On the other hand, it impairs their ability to concentrate and keeps them good and stupid, and a whole generation of stupid kids buys me another five years in the workforce. Or so I thought until today, when a stupid kid fired my rapidly aging ass.
I walk all the way to the school, and as I enter it the smell is exactly as I remembered, an all-boys’ school smell, a testosterone and no-showers-after-gym-class odor. It hangs in the air like an arrogant, dangerous cologne, and I get the feeling that if a fertile
