Desperate Remedies/Bonsai

Greta Holt

Wd. Count 1,460

Desperate Remedies/Bonsai

Boss Matthews was going to tell the higher-ups that Charles lacked passion.

The company’s structure relied heavily on evaluations. Each employee had to come up with a plan for working on his ‘opportunities,’ which damn well meant his weak points. A few weeks ago, Charles found his evaluation on his desk under a paperweight. Boss Matthews knew how to deliver reports.

It read:

‘Strengths: answers communication with punctuality; clear and decisive with clients.’  ‘Somewhat detached.’ 

Opportunities: may benefit from defining areas of commitment.’ 

Anyone worth his businessman’s lunch knew that questioning a man’s passion for the job was the first step in giving him the bum’s rush.

Copies would be given to people on the top floor, and Boss would sit in committee and bash Charles when he couldn’t defend himself. A real man would face him on the street, guns at the ready.

It wasn’t until Melissa and little Ashley that Charles had yearned to protect. Now, it was a necessity, like water. He hated being separated from his wife and child, and this month was proving to be harder on him than he’d imagined. Melissa’s sister needed help with her new baby, so his reasons for breathing were presently in Iowa. 

When his branch shut down in Des Moines, the Des Moines execs recommended Charles for the position in Cincinnati. His stats were good, really good.

They’d had only a weekend to find a house in Cincinnati. The one they chose at the border of Norwood and Pleasant Ridge suited him just fine. Sure, they wanted a mansion and an acre. Who didn’t? But their home was a solid, two-story with a simple stained glass front window and hardwood floors. They would purchase their dreams later—if he kept this job. The important thing was holding on. And Charles Purcell was passionately committed to holding on. 

  Saturday, he went downtown and bought an expensive box of cigars. When Charles got home, the sago bonsai plant he had ordered sat on the porch. The base was a hard tree-like form, and from it grew thin palm fronds. The information card boasted that the company catered to manly business gifts. Charles smiled.  

He knew just how he’d give his gifts for Boss Matthews’s upcoming birthday. He would present the cigars with a joke about their alternate use, and he’d tell Boss with a slap on the shoulder that the fossil-like palm was an ancient aphrodisiac and symbol of power, used by Genghis Khan to populate the Asian steppes. Boss would like that one, the dick. 

Charles was ashamed of his own youth: the way he and his friends had devoured life on the cheap and left broken hearts. Now, Charles believed that real men put their families first. Anything less was slimy and weak. He worked hard, took care of himself, tried to get along, and he genuinely laughed with his daughter.

Sunday, Charles cleaned up the garage and listened to the UC tournament game. His dog Hassles stretched on a tangled pile of soaker hoses, while Charles arranged yard equipment and hung up his tools.

Poking around some old lumber left by the former owner, he uncovered an old box of floor tiles. The label on the box read ‘Asbestos Tile.’ Asbestos? The tiles looked like the ones in the upstairs bathroom. 

Shit.

Well, he was worldly enough to know that there was probably more asbestos in the house anyway. He knew that if you left the stuff alone, it wasn’t a problem. But he might just point some floor fans at the windows this week. Couldn’t hurt.

Charles counted the tiles in the box, just three left. He stared at them, then closed the box and set it aside. 

Another half hour of sorting lumber, organizing equipment, and changing the lights to energy-efficient replacements satisfied him. His muscles were warm, and his stretching routine felt good.  

He called Hassles and set out for a jog. They stopped by a nearby restaurant for take-out of pineapple cheeseburgers and sea-salted fries. Hassles liked fries. At home Charles ate with pleasure, drinking just two beers for his Sunday treat and sharing potatoes with Hassles. Channel surfing, he found the tail end of ‘The Way We Were’ on Netflix and felt tears sting his eyes. He wiped at them with his napkin.

At 7:30 pm after thoughtful consideration, he decided to drive out to a hardware and buy a few things he’d need. Then he answered emails, texted a new client, worked on his post-evaluation mission statement, and created a progress chart for the ‘opportunity’ to gain passion for his company. He ended the evening by calling Melissa and Ashley and telling them how much he loved them.

Monday morning, Charles woke early. He put on his sweats and went to the garage. He took one of the asbestos tiles out of its box and placed the tile in a triple-strength bag. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt tight and put on his new hazmat mask and gloves. Holding the trash bag tightly closed with one hand, he pounded the bag with a rubber mallet. Then he kneaded the tile through the bag until he could feel enough small pieces. He took off one glove and removed the bonsai plant, cool to his touch, from its styrofoam box. After picking the sparkly white pebbles from the soil, he brought the plant over to the triple-enforced trash bag. Charles opened the bag and, with a garden trowel, carefully scooped the most finely fragmented bits of tile and tile paste onto the soil of the plant. Then he covered the tile dust with the sparkly white pebbles and set it aside. 

Carefully, he poured almost two pints of water onto the remaining tile fragments, laid the two other tiles and their box inside the bag, and closed it tightly. He took off the gloves and all of his clothes and put them in a separate trash bag. Naked, he cleaned his hands and the snugly fitting hazmat mask with hand wipes. He picked up the plant, poured a little water over the stones, and put it on the hood of the car. The bonsai looked great. He wiped the vase of the plant and laid it in the styrofoam box, taped it firmly, and positioned the whole thing into a black and gold gift bag. The box of cigars fit in as well, and he covered the gifts with fancy tissue and put the whole thing into the trunk. Charles moved to the door, took off the hazmat mask, and placed it on a shelf. He started the garage door up to clear the air and slipped into his house.  

His shower was long and hot. He wrapped a towel around his middle, let Hassles out into the backyard, and made breakfast: unsweetened oatmeal, black coffee, and blueberries. He read the business report and had a second cup of coffee. The clothes he chose today were especially conservative. Charles called Hassles back in, then gathered his computer and work materials, and drove to work. 

He would jump the gun and present his gifts today. Boss would smirk at Charles’s brown-nosing but he’d preen all the same. It had to be today because Boss bragged that Monday afternoon was the day he visited his Lolly Pop, finger-lickin’ goodie. 

One time, the sleazebag had made Charles chat up ‘the wife’ in the lobby, aware that Boss was sneaking his Lolly Pop out of his office. “Couldn’t wait, you know.” Boss had grinned and grabbed his crotch.

“It’s an ancient power symbol,” Charles would emphasize. “Good gifts to put on the nightstand.” And he’d wink. “You know.” Boss would roar and usher him out, fully in charge.

Boss would never deign to open the gift bag in front of Charles, which would show too much interest. And the plant would never find its way to Boss’s home. No, it would grace the bedside of the mistress. You know. The gift that would keep on giving. 

The whole thing was preposterous, he realized, but his spine tingled at the game—the silent thrust of the knife. A man had to fight back when he was getting screwed.

He’d keep his job this year and the next, groveling at Boss’s feet. Hell, he’d French kiss the creep’s toes. But there would be a time when his little Ashley would be far enough in school that his beloved Melissa could go back to work, and he could look around for any job he wanted, economy willing. He could wait. 

  Charles Purcell drove to work, planning his morning and thinking how important it was to love someone more than you loved yourself.

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