By

H.  Kent Craig


{ The scene sets up. In a quiet backroom of Tony Baritone's Heating And Plumbing, next to Tony's Heart Flush topless bar that he also owns, his cousin Ralph who is his senior project manager enters nervously, with quiet shuffling feet, eyes gazing at the floor more than level with his boss and the boss of all bosses of commercial new construction plumbing in his area, his cous', Tony.}

"C'mon on in, Ralph, c'mon in and shut the door."

"You said in my cell phone voicemail, Tony, that you wanted to see me, but you didn't say what it was about?"

"C'mon on in and close the door, Ralphie, we have to have a little talk."

Ralph gulped hard as Tony opened his top right-hand desk drawer and flopped a Berettea Model 92 9mm pistol onto the top of it. His hands began gripping the arms of the chair with enough force to squeeze the leather into tiny raised furrows.

"You . . . ya' mad with me about something, Ton'?"

"Nah, nah Ralphie, I ain't mad with you Ralphie, not at all."

"Then what? . . ." the stress in his voice rising it to a near-soprano pitch.

"You and I; we go back a long long ways don't we Ralphie, bein' cousins and all, and after Pop made me boss of Baritone's Heating And Plumbing, bringing you in even though you were a useless estimator for a general contractor and didn't know a kitchen sink cockhole cover from your Aunt Fanny's cockhole, taught you everything there is to know about the business and now look at you five years later, being senior project manager and all for me, running a ten million dollar division almost right by yourself."

As he finished speaking Tony lazily twirled the 9mm handgun on the table pivoting it around a fat gold-ringed index finger, the bare edges of the cold metal scratching the otherwise perfectly refinished surface of the seventy-year-old auburn mahogany desk.

"Yeah, Tony, and I can't thank you enough for the opportunity you gave me, saving me from the evil influences of the moral-less and heathen general contractors I used to hang around with."

"And as part of your training as my first full-time project manager, I taught you that above all else, above knowledge, above ability, above how to make project management decisions correctly, above everything else come project management responsibility, and cuttin' to the chase, Ralphie, this situation with our second cousin Billy that you've exacerbated by not making the correct decision on what to do with him let alone not making it in a timely fashion, hey motherlover, it's been what six months now that we've been talking about needin' to do this and you still haven't gotten of the can, so to speak, you've got to do this Ralphie, you've got to make the right decision, and you need to do it in the five minutes."

Before he could reply Tony hit the button on his desk phone to buss up front to the reception area with a "Stella, tell Billy, errrr, William Junior to get his butt in here, NOW!"

Tony coughed and farted within the same breath as Ralph's eyes got as big as saucers as Tony's massive right hand flipped the Beretta pistol off the table giving it a graceful arc through the air as Ralph cleanly caught it as their relative Billy quietly entered the room. Ralph discretely tucked the 9mm handgun between his thigh and the side of the leather executive chair.

"Billy, c'mon in, Ralphie, I mean Ralph, has something to say to you, something that needs to be said, something that should have been said and done six months ago."

Ralph's eyes slumped towards the floor as he made his decision, flipping the pistol back to his boss from the cavernous five foot distance away.

"Get to it, Ralphie! Be a fucking senior project manager, make a project manager's decision, start acting like one!"

"Ton', I don't need the pistol after all to shoot the snake that I've been seeing going in and out of my crawl space, thanks for the offer anyway, I had a professional exterminator come out and catch it in a live trap and release it in a state park."

"You're stalling Ralph, get to it, dammit!"

"And as for you, my young protege' Billy, in the best interest of Baritone Plumbing, I hereby promote you to be my full-time protege, to be the new Project Manager for us, where you'll have all the responsibility, no authority save what I give you, and none of the credit save also for what I also give you. There's a twenty thousand dollar raise plus bonuses and the opportunity to take my job eventually as I move up the company ladder; whaddya' say?" as Billy grinned ear-to-ear, his beloved but now past field days gone, his career as opposed to job now beginning.