The Fuck-Up

In the few business hours that I had slept through that morning, she had called a locksmith and had her lock cylinder changed. It was only then that I realized the unshakeability of her resolution. I got pissed and started to kick the door, but after a while I calmed myself and decided to leave a note: “All is not as bad as it seems. I swear that in the course of our relationship, I never made love to anyone but you. If you don’t believe me you can ask the popcorn girl. I love you dearly and it pains me that you won’t even talk to me. I am staying at Helmsleys. Please give me a call when you can. I love you.”

When I left her building, I was so confident that everything was repaired that I marched full steam over to the cinema to reclaim my lost job. When I got there, I asked the box office girl if I could see Pepe. She spoke to him on the intercom and then said go right in. As I passed through the theater, I saw some new kid holding a flashlight and laughing at the film. He had obviously just been hired to fill my spot. When he noticed me heading for the office, he intervened.

“What the hell do you want?”

“Pepe,” I replied.

“Oh, you’re Pepe.” He didn’t even have the brains to figure out that I was probably too young to own a theater.

“I’m sorry boss, go ahead.” This kid wasn’t going to last the week. Pepe was at his desk reading something when I opened his door. Without looking up he asked, “What is it?”

“Pepe, if I could have my job back …”

“No.”

“Just hear me out. I can work twice as hard and you can even lower my pay. How’s that?”

“No.”

“But look, it would be a better example, because if you just fire me I might go and get another job with better pay. But this way you can degrade me and then people will never think twice about even asking for a raise.”

“No.”

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll work here for two weeks free and then you can decide.”

Pepe thought about it a moment and then in the same bland tone repeated, “No.”

He never told me to leave; for that matter he didn’t even have the decency to look up from whatever he was reading. He just kept repeating that word. As I despondently retreated down the stairs, the usher who had effortlessly replaced me dashed up.

“Are you having a good day, boss?”

“No, you’re fired.”

“What?”

“You’re fired, now get the hell out of here!” I yelled. By being so available he had conspired in getting me fired.

“But…but…” Inarticulation turned to rage. I watched his face turn red and redder. He was taking it even worse than I had.

“I’m fired, huh? I’m fired, huh?” he screamed in duplicate. I promptly realized my cruelty. But he was quicker in reprisal than I was in rectification. Instantaneously he grabbed his jacket and dashed into the lobby.

“Wait a second,” I said, and pursued. I was about to hire him back, but before I could I heard the sudden crash. Rushing out to the lobby, I saw that he had toppled the new cigarette machine to the floor, and before dashing off he yelled, “Go fuck yourself!”

“What the hell is going on!” Pepe appeared a moment later amidst a crowd that had formed around the smashed machine. He asked the candy girl what had happened.

“Da new usher, he say … he say bam! to dat machine and den he say go fuck you and den he run off.”

Pepe was confused. The new guy was working out well. All were baffled. I felt bad. With nothing else to do, I slowly walked down the Bowery and over the Brooklyn Bridge to Helmsley’s house.

Fumbling for the key outside his door, I could hear Helmsley within, holding some frantic kind of recitation. I knocked. Letting me in, he interrupted me before I could tell him about the theater mishap.

“I have bad news for you.”

“What?”

“Well about a half an hour ago, Sarah called.” He paused with a bleak expression. “She told me she got your note and that she didn’t care to see you again.”

“What?”

“She said that this seemed like a good place to end the relationship considering she was going to graduate school and all.”

“She told you this?”

“Well, I told her to speak to you; I said that I really didn’t want to get involved in all this.”

“And what did she say?”

“Just that if I didn’t take the message, you’d never find out.”

“Didn’t you plead my case at all?”

“’Course I did, I told her that you truthfully told me that you never screwed that little candy tramp and that underneath it all you were one of the finest people I had ever known.”

“What do you mean underneath it all?”

“You know, underneath all the crap that life does to us.”

“And what did she say?”

Helmsley sighed. “It didn’t go well. Why don’t you come with me tonight? Find a new girlfriend.”

“What did she say when you told her I was one of the finest people you know?”

“She said that I could have you.”

“She said that?”

“Well, that and more.”

“What more?”

Well, if you insist, she said that after a month of living with you, I’d get to know…”—he looked up a moment and recounted each adjective on his fingertips—“…the snot-nosed…egotistical little cocksucker…that she had to put up with all these months. She also made it clear that she didn’t want to see you again. I don’t remember that part exactly. She might’ve just been in a disagreeable mood but I think she despises you.”

I dropped to the couch. I was a snot-nosed, egotistical little cocksucker? “Did she actually say all those things verbatim or was that just the gist of it?”

“Look, I’m going to a very promising party tonight. Why don’t you come along?”

“No thanks.”

“Look, there will be other people there like Sarah, other girls.”

“I’m in no mood for a party.” I felt hollow. We had lived together all these months. I had no idea she had been bottling up all that hostility.

“You’ve got to come with me,” Helmsley insisted. “I have no intention of coming home tonight and finding you dead in the tub. That once happened to me, you know. I found someone dead in my tub.” He went on to inform me that I’d be able to exchange my sob story for a date with any girl there.

“Try to get a tear in your eye by the time you come to the part about how your girlfriend dumped you and how you’re a frustrated, unemployed orphan. It’ll be a clincher.”

All of last night’s mouthwash Scotch was gone. If they had nothing else at academic parties, they had booze. They needed it to loosen up. I was about to complete the shaving job that I brutally initiated that morning, but Helmsley stopped me. “Don’t even comb your hair.”

“Why not?”

“You haven’t got a chance for the slick look. You’re going after the shaggy dog appeal. If you’re trying to show that you’re a mess you’ve got to look and act like it. So let’s go.” We both grabbed our jackets and were gone.

We took the F train to Fourteenth Street and walked through the long uriney tu

At first I tried. I found girls who reminded me the most of Sarah personalitywise and tried to joke around comfortably with them. I panicked about the shaggy dog appeal, matted down my hair and small-talked with one young protégée of Margaret Meade who, when she asked me about myself, I provided a thickly veiled description of the truth. “I was just transferred”—instead of fired—“from my job at a corporate law firm”—instead of stinking movie theater—and had “recently moved into my own apartment”—instead of being dumped by my girlfriend…and so on. She quickly dusted around the old bones of truth and realized that my tale of mediocrity was actually of woe. Instead of a safe bet I was a loser.