Please Continue to Hold

Joshua Grasso

 

Construction again. One lane of Lewis—he didn’t know which, he couldn’t remember—was blocked off. He only remembered the second he made the right off 51^st Street and almost plowed into the car before him. Seven fifty-one. Of course his watch was fast, he set it that way on purpose. Red lights glared through the windshield. He had to get over, whether or not the Ford Explorer could see him at that altitude. There we go . . . just a few inches more . . .

 

Honnnnnnnkkkk!

 

Same to you, pal. A line of cars stretched into the distance, their drivers hastily applying makeup, mussing their hair, cursing the drivers in Tulsa. The classical station announced they would be playing Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony, performed by the English Baroque Soloists. Horns and flutes danced over the speakers as the cars lumbered forward, and construction workers, mulling between the lanes, looked daggers at the drivers. Why don’t you try working for a living, they glowered. Phillip smiled with a half-nod as he passed. Eight-oh-five. Again, it was fast. How fast he couldn’t remember. He was probably late.

 

A half minute to spare. He raced through the corridor, looking down at his shoes. Already the sounds of the office closed in: faxes spitting out endless information, chirrupy voices saying “let me just transfer you,” and the deafening hum of the florescent lights. The side of his head throbbed—the right side; a headache in the making. Just make it to your desk, he thought to himself. Everything will be okay if I can just reach my desk. A moment later he sank into the stiff chair and booted up his computer. His wall calendar offered up a platitude for the day—well, for three days ago. Phillip looked over his desk; some contract information from last week . . . a brochure from Deprag Power Tools—“we don’t screw around” . . . and a few sticky notes with phone numbers scrawled with silver ink. Couldn’t remember what they were for. He didn’t even own a silver pen.

 

“Hey Phil,” Paul yawned, from the next cubicle.

 

“I’m dead today, Paul,” he returned. “Just dead. Don’t have a single script in me. I could go home and never write another script—that’s how bad I feel.”

 

“Well, that’s why they pay us the big bucks. We didn’t go to college for nuthin’.”

 

“You fax out any résumés lately?”

 

“Nope, I’m married to the company,” Paul said. “One of the stipulations of my raise.”

 

“You got a raise?”

 

“Actually, no. Steve just called me into his office and said something about teamwork and facilitating a productive environment. Didn’t understand a word of it.”

 

Phillip’s computer was finally up. He logged into the system, opened a few windows, and today’s calendar flashed on the screen.

 

“Seen the calendar today?” Sara said, from behind him.

 

Phillip did. Ten scripts demanded his immediate attention. Instinctively, his eyes trailed down the list, sizing them up: nursing home . . . car dealership . . . something about hats . . . car dealership . . . bank . . . Italian restaurant . . . bowling alley . . . car dealership . . .

 

“Not for the faint of heart,” she added. “Hope you didn’t have plans tonight.”

 

“Or this morning,” Paul chuckled. “We’ve got the 4 M’s.”

 

Phillip blanked out. “The 4 M’s?”

 

In unison, Paul and Sara chimed: “Monday Morning Motivational Meeting. At eight-thirty.”

 

Phillip cowered under their laughter. Not today. Not like this. He opened Word and stared blankly at the cursor. It tapped impatiently against the screen. Well? You’re a writer, aren’t you—and what’s more, a scriptwriter. Let’s see some dynamic, result-oriented copy. Chop, chop!

 

Phillip wasn’t a writer, not anymore. He worked for On-Hold Impressions, an ad agency specializing in the “trend-setting” field of on-hold advertisements. Not the “press one for account information” stuff; no, this was the big time. Blood pumping muzak accompanied a peppy voice thanking people for holding, and announcing Company X’s commitment to customer service and continually exceeding your expectations—every time. The job of a scriptwriter—and a very important one, they were occasionally told—was to craft these one-page gems by the mile; preferably ten to twelve a day. Creativity was encouraged, naturally. Just so long as it didn’t interfere with one’s work.

 

“Listen to this, guys,” Sara giggled, flipping through a fax. “They want me to add: ‘and here’s a safety tip courtesy of your friends at Turner-Davis: Chemical drums are not workstations.’”

 

The room tittered with laughter. But it was a weary “so what’s new” laughter, as everyone had been asked to type the same thing last week, last month, last year. Phillip still remembered the opening of last week’s fax from Waste Solutions: “It’s a great day at Waste Solutions! When you call on our services, expect nothing less than the total approach to waste management.”

 

“Okay, focus,” he told himself, “you’re not getting paid to be sarcastic. You’re being paid to write . . . you’re a writer. A finely honed professional, skilled in stringing out reams of accomplished claptrap. And if nothing else, it’s paying off Sallie Mae . . . ”

 

After adjusting his monitor brightness—he was convinced the I.T. department tampered with his terminal at midnight—he settled down to the first script of the morning: Baron Eureka Hats. They made hats for the motion picture and television industry—and now, direct to the consumer. He had talked to their marketing assistant on Friday; they wanted something “creative,” something “out there,” but “professional” and “no nonsense.” Phillip suggested a dialogue—people loved dialogues, especially when the naïve consumer spoke to his learned neighbor about the virtues of Company X. They said fine. He didn’t have much else to go on, except that Crocodile Dundee wore their hats in Crocodile Dundee II. A Paul Hogan joke? Nah, it was too early. What to write . . .

 

The cursor pounded against the screen; he could practically hear it. An idea—he typed “thank you for holding”—but erased it. He switched to 1.5 spacing. Tabbed over. Changed to “page view.” Paged up and down. Still nothing.

 

Ping! He had an e-mail. Gratefully, he opened his box and found the subject heading: “I Hate this Stinking Place.” It was from Christina, whose cubicle was on the farthest side of the room. But she always made herself heard. “Who the hell do they think we are, anyway? I’ll be damned if they think I’m working overtime for nothing—I mean, hello, they’re the ones who can’t hire enough people to write their propaganda.”

 

No time to reply—what to say, anyway? Back to the script. Have to be witty—something Hollywood? Think, man, think. He stared at the keyboard. The ‘F’ and ‘B’ were completely rubbed out. Was he responsible—or the guy he replaced? Maybe Paul knew. He was tempted to ask, but Paul was on the phone with some client: “Okay, sir, and when did you want that by? Tomorrow? Well, you see, sir, first we have to conduct an interview, and then . . . ”

 

Focus.

 

Phillip typed a line from Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.” He always liked that line. It probably didn’t belong in a script about Baron Eureka Hats—unless, of course, Vronsky was sporting an original Baron Eureka. There might be something in that . . .

 

“Is your computer freezing up?” Sara said, more to herself. “Mine is. Just started, too, and everything went. Guess I’ll just reboot then . . . ”

 

Wait a minute, he had something. It wasn’t much, but it was an “in,” a way to get the juices flowing—he could always erase it later. But hey, this wasn’t Russian literature, it was a stinking on-hold script. Phillip hammered it out, muttering under his breath: “From “Gunsmoke” to “Back to the Future” . . . from “The Alamo” to “The Blues Brothers 2000,” Baron Eureka Hats have always been in the spotlight. You might just say we have “True Grit.’”

 

Not bad—not bad at all. The cheesy muzak seemed to swell around him, a gentle, light rock beat . . . cue the voice talent. It would sell.

 

“Attention all OHI Employees; please convene in the customer service department in five minutes for our morning meeting.”

 

Groans all around. Sara gestured at her computer, still rebooting. Paul grimaced at the client on the other side of his headset. Other employees filed past their cubicles—some Phillip didn’t even know. So much for inspiration. He would never get back in the flow now, not after a Monday Morning Motivational Meeting.

 

The employees of OHI gathered around the customer service cubicles. Phillip knew a few of them by name—when they transferred calls to the Scripting department they always said “Hi, this is Jessica,” or “Hi, this is your momma.” He took a seat beside Sara and another co-worker, Michael. Legs, arms, and brows were crossed. The president strode in with an impeccably tailored suit, hair moussed in an executive helmet, and a carefully groomed goatee. He surveyed his company—his people, people he knew by name and a few he didn’t. A nod to the vice president; it was time to begin.

 

“People, it’s been a while since we could meet like this, but I think today will be a true blessing for all of us. Before we start, I want you to look around . . . savor your teammates. They’re the lifeblood of this company. And they’re the reason OHI is still the number one on-hold company in the nation.”

 

Phillip was pretty sure they were the only on-hold company in the nation. But being number one by default had its virtues.

 

“So with that in mind,” he concluded, a twinkle in his eye, “I want you each to remember something you’ve seen one of your coworkers do recently that was above and beyond the call of duty. Anybody. Something that reflects the ‘spirit of excellence’ we try to instill here at OHI. I’ll start with you.”

 

“You” was a customer service rep who stared back in terror. No one had seen her before, though Phillip was pretty sure she had been hired last week. The president waited. The vice-president came up behind him and whispered something. He want blank for a moment, then responded: “ahh . . . yes, welcome aboard. We value your contribution to the OHI team. Let’s hear from someone else, how about . . . you.”

 

He pointed, naturally, to Phillip. Phillip cleared his throat.

 

“Stand up, let everyone see you.”

 

Phillip stood. Coughed. Blushed. Said something about how Paul had caught a typo in a script before it was sent to production. That it was a good call.

 

“You see, that’s teamwork,” the president beamed. “Catching those . . . you know, those things before they go on to that place . . . good work. Who’s next?”

 

The meeting ended with a motivational reading from the executive bible, Even Eagles Need a Shove. The president read haltingly, taking time to pronounce the big words. Phillip stared at the president’s shoes, which reflected the florescent lights, and if possible, intensified them. His head throbbed.

 

“So when you return to your workstations,” the president projected, rubbing his hands, “when you answer that next call from a client, remember . . . check up from the neck up. It all starts with you. Customer service isn’t a department, it’s an attitude. Let’s make it a great day, team.”

 

Scattered applause. The president and his retinue departed; moments later their SUVs pulled out en masse for the golf club. Everyone else went back to work.

 

There were four e-mails waiting for Phillip. Apparently Christina hid in her cubicle during the meeting. He glanced through them, but they were the typical fare: “I’m not going to any stinking meeting . . . hello, I went to college, I was magna cum laude—and no, that doesn’t mean corporate drone . . . I could smack that smug-ass new-money grin right off his goatee face!!!” He sympathized, but had a script to write; eleven scripts, to be precise. Baron Eureka Hats . . . where was he going with this . . . who was Baron Eureka? An actual baron, a clever moniker, what?

 

“Check up from the neck up, give me a frigging break,” Sara muttered, returning to her seat. “I’m not doing crap today, calendar or no calendar. Just surfing the web and reading my mail.”

 

Ping! went her e-mail.

 

“See? My public calls.”

 

Phillip deleted the entire last sentence. Maybe the company was the problem—he wasn’t warmed up yet. He needed something to cut his teeth on, a script he could regurgitate on command. A bank.

 

Ping! He ignored it.

 

Phillip pulled up the information for First National Bank of Althoosa Bay. They wanted a Halloween-themed script promoting their cds and affordable boat loans. Inspiration! He quickly pulled up an old bank script, replaced the name in every paragraph, and added in bold at the top: “(Insert Halloween music).” Oops—he forgot about the affordable boat loans. Biting his lip, he crammed “be sure to ask about our affordable boat loans” in between “we appreciate your business” and “please continue to hold.” Perfect. One script done—send it to proofing. Nine thirty-five. Ten scripts left. And he already started that Baron Eureka business, so that didn’t count. Nine scripts. Ah, but the car dealerships really took care of themselves, and the Italian restaurant just needed some Italian music, a reference to The Godfather . . .

 

Okay, so about five scripts.

 

“God, this guy!” Paul exclaimed, throwing off his headset. “He kept trying to tell me how to do my job. ‘Now listen here, son,’ he told me, ‘I’ve been writing copy for decades, and I know what I like. I want that phrase ‘e-commerce business solutions,’ and that other one about the ‘one stop shop.’ You get that?’ Jesus! So, how was the meeting?”

 

“I’ll write you an e-mail,” Sara said.

 

Back to Baron Eureka, then. Perhaps he could add “for your complete e-commerce business solutions,” or “your one-stop shop for hats worn in Crocodile Dundee II? Hmm . . .

 

Ping! This time from Matt, three cubicles down.

 

“Hey, do you have any trivia for National Family Fun Month? This client requested trivia about National Family Fun Month(!) What the $#*$&*!! is National Family Fun Month? Is it a national holiday—should I know about it? Should I send my parents a card?

 

Phillip had never heard of National Family Fun Month, so he replied “National Family Fun Month is the time when we get together and share that most precious of all commodities in this fast paced world: fun. We’ll return to your call in a moment, but in the meantime . . . have a ball.”

 

“They get what they ask for,” Matt responded.

 

Okay, now I’m recharged, Phillip decided. Forget all this nonsense I wrote before—it’s silly and pretentious. Too consciously jokey. A dialogue, that’s where I see Baron Eureka headed. Hmm . . . between two gunslingers, Spaghetti Western style. His fingers began frantically typing the keys. Several seconds passed before he ran out of steam. Better look it at, survey the damage. Phillip stalled for a few minutes, picking cat hairs from his shirt. Then he stared at the monitor; start from the top.

 

Gunfighter#1 (sound of spitting): There’s not enough room in this town for the both of us.

Gunfighter#2 (more spitting): You don’t say.

#1: I’m the fastest gun in the West! Draw!

 

Okay, it’s a start. A definite start. But the fastest gun in the West? Too predictable. There should be a joke there. He didn’t know any jokes. After a moment’s deliberation he hammered out “I’m the fastest gun this side of Rome” (a bad play on Spaghetti Westerns—he would change it later). Now to the response—the tension’s building. Oh, the comedic possibilities! And Gunfighter #2 says . . . come to think of it, what did people say in Westerns? He could only think of “draw” and “saddle up.” Not that he recalled ever seeing any Westerns.

 

“Oh, five minutes to lunch,” Sara yawned, stretching her arms over the cubicle wall. “Who wants to go to St. Louis Bread?”

 

Lunch? Horrified, he glanced at his watch: eleven-forty. But he just started—he just sat down to write—the meeting just ended—he only had two lines—eight, no five more scripts to go—he wouldn’t have time—

 

“Yeah, St. Louis sounds great,” he sighed. “I’ll drive.”

 

Phillip spent the entire time obsessed with his dialogue. He rarely had writer’s block—in this job you couldn’t afford it. On a typical day, lunchtime found him with five scripts under his belt, and a sixth in the works. Today he had nothing; a bank script, sure, and a few car dealerships, which he largely could cut and paste, but what about Baron Eureka Hats? Or the Italian restaurant? Or the bowling alley?

 

“Planning to finish those chips?” Paul asked.

 

“Take them,” Phillip said, pushing them over. “How’s your script count?”

 

“Sheez, with all the phone calls—two, maybe. Thank God my phone shift is ending . . . then you can try explaining to that madwoman from Mt. Kisco, New York that yes, she has an unlimited package, and yes, that means we can write as many scripts as she wants in a year, and no, I can’t write them all today—”

 

He cursed through a mouthful of potato chips.

 

“I don’t know . . . I can’t write anything today,” Phillip said. “It took me an hour just to write a bad joke. It’s really terrible, a complete embarrassment . . . do you want to hear it?”

 

“No,” they both said.

 

“Come on, guys, what’s wrong with me? I feel so burned out, I just don’t know if I have eleven scripts in me today. Or tomorrow, or for the rest of the week. What am I supposed to do?”

 

“Quit,” Sara grinned. “Old legends tell of a few, brave souls who ventured into the beyond . . . who rediscovered their enthusiasm for living.”

 

“Pah, legends,” Paul scoffed. “I need my twenty thousand a year.”

 

“You only make twenty thousand?” Sara asked. “Well, I sure couldn’t live on that.”

 

“What . . . you mean . . . you make . . . ”

 

“Shh, we’re not supposed to discuss our salaries outside of work,” she said, downing a pickle. “But confidentially, I make twenty thousand five.”

 

“You—” Paul chuckled, wagging his finger.

 

Phillip stared down at his food—a half eaten Fiesta Chicken sandwich. Somehow, it reminded him of his script. Must be the mustard.

 

When he returned to his desk there were five e-mails waiting. Christina . . . Christina . . . Christina . . . I.T. Department . . . Management. The I.T. Department wanted to remind everyone to power down during lunch so they could re-index the computers; the head of the department was always on about missing “data packets,” which he concluded were the direct result of turning on the computers. Management had a more ominous suggestion:

 

“Employees, please turn in your “Personal and Corporate Goals” sheets to Kelly before leaving work. These are important in evaluating your future contribution to OHI and will be placed in your personal drop file. Please refrain from listing “learning a second language,” or “quitting smoking” from your personal goals; all personal goals should be work related. Remember, it starts with you.”

 

Delete. Delete.

 

Ping! Christina.

 

“Are you getting my e-mails? I think something’s wrong with my computer, no one’s responding to me! Are you guys out there? Hello???”

 

Back to Baron Eureka. He was making too much of this—simple, be direct and simple. Market, sell, advertise! Forget being creative, he wasn’t paid to be creative, he was being paid for typing eighty-odd words a minute. He would kill for eighty words today.

 

Concentrate! It infuriated him to think that the entire script, every blasted word of it lay hidden somewhere beneath that keyboard. Phillip could almost see it—a joke crawling between the “H” and the “J,” a clever tag line curled up under the “backspace.” Come out, I command you (shades of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice); I invoke the legions, a horde of words—preferably around three hundred or so—to march across the screen and perform my nefarious will! Script, be written! To complete his diabolical spell he mashed a random sequence of keys, evoking a lost, Babylonian tongue: “ffffffffkkkkkkkskskfkgkkdkgkdgdkgkdkeivnv!”

 

He deleted the entire script. Start from scratch.

 

“Hey, Phil, I’m logging off now—you’re up to bat,” Paul said, removing his headset.

 

Dismally, Phillip punched in his ID number. The phone immediately started ringing.

 

“Scripting, this is Phillip, how may I help you?” he chirped.

 

A lady on the other end claimed that she was being given the “run around,” and made him promise not to transfer her. He promised.

 

“My salesperson assured me that you had authentic Italian voice talents!” the lady shouted, placing her somewhere on the East Coast. “But this tape you gave me, what the hell do you call that—it sounds like what you people call yourselves—what is it, Okies?”

 

Phillip said that occasionally, certain voice talents were unavailable due to the fact—

 

“Unavailable? I paid for them to be available! What’s wrong with you—who am I talking to? Are you in contact with my salesperson?”

 

“Regrettably—”

 

“I run an important restaurant—I am very respected,” she thundered. “I asked for an Italian voice talent, not this yahoo who pronounces “trattoria” “tray-tor-ee-uh!” What kind of place are you running there? Or better yet, what are you going to do about this—that’s what I want to know. What do you intend to do?”

 

Phillip said he would be happy to schedule a reread with a more “Italian” sounding voice talent, but—

 

“Okay, do it—fine! When will I have it?”

 

The inevitable question. Well, if he sent it back to production for a “rush” reread, then they were looking at . . . say, three working days?

 

“Three days?” she screamed, “what’s wrong with you? What am I supposed to do until then? I have nothing on-hold! I can’t have silence—I run a respected restaurant—I make people wait! Why can’t you do it right, that’s what I paid you for! If you think I’m paying for this—”

 

“Of course not,” he interrupted, “we never charge for re—”

 

“Have you ever heard Italian? Well, have you? Maybe I should come in and read—I’m Italian. But wait a minute, I’m not sure I’m available.”

 

Phillip twisted the cord around his finger. Tight.

 

“This isn’t brain surgery, it’s on-hold messages! It isn’t even advertising—I don’t know why I fell for this cockamamie sales pitch! What are you going to do about it? I’ve asked you a thousand times but you just keep talking about three days. I don’t have three days!”

 

Phillip finally suggested that he transfer her—

 

“NO! You help me—what’s wrong, you don’t know what you’re doing? Bastardo! I need to speak to someone who knows what they’re doing—let me speak to your manager, maybe he speaks Italian.”

 

Phillip transferred her to someone in customer care; he was pretty sure they didn’t speak Italian.

 

“Ouch,” said Sara, reading between the lines.

 

The phone rang. Adjusting his headset, he took the call . . . and another call . . . and the ten other calls that followed. By then it was three forty-three.

 

Ping! Michael.

 

“Hey, are you still logged on the phone? Your shift ended forty minutes ago. Unless you like taking calls . . . ”

 

He quickly logged off. Glanced at the calendar. Strange . . . it looked the same as it had this morning. Back to . . . whatever script was he working on . . . ah yes, Baron Eureka. What did he have so far . . .

 

Nothing. A blank screen, an infinite white void, broken only by the flashing black cursor, taunting him. Perhaps he simply wasn’t cut out for the world of advertising? Well, of course not—is anyone? His thoughts drifted back to the grad school application lying untouched on his desk; he could fill it out tonight and mail it in morning. He imagined himself having to write a paper instead of a script; writing about Conrad or the poetry of Philip Larkin. The thought of another on-hold script became all the more terrifying. Oh, the horror, the horror . . .

 

I’m just going to type, he told himself. Practice what Yeats called “automatic writing.” The spirit will come to me and the shlock will pour out. He channeled the spirit of on-hold advertising—it spoke to him in a deluge of hokum. Like Coleridge’s opium dream, he only caught a few lines:

Gunslinger #1: Prepare to draw! (pause) Say, that’s a real nice hat you’ve got on. Italian?

#2: It’s a Baron Eureka. All the best lawmen were them. John Wayne . . . Kevin Costner . . . Michael J. Fox. The hero always wears a Baron Eureka. Which is probably why I signed on for the sequel.

#1: There’s a sequel?           

#2: Yep. And here’s something else you might not know. Baron Eureka is releasing a new line of custom-made ball caps, t-shirts, and quality sombreros. Just the thing for the little lawman at home.

 

Hmm, apparently he had a bad connection.

 

Ping! Christina.

 

“Can you vouch for me that I’ll be throwing up tomorrow morning? I’m not coming in—I’m scouring the classifieds. Something has to be better than this. Just say you came over and I was green—or blue, whatever color you like. Just make it messy. Oh—and can I borrow Sunday’s paper? I used mine to wrap a package inJ!”

 

Phillip wrote back and said sure, he would vouch for her, and asked if she knew any interesting trivia. Clients loved trivia.

 

“Is anyone else’s computer freaking out?” Sara grumbled. “My cursor froze and my window’s flashing. No? Just me, then . . . it’s always me.”

 

Ping! “Well, whenever I ask for a coke at a restaurant, they say “what?” or just assume I said “diet coke.” Is it because I’m a woman? I say, distinctly, “coke,” but they just look at me like I have a speech impediment. Do you mean diet, they want to ask. So I say “just a regular coke.” And they serve me a diet. Am I fat, or am I so beautifully defined that only a diet cola can preserve my delicious shape? Which one, take your pick? How that’s for trivia? What are you writing, anyway?”

 

A masterpiece, he thought to himself. He copied her entire e-mail and pasted it into his script. Not bad—just a few hundred or so more words. But why stop there? After contemplating the abyss he plunged in head first. He copied and pasted her other e-mail—no, all her e-mails—into the script and checked the word count. Four hundred fifty. The script was done. True, it was a tad unconventional, but it met all the requirements: under five hundred words long, catchy, humorous, and it would sound marvelous spoken by one of their soothing, syrupy voice talents. Especially the part about “smacking that smug-ass new money grin right off his goatee face.” If they didn’t like it they could always revise it; clients never liked the first draft. So why not skip a step and offer one that was doomed for rejection—start fresh on the second. Genius! He scooted it off to production. Next!

 

Uncle Guybob’s Four Star Lanes, “where fun is just a strike away!” It was actually a rewrite of a script Paul wrote last week; they hated it. Paul, in a stroke of scriptwriting genius, sent Niles and Frasier Crane to Uncle Guybob’s. Comedy—and a good deal of advertising—ensued. Now he had to rewrite it. Well, what did they want with a name like Uncle Guybob’s? He glanced at the clock: four-fifteen. Panic.

 

“Hey, you need any help, Phil? Your calendar still looks pretty hairy,” Paul asked.

 

“Ah, no . . . taking care of it,” he said.

The terrible realization sunk in: he had spent the entire day writing that Baron Eureka script. Seven hours! Only to have Christina write it! He had to face it . . . by now it was inevitable . . . he didn’t like his day job.

 

Fine, it’s good to know these things. Okay, so ten scripts left—seven if you didn’t count the car dealerships (but at this hour, you pretty much had to). Even in his prime he couldn’t pull that off; he didn’t have enough words in his head. There was only one thing to do. Bump them. Bump them to tomorrow’s calendar. He could do it all in a few mouse clicks. The temptation was overwhelming; but then he recalled the words of today’s motivational meeting—“check up from the neck up . . . it all starts with you.”

 

Uncle Guybob’s Four Star Lanes. Bump.

 

Heritage Living Center. Bump.

 

Northridge Nissan. Bump.

 

Il Giardino. Bump.

 

Bump. Bump. Bump.

 

That left fifteen scripts for tomorrow. But that was tomorrow, he would feel better then. Just get through today. At times, he felt like a recovering twelve-stepper. There was no longer any looked-forward-to tomorrow; everything was one long today. The same job, the same scripts, the same lack of inspiration. His only hope was to read a good book tonight . . .

 

Five o’clock. Click off another day at OHI. Around sixty or so scripts were faxed to their respective clients. Computers were turned off, keys jingled, and a few people, the nicer ones, anyway, muttered “have a good one” on their way out. Phillip stared at the blackened monitor. He couldn’t do this anymore. He simply wasn’t a good enough writer—or bad enough, as the case may be. Quit while you’re ahead, he told himself. Which would have been last year . . .

 

“Come on, out of that chair, you,” Sara said, lifting him up. “You’re going home—remember, home? The nice place without cubicles, and terminals, and twenty page faxes. Go home.”

 

Phillip gave her a quick hug and walked to his car. The sunny day had become overcast with a slight wind (there was a chance of rain, he recalled). Opening his car door, he stared at the endless wall of traffic on Lewis. So he got in and just sat there, the sounds of the stalled traffic mingling with the crisp, October breeze. The classical station buzzed on and off, a faint snatch of Mahler. But he just sat there. Waiting.