Horse's Ass

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, or businesses, or organizations, is entirely coincidental. So no, you are not in the Goddamn book.

  For Miss Go Lightly and the Sneef

  Horse's Ass

  By Jay M. Arre

  Copyright 2012 Jay M Arre

  Chapter One

  Just before noon in the third week of October 2006, from the confines of a nondescript office building, the fire alarm’s shrill and unrelenting cry pierced the quiet corporate workspace.

  Inside the building, the employees poked their heads over the short walls separating their cubicles, and depending on the vagaries of their day either thanked, or cursed, the alarm that gave no quarter. Regardless of their perspective on the inevitable trip out of the building, no one began to move. The employees, who recently survived a downsizing based on the color of their clothing, did not want to foster the perception they lacked commitment. A pretext for the company to release them in the next, inevitable, round of cost reduction. Although management had not formally established its position on the first to leave, the rumor mill steadfastly believed the safest course of action was to wait until harangued by the Fire Marshall before heading for the exit.

  As the alarm rang into its third minute, and the smell of burnt popcorn stained the air, the employees grew increasingly prairie doglike. Although none moved to leave, all sought to gain the advantage a few extra inches provides when sitting sentry and looking for the first tell the building truly is on fire. To this end, some balanced like gymnasts on their chair’s armrest, with their arms locked in full extension. Others, to see the far reaches of the floor, hopped onto their desks. Seeking confirmation they’ve not made a life ending choice by staying put, an ineffectual attempt at job preservation, many bowed their heads and prayed. At this point, almost all covered their ears.

  When the fourth minute came, the cowardly and faithless, those prone to question corporate missives, began to flee. To justify their premature exit, they loudly voiced excuses. Several elderly employees, hobbling with canes, boldly accused the younger generation as they shouted to be heard over the alarm, “Damn pot smoking hippies setting fire to the pantry, again. Didn’t live this long to die working at this miserable job. Hippies are why the Chinese are kicking our ass! China ain’t got hippies."

  Close behind, paranoid and worried he was about to become corporate America’s latest victim, followed Nels. As Nels ran to the stairway, index finger jabbing the air for emphasis and voice verging on panic, he pointed randomly at his co-workers. “They want you to burn. It’s the dead peasant tax. They started the fire.” Nels referred to the practice of corporations taking out life insurance policies on their employees, without the employee’s knowledge or consent, for which the corporation was the tax-free beneficiary of the death benefit. His panicked state, one plausible explanation for his dilated pupils, was nearly the catalyst for a stampede as dozens of employees jumped from their chairs, visibly shaken that Nels might have key knowledge to which they were not privy. As Nels made his escape his Doc Martens clopped on the floor, and his Rastafarian hat fell off, freeing his dreadlocks to bounce wildly.

  On the staircase, Nels jostled past those already descending and forced them from his path as he drove towards the exit and the safety of the out of doors. Taking the steps three at a time, he bumped the aluminum cane from an elderly woman’s hands. The cane clattered down the cement stairs to the landing, where it came to rest. Nels ignored his wrongdoing, pushed on, and left the swampy smell of patchouli oil in his wake.

  Covertly making eye contact while nodding in agreement with one another, the persons in charge were unanimous in their read of the situation. They found it unfortunate Nels lacked the dedication and perspective necessary for management consideration. An observation recorded by his boss who scrawled feverishly in a folder held close to his vest.

  Frightened by Nels’ accusations, the employees who remained in the building stood, frantic and ready to stampede; their feet positioned as if in sprinters’ blocks. Traumatized by repeated layoffs, and absent all trust in their employer, the workers’ psyches are now hardwired to believe that some must be lost for any to survive. In this state, they would willingly trample one another if it increased the odds of remaining employed in the down turned economy. Agitated, and on the edge of fratricide, none listened as their bosses screamed to exit in a calm and orderly fashion, should they choose to stop work. The tension continued to grow as the deafening alarm rang.

  As if on cue, five minutes after the alarm sounded, Wayne, the Fire Marshall, appeared in an oversized fireman’s helmet clutching a bucket of water and a clipboard. It was unclear what information he intended the clipboard to manage, but he scribbled furiously in the breaks between blowing the whistle and his exhortations. In the past, Wayne declared the water a necessary evil given the risk of the job. He fully expected at some point to douse himself, run headlong into the flames, and cash in on his fame. The volunteer Fire Marshall’s job description was clear that he must be the last person to leave the building to earn, ‘Significantly Exceeds Expectations,’ rating on his annual review. With the kind of money in play that could drive a new Buick from the lot, darned few had a stronger incentive than Wayne to torch the place.

  Whistle held loosely between his lips Wayne blew loudly, a whisper on a scream as he competed with the alarm. “Out! All of you get out of the building. Leave everything, and get out. You need to leave now!” As Wayne shouted, water splashed wantonly from the bucket nestled in the crook of his arm holding the clipboard.

  Ignoring corporate protocol, and Wayne’s demands, the employees hurriedly began to gather their coats, purses, laptops, lunchboxes and anything else they thought they could not live without for at least the next twenty minutes. They were especially careful to gather up the things they thought their co-workers, or bosses, likely to steal.

  It was now nearly six minutes since the alarm sounded, and the masses, like cows to the barn, began the slow and deliberate walk to the exit where they would lumber down the cement stairs and perform the perfunctory building exit. The first to comply with Wayne’s demands was a group from across the hall. Walking in zombie-like fashion, their arms outstretched as they pantomimed the robot from the hit 1960s series, half dozen employees chanted, “Danger Will Robinson! Danger!” As they went they embraced the win-win situation that let them mock Wayne, and get the hell out of the building while appearing cavalier, not cowardly.

  Wayne swore quietly as the employees filed past. He hated all the sons of bitches that disrespected his authority, and these young upstarts fully met that criterion. “Goddamn hippies,” he mumbled.

  As the employees mobbed the stairway door they faced the crux move of deciding whether to skirt ahead of, or to remain behind, those immediately near them. An incorrect assessment of their co-workers fitness could force them to a rate of descent in which a fall was likely, or a pace so slow that if the building truly were on fire it was likely to come down upon them. It is tough to say what pace guaranteed survival in a real emergency, but few would argue there was much probability of getting out alive at the tail of this corporate pack. On site health facility and wellness programs notwithstanding, this company’s white collar staff was redolent with the obese and inactive.

  Nels, having brazenly passed the elderly and less athletic on his descent, exited first from the emergency exit and far ahead of the lumbering herd. “Thank God, I made it!” As he stepped from the building, he quickly made the sign of the cross. The piles of wet leaves, which litte
red the outskirts of the parking lot, bore silent witness to the miracle of his escape. Outside, Nels’ clothes flapped loudly about, and he quickly found himself soaked from the driving rain that fell from the low hung clouds.

  In the area immediately outside the building, the only protection from the elements was under the covered bridge that joined the executive parking lot to the building’s main entrance. Nels previously learned the covered bridge was for the sole benefit of upper management. His first attempt at finding a respite under the bridge, while rain poured and the alarm rang last spring, resulted in him nudged from the shelter, ass to ass, as upper management turned their backs on him and their ranks expanded. Physically pushed from the refuge Nels stood directly beneath the edge of the roof, in shame, where water poured down the back of his shirt. More wet than if he had been standing in the rain the whole time, he eventually left to join the huddle of his co-workers. Thinking it best not to repeat his mistake, Nels waited, alone and exposed, for the rest of the herd to join him.

  The first to join Nels was his friend Rico. Seeing Rico set Nels to laughing, “Dude, what is all over you?”

  “Huh?” Slow to realize it was raining, Rico pulled his shoulders up and tucked his chin low as he tried to keep the water from running down the inside of his shirt.

  “You’re covered in red powder. Look at you. What gives?”

  “Oh, what the hell?” Rico looked at his hands as if seeing them for the first time. “I think it’s Doritos.” Rico’s frying pan eyes provided the necessary explanation as to why his mouth, chin, and hands, were covered in henna like dust.

  “Looks like you had a bad spray tan experience. I thought you were making popcorn?”

  “Wait, you have popcorn?” Rico asked, clearly excited at the possibility and misunderstanding the question.

  “No. You were making popcorn. You shoved four bags in the microwave last I saw you.”

  “I was? Oh, shit. I must have totally forgotten and wandered off to the vending machine.”

  “That might explain why we’re standing out here, again.” This was not the first time Rico had emptied the building, naive to the black smoke that belched from the microwave while he fed quarters into the vending machine down the hall.

  “Note to self: I’ve got to quit getting high before lunch. It really leads to poor nutritional choices.”

  “And, standing in the rain.”

  “Right, and standing in the rain,” Rico added, popping a cough drop in his mouth.

  With the crowd in the parking lot growing, Barry, the company’s legal counsel, poked his nose from the door and sniffed. His little ears wiggled with the effort and added to his overall rat-like appearance; protruding and pointy nose; fallen chin; and black hair, greased and combed straight back. Uncomfortable in open spaces, preferring the confines of low ceilinged offices, traffic backed up as he worked up the courage necessary to scurry across the lot to the covered bridge. Surprisingly quick for a chubby little man, he crossed in a blur. As Barry ran, the rain beaded up on his cheap, brown polyester suit.

  Under the protection of the covered bridge, and out of the wind and rain, Barry held his phone in his sweaty palm and nervously ran his thumb over the key pad. While he fiddled with his phone, his beady black eyes stared intently at the building and he looked for the first sign of fire. An optimist at heart, Barry was unable to contain his exuberance at the possibility this might be his last day of corporate servitude and chanted, “Burn baby, burn. We don’t need no water.”

  As Barry stared at the building, he faced a conundrum; would the building burn and devalue the stock, or was this alarm false? He stood transfixed, consumed with a correct read of the situation. Should the building burn Barry could make a small fortune selling the stock short. A trading strategy based on the stock falling in value and a sure bet if headquarters was reduced to a pile of ash. However, to misread the situation and short the stock if the building were not headed to ashes would mean his financial ruin. To complicate matters, it would mean irrecoverable loss if Barry stood idle while the building was destroyed since the company stock, in which the majority of Barry’s wealth was held, would become worthless.

  Barry had to make a quick decision on whether to short, or hold, his equity positions as it would take time to execute the necessary transactions. Calling his stock broker was not an option. The Securities Exchange Commission was particularly strict on insider trading and Barry, a limp wristed, namby-pamby executive, would not fare well in prison. To avoid detection he would have to send a cryptic text message to his wife’s father thereby initiating the dealings. In the event Barry sent the text, and monies were made, the profits would be divvied up at a previously agreed upon split. Barry gnawed his lower lip as he sorted out how best to profit from the situation at hand.

  As Barry vacillated on whether to text his father in-law, he realized the Velcro closure on his shoe had unfastened and squatted to fix the strap. Standing back up, he found a group of smokers huddled nearby.

  The smokers, the only caste to cross socio-economic boundaries at work, stood in the driving rain and gusting winds with backs straight and chins up. Impervious to the weather, given their repeated exposure to the elements as they tended their nicotine addictions, few wore a coat.

  At the center of the smokers, and commanding everyone’s attention, stood The Chairman. Thin, tall, and in his late sixties, he kept his hair in a huge, gravity defying, snow white afro, which, from afar, made him look like a dandelion gone to seed. He wore a disco era polyester jacket in lime green, paisley tie, and lively electric blue silk shirt. With his alligator skin platform shoes proudly displayed beneath his bell bottoms, he stood a full three inches taller than his actual height and well over six feet tall. Inimitable in his finery, he was resplendent as he defied the hurricane like winds and conjured perfect smoke rings which rose, dissipated, and awed all watching. Miraculously, no rain fell on him.

  As if he were the messiah, The Chairman shared his life’s wisdom with the group that gathered close and encircled him. He preached the merits of tobacco, and cited Japan and France as definitive proof that smoking from a young age, and smoking often, drove longevity and wealth. Huddled tightly, the smokers gushed in hushed tones of what they would do with the extra life they were given as they danced on the graves of the non-smokers. Testifying to The Chairman’s persuasiveness, they lit their next cigarette off the butt of their last.

  Opposite the smokers, and closer to the building, stood the CIO, Shap, with his director level, servile brethren. Unlike Barry and The Chairman, Shap was without a meaningful equity position in the company. Poor posture and downcast eyes distinguished his group from the others clustered about the parking lot. Their repeated hazing, and firing as scapegoats for upper management’s mishaps, conditioned them to complete subjugation. Out of necessity, Shap, and the other directors, had adopted a survival strategy akin to that of the poisonous tree frog, or the colorful monarch, in which the investment to remain uneaten was significant, yet, as a result, the predators stood skittish in their presence. Both animals were fatally toxic if consumed. This group, which often spent every waking moment at work, was always the first to sue for discrimination or wrongful termination, and held encyclopedic knowledge of employee rights, benefits, and paid time off.

  At this point in their lives, Shap and his cohorts were well into their late thirties, and fully cognizant their pay raises would keep parity with the cost of living until they reached the maximum compensation for their position. History had shown that the few upper management positions which became vacant would inevitably be filled by outsiders, and they would never be selected for any meaningful opportunity. Stuck in a professional whirlpool, from which they would never move forward, they were also in the unenviable position of being hated by those they governed and, therefore, excluded from the camaraderie that previously made work tolerable. Having carried anything of value outside, Shap was les
s concerned about the building burning than the effort and time to find equally unfulfilling work elsewhere. Waiting to be ordered to go back inside, Shap stood and shivered.

  Among the last to leave the building, and barely outside the door hoping to capture whatever heat escaped, was Sue, an entry level analyst. A lusty, sultry brunette with bee stung lips and a dancer’s body, her peers clustered near and basked in her beauty. Sue and her group, all in their early twenties, could not fathom death and believed themselves ten feet tall and bulletproof. Prone to workplace romances, indiscretion, and routinely served by deputies in the lobby, they passed their nights in a drunken, orgy-fueled haze at clubs and parties as they downplayed their role at the bottom of the corporate food chain.

  With the recent realization that her work was closer to a McJob than a career, Sue hoped to marry out of her dire circumstances and leave the tedium of PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets far behind. That goal in mind, she had marked her calendar for today’s 2006 Board Meeting months ago. As she scanned the parking lot, dressed like a Tijuana prostitute and woefully unprepared for the weather in her low cut blouse, mini skirt, and sky scraper heels, she hoped for an opportunity to chat up The Chairman. She was disappointed to find the mega-lord holding court over a large crowd of smokers, and as she waited an opening to approach him she contemplated her alternative retirement strategy.

  Sue’s back-up plan, should marrying for money not work out, was a combination of American Idol, Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and lottery tickets; effectively summarized as taxes on the statistically challenged. Sue may be working for a long time. The odds of winning the big one were 1:195,000,000. By comparison, the odds of death by meteor were 1:700,000. Not thinking to look up for falling space rocks, Sue continued to watch The Chairman and the chance to improve her station in life.

  Unexpectedly, and with his incomplete sentence hanging in the air, The Chairman suddenly caught an oblique glimpse of Sue. As he turned to face her, he slid his sunglasses to the tip of his nose and ran his eyes up and down her body. Pick of the litter was part of his incentive package, and he liked what he saw. The Chairman assumed his most predatory stance, dropped his chin to his chest, and mouthed, “Meow,” then, so only he could hear he spoke to the heavens, “Render onto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”

  Holding his stare, Sue dramatically clawed the air with her right hand. “Meow, tiger,” she answered, her red nails flashing. With The Chairman’s rapt attention, Sue shrugged as if to say, “What gives, you naughty, naughty man?”

  The Chairman kept the ball in play, and answered by blowing a smoke ring, then spearing it with his index finger.

  Sue returned the volley by arching her eyebrows, and provocatively nibbling the tip of her thumb. With their courtship formally underway Sue fumbled in her purse, pulled out a small notebook, and crossed the item from her to-do list: Plan Retirement.

  Back inside, with the fourth floor nearly empty and the employees standing forlornly in the rain looking at the building and waiting for something to happen, Wayne spied the lone holdout. At his desk, surfing the internet, sat Mike.

  “It’s not worth dying over an e-mail Mike.”

  “It’s the microwave popcorn dickhead. It’s been the microwave popcorn every time. Why would I waste an hour walking up and down the stairs, and standing in the rain, when I know it’s popcorn. For whom does the bell toll? Freaking popcorn.”

  “That’s not true,” Wayne said emphatically, given he was rarely right. “Remember when the fish burned on four back in April? That crazy Puerto Rican, Rico, burned it like a son of a bitch. Come on man. Just get out of the damn building. You know I’ll get screwed in my review if this floor isn’t empty.”

  Mike smirked at the thought of Wayne getting screwed on his review because he couldn’t fulfill the pledge of the voluntary Fire Marshall.

  “C’mon, get out of the building,” Wayne implored Mike to leave.

  As Wayne hovered Mike became uncomfortable, relented, and started toward the exit. On his way, he looked back to make certain Wayne wasn’t following him.

  Wayne had a creepiness about him that made Mike want to move along. Something off putting about the overbite, greased pompadour, and satellite dish sized ears. Contributing to the instinct to remove himself from Wayne’s presence was Wayne’s slightly asymmetrical face. It gave the impression of a quartered apple, which was hastily reassembled with the pieces not quite in alignment. Mike also found it extremely troubling that Wayne’s zipper was never fully zipped, as if closing the last half inch was an insurmountable task. When Mike thought Wayne was no longer watching, he ducked into an open office and hid behind the door.

  Wayne didn’t really give a shit if Mike burned, in fact, he’d prefer it. He just didn’t want to deal with explaining why he couldn’t manage the simple task of emptying the floor. Best if both he, and Mike, pretended Mike wasn’t hiding behind the door.

  While Wayne pretended he didn’t see Mike hiding behind the door, the CFO, Alan, fell just outside the window screaming, “Leadership,” and wearing what looked to be a powder blue burqa. It was exactly twelve minutes since the alarm sounded.