I spent forty years ducking the law in the high desert. I know what a man looks like when he is hiding a secret. I know the way a hand shakes when it has seen too much blood. But I never saw anything like Gus. He showed up at my trailer in a suit that cost more than my life. He looked like a man who had been folded like a card table and then sat on by a mule. He was my old partner from the bad days: or at least, something was wearing his skin.
Gus was a demon. He told me this while inhaling a lukewarm chalupa in the front seat of his car. He was a low level guy from the downstairs department: the kind of spirit tasked with making sure your socks are always slightly damp. But there had been a mix up in the cosmic filing system. Instead of being sent to haunt a toaster, he had been named the CEO of a tech giant called Aether-Link. He was terrified. He wanted to do a bad job so he could go back to his pit, but every time he tried to hurt people, they just cheered.
He took me to his office in the city. It was a glass tower that stabbed the sky like a jagged tooth. Inside, the air smelled like expensive soap and panic. Gus had a vital need to be hated. He wanted the stinging eyes and the cold chest of a failure. He wanted to go home. So he started his reign of terror.
His first move was the coffee. He replaced every machine in the building with a vat of boiling vinegar and old gym socks. I watched from the corner of his office as the employees lined up. I expected a riot. Instead, a young woman named Jade took a sip, winced until her face looked like a dried prune, and nodded. She told the person behind her that the “Acidic Awakening Protocol” was really helping her focus. By noon, everyone was drinking it. They said it was a bold move against big bean corporations.
Gus sat at his desk and put his head in his hands. His skin was a shade of grey that looked like wet ash. He was failing at being evil.
He decided to turn up the heat. He removed all the chairs from the conference rooms and replaced them with piles of jagged, sharp rocks. He told the board of directors that if they wanted to talk about profits, they had to sit on the stones. I watched through the glass. These men in silk ties sat down on the sharp edges. Their faces twisted in pain. They were bleeding through their pants. I felt a soulful ache just watching it.
Gus smiled. He thought he finally did it. He thought they would fire him and cast him back to the dark. But a man named Leo stood up: slowly, because a rock was stuck to his leg: and started clapping. He called it “Pro-Active Ergonomics.” He said that the pain kept the mind sharp and the body “connected to the earth.” The stock price went up ten points that afternoon.
The logic was absurd. It was a world where nobody wanted to admit they were being tortured. They were so scared of looking like they didn’t “get it” that they would swallow fire and call it a spicy trend.
Gus got desperate. He brought in a pack of three-headed dogs from the basement of the universe. They were ten feet tall and breathed smoke that smelled like a gutter fire. He let them loose in the marketing department. I saw the employees running. I thought, this is it. This is the end of the line.
But two days later, I saw a memo. The employees had named the lead dog “Sparky.” They were posting pictures of the monsters on the internet. They said the dogs were “High-Stakes Stress Relief Partners” designed to encourage “Movement-Based Productivity.” One guy, a kid named Reid, showed me his arm. It was covered in bite marks. He beamed with pride. He said it was a badge of honor from the “Disruption Beast.”
Gus came back to my trailer a month later. He looked smaller. The suit was dusty. He looked at the sunset over the desert with a heavy, weary gaze. He told me he was moving the headquarters to a volcano. He had told the board it would save on heating costs while providing a constant threat of death.
“They loved it, Bernie,” he rasped. His voice sounded like gravel grinding in a tin can. “They’re already buying lava-proof boots. They think it’s a branding exercise.”
I looked at him and felt a sudden chill. It wasn’t because he was a demon. It was because he was the most honest person in that city. He was trying to be a monster, but he couldn’t keep up with the people. They had a hunger for punishment that even a prince of hell couldn’t satisfy.
He stood there, a creature of ancient darkness, looking absolutely awestruck by the sheer madness of the corporate ladder. He realized he wasn’t the predator. He was just a guy trying to do a job in a world that had out-eviled him.
“I’m resigning,” he said. “I’m going to go work in a library. Or maybe a petting zoo. Somewhere simple.”
“They won’t let you go,” I said. “You’re the most successful CEO in history.”
He looked back at the city lights. The tower was glowing in the distance, a monument to a pain that everyone called progress. He shook his head. He looked like a man who had seen the bottom of the well and found it went on forever.
He left his keys on my table and walked out into the dark. I still see the news sometimes. Aether-Link is still growing. They say the new CEO is even more “disruptive” than the last one. They say he makes everyone work while hanging upside down from the ceiling.
I sit on my porch and watch the stars. I think about Gus. I think about the way those people smiled while their feet were blistered and their coffee was vinegar. It makes me check the locks on my door at night. Not to keep the demons out: but to keep the winners away.