{"id":22,"date":"2017-09-04T06:31:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T10:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/old.helveticabold.tv\/memorexe\/?p=22"},"modified":"2021-03-23T02:38:12","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T06:38:12","slug":"company-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/?p=22","title":{"rendered":"Company Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\u201cIt\u2019s funny, you get to some floors and its just women\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cOnly women?\u201d
\n\u201cYou know the kind leftover from the Eighties\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cI used to wonder what happened to all those coke-head powerbabes. Do they still wear shoulder pads?\u201d
\n\u201cThey wear all kinds of weird shit. The kinder gentler power suits y\u2019know? Then on some floors, it\u2019s all white male executives with Black female associates\u2014 they\u2019re not called secretaries anymore\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cNo Black male executives, what do they have Asian women?\u201d
\n\u201cOh yeah, you have a peculiar breed of Black male, on casual Fridays he wears the black polo neck, black slacks and his name is usually Gunther\u2014 his purpose is to flirt with aging career girls\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t get that particular aesthetic, think about it you have some black kid from the Bronx\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cIdaho, more like it\u2014\u201d
\n\u201c\u2014and he\u2019s watching Fassbinder movies\u2014\u201d
\n\u201c\u2014he thinks he\u2019s Udo Kier\u2014\u201d
\n\u201c\u2014Dieter, from SNL\u2014\u201d
\nHis name was Jeremy, the fact that I worked in a Corporation tickled him,
\n\u201cAll the cleaning ladies are Latina\u2014\u201d I was running out of curiosa
\n\u201c\u2014that\u2019s basic\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cOh yeah, this is the best part\u2014 the in-house messenger service-\u201d
\n\u201c\u2014yeah?\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cAll Down\u2019s Syndrome\u2014\u201d
\n\u201c\u2014no!\u2014\u201d
\n\u201c\u2014fuck yeah!\u2014\u201d
\n\u201c\u2014this is the best information I\u2019ve had all year, I love Down\u2019s\u2014\u201d
\nHe went on to explain that Down\u2019s Syndrome was in fact caused by one minor glitch of DNA coding that subverted whole genealogies. These people would be eternally and internally cut off from whole ancestries\u2014 but get this\u2014 everyone with Down\u2019s possessed a certain family resemblance. They were a tribe unto themselves. This was the train of logic. A guy who loved Down\u2019s. The moment had resonance.
\n\u201c\u2014and where do you fit into the scheme of things?\u2014\u201d
\nI laughed,
\n\u201c\u2014I\u2019m what you call a Company Girl,\u201d I replied.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nI found myself a Company Girl after a month of temping at one of the larger Corporations. One day I received a phone call from the Agency\u2014 they had noted my aptitude and my drive, perhaps I was interested in a more challenging line of work and a significant raise in salary? It was never my intention to remain a temp I had no interest in any offers. They persisted, somehow they deduced that certain factors in my background and education would make this proposition appealing to me. They were right, it held infinite fascination for me to become a Company Girl\u2014 it was the next best thing to espionage. A Company Girl is a hired assassin of sorts. We produce accidents\u2014 events and situations that eliminate Senior Executives at Corporations. Of course the assignment shifts from week to week and floor to floor. It was Eric who pointed out to me that the term \u201cCompany Girl\u201d derived from the statistics: ninety-five percent of the temps were female. And men almost never received such a phone call or proposition from the agency. Initially I enjoyed the subversive quality involved in this line of work, but after a couple of months, I wasn\u2019t sure why I persisted. The perverse glee of my early assignments was now displaced by detachment.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nI was assigned as a \u201ctemporary associate\u201d to a Senior VP, Eric Sagerman. Two weeks passed and there was no additional instruction, no green light\u2014 nothing. It seemed to be a \u201cregular assignment\u201d\u2014 one that I looked forward to ending. I was dealing with that basic category of Corporate American known as the Ivy-league brat. I had to play \u201cThe Black Female Associate\u201d. The dislike was mutual. Then there was the incident: I had booked him a plane ticket as he had instructed but had failed to procure his favored window seat. He had requested a New York\u2014 London\u2014 Bombay round-trip in twenty-two hours. This I found unnecessary\u2014the purpose was to attend some Honorary Executive Banquet in India. The London stopover was to have lunch with his sister-in-law. I was summoned, he had the obnoxious habit of yelling my name from behind his desk. He stood, not bothering to face me, occupied with the New York skyline:
\n\u201cThis won\u2019t do. You are not proving to be very competent\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cI beg to differ, I am very good at what I do\u2014\u201d
\nThe purpose had been to intimidate me, my forwardness took him aback, he swung round\u2014
\n\u201cAnd what might that be, surely not anything administrative, one hopes\u2014\u201d
\nI find attempts at sarcasm vulgar.
\n\u201cAs a matter of fact, no, I\u2019m what is known as a Company Girl.\u201d
\nThe effect was unexpected, his face grew ashen\u2014 he began to gasp for air. I watched as his own fear seemed to strangle him. He edged past and I caught the whiff of cold sweat, a trapped animal smell. Fear; such a strange thing for a grown man\u2014 a Corporate Executive fleeing down the hall from a mere temp. A Black Female Associate no less. Curiosity made me trace his line of flight to the elevator banks. He stood there pounding the buttons, yelling, whimpering. It was seven in the evening, most of the floor was empty. He looked up to see me approaching\u2014 he was almost unrecognizable, a craven cornered rodent, drenched in his own sweat, muttering the name of saints in agony…
\nThe elevator doors finally opened to his clamor, and then shut after him\u2014 but not before I heard the resounding echo of his scream. There was no car in the elevator shaft. Eric Sagerman fell fifty-two flights to his death. He was killed on impact.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nI was called into the Agency for questioning. Five hours. I maintained that I had not lifted a finger. Yes, yes there was a great deal of animosity between me and the client, but no, no\u2014 I had not received a call from the Competition. No one had approached me. I underwent another six hours of psychiatric evaluation. And then more questioning. In the end, they surmised I was under much stress. I was offered a paid vacation, not two, but several weeks.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s all very odd\u2014\u201d I said to Eric (not the one who died but Eric Silver, who was a temp also,)
\n\u201c\u2014this whole situation doesn\u2019t seem to add up\u2014\u201d.
\nUp until this point I had thought we were all working for the Competition\u2014 It was Eric who alerted me to the fact that we were an in-house operation,
\n\u201cCorporate down-sizing at the end of the Millennium\u2014\u201d he ventured grandly. Company Girls were a way to keep over ambitious executives in check. It was cheaper than firing them.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nJeremy seemed troubled by the incident, especially when I told him that Eric Sagerman actually was on the list of \u201chits\u201d\u2014
\n\u201cYou should get out of this, this isn\u2019t what you really want to do anyway, get out while you can\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d
\n\u201cWhat don\u2019t you know?\u201d
\nI didn\u2019t know if I wanted out. So many Company Girls claimed they wanted to retire or change profession, but they never did. And it wasn\u2019t about money. Perhaps a certain strain of bloodlust? I sensed the unease of Senior Executives whenever I paced across the floor. I could sniff something akin to terror beneath the expensive tailoring. My motives were unexplainable, but the desire potent and addictive.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d I repeated.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nWhen I got back from my vacation, I had dinner with Elma. She looked startling; bronzed skin, bleached white hair, white vinyl jacket
\n\u201cThe white is phenomenal\u201d
\n\u201cThank you sweetie\u201d
\nShe slipped out of the jacket, she wore black underneath,
\n\u201cBlack is even better\u201d
\nShe laughed. Elma, like me, was a Company Girl, she worked for a film studio uptown and had even more glamourous assignments. And a lot more money. Over dinner she dropped the bomb\u2014
\n\u201cThey offered me a job.\u2019
\n\u201cWhat do you mean they offered you a job? You mean a real job job or a \u201cCompany\u201d gig?\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s real\u201d
\n\u201cYou\u2019re not going to take it, now?\u201d
\n\u201cOf course I am\u201d
\n\u201cWhy, what good reason do you have?\u201d I couldn\u2019t believe my ears \u201cWhat are you doing? Whose side are you on!\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to be a Company Girl forever.\u201d
\n\u201cOh, you\u2019d just prefer to be killed by one\u201d
\nSilence. Perhaps that was the wrong statement where a congratulations would have been in order,
\n\u201cThings aren\u2019t always going to be this way you know\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cI think you\u2019re wrong, I think it\u2019s escalating even now as we speak\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m tired of it, I want out\u201d
\n\u201cSo get out\u2014 don\u2019t cross over to the other side, what makes you think it\u2019s safe for you?\u201d
\nBut Elma had made up her mind. The evening ended with a bitter feel. I got up and left in the middle of desert. The creme br\u00fbl\u00e9e, usually unparalleled, was ash to my taste.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nOver the next few weeks at work, I noted that even though I was not approached for any specific assignments, several Senior Executives, met with fatal accidents and died. I felt somehow I was involved in the orchestration of these events.
\n\u201cDo you think I\u2019m developing a guilt complex?\u201d I asked Eric. Eric replied that in fact that the chance of a Company Girl suffering from guilt was highly improbable, Company Girls were usually picked for their sense of detachment and subversive morals\u2014
\n\u201cI think you\u2019ve ascended to the next stage\u2014 better known as The Proximity Effect\u2014 you\u2019ve become a Proximity Girl, it\u2019s a highly sought after position\u2014 you just upped your market value\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d
\n\u201cNo one really knows the mechanics of it, but at some point some Company Employees have the hunter\/homing instinct so finely honed down to a subliminal reflex\u2014 that they only need proximity to achieve their ends, sort of like a heat seeking missile…\u201d
\n\u201cBut supposing there is no intent, supposing I don\u2019t really want to?\u201d
\n\u201cLike I said, no one really knows how it works\u201d
\n\u201cI think I want out.\u201d
\n\u201cDo you really?\u201d
\nThe next day I received a call, it was the Competition. They were impressed with my particular talents. I told them it didn\u2019t matter that they doubled my usual fee, I was uninterested in their offer\u2014
\n\u201cIt won\u2019t entail any unusual duress for you, we only require you to be at the right place at the right time…\u201d
\n\u201cAs I told you before, I am not interested\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a pleasure doing business with you. On your way out\u2014 after this assignment is completed\u2014 one of our people will be waiting in the lobby for you, we are paying in cash of course\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cPerhaps you are not listening, I said I\u2014\u201d
\nA click on the other end. I was unnerved. How is it that I have no control over this Proximity Effect?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nThere was a bloodbath on the floor that afternoon. Somehow a helicopter managed to crash into the conference room where the CEO\u2019s were meeting. There was a domino effect, shards of glass sought specific targets, decapitating them. Those counted among the dead were not random corporate citizens\u2014 they were strategic marks\u2014 such that with their demise, the Corporation was temporarily disabled. Sixty-five dead and no wounded, the precision was alarming. All of us survivors emerged zombie-like from the elevators into the lobby. Someone thrust a large brown envelope neatly stuffed with dollar bills into my arms. I didn\u2019t look to see who it was, I continued walking.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nJeremy was waiting on my doorstep. It was night and the full moon was large and bright. He edged away as he realized I reeked of dried blood, my clothes and my gait stiff with it. I will never forgive him for leaving me, how could he, how could anyone have deserted me in that moment? My Proximity will haunt him like an unsightly scar. I am a Company Girl, for me there will be neither rest nor remorse. My detachment will forever cradle and stifle this cipher unknown to myself. I climb up the stairs somehow, strip away the dead clothes and shower for hours. I sit up in my bed, the room darkened with my thoughts and other things. The moon comes to my window full and soft, filling the view. I begin to howl uncontrollably.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a92004 onom\u00e9 ekeh<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s funny, you get to some floors and its just women\u2014\u201d \u201cOnly women?\u201d \u201cYou know the kind leftover from the Eighties\u2014\u201d \u201cI used to wonder what happened to all those coke-head powerbabes. Do they still wear shoulder pads?\u201d \u201cThey wear all kinds of weird shit. The kinder gentler power suits y\u2019know? Then on some floors, it\u2019s all white male executives with Black female associates\u2014 they\u2019re not called secretaries anymore\u2014\u201d \u201cNo Black male executives, what do they have Asian women?\u201d \u201cOh yeah, you have a peculiar breed of Black male, on casual Fridays he wears the black polo neck, black slacks and his name is usually Gunther\u2014 his purpose is to flirt with aging career girls\u2014\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t get that particular aesthetic, think about it you have some black kid from the Bronx\u2014\u201d \u201cIdaho, more like it\u2014\u201d \u201c\u2014and he\u2019s watching Fassbinder movies\u2014\u201d \u201c\u2014he thinks he\u2019s Udo Kier\u2014\u201d \u201c\u2014Dieter, from SNL\u2014\u201d His name was Jeremy, the fact that I worked in a Corporation tickled him, \u201cAll the cleaning ladies are Latina\u2014\u201d I was running out of curiosa \u201c\u2014that\u2019s basic\u2014\u201d \u201cOh yeah, this is the best part\u2014 the in-house messenger service-\u201d \u201c\u2014yeah?\u2014\u201d \u201cAll Down\u2019s Syndrome\u2014\u201d \u201c\u2014no!\u2014\u201d \u201c\u2014fuck yeah!\u2014\u201d \u201c\u2014this is the best information I\u2019ve had all year, I love Down\u2019s\u2014\u201d He went on to explain that Down\u2019s Syndrome was in fact caused by one minor glitch of DNA coding that subverted whole genealogies. These people would be eternally and internally cut off from whole ancestries\u2014 but get this\u2014 everyone with Down\u2019s possessed a certain family resemblance. They were a tribe unto themselves. This was the train of logic. A guy who loved Down\u2019s. The moment had resonance. \u201c\u2014and where do you fit into the scheme of things?\u2014\u201d I laughed, \u201c\u2014I\u2019m what you call a Company Girl,\u201d I replied.   I found myself a Company Girl after a month of temping at one of the larger Corporations. One day I received a phone call from the Agency\u2014 they had noted my aptitude and my drive, perhaps I was interested in a more challenging line of work and a significant raise in salary? It was never my intention to remain a temp I had no interest in any offers. They persisted, somehow they deduced that certain factors in my background and education would make this proposition appealing to me. They were right, it held infinite fascination for me to become a Company Girl\u2014 it was the next best thing to espionage. A Company Girl is a hired assassin of sorts. We produce accidents\u2014 events and situations that eliminate Senior Executives at Corporations. Of course the assignment shifts from week to week and floor to floor. It was Eric who pointed out to me that the term \u201cCompany Girl\u201d derived from the statistics: ninety-five percent of the temps were female. And men almost never received such a phone call or proposition from the agency. Initially I enjoyed the subversive quality involved in this line of work, but after a couple of months, I wasn\u2019t sure why I persisted. The perverse glee of my early assignments was now displaced by detachment.   I was assigned as a \u201ctemporary associate\u201d to a Senior VP, Eric Sagerman. Two weeks passed and there was no additional instruction, no green light\u2014 nothing. It seemed to be a \u201cregular assignment\u201d\u2014 one that I looked forward to ending. I was dealing with that basic category of Corporate American known as the Ivy-league brat. I had to play \u201cThe Black Female Associate\u201d. The dislike was mutual. Then there was the incident: I had booked him a plane ticket as he had instructed but had failed to procure his favored window seat. He had requested a New York\u2014 London\u2014 Bombay round-trip in twenty-two hours. This I found unnecessary\u2014the purpose was to attend some Honorary Executive Banquet in India. The London stopover was to have lunch with his sister-in-law. I was summoned, he had the obnoxious habit of yelling my name from behind his desk. He stood, not bothering to face me, occupied with the New York skyline: \u201cThis won\u2019t do. You are not proving to be very competent\u2014\u201d \u201cI beg to differ, I am very good at what I do\u2014\u201d The purpose had been to intimidate me, my forwardness took him aback, he swung round\u2014 \u201cAnd what might that be, surely not anything administrative, one hopes\u2014\u201d I find attempts at sarcasm vulgar. \u201cAs a matter of fact, no, I\u2019m what is known as a Company Girl.\u201d The effect was unexpected, his face grew ashen\u2014 he began to gasp for air. I watched as his own fear seemed to strangle him. He edged past and I caught the whiff of cold sweat, a trapped animal smell. Fear; such a strange thing for a grown man\u2014 a Corporate Executive fleeing down the hall from a mere temp. A Black Female Associate no less. Curiosity made me trace his line of flight to the elevator banks. He stood there pounding the buttons, yelling, whimpering. It was seven in the evening, most of the floor was empty. He looked up to see me approaching\u2014 he was almost unrecognizable, a craven cornered rodent, drenched in his own sweat, muttering the name of saints in agony… The elevator doors finally opened to his clamor, and then shut after him\u2014 but not before I heard the resounding echo of his scream. There was no car in the elevator shaft. Eric Sagerman fell fifty-two flights to his death. He was killed on impact.   I was called into the Agency for questioning. Five hours. I maintained that I had not lifted a finger. Yes, yes there was a great deal of animosity between me and the client, but no, no\u2014 I had not received a call from the Competition. No one had approached me. I underwent another six hours of psychiatric evaluation. And then more questioning. In the end, they surmised I was under much stress. I was offered a paid vacation, not two, but several weeks. \u201cIt\u2019s all very odd\u2014\u201d I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[8,195],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-short-story","tag-company-girl","tag-fiction"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3704,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/3704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}