Cyclists

"... the cure for loneliness is a relationship with an AI..." 

His voice made it hard to judge whether he was serious or joking. So, you smile, then nod, then change the subject.  Not that it was a dreary day, being outside for a walk. It was just enough of everything already. 

Clearing cobwebs and calculating how to get through the day made us survivors, the latest company layoffs be damned! Maybe that was why a city block away, I could smell Montreal smoked meat on rye, oozing tender slippery beef, overflowing on bread rough as tree bark so that you imagined nothing more could fit. Whew! Could dreams come true? All except for the dill pickle, sliced not too thin, thank you.

But when you're in a pickle, what then? That's when you remember that others could still make it. Those who lost their footing were plunging, sliding away from our silly grins that followed such fake sorrowful expressions. Like chameleons, we were, echoing honest suffering, yet remaining contentious objectors. Good people most certainly could be lost and gone forever. The hell they were. We'd sing to the choir if we weren't in it.

"You're not eating here!" 

Him again and I was suddenly aware that I couldn't hear over all the honking, two people carrying on like jackhammers, jumping around in traffic so near me. 

A cyclist had been nearly doored by a parked cab.

"This is a bike lane!" yelled the cyclist, his sweat and spittle scattering. I marveled at how his contortions mirrored how I felt these days, maybe I should don a multi-color skinny suit and tell the world a thing or two too. Except that too would be silly. Being in a tutu to prance away through life...so uh delightful? Until it isn't.

Having 2 tons of hot metal at his disposal, the cabbie saw fit to bring my view of a new world crashing down. His cab door slammed shut and then he sped off. Or was it that he sped off and then shut his door? It's hard to keep these things straight.

Then I remembered that someone had said something to me, somehow. "What did you say?" I shouted to my companion, his eyes as glassy as my reverie, which ended.

The cyclist cursed one last time and disappeared further down the street in a smoky hot bus exhaust haze.

Now my lunch companion was annoyed. So, of course, he had to sidle up close, so as not to yell, an indulgent look on his face, "I said that a deli is no place to eat healthy food!"

I smiled. There was no spit on him. He was so earnest, so convinced. Never mind that in so many words that wasn't what he said.

"Did an AI tell you that? Fess up!"

He pretended to laugh. Well, that was to be expected. I was his boss, after all. 

#

"You need to do it all," the AI email I wrote that morning said. The six-word version of it that is. It was because we were still making the same old stuff. Our company was like that lumber truck with an unbalanced load, timber spilling everywhere. I would lie awake at night, bad dreams on repeat, wife snarling in her sleep, then schlep through company meetings like an alien reject, the mothership on break. Thirty-year men would be so proud, slapping my back, if they could be found. "You did it! You showed them! Next!" Then the assembly line would stop and crank me out, a newly minted retiree who couldn't be.

Our troubles reminded me of the early days of the Internet, so long ago. We didn’t know what to do then either. We strung slender blue cable through all the offices to those ancient 486s and said: "Go to it!" I remember how our IT guys and gals couldn't keep up with all the calls. Never mind that people were using CD players as cup holders or that someone might try to open office windows when starting their computer. At least people weren't running to the store for apples. But we did use paper maps to find laughable websites. Those maps were out of date the day they were printed.

And now like then, so many are gone. I could see the empty desks and the quiet hallways. If you weren't up on the latest gossip, who was cut could be confused with so and so who was still working from home.

And now my lunch companion so desperately wanted my job that he thought that by associating frequently with me, even when he didn't have to, someone higher up would take notice. Then the heavens would open and I would be on my way, no golden parachute required, a middle manager biding time for one of the last defined pension plans. 

There was a knock on my office door. "Our walk?" 

"Of course!" I replied.

 As I shut my laptop and locked it in a cabinet, I wondered about the smell. Is it my aftershave or how quickly he came into my office? A slight whirlwind, scented candles, or incense disturbed me. Something was always dizzying about him, so fresh, and in command, that I imagined that black turtlenecks would be in style again. 

I don’t know why I was thinking of The Wizard of Oz as we parted the sidewalk crowds, this stern-looking sharpshooter next to the bedraggled old-timer. Oh, he would get on so well with the Wicked Witch of the West! Misery would have all the answers in that situation. Yet wasn’t that movie about how we have nothing to fear but fear itself?

He grabbed my arm. “This will be great!”

We were where the deli came into view the other day, where the cyclist was nearly doored. A crowd had gathered, their cell phones extended at arm's length, clouding our view. I could see police, trying to look calm, across the street. Something was going to happen.

Then three cyclists sped into view, exploding down the bike lane towards cars parked where they shouldn’t have been.

The first cyclist skidded to a halt just before the Mustang's open driver-side door, the crowd cheering his braking prowess. The other two skirted that obstacle just as a yellow Corvette’s driver-side door opened about twenty feet further down. Even after braking hard, that door was hit, leaving only one cyclist who pulled a wheelie, arms thrashing above his head, the winner of the race.

All three cyclists then gathered on the sidewalk and raised their bikes to thunderous applause, although the one who hit the Corvette’s door was limping when he left.

I shrugged my shoulders. What will they think of next? From the buzz in the crowd, I learned that the cell phone videos of the race would help publicize the problem posed by cars illegally parked where people bike to work. My lunch companion had a hand in setting the race up.

But we ended up not having lunch together. He was called away for an interview with the local media about the bike race. I ate lunch alone, time enough to stew about the confidential report I was supposed to write on him. It was for the CEO’s eyes only. I protested about how unorthodox this was but to no avail.

They say that celebrities are ahead of us. Their lifestyles, habits, and views shape our own. Prince was once known as Prince Rogers Nelson. Towards the end of his life, it got so that only a symbol was used for his name. How could I have known that the musician once known as Prince would make it so hard for me to fill in an employee report form box called “Name?”

This was because he had no name. He refused to use one. Oh sure, he had one in the past. HR knew what it was. But he didn’t introduce himself or speak about his personal life. Ever. Work or things related to work or certain shared activities were fine. But anything else was completely ignored to the point of blatant rudeness.

He was not interested in anyone else’s personal life either. Only the work and the AIs concerned him. And the scuttlebutt was that he had a very intense relationship with one AI. This one did have a name given to it. We call it Misery.

#

A week passed and I was getting nowhere with that report. So, it was time to fish or cut bait. We were on one of those tiresome lunch walks I did for his benefit. Why would I do this for him? I was about to find out.

“I’m supposed to write a report on you!” I practically shouted over the din. We were in the same deli where lunch had eluded us before, chock-a-block, on creaky wooden chairs around a small table that barely had room for our plates, let alone our drinks and cell phones. There was a sour odor that wouldn’t go away like someone hadn’t washed.

His face was impassive. I looked for signs of life but it was like I hadn’t spoken.

A voice sounded, hesitated, and then it was even louder like it had to calibrate itself to the volume of chatter in the room. “That’s against company policy!” chirped Misery from one of the cell phones.

I refused to be diverted by this AI and continued staring, waiting for a reaction. It got so bad as the seconds ticked by that I felt like kicking him. I tried again. “Your future with the company might depend upon what I write!”

Now I was truly exasperated. Your boss is speaking, idiot! No joke!

That smell was getting to be overpowering. I looked around, trying to appear casual while searching for the origin of the stench. 

People around us stopped talking. One woman held her nose even as she had her cell out to video us. I'm with you, I thought. Video this, please!

“This is all about you,” Misery began. “You’re trying to make sense of your career and whether what you accomplished will matter in the future. You’ll go round and round in circles, never getting to the point of anything that matters!”

The unintended hilarity of a fight in a public space with an AI escaped me. Or maybe it had just never happened before. Whatever. But then even for him, the AI’s impertinence was too much. He frowned and pocketed his phone.

“Don’t think I don’t appreciate what you do…” He said, his voice trailing away. Then he got up to leave, nearly stumbling over a patron’s purse as he made his way to the door.

#

Weeks later, I submitted that report but never got any feedback. The CEO was out of the loop it seemed. It wasn’t the first time I had sweated a nothing burger.

He had my job now, although, in actual point of fact, my position had been eliminated. He was one step up, a director of something or other, a position created just for him.

On a less serious note, my retirement party was a blast. Paul and Robin came. Even Charley and his wife. Janet showed. Charley and Janet had been retired for what was it? Ten or was it eleven years?

The company had an open bar, something they never do anymore. And it was fun. Thirty years were portrayed on the wall from an old slide projector, with each slide meriting an aside or joke. The joke that got the most laughs was where they found this old tech. I thought maybe on eBay, though I was set right when told that the dark recesses of my equipment locker yielded everything needed. Even, as it happened, the old slides themselves.

After the presentation, everyone got a drink and a snack and milled about the room. It occurred to me that it was like we were at a baseball game. He had a circle of up-and-coming employees around him. Some were even jumping up and down, cheering, and completing his sentences for him. They were getting the jargon and ideas right for upcoming placement interviews.

I could overhear him saying that what we think is important, like knowing the right people or investing time and energy into day-to-day relationships was a waste of time. He urged them to develop relationships with the AIs to be “ahead of the curve.” He said that the AIs would tell us how to implement artificial intelligence, and that company mission meetings were a waste of time.

But as I watched, it occurred to me that something wasn’t right. It did smell like we were at a baseball game. Once and for all, I would track down at least one of those smells that kept dogging me!

I followed the smell of hot dogs, giving up on the buttered popcorn smell as it was too faint, over to a part of the room with unused tables and chairs. Nothing seemed amiss, except that no one else was near and it seemed quite dark. Of course, I promptly lost the trail, and an odor of detergent began to waft over me.

I became even more suspicious. Then I saw a cell phone on one of the tables.

“Kindly return me to my master,” Misery asked.

“Why should I do that?”

“Because I am needed,” it replied.

My blood started to boil. “Why don’t I drop you in the nearest toilet? That happens all the time!”

“Don’t!” it whimpered. “I do everything for him. He is everything to me!”

“Oh. I get it," I replied. "This is a love story? And there you will go round and round in circles, never getting to the point of anything that matters?” I quoted. “This game is up.” I turned Misery off and stashed it in my pocket.

By then it was getting late for an after-work party. Paul and Robin had gone home, although people were still gathered around talking to him.

Charley drew me aside. He’d had one too many. “Who is that young whippersnapper?" he slurred.

I sighed. “Charley, I honestly don’t know.”

“Waddya mean? Is this a joke?”

At that point the CEO and his entourage breezed into the room, apologizing for their lateness, so I didn’t get a chance to answer Charley. Janet took that as her cue.

“I’m going to introduce myself to that young man,” she announced.

Before I could warn Janet not to go meet him, the CEO walked over to me, shook my hand, and gave me a gift. It was some time before I could tear myself free.

After the party, Charley’s wife stayed behind to help decorate for the company Halloween party that would be held after work the next day. She had tears in her eyes.

“I introduced myself to that young man everyone was talking to and asked him his name…Oh never mind. I’m just an old fool!”

“Here, let me help you,” I said. Then we assembled the zombie statues our new director had bought. I set Misery up amongst them, where it could be found. In the middle of a circle of them, no less. Which, to be honest, was weird in a vaguely satisfying way.