Parachute

It wasn’t until 1:11 PM, Henry’s favorite time of day, namely due to the sum of the digits resulting in a prime number, also the time at which he had purchased his lizard, Guillermo, at Claws & Paws five years prior, that Henry dislodged a string of floss that had been hanging out of the front of his mouth all morning. He had just begun flossing a few weeks ago, at the dawn of his forties, upon the recommendation of the dental hygienist, Javier, who volunteered at the Sunday mobile dental clinic. That Sunday a few weeks ago, Henry found himself reclining in a dental chair in the back of the van. His mother prodded in one of her recent handwritten notes accompanying a rent check, that he should get his teeth cleaned, that having no insurance wasn’t an excuse because there was a free clinic near him. It was the first time a practitioner’s hands had been in his mouth in over twenty years. He stared at a knock-off Monet print glued to the ceiling with Duct Tape. Javier removed his gloved hands from Henry’s mouth, pulled the bib around Henry’s neck to wipe the pool of drool on his chin, took a step back and raised his hands, palms facing forward as though encountering a robber. 

“I’m not gonna harp on you to eat more leafy greens or drink less soda, Henry. But let’s go after this tartar with some daily flossing, okay? Once you get the hang of it, you’ll like the way it feels – kinda like slipping your toes in those flip flops you got there.” 

He patted Henry on the shoulder and plopped a grab bag of oral hygiene products in his lap. Henry winked and nodded his head, preferring this to smiling, as his brain communicated more with his eyes than his mouth. He left the van with a moderate rumble of excitement about the prospect of flossing, an excitement more about something new to investigate than the flossing itself. 

Later that afternoon, just two blocks down from his apartment building, Henry and Guillermo, who sat perched on his left shoulder, entered Dollar Mania, a store he frequented every Sunday to buy his weekly supply of Campbell’s CHUNKY Pub-Style Chicken Pot Pie soup cans. Today, however, feeling inspired by Javier, who he now considered a friend, he delighted at the prospect of dislodging peanuts and cheesy crackers from his back teeth and wandered into the personal hygiene aisle. After twenty minutes examining the foreign plastic products, he decided to buy 3 Oral-B Glide Pro-Health Comfort Plus Dental Floss packets and 3 Ultra Tight, 10 Count Gum Proxabrush Go-Betweens cleaners. He tossed them into his hand basket, and made his way to the register, wheelie cart behind him, Guillermo’s tail thwapping against his back.

Matilda, his favorite cashier was working the register. 

“Hey, hon. How’s your day?”

Henry never said much, usually just winked and nodded. But this week, he timidly offered Matilda a high-five, something his unemployment counselor, Ms. Peterson, had suggested. Her neck cocked, then loosened as she laughed. In the afterglow of their touch, Guillermo’s eyes bulged while he watched Matilda stack the soup cans into a tower then swipe floss packets across the beeping point-of-sale. She chomped a wad of gum.  

“I dunno know why anyone bothers with this,” she shook her head as she looked at the floss.

Her silver hoop earrings swayed against her stubbled face. 

Henry dropped his purchased load into his cart. 

“Take care, hon.” 

Henry winked as Matilda shooed him away with her chipped neon green nails. He wandered outside, pulling his cart down his neighborhood street, passing the nail salon, dry cleaner, used vacuum store, mortuary, and 7-Eleven where he used to work before he got fired a couple of months ago. At the end of the block was a park attached to an elementary school, a park he frequented most days now that the weather was improving. It was Sunday so there were no children, but their ghosts laughed as they pushed each other on the swing sets, the rubber seats gliding in the breeze. He sat down on a wooden bench, leaned back, and removed a slice of American cheese from his fanny pack, tossing the entire square into his mouth. Guillermo paced back and forth across his shoulders, left to right, trying to make himself comfortable. Noticing a flock of pigeons gathering in the gazebo in the aftermath of a group of bustling wedding attendees, Henry reached into his fanny pack again and, one by one, hurled peanuts their way, admiring the tenacity of their bobbing heads propelling them forward. When he ran out of peanuts, he closed his eyes, the afternoon sun searing into his bald patch. For a moment, he imagined what it would be like to stick his own rubber-gloved hands into people’s mouths all day like Javier, his stubby fingers rummaging around for artifacts. His thoughts shifted to Ms. Peterson. In their first session, last week, she had insisted his vocational goals were only temporarily misplaced and if he stuck with the program, they would excavate his Life Mission. For their next appointment, she had loaned him a copy of the book, What Color Is Your Parachute, and instructed him to read and underline for discussion, personally meaningful excerpts. He pulled the paperback copy out of his cart, the cover slightly misshapen beneath the soup cans. This was Guillermo’s cue to jump inside and nestle into a gray sweatshirt for his afternoon nap. Henry removed a ballpoint pen from his plaid shirt pocket and thumbed through the first few chapters. He skipped ahead, his usual habit with books, and bold text caught his eye. A CHECKLIST OF MY STRONGEST TRAITS. He read each adjective, carefully considering whether or not to check the box beside it. Of the 75 options he marked one. 

☒ Punctual

*

“The unemployment rate skyrockets to 10 percent, economists say.” 

Ms. Peterson woke that morning to the sound of the local news headlines trickling in from her alarm radio. Not bothering to remove her satin eye mask, she groaned and smacked the off button, rolling her body, covered in an I Heart NY shirt, from side to side. She ambled out of bed and brewed a pot of black coffee. She drank the initial cup slowly over the course of her first conscious hour while sitting on her purple couch, the smells of the donut shop below her apartment wafting through the window, smells she had come to associate with Monday and the return of the couple who owned the shop, Olga and Vlad, who yelled orders back and forth over the clamor of the morning rush. Never one to stick to morning routines, what she did in that hour alternated. For about three days she had tried to meditate, but her thoughts clawed at the back of her eyes and all three attempts resulted in a restless descent downstairs to purchase a box of glazed donuts, which she didn’t regret, but which she took as a sign that meditation wasn’t going to be her salvation. After this she tried journaling, lists of gratitude mostly. Didn’t get hit by a bus yesterday. Didn’t have a heart attack in the middle of the night. And some days, like today, she sat and stared at her three houseplants by the only window that was blessed with sunlight, of which there was more in the recent weeks given Spring’s timid arrival. Her fluffy ginger cat sat coiled in her lap, appreciative of the inertia. Eventually, she rose, showered in a short blast of cold water to jolt herself awake, and conducted a somewhat lackluster but nevertheless serious attempt to hi-five herself in the mirror, a trick she had learned from a self-help podcast. Never one to linger in her reflection long enough to apply makeup or fasten a necklace, this daily encounter with herself, this smack against her mirrored palm, the sharp ends of her acrylic nails erect like rockets, was her last attempt to override her doctor’s suggestion that she start antidepressants again. 

By Monday afternoon, Ms. Peterson stared out of her office window between clients and began dreaming of Friday, the pizza she would order and the double-feature she would screen from her couch in sweats. She adjusted her taught navy pleated skirt, crossed her thick ankles, then attempted to lean back in the unfortunate situation of the non-reclining swivel chair, which had turned off-white and harbored numerous tea stains. She began tonguing the slim end of her plastic fuchsia reading glasses and stared at Henry as he entered the door she had just kicked open, Guillermo perched on his left shoulder, rolling cart in tow.

“Have a seat, Mr. Banks.” She sighed and pointed to the beige couch across from her. This was their second meeting, but Ms. Peterson was in the habit of pointing to the couch at the beginning of every session, even to clients she had been seeing for months. As Henry made his descent into the oversized dingy island, he began settling Guillermo into the cotton folds of his gray sweatpants. Guillermo locked eyes with a small zebra fish on Ms. Peterson’s desk and moved his head as the fish darted to the top of the water to mouth its pellet lunch. 

“Alright, Mr. Banks. What did you discover in your reading this week?” 

A mist of Henry’s saliva sprayed the air between the swivel chair and beige couch where he slumped, coaxing Guillermo with the drone of a chewed plastic kazoo. This trick, Henry had learned, seemed to lure him into a state of rest. “This shouldn’t take long, mi cariño,” he assured him, stumbling over what his workbooks from the library referred to as the most famous and feared of the Spanish consonants.

Ms. Peterson rapped her fuchsia acrylic nails on the clipboard in her lap, then lifted them upward to admire their glossy sheen. Henry began digging through his cart resting between his rubber-sandaled feet while Ms. Peterson progressed from tonguing to gnawing the end of her frames. 

“Mr. Banks. I don’t want to rush you, but you need to take this seriously if you’re going to benefit from the program.” 

“One second, please.” Henry found his diary, a book he wrote in daily, mostly documenting observations of Matilda’s nail colors, the time the mail deliverer showed up each day, the length of Guillermo’s naps, and lists of coupons he planned to use at Dollar Mania and Claws & Paws. He traced his pointer finger along the sprawl of words and an occasional red wavy line, the undulations reminding him that his apartment neighbor, Ronnie, an eighteen-year-old who worked at Claws & Paws, had renamed Bus Route 17 the Route of Potholes. Henry and Ronnie had met earlier in the year when they both got off at the same stop, walked to the same apartment building, pulled out their keys at the same time, then looked at each other with the same sudden realization that they were neighbors. 

“Hey.” Ronnie had flicked his pimpled chin up to greet Henry. His Claws & Paws polo shirt was halfway untucked and hanging off his body. Henry looked over and read his nametag. 
“You work at Claws & Paws?” A swell of excitement flushed his face, an excitement unknown to anyone but the shower tiles that witnessed his morning karaoke to the Oldies station broadcasting from an AM/FM radio perched on a shelf by the sink. He considered Ronnie a friend ever since, and often reminisced in his diary about the single evening they had hung out, a week after introducing themselves. Ronnie had invited him over and they ordered pizza, which they ate on Ronnie’s couch while watching the PBS nature documentary series, Wild America. Ronnie had gotten high and fallen asleep on the couch, so Henry let himself out without a goodbye. He’d wanted to hang out with Ronnie again, but he didn’t know how to bring it up, so convinced himself to settle for stopping into Claws & Paws every couple of weeks to get supplies, giving him a chance to walk through Ronnie’s line and chat at the register. 

Opening his mouth, Henry made louder throat clearing coughs as he attempted to speak. Since the age of five, during repeated interrogations from his parents at the dinner table, he had come to name these coughs as his frog response. That swampy lump in his throat that tongued all the answers like flies before they could escape. Answers to the slew of questions about what he wanted to be when he grew up, why he didn’t have any friends, why he wasn’t like the other kids. Even at that young age, he knew that if he could just give his parents a tour of his ecosystem, they wouldn’t have to ask these questions. But what was obvious to Henry never seemed translatable to the humans who saw his curiosity and contentment as problems to be fixed. 

Ms. Peterson shifted in the chair, dissuading her flesh from losing circulation. 

“Mr. Banks. Let’s talk about the reading. Did you look at the Parachute book I loaned you?” 

Pulling a two-liter bottle of grape soda out of his cart, Henry gulped three large sips which seemed to soothe his cough. He wiped his purple-stained lips with the back of his hand, then turned to scan the books on Ms. Peterson’s bookshelf. Happy Hour is 9 to 5, You Are a Badass, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Can I Wear My Nose Ring to the Interview?, and You Majored in What?! 

“I don’t have a parachute, Ms. Peterson.”

“It’s a metaphor, Mr. Banks. We’re working on figuring out your passion, your purpose. I want to see you get out of these serial dead-end jobs.”

“Dead-end?”

“Jobs where the pay is low, the hours are long, the work isn’t stimulating. Don’t you want to get out of jobs like this?”

Henry shrugged, thinking about these criteria, how the pay from his jobs was always enough for him, at least with the addition of food stamps, how the hours were fine, especially since he worked days, and how he honestly couldn’t remember a time he ever felt bored. 

“You’re better than 7-Eleven, Mr. Banks.” Even as these words leaked from Ms. Peterson’s mouth, she knew she didn’t believe them, but her growing apathy kept her from attempting to tighten the faucet. “Without a criminal history, children, or a severe – what should I say – condition, you’re way ahead of most of my clients.” 

Henry’s face reddened, which was often the case when he thought he was speaking but no sound came from his mouth, when his mind was a tangled spool of thoughts. 7-Eleven is pillar of convenience. Do you know what a food desert is, Ms. Peterson? How would people eat, stay hydrated, or get enough caffeine to stay awake for their graveyard shifts?

“Let’s try something else. For next week, I want you to do the exercise in chapter one of the same book. Take ten sheets of paper and write at the top of each one, I AM …” 

She held up her clipboard and imitated writing, left to right. 

“Then on each sheet, write a one-word answer to that question.”

Her eyes popped above the rim of her glasses. 

“I want to see those ten pages next week, Mr. Banks. Can you do this?” 

Henry stared at Ms. Peterson’s navy pumps. He looked up and nodded. 

“That seems like a lot of paper for one word.” 

“It’s a multi-step process. Just start there. Afterwards we’ll link those qualities to actual vocations that involve something better than cleaning a microwave.”

Better than cleaning a microwave. Henry watched the zebra fish slink into its cave and thought about his last manager, Mr. Madison, how he had insisted Henry only needed to clean the microwave once a week. Then, like now, he wanted to note the importance of routine and dedicated scrubbing given the undeniable fact that splatters look and smell bad, change the intended taste of food and beverages, and decrease the overall efficiency. 

“What about the other worksheet I gave you, Mr. Banks? About your thoughts and beliefs regarding the incident? Did you bring that one?” 

Henry watched the zebra fish exit its cave and lap around the perimeter of the tank. His brain was looping on the consequences of the uncleaned microwave, the unnecessary remnants of ketchup splatters seeping into the uncovered paper coffee cups of innocent customers. This thought disturbed him. The neglect of one simple but crucial action could cause handfuls of people who needed a jolt to sustain their long workdays to instead have a forced encounter with the vinegary taste of boiled tomato. Despite being let go, Henry felt a zap of guilt. He ran his rough fingers along Guillermo’s equally rough skin, who was lounging atop his round belly, elevating and descending to the cadence of his quickening breath. Henry reopened his diary, attempting to focus on the task at hand. On a folded college-ruled page, which smelled of sardines, was a pencil-drawn table with two horizontal columns. He ripped it out and handed it to Ms. Peterson. 

A: The Situation

Fired from 7-Eleven for “poor work performance”

B: Thoughts & Beliefs about The Situation

I was always on time and never took a break over ten minutes. When Mr. Madison called me into the back room and said, “I have to let you go,” his face got red and sweaty. I don’t like to argue, so I took my nametag off, put it on the counter, retrieved Guillermo from the top of the coffee machine, took my wheelie cart from behind the counter, walked out the front door, went to the park, sat on my bench, opened a square of cheese, and ate it in one bite. 

When Ms. Peterson was finished reading, she tucked the paper into Henry’s files. 

“So, you don’t think you deserved to get fired, Mr. Banks?” 

“I showed up on time every day and never took a break over ten minutes.” 

“Is showing up on time enough? Do you think you could have been more pleasant?”

“Pleasant?”

“Mr. Banks, what is customer service to you?”

“Serving the customers.”

Ms. Peterson hoisted herself out of her chair and walked over to her bookshelf, reaching for the 12th edition of The Golden Rules of Exceptional Customer Service. She flipped to a pie chart titled “Why Customers Quit Shopping at Your Store,” turned to show it to Henry and tapped the largest segment.
“See this? Sixty-eight percent of customers quit shopping at a store because of the attitude of an employee. Sixty-eight percent.” 

She flipped a few pages ahead to a list titled “Excellent Customer Service Through Human Interaction” and proceeded to read the following commandments: 

All customers are greeted politely and courteously. Create an atmosphere of friendliness throughout each customer interaction. Know your customers’ names and use them. Build positive relationships with your customers. Know their kids’ names and achievements. Ask about their new car. Compliment their hairstyle change.

“Did you do any of these things, Mr. Banks?” 

Henry considered this for nearly thirty seconds, while he stared at Ms. Peterson’s tapping feet. He didn’t specifically do these things, no, but it struck him just then that neither did Ms. Peterson. He looked up to make eye contact with her for the first time, but saw that she was scribbling notes in his file. 

“I was always on time and never took a break over ten minutes,” were the only words that surfaced before Ms. Peterson let out a long sigh.   

She looked at the rhinestone watch on her left wrist. It had only been fifteen minutes. 

“Let’s stop for today.” She flicked her thumb against her acrylic nail, then stood up and opened the door to see Henry out. Unable to protest, he managed a timid, “Good-bye, Ms. Peterson,” as the door’s wooden edge brushed the wheel of his cart in Ms. Peterson’s haste. 

*

Ms. Peterson’s hands were the only part of her body to welcome the touch of another woman for over a decade, which was the main reason she justified shelling out $40 every other week at the local salon, Diva Nails, owned by Yua, a Japanese American woman who greeted her with enthusiasm. Yua’s enthusiasm had become an antidote to the revolving door of mandated and often mistrustful clients Ms. Peterson had to convince herself were capable of rejoining the labor force, which in some cases, perhaps most, was a feat accomplished by pushing them through her personal pipeline of local kitchens, gardens, galleries, and delivery services that hired out of charity or desperation. She sat in the lobby of the salon waiting for Yua to call her back, looking at the windowpane lined with orchids and waving cats. She thought about her new client, Henry. His contented detachment and lack of ambition, especially in the absence of addiction, was a trait she had yet to convince herself capable of redirecting. A pang of worry that she was too hard on him surfaced as she replayed their most recent conversation, but she chalked it up to stress and convinced herself it was good for Henry in the big picture. After Yua called her back, donned her mask, and lifted Ms. Peterson’s hands into her own, Ms. Peterson asked about the cats in the window. Were they good luck? Why were they waving?

“Oh, the Maneki-Neko? Yes, very good luck. But in Japan,” she explained while filing Ms. Peterson’s nails, a pile of white skin cells collecting on the table between them, “this is not a wave like goodbye in the West, but please come in.” 

Ms. Peterson nodded out of habit, her gaze fixed on Yua’s delicate hands contrasting her own thick fingers, the file gliding across her nails like a violin bow. On most visits, she came up with a question to ask Yua, since Yua wasn’t one for small talk otherwise. This was the compromise she had devised to quell the gnawing urge to ask Yua out for coffee, which despite rehearsing at least ten different entry points to the question, such as when’s your next break or is there a good place for coffee around here, she had never gotten the courage to do. After her last girlfriend moved out leaving only a note that read: You work too much, Ms. Peterson had wanted to date again, several times, the urge especially potent on Saturday nights, but the lesbian bar had closed down years ago. At the behest of a long-distance internet friend from graduate school, Ms. Peterson had attempted to set up an online dating profile, but as soon as she encountered 22 gender and 12 sexual orientation options, she determined herself too old.    

The women sat in silence for the rest of the manicure while Ms. Peterson began to imagine having Yua over for dinner. Yua would sit at her kitchen table and chat about that day’s customers, her guard down now that she was off the clock. She’d explain her theory on gel vs acrylic women, and how she nicknamed her least favorite customers, namely rich white women, with nail polish names: Crawfishin’ for a Compliment, Don’t Bossa Nova Me Around, Today I Accomplished Zero. Ms. Peterson would laugh and encourage Yua to tell her more about these women – the height of their heels, the width of their diamonds, and their lip-stick-stained straws poked into take-out coffee cups. As Yua relaxed into storytelling, Ms. Peterson would notice the elegance of her neck, the shimmer of apricot on her lips, the iridescence in her eyes, and the snug fit of her cream silk blouse against her breasts. When her nails were refastened for another two weeks, Ms. Peterson interrupted her fantasy and thanked Yua, stumbling through the front door of the salon as the sound of bells amplified the silence of isolation to which she returned. She wandered around the city then found herself in an import shop in Chinatown where, without hesitation, she bought a Maneki-Neko, which she took to her office the next day, its presence reminding her of Yua’s soft hands tending to her nails with care and precision. The cat’s silent, industrious pulse, paired with the backdrop of the red poster with black block print that read KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, given to her as a ten-year anniversary gift from the unemployment counseling agency, made her life slightly more tolerable. 

*

That evening, Henry sat at his folding card table and ate one of his Campbell’s CHUNKY Pub-

Style Chicken Pot Pie Soup cans, which he had warmed on his hot plate and poured into a 

large soup bowl. Guillermo sat on top of the table, nestled between stacks of junk mail and 

unopened bills. The kitchen window was open. Spring’s entrance in the last couple of days had 

inspired the apartment residents to begin cracking their windows, creating a welcome 

domestic orchestra of clanking dishes, vacuum cleaners, phone calls, and pop music. The phone

rang. Henry jumped up and palmed the cream landline attached to the wall, but couldn’t say 

hello, his mouth a sauna of soup. 

“Henry, you there?” 

“Mm-hm.” 

“Wasn’t sure if you picked up or not. Glad you’re home. Just calling to let you know your rent check is in the mail. Your mother wants to know if you’d like a six-month advance. She’s not happy about it, but willing to do it.”

Henry’s father was always the one to call. His speech was pressured and harried like always, his east coast accent both undeniable and unplaceable after years on the west coast. Henry’s mother, a retired middle school art teacher who had just married a retired high school biology teacher, had restarted financial support so Henry wouldn’t come live in the basement again. But their relationship was reduced to her handwritten checks that arrived in the mail.  

“Tell her, oh, probably six months to be on the safe side. I have to regenerate.”

“Re- what?”

“Regenerate. It’s what lizards do when they lose their tails.” 

There was a pause while Henry slurped another spoonful of soup. 

“That counselor helping you think of something else you could do besides 7-Eleven?”

I liked 7-Eleven, Henry wanted to say. Without me, no one will clean the microwave. 

“She wants me to figure out the color of my parachute.”

“Say what, now?”

“She’s making me read a book about parachutes to figure out who I am.” 

“Son, reading a book a’int gonna land you a job. You been thinking about my offer? Like I said last time, nothin’ hard. You clean supplies, load the tools, get lunches to the site for my guys.” 

“Do I have to compliment them on their haircuts?” 

Henry’s dad laughed. 

“Naw. Just show up and do the work. Think about it. I’m serious. Ya hear me, now?” 

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

Henry hung up, knowing he probably wouldn’t think about it, that he had never really thought about it after years of his dad offering odd jobs. He recognized the generosity in the offers, but preferred to forge his own path. After stacking his bowl in the sink overflowing with dirty dishes, Henry laid down on his ripped green couch, and stared at the ceiling. The number 48,000 rolled around in his head, a number that came to him during his bus ride home from Ms. Peterson’s office. He had estimated this was the sum total of people whose lives he helped convenience the year he had worked at 7-Eleven. Thinking through the math again, he worked the equation backwards and found an error which was that his estimate of two hundred people he helped facilitate convenience for each day consisted of repeats like Ms. Roach, the bus driver with purple hair, who usually came in twice a day, sometimes three times if the kids had a field trip. If he could think of a more systematic way to present the data, he reasoned he’d have a better chance of convincing Ms. Peterson of the value of the work. He wrote these numbers down in his diary, then looked over at the coffee table and grabbed the newest edition of Reptiles Magazine he had purchased at Claws & Paws, an outing that had given him an excuse to catch up with Ronnie while he was working the register. He smiled as he remembered Ronnie’s face light up when he looked at the magazine cover. “Hey, man. This is a good issue. You gotta check out the Guatemalan Bearded Lizard on pg. 12!”

*

Henry returned to his third session five minutes early and waited in the office lobby. He picked up the Mother’s Day edition of O Magazine with the headline She Gave You Life, Are You Really Giving Her a Coffee Mug? The last time he had spoken to his mother, or rather she had spoken at him, was two years ago, after he was fired from his job at the US Postal Service because he took too long on his routes. 

“You’re stealing time from us when you dilly-dally, Henry,” his manger had told him. “I’m going to have to let you go.” 

Disappointed, because this was the first job that allowed him to be outside and keep tabs on the squirrels, cats, and birds, Henry accepted his fate, knowing he’d once again undergo a cycle of regeneration. He hadn’t called his mom until a month later, when his bank account was nearing zero and he wouldn’t be able to afford rent. Instead of mailing him money, she had agreed he could come live in the basement, thinking she could talk some sense into him in his late thirties in a way she was never able to when he was a teenager. The house was hers after the divorce and she had left his teenage bedroom intact for two decades. His collection of fossilized reptiles more authentic with dust. After six months in the basement, six months without a job, six months of eating her food, she kicked him out.

“This has gone on long enough, Henry. I can’t enable this laziness. You need to be a productive member of society. I don’t care what you do but get a damn job.” 

Ms. Peterson kicked the door ajar. 

“C’mon in, Mr. Banks.” She gestured toward the couch. 

Henry plopped down, ignoring the pile of crumbs on the cushion. 

“Where’s the lizard?” 

“Oh, he’s sleeping.” He pulled the flap of his cart open and peered in. “This won’t be long, hermoso.” 

“Did you do your homework, Mr. Banks?”

“I didn’t write it down, but it’s in here,” he tapped the inlet of his receding hairline. 

“We need a paper record that you’re doing your exercises. For your file.” 

“Oh.” 

“I’ll write. Go ahead. What ten words did you come up with to describe yourself?”

Henry formed two fists, then slowly unfurled one finger at a time. 

“One: Punctual. Two: Herper.” 

“Herper?”

“Herper, H-E-R-P-E-R.” Henry’s thumb and forefinger pointed at Ms. Peterson like a gun. 

“What is that?” 

“People who like reptiles.” 

Ms. Peterson nodded her head, scribbling notes. 

“Three,” The barrel of the gun grew wider. 

“Three. Consistent.” 

Ms. Peterson looked up in the extended pause that followed. 

“What about the other seven?”
Henry took a deep breath and delivered his rehearsed response. “I think those three words tell you who I am.” 

Pleased and emboldened with this execution, he asked, “What are your words, Ms. Peterson?” 

She looked up from her clipboard and raked her brown bangs back as she pulled her reading glasses on top of her head like a tiara. 

“What kind of job do you envision for yourself, Mr. Banks?” 

“Oh, I’ve been thinking about this.” 

Henry closed his eyes and focused on the number 48,000 (minus repeats). He saw Ms. Roach rush inside for a Red Bull, hot coffee, and apple turnover, Phil the plumber, who got a large coffee, bag of gummy bears, and sometimes a lighter, Juanita who was slowly working her way through all the Gatorade flavors and, now that the weather was warming up, brought her own table and umbrella to sell tamales on the sidewalk. He wanted to say this, to describe all of the lives he impacted. The number 48,000 sat on his tongue like a choir standing in anticipation at the conductor’s raised baton. But he got jammed up with the frog response again.

“I’ve liked my jobs, Ms. Peterson,” he managed. “Like produce stocker, mail deliverer, cashier.” He counted on his fingers, again pointing a wide barrel gun at her chest.  

Ms. Peterson cut him off before he could finish his list. 

“Mr. Banks. I think it’s clear you have a self-esteem issue if you’re fine doing these jobs. You’re better than this. And clearly things haven’t been fine if you keep getting fired.” Ms. Peterson felt her body tense with the icy echo of her words. 

“I was always –” 

“Mr. Banks,” Ms. Peterson held up her hand, “even dead-end jobs require you go the extra mile. If you don’t see anything better for yourself, you’re going to have to put in more effort to make the cut – work faster, talk to customers, stay focused.” 

“I was always –” 

“Let’s end for today.” 

“Ms. Peterson, why are you mad at me?” Henry’s words fell like pebbles into a canyon. 

Ms. Peterson noticed herself soften, a response unlike her typical reaction to shirk accusations. She looked at Henry’s stained flannel shirt, the cart parked between his legs, thought about the lizard resting inside. She attempted to make eye contact, but Henry was watching the zebra fish resting behind a piece of neon purple aquarium coral. “I’m not mad, Henry.” Her voice collapsed into tiredness. “Let’s just call it tough love. I just think you can you do better.”

Henry felt a surge of frustration. Why couldn’t he tell the frog to go away and let him speak? Sitting perfectly still, he looked up at Ms. Peterson again, his eyes now blood moons. But she had averted her gaze downward, burrowing a hole into her lap. Henry took a long, soothing breath and reminded himself he could bring up the data in their next session, that he could rehearse it every day in the shower until then. 

Rising from her chair and walking toward the window, Ms. Peterson gazed at the street below, watching midday office workers gather around a gyro shop. She turned around to face Henry who had also risen from the couch and was peeking inside his cart to check on Guillermo. 

“How about next week you come in with two job applications you’ve filled out. That’s the bare minimum to get your unemployment check.” Ms. Peterson sighed and gestured toward the door, encouraging Henry to leave.

Henry wheeled his way to the door then turned around and finally met the gaze of Ms. Peterson across the room. Intrigued by her glossed eyes, he felt a tenderness stir within him, something he couldn’t name other than an urge to run over to her, raise his hand and offer a high five, which he averted because suddenly, despite her habit of placing her hands on her hips and pinching her face, she seemed fragile. He had never hugged anyone other than his parents and Guillermo but noticed a desire to pull Ms. Peterson close to his chest. Wiping the pooling sweat from his brow he began to walk across the room, toward the window ledge that Ms. Peterson was now leaning against. He extended both arms as if going in for a full body embrace but stopped when Ms. Peterson jerked away. Henry stumbled backwards, pocketed his hands, and reminded himself of his task to leave. 

Before fully exiting, he turned around again. “I like your cat, Ms. Peterson.” He pointed at the Maneki-Neko on the bookshelf, raised his fist, and swung his arm back and forth in a similar rhythm. Ms. Peterson looked at the cat and thought about Yua, about the diamond ring Yua had started wearing on her left finger. She considered pulling the cat from the bookshelf and giving it to Henry, partially to appease the wave of guilt that overcame her, partially to appease her loneliness, but her legs were too fatigued to transport her body. Instead, she offered a half-hearted smile. When Henry was gone, and the syncopated clop of his cart disappeared from ear shot, Ms. Peterson collapsed onto the client couch. Within a minute of watching the cat’s rhythmic lull, she spiraled into a coughing fit, her head spinning as her vision blurred and she fell asleep. When Ms. Peterson woke up, her body was wrapped in a loosely tied gown, horizontal along a cot.  

“Good morning, Pam,” the nurse said as she adjusted Ms. Peterson’s vials and caught her eyes blinking awake. 

“What’s going on?”

“You passed out in your office. One of your clients, a woman, brought you in. The nurse put her hand on Ms. Peterson’s shoulder. Doctor Bowles will be in shortly to discuss your tests and some medications that might help you cope better with the stress of your job.” 

“That won’t be necessary,” Ms. Peterson said. “I won’t be going back.”

*

When Henry arrived at his fourth session, he took a seat in the lobby. He had spent the entire thirty-minute bus ride rehearsing his microwave script, his mumbling dissuading fellow passengers away from the backseat row where he sat wiping his sweaty palms along his track pants. When he reached the office, he clutched Guillermo in his arms, and sat on the folding chair outside Ms. Peterson’s office, looking through the stack of magazines. He picked up a copy of People with the headline Idris Elba Sexiest Man Alive!, and recalled the hours he spent reading People headlines while working the till at 7-Eleven. When it was slow, and he’d unfolded any covers that were bent, he’d write down the letters of his favorite headlines and scramble them. He took out his diary, pulled his pen from his shirt pocket, and started the same game. After writing DRAB SIR he caught sight of his digital wristwatch announcing the hour. He stood up, heart racing, as he expected Ms. Peterson to kick the door open with her pumps like usual. He waited, clenching his jaw, then looked at his watch again. 12:01. It was only then that he saw a small note attached to the door. 

MS. PETERSON IS ON LEAVE. PLEASE CALL THE UNEMPLOYMENT HOTLINE TO GET THE NAME AND NUMBER OF ANOTHER COUNSELOR. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

On leave? 

Even though he had just read the sign, Henry knocked on the door, waited, knocked again. By 12:02 he pried the door open and peered in. The bookcase, desk, fishbowl, and couch had all disappeared. All the motivational quotes and Ms. Peterson’s diploma had been taken off the wall. The only object left was the tea-stained swivel chair, now centered in the empty room like a gallery centerpiece. He approached the chair. The lucky cat was lying face up, its paw still chopping the air, only now it was beckoning the ceiling. 

“Ms. Peterson?” Henry waited, as if the vacant room might respond. He winked at the cat and stroked Guillermo’s tail, then opened his diary, still in hand, and removed the folded, photocopied application he had filled out and placed with a manager at a 7-Eleven just about to open, ten blocks from his apartment, in the opposite direction of the last store he had worked at. He flipped to a blank page in his diary and with a shaky hand wrote the following note:  

Dear Ms. Peterson, 

Here’s my application. For my file. I only applied to one job, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get it since I have so much experience in the convenience field. Maybe you’ll stop by some day to test out the clean microwave. 

-Henry

Ripping the note from the diary and placing it and the photocopied application on top of the cat, he headed for the door. Before he reached the exit, he heard the paper take flight from the swat of the cat’s paw and turned to watch it billow to the scuffed floor below.