Chop Suey (Darby Stansfield Novel)

Chapter 1

San Francisco, California

Life at Teleco was much like life at any other massive corporate blob. Two thousand people entered the revolving doors every morning between 8:45 and 9:30. They shuffled through like drones, two at a time, each of them sporting a Starbucks cup in their right hand and a Timbuk2 bag slung over their shoulder. Of the two thousand people employed there, roughly three percent were what the company referred to as their “heavy-hitters.” They were the earners, the ones who hauled in the cashola by the truckload. Every single one of those moneymaking machines worked in sales, and they made Teleco gazillions of dollars by selling wireless business solutions to Fortune 500 corporations.

Those so-called rock stars were privy to a life recognized with yearly monetary bonuses, gold-framed plaques reaffirming their position, and a whole lot of “atta boys” from senior management. Mitch and Murray from downtown would pay a lot for those closers.

“If you work in sales, you can become a heavy-hitter,” I was told.

Nothing could have been farther from the truth. I, like most of the sales department, fed at the bottom of this spectrum. Our livelihoods at the company were not pedestal-worthy. Yearly recognitions would never be lavished upon us, nor would we be worshipped as closing gods. Invisible was what we were.

As usual, I exited the elevator on the sixth floor and took a moment to survey the wasteland of sectional cubes. My fellow sales associates were already four to five calls in on potential gold mines. They still had hope. Every five seconds or so a frenzied head would pop up from a cubicle. Whack! Whack! Whac-A-Mole! Back to work, you cogs. Only closers get coffee, remember?

We were told wireless business solutions could improve the bottom line of any company. Even a company with four employees needed phones that chirped.

I took a seat in my cozy cubi-cell and turned on my PC. Turnover in my department was ridiculous. The average bottom feeder lasted six months, tops. I had been there for almost two worthless years.

“Yo, Darby! What up, fool?”

I looked up and saw Tav walking down the hallway toward me with a swagger that would do George Jefferson proud. Tavish Woo-Kaminsky was my co-cubicle buddy at work. We’ve also been inseparable since the age of seven.

Tav was half Caucasian, half Asian. You could tell from his eyes. Both were slanted but the left eye had a Caucasian eyelid while the right one was missing it like an Asian eye. His legs gave him a height of six-foot-one. His torso? Not so much.

“Watched some Def Comedy Jam last night. They was tight and slinging some funny-ass shit.”

“Really? I never would have guessed,” I said.

Whenever Tav took an interest in someone, he would mimic that person the best he could. Sometimes it would last a day, sometimes an hour. I usually found Tav’s multiple personalities interesting, but that day it was annoying.

Pulling up his chair, Tav plopped down beside me. “Yo, you feelin’ me, bro? You look like you been jacked.”

“I look like I’ve been mugged?”

“Yo, you know what I’m sayin’… Wait, I got it. You got a little sumthin’, sumthin’ last night? Sum hollaback girl creep over?”

“I wish.”

Tav jumped up from his chair and kicked it back under his desk. “Yo, I gotta bounce. Got me a sit-down with the white man. Check you later, a’ight?”

In the beginning I had done fairly well at the company, but a setback prevented me from truly excelling. Now it seemed impossible to get ahead, yet I hated being on the bottom. Why couldn’t I be happy like Tav?