On Thursday Chris Whynock’s boss, Dan Smolinsky, told him he was doing a great job. Chris drove home, hit a Bar & Grille on the way, and told the bartender what a good week he was having. “Great fuckin’ week,” he said. After a few beers and a nice steak, he drove home and went to bed with a smile on his face, excited for his early morning bike ride and the weekend he had earned by doing a “great job” at work.
On Friday, Chris got the letter at lunch time, dressed up with Horizon Technologies letterhead, and full of words like “regret” and “apologize”. He read it over seven times in ten minutes, but it didn’t change. A financial death sentence; so much for doing a great job. This is fucked up, Chris thought. Nothing could be more fucked up than this.
That afternoon he cleaned out his desk and removed his inspirational images from the side of his cubicle, most of which were clippings from Cycling magazine. He was escorted out of the building at 2:30 with everyone watching. At least Fridays were short days.
On the way home in his dark blue, way-too-expensive Nissan Altima, he untied his tie and threw it out of the car on the interstate; a gift for Silicon Valley.
A car followed him to the bar that night, an old beat up Buick with one missing hubcap.
As Chris sat at the bar that night, he told the bartender about his day. “That’s fucked up,” Chris said, “name one thing more fucked up than that.” Listening from across the bar was a man that Chris had never spoken too. Jesse had worked with Chris at Horizon Technologies for months, and on that Friday evening, Jesse still had his job. He was a quiet, intelligent man who was easily fascinated by anything pecuilar, from people to insects. He ordered a soda water with lime and garden salad. He listened to every word of Chris’ story.
That night, Chris called his friends and told them about what had happened while drinking and watching the Padres play the Dodgers on his flatscreen television. Jesse tried to forget about Chris’ story and researched political uprisings in East Africa on the internet.
On Saturday, Chris sulked. Around two he went for a twenty minute bike ride. Jesse cooked himself a healthy dinner and ate it while watching the Discovery Channel. There was a nature show on. The tarantula hawk, a wasp who paralyzes tarantulas by laying eggs inside it, was spotlighted. When the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the tarantula from the inside. That, Jesse thought, is fucked up. I don’t know what could be more fucked up than that.
On Sunday, Chris went for a long ride along the coast, and then drank. Jesse went to Borders to read more about the tarantula hawk. While flipping through an issue of National Geographic, he briefly recalled Chris’s story from the bar on Friday night.
On Monday, Chris scoured the internet for job openings and went for a bike ride, the best ride he’d had in months. Jesse went to work.
By Wednesday, Chris had two interviews lined up for Thursday, and went to bed early that night. Jesse checked out two reference books from the library that had articles about the tarantula hawk and stayed up reading as usual.
At noon on Thursday, Chris finished the second interview of that day. He had done great in both, and was excited to see where this new career path would take him. He went for an especially tough bike ride and drank a glass of wine instead of several beers that night.
At around 1:30 that day, Dan Smolinsky spoke to Jesse for only the third time in two years. Smolinsky told Jesse that he "was doing a great job”. Jesse lay awake that night, thinking about the tarantula hawk.
On Friday, Chris was hired as a software engineer at a progressive San Francisco technology firm. He wasn’t required to shave the goatee he loved so much, which he had been forced to do at Horizon. Short sleeve polo shirts were acceptable attire at this new job.
Jesse went to work at Horizon Technologies, and was half an hour early as always. At around 10:00am, the dynamite strapped to his body began to make him uncomfortable under his long sleeve button up.
At 11:28, Jesse thought of the tarantula hawk.
At 11:32, he walked into Smolinsky’s office.
