Adult grape juice seeps down his perpetually dry throat. It tastes like the gods’ nectar; but then again, so does any substance when you are as depressed as him. Even on the first drink — even mostly sober — he feels drunk.

Hugo McCaffrey chuckles at his own sorrow, voice so muffled amid the din of jovial executive suits that any one of them would mistake the croaking sound for a frog who snuck indoors. (In other words, no one notices the unlikely event.) He kicks his feet onto the coffee table and watches the news.

​

A balding, middle-aged man stands erect on the widescreen TV, reading from his teleprompter, commanding control over every gesture.

​

McCaffrey’s nice suit sinks into the leather couch. In a different world, he wonders what his life would have been like if he went into broadcast journalism instead of business. And then he remembers being any kind of authority figure invites Hatred to come knocking at your door. The only way to keep your sanity (in his experience) is to hate everyone else. Hearing his name alongside the words “CEO of Verso-Tile Media,” he winces, taking another intoxicating gulp.

The Company’s recent CEO appointment dominates every media-biz outlet’s bandwidth. It lines their coffers too.

“McCaffrey, my friend!”

​

“Dave?” Hugo’s deep wrinkles barely recede upon hearing the lively greeting’s tone. Dave Daniels — another exec from…some other branch — comes up to him with an outstretched hand. He is a powerful, confident-looking Black man with a kind smile. Though Hugo always has hopes for execs of color, he would not be surprised if Daniels was merely a token, a talking head. McCaffrey rises like a man three times his forty years of age and shakes his hand. “Yes, hello.”

“Good speech at the Detroit shareholder meeting the other day.”

​

“Huh,” Hugo replies with yet another sip. He detects the bullshit in Daniels’s voice right away. That has always been his strong suit: detecting bullshit…and Hatred.

​

“Ok.” Daniels drops the act. “It sucked more dick than a stripper in a slum—”

​

“But he’s all we’ve got to work with, right?” Zippers clink and rattle. Jewelry sways. A prim and proper woman in a fancy, but modest coat and dress draws near; a middle-aged capitalist, freckles decorating her otherwise bland face.

​

“Elize Hathaway.”