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“My dad loves me more than I love him.” The words seemed to go unheard, but that was fine. Cathal wasn’t sure he wanted anyone to hear them anyway. “It’s always been like that, ever since I can remember.”
He was technically speaking to Gizmo, who was rummaging through a pile of snacks for just the right one, too preoccupied with the task at hand to pay him much attention. “Maybe you don’t get it.” Cathal was leaning back in his chair, swiveled away from the monitors to instead watch the scene out the window. “And don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I don’t like my dad.” He could just barely make out the top of Allan’s head around the smog that gathered so high up, but he’d get a better view soon enough. “He’s fine. You know? Not perfect.” It was about time a group of toons managed to worm their way into the building. Had it been 4 days already? Maybe 5? New record. “But like…he’s fine.”
“There was this one time, this was a good few years ago, dad wanted to take me back to the city. It was this whole thing. He actually used vacation hours for it. Something about wanting to show me just how tall our buildings can really get.” Reaching out, Cathal grabbed for a half empty cup of seltzer on his desk. His eyes never once left the window. “It was neat. They were pretty big. I guess I didn’t care so much. But looking back, yeah it was kind of cool.” Gizmo was deep in the snack pile, very much on a mission now. He wasn’t hearing a word. Cathal suspected as much and kept talking. “It doesn’t matter too much though, does it? The buildings are big enough here. I mean…” Big enough that the fall from the roof counted, no matter the size of the suit. “Like, why do you have to get much bigger than this?”
Cathal used the straw to stir his drink, breaking up whatever hint of carbonation lingered after it had been left to sit for hours. He couldn’t actually hear the creaking of chains as his father’s defenses dropped lower and lower, but the sound played in his mind either way. It was about that time. “I think he’s really proud of what he does here. I’m not even sure what it is, exactly. I know he’s the boss of his department. But there’s a few guys above him, right?” He stuck the straw into his mouth, not taking a sip yet, just chewing on the straw as he watched the scene outside his window play out. “Why does it matter what he does if everyone above him can just do the same stuff? Maybe even do it better than him…” Guilt settled into Cathal’s stomach as he finally drank.
“I don’t think he’s bad at what he does,” Cathal clarified instantly, not realizing that Gizmo had left the room to go search elsewhere for his snack. “He probably wouldn’t be the boss if he was. Or maybe he would be. I don’t know what you have to do to become a boss here. They don’t ever demote him, so he must be pretty good.” A small pause. Cathal could see the top half of Allan’s face now. He squinted, trying to make out which side was towards him. “I just don’t get why he works so hard.”
“When I got fired- err, when I resigned from my first job, he sat me down and talked for a really long time. Some stuff about responsibility and motivation, whatever. He was really firm about it too, I don’t think he’d ever used that voice on me before then.” A small snort. “I’ve heard it a lot since, though. But yeah, he was talking to me about how even if you don’t want to do something, sometimes it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes you do things because it’s for the good of everyone in the company…or something.”
The straw wandered back up to his mouth as Allan came more and more into view. Down to his waist now, Cathal could see him being hit time and time again with those stupid pies. The fillings covered both sets of eyes. No matter how Allan turned, he was blind. “I know better than to say this stuff to him or to anyone besides you,” Gizmo wasn’t back yet, “but I’m not sure if this company is about doing the right thing.” Cathal chewed furiously on his straw as Allan was pushed further and further back, closer to the ledge with each lurch of his wheels. “I don’t even know if it’s about being good to people inside the company.” Allan wasn’t fighting it anymore. He was letting them push him. “I don’t think my dad really believes that either. I also don’t know how much he cares.”
Allan was starting to teeter. Cathal leaned forward in his chair, almost falling out completely when Gizmo came back through the door. He snapped his head back, staring at his little friend. “When did you leave?” Before Gizmo could reply, Cathal whipped back around to find he’d missed the killing blow. Allan was half-way down the building, messy and clawing at the air as if it ever helped, his own weight dragging him down into a furious plummet. Cathal bit hard onto his straw. “Did you ever find the snack I asked for?” He didn’t have to strain to maintain his steady tone anymore. Not after the umpteenth time of watching his dad make that horrible fall.
Gizmo waddled over to Cathal, offering him the small bag of puffed rubber bits. With a slight nod as thanks, Cathal took it, still staring at the place his father had just been. He wouldn’t wander over to the window for the rest of the day. Seeing his dad at the bottom would be… “So stupid,” he mumbled, popping a bit of rubber into his mouth. “Why does he bother?”
Gizmo didn’t say anything, so Cathal took his chance to fill the silence. “My first day at this job, I actually came home crying.” He took an extra moment to stare at the snack between his fingers. “It sucked. And my dad…I mean, I’m grown, you know. But he hugged me like I wasn’t. He’s a big guy, so it was a great hug. Anyways…he told me the same stuff he told me when I left that first job. But he also told me that I didn’t have to worry about doing more than I thought I could handle.” Cathal nibbled at the rubber, not quite eating it yet. “He said I didn’t have to think about promoting, because he wants to be the one to deal with all of that junk.”
Finally, he turned the chair back around to face the monitors, switching the channels back to his shows and games and trivia facts instead of any sort of surveillance. “I think I could be promoted if I tried. But I don’t know if I really want to do that.” Eyes glued to the screens, Cathal settled into the back of his chair. “And that’s fine. Because my dad loves me more than I love him.”