Walter Bego is the chief editor of Go Figure Reads (gofigurereads.com). The inspiration for numerous fictional characters including the point of view character in Headley Hauser’s Trouble in Taos, Bego spends more time working with writers than writing himself. Raised in Albany, New York, Bego moved to Winston-Salem, NC to work behind the scenes on a number of creative projects including the short-lived TV show, Headley and the Rug (and Cral.) More of his short fiction can be found on the blog, Junk Drawer at gofigurereads.blogspot.com.
Four Quarters of the Apocalypse
Walter Bego
(Featured, March/April 2014)
The world is my oyster and I’m not sure how I feel about that. What to do--what to do? Maybe I should flip a coin.
* * *
In 1981 I arrived for my first day of orientation with Gentab. I was just out of college and pretty surprised to have landed a job so quickly. It wasn’t that Gentab was so special, they were much the same as a dozen software companies dotting Boston’s Route 128 beltway. Then again, I wasn’t so special myself. A 2.7 GPA doesn’t turn a lot of heads and changing my major from business management to liberal arts my junior year didn’t look good either. I think Loretta Sims in human resources hired me on a hunch. After all, she was hiring for her own department. She could use more subjective criteria than she could if I was applying for an engineering position.
The training room had four rows of half desks, much like a college classroom except for the row of data entry terminals along the far wall. I was greeted and handed a folder as I walked in. I checked my greeter’s nametag. “Stephanie Harding, Human Resources” would be one of my co-workers. I got a handshake and a half-smile as she told me to take any seat in the first three rows. She didn’t show much interest in getting to know me but she did seem pretty busy. There were already several nervous new hirees seated. The room smelled of new clothes and dry-cleaning. I found three empty seats in a row, sat in the middle one and attempted to appear fascinated by the welcoming letter in my orientation packet.
Fellow neophytes filed in. A guy about my age, in what appeared to be a particularly uncomfortable suit, apologetically took the seat to my right. I decided to schmooze.
“Hey, I’m Ernie.”
“How do you do, Ernie,” he replied with a heavy accent. “My name Li Sin Teh.”
“Hey Li, I take it you weren’t born in South Boston.”
Li laughed politely, “No, I have come from Malaysia. I have just finished my bachelor’s degree at MIT.”
“Umass, Amherst,” I replied. I knew that was maybe two levels above getting a degree off the back of a Honeycomb box but Li smiled and nodded the same as if I’d said Oxford.
I liked Li.
Something had interrupted the perfunctory rhythm of greeting at the door.
“Yes Mr. Granger. It’s wonderful to finally meet you! If I can be of any assistance, please don’t hesitate to call me at extension 5523.” Stephanie Harding, Human Resources, was like a different person and she wasn’t alone.
“Mr. Granger!”
“Call me Fry.”
“Fry, I’m Headly Rhodes. I’m department head for R&D. I can’t tell you how thrilled we are to have you with us. Of course we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other”
“Not too much I hope, Headly. I work best if I’m left alone.”
“Of course! I understand completely.”
Who was this guy? I turned to see what kind of person tells his boss to leave him alone on his first day. A kid, no older than I, in patched blue jeans, hiking boots and flannel shirt grabbed the seat on my left, dragged it a foot or so closer to the wall and sat down. He placed his orientation packet beneath his seat without giving it a glance and plopped a quarter on the attached half desk in front of him.
“Hey, I’m Ernie.” I got a raised eyebrow in response.
“That your lucky coin, there Fry?” This time I got a grunt that might have been an affirmative.
There was something odd about the coin. It was fully silver. I leaned over to check the date and it was a 1962. There was also something about Washington’s head. Granger didn’t seem to care that I was looking so got closer and saw that the coin had been double-struck.
“That’s pretty neat, where’d you get it?”
“Found it,” he said, “on the road when I was little.”
I suppose there’s something to be said for a person who can hold onto a lucky coin so long but I still didn’t have a warm feeling for Fry Granger.
* * *
“Yes I have known who Fry Granger is,” Li told me at lunch, “and he is knowing who I am. We were both going to MIT, but we are not friends.”
“Competition’s pretty tough at a school like that.”
“Yes, you are right that competition is fierce, but I was not a worry to Fry Granger. He was the very best and had no one to fear from. He also had no one as friends.”
* * *
There are advantages to working in Human Resources. After my first week, I looked up Li’s file and saw that he graduated 12th in his class. He had quite a few honors and accomplishments for someone so young. It made me wonder why he felt himself no threat to Granger. It took another month before Granger’s file made it to the common drawers and as expected, he finished first in his class and had easily twice the honors Li had. Additionally, there were notations of unspecified contributions to efforts with McDonnell Douglas, Honeywell, and several lesser known government contractors. The fact that they were unspecified almost certainly implied “classified.”
No wonder people were falling all over themselves around him. Granger was a lodestone, the kind of guy that can make a little company like Gentab competitive.
Granger had impact pretty quickly. Gentab had a top ten software product within the year and three more hot titles over the next two years. That’s how we came to the attention of Hudson Pierce.
Gentab’s financial gains and cash position made it an attractive takeover target. Hudson Pierce, known in the papers as "the liquidator," was one of two major players seeking to acquire Gentab. You could tell which employees had taken advantage of the stock purchase plan. Those of us who hadn’t been so farsighted felt like chickens invited to a Frank Purdue dinner party.
Monday morning we got the word. Pierce had bought us out and would address the employees on Wednesday. The classifieds were in high demand over the next couple of days. It was a rude awakening for me to realize that no one out there was panting to hire a twenty-something personnel clerk with less than two years experience. Come Wednesday afternoon, Hudson Pierce had our full attention.
If I hadn’t watched him so closely, I might not have noticed it. Before he spoke, Pierce laid a few items on the table by the podium. On top of the stack was a 1962 double-struck quarter: a dead ringer for Fry Granger's lucky coin. I glanced across the room at Granger. He was staring off into space while randomly rearranging his Rubik’s cube. On the half-desk sat his coin.
Was 1962 a bad year at the mint? Other than Pierce and Granger's I couldn't recall seeing any other double-struck quarters from that year, or any other year for that matter. Eccentricities like lucky coins fit the profile of a flake like Fry, but not an all-business corporate raider. Granger and Pierce were about as different as two people could be. How odd that they'd both keep the same coin as a good luck piece.
There was one area where the two men were very much alike. They were both successful in their different venues. Could there be something to lucky coins?
In thinking about coins, I missed most of what Hudson Pierce had to say, but the relieved look on the faces of my co-workers assured me I still had a job. With two such lucky coins, I figured it might be time to buy some company stock.
* * *
Ten years at Gentab human resources isn't the most glamorous way to spend your twenties, but by hitching my star to Loretta Sims, I found myself as the number two honcho in the department. Buying company stock had been a good idea as well. Gentab stock split nine times in the late eighties and early nineties as the company made a mint on unused "star wars" technology, expanded into the growing personal computer market and created a very lucrative information technology division. New wunderkinds came to challenge "seasoned" veterans like Li Sin Teh. Fry Granger remained top dog.
Thankfully, thirty-two was not considered over-the-hill in the jungle, which is upper middle management. My job was to seek out those wunderkinds and that's what brought me to Stanford in the spring of 1992.
Rosa Rodriguez was only a sophomore undergraduate student, but that wasn't stopping Microsoft, Apple, or IBM from courting her and it certainly wasn't going to stop us.
Pierce himself called me into his office, showed me her file, and stressed the importance of bringing the rather mousy-looking marketing student "into the fold." As it seemed so important to him, I felt justified swiping his lucky quarter. I wasn't trying to steal his mojo. I just figured that if Ms. Rodriguez was so important, I needed all the luck I could get.
From that moment, things started going my way. Without even asking, I was upgraded on the flight out to first class. The University gave me no problems about interviewing an underclassman when they had so many seniors to shop. Even my meals at the campus cafeteria were complimentary.
I wasn't very surprised that Rosa carried a double-struck 1962 quarter with her. Not wanting to tip my hand, I kept Pierce's in my pocket. I don't remember ever being so charming. My job was schmoozing, and I was on top of my form. Rosa spoke of such incoherent subjects as the importance of domain control and ISP integrators and I pretended to understand.
Rosa signed a contract that afternoon and we made a date for dinner in Boston on her arrival.
* * *
Pierce never mentioned the quarter and I didn't see any comfortable way of returning it. The corporate vice presidency in charge of marketing development was a nice surprise. I was getting used to nice surprises.
I became very active trading stocks and futures. I could do no wrong. Always a portion of my profits went to buying Gentab. I was gathering a nice little nest egg.
* * *
Rosa was making a habit of "dropping by" several evenings a week and staying till morning. I had told her that we should see other people but her unscheduled visits made that difficult, which, I was certain, was her intent. She was the most valuable asset in my division but she was getting to be pretty annoying.
Most troubling was that she always left for work an hour after I wanted to be in the office. Rosa loved me I suppose but I still couldn't get her to do things my way. She'd lie in bed late or insist on a big breakfast. When I'd tell her I needed to go, she'd just smile and tell me to go ahead and she'd lock up on her way out.
I wasn't going to give her a key.
One such morning, Rosa was running exceptionally late. I'd already cancelled the morning staff meeting and was now running late for an appointment and she was still in the shower. She had left her things haphazardly on the kitchen counter (her apartment had to be a pigsty). Several items had spilled from her purse including her 62 quarter.
What would happen if I took the coin?
I hadn't noticed an immediate change in Pierce except that he seemed friendlier, almost deferential towards me. Last week, Kirk Tellurand from Info-systems had commented on how my boss "lost his edge," but that didn't really concern me.
If Rosa lost her edge, my whole division would suffer. But if I held the coin, would I suffer? Whatever Hudson Pierce’s recent failings, I was doing better each day.
From the shower, Rosa was singing "I feel pretty" as she did every morning.
I took the coin, wrote her a note to lock-up and left the note and key on the kitchen table.
Later that afternoon, the super let the locksmith in to change the locks.
* * *
It was a nice picture on Barron's cover: "New President for Technology Giant, Gentab." It wasn't the Rolling Stone cover I'd always wanted but I still bought five copies for my mother.
The article stated that Hudson Pierce retired to enjoy the good life. Pierce may have wanted the good life some day, but it was the board of directors that said that day was today.
Though Fry and the guys in product development were still going great guns, my marketing division was now the star. If Rosa had lost her edge, several new go-getters took up the slack. My division alone was bigger than all but five of the Fortune 500. The fact that this was attributable to a strong team of developers instead a single star like Rosa convinced the board that in spite of my youth (still only thirty-six), I was the man for the job.
Unfortunately, the job didn't come with a seat on the board. Instead of Hudson's CEO, the board named me Chief Operating Officer: a slight, well noted by those in the know.
I began to wonder how a board that lacked the strength to oppose Pierce could turn around and oppose me. For the good of the company, I needed to acquire more leverage.
I already knew that taking the coin from Pierce and Rosa may have depressed their individual talents but had nothing but positive effects for me personally. I knew there was at least one other coin and I knew where to find it.
* * *
My secretary arranged a very generous fruit and flower arrangement to be forwarded to county hospital for Fly Granger. The cretins had managed to acquire the quarter but Granger had put up a considerable fight. I felt a strong desire, almost a compulsion, to over-pay the thugs for their trouble. Once I had the coin in my hand, I came to my senses. I paid them a fair amount – enough to keep their mouths shut anyway.
My problem with the board turned out to be quite simple. I had less than two percent of the company stock. The key to acquiring power with the board was as simple as acquiring more stock. From my position at the head of the world’s largest high tech corporation, such an enterprise should be a piece of cake.
Daily, my secretary was inundated by call from pseudo-journalists trying to get the inside scoop on what was going on at Gentab. Their goal of course was to get an information edge to help them win on Wall Street. Sure, these guys had their websites and newsletters, but they were no more journalists than I was. I informed Ms. Pellatier that I would take one of those calls each day but never twice from the same low-life in the same week. I wouldn’t be surprised if the old hag made a few bucks deciding who got to speak to me each day.
With each phone call I let slip “unintentional” hints about who Gentab might be contracting with in the near future. Sometimes the leads were true, sometimes not. It didn’t matter. I knew who to buy and who to sell short and the value of my portfolio advanced handsomely. The profits went to buying Gentab stock and my share in the company grew.
* * *
The call from Marshall Turlinger wasn’t unexpected but was gratifying nonetheless. In four years, my share of Gentab stock had risen from two percent to sixteen. As the corporation’s second largest individual stockholder, the seat at the head of the table was mine at last. While Hudson still owned twenty-eight percent, he was off building houses with Jimmy Carter and didn’t even bother sending in his proxies anymore. It angered me that my hard work was making that shirker so rich.
What really bothered me was that my own success was making acquisition of stock so difficult. Hudson, for all his power, still served at the pleasure of the board, and the board forced him to retire. I didn’t want any such thing to happen to me.
Through our corporate interest in the worlds less fortunate, I had discovered that Gentab growth opportunities in the third world went far beyond cheap labor. For tiny sums of money, we cornered markets, regulated the flow of commodities, manipulated bond rates, and even maintained limited control of the IMF. In a couple dozen nations around the world, we had not only the ruling party in our back pocket but the opposition leaders as well. The entire project was immensely profitable and with far less risk than it had been before the fall of the Soviet Union. As it gobbled the planet, Gentab retained a four hundred percent rate of growth, splitting for the fifteenth time since I’d taken the reins.
No matter how much money I put together, Gentab stock rose in price and became harder to buy. Would you want to part with a stock that showed a rate of growth that could turn a hundred dollars into a Lexus in four years?
I had to bring the price down.
Now it may be true that I had crossed a few lines on my way to the top: seventy-five cents in petty theft comes to mind, but I couldn't bring myself to do company sabotage. I had to find a way to keep the company strong and well run while bringing the stock price down. It seemed an impossible task, but, as luck would have it, I met exactly the right person in a chance encounter at Starbucks.
I don't usually go for these fancy coffee bars. They're far too crowded and trendy and I usually prefer my coffee without an inch of whipped marshmallow gumming up my mustache, but I've also learned to trust my instincts, so when I felt the urge, I pulled the car over.
Like the other twenty Yuppies in line before me, I check my email on my palm pilot while waiting, all the while keeping an eye out for a table to come available.
It was strange that I finished second in the table race. I hadn’t finished second in anything for quite some time. The other guy was nice though and offered to share.
He went first in the “what do you do for a living” ritual and he captured my interest when he said he brokered stocks and specialized in the technology sector.
“The whole market is overvalued,” he told me. “All we need is one good scare and all the NASDAQ stocks will lose half their paper value, maybe more.”
“Even the more solid stocks?” I asked, “the ones that are actually making money?”
“They’ll do better,” He agreed. Microsoft, Gentab, Ebay, Intel all have a good basis for their value, but the common investor doesn’t know the P to Es. He’s betting on the sector and when the dot coms start to topple, everyone will suffer.”
“Half their value,” he said. Yet half wasn’t good enough. I needed the price to drop two thirds or more and to have the sort of panic that would convince more seasoned investors to sell. One of the big companies had to show weakness so that investors of all levels of sophistication would question the entire sector.
Gentab had stayed out of the operating system business. It wouldn’t surprise me if Gates had a quarter of his own and it was much easier to pick our fights elsewhere. Periodically, some minor software player would try to enlist Gentab in a crusade against Microsoft. My policy was always to listen politely, gather the facts and do nothing.
There were ideologues in the justice department who knew nothing of macroeconomics. A lot of Theodore Roosevelt wannabes who salivated at the thought of bringing down the big kill. The administration also had some pesky scandal issues that they wanted out of the spotlight. Bringing down a corporate giant would distract reporters from reporting unadvised sexual encounters.
This wasn’t going to be hard at all.
* * *
“Just deny the charges,” my attorney advised.
Did he think he was talking to a child? Surely, at the prices I was paying, I deserved something more original than that. I never would have hired the simpleton, had he not been the son of a senator.
It’s true that both Gentab and I had divested of other tech stocks before the crash. I even sold most of my Gentab stock but the gamble paid off weeks later when I bought back more than three times as much for the same price.
The board of directors was now MY board of directors. Gentab was one of only a handful of technology sector companies to make a full rebound.
The house investigative committee was hearing testimony about a possible conspiracy to crash the market. There was no danger of them uncovering anything because there was no conspiracy. The only people I involved were the press and justice department and they cooperated “innocently.”
“Idiotically,” might be a better term.
What do I care if people lost money with “internetgeekoftheweek.com?” Gentab investors who held their stock did just fine and that was my ONLY responsibility.
Just to play it safe, I asked a Massachusetts congressman serving on the committee to come for a consultation. The kid was only twenty-six but he was already making waves in Washington. No need to be college graduate if you manage to win Tip O’Neal’s old seat in the house.
* * *
“I can’t say much about the Senate, but I wouldn’t worry about the house committee. Besides, everybody’s paying too much attention to Enron right now.” It wasn’t what he said, but the way he said it that captured my attention.
H. Joseph Capello was a handsome clean-cut kid from Arlington, a working class suburb of Boston. He reminded me of Andy Garcia. His dad and uncle owned a butcher shop and his grandfather on his mother’s side had served in the Kevin White political machine in the 70’s.
I could see that, unlike his granddad, H. Joseph was no party plow-horse. He was dressed down but with impeccable taste. Canvas pants, chamois shirt and a Red Sox warm-up jacket gave him the air of the typical working man but without the sloppy rumpled look. The material was common but I could tell the cut was tailored. This man looked better in his “work” clothes than most guys did in their best suit.
It was his eyes and his tone of voice that really grabbed me. The kid had a presence that was both friendly and imposing. People wonder how Germany ever followed a loony like Hitler. If the old paperhanger was anything like H. Joseph, the mystery is solved.
“There’s a senate seat open this November,” I reminded him. “I’d like to contribute to your campaign.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Sounds too much like a quid pro quo, but I may need your help in the future.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a coin flipping it casually.
Of course. How else does a working stiff from Arlington rise so quickly? I grabbed the coin out of the air and stuffed it in my pocket.
The expression on his face was comical. The kid still had presence but now I knew I was in control. So did he.
* * *
“Ms. Pellatier, would you please send Jefferson in?”
“Yes, sir.”
So, here I am, without a peer in the world of technology, finance and marketing. I control forty percent of the planet’s population through corrupt third world regimes and now I have a perfect demagogue to set up as a figurehead here in this country. All, thanks to half a handful of imperfectly stamped silver. The president may be able to scare a few terrorists but his power is hardly a shadow of mine.
“You called for me, sir?”
“Yeah, Jefferson. You know, I like you. You’re young but I think you have a big future here at Gentab.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Of course, for the time being, I’m still the boss around here so, here’s a buck, get me a Pepsi from the machine, will you?”
“Okay.”
I don’t know. I guess it’s no fun taking over the world once you’re sure you can do it. Hudson seems to enjoy his life building houses with Jimmy Carter.
Maybe I’ll look into what Gerry Ford’s up to.
The Top
Ten . . .
Things I Don’t Understand
Walter Bego
As managing editor of Go Figure Reads, I frequently don't understand materil I get from my writers (particularly Headley Hauser.) Sometimes I'm accused of not understanding much at all. There might be something to that. Here are some things I definitely don't get:
1) Why do we smile and say, “bless you,” to people who sneeze, but frown disapprovingly at people who belch? A sneeze is much more likely to spread disease.
2) Why do we require safety car seats for children in our air-bag equipped SUVs, and then haul them to school in 1940’s style buses without seatbelts?
3) Why is the unsingable Star Spangled Banner our national anthem when almost everyone prefers (and can sing) America the Beautiful?
4) Why do we begin the year in the dead of winter instead of the beginning of spring? Why don’t we combine the foolishness of New Years and April Fools in one day and get it over with?
5) Why do we still change the clocks twice a year? Does it help anybody anymore?
6) Why do we have spelling bees, but not math bees?
7) Why do we use a compass to get oriented instead of borealitated?
8) Why do we put shredded coconut in candy? Does anyone really like it?
9) Why is gold valuable?
10) Why do we ask people to make vows/oaths/pledges/
promises? Won’t reliable people do what they say they’ll do, and unreliable people renege anyway?
The Top
Ten . . .
Things I Don’t Understand
Walter Bego
As managing editor of Go Figure Reads, I frequently don't understand materil I get from my writers (particularly Headley Hauser.) Sometimes I'm accused of not understanding much at all. There might be something to that. Here are some things I definitely don't get:
1) Why do we smile and say, “bless you,” to people who sneeze, but frown disapprovingly at people who belch? A sneeze is much more likely to spread disease.
2) Why do we require safety car seats for children in our air-bag equipped SUVs, and then haul them to school in 1940’s style buses without seatbelts?
3) Why is the unsingable Star Spangled Banner our national anthem when almost everyone prefers (and can sing) America the Beautiful?
4) Why do we begin the year in the dead of winter instead of the beginning of spring? Why don’t we combine the foolishness of New Years and April Fools in one day and get it over with?
5) Why do we still change the clocks twice a year? Does it help anybody anymore?
6) Why do we have spelling bees, but not math bees?
7) Why do we use a compass to get oriented instead of borealitated?
8) Why do we put shredded coconut in candy? Does anyone really like it?
9) Why is gold valuable?
10) Why do we ask people to make vows/oaths/pledges/promises? Won’t reliable people do what they say they’ll do, and unreliable people renege anyway?