Chariot (selection)

“Did they use the term “Re-tooling?” Saidi Hawkins asked, twisting his mouth into a sardonic smirk.

“I haven’t spoken directly to them, yet, and at this point, I’m more interested how you think we could work together.” The more I found myself inhabiting the role of killjoy against my will, the more it seemed imperative that I convince Hawkins to come back around to regarding me as an ally. “We’re like a pair of builders who have each been asked separately to come up with something that will occupy half of the same space. And if our blueprints don’t complement each other, the city planner hires new architects.”

“Oh, for…” Hawkins screwed up his face as total disappointment made the rounds. If that was all, he was taking this fairly well. Clearly whomever he’d been in communication with hadn’t been nearly so forthcoming with their actual criticism, doubt, or disinterest, and he’d had to fill it all in on his own, in the void they’d left him. Very likely that same person or persons would be very disappointed with me if they knew that I had communicated with Hawkins on my own. Probably Ronaldo would be, too, but that was the last thing I was worried about.

We let another precious minute fly by in silence. According to the visible vein on his left temple, Hawkins was burning off his frustration, perhaps doing his best to accept that he had even less control over his aspirations than he did in the office building that expected him to receive customer phone calls in less than seven minutes.

Then Hawkins exhaled, and the silent fury moment was over. He’d caught a glimpse of a sad sack jogging by, moving slower than the leisurely walk of the old woman moving in the opposite direction with the standard poodle. The jogger’s shirt was a triangle of sweat, and his balding pate slicked with the same. His crimson cheeks rolled with each step as he attempted to draw ever more oxygen into his lungs. It was never enough, and he brought each foot down hard with a long pant.

I hadn’t realized the extent to which I had zoned out watching the out of shape jogger until Hawkins’s voice brought me back.

“You see that guy? He’s trying to get into shape. Why? His doctor probably told him to. Is it going to work? Probably not. Have you ever heard of anybody who managed to lose weight by jogging alone?”

If he had a brick wall in back of him or a microphone in front of him, I think he would have mimicked the sad sack’s futile stride. Out loud, I allowed that I thought it was possible, but no, I hadn’t heard of anyone who had gotten thinner by jogging alone.

“People might take diet pills, or go on reality television, or eat one sandwich a day, and these are all the stuff of diet success stories. Nobody jogs themselves thin!”

A rhetorical question? There did seem to be a rhythm to what Hawkins was saying, but I wasn’t sure what I was witnessing, and said nothing while he played out his observation. The enclosed sensation felt a lot like the experience in Times Square day before.

“Surely the fastest way to defeat a health kick is to do nothing at all. But that’s not good enough for our jogger. He has to feel as if he’s making some gesture, even if it means he humiliates himself on the street a few times before he gives up. Because he will give up. This jogging thing he’s doing is like flicking the nose of the bear that’s eating him. Plink! ‘Heh-heh, I showed you.’ ”

Somewhere into the rant he’d begun using his stage voice. Maybe he worked it in so gradually I hadn’t noticed. I had noticed the time, however.

“Um… Your lunch break is ending. Maybe you should…”

“Maybe we should all be more like that guy,” Hawkins mounted the stone bench and glared balefully at his place of employment. “If we haven’t got what it takes to be a success, we should at least go down with a grimace and a gesture that says: ‘Fuck you.’ ”

All of the other employees who had come out with us had gone back inside. Another group had replaced them, and a few were watching Hawkins closely over their cigarettes.

“You know something, Jim?” The comic’s entire body appeared to have gone limp. “I think trying just hard enough to survive is almost more pathetic.”

Before I could tell him what I thought my cell phone went off, and I reflexively slapped the clip to silence it. Hawkins raised himself up again. “You there!”

No one spoke. After a few seconds one of the other employees tentatively raise his finger in the direction of his chin as if to inquire: ‘me?’

“Yes, you,” Hawkins shouted. “Tell them I quit!”

Too many things were happening at once. I was trying to look at my cell phone screen in the glare, and comprehended this new bombshell just as I was about to read Ham’s latest text message. I protested, of course, but every word seemed out of order and incomplete, and Saidi ignored it, anyway.

“Fine, I’ll do it myself!” He groused when the employees, too, were struck dumb and unable to react, and so the former part time call center customer service representative became a full time comedian by marching into the building and human resources history.