The Reluctant Human

By Douglas Robbins

Have you ever walked down the wrong road hoping to get to the right place?

 

Scott Bauman is in a dead-end job and the odds are stacked against him. But Bauman isn't your average, every-day ordinary dude. He's "special."

 

Welcome to the lonely, misanthropic world of Scott Bauman who's on a quest for love and meaning. If it doesn't kill him in the meantime. With fascinating characters and humorous depictions, Robbins weaves an engaging story that absorbs the reader with his sharp wit and insight.The Reluctant Human dives into what it means to truly live a worthile existence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Douglas Robbins
• Release date: Nov 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223287292

Douglas Robbins

Douglas Robbins, a passionate writer and author, discovered the profound impact of words at a young age. When his teacher assigned the class to write a poem, Robbins unearthed a power within language that captivated him. Driven by an undeniable connection to words and ideas, Robbins began writing more seriously as time went on, realizing that it wasn't merely a career choice but a necessity. While he pursued higher education and joined the workforce, Robbins continued to dedicate his spare time to writing, seeking solace and purpose within his craft. However, a series of unfulfilling jobs left him frustrated and yearning for something more. Finally, after enduring years of waking up sick and dreading each day at a thankless corporate job, Robbins made a life-altering decision. Despite having meager funds in his bank account, he resolved that if he were to live or die, it would be by the pen. With unwavering determination, he bid farewell to the corporate world, embarking on a journey to fully embrace the profession that truly made sense to him. In 2019, Robbins unveiled his sci-fi novel, "Narican: The Cloaked Deception," marking the commencement of an enthralling sci-fi series. Inspired by his boundless imagination, he currently devotes his efforts to crafting the next two books in the Narican saga, promising readers more thrilling adventures in the near future. Adding another feather to his literary cap, Robbins released "Love in a Dying Town" in May of 2021. This poignant tale delves into themes of struggle, love, and commitment, set against the backdrop of a fading factory town. Through his writing, Robbins weaves together a narrative that touches the hearts of readers, leaving a lasting impact.

Book preview

This book is dedicated to my sister and friends,

who kept me alive.

Society is in conspiracy against every one of its members.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

MONDAY MORNING

I’m either going to find relief or hang myself by the end of the week.

Some say I have a bad attitude. I say if they walked in my shoes, they would too. My name is Scott Bauman. I stand just over six feet tall and I’m a thirty-year old whitey. My hair and eyes are brown, but that’s not very interesting. I’m slender, with a crooked nose the neighborhood bully broke when I refused to give him my lunch. He walked away when a parent from up the block saw the beating I was taking to defend a bagel with turkey and tomato. Guess I’m a little thickheaded too.

I had a mother until cancer recently stole her away.

Sarah, my childhood sweetheart, best friend and lover, no longer takes my calls.

I played guitar. My dreams hung off each string and they sang. Now my guitar sits in the corner of my apartment, gathering dust.

I rode a motorcycle that opened up the roads of this country. It’s now a charred and lonely heap in a scrap yard on Staten Island.

That’s my bad attitude. The rest is genetics. What’s your excuse?

––––––––

I live in New York City. It’s nine o’clock Monday morning. I turn down 70th off Lexington Avenue and walk in from the 6 subway. I work on the Upper East Side at a small online college and have been there only a short while. I won’t last much longer.

I’ve got on my DKNY slacks, shirt and tie, playing my role as dutiful worker, citizen of the world, consumer of all that is holy. As my office building comes into view my pulse quickens, kind of like when a cop pulls you over.

Do you know why I pulled you over, son? Do you know why you have this job, why you’re living this life? He points to the building. Here’s your sentence.

The steel-framed glass door slams shut behind me. My energy bleeds through the marble floor into the dirt below. The sounds of the city are only slightly muffled behind the thin-walled barrier. I pause with a hand on the smooth metal knob and feel it seal me off from my weekend and time. The smell of the lobby is dust on marble. I release the doorknob like a child letting go of a swimming pool wall.

Good morning, Sylvia. How was your weekend? I say in obligatory fashion.

The Brazilian receptionist is sex in a suit. Friendly, with long curly hair and soft brown eyes, she bounces her head up from her magazine with an engaging smile, shaking her head as if thinking deeply on the subject. It was okay. How about yours?

Good. Good. I nod at her sexy voice and wonder whether she has that south-of-the-border wax from her country.

The benign conversations of the workweek begin, and neither of us shares a damn thing. I move farther into the building, sick of the lies of the world, my lies, and hear from behind me the rustling of Sylvia’s shiny magazine paper.

Walking up the spiraling stone staircase, I enter The Department, which has short rows of cubicles where our bosses are tucked in offices alongside us like ropes and referees in a boxing ring. They often check that the cuts around our eyes aren’t too deep and that we can still produce and jump when they need us to. Often they create the cuts themselves with threats of unpaid overtime and free additional work.

We’re like pigs in a pen here, shitting on ourselves.

I’ve been bleeding since I stopped listening to that voice within.

Five days a week, I breathe this recycled air, sit at my desk, and repeat my tasks in my cubicle next to the others.

The cosmic dust sprinkled on me at birth flakes off, yet I want to believe in that cosmic dance within.

Oh, I’m still breathing, eating, shitting: a someone on paper, but I feel dead in the soul. Just a goofy head on a body. A worker ant.

The bosses, news pundits, and shady corporations like it that way. We’ve all become easy prey for overtime and abuse. So either six feet above ground or six feet below I need to break these chains, and piss on em.

On paper I’m holding my own. I look like somebody with marginal success: a decent salary, name brand clothes, benefits, a couple of weeks off a year for suntan and sanity. I have a rental apartment I consistently make payments on. I own a large-screen television, some decent pots and pans, and socks without holes in them. You name it. But my success is only on paper, and it’s not my paper.

Up the staircase there are exactly fifteen steps, which I’ve counted numerous times; each one pulls me tighter to the pile of paperwork and noise in my head. I pass the doorway threshold to hear the clicking of keys on keyboards. It’s like listening to desperate Morse code from soldiers under attack racing to enter pertinent information.

Lisa, the emaciated thirty-eight-year-old blond excessive smoker and low-level registration manager, strides past in a rush. She’s always in a rush. Got a big day, Scotty. Plenty of applications to keep you busy. Don’t forget our two p.m. unit meeting. Big things to discuss.

These meetings are always filled with numbers, quotas, and new guidelines on how to become more robotic: better yes-men and yes-women.

Great. Wouldn’t miss it! I shout, bobbing my head.

The smoking has laid claim to the skin around Lisa’s eyes. Is it the smoking or the job? I wonder. Perhaps both.

I sit at my desk and glance around at my coworkers as my discomfort rises. For the last two months out of the four months I’ve been here, when I enter the building my stomach acids bubble up like Old Faithful into my throat. I find relief only in the bathroom.

I center my chair next to the other ladder climbers, has-beens, never-was’s and what-went-wrongs, and take another look around the room wondering who’ll die first. Will it be Fat Larry along the wall with his diabetes and overflowing candy dish? We’re one flight up, and he always takes the elevator. Will it be twenty-six-year-old Tina, two cubicles down, mother of three who takes on extra work and buries herself every day because she can’t say no to the bosses? Perhaps it’ll be Howard, the quiet fifty-year-old hiding in a corner cube that’s plastered with pictures of exotic locales he’s never visited.

Maybe it’ll be me.

None of us are healthy in here.

If I don’t find my way soon, I just may perish and biodegrade here while leaning forward on the keyboard. People will think I’m just doing some overtime when they leave at night until they notice the smell. Scott hasn’t showered lately they’ll whisper. Teeheehee. Yeah cause I’m dead.

On paper it’ll seem okay. It won’t make the front page of the news—nothing extraordinary—and that’s the rub. The obituary will read, Scott Bauman was an average student and enjoyed math as a child. He had a good life—albeit short—as well as friends and family. He never married and has no children to continue his name or cause.

The black phone on my desk blinks incessantly with messages. I bend down and switch on the hard drive, hear the beep, straighten some pens, and stare at the pile of paperwork to my right.

Down the row movement catches my left eye; Supervisor Dave enters Tina’s cubicle. His brown-nosing ways and habit of choosing favorites divide the workers as he tries to climb the corporate ladder and make a name for his sweaty-palmed self. He’s friendly only when he wants something. He’s five feet seven inches of pure man-boy.

Dave hands Tina another stapled form. They so abuse that girl. Her head moves in agreement as he leans against her cubicle wall. They found a committed one in her,  always plying her with new teams and responsibilities. Owning her because she stays late and does the work. Some days she runs to the copy machine down the hall, and Dave is standing there, giving her more.

Same pay, more work, more overtime, less personal time. She has kids, but that doesn’t matter. Numbers don’t care about kids.

They don’t hire more people. Why should they? We do it for free. The rub is extra work because we’re salaried. That’s the excuse for the time they steal, and that’s part of my contempt; I’ve been forced to compromise for the machine that bends us all to its will.

Tina nods while taking the stapled document from Dave. He touches her shoulder and says, We’re on the same team, then follows it up with his typical line: We’re a family in here.

Yeah, the Manson family.

But it’s not a family at all. Tina puts the document down and stares at it a second then returns to the monitor. There’s a ruffled soul there. No getting around it. She’s a sweet girl too.

Tina turns and says, Okay, Dave. I’ll get right on it.

She got tangled up with this older guy who had a few bucks. He knocked her up for the first kid; then they split, and there are two other fathers now. Three in all. One for each kid. We get pulled down these roads, and that’s where we set up shop.

There are ghosts in here as well: ones that walk upright and wear clothing, usually long drab outfits. They file paper but avoid interaction and eye contact, floating through the room with a vacancy in their eyes. I tempt them into humanity with a friendly hello and intentional eye contact. I can’t just let them walk by. There’s too much at stake.

The one I refer to as Beatles now spooks over by the filing cabinet, avoiding others as she averts her gaze. She’s maybe five feet tall and eighty pounds, with large black eyes and a black mop top of hair which reminds me of the Fab Four. She dresses like Olive Oyl but does not smile: with eyes like eight balls, conveying nothing.

We are not born like this. We fall into its shape. We take on its mold. We become it.

I’m sick of going through these gray days and nights on autopilot, lost in the past while stumbling through my foggy present.

I’ve forgotten what it is to run and live uninhibited, like I did in my youth  without a care about the security I now appear to have. I’m desperate to strip naked against the broken backdrop of my America.

That damn black phone won’t stop blinking! I dial my special codes to start the week and release the dam. You have eleven new messages.

There is no escaping under these florescent lights.

Scott, I hear from behind me. I look back with the phone against my ear. My boss and supervisor are standing there. We were hoping to talk. Up and down the row, all eyes turn, hungry for drama.

I pause, looking Dave and Sean over. Okay, we can do that.

Sean, the unit boss, thirty-three, well dressed, well groomed, an Ivy League asshole, nods. How about now? It’ll just take a few minutes.

Sure. My throat tightens as I return the phone to its cradle. It’s hard to play it cool when you’re on the hook.

––––––––

We walk into the twenty-by-ten room with a mahogany table filling most of it—no windows. There are too many red leather chairs with brass-stud rivets. I find a center one. They sit on the other side.

Dave is my immediate supervisor and Sean’s kicking bag. He’s a dutiful dog, trained and willing to bite your ass off if Sean desires, but how do you become a guy like Dave? He probably thinks greatly of himself as he does right by the company, so all his abuses are justified. Maybe he’s struggling, sitting across from me. Maybe he’s not smart enough to struggle.

Sean has short brown hair and wears a powder-blue shirt tucked into khakis. He has good looks, just like your sister’s boyfriend you met at some barbecue when your dad smiled just right at him, like he was the son he always wanted.

Sean asks, Did you have a good weekend?

Yeah, it was okay.

Good. Easy to get here, right? You live uptown?

Yeah, sure do.

How do you like the job so far?

It’s pretty good, I guess.

I shrug and raise an eyebrow as I look them both over. They glance at each other. Dave rolls his eyes and shakes his head briefly.

Look, Scott, Sean says, you’ve been here four months, and we’re just not sure you want to be here a fifth.

My breathing skips and shortens - disgusted these assholes have me in their cross hairs. Looking around the room like a mouse searching for a hole, I think of a possible future, staying at my friend’s house upstate. When his daughter comes home from her mother’s, I’ll be sleeping downstairs on the basement floor with the Welsh corgi, keeping each other warm.

I’ve made some bad decisions and ended up here, sealed up, with a sold-out shirt asking me if I like it.

Sean says, What I mean to say, Scott, is do you want to be here? Do you want to stay and grow with this company? Or did you make the wrong decision by taking this job? If that’s the case, we would rather know now. He glances at Dave then continues. Do you see yourself with us in a year or five for that matter? Because that’s what we’re looking for here.

I muster a serious face, but I don’t lie well. I don’t know, Sean. Honestly I’m just trying to get a handle on the job. Hadn’t really thought much about the future. Guess I should.

Scott, your numbers are—how do I put this?—crap. In truth they’ve gotten worse, not better. In four months you should be picking this stuff up quicker, closing files, giving better customer service. Have you even memorized the phone script yet? Tina has been here...what? Six months, Dave?

The dog’s head bobs, though no saliva is apparent. Something like that. Sean looks back at me.

And she’s doing almost double the work you are. So if this job isn’t for you, please let us know sooner rather than later. He leans over the dark wood table and stares at me. Okay?

––––––––

I walk through the office maze back to familiar ground, suffocating on this recycled air, the walls closing in, passersby taunting me like stupid-faced clowns in pressed shirts. I’m reminded of every other job I couldn’t fake or force enthusiasm for after the initial honeymoon wore off and repetition set in.

I glance back at the closed door, shouting in my head, Of course I took the wrong fucking job! It was the right one at the time. Perhaps it was not I who made the mistake.

Don’t blame me. I’ve got to eat.

But does Sean want to hear that? He wants me to smile as they devour me. Thank you, oh great one. But who am I to tell him the truth? I can’t do that either.

"Yeah, umm Sean, ahhhh, this job grates on my very existence. So fuck you. But can I keep getting paid?" I can’t quit or tell the truth.

Tina, Lamara, and Stuart turn to eyeball me. What was that all about? Stuart, the mid-western buttoned-up kid asks.

It was about you, Stu, and where you get those fantastic shirts.

Seriously, Scott.

His cubbyhole is down two and across one. My numbers suck, I guess. I’m not pulling my appropriate weight.

You’re doing the best you can, right? You’ll get it.

Thank you, Stuart, I tell him as I sit down. I do appreciate the confidence. He swivels back, and I swivel in.

––––––––

Before my life headed down the crapper, there was Sarah and the red Yamaha 1100. Just two short years ago we took our big bike trip. It took a year of saving every penny in exchange for four weeks of open road and freedom. We rode and camped out west along streams tucked in the woods, making love under stars, and knew what this life could hold.

I remember one of those days in particular...

Fighting side winds through the plains like a small aircraft on an empty road, we cut through vast farmlands and open fields that stretched to the horizon and beyond. Sarah clung tightly to me as the gusts pushed the bike around like a toy. I looked around her to check that the bags and hard cases were still attached.

A storm rose black over the horizon, coming in from the north and west to hunt us down. The sun was slowly devoured by this monster. There was nowhere to stop and camp. There was no fire to be had with dry kindling. There’s no hiding on a motorcycle.

The rain moved in slowly at first from the far-reaching edges of the storm, which we had no choice but to ride into. The rain stung my hands as I throttled down, slowing the bike. We headed farther west, trying to see a glimmer of the sun on the other side. But there was no other side. The plains are too unpredictable; that’s its challenge. Of course our rain gear was tucked away in the hard cases, doing us no good.

Darkness consumed the sky while swirling winds must have been fifty miles per hour, with diminishing sight. The road was still as flat and straight as the landscape. I quickly squeezed Sarah’s knee to reassure her.

I scanned the horizon as best I could for forming tornados. The thunderclouds consuming the land were tiered giants and a towering thousand feet of anger. You can outrun a storm on a bike if you’re lucky. On many occasions I’ve gotten up to one hundred miles an hour in a few short breaths in order to reach the sunny side, but not that day.

My visor had fogged up with humidity, so I had to crack it open to see the road, but then the rainwater poured into my helmet and down into my riding jacket, chilling me. We had to push on through the nightmare, two hundred miles east of Platte, South Dakota. Nowhere. Everywhere. Somewhere.

There was no heading back to the dry camping in Iowa last night. There was nothing but the unknown, dangerous road in front of us. Lightning crackled up ahead like blue veins of an expanding web. My mind raced; I didn’t want to ride into this. I slowed to thirty-five then thirty then twenty-five, putting the hazards on, unsure what to do. At least the road surface was smooth. You don’t usually hydroplane on a motorcycle, with its rounded tires. But I worried nevertheless and quietly prayed about the volume of rain and lightning while riding this metal horse on flat land. The storm moved toward us as the lightning cracked closer, a mile off, sitting out there, waiting for us.

I was wet and cold. My pants and socks were soaked. We pushed on. I felt Sarah shivering as she snuggled up close to me. There were no cars or vehicles on this desolate state road. Maybe we should have checked the weather. Maybe the locals knew something we didn’t.

My arm hairs bristled as goose bumps tickled my flesh in the wet, electric-charged air. There was no barn near the road to hide within, strip off wet clothes, and make love. After checking the map earlier, we eventually spotted a sign for one of the campgrounds listed a few miles ahead.

Pitch black and empty we rode in and set up camp with the pouring rain and lightning overhead illuminating the tent. We placed it next to brush on the highest ground we could find, which was only a few feet up.

Rain hammered down, and the lightning was so bright that even with my eyes closed, I could see it. We were vulnerable and exposed. We unloaded the essentials from the bike, removed our wet clothes, and tied them to the outside of the tent. As we stood naked in this foreign land, the wind lashed the weak nylon while we rushed to store the heavy gear into the corners for weight and support.

I’m so cold. Once settled inside Sarah whispered as she wrapped her legs around mine.

I know baby. Just hang in there I’ll get you warm. I ran my hands up and down her back and arms trying to restore the circulation. Through it all she never complained  once and today’s ride was not for the faint of heart. You doing better? I asked.

Yes, I’m getting warmer now. She said and then yawned. "Getting sleepy