Termination Man: a novel (21 page)

I, for one, can certainly understand what Shawn must be going through. I was a young manager once myself, you know—sometime during the Jimmy Carter Administration.” This occasioned the obligatory laughs from the meeting attendees, and all at once the tension was broken. “I’m glad to hear that you’ve taken measures to root these people out of the new organization that you and Shawn are building at UP&S. Problems are inevitable. The important question is always:
What are you going to do about it?
”

After storming out of the monthly meeting, Shawn decided to walk out of the TP Automotive headquarters building as well. He ducked into the nearest elevator, hoping that Tom Galloway—or worse, his father—would not decide to run after him. He pressed the button that would take him to the ground floor.

The elevator opened into the main visitor’s lobby. Even though he was home free now, Shawn was still gripped by the belief that someone would come after him. That would be an exchange that could end badly if it were anyone but his father. He knew that he was in no mood to be trifled with, and his only guarantee against further disaster would be to escape this building. He finally broke into a run when the main entrance came into view. The security guard at the visitor’s reception desk said something to him. Shawn pretended not to hear. The guard did not follow after him, and Shawn reflected that the guard’s decision to stay put might have saved them both from calamity.

His Audi was located at the side of the building—in his old parking space. He gunned the engine and sped out of the lot. A woman—probably another uptight administrative assistant—made a great show of scurrying out of the way as Shawn raced past.

The TP Automotive
headquarters
building
was not far from the interstate. Shawn drove aimlessly on I-94 in a westerly direction, toward Ann Arbor. He knew that at this very moment, his father and probably others were looking for him, searching the men’s rooms and the hallways of the headquarters building. Perhaps the security guard had recognized him and alerted others. Perhaps his father already knew that he had fled not only the meeting, but the walls of the company as well.

He drove on. When he had driven for perhaps five or ten minutes he began to contemplate the consequences of his spur-of-the-moment flight. He realized that every minute he stayed away he was in fact digging himself into an even deeper hole, making it more difficult to extricate himself from the disaster of the past hour. He therefore found himself in a classic dilemma:
Should he return and face the music, or continue to savor his freedom and delay the consequences?

For now he would delay.

With no particular purpose in mind, he exited I-94 just past Ypsilanti. The exit emptied onto a two-lane highway that would lead him toward the countryside south of Detroit, in the direction of the Michigan-Ohio border.

He didn’t see the stop sign—
not really
. He wasn’t aware of his mistake until he heard the blare of a horn and saw the blur of another vehicle. He slammed his foot on the brake pedal. The Audi skidded on the gravel and turned at a 90-degree angle. He braced himself for the inevitable impact. The sound of the other car’s skidding tires vaguely registered somewhere in his awareness, along with its still-blaring horn.

But the impact never came. Shawn opened his eyes (he had closed them at the last second, when he was sure that a crash was imminent) and saw that both his car and that of the other driver were stopped in the middle of this rural intersection. The two vehicles were only inches apart—perhaps a hand’s breadth. Ironically, the crash had been narrowly averted by the gravel on the pavement, which had caused both of the cars to spin around. 

The other driver was already stepping out of his vehicle. It was a pine-green Ford Taurus, not the most recent model. The driver himself was due for an upgrade as well. He was short, mostly bald, wearing a blue dress shirt and a tie. He had a potbelly and a little mustache. Shawn could see that he was sweating profusely despite the chilly weather; half-circles of moisture darkened both armpits.

“Are you okay?” The other driver asked. He was now standing before Shawn’s door. The guy obviously wanted to say something, so Shawn pressed the armrest button that lowered his front driver’s side window. He thought:
This clown looks like an accountant—the sort of bean counter who would probably understand the damned inventory report.

“I’m fine,” Shawn said. He didn’t bother to return the question. The accountant had gotten himself out of his car, walked over here, and uttered a question. He was obviously fine.

“Good to hear it,” the accountant said. “Because your driving is anything but fine. You blew right through that stop sign. Didn’t even slow down. You could have killed us both.”

Shawn contemplated offering this man an explanation. He could have told him that he had just had an exceptionally horrible afternoon, and that his mind was now occupied by matters that were far more significant than minor traffic regulations. But no—he had no intention of offering this little man an explanation for his actions.

Just get back in your car, buddy
, Shawn thought.
Get back in your car, and drive back to your boring accountant’s office, or your piggy wife and children, or wherever it is that you’re heading. No harm was done, so this is your chance to walk away without a scratch.  

But the accountant apparently wasn't on the same wavelength, as he kept talking, and thereby made the situation even worse.

“You know, you really ought to try paying attention when you drive. You were obviously off in dreamland, or you would have at least seen the stop sign.”

Shawn took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. He could sense where this was going—and he knew that it would only end badly for both of them.

“Mister,” Shawn said. “Let me give you a piece of advice. You should just shut the fuck up this very minute, get back in your cheap secondhand car, and drive away. That would be the best thing for you to do.”

If the accountant had possessed any sense whatsoever, he would have taken this as his cue to make a getaway. To Shawn’s amazement, however, he kept talking.

“What?” the accountant asked, the indignation in his voice unmistakable. “What’s that little remark you made about my car?
Do you think you’re better than me?
Do you think that you have some sort of special privilege just because you drive an expensive car?” 

Shawn looked up into the accountant’s face, and for a second it seemed to merge with the face of Alan Ferguson—the ungrateful subordinate who had spoken to Bill Prescott behind his back and humiliated him so.

Then he felt something inside him snap, suddenly and inexorably. It was the latch on the box that contained and (usually) restrained his anger.

The accountant started talking again, though Shawn didn’t really hear him. He was acutely aware of only two things—his building rage, and the metal object beneath the front seat on the passenger side of the Audi. As the accountant talked, Shawn discreetly moved his hand beneath the adjacent seat, until he grasped the curved end of the crowbar.

Why had he acquired the crowbar?
He had purchased the item last week, when he stopped by a Home Depot to pick up some light bulbs and other miscellaneous supplies that he needed for his condominium in Columbus. He had told himself that a crowbar was a handy item to have—knowing all along that he really had no legitimate use for such a tool.

“No,” Shawn said, pushing open the door of the Audi. “I think that my privilege comes from the fact that I can kick your ass.”

Shawn stepped out of the car, and the accountant abruptly stopped his monologue.

When the man saw Shawn’s size—and the object in his hand—he made a quick assessment of the situation. Shawn could see the middle-aged accountant’s eyes widen; then his face went slack with fear. Despite his rage, this brought Shawn a moment’s worth of satisfaction.
It didn’t take much to reduce the ave
rage man to stark, naked terror;
did it?
The two of them were in a sparsely populated area, and he could beat the man to a pulp with the crowbar before anyone would happen along and intervene. He knew it; and the accountant knew it.

But the accountant had apparently decided not to hang around and wait for that scenario to unfold. Without another word to Shawn, he spun on his heels and turned toward the field that was nearest him. He scrambled up the embankment, and then—after taking only a few seconds to right himself once he reached level ground—broke into a run across the field.

Shawn noted that the accountant moved faster than his physical appearance would have suggested. He was visibly huffing and puffing; and he might drop dead from a heart attack at any second, Shawn thought. The accountant was determined to flee for his life until his physical limitations overcame him. 

Shawn started to give chase, and then thought better of it. This intersection was removed from the main traffic of Detroit; but it wasn’t exactly out in the middle of nowhere. Sooner or later someone would drive by, and become a witness to his beating of the man who continued to run across the empty field.

So instead he decided to vent his rage on the man’s car. He raised the crowbar above his head and brought it down on the hood of the Taurus with all his might. The resultant clang and the yielding of metal were satisfying. His rage was not yet spent, but a few more minutes of this and he would feel good enough to go back to the world.

He would need to drive back to the TP Automotive building; he would need to locate his father, perform a mea culpa, and then find some way out of his situation. His lack of fundamental knowledge about manufacturing operations had been exposed at the monthly meeting.
Would his father be able to rescue him again?
He decided that yes, his father would. The old man had saved him from far worse messes than this in the past. Comparatively speaking, a flubbed presentation at a company meeting was nothing.

Having thoroughly mutilated the hood of the Taurus, Shawn turned his attention to the windshield. In its reflection he saw the faces of the people who had been present at the meeting—men like Tom Galloway, who delighted in showing off their superior knowledge and expertise. He also saw the faces of Alan and Lucy, of course, the two people who were primarily responsible for today’s disaster. How satisfying it would be to smash the crowbar into both of their heads.

And he also saw the face of Alyssa—the cleaning woman’s daughter—who was frustrating him so much with her refusal to submit to his perfectly understandable desires.

With all of these faces in mind, Shawn swung the crowbar over his head and shattered the windshield of the Taurus. Glass rained onto the dashboard and the front seat. The car was for all practical purposes undrivable now. The accountant—if he ever summoned the courage to come back and retrieve his car—would have to find alternative transportation.

Shawn allowed himself a few more swings. He took out the front passenger and driver’s side windows, and then gave the Taurus a few more dents at various places on the driver’s side. Actually, the accountant had done him a favor by appearing at this intersection at an inopportune time. Without this chance to vent his anger and frustration, Shawn realized, he might have continued his solitary drive for hours.

The thought of the accountant caused him to turn his attention from the ruined vehicle and toward its driver. The man was now standing half a football field’s length away, in the middle of the field into which he had fled. The accountant’s tie was askew; and even at this distance Shawn could see that he was drenched with sweat. The man had probably not run like that for the past decade or two. He was bent over with his palms on his knees, panting from exhaustion. But he had also been watching the methodical destruction of his car.

What a pussy
, Shawn thought, reflecting that he would never stand by while a stranger took a crowbar to the Audi.

Finally Shawn had a smile on his face. Yes, he was feeling much better now. “You can have your car back now, if you still want it!” Shawn shouted at the accountant.

The accountant did not respond; he merely watched Shawn warily as he carried the crowbar back to the Audi, opened the door, and slid into the driver’s seat. The fine piece of German engineering was still running; he had never killed the engine.

He put the Audi into gear, gave the accountant a final wave, and drove away.

By the time Shawn returned to the headquarters building, the monthly meeting had been concluded. There was no way to salvage today’s performance. But he could perhaps still salvage his relationship with his father.

Shawn wandered the halls, occasionally ducking into an alcove or a vacant room when he heard other voices. He did not want to be questioned, even though he knew that questions were inevitable.

Finally he spied his father walking down one of the hallways on the third floor.
Where was the old man headed?
Was he waiting for his son to return? Had Kurt known that his prodigal offspring would come back, to more or less beg for some form of forgiveness?

“Dad,” Shawn said in the empty hallway. “I’m back.”