We work online so we never get to see each other unless we do these hotel lobby seminars. Store bought cookies and pink lemonade in the back. Plastic folders filled with redundant PowerPoints at every desk. Stock company banners featuring actors playing serious business people all around. Almost blocking your path when you walk, like they’re following you. I was assigned a desk that was too narrow. I felt squeezed. I work at a low tier financial services firm. You’d believe it after witnessing some of the behavior from my coworkers. Over sharing, lacking hygiene, slight sexism and racism, more over sharing. Some ladies invited me to shadow their pitches next week since my numbers have been low recently. I told one of them who I haven’t seen since last year that I’d go. I asked her to please send me a reminder first so I can put it in my schedule. We started the day off with an icebreaker. We had to tell the room something we wish we could change about ourselves. I was closest to the door and was asked to go first by one of the VPs. I read the question to myself again and then answered, “well, right now, I wish I could change just about everything.” I paused for a moment to take a look around the room. While soaking the moment in, I suddenly noticed a yellow plane through the window flying a banner that read, “don't be a chump, be a champ!” It had a number attached to it. I felt as if I was the engine of the plane. Everything gets so hot. I could feel the room waiting for me to fill the silence. I was able to cool myself enough to say, “I’d change everything because we should always be changing.” I nodded my head once. “Moving things around.” I moved my hands around to show a sort of commotion. “Change is good.” I tried to smile proudly as I finished answering, so people smiled back. “Perfect, great, yeah, thank you. On to Kenneth.” “Oh, jeez, well, if I could change anything I would’ve married a woman who actually knows where she wants to eat when I ask her.” Roaring laughter. “I mean, just pick a place, woman! Or I’m taking you to Dave and Busters, again!” Another big pop from the crowd. This yearly seminar is done mostly to welcome new employees to the company. They’re forced to stand up and say their names along with one interesting fact about themselves. The speakers mostly talk about the mission and the goals of the company. How we have to be teflon tough. How they’re getting rid of the IT bugs messing around. During one of the presentations regarding business outreach, one of the presenters started crying. She said she was so thankful for having her job. She said she didn’t know where she would be without it. The table with the VPs nodded. All the while, people were eating chips, having side conversations. I was eating chips. Looking around like some dumb, lost cow out in the meadow. By the time the scheduled lunch break came around I had to pull my manager aside and tell him the bad news. I got another job offer, it’s paying me ten thousand dollars more and never makes me turn on my webcam. The webcam matter is quite important to me. I always lie about it being broken. I’d like to not have to do that anymore. Although I will lie if I need to. I told my manager that I’d like to get the ball rolling on negotiations for a raise as soon as possible. I said it like that. Playing hard ball, saying things like I’m airing the news, you know? All buttoned up. He said he’d run it through some of the higher ups and get back to me. That I was asking for a lot but they would put together something. He said it like that. Like I was stealing money from his relatives. During the lunch break, I tried to sit apart from the group. I went to my car to sit in deeper heat for a minute while everyone found their seats. That way, when I came back, I could sit on my own. My plan was foiled by this new IT guy who came and sat directly across from me with chicken salad in his beard. He wanted to hear about what I did in my free time. That I looked like this contestant on the “Bachelorette” who does stunts so maybe I’m into extreme stuff like that. He ended up just talking about money. “More money is always good,” I said. By sitting next to me, however, he caused a ripple effect. It made other people join our table. A group of them picked up their food and came over. We were two divided parties of the same company filling their stomachs. Just grazing for exactly an hour and not a minute more. I at least could sit comfortably at this table, unlike the desk in the conference room. Close to the end of the lunch, one girl spilled red sauce all over her white pants. A lot of it. She tried dabbing it with water but only managed to completely soak her pants and further spread the stain. When the presentations restarted, it was more of the same. Dramatics, writing down some information, a YouTube video that took ten minutes to get set up because of sound issues. To make time go by, I acted like I was getting a phone call and left the room for a half hour. I walked around the hotel. There were a lot of people staying there even though it’s by the train tracks. You could hear story after story coming from all of the rooms. Family’s on vacation, people talking about my hat, sports teams in the championship, a porn convention gone wrong. There was a young housekeeper with the name of a city tattooed on her cheek. She was breathing the fresh air outside as I made my way back to the conference room. I saw her take deep breaths while she clutched her stomach. Right when I walked back into the conference room, the same VP that had asked the first ice breaker addressed me directly again. He looked at me almost laughing and asked, “how many humans have ever lived?” One of his eyebrows raised. I just looked at him. He asked me the question again. I kept staring blankly. Again, looking a bit like some grazing farm animal. He interrupted my moment of bewilderment with a waspy chuckle. “The second ice breaker. We had you write down a question you wanted answered. You wanted to know…” He took a moment and peered up at me over his glasses. “How many humans have ever lived?” There was a brief silence then he burst out laughing. The room laughed along with him. He specifically really let it out, he was practically hooting. “I love that.” He wiped his eyes and fixed his suit. “I bet you’ve been thinking about that one for weeks.” I had been thinking about that one for weeks. “Right.” I sat down. “Was I supposed to ask something about the company or the services?” I looked at him and thought about how some white people look like cum. They’ll have thin blonde hair and palish, grey skin and these huge gray eyes. “Yes, but, no…we’re going with it.” His mood changed. His lips pursed together like they usually do on the video calls. He picked up a pencil to show he was thinking. “We, we, just liked that one. Samantha says she has an answer for you.” Samantha waved at me enthusiastically and said, “around 120 billion!” “Thank you. That’s good to know, Samantha.” I truly was grateful. The VP let out a squealing noise as he threw his hands up, shook his head and stretched. Looking at me coldly he said, “ok, well, yeah…there’s your answer.” He whipped his head towards the rest of the crowd and said, “and the last question is, ‘what is our expected revenue by the end of quarter three?’ Great question and, before I answer that, whoever asked about compliance handling the night terrors, Wendy will be able to provide an answer for you. Great.” We went through a couple more PowerPoints. Someone gave a speech on behalf of the CEO who unfortunately couldn’t be there due to an emergency in Romania. Finally, we ended the day with the proverbial company photo. I put bunny ears behind someone. I went from the seminar to my other job at a bail bonds office. We’ve been doing a “soft opening” for a couple of weeks. That means we’ve only been open on nights and weekends. You’d think it would be an effective system since most crime happens at those times, but it’s not. The soft opening has been causing a workflow problem. The issue is that most people return their business calls during the daytime on weekdays. That means when we have the time to return their phone calls, we call them back at what some might call “odd hours.” Calling up a disappointed, elderly mother at 11PM on a Wednesday, just to let her know that there is no status update on her son’s carjacking bond isn’t ideal business. The schedule creates strenuous situations but what do I know? Before I could clock in the owner pulled me aside to have a conversation in the back alley. He asked me about my ethnicity’s work ethic and if I noticed a difference between Ryan’s work and my own. He said he had been watching me and that he knew things about me. I didn’t know what to say. He kept talking about call volume and ethnicities so I started to grin a little because those two things together is just funny. He noticed and, at that point, I could tell he was actually pretty upset at me. “This is my management style. I have been managing businesses for over half my life. I know how to delegate and be a bureaucrat. I’ll ask for your criticism if I ever need someone to do that one thing nobody else would do in June.” “Alright, great.” I thought the conversation was over but before I could go back inside he put his hand on my chest and stopped me. He said my body language told him things wouldn’t be working out between the two of us in the future. I asked him if I was getting fired after working five hours in two weeks. “Yeah, it’s looking that way because of your body language. Because of what I see. I know things, kid. Listen up, because I know what I’m talking about. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but now it is.” He then asked me to wait a second and came back with the other manager. He looks like a nightclub bouncer. Bald head, goatee, weighing like four hundred pounds. He leaned on the wall and glared at me. “What?” I said. “I’m just here.” He threw his hands up in the air like there was no problem. “Just making sure there’s no problem.” I felt sorry for those two men out there fumbling over themselves in some alley. I said, “is this because of your debts opening the business? This just seems like stressed behavior. Don’t worry about the money you owe. They’ll just call you a little and maybe after a while you go to court. But that still won’t happen for a while. Sometimes it takes years. If you just pay here and there you’ll at least be able to keep the ball rolling. Think about it. Keep yourself in the game.” I thought they’d get softened up by that piece of advice, but instead they looked like they were going to spit at me. Luckily, another employee walked out before they could pull something on me. “Sir, there’s someone here who says that their whole clique is hurting and they need help. They’re not happy at all.” While they were distracted with that, I slipped through the door. Making sure to wish them good luck with everything. On the way out, I asked one of the employees how you say “echo” in Armenian. He just gathered some copies off the printer. I passed by the clique on my way out and they were definitely hurting. After my dismissal, I went to a bar and grill on the roof of an adult arcade. I go there because I think one of the bartenders is possessed by a demon. I’ve never talked to her about it, but I can’t deny that there’s something about the way she pours drinks that really helps me when I most need to unwind. While enjoying the beautiful sunset, I noticed a boy around thirteen years old looking up at a group of people on a balcony across the street. With my hands I got his attention. Then I gestured something which suggested that everybody from the balcony fall several stories down to their death. The boy said, “noooo!” and laughed. I pointed out how the people would fall from the balcony on to a little girl’s birthday party below. He laughed even more. Later on in the night I started talking to these two men who had just moved to this city. Zas and Chuly. When we met, I think they thought I was with the two housewives sitting next to me. That got them warmed up to me and got them talking about all sorts of important things. Where they got their jewelry from, how hard it is to find parking sometimes, how sexy women are, and at what age they started wanting to be better than all of their friends. They talked for a while. It was sad seeing their looks of disappointment as the two housewives walked away before they could introduce themselves. It made me think about how unjust the world is. Horrible atrocities can happen at any place, any time. People are getting gunned down, stabbed. That’s reality and nobody will do anything about it. Two men can just be brutally murdered in an alley over some silly dispute. Zas and Chuly said they’d never heard of anybody getting seriously hurt like that. We talked some more and, despite the lack of female company to validate my worth, they ended up wanting to go to another bar with me. You could tell these men were new in town. This next bar was massive and Wild West themed. There were big pictures of old time country concerts on the walls. Longhorn skulls above the two chimney areas. Men were wearing suits, cowboy hats, national park t-shirts, sometimes all three. There was an omelet bar in the back even though it was past midnight. The bartenders were all incredibly handsome men with mustaches. They all wore different OJ Simpson jerseys. People stood in groups listening to the live band, sometimes whispering in each other’s ears and nodding in agreement. We sat on red leather couches facing the crowd. Zas and Chuly opened up about their hardships in business. They said this city was difficult to figure out. They organize special events and parties for people. Having to maintain business, market to new people, lying about their work experience and background, it can all become quite stressful. There’s a lot of competition. “The goal is to own a place like this. Something with lots of people. A place that people know.” Zas spoke with ambition. I replied, “you could fill this place up with celebrities.” “Yeah, right. Big parties. Although, celebrities are too entitled. You know?” We drank some fire water from Brazil that I ordered. Nothing like some heat to cure the heat. Both the guys grinned at each other as we drank into the night. I thought about myself as a club promoter, nightlife man. “Let’s talk more about how we can work together and further our line’s of work once I get back from the bathroom.” I said it like I had a plan. But I never got back from the bathroom. I ended up walking home. I walked for almost an hour. You can walk in this city for days and never feel like you’ve gotten anywhere. When I got home there was a party happening in my shared driveway. Latin music blasted while three strobe lights lit up the crowd of sweaty faces. They were dancing in the dark. Only the sporadic flashes of light guided me deeper into the crowd. From the back I heard a DJ slurring into a mic. The sound of accordions pierced my ears. I could feel myself make a face of euphoric disgust. My hips swayed. Deep bass bounced around. Some of the guests had palm branches. The women were all in yellow and orange colored dresses. The rustling of the leaves mixed with the folding of the dresses and the booming drums made me shiver. Everyone was much older than me. A woman shrieked. She complained that the ground wasn’t bleeding enough, that we needed to do more. I couldn’t recognize which language she was speaking in. It wasn’t Spanish or English or Portuguese or French. I kept moving closer to the speakers. The DJ was wearing Chanel sunglasses and drinking peach Vess straight from a two liter bottle. He had some of the whitest teeth I’d ever seen and a black t-shirt with white letters that said, “I’m only human.” The ground vibrated between the two of us. I could see his sandals clapping around beneath the table. I pressed my ear right up to the speaker. It felt like panicked ants were inside of my head trying to crawl out. I yelled into the small circle within the wider circle of the speaker. The DJ made another announcement and people cheered. I looked down at my phone and saw three notifications. One of them was a voicemail from someone I hadn’t heard from in years. They told me that when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I texted back saying, “I just don’t want anyone to miss.” The other notification was a text from someone who wants me to hate myself. They wished me safe travels and to please call them when I land from my next flight. They said they couldn’t imagine life without me, without my touch. The third notification was from an email that used to belong to me. It told me to find the cake on the other end of the driveway. I dragged my feet toward the cake. My neck was hot and sweating big drops. When I was able to get to the cake it was all torn up. People had smashed into it with their bare hands. I put a cup of the batter in my palm and ate it. My phone vibrated. It was another notification from the old email. This time it said, ”don’t care about who you know, man, you're old, you don't scare me. Run down a rabbit hole. Your downfalls, I see you clearly now.” I looked up from my phone to see a young Scandinavian looking girl, probably six years old. Her face was covered in black smudge marks. She smelled awful and her clothes were in tatters. She half opened her mouth and breathed heavily sounding like a lion. I held my sticky palm out and she put her index finger into it. “They’re coming. Be ready. This time they’ll finally finish the job. I tried to stop them but they say you’re not fun to play with anymore. Ever since you called in that favor they’ve needed their pound of flesh. All week they’ve been talking about wiping that grin off your face and, frankly, I can’t wait to see it.”