Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2006/06/11/barretts_mixology.php
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Snakebite
2 oz. Canadian Whiskey
1 Dash of Lime Juice
Serve in Old Fashioned glass over ice with prudent regard for career implications.
At the mammoth Grimsky Publishing office building, I, thirty-seven years old in perfect health, began to photocopy the tax code. A darkling plain of hassle stretched across my day. Then, my twenty-five year old boss, Tad, called in. He was dyspeptic, feverish, immobile! Happy day! I slowed my work to a sloth’s pace. Took an hour’s break. Literally whistled “Dixie.” Then who should walk through the door but Grimsky’s new star, the hot talent, Stacy Strand. In her hand, her wretched manuscript, Quirky Truths for the Young Dreamer: A Novel. If you want to recreate the experience of reading her cloying prose, imagine snarfing down nine cannolis in rapid succession. But who was I to pick fights? Stacy had quadruple-majored in economics, biology, comparative literature, and Portuguese at Harvard, graduating summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with high honors, all while heading up the prestigious Unicorn Society. She earned a J.D. at Yale, then jetted to Britain on a Rhodes Scholarship, where she completed a thesis at Oxford-a Marxist critique of Heidegger, I understand. Then she scuttled to Cambridge to scribble off a Heideggerean critique of Marx. She used her MacArthur Genius grant to write Quirky Truths, a quirky coming-of-age tale about a young girl with lots of degrees. The obvious vanity of the project was offset by cascade of ironic references to other books. Needless to say, when I saw Stacy standing there frantic, popping adderall and checking her watch, I knew that I had found my calling. I had to stop this book from bothering people-not just this generation, but posterity. If not me, who? If not now, when? Without a plan, though, I simply stalled for time. “Stacy, let’s go get a drink.” She blanked, as if I had asked her to chuck a child off a bridge. Then, like reciting a foreign phrase, mechanically, “O.K.” She might have been right to pause though. Being competitive by nature, she was soon pouring cocktails down her throat, outpacing me or anyone else. Other patrons clapped at first, then began to stare. Then, whipping out her tired-looking cell phone, she began to dial and to speak her mind, sever ties, burn bridges. By morning, she had no career, so bitterly had she chewed away her connections. Once again, I had outsourced my wickedness to willing booze. I don’t feel too sorry for the girl, though: I think she’s happier now that she has my old job. And I, thank goodness, became a barista.