Wondering what’s wrong with John Wall and Russell Westbrook right now? It seems like they’ve got a bad case of The Mondays.
Russell Westbrook is stuck in traffic. John Wall is not. Russell Westbrook is running late for work. John Wall is not going in today. Russell Westbrook will soon arrive at a cubicle. John Wall will stare at the red digits on his beeping alarm clock and press snooze. Russell Westbrook will hold onto his stapler. John Wall, if he comes in, will unscrew the cubicle wall and enjoy the view. But John Wall isn’t going in. John Wall is rolling over.
Someone from the office calls. But John Wall doesn’t answer. He lets the call fall into that abyss known as Voicemail. Last time John Wall reported to the office some people from corporate interviewed him.
“Walk us through a typical day,” they said.
“You’re looking at it,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, this is what I do,” and he held his arms out like a man reclining on a La-Z-Boy crucifix.
“This is what you do?”
“This is what I do.”
They didn’t know what to say. He was a glitch in the system. They changed the subject: “Can you tell us about this Mr. Russell Westbrook?”
“Not today, Boss.”
“Have you thought about quitting?”
“I don’t think I want to.”
“You don’t want to quit?”
“Not really.”
“Do you want to adjust to a new role?”
“Not really.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.”
John Wall stopped putting cover sheets on his TPS reports
John Wall walked out of the conference room. Russell Westbrook was moved into storage. That was John Wall’s last day in the office. Since then, he had started a few Kungfu movies, but he hadn’t finished any of them. Meanwhile, Russell Westbrook’s eyes adjusted to typing reports in the dark.
John Wall went fishing, but he didn’t catch anything. He just sat there, bobbing in the boat. Sometimes he read old Sports Illustrated articles, but he didn’t really finish any of them. He didn’t really finish anything.
One day while listening to a burned copy of Enter the Wu (36 Chambers) for the first time in years, he heard a knock at the door he almost didn’t answer. In fact, the person at the door may have knocked thirty-six times, bare knuckles clanking like bricks on the exterior.
John Wall opened the door. Russell Westbrook stared back at him. Neither employee spoke to the other employee. Glitch meet glitch, they were both in storage.
Finally, Russell Westbrook said something, and John Wall listed to him as he said it.
“I stole something.”
“What did you steal?”
Russell Westbrook held up a CD that looked very much like a burned copy of Enter the Wu (36 Chambers).
“I already have that,” said John Wall.
“No you don’t,” said Russell Westbrook.
“Come in,” said John Wall.
The two employees sat on John Wall’s futon couch. He had traded in all his good furniture for futon furniture. He was trying to minimize his presence. He was trying to just vibe.
Russell Westbrook placed the burned CD in a laptop. Then the two men sat and played Mortal Kombat while a blue bar on the laptop started to fill up from left to right. Above the bar were the words FILE COPY IN PROGRESS.
A harpoon landed in Sub Zero’s chest many times on the television screen before the blue bar on the laptop screen finished loading.
“Are you ever going to use your controller?” asked Russell Westbrook.
“Not really,” said John Wall. “I don’t mind the harpooning. I can’t really feel it. It’s not like it’s me up there.”
Russell Westbrook delivered an uppercut. The words FINISH HIM appeared on the screen.
“So you’re good with the plan?”
“Are you good with the plan?”
“Our program hacks into their analytics program, rounds down, and drops the remainder into an account.”
“Sounds good.”
“We should destroy the laptop now.”
Russell Westbrook was told that he could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume, from nine to eleven
The two men drove to a field where marketing signs promised commercial pad sites for sale. They stomped on the laptop. Alphabet keys flew from it and fell to the ground like scattered seeds. The screen cobwebbed and split and chipped into slivers of glass sand. They kicked some dirt over the remains and drank a couple blue Powerades, or Gatorade, they basked in the electrolytes.
On the way home, however, they stopped for margaritas with miniature umbrellas poking out over the salty rims.
“If you hang in there long enough,” said Russell Westbrook, “good things will happen in this world.”
“If you say so,” said John Wall. He thought he could hear Wu-Tang’s “Triumph” playing from a man’s AirPods. “Do you prefer 36 Chambers or Forever?”
“Hard to decide,” said Russell Westbrook.
“Think I like Liquid Swords,” said the bartender in an Australian accent.
“Makes sense,” John Wall nodded.
“You notice his nametag?” asked Russell Westbrook.
“Says BEN, what about it?”
“You ever go fishing?”
“Not really.”
“I just sit in the boat as it rocks back and forth.”
“You don’t rock it?”
“Nah, I don’t rock it.”
“Me either,” and with that, Russell Westbrook sat a red stapler on the bar.