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