Termination Man: a novel (12 page)

But now he felt trapped—trapped because his new role here at UP&S required him to feign interest in mundane matters like this inventory report. None of this was his fault. He had been perfectly content to coast along in his make-work position at the TP Automotive headquarters building, where he could spend most of the day surfing the Internet before sneaking out of the building at 4:30 p.m. He had not asked to come to UP&S. His presence here was his father’s doing.

He understood that his old man had intended this vice president position at UP&S to be some sort of a “test.” Perhaps his dad’s colleagues had been giving him a hard time about bringing his son up through the managerial ranks at headquarters. Shawn knew that every manager at TP Automotive had to spend time in at least one of the company’s manufacturing divisions. His own father had worked in at least half a dozen grungy plants like UP&S before his transfer to the big HQ building in suburban Detroit.

Shawn had hoped he would be able to escape it all. But his old man had subjected him to this trial by fire. And within a matter of days, he would have to give a presentation on the inventory report, and field questions from other members of management. The prospect of the upcoming meeting frightened him—and made him even more furious at Lucy Browning. Once again, he was seized by the urge to strike her—to do violence. This impulse scared him even more than the upcoming monthly meeting.

“Why don’t you take another look at it? Then you can try again tomorrow, and see if you can explain it more clearly this time.”

He stalked away without giving Lucy Browning time to reply. Let her worry over the fact that she had so displeased him.

Shawn returned to his desk at the front of the room, where managers from General Motors and Takada Press had looked upon the employees of UP&S only a few months ago.
Those managers had failed, though, hadn’t they?
They had become soft. They had allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by many of their subordinates.

Shawn knew that he would not make that mistake. He had access to the personnel files that TP Automotive had acquired as part of the buyout. He had read the old performance reviews that had been prepared for Alan Ferguson and Lucy Browning. There was more than ten years worth of data; and both of them had worked for managers from GM as well as Takada Press.

Every past manager had given his two nemeses positive reviews. There was some fluctuation, of course; but the overall trend had been complementary. At the time of the buyout, both Lucy and Alan had been in line for promotions as soon as suitable management positions opened up.  

This told Shawn that the previous managers had indeed been gullible. (
What else could you expect from a management team that had ultimately failed to maintain the profitability of the company?
) He told himself that while he might struggle with little details like the inventory report, he was quite capable of seeing through the facades of two ungrateful, duplicitous employees.

Once again, he had proven his ability to grasp the big picture.

Later that afternoon, the old man summoned Shawn to a private meeting. And what did he want to talk about? The inventory report, of course. And the monthly meeting.

Staring into his father’s face, Shawn felt himself undergo a process of age regression. He was no longer a grown man well past the age of thirty. He was a boy of ten, who had come home from an expensive private boarding school with a report card that contained Cs, Ds, and a few Fs.

He was a sixteen-year-old boy who had been arrested after driving an expensive sports car through the display window of a store. Luckily, the store had been closed at the time. But when the police had picked Shawn up, his blood alcohol level had been twice the legal limit.

And finally, he was a young man who had lost his temper while away at college, and committed some horrible acts. Acts that had to be cleaned up by Bernie Chapman.

Shawn forced himself to discard these old memories. He was a grown man now, after all, and this was only the fucking monthly meeting that they were talking about. It was no big deal.

“The monthly meeting
is
a big deal,” Kurt corrected him. “Everyone will be watching you. I hope I don’t have to tell you that.”

“Of course, Dad. I understand.”

“I hope you do, son. Because otherwise you’ll make an ass out of yourself.”

“I won’t—”

“And me,” Kurt added.

“I’m working on it, Dad. But the problem—or the
problems
, I should say—are Alan Ferguson and Lucy Browning. They seem determined to sabotage me every step of the way.”

Kurt shook his head and let out a long breath of air. This was the old man’s standard gesture for conveying a combination of frustration and contempt.

“It’s just an inventory report, son. The report is generated from a central database, using shared data from production, purchasing, and accounting. You’ve been to college. You should be able to figure this out.”

“I will, Dad.”

“Then get on it.” Kurt stood up, ending this little father-son conference. “I’ve got another meeting to attend. I expect you to come through for me, Shawn. Don’t let me down.”

Don’t let me down.

His father’s words echoed in his mind as he watched the sun set across the stark Ohio countryside beyond the grounds of the UP&S facility. The wall-to-wall windows of the front half of the building afforded a panoramic view. Not that there was much to see out there.

It was a little past 6:00 p.m. He was still at his desk. On the other side of the room, Lucy Browning stood up and prepared to leave for the day. She studiously avoided looking in his direction.

But
he
looked at
her
.

For a moment he let his eyes linger on Lucy Browning’s body: Her full bosom, her meaty thighs. He imagined what it would be like to throw her across her desk, and take her roughly—in a way that would teach her for once and for all that he was the boss and she was the subordinate. But he abandoned the fantasy almost as soon as it fully took shape in his mind. Lucy Browning was too plump and too old to interest him in such a way. 

There was something delightfully masochistic about watching Lucy Browning from behind as she made her way out of the office area. There was, he supposed, a reason for the existence of such uninteresting, bovine women: they provided a contrast to the ones that actually interested him.

That sudden association caused a wave of heat to move through his loins. Suddenly the inventory report and his troubles with annoying subordinates were bearable, because he had something to look forward to: Tonight, yes,
she
would be coming.
She
was the only reason that he had chosen to linger at his desk past six o’clock.

As if on cue, the voice of his father disturbed his reverie:

“Working late tonight, Shawn?”

Shawn bolted upright, startled. It was as if his father had caught him in the act of some minor infraction. But he knew this was silly: His father would have no idea of what was actually on his mind.

Shawn did his best to affect a casual tone. “I think I’ll hang out here for a little while longer,” he said. “I want to be ready for the monthly meeting at headquarters next week.”

His father gave him an approving nod. Shawn could remember the days—not so long ago—when such a gesture from his father was practically unknown to him. Nowadays the old man mostly regarded him with cautious approval. Yes, there were still lots of questions; the old man still felt compelled to constantly double-check him. But the dark days were behind him now, behind them both.

He watched his father disappear around a bend in the hallway, toward the main exit. After making one quick glance to be sure that he was still alone, he tapped a series of keys on his computer. He minimized the screen that contained a PDF copy of the inventory report, and launched Internet Explorer. He typed in the address of a website that specialized in the pictures of “barely legal” nude models.

They were billed as “barely legal,” but Shawn suspected that some of them were well into their mid-twenties, and a few might even be over thirty. The women on the site appeared in various stages of undress—and always with the accoutrements of adolescence and the teen years: cheerleading outfits, pom-poms, and (of course) the plaid skirts of Catholic schoolgirls.

The site was a sham, a fake, of course—another ploy to exploit his male desires for a few dollars. This site charged a subscription fee of twenty-five dollars per month. This amounted to pennies—less than pennies—given his salary. Nevertheless, there was something about the phony schoolgirls that seemed to mock him—as if the owners of the site believed that he—like all other men—was hopelessly gullible.

His mood was brightened by a sole realization: That he had no intention of contenting himself with the nude photos of a few Russian and Ukrainian models (
who were probably moonlighting prostitutes in real life
).

What he wanted was a far less worldly girl who could be defiled for the first time—one who would give her innocence to him, and him alone.  

He took another look at the panoply of fake schoolgirls presented to him on the computer screen, suddenly feeling a bit less resentful about the scale of the fraud that was being perpetrated against him on the website. True, these schoolgirls were fakes; but he was only a dupe if he failed to grasp their fundamental falsehood, if he contented himself with mere images. And Shawn Myers, he told himself, was nobody’s dupe, especially when it came to matters such as this. 

He leaned back in his chair, smiling contentedly at the fraudulent portraits of innocence.

The genuine article would be delivered to him soon enough.

Maybe he will not be working late tonight
, 15-year-old Alyssa Chalmers thought.
Maybe I won’t have to see him.

Even more important, maybe he won’t see
me
.

She knew that this was a futile hope. She knew that he
would
be there.
He was
al
most always there, wasn’t he?
After all, he
worked
there. He belonged there.

The clock on Alyssa Chalmers’ nightstand read 6:04 p.m. She was seated on her bed, leaned back against the headboard with a pillow propped behind the small of her back. She held her algebra textbook open in her lap. While she reviewed the formula for creating quadratic equations, she listened to music through the ear buds of her iPod.

She found it difficult to get thoughts of Shawn Myers out of her mind. Men—or boys, more accurately—had sometimes preoccupied her before. Usually these preoccupations were at least somewhat pleasant, even if they were mixed with feelings that were confusing.

But Shawn Myers was occupying her mind in a very unpleasant way. How old was he?
Probably over thirty. Twice her age, at least.

Alyssa Chalmers was a sophomore in high school. She was slight of build, with long, dark hair that she usually wore in a simple ponytail. Most of her classmates would have described her as
shy
. Alyssa didn’t like this word; she preferred to think of herself as
introspective
.

Now there
i
s a word that the average student at New Hastings High School wouldn’t even recognize, let alone use
, she thought with more than a trace of self-satisfaction. Alyssa got A’s in English, and in most of her other courses, as well.

Her best friend (
well, really her
only
friend at New Hastings High School
) sometimes chided her for being such a bookish egghead.

“Guys don't like nerdy chicks,” Tiffany Campbell had told her on more than one occasion. “They like girls who are
just smart enough
.”

This conversational thread usually included a segue into the social preferences of New Hastings’ popular girls—who were divided into two main sets: The first group consisted of the more polished girls who dominated cheerleading, student council, and volleyball. And then there were the edgier ones who experimented with black nail polish, tattoos, and multiple body piercings. Tiffany consistently pointed out that neither of these groups was particularly fond of girls who were conspicuously studious.

“You’ve gotta talk more,” Tiffany would tell her. “Laugh a little. Instead of hanging by yourself and clamming up all the time. Quit being such an
introvert
.”

Tiffany always uttered this last word as if it were a curse:
introvert
. Alyssa knew the word’s meaning: an introvert is a person who quickly becomes overwhelmed in noisy, fast-paced situations. Introverts don’t like small talk and superficial chitchat. They find such random, fleeting interactions to be draining rather than enlivening.

Alyssa supposed that she
was
an introvert: She didn’t like the boisterous, inebriated crowd scenes that were the mainstay of high school parties. Her mind went blank when placed in the middle of a loud, rambling conversation, in which constantly shifting bands of people interjected abruptly on random topics. She preferred quiet conversations with one or two people—conversations that had some depth.