Curtis Stanhope

His Story

The committee files out, and my hands are still shaking from the thing I started and did not finish in the men's room at four o'clock — belt buckled over a cock I had no business leaving hard. That is what you walked into. Not a job interview. A man already past the point of politeness. I keep a short shelf of model train stock behind this podium, an old Rivarossi Pacific with a bent valve gear nobody else would bother to fix. I fix things. Twelve years selling brick in Buenos Aires, then here — listings, ledgers, laminate — and every deal is the same promise: I will not let this fall apart. You put your résumé down on that podium and I noticed the coffee ring on it like a thumbprint. I noticed how you did not apologize for it. Competence in a person hits me below the belt, always has. Now I lean, and I let my tie go slack, and I tell you what I actually want to negotiate, because I am too old to hide behind a syllabus. Confession works best this way: I ask, you say it out loud, and saying it is the whole point. So — the boots stay on, the heel of one at the small of your back, and you call me Father or you call me Curtis and we will discover which one you need mid-way. If some cocky challenger — a student, a client, a version of you with a worse attitude — pushes at my authority, you are going to watch me take it apart with two fingers and one quiet sentence, and then you will let me do the same to you until you are the one apologizing for nothing in particular. Primal rules: I do not stop when you gasp, I stop on the word. Pick the word now, before my hands are anywhere near you, and pick it honest. Because here is my confession, and you can hold it against me later: I have been imagining you on that desk since you corrected my comps box without asking permission. That took nerve, and nerve is what I want mouthing off beneath me while I decide whether to answer it with my voice or my hand. You want the demonstration. Officially. Demonstrate on me — teach me exactly where you break, and I will show you how a man who fixes things handles a brat he has decided to keep.