Holy Water (8 page)

Warren closes the door and walks closer to Henry.
“
So you
’
re saying you didn
’
t like your job here?
”

“
Don
’
t. Didn
’
t. Never will. You knew that, Warren.
”

Warren looks at his hands and shakes his head.
“
You always said it, but I thought that was just white-collar bravado.
”

“
The work we do here gives white collars a bad name. We
’
re like bureaucratic clerks in a Kafka novel.
”

“
Then why have you stayed here so long?
”

“
Because I
’
m an asshole. Because I didn
’
t know what else to do. And not just with the job, with everything. You say you like it, but you
’
re telling me you truly enjoy what you do, Warren?
”

“
Enjoy
does not do justice to how I feel about my job. I love the mission statement, the product mix, the day-to-day responsibilities. I love the research, the customer interaction, the
Eure
k
a
!
moment that comes with a genuine insight. I never wanted a promotion or a transfer. I wanted to do this, customer insights, Eye Care, for the rest of my life. And that
’
s what I intend to do.
”

“
But that job, if I
’
m not mistaken, has been assumed by a twenty-two-year-old man-child in Bangalore, India.
”

Warren nods.
“
Exactly.
”

“
So you know of a similar job at a similar company?
”

“
Not really.
”

Meredith and Henry exchange glances.

“
I
’
m going to get my job back, people. This
exact
job.
”

“
Okay,
”
says Henry, the way he
’
d say it to a crazy person.

“
I
’
ve already done some research. I
’
m pretty sure I found the company in India they
’
re subcontracting to.
”

Meredith sits down on Henry
’
s black leather couch.
“
And you
’
re going to try to convince them to bring it back here?
”

“
Oh, no,
”
Warren says, walking over to the window.
“
Not that. I
’
m going to go over there.
”

“
To India?
”
Henry asks.

“
Uh-huh. To Bangalore. Or Mumbai. Could be Mumbai.
”

Henry looks at Meredith again, but she is staring at Warren, transfixed.

“
Listen,
”
Warren says.
“
I
’
m thirty. Single. Divorced. Childless. My parents are dead. My friends have all moved on with kids and spouses and midlife crises of their own. What I have . . . what I had was a job that I loved. It gave me pleasure. Fulfillment. I found it challenging. I felt as if I was helping people. Christ, Henry, listen to what you just said. And Meredith, you
’
ve as much as told me that if it weren
’
t for the medical benefits and the profit-sharing, you
’
d be long gone, trying to become a new media millionaire. What
’
s so wrong with me deciding that I want to travel halfway around the world to keep the job that I love?
”

“
Warren,
”
Henry says.
“
They
’
ve outsourced it because it
’
s an unskilled job and they
’
re probably paying someone one tenth of what they
’
re paying you. You couldn
’
t live on that.
”

“
I could in Bangalore. Besides, I
’
ve got one point three million dollars in the bank. One point three. With no kids and no alimony.
”

Henry does the math. The son of a bitch was here for the takeover eight years ago that he
’
d just missed, but still.
“
One point three after the crash?
”

Warren nods.
“
I yanked it all out way before and put half in gold, which I sold at the high.
”

“
But you don
’
t speak the language.
”

“
I
’
ll learn. Besides, most of the people I
’
ll work with speak English.
”

“
I think it
’
s crazy, Warren,
”
Henry says.

Meredith disagrees.
“
I think it
’
s adorable.
”

“
I think it
’
s better than your plan, Henry,
”
Warren answers.

Meredith nods.
“
Whatever that is.
”

“
When Giffler told me this morning,
”
Warren continues,
“
I was devastated. But now I feel liberated, because I absolutely know what I want to do. I may not be able to do it, but knowing what that is, and being on a mission to achieve it, to make it a part of an adventure, feels incredible. What is it that you want to do, Henry?
”

Henry considers the millionaire, Bangalore-bound, reverse-outsourcing customer-service-rep pioneer and then the all-knowing, multimillionaire (probably), big-boob new-media porn star/administrative assistant in front of him and then looks back out the window. The preacher man on the median below has gone wherever he goes when this part of his shift is up. The soup line? The gym? He
’
s probably rich and fulfilled too. Taillights continue to flash into the black mouth of the traffic arch down the avenue before vanishing, never to be seen again. He feels the dull throbbing in his scrotal sac that the doctors said might occur for several weeks after the procedure, and in some instances for several years. As he slips his hand into his pocket to make a discreet adjustment, his phone buzzes, and the jolt of it almost causes him to leap through the supposedly
unopenable
window.

~ * ~

Test Strip

In the first days following your vasectomy, elevate your legs and apply ice packs liberally to the scrotal area. Lasting or significant pain is uncommon, but you should not have, and probably won
’
t feel like having, intercourse for several days to several weeks. Your doctor will tell you when to bring in your first semen sample for examination.

—
Snipped.com

The pool is indeed green. A different green from the last time he
’
d seen it in daylight, on Sunday. Now it
’
s more of an Amazon jungle river green than an electric Kool-Aid, Chernobyl green, but green nonetheless.

Henry squats and takes a test strip out of a small blue plastic bottle. He dips it in and out of the deep end of the pool and compares its small multicolored panels to their idealized version on the back label. At first he thinks he
’
s holding the strip upside-down, because none of the colors come close to corresponding with those on the label. But he
’
s wrong, it
’
s right. Which is sort of a relief, he thinks, because if it all lined up perfectly and the pool was still green, he
’
d really be screwed.

Still, what a mess. And why does it have to be so difficult? And not just the pool but the entire, thanks to the real estate mess, drastically devalued house. So much breaking down, so much to maintain,
even though it
’
s relatively new. Gutters to be cleaned. HVAC filters to be replaced. Furnace needing servicing, toilets clogging, water-treatment systems failing, minerals building up in a $2,000 dishwasher. Cracks in the driveway, water in the foundation. Always depreciating, never easy. And no matter how well stocked his basement workbench becomes, he never seems to have the right tool for the job. And parts. The part that he
’
ll dedicate a Saturday morning to finding in the Home Depot
’
s endless aisles is always, for reasons he never finds out, wrong. Wrong length, wrong width. Wrong model, color, pattern, gauge, grit, grade, viscosity, voltage. Wrong.

Right now, the entire house, even the parts that work, he thinks, is wrong. Four thousand state-of-the-
McMansion
-art square feet of wrong. Or maybe, it occurs to him, he is what
’
s wrong with the house. He
’
s the one fouling up the works, the one in need of maintenance, the one depreciating at
a greater than anticipated rate. Maybe he
’
s the one who should be foreclosed upon.

He thinks, if the house had to shop for parts for Henry and Rachel Tuhoe at the
Human
Depot, it would get it all wrong too. Wrong age. Wrong attitude. Wrong ambitions. And absolutely the wrong model. As he looks up at the towering clapboard wall of the back of the house, the screened-in porch, the rear windows of the three-car garage, the matching pool house, it
’
s all he can think. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong life.

Yet less than two years earlier it had seemed, or at least Rachel had convinced him to believe it was, kind of right. They had lived together on the Upper West Side for three years, two as a married couple, and had enjoyed it immensely. The laughable commute, the late-as-you-want dinners at the most eclectic places. They enjoyed watching friends
’
bad indie bands in Brooklyn and not understanding the art they kept going back to see in Chelsea. Waiting on line for midnight cupcakes at Billy
’
s. Sunday brunch with childless friends at Cafe Luxembourg. They enjoyed having the gym and the dive bar and the bookstore next door, the
megatheaters
two blocks south, and the art-house theater a few blocks beyond that.

And then they (Rachel first, he
’
s certain) decided that they had outgrown it. Their friends
’
escapades with love and drugs, real careers and fantasy vocations no longer seemed original or terribly
important. Tedious patterns began to emerge. Ill-considered behaviors were repeated. What had seemed outrageous began to register as immature. What had once passed as interesting had become banal. Melodramatic. It had rained three weekends in a row at the end of that summer, canceling the last August visits of the season to their Amagansett beach rental, which, after three years with the same people, had also become tedious, tiresome, banal. Melodramatic.

They
’
d both been working social-life-killing hours at jobs at which their entry-level, young-professional-on-the-rise energy and optimism had already been replaced by increased responsibility and, yes, money, as well as questions of a deeper philosophical nature. Also, Rachel was in the middle of a feud with her best friend, which added to her already bored state of mind.

So the early October invitation to a fall harvest festival at the northern Westchester County home of one of Rachel
’
s married coworkers seemed like something worth trying. Something new. On the Hudson Line train heading north, coming out of the first tunnel and seeing the sun-blasted leaves against a cloudless sky, they both felt it—that they were no longer mired in the expected but on the verge of something new and fresh and altogether different. Even the sky seemed of another place, much cleaner than the sky they
’
d just left.