Promotion

The city street was buzzing. Hot dog carts were smoking, pedestrians swarmed the crosswalks, and the downtown high-rises caught the morning hour in their dark windows. Paolo felt it all; everything had clarity. Today, Paolo was a winner. As he stepped smartly into his office building, he saw the only person that could bring down his mood. 

Blaine bounced through the marble lobby in his tailored suit, with high-water pants proudly displaying fire-red socks that matched his suspenders. His smiles at everyone, from custodians to upper management, were full of mirth. For Paolo, Blaine’s lips were heavy with disdain. He saddled up to him as they waited for the elevator. 

“Paolo! Nice jacket. I didn’t know they made cow shit business wear. Old Navy?”

Paolo smiled. He couldn’t hide his confidence. “It is a good morning today, isn’t it?”

Blaine’s expertly crafted eyebrows raised warily above his glasses. “Good mood, today? You must still think you got a shot in hell at that promotion.”

Paolo genuinely laughed, “Well, that’s hitting the nail on the head a bit.”

Blaine stared, “What in the hell is wrong with you?”

Paulo laughed again. Harder this time. 

Blaine, feeling mocked by a simpleton in a thirty-dollar outfit, walked onto the elevator with Paolo. When the doors closed, Blaine turned on him. “If you can part your ear hair for a minute, I need you to hear me. I am not letting you get that promotion. I worked too damn hard to let a walking donut in Goodwill underwear sit his ill-wiped ass on my office chair. I’m sorry that our petty rivalry these last few months has led you to believe we’re equals, but we are not. Once they announce me as senior manager, I will boot your sorry ass back to your hairy wife and her high-backed ass crack.”

The elevator dinged for their floor. When the doors opened, Blaine waltzed out with a big “Hey!” for one of his favorite gossiping administrative assistants. Paolo, surprisingly, wasn’t fazed. He was even more confident of his plan — Blaine stamped out any lingering embers of doubt. 

Paolo quietly walked to his cramped office and locked the door. He turned off the lights except for his brown desk lamp, moved his unused visitor’s chairs, and laid out his ingredients on the floor: a thick stick of white chalk, a few cloves of garlic, chicken feet, an embalmed frog, a knife, candles, and a knit doll that somehow captured Blaine’s mocking attitude. It was everything Paolo’s Nonna said he’d need.

He took out her notes to decipher her broken English. He drew a circle on the floor, with a pentagram in the middle, and placed the cloves of garlic and the chicken feet at the points; the frog went in the middle, with the knit doll skewered through with an ornate hat pin. With the candles placed and lit, Paolo sat cross-legged and started the chant in his best approximation of Latin. Minute winds fanned his office as the lines of chalk glowed cerulean. As he reached the spells crescendo, the circle’s blue light rose into a cylinder cage, and a hole formed as fire bellowed upwards. When the flames disappeared, sitting inside the light cage was a pudgy, little familiar. It had the ears and trunk of an elephant with the body of a bear cub. Paolo was sweating.

“Er — hello?” he said.

“Er — hi,” the familiar replied. It looked miffed. It slowly blinked its large, orange eyes.

“So, how does this work? Was my blood a deposit or something?”

“No, that was the payment. We’re not allowed to accept sacrifices anymore. People these days don’t have the integrity to make a sacrifice worthy, so why waste the carnage?”

Paolo suddenly felt stupid. He swallowed, “Yes, well, I need your help.”

The familiar stood on its stubby legs and looked around. “Office drama. See what I mean?”

Paolo blanched. “Look, this may seem stupid to an immortal being, but I don’t have anything else. I’m desperate. I know I’m no one's first choice to be a manager, but my wife is sick and the company insurance is a joke. I need this promotion. Otherwise, we’ll go into foreclosure trying to save her life. The only person I’m up against is this sniveling little backstabber that would fire me the first chance he got.”

“Yes. Blaine,” said the demon emphatically. “We’re a fan of his work. He would be cruel in your termination.”

“Will this be a conflict of interest? I can summon something else.”

“Sorry, Union rules. You get who you get. I should tell you; we Underlings of the Black Fire each possess a unique skill. There are no requests other than what you ultimately want. So, for the sake of clarity, explicitly state your desire.”

“I, Paolo, want to be a senior manager of my branch to save my wife’s life.”

“Sounds good.” The familiar closed its large eyes, raised its little paws above its pumpkin-sized head, and hummed. When it was finished, it nodded. “Okay, have fun.” Just like that, the familiar winked from vision. 

Paolo’s ugly phone rang. It was his HR rep telling him to come to the conference room. This was it. Paolo’s heart thrummed with anxiety. 

He walked through his floor’s bullpen, past bored assistants checking their Facebook and hunched over salesmen making their phone calls, to the elevators where Blaine already stood. His eyes stared at nothing.

“You alright?” Paolo said. 

“It’s all a farce,” Blaine replied.

“Uh, what?”

“We’re employed in a system so that we can just survive within another, even greater system. And it all depends on our ability to be liked. Can you follow the rules? Can you be of service to a company without morals?”

Paolo’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. The elevator doors opened and they walked in; Blaine was shaking his head, and Paolo just stared.

“I never heard you be so… philosophical,” Paolo said. 

“It’s all so utterly pointless.”

The outside corners of Blaine’s eyes were down-turned. He reminded Paolo of those before and after pictures of soldiers who went to war, whose eyes were bright with hope only to be extinguished by dark circles of PTSD. Paolo felt ill.

“Are you alright, Blaine?”

The elevator quickly rose to the top floors.

“I wake up every morning with spite in my heart. I was never kind to you.”

“Oh, buddy. It’s fine.” Paolo was filled with regret. Blaine sounded wrong.

“No, it isn’t. You know I peed in your water bottle last week when you used the bathroom?” Paolo’s lip curled up. 

“And last month, do you remember that staff meeting where no one would sit near you? I told everyone you caught gonorrhea from three hookers while you were on vacation. Even though we know you were with your wife for her first infusion.”

“And everyone believed you,” Paolo said. Now he shook his head.

“You don’t deserve this promotion, you know. A company is only as good as its leaders — even if the people who want it most aren’t right for it. I would’ve made a great manager.”

“Would have?”

The elevator doors opened to the top floor of the building. 

“Promise me something,” Blaine said as they stepped onto the glossy, tiled floor. “When they give you this promotion, step the hell up. Stop being such a doormat. Your wife needs you.”

They both turned to their right, looking at the conference room surrounded by glass walls. Inside, their HR rep sat with three vice presidents, all waiting to say some worthless platitudes to their next senior manager to justify their exorbitant salaries. 

“Screw their cage,” Blaine said. 

He turned. His glossy shoes clicked on the floor as he sprinted towards the high-rise windows. With a burst of inhuman strength unknowingly granted him by the familiar, Blaine crashed through the thick window and out into the late morning sky. Paolo stood, mouth agape. Shouts followed a distant thud from the street below. It took only an hour (and a five-minute conversation with the grief counselor) for Paolo to get his promotion. 

A year later, Paolo sat in his slightly bigger office. Any time the guilt of Blaine’s death overwhelmed him, he looked at the picture of his wife, bald from chemo yet smiling a healthy smile. As he worked through a steady stream of emails from his bosses (there always seemed to be one more hired every year), Paolo heard a faint pop over his shoulder. He turned and nearly jumped from his chair.

“Er - hey,” said the familiar.

“You scared the hell out of me,” Paolo replied.

The familiar chuckled.

“Ha-ha. Yea, I get it.” He paused. He became acutely aware it wasn’t surrounded by a magic circle. Paulo grew uneasy. “Why are you here?”

“Professional courtesy. You were a lot nicer than the witches and wizards I’ve had to deal with in my life.”

“Why are you extending me a courtesy?”

“Someone would like your job.”