Ch1. Final Meeting W/Mike
Mike was extra hard about me going off to Kings Island for 3 weeks, in fact he took it worse than anyone save my mother. I caught the bus earlier than usual that night to catch a meeting with him at the exchange end of his shift. He was listening to Boston at his desk “Joe, this is all a big misunderstanding” he said as we took our seats “by the way the radio and keys are downstairs in PBX, Joe this is all a big misunderstanding I’m sure of it.” Mike had this in-your-face way of scripting himself. Wearing a neatly pressed white shirt with a shiny brown tie to match his retro-fitted photo chromatic lenses, his lecture began against a background of glam rock.
“Mind if I record this by the way?” I asked lifting the microcassette recorder already processing our conversation to tape with tiny, spinning gears. I sat it on the desk in front of us. Mike, trying not to look but clearly being bothered, stumbled over his next sentence “Well I’m not one to…That’s entirely up to…Why do you want to record the conversation? Well never mind it, doesn’t matter. For the record we’re here to talk about your vacation request, as you know I’ve denied it and you’ve gone to Chuck about it and that’s okay. But the way you wrote it down on the request form, it sounded dangerously like an ultimatum.” This was more of a question than an observation.
“It’s not a request.”
“That’s the thing Joe, is you can’t just go around telling management when you choose to work, they frown on that.” His attention was thrown off by the start of a new song on his little desktop stereo, he opened the roof of the CD player exposing the twirling disc inside and pulled it out as if a record from a platter. “Especially Chuck, he doesn’t respond well. He doesn’t respond well, or doesn’t even respond at all to ultimatums. Calls them “bomb threats” says if he responded to every single “bomb threat” he’d be run out of business by terrorists.” He slipped the CD back into it’s case and closed it.
“Fuck Chuck.”
The statement caught him by complete surprise. Mike didn’t care too much for Chuck, but distracted by the tape recorder quickly changed the subject “Joe, think about what you’re doing to your career. Chuck is going to throw it back in your face, he’ll call your bluff and either way it’s going to turn out bad for you, you can still just play it off, just tell him…for Christ’s sake shut that off will you?” He motioned to the tape recorder, I held the microphone end to my mouth.
“Why you want me to stop the tape Mike?” I poked the microphone end in his face pending a response. He was momentarily silent, his face bunched up like it did when his ulcer bothered him, like he was bellowing up with stress.
He said shaking his head slightly “Let me rephrase that. Joe, have you ever heard of the Family Medical Leave Act? I think it’s the only way for you to retain your job as well as have your precious 3 week vacation. You still refuse to say where it is you need to go and why you need to go there, if it’s because of a family medical emergency you can take as much time as you want without pay, if it’s not then Chuck is just going to say ‘there’s the door’ and you know it.”
“There’s no medical emergency.”
“La-la-la-la” Mike stuck his fingers in his ears mid-sentence and starting singing the melody to The Music Man. “La-la-la-la-laaaaah. Didn’t catch that Joe.” He said removing his fingers “Listen, it’s out of my hands now. You went over my head with this, that’s alright, but now I’ve got no say in it. That’s the price you pay when you mess with the big boys like Chuck and Walter.”
I laughed and set the recorder back in it’s original position on the desk, and thought very hard. I had never liked Chuck or respected Walter who I liked even less. What was more, they liked me even less than I liked them. I sensed wisdom in Mike’s warning then, and it occurred within me at that moment that I could still have backed out with family medical leave, saved my job and still accomplished my mission. The humiliation of lying to Chuck, who would sense my lie but be forced to play along anyway, was too great a countermeasure. I couldn’t face him with this, he’d be too happy to see the honest boy scout sink to the standard ranks of liars. This particular lie was all used up anyway.
“Well you should’ve thought about that before you denied my request in the first place” I said lashing out the only way I knew. He was headed for an explanation, curious why I needed this vacation and I was equally determined to keep it from him.
He tossed his arms up in frustration “Why should I let one of my only three night people off the hook just before Outdoor Retailers? How is that fair to Joseph and Scott, what if one of them gets sick while your gone what then?” He had a point.
“Then you can work it yourself” a valid point as well.
“There’s no way I’m working graveyards again Joe it…” his face had begun re-bunching, he tried to relax and catch his breath before continuing. He said with his eyes pinched shut “Why should I give you a months free pass when you won’t even tell me why you need it? Where your going?” It was true, Mike worked graveyards three years ago during a week long tournament I’d gone off to in Canada. The Friday, Saturday and Sunday shifts he’d covered were supposedly so strenuous that they had given birth to three new ulcers, which even now still plagued his diet.
“I told you, because if I told you, it would endanger…”
“Yes, yes, ‘it would endanger your chances of being rehired.’ I know, but what in God’s name is so important that you have to risk your job anyway? Why 3 weeks, why not 2 weeks or one week? Chuck will probably give you a week regardless of what it’s for, but you can’t expect any favors if you won’t even tell him what’s going on. For all he knows you’re joining a cult… or militia… or something.” All good guesses. This whole meeting had been arranged by Mike, as an elaborate method of closure. He was the first to foresee my departure, even before family and friends. I wished to give him a better explanation, but knowing he wouldn’t have understood, I let they mystery stew.
“Like I said, fuck him” I reconciled. Mike smiled, having done all he could. We had a few exchanges of friendly gestures and a handshake and with that the meeting ended. I clicked the recorder to stop as I left the office and went first for a pen to properly mark the cassette. “Final meeting w/Mike” and the date.
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