NaNoWriMo’s coming up in a couple of weeks. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from writing a novel in a month, besides the fact that it’s a terrible idea to write a novel in a month, it’s that to survive National Novel Writing Month, you need to be a little bit crazy. But just a little bit. Start November too sane and you quit in four days. Start it too crazy and by December 1 you’re proudly mailing your 50,000-word manifesto to the authorities and before you know it you’re on the no-fly list. And so once mid-October rolls around I start getting my mind ready to be just a little bit crazy.

So here’s a little bit of nothing that I’m hoping is helping to fine-tune some crazy into my brain. Again, it was written on the bus and in a meeting, so have mercy. Maybe you’ll like it, and maybe you won’t…

“Okay, Ohio, it might be time for Plan B,” Yank said. He paged through the short stack of papers on the table and then dropped them with a dull thump in front of him. “Yeah, definitely Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?” Ben asked.
“The thing you do when Plan A doesn’t work out, obviously,” Yank said.
“I don’t think I have one,” Ben said.
“How can you not have a Plan B?”
“I didn’t think it would be necessary.”
“Plan B is always necessary,” Yank said. “Nothing stays good forever. In fact, the average shelf life of something good is about six days. Six days, Ohio. How can you walk through life without a Plan B when at any given moment you’re less than a week away from everything going to hell?”
“If that’s the case, then I’m even more screwed than I thought,” Ben said.
“How do you figure?”
“I don’t think I have a Plan A either.”
“Funny thing about life, Ohio. If you don’t choose a Plan A, one will be chosen for you,” Yank said. “Plan A never lasts, anyway. Plan B is what gets you where you’re going.”
“So you actually have a Plan B?”
“Of course I do.”
“Even though I haven’t seen any evidence that you’re capable of making any other kind of plan, you have a Plan B?”
“Exactly. Why waste my time on any other kind of plan when Plan B is the only one that counts?”
“Then what is it?” Ben asked.
“I can’t tell you,” Yank said. “But rest assured it involves at least one border crossing, a bag of unmarked bills, a case of good tequila and a tight red dress.”
“You’re not wearing the red dress in this plan, right?”
“God, I hope not,” Yank said.
Another small group walked past the conference room, deep in an animated discussion. Ben didn’t recognize any of them, and he was pretty sure Yank didn’t either. When Yank recognized someone he usually shared a nasty comment, so his silence spoke volumes. Ben looked down to the other end of the table where Scott sat engrossed in his smartphone. Ben had no idea if he’d even noticed how long they’d been left waiting.
“Does it always work like this?” Ben asked. “Do you always have to sit around just waiting for him to show up?”
“Not all the time, but mostly,” Yank said. “Sometimes he’s got better stuff to do in the afternoon so he makes sure he’s on time for us so he can get us out of the way.”
“Kind of insulting, isn’t it?”
“What’ve you heard about this guy, Ohio?”
“That he’s an idiot,” Ben said.
“Hurtful.”
“You’re the one who told me he’s an idiot.”
“Still hurtful,” Yank said. “But it’s true, this client is an idiot. I’m sure he means well, but he can’t help it, he’s an idiot. Drove everyone who ever had to work with him crazy. I’m like the fourth or fifth person in charge of this job. He ran all the others off.”
“They have problems with this guy and they put you in charge of him?” Ben asked.
“Hard to believe, huh? But that’s what they did. I think they did it because they wanted me to blow up the relationship so he’d drop us. They got sick of him but they can’t drop him, so they put me here to force the issue.”
“There’s no way that happened,” Scott said without looking up from his phone.
“You can’t prove I’m wrong,” Yank said.
“You can’t prove you’re right. Your theory would require everyone we work for to have no business sense whatsoever.”
“I thought you said I can’t prove I’m right,” Yank said. “You just did it for me.”
“I’ll admit, I can’t think of a single reason why they’d put you in front of a client,” Scott said. “But there’s no way they did it so you could drive him off.”
“Yeah, that makes no sense,” Ben said. He probably wouldn’t have said anything if it were just him and Yank here, but Scott’s presence and comment gave Ben some cover.
“Oh, please, it’s passive/aggressive leadership at its best, which is something we specialize in,” Yank said. “If I piss off the client, he drops us and we’ve broken free of a delusional gasbag without getting our hands dirty. We love not getting our hands dirty. And as a bonus, since it’s now officially my fault we lost this guy, I’ve got a huge target on my back if someone decides they need to cut some salary from somewhere.
“But for some reason me and this idiot get along, so not only do I not kill the relationship, I get him to throw three more projects our way. Which means I’ve now done the exact opposite of what my bosses wanted me to do, but they can’t touch me because of all the money I brought in.”
“Wow, I knew you lived in a fantasy world, Yank, but I never realized just how far from reality it is,” Scott said, his thumbs now typing something on his phone. “You could practically ride a unicorn to work at this rate.”
“At least look in my direction if you’re gonna insult me like that,” Yank said. “What’s so damn interesting on that phone?”
“Just Facebook.”
“Come on, I know for a fact you don’t have enough friends to spend that much time on Facebook.”
“You’d be surprised,” Scott said.
“I’d be surprised if this idiot showed before noon.”
“If he’s this much of an idiot, why didn’t you just kill the relationship?” Ben asked.
“Ohio, this guy is an idiot, but he’s an idiot with money, which makes him the best kind of idiot you can find,” Yank said. “I want to keep him around in case one of my plans ever makes it to the financing phase.”
“What plans?” Ben asked.
“Much as I love working for the mouth-breathers we work for, I’m not staying here forever. I’m always on the lookout for something better. So when I’m ready to spin off my own company or franchise or religion, I might need to grab for a piece of this idiot’s checkbook.”
“Religion? You can’t start your own religion,” Scott said.
“Sure you can. You need the right business plan and infrastructure and enough backers with deep pockets, but it can be done.”
“And maybe some theology for your members to believe in,” Scott said.
“Sure, I guess. After the money, of course.”
“Of course.”
“This isn’t your Plan B, is it?” Ben asked.
“Of course not,” Yank replied. “It’s way down there on the list. Like Plan N or O or one of those other letters you run together when you say the alphabet fast. I’ve got lots of details to figure out before I can seriously consider it.”
“At least you’re putting the right amount of thought into it,” Scott said. “I hope work isn’t getting in the way.”
“I will say, however, that Plan B and my religion may end up having tequila in common,” Yank said, ignoring Scott.
“Now you’re talking,” Scott said, ignoring the fact that he was being ignored.
Ben looked past Yank and saw that the hallway was empty. Almost creepy empty, like the kind of empty that exists right before the zombies show up. He realized it was time to start shuffling his calendar around. They weren’t leaving this room any time soon.
“I’ll tell you, the biggest problem I have with the whole religion plan is that I don’t actually believe in religion. Any religion,” Yank said. “So I’m thinking that the instant I start this religion, I’ll stop believing it.”
“Tell you what, Yank, I’m way out ahead of you on that,” Scott said.
“Heretic.” Yank turned to face Ben. “I’ll be in the market for a few good disciples, Ohio. Keep that in mind.”
“Do disciples get health benefits?”
“Do not encourage him, Ben,” Scott said. “He’ll never stop if you do.”
“Ye of little faith,” Yank said. “If you stopped to consider the sheer amount of money out there waiting to be dumped into a new religion, you wouldn’t be talking like this. You’d be begging to get in on the ground floor.”
“The Book of Yank, chapter 3, verse 14,” Scott said.
“I’ll clean it up for the bible,” Yank said. “Ohio, write that down. And maybe start transcribing my other bits of wisdom. You never know how much stuff you’ll need to fill the holy books.”
“As soon as I hear some wisdom, I promise I’ll write it down,” Ben said.
“Et tu, Ohio? Keep it up and I’ll make you run this meeting.”
“That’s cruel and unusual punishment,” Scott said. “Maybe you are ready to start a religion.”
“I learned from nuns,” Yank said. “I know how to go hard core.”

Comments are closed