Escape Goat

Unem­ployed. Again.

Joe burst out of the build­ing, into the small dark lane, the sun not yet high enough to pierce the deep gul­lies between the office build­ings. His scuffed black leather boots, the clos­est thing he had to busi­ness shoes, slapped loud­ly on the cob­bled lane way. One, two, three steps, his legs unsteady, he stopped. He need­ed to get away from here, but his legs would not work. He stead­ied him­self, rest­ing his left hand on the grimy red brick wall.

The lane was like any of hun­dreds of oth­ers in the heart of the city, inter­link­ing the real roads like invis­i­ble cob­webs, ancient and unmain­tained, only known to the deliv­ery dri­vers, drunk­ards and detec­tives. Peo­ple don’t walk down the back lanes of Syd­ney unless they already know where the lanes go. And they don’t know where the lanes go unless…

I did­n’t even like the job.

He lent his back against the wall and tried to con­trol his breath­ing. The door he had just exit­ed slammed shut, the loud sound echoed in the lane and made him jump, his breath­ing out of con­trol again. He tried to count to ten, but kept get­ting flus­tered and could­n’t remem­ber what came after five.

He looked at the shops back­door, it seemed blur­ry, he was glad he would nev­er need to walk through it again, blur­ry doors were hard to walk through. He rubbed the palms of his hands to his eyes and snif­fled.

Don’t cry, not for this, they don’t deserve it.

The job had been two months of stock­take hell, and four months of sales hell before that. He was glad to be clear of it.

Don’t stay here you idiot. If they see you they will want to ‘talk’.

He heaved him­self off the sooth­ing cold wall, the back of his cheap white busi­ness shirt damp from sweat and dark from dust, he turned and stum­bled off down the lane. His boots catch­ing on the old cob­bles as he walked, scuff­ing the black pol­ish more.

He grabbed at the bright yel­low tie that was around his neck, part of his uni­form, it had always felt like a leash, now it felt like is was chok­ing him, he pulled it loose and tugged it free. Each step away from the shop felt bet­ter than the last, as if the phys­i­cal dis­tance was linked to the nau­sea, it start­ed to fade. He want­ed to throw the tie away, just toss it on the ground and leave it, for­get about it and every­thing it rep­re­sent­ed, but some inner ‘no lit­ter­ing’ part of his brain would­n’t let him. Instead he fold­ed the 100% poly­ester yel­low strip up with­out look­ing at it and stuffed it into his trousers pock­et.

He stepped though a low sand­stone arch­way and into a real street. The heat and noise of Syd­ney hit him in the face. Morn­ing peak hour was over, the work day had begun, but it was not yet lunch time, the quite morn­ing lull. There were only hun­dreds of peo­ple rush­ing around to their next appoint­ment, instead of the thou­sands that would be bustling the streets in a few hours, all try­ing to get lunch.

He stood on the street uncer­tain­ly. He had no idea what to do with him­self. If he went home he would have to explain what had hap­pened to his flat­mates. He did­n’t even under­stand it him­self yet. Every­one else he knew was at work and not being fired. He need­ed to sit down and shake off the nerves that were still threat­en­ing to trip him over.

Just keep walk­ing.

Despite their unsteadi­ness, his feet seemed to know the way and ten min­utes lat­er he found him­self an accept­able four blocks away, stand­ing at the counter of an almost emp­ty McDon­ald’s. He ordered a large Big Mac meal with­out even think­ing about it and car­ried his tray to an emp­ty booth upstairs.

As his butt touched the red faux-leather padded chair his legs gave way, he col­lapsed into the booth. The strain of keep­ing him­self upright and mov­ing was one less thing to wor­ry about.

What the fuck do I do now?

He picked up a fry and chewed on it slow­ly as he stared through the back of the chair oppo­site him.

Six months ago he had sent his résumé in for a sales job at a ‘Naught Games’ com­put­er shop. He had nev­er done sales and had nev­er want­ed to, but any­thing was bet­ter than the dole. At least that’s what peo­ple always said. Sur­pris­ing­ly they had hired him and with very lit­tle effort he was the newest ‘Account Man­ag­er’ at one of their many sub­ur­ban stores. The title of ‘man­ag­er’ had sur­prised him until he had learnt that every­one in the com­pa­ny was a ‘man­ag­er’ of one thing or anoth­er. It should have been his first red flag. He had­n’t known the com­pa­ny was des­per­ate, had­n’t known they would hire any­one that applied.

He had tried, he real­ly had, but he just could­n’t bring him­self to use the required high-pres­sure sales tricks, or up-sell some­thing that the cus­tomer clear­ly had no inter­est in. So while the cus­tomers were always hap­py with his assis­tance, his man­ag­er and the CEO were unhap­py with his sales fig­ures. Not that they told him at the time.

He reached for anoth­er fry and his hand went into the emp­ty car­ton. He looked down at the tray and realised that the food was gone, the burg­er wrap­per scrunched up and the soda cup emp­ty.

Who ate my food?

The answer came with a sti­fled belch tast­ing of cola and burg­er. He looked at his watch, 10.54 am.

Now what? Can’t sit in McDon­ald’s all day.

Back into the streets, walk­ing with­out direc­tion. He tried very very hard not to think about his finan­cial sit­u­a­tion.

He walked past men in dark busi­ness suit pants and bright white busi­ness shirts. He walked past women in high-heels and coloured sum­mer dress­es. His hands in his pock­ets, his head down, not look­ing where he was going, he did­n’t see any of them. When he occa­sion­al­ly glanced up all he saw were hun­dreds of peo­ple all of them still employed. The glimpses he got of their faces con­firmed his fear.

Every­one knows I’m a los­er.

While wait­ing at a pedes­tri­an cross­ing he absent­ly pulled his mobile out of his pock­et. He dialled Matt, his ‘very bestest friend’, as he wait­ed for the lights and tried not to notice that the city was full of suc­cess­ful peo­ple.

The cross­ing light went green, and he stepped out into the road with the oth­er peo­ple, a forty legged beast cross­ing the road as one.

“What’s up Joe?” asked the voice in his ear.

“What are you doing? I need to talk. I got fired.”

“Sucks to be you.”

Arse­hole.

“Can you—”

“Busy here,” Matt cut him off, “got things to do, lat­er.”

The phone line cut off. That had actu­al­ly gone bet­ter than he had expect­ed. At least Matt had answered the call.

Two months ago the region­al man­ag­er had pro­mot­ed him from the sales role in his sub­ur­ban store, to the stock role in the city store. Every­one was a man­ag­er, the city store had 19 account man­agers, a stock man­ag­er, a finance man­ag­er and a store man­ag­er. How­ev­er the job was sim­ple enough, all he had to do was mon­i­tor every piece of stock that entered and left the store and do dai­ly, week­ly and month­ly stock-takes to make sure all the books bal­anced. He had­n’t known he was being set up.

He blinked and looked up at the sun as it climbed towards its zenith, the bright warmth doing noth­ing to improve his mood. He reached into his pock­et and pulled out his sun glass­es. Shield­ing his eyes was easy, shield­ing his fears, not so much. He low­ered his gaze and took in the man-made nature of Hyde Park. The trees sway­ing soft­ly in the wind and soak­ing up the sun. On any oth­er day the sight of the sway­ing green would have warmed his soul. Today it just remind­ed him of mon­ey and his pend­ing lack of any.

Do I dare even look?

He stopped on the foot path and looked around, the first time he had real­ly tak­en in the view of the city around him, his eyes look­ing for any one of 28 dif­fer­ent sym­bols or signs that all meant the same thing. Three shops fur­ther along a small yel­low ATM sign hung out of a con­nivance store, like a hus­tler try­ing to con peo­ple to look inside.

He had to know.

He walked into the com­pact shop and tried to act like some­one who still had a job, find­ing the teller machine tucked away at the back of the store, forc­ing him to make his walk past all the can­dy and choco­late. He punched the num­bers and wait­ed for the machine to spit out the receipt. He glanced at it and shud­dered. If he cut back on his food then he might last four weeks… maybe five if he real­ly pushed it. After that it would be back to Cen­tre­link.

He brought a bot­tle of coke just so the small Indi­an man behind the counter would­n’t think he was an unem­ployed bum, and walked back out into the sun­ny street.

Too many peo­ple. I can’t think with all these peo­ple around.

He turned slow­ly on the spot, hop­ing his feet would just start walk­ing again as soon as he was fac­ing the right direc­tion, but when he spun back around to the start he guessed his autopi­lot had giv­en up. He looked to the right, into the now bustling streets of the city, he looked left, towards the park. At least there were less peo­ple in the park.

Half-way across the park he sat down on the cold grey stone steps of the War Memo­r­i­al, not see­ing the ‘do not sit on steps’ sign. He drank some of the cola as he stared at the reflec­tion pool, the water rip­pling slight­ly in the wind.

The first full stock­take had gone smooth­ly, the pre­vi­ous stock­take man­ag­er had stayed on to help. The sec­ond full stock­take a month lat­er had turned up a few prob­lems, but the store man­ag­er offered to help, and the prob­lems went away. A few days lat­er the store man­ag­er quit.

His bum was numb so he got up and con­tin­ued across the park. He fol­lowed the left hand path around the large artillery gun that stood at Whit­lam Square, the mil­i­tary grey weapon point­ed straight down Oxford Street.

Incase the gays invade.

He smiled for a sec­ond at the thought of scant­i­ly clad gay march­ing boys try­ing to do any­thing more com­plex than dance in step. He walked down the three steps that returned him to street lev­el, the exact spot that only a few yeas ago he had wait­ed to meet his first ever date. That made him smile a lit­tle too. Final­ly his mood start­ing to lift.

He unbut­toned the cuffs of his shirt as he crossed the road. He rolled up his sleeves as he walked up Oxford Street. Try­ing to fake a more casu­al atti­tude.

An instinc­tive need raised in his brain, a long­ing, an unde­ni­able desire.

Cof­fee.

He stopped walk­ing and looked up, stand­ing direct­ly out­side his favourite cof­fee shop, or at least the clos­ets thing he had to a favourite. He went into the nar­row shop and ordered a strong black, not his usu­al drink.

Sit­ting at a table on the side­walk, he sipped his drink. The cof­fee was hot, too hot, it burnt his tongue and the roof of his mouth. He swal­lowed it down fast just to get ride of the dis­com­fort, the dam­age already done. The skin on the roof on his mouth already form­ing a heat blis­ter and dying.

He added anoth­er spoon of sug­ar to the hot cof­fee, know­ing it would nei­ther improve the grit­ty flavour nor make the brown liq­uid cool enough to drink. A jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, a rea­son to delay hav­ing anoth­er sip. He added yet more sug­ar, giv­ing the bev­er­age more time to cool off on its own.

He pro­cras­ti­nat­ed anoth­er spoon­ful of sug­ar into the cof­fee. While lis­ten­ing to the high pitched tick of the spoon hit­ting the hot white ceram­ic as he stirred the sug­ar in, he won­dered if it was fair to sum up his per­son­al­i­ty as an active pro­cras­ti­na­tor.

After the new store man­ag­er start­ed at the shop it was time to do anoth­er stock­take. The prob­lems turned up again. The exact same prob­lems. Only this time they did­n’t go away. That had been yes­ter­day.

His phone rang and he pulled it out of his pock­et. The caller ID on the screen read. “Matt.”

Too late.

He hit the ‘ignore’ but­ton and stuffed the phone back into his pock­et.

He watched the peo­ple walk­ing along the street, this was bet­ter than the city, the peo­ple here were more real, less judge­men­tal. Cre­ative types that knew what it was to strug­gle with a vision. Horny types that were after only one thing. Down­trod­den types that could­n’t see a way out of the gut­ter.

$252,900.04 of stock was miss­ing. Over a quar­ter of a mil­lion dol­lars. More than five years of his wage. And whose respon­si­bil­i­ty was it? He had to admit that as the stock man­ag­er for the store, it real­ly was his prob­lem. The CEO agreed with him.

The sun start­ed to drop slow­ly, mov­ing from the harsh mid-day, to the long sum­mer after­noon.

More cof­fee.

The wait­er walked over and put his new cof­fee down on his table.

“Rough day?”

Joe blinked in sur­prise, looked up and just nod­ded.

“Want to tell me about it?”

“No, not real­ly.”

Why was this guy being so friend­ly?

The wait­er shrugged his shoul­ders.

“Suit your­self mate.” And picked up the emp­ty dirty cup and went off to his oth­er duties.

As he sipped the sec­ond cof­fee, more care­ful­ly than the first, he noticed the sur­face of the drink rip­ple slight­ly. He put the cup down and held his hand out before his face, the mus­cles in his hand twitched a lit­tle, the caf­feine and the stress get­ting to him. He shrugged and sipped at the cof­fee any­way.

The con­ver­sa­tion had been brief. The CEO want­ed answers. Joe did­n’t have answers. The best he had were sus­pi­cions, guess­es, but no proof. It would just look like he was point­ing the fin­ger, shift­ing the blame. So he said he had no expla­na­tion. So the CEO said he was fired.

He looked at the emp­ty cof­fee cup and then at his watch. 3.05pm. Peak hour would hit soon, the bus­es would be crowd­ed with the hot smelly cranky peo­ple on their way home.

No way I’m putting up with that, not any­more.

He went to the counter to pay. The wait­er took his mon­ey.

“Cheer up. It could be a lot worse you know.”

He frowned as he took his change.

“I guess. Could be a lot bet­ter too.” He shrugged and left the cof­fee shop.

He walked back towards the city, walk­ing a lit­tle lighter now, his unease caused by too much caf­feine now rather than the adren­a­line from before. He had been unem­ployed before. He could do it again. Back to baked beans on toast for break­fast, lunch and din­ner. He would make do.

The bus trip home was long and dull. He rest­ed his head against the win­dow, feel­ing the vibra­tions of the bus rat­tle around in his skull. It was strange­ly com­fort­ing.

He had been shak­ing a lit­tle as the CEO hung up on him. He put down the phone. There was no way he was going to make a scene. So he wrote a short, but polite, email and addressed it to every­one in the com­pa­ny. He pressed send. A mes­sage appeared on the screen:

“Not able to send email. You do not have per­mis­sion.”

Stunned at how quick­ly he had been frozen out of the sys­tem, he set his com­put­er to secure erase all his per­son­al files, picked up his sun glass­es and his iPod and walked out the back door of the shop before any­one could stop him.

---

Three months and still unem­ployed.

The fort­night­ly trip to the local Cen­tre­link office was once again part of his rou­tine. The Cen­tre­link office felt like it was delib­er­ate­ly designed to make you feel unwel­come. From the ‘Wel­come to Cen­tre­link’ sign writ­ten in a sharp harsh font and half hid­den behind a pot­ted plant, to the pinky-grey syn­thet­ic car­pet that was puke and blood proof.

He stood in the queue with the dole-bludgers, the chron­i­cal­ly unem­ploy­able and those just unfor­tu­nate­ly on the wrong side of 50. He wait­ed to hand in his form and get the judg­men­tal accep­tance of his Gov­ern­ment.

In the cor­ner of the bar­ren office space was a tele­vi­sion, mount­ed from the ceil­ing so no one could break it. His atten­tion was draw to a famil­iar face. The cap­tion read “CEO — Naught Games”.

What the hell is he doing on TV?

The sound was mut­ed on the tele, so all he could go by was the cap­tions as they changed.

“Naught Games liq­ui­dat­ed.”

The queue moved for­ward slow­ly as the peo­ple ahead of him had their issues dealt with.

“Mil­lions in unpaid salaries.”

Jonathan, the man behind the counter gave him a weary smile as Joe hand­ed over his form. Jonathan looked the form over, one side and then the oth­er, stamped it and added it to the pile.

“CEO flees coun­try.”

Maybe being unem­ployed isn’t too bad.

END

Sto­ry first writ­ten for Uni Class in Novem­ber 2011