The Hate Triangle
On the particularly mild mid December morning getting close to lunch, Ray Evans first spotted the girl who would change his life, he'd been trying to finish his quota of a hundred and forty insurance forms a day and had stalled out on an error code that he'd never seen before.
He'd only caught a passing glimpse of her, but it was enough for a lasting image. It was one of those moments, but as quickly as it came, it was forgotten.
The error code he’d been getting was 99.9zg. After a while, he realized that he wasn't going to find the answer without finding out if someone else knew. In a panic, he rapidly clicked through multiple windows and tried to get back on track, but the answer refused to come, so he eventually leaned way back in his chair, stretched and looked way beyond the flimsy walls of his cubicle.
A big world spread out before him, one which he’d rarely had a chance to be part of while working a day job that sometimes went for ten hours and longer. They'd hired him because of his ability to shut out distractions, no matter what and focus on the routine. But what distracted him today was different. On the other side of the room, late afternoon sunlight called his attention to a face that was so unblemished by age, that even a glimpse of her lasted longer in his memory.
The anonymous smiling girl was silhouetted in front of the bright afternoon sun and seemed to be looking his way. But she didn't acknowledge him and seemed to be looking past him.
There was nothing remarkable about Ray. His face is long and narrow, with thinning salt and pepper colored hair, droll close-set eyes and cheeks that tapered off to a chin that was too small and with a wart on it's left side. Never one for exercise, last year the spare tire finally began to become more than just an unsightly bulge. Also, by his fortieth birthday which was rapidly approaching in only two weeks, he still had no plans to celebrate it with anyone.
While Ray was distracted, his boss: Ritchie Loudner came up from behind him.
"Evans!" Loudner cried, like the full-grown bully he was. "Or should I call you slacker?"
"No Sir," Ray breathed, always polite. His attention had been pulled immediately back to his computer screen, but not soon enough.
“Evans! I caught you daydreaming and you want to pretend it's business as usual?”
“I had an exception that I couldn't get an answer for,” Ray said, hoping that his boss would lean in for a moment and help.
“You didn’t go to our help desk? We’ve got a certain level of productivity to maintain!” his boss cried, scowling at him in the kind of way that gave him indigestion.
“I didn't know you had a help desk."
Loudner nodded to the girl.
"She is the help desk,” he asked, feeling like Ray had just missed something fundamentally important. Ray had nothing to add so Loudner let him have it with both barrels.
"You're not working out here anymore" he spat angrily and unexpectedly out of the blue.
Without even the slightest hint that it would all come crashing down in a moment, Ray asked for clarification, just to make sure that he'd heard correctly.
“I said: you’re fired,” his boss said, impatiently. “Get your things and get the hell out!”
Ray accepted the bad news like he would a death sentence, mutely and somberly. He’d been rejected so many times before, that he even thought there was no love left in the world. But that was just him. Everyone else seemed to be doing fine.
"This decision has been a long time coming and it's final. You are not cut out for this kind of work,” Loudner stated, and then awaited Ray's reaction.
"I was trying to solve an exception to the rule. Are you certain I’m fired?" Ray asked politely, but fighting back tears.
"The help desk is right over there. Is there anything else that is obviously confusing that I can clarify?" Loudner said, pointing to the girl who now had her back turned to them and was busy with someone else. There had been a brief window of opportunity that Ray had missed.
Loudner continued to look through a stack of papers in his right hand until he found what he was looking for and pulled it out.
"What's this? I found it posted in the employee break room," Loudner said, handing it to Ray.
Again it was Ray’s turn to express surprise, holding what Loudner handed him like he was handling a hot coal, clearly surprised that someone had printed out one of his Facebook postings. In short, he'd used sarcasm and humor to describe the futility of "being lost in a long, dull and repeating day." Loudner had already reread it five times, for he loved the style.
"I had nothing to do with putting it up," Ray argued, defensively.
"I know you didn't. But several people in management have already seen it and they think you have potential, son," Loudner said, with a wink. It was too bizarre that this happened when he'd been about to be fired.
"You want me to stay? Or am I through here?" Ray asked, already having started to clear out his desk when Loudner's face visibly softened.
“No, sit down," he said, pausing to let Ray recover from the shock of another sudden unexpected change.
"We might be able to make a deal. Have you ever felt like you'd be better off doing something else?" Loudner asked.
"Yes," Ray whispered.
"What?"
"Writing."
Loudner nodded as if he understood perfectly.
"Simmons liked what you wrote. Do you have anything else?”
There was a short delay where Ray blinked twice and seemed to understand that there was still hope.
"S-sure," he said, with a noticeable stutter and without delay went to the lower side drawer of his desk and pulled out a manuscript that he'd finished but had kept there without knowing what to do with it.
"I've worked on this one for a long time," Ray said, handing it over. With the manuscript in hand, Loudner grabbed a chair and pulled it up too close to Ray.
"I know that you are better at writing than processing forms," he said in a low speaking tone, his breath smelling of sausage. "So how would you like to stay on and try to write for our newsletter?"
Ray barely knew how to respond. It was all happening so fast.
"I didn't know you had a newsletter," Ray said, stuttering at first, but managing to get it all out.
“We don't. Not yet. But you'll be heading it up, to help to improve this company's image,” Loudner explained.
Ray was distracted again by activity from across the room. She had her long blonde hair and innocent twenty something appearance, but she averted her eyes when she became aware that he'd noticed her.
"If you stay, you can move into a corner office one floor up and get a raise," Loudner said, proudly.
"The Fifth floor?"
"A corner office. We need a writer to bolster our image as an American company as we move our production facilities to China."
Ray appeared to be pained by that announcement, but agreed to take the job and then almost in a daze, followed Loudner upstairs to his new office.
Two cardboard boxes held all his belongings. He just carried them to his new office on the top floor as if he'd acquired a second wind. He didn't even unpack when he got there but went right into his work and stayed up until late that evening, long after everyone else was gone.
Blazing through his notes from years of texts and journals, all of which could be used to attack anyone who played games and didn't step up to th production level they required, he put together a fluff piece that was such bullshit that he had to laugh. But he had a strong feeling that the ploy would work.
There was something about Ray as he currently was, that depressed Ritchie Loudner. Literally, the forty year old had a loveless existence and seemed to get by like that. He'd seen it in the homeless, like sheep being led to their own slaughter. All his life, Ritchie had thought of himself as a wolf, and then there were employees like Ray who were the sheep. So Loudner knew how to treat them effectively. He could not let this loser get the best of him.
Beyond his fifth floor office window was a lost city. Once a great destination for seekers of truth and peace with it's mild temperatures in the winter, they'd long ago worn out their welcome and so all that was left was the money. People followed the money here, and they commuted, even if they could afford the cost of living. You weren't supposed to question why someone slept on your doorstep, someone who smelled because he never bathed or moved. You had to step over the same man everyday when you entered the front door of work, so you got used to it. Richie even believed sometimes that the homeless had been left out as a reminder.
The new job that Loudner had promoted Ray to actually had an agenda. He was being paid the same as he had for processing forms but the job was temporary. They weren't going to keep him on after they got his initial ideas for their current ad campaign.
Midnight was not the best time to be alone in the office, since the denizens of the night were out tonight in all their stinking weirdness. But Ray was there still at three in the morning because Ritchie could see his light on.
He needed to take care of business and get out of town. The cardboard boxes and tarps had come out for sleeping on the sidewalks, which were also littered with drug syringes, trash, and feces, made it certain you didn't want to be anywhere near them. Many hovered around fire barrels during brisk overnights when sometimes the temperatures dipped into the forties.
Ray Evans had just been given a rare opportunity to do something he'd only dreamed of, to write and be compensated for it. But nothing could last when it was just business as usual, with profits and secrecy taking priority over personnel. That was the board’s decision, anticipating billion dollars of extra profit.
Ray’s new office was on the far corner of the fifth floor. After midnight he felt quite vulnerable, being the only one there. The cleaning crew had long left and all the lights were still on but at night sometimes he thought he heard things that couldn’t be explained. With a long day before him and lots of worries, he fell asleep sitting in his chair. When his phone rang, he awoke and answered it but he was sadly aware of a painful stiff neck.
"What?" he barked, massaging the back of his neck with his right hand.
"You should really think about going home and getting some sleep in a bed," said the familiar voice on the other end. It took him a second to remember that he was in his new office and it was the boss who'd promoted him who was calling.
"I'm going to stay up a little later. I'm onto something good," Ray said in a monotone, as if it were a joke partially remembered while pulling himself together.
"Seriously, sometimes I don't understand you. Get some sleep and be prepared for the meeting at noon where you'll have a chance to prove yourself,” Loudner stated.
“Yes. That’s why I’m still here. The meeting is on short notice,” Ray noted, since he hadn't been aware that there would be a meeting so soon.
He knew he wouldn’t have a chance unless his ideas were just right and once again the pressure was on to get up to speed and do better than he was expected to. As long as he’d been with this company, Ray competed with those who kept up an almost reckless level of production. If they were using some kind of performance enhancer, he didn't know what except that he'd never been able to keep up. But now it was his ideas that he needed to bring, lots of good ones flowing freely.
"Yes I understand that it may seem overwhelming at first, but this is a chance for getting some power," Loudner stated, as if reading Ray's mind."I’m anxious to see what you’ve written. We need good ideas right now. I have faith in you, Ray.”
Ray breathed easy when Loudner hung up.
Only a few seconds later, there was an abrupt bang from downstairs to disturb the silence, like something made of glass had dropped and broken, a clumsy entrance of one or more intruders. Following that came the distinct sounds of someone plodding up the stairs.
As slow and methodical as the footsteps were, he should have been tipped off. But his fear level kept rising the further up the stairs that the intruder got. A panic set in because he was alone, it was the middle of the night and the supposed safety of a lit building now felt like a trap. He thought about calling the police but that was as far as he got. It was as if he were frozen in time and unable to move. He dropped down below his office desk after turning out his office lights and stayed there as he waited for whoever it was, to reach the fifth floor.
He held his breath and waited as the footsteps reached his floor. Then the lights came on.
"Hey Ray! I just happened to be in the area and thought I'd surprise you," his boss shouted.
"You did surprise me," Ray breathed, exhaling in relief and standing to see his boss and another man walking rapidly down the aisle his way.
"You remember when we spoke a few minutes ago? I’d given you a heads up about someone. This is him,” Loudner said, shoving a short Asian man forward. The man was all smiles and glad to meet Ray.
“This is Mr. Chang. He’s a representative from China.”
“Call me Yang,” the man said, moving forward to shake Ray’s hand, which he did with great respect. It could be assumed that he was very happy to be meeting Ray although the hour was late.
"Could this have waited until tomorrow?" Ray whispered, his heart still pounding.
"No. You're awake now, right?" Loudner said, his amiable smile turning to a frown.
"Yes. But I'm tired and not at my best."
"You will when you work with our friend here," Loudner said, and Yang took a seat in an adjoining desk chair, rolling it close to Ray.
Ray went immediately to his outbox and found the papers he'd just been working on. He then showed them to Yang, who took them in hand.
“You see? He’s a hard worker."
Chang made a show of riffling through the pages quickly and then bowed to Ray.
"What's it about?" Yang asked, in broken English.
"Someone who gets refused just for having the nerve to ask for something, but finds a way to get what he wants anyway in an unexpected way," Ray explained.
"It's a winner," Yang exclaimed, standing suddenly after stuffing the papers hastily in his right pocket.
"It will be when I get it finished," Ray said, forcing a quick smile. He was too tired to ask for the pages back.
Yang's hand then went gently to Ray’s shoulder as it would for a big brother and Loudner, backing off, said quietly: "I’m going to leave you two together since you’ll want to hear what he has to say."
When Loudner left the room, suddenly Yang seemed bigger and louder.
“He started by explaining that he was a “Ladyboy” in another life, getting Ray into the kind of embrace that was hard to get out of. He acted like they were real friends who'd known each other for awhile.
“It’s late. I guess I’ll call it a night,” Ray said, collecting the papers he’d been working on and shutting off his monitor. He ushered Yang out, turning the lights off after him and then started for the stairs, Yang following him all the way to the lower landing.
Once he made it to the front door and he realized that Yang was would not leave him, Ray turned to him and asked: “Can we save our first date for tomorrow night, Mr. Yang?” Ray asked and realized that once again there seemed to be a misunderstanding because Yang dropped his pants, causing a passing cab to come to a screeching halt.
Ray got the cab, and he only breathed again when the cab had taken off, leaving Ray in it’s dust. But he couldn't turn away. He wanted to be successful but wondered what it would cost him. Already, it was costing him a lot. So he went back to his office, to the couch where he could catch a little sleep.