I’ve once again brought along the book, the autobiography, and they notice it at my feet, sitting atop my briefcase (where I carefully placed it to incite pertinent questions). This is where my problems begin. No, I didn’t realize he was one of their main clients. Yes, I have admired him for a long time now. I respect many important, successful men, believe them to be strong leaders for society, important examples for us all. Yes, I like his biography, find it informative and honest (at this point I’m gritting my teeth slightly, hoping it doesn’t show). No, I didn’t realize their organization was mentioned in the book, it seems I haven’t gotten that far yet. And as I’m answering these questions, lying through my teeth as mildly and honestly as possible (knowing the best lies are those closest to the truth), I begin to realize they are also angry about the book at my feet, that their mention within it must not be entirely positive, and even though he is one of their more substantial clients, in their way they also hate his guts, in a different way from me since, for them, it has even more to do with the grind of recent personal experience. They have met him, dealt with him on a daily basis, while I have not.
I change topics, trying to salvage what I can of the interview, asking some practical questions I hope will be as neutral as possible: How many people work for their organization at any given time? What do they think is an ideal number of employees for a small and for a large operation? Is there any additional material I should read concerning their company? It’s no use, they have already lost interest in me. It is as if, by bringing the book along with me, I have aligned myself with someone they are disgusted by. Ironic, since he is also the man I am most disgusted by, the man I want to kill. But it is too late to admit my distain for him. I should have been more cautious in my previous answers. Now it would seem that I was changing my opinion only to please them.
The moment I step out into the reception area I feel crushed, like I might fall suddenly to the ground, crumple into a small heap. I do my best to regain myself, smile at the young man waiting for the next interview, repeat what the previous applicant said to me as he was leaving, that they’re nice in there and he has nothing to worry about, but fear I don’t sound particularly convincing. They are nice and he has nothing to worry about, but my cause is already lost.
As soon as I’m out of the building, a few blocks away, I violently rifle through the pages to find the mention. It takes me a while, its just a couple sentences quite close to the end, not nearly as negative as I first suspected, though I can see why they were offended. I have a dishwashing shift in an hour and consider calling in sick. I do feel sick, not sure I’m up for much of anything, but think better of it. I must continue to give an impression of steady normality in all aspects of my life. Irregular behaviour is suspicious. I must get through each day without attracting attention, the perfect picture of normality.
An hour is enough time to walk to the restaurant, and I slowly make my way there, calming myself as I go. As I walk, the irony of what just occurred grows steadily in my mind. Also the strange logic of it, of my own naïveté. It makes sense that the man I want to kill has also pissed off some of his colleagues, some of the people he has worked with over the years. If he angered me back when I had barely heard of him, it makes perfect sense that he has angered others as well. In this sense, bringing the book to the interview was the most stupid thing I could have done. It’s as if I was so sure I was unique, special, the only one who hated him, and when you are certain, you are always wrong. I should have assumed that whatever I felt, many others felt as well, not taken unnecessary risks.
Suddenly a detail from the interview, one I barely noticed at the time, comes into focus. The first moment they spotted the book at my feet, one of the interviewers, the woman, her first impulse was sarcasm. I’m trying to remember her words more exactly, something like: ‘I see you’re reading our majesty’s treatise,’ absolute sarcasm, disdain in her voice. And then I went on to say I liked it and admired him, as I had planned to say before I arrived. There was a moment when I could have saved myself, picked up on their attitude and followed it, matched my tone to theirs, but I was too slow, was somewhere else, not alongside the situation but falling back on my incorrect, preconceived ideas. I must learn from this, every mistake is a lesson. I must not follow some previously memorized score, but read each new moment for what it is, pick up on the signals that will allow me to open things up to my best advantage. There is not just one road towards my eventual goal; there are hypothetically many, but I must not let any more opportunities slip away.
By the time I reach the restaurant I am once again calm, on time for my shift, and the endless, repetitive washing of dishes calms me further. Others in the kitchen might feel I don’t wash the dishes quickly enough, but I am steady, unwavering. Everyone can see that the work gets done.
1.
My mother also didn’t care much for being poor, and one of the great pleasures of my ongoing success, in the years before she died, was to considerably improve her financial situation, give her a taste of the life she always dreamt of but that previously remained beyond her grasp. I remember, as a child, listening to her complain. It is only recently I’ve realized the degree to which her small daily comments might have influenced my worldview. Sometimes, as an exercise to make the boredom pass more quickly, I would place her complaints into four basic categories: 1) Her friends from school now had more than us. 2) We had enough to eat, but never enough to eat well. 3) Life was for enjoying, but how could we enjoy with so little. 4) She works and works, but nothing ever improves. She had hundreds of new ways to make these basic points, plus occasionally a few others, often in a manner that had us doubled over with laughter, and I would marvel at the variation, wondering which of my rather simplistic categories best suited each new complaint. My father would more or less ignore this daily roll call of life’s shortcomings, saying we had each other and what more did we need, stepping aside (since so much of her disappointment was directed towards him), but I took every word to heart.
My mother lived fifteen years longer than my father. I have always believed women were better than men: tougher, wiser, more strategic. Statistically, when a man’s wife dies, the man drops only a few years later, while women are far more likely to outlive their men by a substantial margin. This is only one sign, out of hundreds, of women’s greater inner strength. After her husband died, my mother genuinely came into her own. It was a beautiful thing to witness, how she finally came out into the world. This coincided with a moment at which money stopped being a problem for us, and she could spend it with the best of them. Strangely, on average, I don’t spend so much. I like good meals, the convenience of limousines and planes, but have relatively few expensive possessions. Of course, a frugal month for me might be a lifetime’s wage for a member of some particularly impoverished nation. But such imbalances are a natural, one might even say glorious, part of modern living. When I think of money and how so much has come my way, how aspects that were once impossible have since become habit, and the relief with which my mother encountered this newfound ease, my next thought is always about how hard I have worked. Because, I believe, I work harder than anyone I have ever met. Of course, most of us, the assholes, believe such things. It is the mantra for my class. But, in my particular case, it is also true.