Max scowled at him, but he got up and walked down the cubicle. He stopped by Aaron’s workstation first–had he seen him just close a window? All that was on the screen now was a bunch of technical schematics Max had no hope of understanding. They talked for a while, and sure enough Aaron stonewalled. Max had just never noticed before, how often he seemed to run into these technical problems, and just like Junior had said, he condescended to him, like he was speaking to some idiot. He bristled a bit, and told Aaron to explain it to him anyway. Aaron shrugged and let loose a stream of what might as well have been nonsense. Was it nonsense? How in the hell would Max even know if it was? Had he really been putting him on this whole time?
Julian was still on the phone at least, but speaking too quietly to make anything out. Max asked who he was talking to, and he stammered, before coming up with some excuse that it was his wife. But if it was his wife, why was he being so secretive? Suddenly everything Junior had said seemed to fit into place…but then again…he hadn’t gained any sort of certainty, just armfuls of doubt. He went back to his own space, where Junior was sitting in his chair, legs spread wide, looking smug and half hard.
“See? I told you.”
“I…I didn’t see anything.”
“That’s because you don’t know how to look, daddy,” he said, “Do you know what your problem is? You think you’re a good person. Good people don’t exist. There are only those willing to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them, and those who are held back by their own doubt and cowardice. Morals are just an excuse. No one cares about your fucking morals. And morals can’t do anything about your small cock.”
“It’s not that small!”
“Three and a quarter inches hard is small, but that, at least, I can do something about,” he said, “If you’re willing to do what you should have done on your own months ago.”
Max just stared him down, bluffing, even though somehow Junior had just told him exactly how long his cock was. He’d…measured it a few times.
Junior fumed silently for a moment. “Fine. Say you do this. Say you quit. That doesn’t save their jobs. Mr. Herman will still fire people, and he’s just going to make the wrong choices. Probably Amy, who actually does do work, and Marco, because he hates anyone the least bit brown. This whole project will collapse when Julian takes off, and then everyone else will lose their jobs around here.”
“That’s assuming that what you say is true.”
“How exactly do you know it isn’t?”
He didn’t know. But something about this didn’t feel right. What was Junior even doing here, anyway? How had he gotten here today? Max only had one car, and he hadn’t driven him. It was too early in the morning to get here by bus, especially since he must have spent some time wandering around, finding all of this out. Nothing about this seemed right. He should just go with his instinct, and his instinct still said quit. He was tired of doubting, he had to be sure of something today, and he was sure that he didn’t want to be a part of this anymore. He went to his computer and hit print on his letter.
“You’re a fucking fool. You’re being played by everyone and you can’t even see it. What about us, huh? What about me? How are you going to feed me without a job?”
“We’ll figure something out. I have some savings, and I’ve never had a hard time finding a job.”
“Yeah, just keeping them. This was supposed to be your career, remember? What happened to that?”
Max didn’t have anything else to say, so he walked away, down the hall and picked up his letter from the printer, but by the time he got back to his cubicle, Junior was gone, and nowhere to be seen. Hopefully he’d gone home. He might as well just go get it over with, and he kept walking off towards Mr. Herman’s office on the other side of the floor. He stopped outside the door and took a deep breath. His palms were sweaty, and he hoped he hadn’t made any marks on the letter. Maybe…maybe he should go print another one, just to be sure. He sighed. Was he a coward? He was just stalling now, none of this even mattered. After a few more deep breaths, trying to calm himself down, he got ready to go in, and saw Junior through the window in the door, standing beside Mr. Herman.
Bracken's Corner 