The door to my office slammed open and Mr. Naismith blew in like a freak summer thunderstorm. "Keene! I told you I needed that update today. Where is it?"
"I'm working on it, sir. I should have it done in a hour or so." I chanced a surreptitious glance at my watch and blew my clandestine maneuver with a double take. I couldn't believe it was after six. I still had a mountain of paperwork to finish. Naismith's irritation made sense now. He was usually the first one out the door at five. Staying this late was cutting into his golf time; he'd probably only have time for nine holes tonight.
"Sorry, sir. I've been working on the GenCorp job, and I guess I lost track of time. I'll get the update done right away."
He didn't even deign to reply. With a sneer and a shake of his head he backed out of my office.
I got up to close the door and doubled over as agony erupted from my stomach and washed over me in waves of nausea. When the last ripples finally subsided I sat down and popped two Tums tablets from the bottle on my desk. "Too much coffee," I told myself.
A little voice in my head added, "and too much pizza, and doughnuts, and—"
"Shut it," I told the little voice. I opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet and pulled a little silver flask, a souvenir from my college days many years ago. The engraved wildcat seemed to snarl at me as I unscrewed the lid and let a slug of Jim Beam's finest wash the chalky taste from my mouth. At least I hadn't actually thrown up that time.
The truce with my stomach held for the next few hours. I popped a few more antacids and washed them down with a few more sips from the flask. By eleven-thirty I still wasn't done, but I wasn't going to accomplish anything else worthwhile, so I shut off my computer and headed for the door.
I lit up a smoke to clear my head as I walked through the parking lot to my car, the only one still there. I grumbled about Naismith and his incompetence the entire trip home. He was ten years younger than I was, and about forty points of IQ below me as well. But he had the look, and that was all the executives seemed to notice.
The house was dark when I pulled into the driveway. Jeannie used to wait up, but after a month of never knowing what time I'd be home, she gave up. I didn't blame her; no point in us both suffering. When I got to the door, my stomach resumed the battle with a vicious sneak attack and I threw up all over the flowers Jeannie had planted next to the sidewalk. I popped another antacid tablet to dull the pain and to cover the coppery taste in my mouth. Then I turned the key and went in.
I managed to undress in the dark and quietly slid into bed. Pride in my stealth was dashed by a voice from the far side. "You're working too hard."
"I know. But in a couple of weeks I'll be caught up. Things will get back to normal."
"That's what you said two weeks ago, Jim. The stress, the long hours: it's not good for you. Maybe you should reconsider that teaching job."
I sighed. Teaching sounded great, until you looked at the paycheck. "We've talked about this. There's no way we handle the cut in pay. Claire's tuition alone would bankrupt us."
She rubbed my arm. "We would find a way, Jim. Claire is worried, too."
I turned off the conversation as I had done several times before. 'I'll think about it, Jeannie. I'm tired, though. Good night, dear. I love you."
The alarm five hours later pulsed in time with the throbbing in my head. As I seemed to every morning, I considered calling in sick. But nobody else was going to do my work and there would just be that much more to do the next day.
I trudged toward the bathroom and fell to my knees as molten lead poured into my stomach. Somehow, I managed not to cry out. I lay quietly curled in a fetal position on the floor until the attack passed and my vision returned. I then hurried to the shower to wash away the sheen of sweat.
An hour later, after a large coffee to wake me up, a couple of Rolaids to cover the burning in my gut, and three cigarettes to calm my nerves, I was ready to face the daily grind and my own personal grinder.
"Keene, nice of you to show up today. Is the GenCorp design ready for review yet?"
I somehow managed to smile at him. "I'm putting the finishing touches..." My stomach went from a muted ache to a crescendo of agony nearly instantly. Naismith had actually taken a step toward me and was therefore directly in the path of the implausibly colossal volume of coffee, donuts, and blood that erupted from my beleaguered belly. Sadly, I was not conscious long enough to see his reaction.
When I awoke in the hospital, Jeannie was at my bedside, her forehead creased with worry and lines of mascara trailing down her cheeks. "Oh, Jim. I thought...nevermind what I thought." She squeezed my hand three times, our silent code for 'I love you' and started to cry again. "The doctor said you lost a lot of blood. He said he'd heard of people dying from ulcers, but never seen one like yours. I never realized you could bleed to death on the inside. Thank God you're all right. I don't know what Claire and I would have done—"
She was interrupted by the ringing of the room telephone. She took a deep breath to regain her composure before she picked it up. "Hello?" Almost immediately, she held it out to me. "It's your boss."
"Naismith? Hard to believe he might be concerned about me. Probably wants to know when I'll have the GenCorp design finished."
I took the telephone from her. "Hello, this is Jim Keene."
The voice on the other end sounded distant. "Keene, glad you pulled through. You're fired." And he hung up.
Jeannie took the receiver from my hand and put it back on the base. "What did he want?"
For the first time in a long while I felt a sense of ease. "I think I'll take that teaching job after all."