Curtis Ludlum

Curtis Ludlum checked his watch. In two minutes, Jacob Allen-Hertz would technically be late, which meant the applicant was already three minutes late in Curtis’s ledger. 

The pampered generation that was now entering the workforce – the ones that would one day replace Curtis – had no sense of accountability or business decorum. On time was late, and late might as well be absent; his father had taught him as much, and that philosophy had gotten him to where he was now. His six-year-old son was already being steeped in the doctrine of work ethic and responsibility, and if that made Curtis out of touch, so be it. Let poor people’s kids tell themselves that happiness was its own reward. His son wasn’t going to grow up to be one of these crybaby pseudo-adults.

Charles Ribbon, the senior partner of Curtis’s firm, had urged Curtis to conduct these interviews in public places. No more meeting with candidates in the conference room: “This younger generation feels more comfortable in a cafe,” it had been explained to him. Such an irrelevant consideration, he thought. They were going to be working in an office, they should get used to being comfortable there. But Charles was the head honcho – so said his surname on the door and the checks – so if he wanted to pander to a generation of participation trophy-receiving neophytes, Curtis would comply. Above all else, Curtis Ludlum was a professional.

He turned fifty-one three weeks ago.

While Curtis waited for Mr. Allen-Hertz, he stole glances at the barista who couldn’t have been more than eighteen. He admired her tanned (ethnic?) skin, her attention-seeking dyed hair, and that unmissable septum piercing. She wore a red t-shirt under slightly too big sea-blue overalls and a pair of tan work boots. The girl looked like a distaff Super Mario; Curtis wondered if that was intentional. She was obviously pretty – eyes like emerald pennies – and maybe even sexy under the ridiculous getup, but he would never understand this Millennial (or were they now Gen Z?) obsession with androgynous, formless fashion. Probably a lesbian, Curtis lamented.

He’d picked this spot because of its proximity to the office, having never once been inside, figuring one Midtown coffee shop was like any other. The mounted, honey-glazed ceramic busts that greeted him when he walked in refuted that assumption. If he had known that the cafe’s artistic décor would be so titillating, he would have chosen one of the four Starbucks within five blocks of there. Too late to change now.

And there it went, the secondhand ticking past the chrome 12 on Curtis’s Tag Heuer, indicating that it was now four seconds (five, six, seven…) past 10 a.m. Jacob Allen-Hertz wouldn’t be getting any job with Ribbon Engineers, not if Curtis had any say in it. Which, of course, he did. The least these kids could do, if they were all going to be late, was make a courtesy call…

His phone vibrated on the small table in front of him, startling Curtis out of his reproachful contemplation. 

“Hello,” he answered, “this is Curtis Ludlum.”

“Hi Curtis,” a breathless voice barked through the speaker, “It’s Jacob. Jacob Hertz.”

“Mr. Hertz,” Curtis acknowledged dryly.

“I’m so sorry, I know I’m running late. I’ll be there in less than five minutes. There was an accident on 7th. The cab couldn’t go. I’m on foot now, but I’m just around the corner and I should be… HEY!”

The voice was briefly buried under the unmistakable whoosh of a car traveling at a high velocity.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Jacob’s voice returned. With a relieved laugh, he explained, “Somebody almost ran me over. I’m okay, though. Like I was saying, I’m nearly there. I can see the sign. I hope I’m not too late to interview.”

“No Mr. Hertz, it’s still all right. I appreciate you giving me a call.”

“Of course, Mr. Ludlum. I’m ver-” 

Once again, the voice on the other end cut off abruptly, but this time the ensuing symphony of discordant tones proved harder to decipher. The noise simultaneously evoked metal hitting mud and a diamond glancing across glass.

“Mr. Hertz?” Curtis tried weakly.

Curtis heard someone speaking faintly, but it was indecipherable. For a moment all sound cut out, returning suddenly as a chorus of voices. Then came a calm voice underneath the excited declarations, barely above a whisper. It quickly grew louder as the yelling subsided. The speaker was coming toward the phone. Curtis listened intently to make out what was being said.

“Are you okay?” Someone asked. “Son, can you hear me?” A response came in the form of a choking, wet cough. “Can you hear me?” The voice repeated more insistently. No response this time. “Call 911! Call 911!”

The cacophony returned, frantic voices calling out commands, asking panicked questions, and collectively filling Curtis’s ear with a wail of chaos. From the madness, he could make out someone asking, “Where’d he go?”, while someone else kept repeating “Is anyone a doctor?” in a shamanistic chant. Curtis set the phone down, uncertain whether he should hang up.

Standing from his wood-slatted chair, Curtis crossed to the door and stepped outside. He looked to his left. The usual fast-walking tribe of preoccupied New Yorkers filled the sidewalk; nobody looked particularly concerned. Turning to his right, he studied the scene. On the immediate block, nothing appeared out of the ordinary, but through the legs and swinging arms of marching pedestrians he could make out a crowd some two blocks down. A circle was forming as downturned heads stared at something Curtis couldn’t make out; the growing numbers encircled a gray form.

Swiftly, he retreated into the cafe, returning to his seat. His phone, out on the table, was still on. Picking it up, the jumble of frantic, unintelligible voices coalesced into a battering ram, storming the gates of his consciousness. Filling with dread, Curtis ended the call.

_____________________

Under a floppy green wall of bangs, Luna eyed the fidgety middle-aged man who had been sitting at the small table against the window for half an hour. He stood out, not because he kept checking her out – half the clientele were just walking erections in suits  – nor because he ordered a frill-less black coffee, the drink of choice for serious-looking businessmen who wanted to impress upon a twenty-five-year-old barista that they were still in full possession of their virility. No, Luna took special notice of this man because he appeared genuinely put off by the plaster sculptures of breasts and genitalia that hung on the walls all around him, as if he’d never been confronted with the human body before. Especially amusing because, in Luna’s opinion, this mode of subversive artwork was essentially rote by this point. Who was legitimately offended by tits these days?

Maybe the guy was just put off by the faux ejaculate that splattered the C cups above his left shoulder.

Having no other customers, Luna strained to eavesdrop as the man spoke on the phone in terse, short sentences. An ex-wife, perhaps? After a brief back and forth, he went quiet, listening. Then he set his phone on the table and stood. 

Luna watched the “Coffee, black” man walk to the door, his briefcase left on the floor next to his table. He stepped outside. Staring both ways for a matter of seconds, as though concerned someone was spying on him, he then returned to the table. In a state of apparent annoyance (or was it anxiety?), the man hung up the phone and slipped it back into his pocket. He stared at the door, motionless other than the fingers of his right hand rapidly tapping on the table as though he were furiously typing a letter.

Growing bored, Luna turned her back on the customer to check her phone for messages from her boyfriend. He hadn’t texted her since she last looked four minutes ago, but she did have a new TikTok follower. As she clicked through to see the profile of her 783rd fan, she heard the door of the cafe swish open. Glancing over her shoulder, she could see no one had entered. She craned her neck slightly further and confirmed that the man had gone. He’d left behind his empty coffee mug and a scrunched-up napkin.

Adios, Luna thought, scrolling through her feed. She’d wipe down the table later.

_____________________

When Jacob received the email that his interview with Ribbon Engineers would take place at Mother’s Café, he took it as a good omen. 

He was currently subletting a room from a friend of his father’s, a temporary arrangement that was only meant to last until he found a place in Brooklyn, or possibly Long Island City. The coffee shop, which specialized in burnt espresso beans and erotic, queer-themed artwork, was only a few blocks from the apartment building. Jacob could roll out of bed at a quarter till and stroll in on time. 

Or so he would have, if last night he hadn’t gone home with a silk-accented boy he met over gin and tonics while playing Skee-Ball at a Brooklyn dive bar. Forty-five minutes ago, he had woken up on the wrong side of the East River. Now, he was late to his meeting with Mr. Curtis Ludlum, PE, LEED, AP. Jacob didn’t know what the man looked like, but he envisioned (accurately) someone like his father: graying hair, stern features, and disapproving eyes.

He hadn’t had time to run by the apartment and pick up his CV, let alone shower the clove smoke out of his hair or put on a shirt that had all its buttons. Thankfully, he had remembered to charge his phone overnight – having borrowed the cord of the red-headed Dubliner who had plied him with Beefeater all night – so he could call Mr. Ludlum once he emerged from the subway.

Jacob wasn’t even sure he wanted the job – or to be a junior engineer, at all – but that was his reason for being in Manhattan, and it was why his parents had opted to extend his collegiate allowance for another year. The monthly stipend was his getting on his feet fund, seed money for his shot at the American Dream, a $100,000-a-year “small loan”; the foundation of financial independence so Jacob could pull himself up by his own bootstraps.

“Mr. Ludlum,” he huffed into the phone as he raced down the sidewalk, “this is Jacob Hertz.” Not looking, Jacob stepped into the street, forcing the only bike messenger in the city who watched out for pedestrians to nearly swerve in front of a FedEx truck. Avoiding impact by half an inch, the bicyclist swore at Jacob, who, after recoiling from the near calamity, stepped on the silver kitten heel of the woman behind him.

“Sorry about that, Mr. Ludlum. Just wanted to let you know I am on my way, right around the corner. I apologize for my tardiness,” Jacob said as he, this time, glanced up the avenue and rushed back out into traffic. “I hope you won’t take it as a reflection of my-”

Forgetting the advice his mother had instilled in him since he was a toddler – “Look both ways before crossing the street” – Jacob had instinctively looked Manhattan north before advancing into the street, which would have been the right direction on the previous block. Unfortunately, it was exactly the opposite direction he should have looked for this corner. He stepped out into traffic and in front of the BMW of a patent lawyer who was, at that moment, working out how to explain to his wife a dubious charge on their shared credit card bill.

From the point of view of the numerous bystanders, the collision was sudden, loud, and calamitous. Very New York.

Jacob wasn’t going to be a junior engineer, after all.

_____________________

“Mr. Ludlum,” a voice crackled.

In the offices of Ribbon Engineers, Curtis sat in a windowless box, staring at a black computer screen. His phone was still in the pocket of his gray pleated pants. His heart churned at 120 beats per minute. On the desk was a stack of CVs that his secretary, Rochelle, had printed. Three more had appeared while he was at the cafe. Now there were at least twenty of them; the pile just kept growing.

It was his responsibility to sort through them and call the ones who seemed most promising; or, at least, have Rochelle call them. He had hoped to be done with the process by the end of the week, but that would require doing more interviews. He couldn’t do any more. Not today.

Curtis was just about to buzz Rochelle to let her know he was heading home for the day when he realized the intercom was already in use.

“Mr. Ludlum,” her voice crackled again. She could have just as easily walked into his office and communicated face to face, but Curtis had insisted on the intercom. He had always liked how it looked in old movies when a secretary paged her boss. Plus, it ensured Rochelle didn’t walk in on him at inopportune times.

“What is it, Rochelle?”

“Mr. Ribbon asked to see you in his office. He wants an update on the new junior engineer.”

“Now?”

“I believe so.”

“Okay, I’ll-” Curtis started but didn’t finish. All of a sudden, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow. The room was spinning, and his hands tensed, like they were being pulled into themselves.

“Mr. Ludlum?” Rochelle’s voice asked.

Suddenly appearing at the door of his office, Curtis startled his secretary.

“Rochelle, tell Mr. Ribbon I’m not in.” He shakily stepped past her desk and started for the elevators.

“But he knows you’re here,” she called after him. “I already told him.”

Curtis looked back at Rochelle, then at the darkened office behind her. He shrugged and, near to tears, continued to the elevators.