Yet another beautiful short story, published in my favourite online magazine 'Logos'.The Tricky Business of Image MakingbyMatthew J. Perini

Tomorrow is another interview. Phoenix Office Systems.

Successful applicants will have blahblahblahblah,

whatever successful applicants will have.

“You’ll be fine, honey,” my mother says. Technically, she is

outside my bedroom but her head peeks in.

“You’re bright and energetic. Trust me, they’ll be banging

down the door for you.

Ah, if only my mother were the one to conduct the interview.

Or better yet, my sister Shirley, who is the one person in the

world who actually looks up to me. Then it would just be, “Of

course you can have the job, Jakey, as long as you tell me a

story.” Then this waste of time in brushing up on the

corporate profile and the hard, perpetual lump in my

throat—the lump that makes me wish I could swallow my

tongue and rub it into submission with the warm tip—then

both—the self-sycophantic corporate literature (or at least

my having to read it) and this awful lump would vanish and

reappear on someone else’s bed, in someone else’s throat. My mother and I exchange good-nights, leaving me to read

the words in the little black box for only the second time:

Account ExecutivesPosition requires real go-getters.

Great opportunity with dynamic and

growing company.Must be willing to travel, possibly relocate.Hard work, competitive atmosphere.Chance for big $$.Fax resume and cover letter to:B. Majkowski (113) 465-2232

Already, I feel in-corp-o-rat-ed: anxious and bored at the

same time. Receiving, down in Accounts Receivable, an

enema with that inscrutable stream of numbers that flows

along the bottom of the cable news channels and not feeling

a damn thing. I hear myself saying things like I really love toliaise with clients and I have a lot of stick-to-it-ive-ness

because someone in the office who makes $175,000 a year

said it, and I thought it sounded cool. But always anxious.

Always the lump.

All right, enough. I imagine the interview:

“I’ve read your resume, Mr. Brentano. If we give you this job,

this career opportunity, what we’ll basically be doing is

giving you a shovel and a mule. We’ll say, ‘There’s California.

Now go and find the gold.’ This job is about finding the gold.

So tell me, Jacob, why should we hire you?” The lurch

forward. “Sell yourself.”

I’m afraid of what I’ve conjured: an interviewer who wants to

eliminate the comfort of form, who wants to see if I’m enough

of a rugged individualist to chart my own course out of this

interview and into the big leagues (I’ll bet he says that), who

will take great pleasure in watching the little, wet-behindthe-

ears college kid tie himself up in a tangle of confusion

and catchwords as I remember at every fifth word or so what

I think he wants to hear. Um I know what hard work is allabout, my resume and academic record shows that. Um, Ihave a great ability to communicate with all kinds of people,especially, you know, clients. Like in your company literaturewhich emphasizes reliability. Reliable, that’s me. Hardworking and reliable. When I was at. . . . . . . . . . . . The Art of

Closing the Deal shines down on us like a religious icon from

a steel gray bookcase.

I want to shout, “Do we need to be so obvious about what’s

really going on here?” Timeshares in Italy sell themselves.

Hondas sell themselves. Um, I get good mileage, I’m relativelyinexpensive compared to other models, and you’ll be able torun me into the ground.