Chapter 26: All That Jazz

Where the hell have you been
We’ve been waiting with our best suits on
Hair slicked back and all that jazz
Rolling down the Union Jack
See you at the barricades babe
See you when the lights go low, Joe
Hear you when the wheels turn round
Someday when the sky turns black
It appears because it’s what I feel
I know I don’t understand
If you ask you know I don’t mind kneeling
But when my knees hurt I like to stand
Instinct is the common lawyer
A million years won’t erase
Strike the chord I’m searching for
Call it a committed race
No matter how I shake my fist
I know I can’t resist it
No matter how you shake your fist
You know you can’t resist it

On the book’s cover, the words that faintly cover the silhouette are snippets of things The MP said to me in the meeting when I disclosed and the subsequent conversation in “I’m on it,” all of which I dutifully reported to Tania in HR as they occurred. I struggled with the reality of the situation for quite some time. When I relate the story of the office invasion and the “I’m on it” conversation to my co-workers at the firm now – they struggle with the reality as well. Many cannot bring themselves to reach the obvious conclusion, and I have to say it out loud for them. Sometimes they stare at me in disbelief. Hopefully someday, somebody will try to prove me wrong.

Among the  final revisions I made prior to editing was deleting a key fact about the “office invasion/I’m on it” situation to preserve some measure of anonymity for the people involved. Curtis not only went to work for a major client of the firm, but is also the son of the CEO of another strategic client relationship of the firm (and the MP), who is among the most well-known leaders of what many consider the one of the top commercial real estate companies in Atlanta.

I decided that from my perspective, The MP’s conduct speaks for itself, and the station in life of the person blamed was irrelevant to the story (possibly quite relevant in other arenas, but that’s not my business).

Concern Trolls begins with another word-for-word e-mail I sent to Tania in HR in the late summer of 2018. I made my feelings about The MP and his chief dog-washer, Vernon, crystal clear on many occasions to both Tania in HR and Claire, which makes the events that followed even more bizarre in retrospect than it seemed at the time.

Chapter 27: Kingdom

I chop and I change and the mystery thickens
There’s blood on my hands and you want me to listen
To brawn and to brain when the truth’s in the middle
Born of the grain like all good riddles
Burn the skin off and climb the roof top
Thy will be done
Bite the nose off and make it the most of
Your kingdom
You kill when you talk and the enemy weakens
Your words start to walk when you’re not even speaking
If my heart is a war its soldiers are bleeding
If my heart is a war its soldiers are dead
I’ve lost and I’ve gained and while I was thinking
You cut off my hands when I wanted to twist
If you know how to dance to Boney Maroney
He’s doing the ballet on both of his wrists

You’re a bitter malignous person
And the death is well overdue
You suck the blood that kills you
You kiss the hand that hates you
You’re a bitter malignous person
And your death is well overdue
Your sucking bitter pain

Sandwiched between Twilight and Triumph is Pinch Me, which serves as a step back to consider what it’s all about at the midpoint of Across This Antheap. I wanted to flesh out my relationship with Bethany, my fellow-traveler neurologically challenged office mate, in greater detail, but because I hadn’t told Bethany about my autism diagnosis, it didn’t add much to the second half of the story.

But I couldn’t leave out Bethany. Her welfare meant a lot to me, and still does, and she was a prime motivator for me to keep going. The scene itself actually occurred much later chronologically, around the beginning of The Strange Remain (Part Four), but by that point in the story things are moving so fast that the scene interrupted the flow. Adding Bethany as a new character 80% of the way through the book also didn’t appeal to me.

Sadly, the conversation with Phinizy about Bethany dissuaded me from telling more people about Asperger’s, even close friends in the office. Furthermore, by that point I had told a few people I thought might be willing to offer me some support and had come up empty. As with many others outside of the company, those few I told about the diagnosis avoided me thereafter. 

In retrospect I most definitely wish I had told Bethany and Phinizy about the diagnosis earlier; it might have made a difference in several situations.

Chapter 28: Man of Peace

Look out your window, baby, there’s a scene you’d like to catch
The band is playing “Dixie”, a man got his hand outstretched
Could be the Fahrer
Could be the local priest

He got a sweet gift of gab, he got a harmonious tongue
He knows every song of love that ever has been sung
Good intentions can be evil
Both hands can be full of grease

Well, first he’s in the background, and then he’s in the front
Both eyes are looking like they’re on a rabbit hunt
Nobody can see through him
No, not even the Chief of Police

Well, he catch you when you’re hoping for a glimpse of the sun
Catch you when your troubles feel like they weigh a ton
He could be standing next to you
The person that you’d notice least

Well, he can be fascinating, he can be dull
He can ride down Niagara Falls in the barrels of your skull
I can smell something cooking
I can tell there’s going to be a feast

He’s a great humanitarian, he’s great philanthropist
He knows just where to touch you honey, and how you like to be kissed
He’ll put both his arms around you
You can feel the tender touch of the beast

Well, the howling wolf will howl tonight, the king snake will crawl
Trees that’ve stood for a thousand years suddenly will fall
Wanna get married ? Do it now
Tomorrow all activity will cease

Somewhere Mama’s weeping for her blue-eyed boy
She’s holding them little white shoes and that little broken toy
And he’s following a star
The same one them three men followed from the East

Man Of Peace sets the table for the second half of Across This Antheap. Again, Damron has achieved victory and rid himself of the MP. Again, time to knock it all down.

Most of Fool’s Gold and The Puppet is cribbed from my notes of conversations with Tania in HR and Claire about the situation at the time, similar to Concern Trolls. Concern Trolls covered conversations I had with them after Vernon was appointed leader of Team Skeazy but before he was appointed my fake manager. Whereas Fool’s Gold and The Puppet were discussions after his faux appointment.

In early drafts, Vernon’s character name was “Varmint,” which is only funny if you’ve read John Elder Robison’s autobiography Look Me In The Eye. Robison has Asperger’s and was diagnosed mid-life, and “Varmint” was his nickname for his little brother growing up (and still is, I think). Alas, nobody would get the reference, and it seemed a tad prejudicial to name a character “Varmint” when his character, motivations, etc. are an unknown to the reader (and the author, for the most part).

Chapter 29: Subterranean Homesick Blues

Johnny’s in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in a trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he’s got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out, kid
It’s somethin’ you did
God knows when
But you’re doin’ it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin’ for a new friend
A man in a coon-skin cap
In a pig pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten.
Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin’ that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone’s tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the DA
Look out, kid
Don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don’t tie no bows
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plainclothes
You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows.
Ah, get sick, get well
Hang around an ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything is gonna sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write Braille
Get jailed, jump bail
Join the army, if you fail
Look out kid
You’re gonna get hit
By losers, cheaters
Six-time users
Hanging ’round the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool is
Lookin’ for a new fool
Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parkin’ meters.
Ah, get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don’t wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don’t wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don’t work
‘Cause the vandals took the handles.

Market Activation was among the last scenes that I wrote, while Monkey and the Engineer was among the first. The image above is a picture I took that day of the view from the house where I took the Monkey and the Engineer conference call on Friday, October 26, 2018.

I had deleted Market Activation in early drafts but decided it belonged in the story because writing it helped me understand my state of mind at the time. In the moment, I didn’t realize I was taking out my frustrations on Claire. I thought I was crassly pointing out what seemed perfectly obvious to me. I was at a sort of “I’m beyond caring” frame of mind. This chapter is similar in nature to Don’t Worry (Chapter 14), as the stories were fun to write (and read, yes?), and I was in a similar mind-set at the time, though far more cynical to be sure. What’s hard to believe is only six months transpired between Don’t Worry and Subterranean Homesick Blues.

Also, as with Don’t Worry, I was naively confident and blissfully unaware of the freight train about to hit me.

Chapter 30: Highway 61 Revisited

God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well Abe says, “Where you want this killin’ done?”
God says. “Out on Highway 61”
Well Georgia Sam he had a bloody nose
Welfare Department they wouldn’t give him no clothes
He asked poor Howard where can I go
Howard said there’s only one place I know
Sam said tell me quick man I got to run
Ol’ Howard just pointed with his gun
And said that way down on Highway 61
Well Mack the finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red white and blue shoe strings
And a thousand telephones that don’t ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things
And Louie the King said let me think for a minute son
And he said yes I think it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61
Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that things weren’t right
My complexion she said is much too white
He said come here and step into the light he says hmmm you’re right
Let me tell second mother this has been done
But the second mother was with the seventh son
And they were both out on Highway 61
Now the rowin’ gambler he was very bored
He was tryin’ to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done
We’ll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61

I laugh every time I read the lyrics from Highway 61 that open Stop Me, which is how I sort of envision The MP ordering Vernon to fire me. It did not occur to me until deep into revisions how the PIP#1 meeting with The MP, On October 31, 2017, occurred two weeks after I refused/ignored The MP’s order to provide the false market share information to the Chairman of the Board (Grim Anniversaries, Chapter 7) on October 17, and the PIP#2 meeting with Vernon and Claire occurred on Tuesday, November 20, 2018, just a tad over two weeks after the “eat shit look for the ages” text exchange I had with Felix on Friday, November 2. As with everything else with The MP and his minions, it’s probably just a coincidence.

The Acknowledgement scene in Chapter 7 (Danger) is essentially the same scene as the appropriately-named Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before. Notice how in Acknowledgement, Damron immediately picked up on the pattern changing (that the MP makes small talk) but fails to draw the correct inference (that something terrible is about to happen).

I thought I was all clever and stuff when I made Stop Me a mirror scene with Acknowledgement and All is Lost a mirror of Night of the Long Knives (“nobody would believe me, I thought, who hadn’t been along for the ride”). However, really, the second half of Across This Antheap unfolded the same way as the second half of Destination Unknown, and the true events likewise. Claire replaces Jane as the person I pushed away, and Vernon replaces The MP as the antagonist.

Chapter 31: Shelter

‘Twas in another lifetime one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue, the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness a creature void of form

And if I pass this way again you can rest assured
I’ll always do my best for her on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death and men who are fighting to be warm

Not a word was spoke between us there was little risk involved
Everything up to that point had been left unresolved
Try imagining a place where it’s always safe and warm

I was burned out from exhaustion buried in the hail
Poisoned in the bushes and blown out on the trail
Hunted like a crocodile ravaged in the corn

Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns

Now there’s a wall between us something there’s been lost
I took too much for granted, I got my signals crossed
Just to think that it all began on an uneventful morn

Well the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount
But nothing really matters much it’s doom alone that counts
And the one-eyed undertaker he blows a futile horn

I’ve heard newborn babies wailing like a mourning dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love
Do I understand your question man, is it hopeless and forlorn?

In a little hilltop village they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation and she gave me a lethal dose
I offered up my innocence, I got repaid with scorn

Well I’m living in a foreign country but I’m bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor’s edge someday I’ll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born

Shelter was among the toughest to write, and most heavily revised, chapters in the story. As with the other emotional turning points (Grim Anniversaries, Welcome to Bizzarro World, Party Out of Bounds, and others), coming to terms with my emotional state, motivation, and moments of weakness at the time came to me slowly.

In Poisoning the Well, the voice I heard that was my own was among the more surreal happenings of my life. The voice was whispering, albeit with a firm tone, and I could feel what seemed like the breath of the whisper on my ear, as if some angel, or spirit, or God Himself interceded. I’ll never forget it. The voice was so clear.

The penultimate paragraph of Gulag Confessions, while applicable to the scene with Claire, where I talk about my difficulty in expressing feelings, was originally discussed in much greater detail at the end of Hierarchy of Needs, way back in Chapter 6, vis a vis Jane, and then was moved to Hard Reset (Chapter 10), vis a vis Vincent, but it didn’t work there, either. Then it didn’t work vis a vis Claire in Gulag Confessions, dammit. The details ended up sprinkled throughout Alexithymia (Chapter 25) and was among the final pieces I wrote.

I still haven’t figured out whether people don’t really express their feelings, or I’m doing it wrong – it’d be nice if someone would let me know.

Thank You Enjoy mirrors the scene at the end of Destination Unknown (Weather Radio) somewhat, e.g., ‘spiking the football.’ Although Vernon still lurks out there and PIP#2 remains a threat, I had avoided the knockout blow thanks to Claire and everyone in the office who appreciated the work the team and I were doing, describing what was really going on with the team and all of our hard work, saving my bacon in the process. “The story was about to change” foreshadows how not reacting (gray rocking) is no longer an option.

Chapter 32: Look Alive

I could not locate the lyrics to Look Alive. This video was shot in Athens, if I recall correctly.

I’ve said that The Strange Remain is the same story as the first three-quarters of the book, combined, played out four times faster. And that’s how it really was from December 2018 to the end.

With the Creatives was among the very last pieces I wrote, and I hated it. I needed to have a place around this point in the story to state the overall theme of the book (work that brings joy, peace, and gratitude is one’s life’s calling), but I wasn’t up to writing out an involved scene around the marketing retreat. The meetings themselves were mostly boring, and it was more about what went through my mind at this time, after seven anxiety-riddled months enduring Bizzarro World. I was enjoying my non-Bizzarro work more than ever and was excited about the coming year’s potential, knowing how Warren and Penelope would be moving on from the team, and giving Rudy and Harriet the room to come into their own.

The introspection in With the Creatives was so boring, though, that I was happy when I thought of having The Sorceress interject with her fourth-wall-breaking snark. I hoped it would indicate that The Strange Remain would be a fun ride.

Revolutionary Sweetheart was written straight out of my prep notes for the call, after detailed discussions with The Sorceress. The call was one of those instances where The Sorceress told me to do something I thought was absurd, but what she said would happen, happened. The call with Tania in HR gave The Sorceress her name. After the call, I texted her, “You are a SORCERESS.”

Chapter 33: M-Train

You think you’ve seen me before
You drive a brand new Ford
I think you should give it away
I think you should catch that train
I never thought it would come to this
I never thought I’d miss your kiss
I never thought I’d give you away
I never thought you’d catch that train
The planeet earth has lots of seeds
I know lots of funny deeds
You really push me knock me out
You really should take that train
Aw, she’s just a party doll
I don’t care for that girl at all
I think you should give her away
Think she should catch the M-train
Please please please go away
Please please please take that train
Now that this song is over
You’re just a Cassanove
And there is no refrain
Just the sound of the M-train

The Safe Keeping/Box of Rain story is told exactly as it transpired. I saw Vernon as I was leaving, it got me to thinking, and I took home all of my stuff only hours before everything else in my office was destroyed. I don’t think Vernon had anything to do with the office flood. He had his young son with him at the time. But it was a crazy coincidence. My sixth sense about both the office invasion and the office flood was divine intervention, in my view. I couldn’t be that lucky twice.

Rattlesnake was the third scene I wrote with my career coach as The Sorceress. Sorting out the timeline after Claire’s visit to the end of M-Train took a long time. And seriously, Tania in HR’s conduct was utterly disgraceful with respect to both PIP#2 and my formal complaint against The MP and Vernon, when she knew full well that I had been the target of extensive workplace bullying for a year by this point.

Aw, she’s just a party doll
I don’t care for that girl at all

Wishing to stick as close as possible to what really happened in The Strange Remain, Look Alive and M-Train lack that climactic “storming the castle” scene, which any good novel has. The scenes were a continuation of the 3-D chess, cat/mouse game that went on, the change being that I had to go on offense to avoid getting fired for refusing to comply with PIP#2.

(More likely, she knows exactly what she’s doing.)

The ‘verdict’ on my complaint made it clear to me, and I should have included this in the story, that Tania in HR wasn’t doing her job, that she was invested in protecting The MP more than protecting the company. If another ‘incident’ transpired, I planned to go around Tania in HR to the legal department, and bring everything out in the open, and let the chips fall. Strangely though, after Tania in HR’s verdict, I sensed that none of that would be necessary. And I was right.

Chapter 34: Dirty Back Road

By this point in the story, Damron can just hang back and let kids strut their stuff.
This is my all-time favorite video of the B-52s in concert. NO COCAINE HAPPENING HERE, lmao.
Seriously, it looks like Kate’s first time on drugs, while Cindy knows to roll with it.

Reckless drivin’, like a sports car
God I want you, like a fuel engine!
Energized line, like a road
You ride me like a road
You ride me
Foot on the pedal
Feet in the air
Sand in my hair
Oh, don’t look back
Don’t look behind you
Reckless driving on
Dirty Back Road

Reckless Driving was the first scene I wrote with The Sorceress. I didn’t want to write the scene where Vernon comes in with a new attitude because I wrote the scene very early on and was struggling with writing dialogue (it’s hard!), and initially the scene was me telling Felix or Claire what happened, because I told each of them as well (the line “human resources will do that to a person” was actually said by Felix, but I hadn’t decided at that time if Felix would be a character).

I’m not sure how or why it happened, but I was looking at my terrible, boring dialogue, then started writing a scene that would never see the light of day, just for fun and my own amusement. The origin of The Sorceress come from, of all places, broadcasting legend Larry Munson, former play-by-play announcer for the Georgia Bulldog football radio network. When the Bulldogs won a game they had no business winning, or had a play where the ball bounced their way, Larry would give the credit to a spiritual being named Old Lady Luck.

At 0:50 in the video: “Old Lady Luck just laughed out loud.” (Georgia vs. Tennessee, 2003)

Munson’s Old Lady Luck, combined with the creativity and sense of humor of my good friend Cal Batchelor (who warned me about playing golf with the Sorceress and should’ve been included in the acknowledgments, frankly), was the seed that grew into the Sorceress.

Annual Review sets up the second part of The Strange Remain, updating the reader on the non-Bizzarro happenings of my job and team, then IMMEDIATELY is that similar turning point to the end of Chapter 16 (Tomorrow Never Knows, the end of the beginning), wherein the world, again, blows up.

I still have a copy of the screenshot of the Team Superbad recruiting spreadsheet with all of the candidates and notes in my personal files from those glorious days. I never told anybody that story prior to publishing the book.

Chapter 35: Girl From Ipanema Goes to Greenland

The B-52s first hit record after the tragic death of Ricky Wilson. RIP Ricky. The whole idea behind the soundtrack came about because of this classic MTV video. Everybody on the team gets to look silly, none moreso than Damron.

The key, though, if you were there, is how, at the end of the video, Rudy is in a Santa suit. Ha! You thought I forgot about that, didn’t you.

Witch-doctors are screaming
Nymphs are dreaming
This girl’s lost someone
Who is that someone
She’s leaving

Hot latitudes, cool atitudes
She’s leaving
Moon in her mirror
Chasing northern lights
She goes ahhhh

Remember wherever you go
There you are

Writing Girl From Ipanema Goes to Greenland was tough. I was determined to be scrupulously fair to Harriet and respectful of how she might feel about what happened, and perhaps I belabored the point that I only wanted what was best for her, in my opinion, but would respect her decision no matter what. Heck, I’m sure I belabored the point with Harriet as well, which likely led to the whole situation being dragged out, as she tried to let me down easy.

The Return Policy dialogue with Claire still makes me (and Claire) laugh to this day, and my first impression when Sandra in HR told me about Harriet’s ‘negotiation’ with Simon really was “well played Harriet!”

Claire telling Harriet about the ‘analyst in Poughkeepsie’ wasn’t exactly how all of that unfolded, but I thought it was a funny way to show the die was cast.

Culture was the second Sorceress scene I wrote, not as well as Reckless Driving in my opinion, though it has its moments. I could’ve set the scene better, describing the white tile walls and floor, Sorceress’s robes, etc. This was a quick phone call I had with the Sorceress and occurred after Alabama Getaway, but I thought it fit better here as an interlude, similar to the Mission Creep interlude (Chapter 20, Devil Song) near the end of Gray Rock.

The scene title Alabama Getaway is a tiny little snarky tribute for my dear Harriet, I hope she smiled at that little inside joke as much as I did when I thought of it. RT.