They Tell Me I'm The Bad Guy (5 page)

Chuck flipped to another of the three pieces of paper before him. "Well, Don, I'll be honest, your production levels are just above the minimum we're looking for. As you know, we've always got an eye on that cycle time, so my question is, do you think you would be able to inspire others to meet and exceed their production goals to make that happen?"

"Yes, sir. My numbers, well, my numbers are getting thrown off because I've just become used to the job. I've been doing it for four years now and it's getting to where I feel like I need something different. I need a new challenge, and I want to take on a bigger role in the company."

"So compared to someone with higher numbers, what makes you the more qualified candidate for the position? What would be the benefit of hiring you over them?"

Fuck. You. Chuck.

Before I had given up on the Datab
ase, I had typed in 'Das Biest von Feure
.' The same one paragraph entry that had been on there for years still came up:
Ability to manipulate molecular activity to create heat and self-sustaining fires. Real Name: Unknown. Date of Birth: Unknown.
Country of Origin: Unknown. (Rumored to be Germany, Netherlands).
Height: approx. 6'. Weight: Unknown. Eye Color: Unknown. Group Affiliations: The Chaotishe Sechs. Last seen during the Second London Blitz. Presumed dead.

Thank God.

While Chuck eyed me, my eyes searched around the room for an answer longer than they should have. My brain went to wondering if someone had gotten me on camera being carried to the top of the Sudiak. "I think that I bring a better attitude to the position. I get along with everyone very well; I know how to talk to them and they know I'm a stand-up guy."

"And that translates to you being a better supervisor?" Chuck said dickishly.

"I think the . . . it, it makes me better suited to be a leader because I'm willing to listen to them and put myself out there for them. That, I think, inspires people to do better."

Chuck made another note on his pad. He leaned back in his black padded seat. "One of the main things we're looking for in a Lead Machine Operator is someone willing to go that extra mile for the company. Name a time that you made a suggestion to improve an existing procedure."

I had nothing. "Including
previous jobs?" I asked lamely.

Chuck nodded his large head slightly.

"When I worked at a mechanic shop after high school, I suggested a few new package deals we could offer to customers. It was basically bundling services like a discount on a lube job when you buy an oil change, free carwash with a state inspection, shi--'scuse me, stuff like that."

"And what was the result of that?"

"My boss took my suggestions and put them on the board. Within a month, we had increased business by four or five thousand dollars." Bullshit. Never happened.

"Was that a lot?"

"For the size of the garage, yes."

"Describe yourself with five words or phrases."

I don't even remember the bullshit I made up to answer this one.

"Have you ever held a position where you had people un
der you?"

"I haven't yet. I'm hoping this will get me started."

He went on asking me all kinds of shit about what my thoughts were on the kanban system for the stations and how I would improve it, anything I saw as frequent problems with the WIPs, if I was fluent in Spanish, all that kind of shit.

Finally, he looked at me kind of emotionless and just said, "Tell me why
I should
hire you out of all the candidates? What do you have that they don't?"

I leaned forward and tapped my finger on his desk. "I can guarantee you that no one wants this job more than I do. I'll do whatever it takes to succeed in it. If you want me to work overtime, I'll work overtime. If you need me to come in holidays, I'll come in with a smile on my face. I'm looking to move up and move out of where I'm at. And I'll put more effort into it than anybody else."

Chuck made a note.

"Anything else you'd like to add before we finish up?"

"Not that I can think of, no."

"Do
you have any questions for me?"

"No."

"Okay." Chuck stood. I stood. He shook my hand.

"Thanks for coming in, Don."

"Thank you."

I shut Chuck's door behind me and stared out at the production floor. He was a dick. I didn't 'improve procedures' because nobody listened to me. And I was just there to work, not to reorganize the goddamn company or put new policies in place. I didn't get
paid for that. Management did.

I pushed through the steel doors outside and threw my wadded ball of interview clothes onto my backseat. It was hot in the parking lot, but I couldn't feel it. The interview had been bullshit and was stacked against me from the start. Chuck didn't want to hire me. It was all a bunch of bullshit. It didn't matter what I had said or done, it wouldn't have made a difference. I lit a cigarette and fumed before I punched back in for work and put my br
ain on the other problem I had.

Five people were dead because of me. My sister might have been in danger. Just in a couple of fucking days and a couple of stupid choices. Fuck, man. And then I realized I'd lit the cigarette in public in broad daylight with my powers instead of my lighter. I was fucking losing it.

I got a buddy to pick up my Saturday shift and put in for bereavement time with human resources to get Monday and Tuesday off for whatever the hell Kamikaze had planned. Will stayed with me most of the weekend. He would keep his phone on him like a rash for the next few days; if I gave him the word he would drive like a bat out of hell to Woo
ster to keep tabs on my sister.

Saturday morning, I had the barber give me a short buzz cut that made the thinning hair on top of my big head less noticeable. At home, I over did a hard workout with the dusty weight set under my bed to try and give what I had a little definition as it would fool people into thinking I wasn't a lazy b
astard.

And I pulled my old
fireproof
suit out of the closet.

"You think I should bring the costume?" I
asked Will Saturday afternoon.

He ripped open a bag of Doritos, crushing half of them. "Are you wanting to
wear, like, the whole outfit?"

"I don't know. Maybe I should bring it. For all I know, the job is tomorrow, not just a planning session. I don't want to be the only dumb motherfucker in his jeans."

The suit I had from the European days was a lightweight, dark burgundy fiberglass weave invented by Jurgen Chaotischer. Technology had just now catching up to him on its design.
I had matching fiberglass and meta-aramid fiber burgundy and yellow gloves with removable fingertips and a pair of thick boots lined with the same type of heat shielding they used on stock cars.
Up to around a thousand degrees, I was good to go, but even though I couldn't feel the heat from having all that on, I had to make sure to take in a lot of fluids so I didn't dehydrate. I had sold the non-descript oxygen tank and breathing apparatus that went along with the suit three years before when I needed cash and I had lost the skull helmet in London, so if I got out of hand in a burning building there would be nothing for me to breathe. But that probably wouldn't happen.

"I don't know, man," Will said. "That would fill a whole suitcase, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah. I only got one."

He wiped Dorito cheese on his shirt. "Fuck it, bring it with you. Give me your card, and I'll go pick you up another suitcase."

I stared long and hard at the suit. "All right. The card's in my wallet on the dresser there. Get something cheap but pretty big."

"Just like your mother, got it. You need anything else while I'm out?"

"Yeah, asshole, get me a case of bottled water. I'll bring a few so I don't dehydrate."

"You want anything else to amp you up?" he asked me. He was talking about pills, PCP or speed or that kind of thing that some guys in the business used to get their powers really ramped to new heights. I'd been known to use
pills back in the Europe days.

"No, just the water, man."

He asked me i
f I was sure. I told him I was.

I ate donuts until I thought I would puke to build up my reserves while watching the television. I didn't really hear the words or see the pictures. I thought more about what would be waiting for me. My elbows, chest and back were starting to feel sore from working out. God, I was out of shape.

Will came back with everything I asked for. We went out to the bars to get laid for good luck. He broke a guy's wrist playing pool and shot to shit my only prospect for the night. He went out Sunday morning and brought back donuts as a peace offering, but I didn't have an appetite. Two of the Wilmont Avenue bodies had been identified as kids under twenty.

"You gonna make it?" he asked as I packed my suit into the brown suitcase he had picked up for me.

"Yeah, I'm all right."

"You better be, man. Get your head right. You're a bad motherfucker."

"Uh huh," I nodded, shoving my toothbrush into a pocket.

"I mean it."

"Fuck off and let me think, man."

He threw an empty beer can at me. "Hey, you listen to me."

"What? I'm trying to pack."

"I'm serious. Get your shit straight. If you walk in there without your old fire,
they'll eat you alive."

"Fuck, I just wrote me real name on these goddamn suitcase tags. Would you stop fucking talking to me while I do this?"

"God, man," he said, frustrated with my lack of his enthusiasm for all this. "Hey, finish up fast. I wanna make a s
top on the way to the airport."

"For what?"

"You'll see," he said.

"Jesus Christ, just tell me."

"You want a ride or not?"

"Fine. Just don't make me miss the plane."

We hit the road for Cincinnati in Will's Mustang. He stopped in the next town at a Wal-Mart and picked up five five-gallon plastic gas containers and filled them up at a station down the road.

Gas fumes seeped from the trunk and filled the car. "You know, I was really wanting to smoke," I said. "When you pulled in here, I thought you were gonna ask me to blow the place up so you could get some free beef jerky."

"Ha ha, shut it. One of the cans spilled, but y'know go ahead and smoke. Just let me know so I can pull over while we explode.
"

"I don't know what you've got planned, but--"

"Just quit your bitchin',
Francine. You need to do this."

Five miles from the gas station, he pulled the Mustang off onto a back road. After twenty minutes of bouncing down what was basically a trail through the woods.

"Will, I swear to God if you make me miss this flight I will fucking kill you."

"You're not gonna miss it, man. Just settle down. You have to do this."

Will drove past a broken security gate that hung open on rusted hinges. Past the gate, the trees on both sides of the trail opened to a dusty, abandoned quarry. He punished his suspension bouncing over the rocky clearing and parked near the quarry pit.

He pushed his door open. "Let's go, son.
Das Biest
needs a comeback."

I got out and stretched. "Motherfucker, I need to get
the airport."

"You need to cut loose and get your balls back," he said sharply. "Now just blow these things up." He pulled
the gas cans out of the trunk.

"Jesus, man, come on."

Will jumped off the edge of the pit and landed near the shallow lake at the bottom.

I lit a cig while he set the containers on the ground twenty feet from each other. All around, the quarry had craters smashed into the packed ground. Long white oaks and maples had been ripped up out of the woods and smashed to pieces, and one of the mined, cut rock walls had chunks broken out of it, chunks that were scattered all over the place, sunken into the earth like they had crash-landed.

"Come here a lot, do you?" I asked Will when he had climbed out of the pit.

He nodded. "Just when I feel the need to cut loose. Just like you need to do."

He had never mentioned a thing about it to me, which was pretty damn weird. But with a guy like Will, with the kinds of things he could do, living every day like other people was a chore. Every waking hour of every day he had to measure every move he made, keep the pressure light whenever he touched someone or something, hell, not even walking too hard or he would break the damn floor. I gave him a lot of shit, a
lot
of shit, for not keeping himself in check more, but he had to live life a
whole different way than I did.

But it was just like his dumb fucking ass to bring me way the hell out to nowhe
re when I had to catch a plane.

I sucked on my cigarette. "I'm gonna be late."