A Lost Red Jacket

Excerpt from “Headlessly Hoping” a project I am currently working on.

It is always hard to put things back the way one finds them. This is exactly how Blanco Washerman felt as he drove out of the McDonald’s drive-thru with a large cup of black coffee in his hand. As he revved the engine in order to merge back onto the highway, Blanco instantaneously spilled the coffee on the felt passenger seat of the company’s Nissan Versa.

“Shit, shit, muthafuckah, shit,” he said as he merged onto 87 northbound towards Albany. The black coffee was melding into the gray material of the seat, dancing on the edge of permanence as it settled into its obvious stain. Blanco thought the stain looked like a head with Indian feathers.

The journey to Buffalo from his Manhattan office was already brutal. The Cross Bronx and then the Mario Cuomo Bridge, and then the endless hicks driving to their north country homes had dilapidated Blanco’s care for driving. Originally, the trip posed to be an opportunity to branch out of his white-collar, stifling office building; to become an adventure. But he was soon seeing that the monotony of his office was eagerly and easily swapped out for the monotony of the company Nissan and talk radio while the Spring sun scorched the black pavement outside.

It was wild to Blanco, a man who had spent his entire life roaming the streets of Manhattan (for even Queens seemed like a journey to a foreign universe), to be driving this far away from his home island. He had never seen clean snow past the month of February before, and this April day, though the sun was out, still was blanketed with stitches of pale white snow beyond the roaming fields of highway 87.

The remaining coffee’s taste was bitter and harsh on his tongue as the fumes started to steam upward from the Indian-head stain beside him. 

“They’re gonna’ kill me for this. This is why we can’t have nice things, Blanco, because you’re a fucking idiot.” 

The head-shaped stain with Indian feathers seemed to stare at him with caffeine-fumed incredulousness. Though the anger was at himself, and unfounded―the Nissan had a conglomerate of Jackson-Pollock coffee stains throughout the vehicle, almost to the point of tradition― he felt the sudden drastic urge to pull over and clean it out, thinking the stain would be an added endeavor to his long list of accumulated let-downs.

Blanco had only gotten his job because, well, if the Dear Reader had not already supposed, because of his mother’s active involvement in the corporation in which he worked, and because of his grandfather’s historic founding of the insurance financial consulting firm. Beads & Trinkets Consulting Firm had been a small project for Blanco’s grandfather, Blanco Slate (Blanco is a family name), and he had developed a way to financially advise some of the major insurance corporations of the modern day. 

On the opening day of his joining the family business, Blanco Washerman was largely disliked by everyone, from the mailmen and the secretaries, to the lawyers and accountants. He sensed an air of dislike, of segregation, from the get go. He was not standoffish, in fact he had tried small talk; analyzing morning routines, gossiping about the Yankees lineup, and explaining that the weather would surely, or hopefully, get better by the weekend. However, there was a mute, dull, yet mountainous hurdle that seemed to obstruct almost every conversation that the young Blanco had tried to create. Be it their hatred of his somehow still-pimply appearance, or the rumors that he had hardly held a C average at Baruch, or because of his grandfather’s heritage and his family name (Blanco), people seemed to despise Blanco to his very core, and no amount of meager small talk could ever undo the diabolic reputation he possessed. 

The name Blanco, you see, is a difficult name for anyone to overcome, especially if one were to work for a business that was founded by a man named Blanco―the man named Blanco. Blanco Slate was an endlessly legendary man. His philanthropic exploits have become the flagship of modern megalomaniacs since the name Carnegie. Legends of his grandeur have reached divine proportions. It is said that Blanco Slate was the single genius behind Regan’s Trickle Down Economy, the inventor of Jenga, and it is also rumored that he was the mastermind behind the leaning-fold-up-table-umbrella. The man’s ability to navigate the financial market with his company Beads & Trinkets was equal to that of Magellan on the open ocean. He was a colossus: respected by the puny, admired by the powerful.

Blanco Washerman on the other hand, our story’s main character, the grandson of this lion, was more of a sheep, and a runt of one at that. Blanco Slate’s daughter, Limpia Slate (another family name), was a bit aloof. Determined to be more brilliant than she was gorgeous, and more cerebral than she was external, she quickly rose to her father’s high standard of work ethic and ability. However, where she worked as hard as the lion of her father, she gallivanted with a circle of men that were more concerned with bodily functions than of mental fortitude. In her third year of executive management, Limpia Slate had a bun in the oven and she was not quite certain of the father. Yet, she delivered this uncertainty with the fervancy of fact, and took a dull, loyal man, Mickey Washerman, as her husband. Mickey Washerman was docile, it was where Blanco Washerman learned to be unlike his grandfather, and more akin to his own, possibly non-genetically related, father. This was to the disapproval of Blanco Slate, as the family name Slate would cease to continue.

However, Dear Reader, as you can certainly assume, this mixed up, mangled mess that is Blanco Washerman’s background led to a decidedly uphill battle when working for his grandfather’s company and in making friends. For his C-Average at Baruch was factual, as well as the fact that he hated being called Blanco, for it contained an obvious comparison to his grandfather (his middle name was Eustace―his grandmother’s name―so the young man had little choice, and had never gained a talent in acquiring a nickname). 

Both of these facts led to his junior executive position of…well―you see, Dear Reader, his title kept changing. Blanco’s expected responsibilities would dwindle in correlation to his inability to complete tasks. At first, he was in Account Management Advice (AMA for short), where he was supposed to give advice on how to manage accounts, however, he had little to add to the tenure of the seemingly ancient account managers. So his mother, now an acting Director, changed his title to Advice Accountant for Future Account Management (AAFFAM for short), as he would be expected to be a type of advanced secretary for the account management department, so that he would narrow the gap between new account managers and veteran ones. However, his assertion in gaining information was rather…sheepish, and none of the Account Managers more than grunted at him for coffee. Though, he did make a great pot of black coffee, something the Account Managers would complement Blanco’s grandfather on incessantly.
After three months of this position as an Advice Accountant for Future Account Management (AAFFAM for short), his mother and grandfather had heard of his lack in reputation for gaining information to give advice to young account managers, and had noticed he was a glorified intern getting coffee at the price of a junior executive position. They ixnayed this, and pleaded with the young Blanco to be more assertive. After another three months of getting coffee and twiddling his thumbs in his AAFFAM position, his job title and responsibilities were changed again into a new role: Advice Accountant In Training for Future Account Management Learners and Trainers (AAITFFAMLAT for short). In this position, as an Advice Accountant In Training for Future Account Management Learners and Trainers (AAITFFAMLAT for short), Blanco was supposed to curriculum plan and create training that would help future account managers and trainers who would train account managers. If you are confused, just think about poor Blanco as he sat there with a blinking cursor on his blank white computer screen uncertain exactly what his job entailed and what the hell a normal AAITFFAMLAT was supposed to do.

And so, after six months of pacing in his small office, popping his pimples, and deciding on which syncategorematic word to begin his training booklet with, the great and mighty Blanco Slate, Blanco’s grandfather, died of old age. The extremely large and sad funeral caused his mother to retire, and it caused Tufton Lucko, the new CFO, to again change Blanco Washerman’s position from Advice Accountant In Training for Future Account Management Learners and Trainers (AAITFFAMLAT for short) to Salesman Honorably in Training (or SHIT for short). This change in position may have been the kindest thing that anyone had ever done in Blanco Eustace Washerman’s entire life, for it was in many ways the kick in his pants that he had needed for almost three decades.

Instead of sitting quietly and rubbing his greasy fingers onto his red, porous face, Blanco would be yelled at by Tufton Lucko and his Advisors. They would scold his laziness, spurn in ignorance, and grind to death his inability to listen. However, his entitlement could never quite be hewn away, as his mother was still a majority shareholder in Beads & Trinkets, and so Tufton Lucko did what he could with the boy’s meager talents. After two years in his Salesman Honorably in Training (or SHIT for short), Blanco had finally been promoted to Junior Salesman and was often sent as far away from Beads & Trinkets’ Manhattan headquarters to meet with new insurance firms and sell them on the Beads & Trinkets brand.

For this exact reason, Blanco Eustace Washerman was driving to Buffalo in the company’s Nissan Versa, and his deeply-embedded feeling of failure (instilled buy Tufton Lucko) was why he had pulled over to the side of the road to clean the steaming Indian head coffee stain which he had created on the passenger seat.

“Goddamnit, what will Mr. Luck say, you stupid…” frantically, Blanco got out of the car and went to the passenger side, opening the door. It was cold outside, and he could smell the exhaust of the rushing cars mixing with the coffee smell of the stain. The McDonald’s employees had only given him one meager napkin, and as he used it to rub out the stain, the napkin shredded all over the seat.

“Goddamnit. I should get it before the stain sets, right?” he asked to the still naked trees along the highway. “I need water, I think I need water.” Blanco bent down to pick up snow, but the highway ground bordering the road was absent of snow, and Blanco’s hand was quickly covered in mud and a long forgotten cigarette butt.

“Fuck.” With one hand, Blanco undid his tie from his neck and tried to wipe the mud off his hand to little success. He turned and saw that in the woods beyond the highway, just thirty or so paces away, there was still deep enough snow.

With a thick grimace, Blanco tip-toed his leather shoes through the mud, uncut weeds, and garbage of the highway and descended slowly into the forest. He saw that where he stood, at the edge of the forest, was at the top of a hill and just another thirty or so feet down a steep decline, there was a stream overflowing with the upstate snowmelt.

A part of him suggested to ignore the problem of the large stain, to let the stain settle, let it be yet another black eye on his portfolio. A louder, more neurotic part of him, vibrated with buzzing anxiety as he saw the fat lips of Mr. Lucko snarled in disapproval. He heard the gnashing of discolored teeth and smelled the sweat that pooled between the flaps of Mr. Lucko’s neck fat as needling words pierced Blanco’s thin skin and midget-ego. He couldn’t take yet another barrage of insults like, “you coddled swine,” nor “you delirious, drooling donkey,” nor “you’re a shitty SHIT, and the worst AAITFFAMLAT this company could have ever employed.”

“Yes, yes, down unto the brook, Blanco,” he stammered to himself, cringing at the picture of Mr. Lucko in his head. And so, this sheltered Manhattanite took the first hike into a forest of his entire life. He was uncertain if he had actually ever stepped on an unpaved path before as his leather shoes slipped and stumbled in the steep decline and poor footing of the mud.

He made his way about fifteen feet down the slope and then he paused. He hesitated. He realized now that he had left both driver and passenger doors open, the keys in the ignition, and his cell phone in the car.

“Okay, okay, you really are an idiot, Blanco, how do you fuck up getting water? A brainless ape could have gotten water. In fact, Mr. Lucko has suggested numerous times that it might be the only thing I am capable of, and yet, here I am, in the middle of a jungle,” Blanco didn’t know the difference between a jungle and a forest, “climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for a trickle of water to clean a stain out of a car that has over one hundred thousand miles on it.”