The door bangs shut to produce an echo that flits from room to room in the modestly furnished flat of Zippy Zamazda.
His wife, her eyes a pool of tears, stands limp and shuddering in the hall.
A dingy white apron lies crumpled in the corner, as if ripped off and tossed where it might land.
And the coatrack! His genuine wool felt fedora is gone, too.
Later, Mrs. Zamazda discovers that Zippy has booked a single seat with an economy class airline, and paid the fare with the Diaspora Diners Card he’d so eagerly applied for – and just recently received.
Los Angeles, California, was the destination of her husband. But why? Zippy was from New York, a graduate of the Brooklyn School of Scientists… only later to be chosen to head Ukraine’s Window to the World, a position he was soon to be pushed out of by the envious and underhanded, people who could match neither his education nor his talent: Saint Stephan, who just couldn’t bear to be made redundant, and that Boner fellow from Wisconsin, or wherever, who just wouldn’t give up that job.
But in the end she blamed herself. Why had she insisted her husband go up and introduce himself to Rico Soiree at that Saint Valentine’s Day event so long ago? What had it gotten him but long hours, working mostly at night… as a house boy! She felt as if she could tear out her hair and scream.
x-x-x
“What can I do for you?”
“I heard you were looking for me.” *
“That was almost two years ago.”
“Well, I was in over my head – a pile of rubble – charred bricks, shards of glass and a mangled metal construction frame.”
Moe Zaire, owner and publisher of the Kyiv Poster, puts two hands palms down on the top of his desk as if about to get to his feet. His eyes are big and white, and his upper teeth dig into his lower lip.
“I’ve had enough of your shit, Boner,” he growls and then hits a button on his desk.
The paper’s one-time acting CEO Anoyla Zombietska enters the room, slaps a recent copy of the paper on Zaire’s desk and then smirks at Boner in a side glance.
Zaire stands up, snatches the paper from the desk and starts rifling through its pages. He then folds back a section with a large color photo of Boner in shapeless cotton trousers and a Christmas sweater addressing the newsroom.
Zaire rattles the pages in his hands and bares his teeth. A foam has begun to form above his gums.
“I mean, what the fuck is this?”
Boner’s eyes roll up.
“Look at me!” shouts Zaire. Do you see a hair out of place on my head? No, cuz each one is dyed right into my scalp. How about any wrinkles – see any on my chocolate bunny face? No again, cuz I pay to get them ironed out.”
Zaire turns to look at Zombietska. They both smile.
“Now look at my pants. They’re part of a suit, aren’t they? Not something from the daywear collection at a retirement home!”
Boner’s now looking down. His hands are in his pockets.
“And I’m not wearing a sweater, am I?”
Zaire’s almost frantic now, and Zombietska looks about to join in.
“When I took your sorry ass on almost a decade ago, you had Hollywood good looks. Yeah, that’s what people used to say. Now look at you – bald and gray with sunspots on the skin of your arms. I overlooked the overbudgeting and it cost me a fortune. In fact, I continue to pay. I even turned a blind eye to the sexual harassment charges. That’s right – let you get away with it for years. Then there was that shit with Jim Book, Joe Hook, or whatever the son of a bitch was called. Did I need that – another dirty old man with an oversized ego that eclipsed the paper’s front page… No, so I let you dis him, though it made me look like an ass. I mean, why the fuck did you have to publish that you’d canned the guy if he’d barely even started to work for us?”
Boner has got two fingers stuck in his hair trying to get at a small piece of concrete.
“So I hire The Ferret – you know I don’t like him, but I hired him anyway to find you, to dig your ass up because you decided to go missing. But you wouldn’t be found for almost two fucking years, would you? And when you are found, you look even older, balder and worse dressed than ever. And here you are addressing my employees, people that I pay in an office that I own, in a Christmas sweater and shapeless cotton trousers! If I’d have known you’d come back looking like that I would have told The Ferret to put you back where he’d found you!”
Zombietska is now standing with her hands on her hips.
“And another thing: If you think you’re going to run the show on your own, now that that French guy is leaving, you’ve got another thing coming. You need a boss, Boner, and it ain’t gonna be that Cocoa chick again, do you hear me?”
Boner exits his boss’s office in a fog. His ears are ringing and he can still feel the sting of his cheeks and forehead; the blood rush up from his dressing down.
So he asks for a cup of coffee and gets one, settles into his swivel chair and it feels good. The intern chicks are bustling about the newsroom; Interfax in English is up.
Then he gets an email. It’s from Cocoa in the States.
‘Dear Bret, I hope this email finds you well. Things are ok in D.C., except with Obama out of office, there’s not much novelty in being a black Ukrainian chick.
‘So I’ve decided to publicly disgrace you as a sexual predator, say you made me feel uncomfortable and vulnerable at work. I see it as a career move, and you should, too.
‘Love, Cocoa.’
Filed by The Half Guinea, February 28, 2018
* The fact that Boner was blown up along with everyone else in the newsroom on that fateful day will not here be dignified with any further comments, particularly as this is the end – of sorts. Therefore, we ask that you please draw your own conclusions.