The Interview

Guest post by Saburo Goro

Agent Was Who He Said He Was.

Oddly enough, Agent 13-57 arrived as he departed. Well, maybe a couple of imperceptible moments later. But you've got to admit that that's a pretty good trick, and in the Big Sky, quite a bit better than breaking even.

He was walking inconspicuously through Toronto's downtown streets briefcase in hand, just another person among people on their way to wherever they needed to be going. He'd left early, anxious to reach the building, but in Toronto's sensible streets, he found it with no difficulty, minutes later was standing on the elevator.

"Ready?" he asked himself.

The door opened onto the nineteenth floor, a rich maroon carpet and ivory-colored walls, several elegant Victorian light fixtures leading the way down the hallway to room L-5. The clock on the wall read 8:45. He was 7 minutes early. He stepped into the men's room and checked his appearance in the mirror. He wiped a little sweat from his face, carefully straightened his tie, and ran his hand over his short brown hair which he had cut a week-and-a-half before, having been careful not to arrive with too new a haircut. He smiled.

"The good kid," he told himself. The Good Kid smiled back and Agent 13-57 was who he said he was.

He stepped back out into the hallway, and moved towards the door of L-5 now with long confident strides. Inside, a Japanese woman in her late thirties, wearing dark purple lipstick greeted him, bowing.

"Good morning. I'm Agent 13-57," he said and then bowed slowly and conscientiously in return. His right hand removed a card from his vest pocket and with both hands he handed it to her, the writing facing her. As she accepted the card, they bowed again together. "My name is Fumiko," she said.

"A few other applicants wait in the room," she said. "Please, wait with them. This way," she motioned, ushering him into a room, but returning to the foyer to wait for more applicants. The room was about fifteen by five by eight meters. In the middle was a long table. He smiled, greeting the others quietly, sat down, opened his briefcase on his lap, arranged his note pad, two pens and his resume on the table as other applicants filed in. Finally, there were fifteen. There was the usual small talk. At 9:00, Fumiko returned with another woman. They sat down, and Fumiko said, "Alright, everyone. I met some of you already, but let me introduce myself again. My name is Fumiko Tanaka and this is Kumiko Arai. We will interviewing you today for position of English teacher in different parts Japan."

"We're must say there is limited jobs, so please relax and do your best. First, please to introduce yourselves. Later, some discussion."

"Let's start over here with you, Troy," Fumiko said, pointing at a young man on her right.

Troy smiled, bowed to everyone and began reading from a paper. "Good morning everyone--again." Some nervous laughter. "I'm Troy Lohmeyer, and I'm from Montreal. I've just graduated from the University of Montreal with a BA in Communications, and I'm presently about halfway through an ESL program. I worked with many of the Japanese immigrants in Montreal as an volunteer instructor and I want work for GEOS because it fits in with my career goals and seems like a good way to spend a couple of years. I think I'd like living in Japan, because I had a Japanese pen-pal, whose hometown I visited when I was seventeen."

"Oh, where did you live, Troy?" asked Fumiko.

"I lived in a small town called Inuyama. It's just north of Kuro-Hatake. I made a lot of Japanese friends in Montreal and I'd like to visit them if I go to Japan."
"Thank you, Troy. Now, let's listen to June."

June was an older, hefty woman, around forty it seemed. She wore a blue jacket with white trim. She had pasty skin, a large chest, a fat face light blue eyes and a double-chin. "My name's June Pillsbury," said smiling cheerfully. "I'm from northern Ohio. I just finished my degree in nursing, and I'm here because I visited Japan for a several months when I was fourteen--you see, my father was in the Navy--and I really enjoyed it there. And so, since I'm really not sure what I want to do next in life, I thought I might as well figure it out while working in another country."

"And why did you decide you wanted to work in Japan?"
"Well, it's like I said, my friend worked there and she said she really liked it in Japan. I'd like to say also that, I haven't worked with any foreigners, because I'm from Ohio, you know, and we don't get many foreigners in my town, but I just love helping people. I guess you could say I'm kind of a people-person, and so I'd like to help Japanese people learn English. That's all."

"Very good! Thank you," Fumiko said, brightly. "And now, Sally?"
"Good morning, everyone. I'm Sally Bergeron and I'm from Quebec. I began my ESL program working with assistant teaching French to some of the very young elementary school children who had come from other non-French speaking provinces. Later, I worked in Ottawa on a native reservation teaching English to the high school age students. I'm planning on continuing my work in ESL, and getting a PhD. I believe that teaching in Japan would be an enriching experience from which that I could draw for the rest of my career."

"Thank you. That's some very impressive background. Working on the reservation sounds very interesting. Let's hear now from William . . ." And so it continued thus, for until it was his turn.

Agent 13-57, who had spent the last ten minutes in silent contemplation, his thoughts fully collected looked up smiling and, for one moment, looked directly into Kumiko's eyes. Then he began.

"Good morning, everyone. My name is Agent 13-57. I'm from Nebraska. I studied English literature at Colorado State, and have an MA pending the completion of my thesis, which I expect to finish by early fall of this year. While doing my course work, I taught freshman composition at that university and also at a community college. This last semester I've been studying ESL and researching employment in Asia. I don't have any experience teaching English as a second language, but I have done volunteer work working with illiterate junior school students, teaching them to read. I'm here today because after researching the various English schools in Japan, I've decided that GEOS is the kind of company I'd like to work for in Japan. Thank you."

Little did Agent 13-57 know that GEOS was far from being the kind of organization that ANYBODY would want to work for.

He looked at Kumiko's expecting to see a pleasant expression, but her face had a waxen appearance. Her smile had melted into a red dripping plastic crescent frown."
"Okay then, Agent 13-57. Let's move on now next person. John, please. . ."

The monologues of the other applicants turned into a drone as he analyzed his performance up to that point. "So far so good," he tried to convince himself, but Kumiko's face with her horrible raspberry frown looking like the cheap wax lips you buy at the fairgrounds, except turned upside-down, kept flashing back at him, mouthing the word "Let's move on . . ." He felt the dark heat gathering over his head like empty space, which most of you are aware, you can't inhale and heard the suck, suck, sucking of the vacuum he imagined the the rest of his life might likely turn out to become if he didn't get this position.

He caught himself slipping out of character, and realized he'd been sucked into a memory of selling apples door-to-door out of his little red Radio Flyer wagon at the age of six. He was jarred out of this not altogether unpleasant daydream at the point when the elderly retarded man came top the door in his briefs and announced something unintelligible about fish.

"It's not over yet," he told himself. Kumiko announced that the last part of the interview would begin. She distributed a sheet of paper with three sections. "For each section," she told us, "please outline a lesson plan. Then, in thirty minutes, Fumiko and I will see each of you individually. You will teach to us the lesson, and we will pretend to be students. We will ask you to teach one of the three lessons, so you must prepare for all three possibilities. Ganbatte, kudasai!" Then she distributed a sheet on which were three grammatical structures for which they were required to prepare examples of lesson plans.

The three structures were:
1. "I/He/She be going to (place/verb)," Are/Is you/he/she going to (place/verb);
2. "There are some," "Is/Are there any?" and "There isn't/aren't any;"
3. (Verb)-ing (noun) is better/more (adjective) than (verb)-ing (noun).

This was the point at which he began to sweat. He realized that he'd never really studied how to develop a lesson plan for second language learners, but composed himself thinking, " All you have to do is keep your cool and let your past teaching experience work for you."

He had taken some introductory classes about planning somewhat similar lessons when he'd worked with the Literacy Council in Omaha so he felt a little reassured as he began drafting a series of examples for each lesson. After ten or so minutes, he had no less than five sentences for each pattern. Then he wrote what he thought was a simple diagram of each sentence pattern. He thought he'd done the best job on number three, but of course that was the easiest one. Before he'd finished, they were calling his name.

He walked into a tiny cubicle of an room and found Kumiko seated with her horrible lips drawn taught across her face. He sat down and smiled. Kumiko smiled, but only politely. She pointed at a copy of the sheet and said, "Please do number one."

"Well, this is going to be pretty much like the real thing," he thought sardonically. He pointed to the first example and showed her the sentence, "I am going to the shop." Do you understand?"
"Hai. Yes."

"Okay, now look at this sentence. "I am going to go shopping." Do you understand?"
He expected to look up to see her nodding that she understood, but she was only staring with mock bewilderment at the page.

He explained it to her slowly in as simple English as he could think to use in the circumstances. "The shop' is a place. "Shopping' is what you do."

Silence and a blank look I pointed at the some other examples on the page. "Shopping' is an action word. "I shop. I go to the shop. I go to the shop, when I want to go shopping . . . . I go to the restaurant. I go to the restaurant to eat. I am going to the restaurant." He realized he was losing focus and paused. "Now, please listen: "I am going to New York. I am going sightseeing." Do you understand?"

She shrugged her shoulders and said, "Wakaranai. Don't understand. Where is to go shopping?" she asked. "Where is to eat? Where is sightseeing? Sightseeing is New Yorko, ne?"

"Now, every Japanese in the world has to know that word. This bitch is clearly fucking with you," he thought and reformed an example quickly and restated it in simpler English. "Going shopping," and "Going to the shop' are different. "Going shopping' is a verb phrase. "Going to the shop' means moving from here to there, from here to the shop."

"Jesus Christ! Just play along!" his brain screamed in a panic. "Why weren't we told about this ahead of time?" He collected his thoughts and realized that Kumiko must be trying to tell him something. He was relying too heavily upon speaking, so he drew a picture of a house and a department store and went through the motions. Kumiko began nodding and saying "Oh, oh. Walkaway! I understand!"

"Good, very good. Now, tell me what does this sentence mean? "She is go--"
"I'm sorry, but your time is finished. We only have enough time for five minutes per applicant."

"Oh, I see. Well thank you," he said smiling, both disappointed that he couldn't finish his demonstration and relieved to get out of that awful room. He went back to the table and sat with the others, listening to their accounts and trying to gauge it with his own. No one seemed to have had an easy time, though, and so, while analyzing his performance and despising himself for the mistakes he'd made which in retrospect seemed obvious, he consoled myself that perhaps no one had done much better. Why hadn't they been given the opportunity to prepare for the demonstration beforehand.

Kumiko and Fumiko returned to the conference room and thanked us all for our efforts. "Now, we will review your interviews and make our decision. You may leave now. Please call us in two hours at three o'clock. We will tell you by telephone our decision. We'd like to say thank you for coming. You all did a wonderful jobs. We know some of you make a long trip to come here, and those of you we can't select today, please try again next year. one gay-shim's!"

All Agent 13-57 ever wanted
was to get out-- even before
he knew he was in.

They left the office took the elevator to the ground floor, exited the building and walked several blocks over to the Hard Rock Cafe where everyone had a beer, except for June, Troy and several others who had heard that Elizabeth Taylor would be appearing at a nearby department store to promote her new perfume, "Scent of Sow."

Agent 13-57 was a nervous wreck, and the stupid banter of the other applicants irritated him. He didn't need their hollow commraderie. He needed a gin and tonic. He moved to sit alone at the bar and smoked a clove cigarette that only made him nauseous. The clock on the wall read 2:15.

"It all hinges on what happens in the next forty-five minutes," he told himself, but reminded himself that the matter had really been over before they'd left the office. For the first time, he began to seriously wonder what his emotional reaction would be if he weren't hired. He had invested a lot in this trip moneywise and a lot in the interview emotionally. He had even had to lower himself to borrowing money from his parents who had resisted from the outset and who were completely against the idea of him leaving the country for work, let alone working in Asia which they imagined as an alien and perhaps even hostile environment. If he didn't get this job he would return broke, in debt to his parents and humiliated beyond ever being able to ask for help getting to another interview again. They would pressure him again to go to work at the supermarket butchershop where his uncle was a manager. He would never give in, but fighting the pressure would be draining. But surely they would not have invited him to come so far if they hadn't seen something promising in his resume, if they hadn't seen something they liked, would they?

They paid their bill, met the three celebrity-hounds who of course hadn't even been able to see Ms. Taylor from any closer than fifty meters. Besides, she had been over forty-five minutes late. We walked down the street until they found a pay telephone. Someone said, "Alright, who's got a quarter?"

"I do," Troy said, handing it to Sally. "Here, you do the honors. I can't stand the suspense," he said in a lighthearted way that made Agent 13-57 want to garrote him.

Sally made the call. She nodded several times, appeared to try to smile, but the outcome showed in the corners of her mouth. She said, "Thank-you, and turned to the group. Turning toward June she said, "Well, June, congratulations." June was beaming. She jumped into the air and screamed, "I can't believe it," like she'd just won a new car on "The Price is Fucking Right." If the pay phone had been Bob Barker, she would have sucked its dick.

"And as for the rest of us all, well that's it. They said, 'Come back next year.'"
"You mean, out of fifteen people, they hired one person?" someone blurted out.
"That seems to be the case," Sally said flatly, not overjoyed about it herself.

"Out of fifteen people, they only hired one person who had already taught in Japan before. They could have saved us the trouble and not invited us. I mean if they only wanted people with experience in Japan, they could have read our resumes."

Looking at the faces of the others, 13-57 realized that, though disappointed, none of them shared his indignation. Nor his despair. "I'm truly fucked. I am so very fucked," he was murmuring to himself in a daze like a man who has just split his eights and doubled-down on both hands only to be wiped out by a soft-seventeen.

"If they knew they were going to hiring on the basis of whether we'd lived in Asia before, they could have saved me the trouble and not invited me." He walked away leaving them without another word, waves of low frequency electricity from another planet numbing body and numbing mind. Curse go back. Curse go back. . . . As an agent he felt what all agents feel when it becomes clear to them that they are only so much fodder in The Big Picture.

Years later Agent 13-57 would understand that not being chosen was a compliment coming from those goons and that Ms. Pillsbury had no doubt been chosen less for her experience living in Japan than her bovine ability to be easily manipulated and pushed around. But not before losing more money than he could afford to in a bad string of black-jack hands during a trip to the boats, the purpose of which was to raise the money to make it out of the States and over here.

But that is another story.