Model Employees Inc.

The Letter

“Wonder why he’d write you,” the Captain said as she sat down a padded white envelope on my desk that was definitely addressed to me, but I was baffled by the sender: my arch nemesis. David Dexter, a fucking dipshit, city reporter who is always chasing his tail and the only time he ever managed to catch it, and get a story with some actual legs, it was about me and my department. It was a shit-show.

“I don’t Know,” I said as I continued to shuffle the papers around on my still-new-to-me-desk, that sits in what we call “no man’s land,” which is the big open area of desks where all the less senior detectives sat all huddled in one mass; and I’m the most senior detective in this pit now, staring blankly at a computer screen that isn’t even turned on—noticing that I forgot to brush my hair, teeth, and I generally look like shit—all thanks to my old friend & apparently new pen-pal, who was a vital part of my fairly recent divorce, demotion and overall domestic-downfall .

“Maybe he’s tired of ruining people’s lives, marriages and careers and is sending checks to all the people he’s done wrong,” I say grudgingly to her; I didn’t have to turn around to see the eyeroll was there, this was our game. “Guess that task is done, since I’m the entirety of his greatest hits album.”

“Look Bart, she said, an icepick tone that I wasn’t used to with any person, let alone Captain O’Conner; I could see her jaws tightening in the still-powered-off-monitor, the aquiline features becoming stone-set beneath an impeccably close-kept hair cut that was closer to Military, than debutante, ball. She was one of my best allies before my fall-from-grace but was promoted due to her integrity and handling of my situation, which arose in her department, and for some reason she’d pulled strings to let me keep my badge and gun. I owed her my life, since I had planned on eating that gun before I ever went to trial. I could tell she was waiting so I began to read.

Jimmy Rath had a lot of characteristics of a model employee: loyal to a fault, hard-working and self-motivated; more than enough charisma and intelligence to spare, and easy on the eyes, too. Not that it matters, in general, but he had a look that, though it wouldn’t be considered “good-looking” in the classical sense of the word—he had a few pockmarks on his face(most notably above his left eyebrow, almost looking like he had been in an old-fashioned bar-brawl and been gouged by a beer bottle) and he was missing a few of his back teeth from his general neglect of himself in his Nihilistic mid-twenties, often joking that “you shouldn’t trust anyone who has all of their teeth, as it showed they hadn’t fought or suffered”--I called Jimmy’s mom a fat-bitch in 8^th grade and he’d knocked one of my permanent teeth out and of course we were great friends after that, so maybe there was something to it.

 He wasn’t going to quit his day-job based off of his looks that’s for sure—that is if he could quit his job since he was what some of his more tactful family members called “Terminally-Unemployed”—but he hadn’t had to struggle too much in life and it showed,  he had a more-than-decent amount of empathy and compassion, which showed itself through a generally warm, well-meaning, Duchene smile that would playfully produce crow’s feet of mirth and enjoyment when he spoke and interacted with people, putting people at ease and also gave him an almost serene, if not naïve, kind of beauty, but all this aside, and even though he had the natural skill-set and aptitude to be otherwise, and this is VERY important to remember: Jimmy Rath is an ghastly employee.

              He has been a terrible employee for quite some time, and was generally recognized by most restauranteurs, gas station & vape shop owners etc. in the area as a persona non grata, as far as employment went, owing mostly to a condition called moral awareness. See, Jimmy didn’t mind too much if an overzealous micro-managing supervisor called him a piece-of-shit, lazy-good-for-nothing, or other choice insult or degradation, because he understood the chain-of-command, and knew the manager was only acting like that because the real assholes(owners & shareholders) weren’t there and so they paid these miserable, middling saps Two dollars more an hour, and gave them important titles, so they would act like they gave a shit about their company, and make all their employees miserable while trying to get optimal labor results; he just went to that “little vacant space” in the front of his head , as he called it………

              “What’s it say,” she asks, the anticipation evident in her voice.

              “Fuck if I know,” I say truthfully, wondering if I’m too dense and am missing something obvious. I keep skimming. “It looks like a love letter to a guy named Jimmy, or something. It just keeps going on about how awful of an employee this guy was, and he included a few of those colorful little flyers that the homeless pass out on the corner of Overmount Pkwy.”

              “That’s odd,” she says deflated, and I see her turn to walk away, as disappointed as I am confused.

The Trial

My Trial, if you can call it that, was unlike anything I have seen in over two decades on the force. I have fucked up and not shown up to court, forgot to do some trivial detail and had cases tossed; I have seen Assistant DA’s and, even in rare circumstances the DA themselves, ruthlessly admonished for fuck-ups so terrible that they were either reprimanded, silently(to save face for the Force) or harangued publicly, usually to the delight of the soon-to-be-guilty spectators. I have even been privileged enough to see a handful of incredibly brave, or stupid (who can ever tell?) Lawyers and defendants call a judge out on their own hypocrisies after going through scandal. It never ended well for those intrepid souls after that moment of indignation, but it was always nice to see someone standing up to asshole judges.

This was different, though, for There was fervor in the air and everyone was dressed as if they had come to meet death, with somber colors trying keep the beguiled looks from showing on their doughy faces—though the public was barred from the hearing, the courtroom was packed like a circus tent-- a literal who’s-who of political and social elites, and their attorneys; these were the ones who owned the companies and greased the palms of those  that were complicit in the game, making money from misery--, the clowns inside about to perpetrate one of the greatest coverups of all time.  The doors were locked, and the public barred, there was not going to be any testimony, since Gerard Taylor, the mastermind and CEO of Model Employees Inc. was killed in the raid that I illegally started--and I was here to accept my plea deal and assure the “Good Folks” in the courtroom that I wasn’t a threat of disclosure; basically, that I knew my place.

The only words my counsel (if you can call it that) utters the entire time are: “you’re really fucking lucky somebody, somewhere likes you. I don’t know who has power over THESE people’s restraint, but just shut up, let them talk and keep your notorious shit-eating grin at bay, please.” My reputation in court rooms precedes me, again.

This happened on Saturday, and it’s Monday at 4:30 am, hours before the first docket opens, and I’m still sitting, amazed, as Mayor Caldwell reluctantly enters the courtroom. I am not a Christan, nor have I ever truly been religious, but after seeing this group of people forced to be in one place, and with their usually-smug faces sullen and scared, it almost makes me believe in God, just to send up a prayer of thanks for giving me the glimpse of these divine social-beings having their comeuppance; nice shoes and all.

I imagine this must be how it’s done when the Government moves to shut the stock market down when it crashes too suddenly, so as not to hurt some of the “Proper” citizens who are invested and can’t handle the Free-Market at that time; or how they find a way to pass legislation anytime someone who isn’t “Them” decide they want to own a gun, have rights, or participate in Democracy: stealthily, efficiently & anonymously.

I’m assuming no one was career-suicidal enough to put a docket number on this thing, and I notice the court cameras are both, off, and facing backwards staring point-blank at the Bald Eagle in the government insignia like an indignant child glaring into the wall for punishment. I accept my deal and I’m tossed out of the courthouse before the sun has even shown up to belch out its meager rays.

The Interview

The receptionist in this vanilla office, inside this aged, weather-beaten building  that wouldn’t stand out anywhere was an odd place for what my attorney called my “Exit Interview,” which must apparently be another part of that two-tiered justice system--the same system everyone has been talking about and I have been missing--as I have never seen an “Exit Interview” used in mitigating the sentences of the poor and often darker-skinned youth I’ve been haranguing and corralling, harassing and collaring all these years.

“Are you comfortable,” a voice whispers, demurely, almost too low to hear since I refuse to do anything for myself--like eat right, schedule doctor appointments, keep doctor appointments, get hearing aids, etc.

“Huh,” I blurt like a burdened donkey as my brain processes what she said, “uh. Yeah… Yes Ma’am, I’m comfortable” I say as I fidget into place, rubber, baby-vomit-green seat cushion letting a slight, farting noise and I suppress the immature smile battling for territory on my face and reach for a magazine; Goddamn, “Our State;” great, nothing to fucking read!

“That’s wonderful!”, was her response as her small, bright-white face beamed and her mousey-but-cute-on-her blondish, shoulder-length hair shook as her whole body seemed to convey the message.

A pang of panic and shock burst through me; “could she be one of them? Were they not all burned, or at least accounted for,” the narrative in my head careening, recklessly  on, as I tried to recover my composure, but she must have noticed the look on my face (which they  couldn’t do) and immediately flushed(another sign she had not received the procedure),and I saw a beautiful crimson that came warring out onto those alabaster fields of her cheeks, and I completely lost my composure, train-of-thought or any other mental faculty I may have thought to bring with me.

“Sorry,” she half-chuckled, “I’m still relatively new,” she continued as she reached for her coffee.

              I relax a little and start running through some of the steps of mindfulness my shadow-court-mandated therapy has taught me. Just as I start to settle in, I hear a slight buzz, a light on the base of a telephone turns red and she picks up.

              “Good morning, Sir!” her incredibly chipper voice trying not to sound too overexcited, I can tell. The receiver is susurrous, and I can’t make anything out... “ok… uh-huh… yes sir, I’ll send him back right away.”

I grab the brass doorknob at the end of the hall she had told me to take, turn it, and open the door. The smell of sandalwood is the first thing that greets me, followed immediately by the dark, Crimson of the walls, like our bedroom used to be, and I find my attention drifting, and I’m about to bring it back to heel when…

              “Is that you, Mr. Taylor?” the voice shocking me to attention.

              I sit stunned for a moment, but recover, “I’m Bart Taylor, I’m here for some kind of exit interview, is it ok to come in?”

              “Of course,” was the immediate reply, “Please, step inside, and, please, have a seat. It was obviously a machine’s voice, but I obeyed and walked to what appeared to be a director’s chair that sat facing an off-white screen. The lights above my head had dimmed, and the brightness of the light behind the screen had increased, to form the silhouette of a form sitting behind what seemed to be a desk. Based on what little movement I could see of the arms and torso, it seemed they were staring at me head-on.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Taylor, I appreciate your time, I’m sure you’re a busy man.”

“Not too much going on these days,” I interject before I was even sure the machine-voice was finished,” I’ve found myself with lots of time and only so many therapy appointments,” my attempt at humor.

“And how are those going?”

“Not too bad, I must admit I feel a little better with all the weight off my shoulders, and someone that I don’t mind venting to, since they’re being paid and all.”  I hear a weird noise that is stuck somewhere between a laugh and a cough.

“Are you still being paid, Bart Taylor,” and even though the voice was obviously not human, hearing my name felt intimate somehow.

I stifle a laugh and retort, “I escaped a botched raid, that should have never taken place, that I was the only one responsible for, saw what was at the time my biggest nemesis, David Dexter take the most ruthless beating I have ever seen, while I was helpless to do anything ,catatonic on some fucking Zombie-Worker-Serum, and I’m not even aware how I got out of there, but I am aware of the seventy-some-odd people that weren’t pulled out, miraculously, and now are being identified, hopefully, by dental remains after over 70 people were incinerated;” my tirade continues, uninterrupted, “Then I show up to some gothic-funeral of a  show-trial with, arguably, some of the most well-to-do --which pretty fucking much means dangerous—people I have ever seen in person.”

My brain pauses here, still amazed that I had basically started a riot, shot and killed the CEO of Model Employees Inc., the premier staffing agency in our state for manipulating the brain functions of  people with neurological disorders int……,

“It wasn’t a Serum,” it said, using the moment to jump in.

“What isn’t,” I say, already 1,000 miles ahead in my own mind.

“you’re Zombie-Workers-Serum, you called it,” a slight pause, and then “it isn’t a serum, it’s more like a soldering-gel, if you can fathom such a thing. They were rewiring neuro-divergent brains to be more efficient workers.”

“Well, whatever the hell it is, I’m happy I made it this far with my skin, or brain, or whatever, so I couldn’t give a shit less about getting paid, I’m happy to be alive.”

“Fair” it said, “but I’m sure those seventy-some-odd people you mentioned would be happy to be alive as well.”

“What the hell can I do that matters to them?”

“Get even,” was its cold response.

“Excuse me! How do I get even?” I snapped back.

“We will get even, but we will get to that momentarily, I only have two more questions; first: how did you know to be there that night?”

 “I received a note from Dexter, which I told my captain I thought was about a random guy, but something stuck with me, and I got on the Model Employees website and saw the same guy he was talking about, but with all these accolades and Employee-of-the-Month awards and such, and I got one of my hunches.”

“That’s the simple version, I suppose?”

“It’s a version.”

I hear that mutant-laughing noise again, “last question, what would you say to David Dexter, now, if you could?

Maybe I don’t have to fit the mold of the jaded detective anymore, my kid is grown and now, somehow only partially hates me after the accident and says I’m some kind of bad-ass anti-hero to her now: “one bad Dad!” she exclaims, but hey, the dad part sure sounds nice for a change. “Maybe you should try being, honest, take some responsibility considering all David had done?” my mind implored, and I listened to it, for once.

I stifle back the emotional catch in my voice; I’m more comfortable being open now, for sure, but not with the “Wizard of Odd.”

“I would tell him I’m sorry for always being his obstacle, trying to knock him down for doing his job exposing people like me… I’d tell him that I’m sorry I couldn’t help him.” My lip starts to quiver and I know if I can just get through this, I am on the other side of this now-weeks-long ordeal, I continued, “I guess, I would ask to be his friend, to help him somehow…….

I hear, what sounds like a garbled human voice say “a friend? Yes, I think I like that better than what I had in mind.” I see the silhouette open a drawer and seem to push something, and then the curtain starts to pull back and I couldn’t have been more surprised if it were Jesus Christ sitting at the desk; but this was no Holy scene, the sudden joy at realizing I could make amends with this old nemesis quickly evaporates when I see the state he was in, which was atrocious. My daughter had Kindergarten macaroni-art that seemed better put together. The jarring scene made me finally lose control after all these weeks and I let go of this new emotion to see where this new ride goes, I know were on the same side, and he has the plan, I spit out what thanks I can and embrace the new.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I never knew, I never……”