A Hard-Boiled Hiring Process

It was a cool, calm afternoon. The kind of calm that dog barks and needling woodpeckers cut through from miles around. I was on an errand for the agency. The CD had summoned me to check out a new copywriter they were considering—some motormouth funnyman named Hash (I had overheard him and his interviewer yuking it up on an introductory Zoom call). Having spent six of the past eight years of his career living in South Korea, his resume was shrouded in an air of mystery. While corporate kept him busy with an in-person interview, I was called into the woods on the outskirts of town to take a quick peek under the guy’s fingernails. If his last name was any indication, this candidate was sure to be a real stinker.

The cabin’s windows were dark when I rolled up. I coasted a little further down the road and pulled my El Camino off into a clump of trees. There wasn’t much of a yard, just whatever shrubs and pines were there when the joint was built. A real minimalist landscape concept, low environmental impact. Perhaps Hash was just afraid of getting his hands dirty from yard work. Only one way to tell. I walked up the steps of the wrap-around porch. Adirondacks and rocking chairs were lounging lazily about. A copy of Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This was sprawled open, face-down upon one of them. A game of chess sat on a small table between two others, waiting to be resolved. Shading my eyes, I put my face up to the window and peered through it. The coast seemed clear. Maybe a little too clear. Canvassing the area, I found a key inside a pot of daffodils and let myself inside.

Entering through the living room, I found myself surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Large modern windows and skylights bathed everything in sunshine. Each shelf was brimming with titles on a multitude of topics. My cynicism was quickly triggered by the excessive number of them that contained bookmarks. Interesting. These abandoned placeholders had each been laid to rest at different points within the plot. Did this Hash character not finish what he started? Perhaps. Or perhaps he simply had one of those restless minds that never stops racing. Not uncommon in an industry teeming with creative weirdos. His house plants appeared to all be alive and well, though, so he couldn’t have been too flighty. His decor was a schizophrenic hodgepodge of South American rugs, mid-century lamps and furniture, a thick antique goban on peg legs, abstract paintings, African masks, photography, maps and history timelines. Above the couch hung a large framed map of the Seoul subway network, a black and white photo of what appeared to be Kurt Vonnegut writing in his home office, and an MC Escher drawing of a cottage in a surreal setting—the mechanizations of its water wheel trapped, by illusion, in an never-ending struggle against gravity. However spurious this Hash fellow was or wasn’t (but more likely was), at least he had a distinct taste. Wait a second. I looked around. Did this sapien’s living room not have a television? Across from the couch, where a TV belongs, there was yet another shelf. It appeared more carefully curated and arranged than the others, almost like a shrine. A ceramic Japanese racoon figure stood atop a stack of books, next to a family of neon cacti living in a clay bowl beside it. On the wall above was a pair of signed and framed Joan Cornella prints. Certainly, this was Hash’s first full strike. After all, how could a person who doesn’t even own a TV possibly expect to make it in advertising? I licked my thumb, turning to a fresh page in my pad, and noted this insight for the brass downtown to consider. Taking this flibbertigibbet nut-job out was gonna be even easier than I had imagined.

Next stop: kitchen. The heart of his home was splayed wide open to the rest of it, separated only by a tiny island with a wine rack. From my own shopping experience, I could tell the rack was stocked with bargains. I decided to indulge myself in a glass as I enjoyed the rest of my open house tour and pulled a vintner’s meritage from the previous year. Bright red fruit aromas, vanilla, spicy oak, a note of black raspberries and dark chocolate. Not bad. Hash was a conscientious consumer, but I still found his lack of boobtube troubling. A French press and mizudashi sat in the drying rack on the counter next to a modular stainless steel sink with built-in cutting boards and strainers. The range was gas, conveniently within reach of a spice cabinet with spinning shelves that were meticulously organized according to cuisine culture and capsaicin levels. His knife set was German, weighty—nice and sharp. I slide the carving knife back into its designated slot in the woodblock. The dining table was a long, wide slab of rough-cut walnut with benches on each side. This was a perfect little kitchen for hosting fancy-pantsy dinner parties for your fancy-pantsy friends. Friends… Sure hope that doesn’t interfere with his work.

I disposed of the wine glass and grabbed the bottle by its neck, taking a slug as I strolled over for a peek inside the pantry. I didn’t like what I found. There wasn’t enough packaging, enough flavors, enough coloring, enough sugar, enough corn syrup, enough bread, enough brands. Just a generic canister of oats, a sack of red potatoes, and some bags of rice, noodles and dried legumes. No cereal. No potato chips. No cookies. Not so much as a single goddamn Dingdong. How could this guy possibly understand the relentless hankerings of the average American consumer with a pantry this barren? No point even bothering to check the fridge. I’d seen enough. I killed the rest of the wine and sat the bottle on the counter. Licking my thumb once more, I flipped open my notepad and recorded Hash’s second strike. As I slid the pen and pad back into my pocket, I noticed that the narrow door on the wall adjacent to the pantry was cracked. At first glance, I had assumed it was just a water heater closet, but then I saw there wasn’t a floor. When I pulled the door open a little more I found stairs descending into a deep, dark basement. A sick feeling in my gut told me Hash was hiding something, and I was about to find out what it was.

When I flipped on the light switch, at first things seemed relatively normal. There was an enormous table in the middle of the room—the kind of twenty-person table you might find in the dining hall of a viking jarl reigning eternally in Valhalla. Hanging on the wall, overlooking the head of the table, was an oil painting of a four-star general. From the gold pinky ring, baggy cavalry pants, and ivory-handled pistol on his hip, I deduced that the man in the painting was none other than the infamous George S. Patton. He peered down shrewdly at the table, as though surveying the grisly aftermath of an epic battle. Beneath the painting, there was a shuttered rectangular cabinet with a box of engraved clay poker chips sitting on top. Several more shuttered cabinets stood against the other walls, along with a mini fridge. In the corners of the ceiling were surround sound speakers. Was this where Hash brought his guests after dinner, after getting everyone nice and soused on vino and amature schtick, to relieve them of their hard-earned money with a pack of playing cards? I flung open the main cabinet, looking for an answer. It took me a moment to realize what it was I was seeing. Hurrying around the room, I threw open the other cabinets, discovering the same disturbing secret in all of them—stack after stack of what can only be described as board games. There were literally hundreds of them. Incredulous, I rummaged through the boxes. There were games themed around the establishment of medieval fiefdoms, games about building railroads, about bird watching, bank robberies, art auctions, quilting, corporations terraforming on Mars, cats. He had a game for just about every theme imaginable. No television, and now this. Hash, you deranged, analog-loving sicko. As I held up a bag of tiny wooden sheep tokens for closer inspection, a door creaked on its hinges in the living room above.

“Hello? Is anybody home?”

Scrambling to place the pieces back in their box, I dropped the bag, sending them across the wood floor with a clatter.

“It’s Carolynn.” Her voice was old, feeble. “I hope you don’t mind, I saw the patio door open...” Her voice now came from the kitchen. “I baked some cookies and wanted to bring you a plate to thank you for helping me move those boxes into my garage the other day.” The floorboards at the top of the stairs creaked. “Hello?”

So. My intruder was just an Old Nosey, checking up on the neighbors. I stood still. Perhaps if I kept quiet long enough she would get bored and go back to her Price Is Right reruns. That hope was quickly dashed by my phone going off in my pocket. I got a text: Hemingway has left the observatory. Get out now. Upstairs, things in the kitchen became too quiet.

“Hello,” I answered. “It’s John. A friend of Ryan’s.” I began walking back up the stairs. “Hello?” I didn’t wanna hurt her, but I had to make sure she didn’t make any hasty phone calls. When I emerged from the basement, she was on the other side of the island, standing straight as a firecracker, in an emerald turtleneck and beige wool cardigan with a gold broach.

“Oh,” She said, without moving. “You must be one of Ryan’s gaming buddies.”

I said I was.

“How nice,” she responded. “Where did you meet?”

I told her we met through mutual friends, at a bowling alley.

“I see,” she nodded. “Do you come over for games every Sunday?”

I said I tried to.

She smiled.

I caught the scent of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and butter. “Those smell delicious,” I told her, nodding to the plate of cookies sitting beside the sink. “Gingersnaps?”

“Oh, why yes,” she smiled. “Would you like one?”

I told her I would, and made my way around the island, toward the sink. As I picked a cookie up off the plate and took a bite, I couldn’t help but notice that one of the slots in the knife block was now empty. Funny. Didn’t I put that back? I peered out the window over the sink, looking down the path of stones to a second building behind the main house. It was a studio with kayaks and bikes inside, with a trail next to it that went up the side of the mountain and vanished into the trees. My focus shifted to the reflection on the surface of the window in front of me, of the old lady, now standing directly behind me.

“Not a lot of other seniors in the area,” she said. “It would get pretty lonely up here if Ryan wasn’t such a dear, letting me join you all for cards every once in a while.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “He’s a pretty swell guy like that.” I slowly reached for another cookie. “It’s unfortunate I haven’t been able to make it to game night in a while,” I added. “My Sunday nights have been too busy with work.”

Her voice became cold and flat. “Game nights are on Fridays.”

Damnit if the old dame wasn’t wasn’t smarter than she appeared. I spun around, but not fast enough. Pain surged up the left side of my body as I grabbed ahold of the bloody handle sticking from my thigh just above the kneecap. Flailing after her, I clamped a blood-soaked hand onto the bottom of her cardigan, but was toppled face-first onto the wood floor as she wriggled out of the sweater and ran for the patio door. As she ran out onto the deck and disappeared around the side of the house, she began to scream. I pulled off my belt and used it to cinch a kitchen towel around my leg to staunch the bleeding.

By the time I hobbled outside, the old lady was nothing more than a fuzzy dot. As she disappeared into a cabin down the road, the slamming of a screen door echoed off the trees. I stumbled breathlessly in the opposite direction through shrubs and wild grass, toward the clump of trees where the El Camino was hiding. The ground was beginning to feel wobbly and uneven. Falling into my driver seat, I cranked the engine. I still couldn’t believe Old Nosey tried to put me out of business. And after all those nice things I said about her baking. Peeling back the sticky towel, I assessed my wound. Let’s just say, the CD wasn’t gonna be too happy once payroll got my dry cleaning bill. Maybe the pile of dirt I had in my little notebook would put some cheer back on everyone’s faces. I lit up a cigarette before putting the car in gear. Backing out onto the road, I took one last look at the cabin. Hash, when I’m done with you, you won’t even get so much as a job answering fan mail. Sirens yelled in the distance. Certainly, there had to be an easier way to toss out bad apples than all this jazz… But then, what would be the fun in that?