FICTION | Michael Barry Jobstopper

FICTION

JOBSTOPPER

By Michael Barry

On Monday I unwrapped athletic tape and dri-loc pads to unveil the skull’s red eyes and toothy grin. If all went well, Matilda would quit the next day and by Wednesday we’d be in a Sprinter Van en route to Marfa. I walked into Columbia tower, resignation letter tri-folded in my newly tattooed hand. The letter was brief and polite because the hand said it all: fuck the law firm; fuck “optional” Saturday morning cycling with the partners; fuck running paperwork to Bellevue the night Matilda learned pregnancy was “not realistic”; fuck reducing our marriage to half an hour of coffee together in the morning.

McPherson, the partner not from Seattle, stood beside me on the elevator. He pointed. “Perkins, is that a jobstopper? On your hand. Good golly, it’s bright. And clean.”

I extended my folded letter. He held out a palm. “Five minutes,” he said. “My office.”

Skull-handed I closed his office door behind me. He pressed a button and the blinds shuttered. He stood up behind his desk—he’s no puny man—and took off his jacket. Was he going to beat me? His expression was cherubic or deviant.

“If you don’t mind,” he said. He turned his back to me, unbuttoned his shirt and lifted his undershirt. His entire back, beginning down past his belt and wrapping up around his shoulders, was enrobed in a violent, sensual, and clean tattoo

of a snake eating a gorilla. “Got it when I beat Hodgkins Lymphoma.” On his wall was a child’s framed crayon drawing of a snake eating a gorilla. “In 5 minutes we’re meeting a new client. Don’t speak, take notes.”

Fine, let whatever condo developer or droll corporate counsel gape at the unhinged lawyer with the sick hand ink. But there in the conference room stood Seattle’s platinum-selling rap artist. He was surrounded by grey-haired, grey-suited partners, relaying their children’s praise. His slumped posture said he was bored, until McPherson introduced me and he straightened.

“Holy shit,” he said. “Is that a jobstopper?” He pulled down the neck of his shirt to reveal a skull with a wolf’s face coming out through the temple. Turned out he and I had gone to the same artist. Now at ease, the superstar discussed charitable trusts, ecumenical governance structures, tax credits available to NGOs operating in Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador. As I typed he kept pointing at me: “Who’s investigating 501(c)(3) equivalents in Tegucigalpa—Jobstopper?” or “Jobstopper—do we file taxable entity applications before establishing local bank accounts or vice versa?” He and I shook hands. Afterwards McPherson broke it down: 945 ultra high net worth musicians from Seattle to San Francisco with “significant” legal needs but wary of lawyers who didn’t “get it.” He mentioned an eyewatering bonus for a new practice lead. “I didn’t know you had it in you,” McPherson said. “Now I see you.”

On the bus home I rehearsed how to tell Matilda. In our one-bedroom apartment she sat red-eyed on the couch. “Did you do it? How did it feel to tell them off?” On the coffee table I saw another negative applicator from another spent pregnancy test.

“I maybe got promoted,” I said.

“The tattoo did it?” she said. “I was afraid of that.”

I already felt our precious morning half-hour shrinking. We hadn’t had such a good cry together for six months, back when we threw ourselves a no-baby shower, gifting each other with yards of tube for breast pumping, tiny brushes for bottle washing. I had worn a nipple cup like an oxygen mask.

“Where will we go first in our Sprinter?” I said, palm on her leg.

“Argentina,” Matilda said. “The Plaza de Mayo, all the history. And for a few dollars, all the wine we can drink.”

“After Argentina, Tegucigalpa,” I said. “Kind of off the radar.”

“Oh, and Patagonia,” she said. “We’re just pretending though. Right?”