Massa Benny

I polished off the casserole with three swallows, washed it down with a glass of skim milk, and flew out the door. Taking the steps two at a time, I bounded out of my apartment, and flagged down a taxi.

10 minutes later, I arrived at her apartment at 42nd and 11th avenue. It was one those places owned and maintained by Google, for Google employees and its super posh without being gauche. It's sort of a hotel/apartment type of deal.

I raced to the elevator, barely acknowledging the doorman and impatiently tapped my my foot as we reached the top floor.

Ms. Benny waited for for me, her arms crossed in disappointment.

"19 minutes," she commented, and shook her hair as she made her way into the apartment. I knew she couldn't be that mad, though,  because I could see I was the first to have arrived.

“Please," I began but she held her left index finger up in condemnation and I was immediately silent.

Once inside her apartment, I flew to  the refrigerator and immediately pulled out of the lime juice. Then, nearly breaking my skull on the gap between the kitchen and the living room, I jetted to her liquor cabinet and took out a $2000 bottle of 89 year old Jaimeson liquor, and poured it into a shot glass.

Ms. Benny was only 9 years my senior but she had morphed into an old woman. I am not exactly sure what she did for Google but she was fond of the two minute drill. She would send a text to the 5 personal assistants and time to see which of us responded the fastest.

Without fail, she'd fire the slowest, and subsequently send out a new ad on the alumni magazines of elite magazines. The copy always was the same:

“Seeking personal assistant of brilliant disposition to serve tech guru. Must be available on call including Christmas and New Years. Job is especially conducive to artists."

I have survived six of these hell fire drills. In fact, I am the longest serving employee of her staff, a domestic of 8 weeks.

I'm an aspiring Broadway musical arranger, but I've been doing everything I can to can to make ends meet since graduation last May.

When my mom, an alumnus of Princeton, pointed Ms. Benny's ad out to me in the alumni weekly after months where I had been floundering in her tiny Hoboken apartment (she's a managing director for BlackRock but WAY too cheap to just give me an allowance), I jumped at it.

My interview had been my first  task on the job: to find a generic brand of ACETAMINOPHEN. She had sent me a text indicating her address and letting me know that if I truly  wanted the job, I'd be there in three minutes. She'd pay me $2000 if I succeeded. By God's grace (and the power of Google's search engine) I found Walgreen's brand of Tylenol, and made it via taxi with 20 seconds to spare. I had been at a friend's apartment in midtown.

Since then my world has been a living stop watch. Just when I'm comfortable, Ms. Benny hits me up. She pays ridiculously well and I've bought an apartment two blocks from her so as to be right where I can respond to her needs.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr day, and my mom and I had been celebrating at my apartment with our normal catfish casserole and black eyed peas when I'd gotten the call.

I resent that this white lady owns me and that 150 years after slavery, I'm very much a slave. But massa treat me so good. Why las week, she done gimme a extra $200 for always bein firs in fronta all da otha slaves.  She done alots for me an I respects her, yes I do. She a good massa.