It was a couple of weeks before I was called back for an interview in the Software Development department. When I arrived, I was given an itinerary indicating I would be interviewing with four people for fifteen minutes each. Susan had already clued me in on the people who would be interviewing me. She knew three of them and had spoken to them about me. They all would be easy, she assured me, except the fourth who was somewhat of an asshole. She said not to worry about him, as long as I did well with the first three - and, she was confident, I would.

Susan also warned me that I would need to wear a business suit for the interview. The Software Development side of the company was more formal than Product Development. She took me out to buy me a suit for the interview.

I sat in the expansive lobby reading a brochure I was given while waiting for my Human Resources liaison. For some reason, the company used the term "facilitator" to refer to the liaison. I preferred the word "enabler." As I scoured the brochure, I realized the company had specific words that were to be used for just about everything: employees were "associates," customers were "clients," a demonstration was a "knowledge transfer." The company was divided into "orgs" and "CinCs." It was probably frowned upon when an employee - I mean associate - didn't use the proper terminology. I looked up from the brochure and examined the large picture of the company founders smiling down upon me from the wall.

"Cerner has always been at war with Eurasia," I thought.

After several minutes, my enabler showed up and led me to a small room. She left me there alone, closing the door behind her. More waiting.

Several minutes later, the first interviewer appeared. He asked me a few easy questions then left. More waiting.

The second interviewer arrived. He was more nervous than I was. He struggled to produce a few pointless questions, which I answered effortlessly. I was so emboldened by the ease of the interviews, I even expounded upon my answers for several minutes. Most of what was coming out of my mouth was bullshit. I knew he wouldn't know the difference.

The third interview was an oral test of my programming knowledge. Another easy one.

Finally, the fourth interviewer came in - the one Susan said would be most difficult. Something about him looked vaguely familiar.

He smiled and shook my hand, "Hello, I'm Ron Kyle. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you." I forgot his name as soon as he said it.

Ron asked me a few questions before we were interrupted by his beeper. He excused himself to another room. I thought a moment, "Why does he look so familiar?" I checked the itinerary to see what his name was, "Ron Kyle. Ron Kyle. Holy shit, Ron Kyle!"

Ron came back into the room and apologized for the interruption.

"Do you have a brother named Mark?"

He looked at me with some apprehension. The last I'd heard, Mark had been heavily into drugs, but that was several years ago. Still, it had caused a lot of trouble in his family. Ron, who was quite a bit older than me, probably thought I was one of Mark's druggie friends.

"Yeah," he replied with caution.

"Oh my God! I'm your second cousin!"

"What?"

"Your mother and my grandmother were sisters! I'm Sandy's son!"

"Darren?!"

"Yeah! I can't believe I didn't recognize your name. It's been a long time!"

"Yeah, me too! How have you been?"

The rest of the fifteen minutes was spent catching up on family events. Nothing about it remotely resembled an interview.

Once the time was up, Ron stood, "Well, I don't have a problem recommending family."

"Cool."

I was certain I had bagged it.

* * *

It had been years since I'd been to a concert. I think the last one had been Iron Maiden and Twisted Sister. My concert memories were badly disjointed with events from one blending into events from another. All of them together seemed like one long hair-band orgy. After Iron Maiden, I decided I wasn't really interested in the concert scene any longer. I could stay home and get fucked up with a cassette playing and not have to deal with dirty, smelly metal-heads puking on me. Well, except for Willie.

It was with some hesitation that I accepted Josh's offer to take Tracy and me to the Nirvana concert. Mudhoney was opening for them, and Tracy seemed more excited about that than seeing Nirvana. In the end, I couldn't pass it up - Nirvana was my favorite band at the time. I began to regret my decision as Tracy had a couple of beers before we even left.

We drove to the concert with Josh, which was an experience in and of itself. Pixies were always scattered and confused. Josh's driving reflected that. Miraculously, we managed to get to the auditorium in one piece and made our way to the building. We were stopped by a middle-aged man who was balding and had a mustache. He wore a pager and a hat that looked like he'd stolen from Yoko Ono.

"Dial a deal! Dial a deal!"

Josh looked at me and laughed, "Dude!"

The man walked up to us, "You guys want some good opium?"

My mouth watered. I could taste that sweet bubble gum flavor vividly just from memory. I looked at Tracy, who was busy sucking on a bottle of beer.

Fuck it, "Yeah, I'll take some."

I gave the man some money for a small ball of opium. He thanked me and handed me a business card with his pager number on it, "Any time you need a fix, brother, just dial my pager. 24 hour service."

I noticed a pregnant blonde woman who had been standing a few feet behind him throughout the whole transaction. She was smiling blankly and watching us.

"Cool, man. Is that your wife?"

"Yeah, brother. Gotta support the kid, you know."

"Yeah, dude."

Josh and I laughed and we all headed back to his car to roll the opium up into a joint while the dealer wandered off into some other part of the parking lot, his calls, "Dial a deal! Dial a deal!" growing more and more faint.

We smoked the joint before heading back inside for the concert. It had been long enough since I'd done narcotics that the opium hit me quit hard. Maybe "hard" is the wrong word. There isn't anything "hard" about opiates - it's all softness and floating. It felt like the familiar comfort of an old friend. And I didn't care about Tracy.

When we finally made it into the auditorium, Tracy wandered off to use the bathroom. I was standing in the hall outside the theater with Josh when a cute girl approached me smiling.

"Hi!"

"Hey," it was tough to squeeze any enthusiasm through the dense opiate cloud.

"Can I braid your hair?"

It was an odd request, my hair had grown long enough that it could be braided, but not long enough to make for a very impressive one. But the thought of an attractive young female - one who wasn't drunk - running her fingers through my hair sounded appealing. Haircuts were usually good for that.
"Sure."

I turned around and the girl went to work braiding my hair while Josh mingled with the crowd. Through the smog in my mind, I heard a slurred voice, "What the fuck are you doing, bitch?"

Oh no.

I turned in time to see Tracy push the girl away. Reflexively, I grabbed her with both arms as she was going after the girl who was looking at Tracy with fear and confusion.

"Calm down. She was just braiding my hair. Jesus."

"Fuck you! Tracy slobbered on me. And fuck you bitch!"

"I'm sorry," I said to the girl, "she's drunk. Again."

I was turning red from embarrassment. I always preferred to be in the background. That was growing increasingly impossible with Tracy around.

I herded Tracy into the theater, with Josh walking beside us. She remained mostly quiet for the concert, but continued drinking heavily. She even bought beers for two girls who couldn't have been older than thirteen.

When Nirvana finally appeared, a mosh pit formed in front of us. I wanted no part of that and remained in the back enjoying the concert - it was a small enough venue that even at the back of the crowd we were pretty close to the stage. Tracy decided she wanted to dance and tried to drag me into the throng of moshing grunges. I resisted and she went in alone, bouncing up and down and side to side in a drunken stupor. Her long, dark hair flying in all directions. It didn't take long before she vomited all over herself and a few other people who weren't too happy about the situation.

I wormed my way through the crowd, now a bit subdued by the horror of something that should remain exclusively in the Exorcist flying at them in terrible, lifelike 3D.

I pulled Tracy out of the crowd and set out to hunt down Josh, with her moaning and gurgling at my side, barely able to walk. As soon as I found him, he made no resistance at leaving early, with the condition in which Tracy had put herself.

What I saw of Nirvana was great. The concert wasn't pretentious, showy or trite as the heavy metal concerts I'd been used to. I tried to look at the bright side. Someday, they'd come back to Kansas City and I could see them then.

Six months later, Kurt Cobain committed suicide.

Posted by DevilMonkey at 9:43 PM

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