The HCP

It startled him when the white phone by the door began ringing and lighting up, even though he was expecting it at some point in the day. Dreading it, actually.

After the third ring he started to move. It was going to keep ringing until someone picked up. But right as he began the arduous task of pushing himself up out of his chair the door opened a crack and Tina’s arm snaked in, grabbed the receiver, and snaked back out just in time for the door to close almost all the way behind her (the cord stopped the door just short of latching). It was a thoughtful move on Tina’s part—picking up and handling the call on the warehouse side of the door so he could keep working—but no work was going to get done as long as he could listen in on her half of the conversation from his desk.

“Hello?…yes…OK, well…yes, that’s—yes, that’s great news! Thank you…you, too. Bye.”

Tina swung the door back open—fully this time and walked in, hung the receiver back up, and turned to her boss.

“We’re off the hook. It’s still happening; they don’t need us.”

“OK, then. THAT is a relief. Thank you, Tina.”

“Sure thing…well, I’m gonna get back to it.” She unclipped her phone from her belt and held it up. “Just ping me if you need anything.”

“Will do. Appreciate it.”

He let himself sink back into his chair—he just now realized he still had a death grip on his armrests and was hovering inches over his seat, mid getting up out of the chair until just now—and exhaled for what felt like a full minute. He took his hat off and tossed it onto his desk. He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and began giving himself a two-handed scalp massage.

He hadn’t realized how stressed out the whole situation had made him these past few months and now that it was resolved in his favor, he felt like he needed to nap for a few days.

But it was not the time of year for siestas. It never was, but it definitely was not at the end of October. It was crunch time—less than two months until the launch—and until just a few minutes ago he thought he was going to be doing the usual last-minute insanity for that AND covering Halloween.

It all started several years ago at one of the COH quarterly meetings when the “Holiday Continuity Plan” was floated by that idiot Bunny. “We’re the Council of Holidays—we should have a contingency plan in place that protects all of us and ensures no holiday is left behind” was how he put it or something like that.

I mean, it wasn’t a bad idea IN THEORY. In reality, though, none of the others took into consideration that, unlike the rest of them, his operation was year-round and global. Unlike the rest of them, he had no off-season and a hell of a lot more ground to cover in the all the time on season. For him there was the busy time of year and the SUPER busy time of year and the fourth quarter of the year was the super busy time of year. Come October he barely had the capacity to cover his own work let alone anyone else’s.

But the rest of them IMMEDIATELY embraced the HCP and blew off his concerns, because OF COURSE. They gave him the old “you can do it; you’re magic” routine which they always did and which always annoyed him to no end. Of all the people/animals/others in the world, his fellow Council members should have understood that NONE of what they did was magic. It was an army of people/animals/others busting their asses. But they all seemed to forget that when it came to him. And every time they did it was just a reminder that he never should have joined their dumbass Council in the first place.

(And then he had to think through why he joined, anyway. And then he remembered it was Henry’s idea. The kid thought it would be a nice gesture of goodwill and hey—maybe they’d get some help or support when they needed it. “We shouldn’t just be going it alone all the time” was how he constantly sold the idea.

And then he remembered that Henry didn’t work for him anymore and the only legacy that dude left behind before leaving “to pursue other opportunities” was saddling his whole operation with this Council nonsense but he felt like at this point it would be too damaging reputation wise to quit the Council; there’d be hurt feelings and backlash and all that. So he was stuck with it thanks to his former assistant. And then he thought “Thank Christ for Tina—she has enough sense not to rope me or anyone else into that kind of bullshit.”)

So the proposal passed (he was the only “nay” vote), an HCP call tree/schedule was made, and it was updated every year during the first quarterly meeting.

And this year he was on the schedule as the backup for Halloween.

And in any other year—despite the arguments he originally made about the fourth quarter being generally heinous for him in the “can you add anything else to your plate?” department—this was not a big deal. Being on tap to cover Halloween had its pros and cons but the big pro was that it was a holiday that pretty much always covered itself. It wasn’t dependent on a single person/animal/other to make it happen and bring it to the masses. In other words, it was never “Peter Halloween is sick; you’re up.” Halloween was a giant group project. A big co-op where all the celebrants made it happen together. They even bought their own supplies and shared them with everyone and everything.

It was normally a good year when you were the Halloween backup on the HCP schedule. 

But then: This fucking year. “Normally” no longer applied to anything and the old “unprecedented times” reared its ugly head (or, more accurately, continued rearing its ugly head) as Halloween approached.

There were extra emergency Council meetings to discuss the contingency plans actually going into effect for Halloween for the first time ever. “What if the stores are shut down and there’s no candy?” “What if it’s not safe to hand out candy even if you can buy it somewhere?” “What if trick-or-treating is canceled?” “Will they be able to do parties? Trunk or treats? What about haunted houses?”

Etc., etc., etc.

The Council met and talked and talked and met for what seemed like a hundred times in the months leading up to the big day. But as is normally the case with meetings and committees, it was a lot of talk and no action and the actual figuring everything out was pretty much left up to him and his people. As the day got closer the only thing that was certain was that he was on the hook to bring Halloween to everyone by some other means if it came down to that.

But how?

All he really knew for sure was he could easily get into the residences of everyone who celebrated the day and he had plenty of candy on hand—both of those things were part of his regular job, so that was at least a start.

But was making deliveries inside all the residences the night before the way to go? He had a nagging feeling he was thinking too “inside the box” with it; he was trying to go about it the way he went about his day job. Halloween was more spread out, decentralized—it was inside and outside and kind of an all-day thing and it wasn’t even just deliveries. It wasn’t really deliveries at all, actually. Not the way he did them for his regular work, anyway. Given how things were trending, though, it seemed like the day might have to be limited to just home deliveries.

Which—OK, great, he could do that. The problem was, the specifics of it were all different. Like, was he going to just dump the candy on a floor or table or couch at each place? He was used to designated locations and owner provided receptacles inside each residence where the deliveries were expected. Was he going to have to invest in lord only knows how many bags or sacks or plastic jack-o-lanterns? THAT was not in his already stretched super thin budget and he mentioned this to the Council at EVERY “what if?” emergency meeting that year (as well as when this whole HCP thing was first being discussed all those years ago) but the Council was not forthcoming with any additional funds for him because, once again: You can do it; you’re magic.

And as far as the candy itself, yes, he had plenty but it was…off. It wasn’t the usual Halloween fare. A lot of minty stuff.

So, yeah, he could pull off some sort of Halloween if he HAD to. But waking up to a pile of candy canes on their couches the morning of October 31^st didn’t seem like it would be the greatest experience for people who were already disappointed that they weren’t getting regular Halloween. The holiday he could provide just felt like it’d be adding weirdness to injury.

And he didn’t want to do that—as much as he resented being substitute Halloween giver he also didn’t want to fail at it. But “failure” was the exact direction in which the whole enterprise was headed. Just a ton of extra stress leading up to a huge failure that he’d feel guilty about forever. This year had already been too much for everyone. They didn’t need “weird ass pile of candy canes on the couch” Halloween added to all that.

But that was all he had come up with. And as Halloween got closer he felt like a bus driver who was a passenger on a plane and as the plane neared its destination the pilot walked back to where he was sitting, handed him his hat, and said “Hey, you drive things for a living, right? Great; you’re the pilot now. Better get in that cockpit—we’re coming in for a landing in about ten minutes.” It was like, he desperately needed everyone to know that this was not the type of vehicle he had been trained to operate but also he didn’t have time to explain all of that because the plane had to land soon and if it did a nosedive into the runway it would be his fault somehow. So he put on the pilot hat and got in the cockpit and buckled up and started pushing buttons and pulling levers, hoping that as the plane approached the runway it would magically turn into a bus and the air would turn into a highway.

But then—THEN!—at about a week out, when things seemed to be at maximum “this plane isn’t going to turn into a bus, is it?” hopelessness, another Council meeting was called. And this time it wasn’t just a bunch of shrugs and “good luck”s and insincere “let us know if we can help”s. Things had changed on the ground—for the better. There was talk of costumes incorporating masks (the protective kind, not the costume kind) and “candy chutes” and that the whole thing could still happen. Modified, of course, like every goddamned thing in the new normal but still—it would maybe happen without backup.

When all was said and done, though, it was still talk and maybes. Like everything else the entire year, it was “we’ll have to see” and “if things continue they way they are but that’s subject to change if the situation changes” and “cautiously optimistic.”

Which ended up being worse for his state of mind than thinking he was definitely going to have to cover everything. It was you probably will, but maybe not. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Things are looking good and we might not need your help after all unless things change and we need help, help, and more help. The plane is not becoming a bus but the good news is the pilot’s coming back to land this thing…unless she doesn’t; then you’ll have to figure it out yourself or crash and burn.

And that back and forth had been his life 24/7 for the past week—after the “I’m definitely going to have to do this” stress of the past few months and in addition to the extra…everything this year had burdened him with in addition to this.

Until that phone rang and lit up just a short time ago. A call that he was told would be coming today. Probably early in the morning but no guarantees, it might be late morning or the early afternoon or the late afternoon so make sure you’re available to answer all day. Because he hadn’t had enough maybes and uncertainty in his life recently.

All of this went through his head during that minute-long sigh after Tina gave him the good news. The whole experience was still rattling around in there when he started with the scalp massage; without thinking about it he was probably trying to physically force the whole ordeal into the repressed part of his brain.

And somehow that actually worked or something clicked as he was kneading his skull because he had a moment of clarity—the first time in months he was thinking about something other than his usual work and/or delivering off-brand Halloween. He dug his phone out of his pocket and texted Tina slowly (he was a one hand hunt and peck texter, not a double thumbs texter):

find a sledge hammer or something heavy like that and bring to the office

Tina knocked and walked in about two minutes later.

“Hey, boss. Didn’t find a sledge hammer. Will this work?”

“Yes—perfect, actually.”

He got up from his chair—all the way this time—and held out his hand. Tina flipped the bat around to hand it to him handle first.

He took it from her and in one fluid motion, walked over to the door, brought the bat up over his head with both hands, and brought it down swiftly, axe chopping wood style, on the white phone. The bat gave off a satisfying ping as it landed squarely on the phone, which shattered on impact and then a second time as it hit the floor, its ringer making a sound that could only be described as a bell being bludgeoned with a baseball bat.

He turned back to Tina and flipped the bat just as she had, handing it back to her handle first.

“I think I may have scratched the finish on this. If it was set aside as a gift please see that it’s replaced or refinished, would you?”

“Oh, this is an extra, boss. I’ll make sure it doesn’t get in with the gifts. But if we end up needing it we’ll refinish it.”

“Excellent. And Tina? We’re done with that fucking Council.”

“I gathered.” Tina was grinning from ear to ear. She had been asking him to quit the COH for years. But it wasn’t her place to demand; all she could do was suggest. This year, though, had proven all of her suggestions right all along and she knew it.

He grinned back. She was right: All those times she hinted that the stress of the COH wasn’t worth it, that it was a drain on their resources and everyone’s mental and physical health—especially his. All those soul-sucking meetings. She was right and he knew it and he knew she knew that he knew it and that made him happy.

He had always worried that quitting the COH would entail a backlash and hurt feelings and resentment and all that would damage his reputation. But in that scalp massage moment of clarity, he realized: So what? If anyone has a problem with it and tries to start trouble? Straight to the Naughty List.

He could do it. He was magic.

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