Jernigan (11 page)

“Well, whatever,” I said, ignoring the tone.
“Mi casa su casa
. I mean, obviously. Now, should I call and tell the power company they might have a brownout in the area of Heritage Circle?”

He looked at me. “Is that a joke?”

“Yes,” I said. “Hope it amused you.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“One more thing,” I said. “If you plan on smoking dope—of which I firmly disapprove—do it in your bedroom or something, so when the cops
do
come about the noise you don’t end up in the hoosegow.”

He raised his eyes like a persecuted saint.

I heard a door close upstairs, and down came Clarissa. She drifted into the living room, stinking of pot smoke. When she noticed me, she shrank back, but she couldn’t very well turn tail. So she just stood and blushed. Which was something, to see that pale face go red.

“Sorry, Mr. Jernigan,” she said. “I thought you went to work already.”

“What can I say?” I said. “Sometimes your mind will play tricks with you, you know? What we used to call your my-yind.” Smalltime cruelty, I know, I know. I wasn’t her father, thank God, so it wasn’t up to me to come down on her. But she might as well know I wasn’t an idiot.

“We’re gonna be late, babe,” said Danny. Though only after saying this did he take his eyes off Clarissa to look at his watch. “Got everything?”

She had nothing but a purse the size of a wallet, black leather with silver studs, dangling at her hip from a disproportionately long shoulder strap.

“’Bye, Ma,” she called. (“ ’Bye, honey,” from far away.) Danny
took her hand and led her out the door. I checked
my
watch. So much for the 8:04.

Back upstairs, I found Martha under the covers with only her head sticking out. Oh surprise surprise.

“It’s seven forty-five,” I said. “Do you know how smashed your daughter is?”

“Oh shit,” she said. “I knew she’d been backsliding a little on the weekends.”

“Well,” I said, “I’d hate to be in her little Reeboks when they get to quadratic equations.”

“I don’t think they have anything like that
this
year,” she said. “But I take your point.” She smiled what was meant to be a wicked smile. “And speaking of taking your point …” She lifted one arm free of the covers and kitchy-kooed. And what do you know? The arm was bare to the shoulder!

I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Is this something we should be doing something about?”

“Not right now,” she said, trying to preserve a mood clearly slipping out of her control. She writhed a come-hither writhe.

“Don’t
you
ever wonder,” I persisted, “what goes on in that room?”

This made her sit up, not caring anymore whether I saw breasts or not. “What?” she said. “My little girl’s corrupting your little boy? Is that what you’re worried about?”

“I worry about
both
of them,” I said.

“Right,” she said.

“If you recall,” I said, “you gave me this big speech about how Danny was
so good
for Clarissa, and how all this was a problem from the distant past.”

“So it just goes to show you, right? Love works miracles and they don’t last.”

“Meaning what?” I said, as I was clearly expected to. I remembered from Judith just how to do this.

“Meaning you seem to be finding me increasingly resistible.”

“So now what is
this
about?” I said. “Because I want to talk about something that legitimately worries me? And
should
legitimately worry
you?”

“And you don’t think I’m worried?” she said. “What, in your wisdom, do you think I ought to be doing about it? Put her in Fair Oaks because she smokes a joint? I know you think I’m a shitty mother. You, of course, are a world-class father.”

“I can’t believe this shit,” I said.

“Which is why Danny has in effect been living here for six months. Because his
father
is just such a warm
guy.”

“Maybe the fact that he can fuck his brains out every night and nobody says jack shit about it has something to do with it too,” I said.

“I wouldn’t go by that,” she said. “It doesn’t seem to cut much ice with you anymore.”

I shook my head. “This is a really grotesque situation, if you think about it for one minute. Them in there and us in here? That ever strike you? That this is deeply fucked up?”

“So change it,” she said, tearing off the covers and standing up. “You think it’s
grotesque
, why don’t you change it?” She strode naked to the dresser and began brushing her hair, buttocks bobbing with every stroke.

And so on.

2

That day I didn’t make it in to work at all.

Next morning I got up and took the 7:31, rolled into the office bright and early. No smile from Miranda, who looked up, then went back to her typing.

“How goes?” I said.

“All right,” she said.

“That’s good,” I said. She typed another burst of characters, then said “Shit” and reached for the white-out.

I said, “I myself am feeling better, thank you.” Keeping up the pretense that I’d been sick the day before. She leaned forward and blew on the sheet of paper where she’d brushed on the white-out.
“You know,” I said, “Dr. K should really break down and at least get you something with backspace erase. This is like one step up the evolutionary ladder from the stone tablet and chisel.” Dr. K was my little name for Kelsey.

She looked at me then. “I really hate this, okay?” she said. “But he told me to tell you he wants to see you. Like as soon as you came in?”

“You’re trying to tell me something,” I said.

“I’m really sorry,” she said.

“Ho-ly shit,” I said. “Hmm. Yow. Well.”

I had never been fired from anything before.

“Sort of bizarre,” I said. “It’s like in Dagwood or something, you know?” Right, this Miranda was really likely to know about Dagwood; what was she, twenty-five? Unless they still had Dagwood.

What exactly did they say when they fired you, in the real world? Surely not
You’re fired
. In Dagwood I think they tossed you out by your shirt collar and the seat of your pants.

“Guess you might as well buzz,” I said, hoping Miranda would at least admire the sang-froid. Office romances were a bad idea, not that I hadn’t had one, and almost a second one, while Judith was alive. But now that I was apparently out of here, maybe I could call Miranda sometime for a cup of coffee. Although there was now Martha to be thought of.

“Send him in,” went Kelsey’s voice from her desktop.

Miranda salaamed the squawkbox, both palms aloft, then said to me, “Keep your chin in.”

I shadowboxed a little for her, to show my insouciance.

“Sit,” said Kelsey.

I sat.

“This may or may not come as much of a surprise to you,” he said, “but it’s been decided to let you go. Very frankly, it just hasn’t been a good fit.”

“I guess I’d been feeling that for some time,” I said. Hey, you always said you were into the degradation: dig it now.
Degradation:
I played with the word as I looked at Kelsey’s hands, his hands being as far up as I dared look. Gold wedding band pinching into the bloat. I came up with
Dagwoodation
. As if Elmer Fudd were saying it.

“Damn it,” Kelsey was saying, “you actually have a lot on the ball. You’re smart, you’re presentable …” A third attribute seemed to escape him. “All this has really accomplished is to keep you from doing”—he shrugged—“whatever it is that you should be doing. And I’m a great believer in this, that people do have, each person, a right job or a right niche or what have you.” He pronounced it
nick
. “I wish we were big enough, frankly, to where if a guy wasn’t working out in the one job, move him over, try something else. But fortunately or unfortunately …” He spread his hands, to show his despair. “So all we can do is just say Godspeed, work out some kind of a severance package that’s fair to everybody and …” Out went the hands again.

“What kind of severance thing specifically are we talking about?” I said, all business. In fact, I’d forgotten that part of what made a decent job a decent job was that they didn’t just shove you out the door with your last paycheck.

“Well, what we were thinking of offering,” said Kelsey, “and if you don’t think it’s equitable please say so, is two months at full salary, plus use of the office for the next week, say, to get yourself on your feet, make some calls, whatever you need to do. We’re also willing, if need be, to keep you on the health plan for the next month, month and a half, so you’ll have time to make other arrangements.”

It was plain even to me that he could be talked up. Two months? Even for a cheeseparing operation like Kelsey and Chittenden, this could only be an opening gambit. Christ, hadn’t he invited me to bargain? He sat there watching me, thinking whatever shit businessmen think. Probably trying to anticipate how I was going to react, so he’d know which way to fuck me. I really didn’t have the energy for this.

“Two months?” I said. “Is that the usual?”

“I suppose in this case we could stretch a point,” he said. “I think we could probably justify an additional couple of weeks on a sort of hardship basis. Justification being the sudden termination and the years of service. Beyond that, I’m not sure we’re prepared to, in a sense, prolong things in a way that’s not productive for anybody.”

So apparently all I had to do was keep myself from saying Okay and I could watch the free money pile up.

I fetched a sigh, which I hoped he might read as
I had in mind something more like three months
.

“So we’re agreed,” he said.

So much for Jernigan the crafty negotiator. At this point I just wanted to get the fuck out of there. “I don’t know,” I said. “Whatever.”

“Now,” he said, and took in a breath through his teeth. So there was more. “In regards to recommendations. I’d be perfectly happy to tell any and all comers just what I’ve told you, that you’re bright, well-spoken—but I’m not certain to what extent that would really be of great help to you.”

He waited for me to say something.

Finally he said, “It’s a sort of a horns-of-a-dilemma situation in regards to the ethics of it. On the one hand, you don’t want to hurt anyone’s chances, as I’m sure you can appreciate.”

“That bad,” I said.

“I’m going to tell you something for your guidance,” he said. “This had been contemplated last year, at the time you had your tragedy. And we felt at that time that A, it simply wouldn’t be right at such a time, and we also wondered very frankly, and forgive me for saying this, which I don’t mean any disrespect, if you might not have been having problems in the home which might in turn have a bearing on the other problems. And that conceivably, given time …” Which was as far as he got in imagining Jernigan transformed. “But,” he said.

“Well,” I said.

“May I be frank?” he said. “I really don’t like you. And if I’d been listened to when Mr. Chittenden wanted to take you on, you would have never
been
taken on. I just thought I should pass that on as part of the total picture.”

“So that’s what this is really about?” I said.

“No,” he said. “But of course you’re welcome to think whatever makes you feel better.”

“Ten years,” I said.

“Long time,” he said.

I decided to try that thing you always heard about in high school. Absolutely nothing to lose at this point. “Well, fuck you very much,” I said.

And damned if it didn’t work. “For what?” he said.

Back in the outer office, Miranda looked up and raised her eyebrows by way of question.

“Son cosas de la vida,”
I said, a phrase I picked up from
Naked Lunch
. Commute for this long and you’ll read pretty much anything. I’d been through the P. G. Wodehouse period, the Chesterton period, the fucking Lamb-Hazlitt-De Quincey period.
Naked Lunch
was from the Reread Everything You Read in High School period. Though I mostly just reread the dirty parts, still half afraid they’d make me a homosexual.

“You’re going to think this is a really inappropriate time,” Miranda said, “but I think I have to tell you that he isn’t actually being cheap or anything. This actually does erase, but I sort of use the white-out for moral reasons. Because I don’t think you can just backtrack and undo your mistakes like that.”

This got my attention. In all the months she’d been here, I’d never understood that Miranda was crazy.

Well, so maybe crazy enough to see you outside the office.

“Interesting,” I said. “Interesting way of thinking about it. Listen, they’ve offered to let me come in for a few days more, but I think I’m just going to clean out some stuff now and bag it. Otherwise I think it’s just going to weird everybody out, including me. But I was thinking, sometime when I’m in the neighborhood why don’t I give you a call and we can go grab a cup of coffee or something.”

Fired after ten years and just coming out and blithely putting the moves on this Miranda. To the extent it was moves. To the extent it was blithe.

3

By noon I was back at Martha’s house. On the train, I’d gotten into this thing in my head that she was one of those Housewife Hookers you read about (though technically not a wife) and that this explained where the money came from. It made complete sense.

Inside I could hear music going. I rang the doorbell and whapped the knocker. Footsteps came trotting, Martha yelling “Just a minute!”

The other idea I had was that she was cuckolding me (if an unmarried man can, technically, be cuckolded) with Tim the Untimid: author, editor, moonshiner, New Adam and all-around timber wolf. Thinking, I suppose, of my sainted mother.

“I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll
blow
your house in,” I cried, Jack Nicholson in
The Shining
.

“Peter?” she called. She opened the door a crack.

“The wand’ring O’Jernigan,” I said. “Make my bed soon, for I fain would lie down.” Oh, I had the bitch dead to rights. Noon, and she was naked, apparently, under her baby-blue terry-cloth robe.