[Steven Lyle Jordan]

2: State of Denial

They actually gave me the bum’s rush out of there… one of the guards shoved me so hard as we hit the front door, that I almost stumbled and dropped my gear bag… and falling on my head and having the bag crack my skull open would’ve cost less in hospital bills than it would cost to replace most of the stuff inside there. “And stay out!” he shouted, like I was in some 1940s movie.

Inside, I was cussing up, down, sideways and diagonally. But outside, I was cool. The first thing I did was to call my office, to straighten those bozos out. That is, I tried to call. They wouldn’t take my call… in fact, the voicemails didn’t even connect. At that point, I noticed I had a message on my cell, so I accessed my mailbox to see what it was. It was a text message, from my agency, which read:

“You are fired. If we ever see you within a mile of our offices, we will have you arrested. If you speak to any of our clients, we will call Homeland Security. Consider yourself lucky we’re not suing you, you thieving hacker bastard.”

Wow. And I didn’t even know you could get all that into a cellphone text message.

Boy, was I confused. What the hell happened? My boss knew a DOS attack wasn’t my fault… he couldn’t possibly blame me. One of our clients must have been pissed… but how or why they managed to put the fear of God into my boss like this, was beyond me. I didn’t think any of them had that kind of pull. It was a weird situation.

But ultimately, it didn’t matter. I was one of the best webmasters in town. I could think of a half a dozen companies right off that would jump at the chance of hiring me. So I got out my cellphone and started making calls, as I walked casually in the direction of Starbucks.

“Sorry, Schitzeiss. Can’t use you.”

“We don’t need anybody.”

“Sorry, we got no openings.”

“No way. And don’t call me back.”

By the time I got to Starbucks, I was bewildered. What, did someone manage to blacklist me? How could they not want me? I shuffled up to the counter and mumbled, “Hit me.”

“What?”

I looked up. And around. No Christie in sight. “Oh. Uh… give me a grande double-shot skim milk espresso with room, in my personal cup.” I handed the cup over a second later, as in my shocked state I had almost missed the fact that I had just told them to fill it.

The barista looked at the cup, which I had put my own decorations on. In big letters, running from bottom to top, was the legend that he read aloud: “M.D. Schitz.” Yes, I did that on purpose. What kind of a cool name was Michael Darien Schitzeiss, right? I was a hot programmer, and I wasn’t ashamed of it. Normally, I thought it was pretty cool and ballsy. But right now, with everyone in the place staring at me, I just felt it was kinda silly. But he took the cup at last, and started the drink.

I stepped over to the cashier, and gave him my Starbucks card. The guy swiped it. He looked at his cashier, and he swiped it again. “Card’s empty,” he said.

I blinked. “There must be something on it. I just used it this morning.”

“Well, you used it up,” the guy said. “That’ll be four twenty-nine.”

Grumbling, I paid cash for the drink. Then I retired to a table in the corner, and got busy.

When you’re a webmaster, there aren’t many things you can’t do from wherever you are. If you have a laptop and a wireless connection, you can access everything you have at once. I maintained accounts with four job boards, which I immediately updated with my available status. Then I tried to access my clients’ websites, to see which one was down for the count from a DOS attack. Strangely, all of them were up… not even running slow.

Then I checked my e-mail accounts. A good webmaster always has multiple accounts, one at work, a personal account, a commercial account—usually good as a spam-magnet—and occasionally a few accounts designated for specialty uses, like heavy traffic from web forums or media sites. My work e-mail did not connect… they had deleted it that fast. There was nothing new in my personal and forum accounts, but my commercial account was full of spam job offers for every fast-food place and convenience store in town. Someone was trying to tell me something.

And while I was checking, I received an e-mail in my personal box.

“You will never work in this town again.”

Okay, now I was getting weirded out. Everything was happening fast, too fast for me to react to. It really felt like everyone in town was against me, and paranoid or not, that’s a lousy feeling to have. I was also reflecting on the fact that I needed to work, and had no intention of working at McDonalds. I needed to think of something. But I was out of my element, because I’d never had trouble getting work… I’d never been unemployed. What do you do when you’re unemployed? Did they still make you stand in line, like at the DMV, to get a check that wouldn’t pay the rent at the Y?

Was there still a Y?

At a complete loss, I finally remembered someone who had gone through unemployment and tough times, and could probably help me out to figure out my next move. I dialed my cellphone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Pete. It’s Mike.”

“Hey! What’s happenin’, little brother?”