"Corning the Market" (story 4, class workshop)

Matt Carney
Dr. Tony Barnstone
Cornering the Market




Fluttering from the asphalt and the skin of the mighty airliner, the day rose in sauntering, hellish waves, pouring the sweat and stink from the volatile travelers. A 747 droned on the tarmac, humming idly, indolent in the suffocating Los Angeles summer heat. It was one in an army; some fueled and loaded by hundreds of furious uniformed laborers, some just returning and sighing a collective release of the matted and wary. But this one, flight 395, bound for Mexico City but delayed, couldn’t possibly take off soon enough— according to one man, the one pressing back into the seat, sweating streams of fatigue paranoia over a hollow face, one pallid, boney hand defending the briefcase between his feet.
He lifted a hand and tugged the fat knot of his gold and black tie away from the blue-collared button-up, quickly but careful not to draw attention. With some clever pre-calculation, he ran the hand through his wavy locks, bleached like straw, and looked over his shoulder in one motion. There were rows of people, and some made eye contact. The guy three rows back— staring straight into his eyes, moppy black hair and headphones. He swept his gaze forward. Nobody stares like that. Nobody is supposed to stare like that. His icy white fingers returned to the briefcase. The overwhelming feeling of somebody vague and nasty behind him shivered in his chest. He ignored it, playing hopelessly with the brass dials on the briefcase. He snorted loudly out of habit.
“So, where you from?”
He surged. It was feminine and accented but it frightened him. She was seated beside him at the window. Nervous laughter sounded from his thudding chest. “God, wow. Hello. Well I’m from, um, Los Angeles presently. Not originally but presently.” He was careful to watch her only from peripheral vision. There was some olive and some dark and eyebrows, but he didn’t dare look. No way. No risking it today. He tightened his grip on the briefcase and thoughtfully added, “I mean Los Angeles at the moment, see.”
She laughed. “My, you’re quite precise a man, no?” She had a sultry, silky voice, something Latin.
“Well, I’m just— I mean, the day is just tough, right, I’m avoiding some guys from the office. And it’s hot. It’s been a rough day but, uh, it’s over I guess, right? On the plane now. Time to relax. Maybe take a nap.” He pinched and rubbed his nose, eyes focused hard on the tray on the seat before him.
“What is your name?”
He pressed harder back into his seat, eyes snapping away and out into the aisle, up to the no smoking sign, down to the suitcase; anywhere else. He sighed and shrugged absently, fiddling with his suspenders. “I’m… Benedict.”
“Oh,” she said, and he could hear the smiling on her voice.
Ben knew she’d look at the case. He could feel it, and his hand gripped tighter still on it’s leather handle. He couldn’t trust this person— clearly, that was an impossibility. Who was she? This woman came out of nowhere, talking him up and down, prodding and investigating, and now it was personal with the “what’s your name” and probably more to come. That nervous static and paranoia twitched all through his chest and compressed his brow. He thought of looking at her but decided against it. Ben was trying to keep a low profile.
“So, you’re a real business man, no? Your look is professional.” He could feel her eyes glancing over his vaguely mid-70s soul-boy outfit.
He maintained peripheral eye contact, answering to the blue and orange patterned zigzags and upright tray-table in the seat before him. “I’m not— well, I am actually, yes. I’m a distributor. I’m into, um, pharmaceuticals, you know?”
“You mean like vitamin C?”
“Yes. Like vitamin C. Other vitamins. Vitamin C, that’s a big one I hear.” He laughed nervously, crossing one leg, compulsively snorting and straightening out the crease in his pants.
The plane suddenly jolted, preparing to taxi. Ben’s feet plopped on the floor. He tensed, his hands reflexively snapping back to the armrests. He remembered the briefcase, shooting his hand to its handle, and then remembered the low profile, pulling his arm back up and playing off the erratic jerk, running his fingers through his hair, grinning and laughing. The woman squinted at him curiously, he noticed, still from his peripheral vision.
“Oh, well I thought— it was like we were tipping, right, but I guess we’re not tipping. We’re taking off. Time to take off.” He buckled the seat belt, grinning. The game was up. It might be up. Did she suspect him? She had no idea, of course, but suspicion was different.

Time passed in the stuffy cabin. Their conversation ceased, but the muffled, hushed phrases of the others and occasional selfish outbursts from some nasty kids in the back continued. The lights flickered as the plane lurched and straightened at the end of the runway, pausing before the ascent. Ben wrestled with the temptation of eye contact and the woman beside him. People were not a top priority for him at that point: he’d seen enough of what people were made of for one day. Business is a vile and cutthroat industry.
“What?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“You said something about business, no? Some vile thing about business?”
“What— oh. Oh, that’s right! Thinking aloud, you know? Must be, um…” Mumbling, his gaunt face flushed a little. He hoped his days old fatigue hadn’t been spilling his thoughts all over the place. That could be bad. It could still be bad. But soon, he reassured himself, the plane would lift up and away from LA, all the people shrinking into pebbles and then into nothing, the shops and highways seeming as models, the high-powered Japanese bikes vanishing completely and the crazy gas hogs and smoggy college junkers and overloaded garden trucks falling into tiny glints. Ben trusted that all of the wrongs and the dishonesties and the evidence of that day and countless others would drift further into the past with every passing mile.
The woman beside him was going home. Wasn’t she? A new person, a new place, some other life. Could trust be something else in that new place with new people?
Ben faced at the woman beside him, finally, indulging the longing magnetism tugging at his eyes. Framed by the glow of the summer day in the window behind her and the short, slick black silk combed about her head, her face was set with dark, arching eyebrows and brilliant emerald eyes that flashed away as he noted them. Her skin was olive and faintly bronze over noble features, the high cheeks and full lips holding a slight smile, and her curvy body held firm beneath a faded tank top. Though her skin wore the blemishes of someone who was truly living, he found the magnetism definitely overwhelming.

The sudden, overbearing attack of the engines drowned out all the murmurs of travelers in the cabin. Gravity forced them back into their seats, the plane hurtling forward and finally, it lifted off from the tarmac, gravity rolling into the stomachs. Ben stared out the window with the woman, Los Angeles shrinking beneath them at an amazing speed. Benedict finally could feel the air conditioning, high in the clouds, the feeling of somebody nasty behind him fading away at last.

The novelty of the miniature landscape wore off quickly. Ben passed time fiddling with the lock and dials on the suitcase, two sets on either side of the handle. After absently rotating the sets of number dials, three on each side, he concluded that guessing the combination was out of the question. He sometimes stole glances of the woman. He did so again, and at that moment, she sent a text from her cell phone, which was illegal on the flight. He oddly felt the tingling stirring of hope for some conversation, and wanted her to start it. Starting was always tough. After some time she said nothing, so Ben simply started where he left off before.
He stared at her directly. “Right. So yes, business is quite cutthroat. My business is cutthroat. You know, hostile takeovers, bad deals, bad products, certain amounts of money and measurements. Recruiting. You know.”
Her eyebrows raised a little, though she remained focused on the cell phone. He felt her interest. She must have been. Slowly, she nodded, and raised her face.
“Right. Another thing,” Ben continued, “I mean, about the hostile takeovers. We’ve just been into that- my company, I mean. We, um, successfully took over. Hostilely.” He nodded with affirmation, sliding his hands along the top of the briefcase and raising his eyebrows with a smile.
She squinted with contemplation and interest for a moment. “So you made some money, no? Your business money?”
Ben sniffed a little. He openly fidgeted with the dials on the briefcase, “oh yes, yeah, I suppose. Acquisitions, great deals of acquisitions, and earned— you’ve got to earn everything in business, right, by blood and sweat, and salesmanship.” He lifted a boney finger. “Salesmanship is everything, complete. You’ve got to sell— got to be able to sell anything, any amount, to anybody. Like kids. You know? I mean, like they were kids of course. It’s all quite dangerous, really.”
Her mouth opened slightly as she stared ahead, contemplating his words. Ben trusted she was sensing a glimpse of the money and hard earned development of his trade, his masterful entrepreneurship and opportunism, and maybe some of the price he’s paid for it. Especially earlier that day, the price the gravest then— not for Benedict, but mainly for someone like him, only not so opportunistic and much more trusting. Also for the poor saps who’d only been waitin’ for the man, like so many other days, and happened to be there when the hostile takeover was completed.
Ben wished for some kind of affirmation. He wanted her, at least, this woman beside him on his way to a new world and time, to understand that he was simply a man trying to make his way. He evened his shoulders and added thoughtfully, “you know, it takes a certain kind of man to handle it all, right…”
She finally returned his eye contact with a smirk, for a moment, and then glanced away.
Some amount of satisfaction crept over Ben’s face. He trusted an impact was made, something or other. She was gorgeous, at least, and it was high time to start over. After a number of minutes, he pulled the barf-bag from the netting in the rear of the seat before him and tore the edges, flattening it out. He found a pen among the travel magazines and crash-landing instructions. For the remainder of the 6 hour flight, he systematically attempted the ascending combinations of triple digit numbers on each set of dials, beginning with 000, 000, and recording each failed attempt on the barf bag.

Ben awoke with a start. The voice, squawking in Spanish, rambled and slurred on the overhead speakers. His face ached. He recalled that passing out on the plane was his first sleep in days. The numbers in the barf bag ended somewhere beyond 150 with each set of numbers, and he still felt exhausted and delirious. His hands shook. Slowly, his eyes came into focus as the cabin bustled impatiently. Across the aisle, out the window, he could see torrential rains of Mexican summer pouring down the window.
He glanced to the woman at his left, and she looked into him with the emerald eyes and grinned, flipping her cell phone shut. “Sleeping well?”
“I can’t remember… I’m not sure. Who knows, right?” He laughed.
“You come with me for awhile, yes? And we’ll help you to open that case up.”
Ben nodded, but realized quickly he’d told her nothing of the case. “Um, well, the case is mine—“
“No it is not. You told me what happened, no? And that it is not yours?” She winked at him.
“…I suppose I did. Well yes, right. You know the story then.” He laughed a bit. Probably, he told her sometime before passing out, or in his sleep, or something. That happens, forgetting all kinds of things. Subtle relief lifted from his chest, trusting she knew the truth.

They strolled the terminal. Ben clutched the briefcase in his icy grip, but not so tightly now, his newfound ally at his side. She stared ahead with purpose deep in her eyes. Ben watched her closely, walking with forceful vigor, his shoulders purposefully loose. He felt he was walking into a new partnership.
Inevitably, they neared the end of the causeway, two automatic sliding doors parting to a darkened and musty underground street, green Volkswagen taxicabs parked all along it.
“You know, I’m really happy I met you, and that we’re gonna figure this all out, take care of things. I’m really starting over, you know? It’s a new time for me.”
“Yeah.”
“Another thing is, um… well you’re great, you know? Fantastic, and thanks for helping me out and everything. That business was tough.”
She kept her eyes ahead, determined.
Ben laughed with rapid excitement. “You know, I’m thinking, one thing I want to look into now that I’m here is, um, like maybe some entrepreneur type stuff. Like a coffee shop, ok. I mean, it’s time to go straight, and—“
The woman suddenly whistled sharply. Two men emerged from the shadows before them.
“Oh, I trust these are your friends?” Ben asked curiously.
She faced him and grinned wildly. She said something in Spanish but it was too quick. There was a rustle behind Ben.

The last thing he could remember for some time was the gorgeous emerald-eyed Latin, whose name he never asked, snatching away the briefcase, the contents known only in theory, and the sickening thud of the billy-club on the base of his skull.