I want my ball back
By: Alan Berger
I just went in and told him that my days of kissing the Pope’s ring are over. Like the way we had rehearsed it.
My father was sick as a child and he was also sick when I was a child. He never Complained. He had guts and I don’t. That is, didn’t. Good thing I met her. She gave me a backbone, to put it simply. I never felt better in my life going in there. I felt invincible because I was.
He took a while to react, like I knew he would. He looked out the window to the parking lot below and most likely was looking at my car. My American shit box convertible with the top nicely buttoned up hiding the contents within that I had stolen from him.
“The spoils of war” or special job leaving take-away benefits, whatever you want to call it, it is coming with me.
“You’ve been with me at my company for ten years. You’re like a son to me and Susanne”. A broke son I told him, which he knew already. “You’re still coming along and coming up nicely. Look down the road”. He said, Oh, I am I mentioned to myself.
Yes, I thought, and the best is yet to come.
He held up the picture of his wife, Susanne, as he was using it as a prop to make his points. Nothing new there. Everyone thought he was an idiot including the woman he had in that picture frame. But they all sure liked him at first. Just like I did.
I met him in a bar where he was shooting off his mouth, telling the town how wonderful him and his factory was for their local civilization until a bottle went flying towards his head and out of reflex and nothing else, I swatted it away from his right temple before it made contact, so he offered me a job and I took it with all the great expectations he threw out along with it. As you can tell, it did not turn out great. I did not expect that.
On and on he went about how I should a find a good woman like he had to set me right. Like his Wife, “Without a good woman, like my Susanne, you’re nothing”. He may have a point there, but I was not in his office to hear that. I had another reason.
Yes, he had given me a job, from one bar stool to another, laughing at the same thing on the T.V. that no one else was laughing at. We got it. It was between us and I was between jobs and he had a job and I went for it.
He was the type of guy that you liked and didn’t like, right off. But you listened. I listened. His success was Obvious. He reminded me, at the time, of what my father could have been were it not for the sickness and what I could be with more confidence. I could have been a pro-golfer, but I can’t play in front of a crowd to save my life. But, alone? Fuck you Tiger. He loves golf and when only the two of us play, he sees what I can , “Too bad “. He would snicker, “You could have been a winner, ha ha”. I took it as affection, but deep down, I knew it wasn’t a nice thing to say after every wonderful shot I made. Should have let him win but I could not help it.
“ Golf does not build character, it shows it”.
It was on his golf course that I realized what kind of character he had and what kind of character he was.
He got a call from some whore he was fucking behind his wife’s back, in between singing praises of his pretty wife.
She is pretty, and a very lovely person. The kind of person anyone would want.
He didn’t deserve her, and she didn’t deserve him.
Moved up to sales.
20 percent increase in sales by just giving out Starbuck Gift cards.
“So, what do you want now, a raise”? He asked me.
No raises for me other than soon I will raise myself from this chair and get the fuck out of here.
“Thanks, but no thanks”, said I.
“So, what do I owe this honor of you in my office, doing an in person quitting speech, because, you are now officially wasting my time’’?
“I want my ball back”, I demanded forthwith.
A long time ago my father took me to a Yankee game.
I don’t know how in the fuck he accomplished it, but my dad caught a ball. A homer from the home team.
He gave me that ball and I gave it to this fuckhead a long time ago.
He leaned back on his chair and plucked it from “The shelf of honor”, on “The wall of honor”, and pitched it over.
“I thought it was a fake story anyway and I was going to fire you anyway too and now you are in my way so hit the road loser, I have a lot on my plate”.
I was sure he would be watching from his window as I approached my car.
When I got to it, I put the top down and drove off with the women in the picture frame on his desk that was no longer on his plate.