The Fuck Up by Arthur Nersesian Read Free Book Online Page B

can’t give you the job.” He then paused. I thought about this a moment: punch this guy in the fucking face and get out of here. But then I realized that to him this was one big controlled setting.
    “I am unhappy.” This guy wanted me to do some kind of Isadora Duncandance, symbolizing and acting out feelings. “I am shrouded in constant shade, waiting for liberation. I am a barnacle forever stuck to the bow of a ship.”
    “Good, good.” He nodded approvingly. “Now you’ve got the job again and you know that you have it. But you’ve experienced the knowledge of not having it.”
    I paused and didn’t know what to do next. “So?”
    “So what does this knowledge offer you? How do you see yourself here?”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I want to see not anticipation, but action. I want to see you working here tomorrow, right now.”
    “You mean you want me to envision myself working here?” I looked over at him and he just watched me. “All right, I can do that.” I closed my eyes and tried to see myself walking through my theater. “Yep, there I am.”
    “What are you doing?”
    “I’m handling the many chores and duties that occur in the course of a given day.” Then opening my eyes, I asked him, “What kind of chores and duties occur in the course of a given day?”
    “We’ll go into that later, right now I want you to explore your anxieties.”
    “Huh?”
    “Look, you don’t realize this, but you are on those dimensions simultaneously. Recollection is just calling forth those moments. Think about it. With any given situation there’s usually a predisposed action.”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “So when I ask you these questions you don’t have to think. Simply look and tell me what you see.”
    “What was the question again?”
    “We were talking about your sensations on this matter.”
    I took a deep breath and closed my eyes and went under: “I feel animpediment, I’m not as well trained on this as you…. I feel a certain anxiety over what might happen.” I was running dangerously low on bullshit.
    “Have you ever participated in EST?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “Do you chant?”
    “No.”
    “Crystals?”
    “No.”
    “All right, we’ll go into more of that later. You’re lucky we met, I see a lot of headway I could help you with.”
    “I’m looking forward to that.” Closing my eyes I suddenly started groaning. “Oh, I’m registering something within.”
    “Good, good, what is it?”
    “It’s stifling…I see…money….” I was answering like someone hearing voices at a seance. “It’s the stifling question of wage.”
    “Yes.” He leaned forward energetically. “Good, go with it.”
    “I’m speculating about the whole power structure.”
    “Okay, that’s Pentagon; you’re referring to Pentagon,” he explained. Who the hell had mentioned the Pentagon? But I got the picture. This was a West Coast hippie with short hair whose destiny as a Haight Ashbury health food cashier had somehow been derailed and instead he had wound up in this bizarre and forsaken spot. Wherever he is nowadays, a transchanneler and a crystal would certainly be nearby. I was getting sick of his shit: “To hell with the Pentagon!”
    “Good, excellent, get rid of all that hostility, but then let’s get back to the issue. Specifically, I’d like to hear what you thought when you saw me for the first time.”
    This was going to be easy. He wanted to be flattered. “Well, I felt…anenergy, you know, like a compass needle pointing north.” I then paused a moment and looked enlightened and blurted, “Of course, it all makes sense now.”
    “What does?”
    “Well, for the past few days, all these auspicious and portentous things kept happening.”
    “Really?” he replied eagerly. “Like what?”
    “Well, I felt this kind of Buddhistic suspension, as if nothing and everything mattered.”
    “Really?”
    “I broke up with my old lover.”
    “What a sacrifice.”
    “And moved out of