Steve In Space

CHAPTER ONE

Breathe, just breathe. Steve was doing his best to calm himself down, but it didn't seem to be working. This was his first job interview ever, and Steve Salad was nervous. He was standing on the sidewalk in front of the Trans Global Express building, afraid to walk in. What if they don't like me? What if they ask me a question I don't know the answer to? And what if a lion jumps out from nowhere and bites you in the bum? It'll be harder to sit down. Steve grimaced. He knew the nerves he felt were normal, and that his inner voice, although very sarcastic, was right. There wasn't anything real to be scared of.
He looked down at his watch. 8:45. His interview was at nine, so he decided to get there fifteen minutes early like his dad had taught him. 'If you're not fifteen minutes early, you're late.' Steve didn't quite understand that. If you're early, you're early, are not you? He decided it was one of those grown up things he didn't understand yet, but maybe some day he would.
It was early summer, and although the weather was comfortably warm, steve could feel sweat on his forehead, roll down the side of his face and splash onto his shirt. As he took the door handle in his hand, he could feel the sweat between his hand and the door knob. He pulled on it, harder than he should have because the door came flying at him. He managed to get control of the swinging door and walked accross the threshold. Inside, it was darker and larger than he expected. He felt the cool air from the air conditioner as soon as he walked in and was thankful for the relief. The front office was about twice the size of his living room, maybe larger. The walls were painted dark green, went up at least fifteen feet, and the whole room felt very old.
At the front of the room was a large desk with a small, old woman sitting behind it. She had on really thick black framed glasses, and Steve couldn't tell if she was looking at him or not. But she was on the telephone with someone, so he kept looking around.
Beside the desk was a long steel shelf about two feet off the ground. The shelf wasn't very wide and had rollers all along it. The shelf reached from the desk to the far wall where it turned and went to the back wall, disappearing behind a hole that was draped in some kind of black curtain with long slits in it. Beside the hole on the back wall was a large black door with a small window near the top that looked like it had chicken wire in it. Right in the middle of the door was painted the word IN, in large wite lettering. On the other side of the back wall was another large black door with a small chicken wire window, on this one was painted OUT. Between the two doors hung a huge sign with the same giant lettering, that read KEEP IT MOVING.
Steve looked up above the sign and saw several large clocks lining a space just above the doorline. The one directly above the sign read eight fourty something. They were old style clocks with three hands; hours, minutes and seconds. It had small tick marks between the numbers and he wasn't excatly sure where the minute hand had landed. He looked down at his own digital watch, which read 8:48, he guessed that was the time on the clock. On the clock to right of the first one he saw it read nine fourty eight. On the clock to the left the time was seven fourty eight. Th further left you went the earlier it got. The further right you went the later it got. Steve figured those were the differant times around the world, each clock cooresponding to a differant time zone. He was trying to figure out which clock showed the time on the east coast when he heard a very deep croaking sound in front of him. It was the small old woman behind the dsk. She was speaking to him.
''Can I help you?'' Her voice sounded like pebbles in a tin can rolling down a road. He looked right at her but still couldn't tell if those eyes behind the thick glasses were focused on him.
''Well, sonny? '', she rasped again. ''I don't have all day.'' Steve almost sputtered as he walked closer to the desk.
''I...I'm Steve...Steve Salad. I have an appointment...to see mister Melvin.'' The lady was definitely looking at him now, if she hadn't been the whole time.
"You here for the job?" The gravel in her voice got thicker. He wanted to speak, but Steve felt very uncomfortable and could only nod yes. The old lady pursed her lips and made kind of a clucking noise.
"Don't you think you're a little tall, and old for this, sonny?" Now he couldn't be sure if she was talking to him, or even looking at him. Steve was always hearing from grown ups how he was too young and too small to do almost anything.
"No, I don't think so." He answered with more confidence than he knew he had. The lady stared another minute longer and then her face made kind of an 'oh well' look and she pressed a button right beside a microphone that stuck out of her desk.
"Mister Melvin, your nine o'clock is here. Mister Melvin, you have a visitor." The announcement echoed through the whole building, or so Steve thought. But the ladies voice on the microphone was way different. She sounded younger, happier, less gravelly and far more silky. He couldn't understand it. She took her finger off the button and pointed to the wall to her right.
"Have a seat kid, he'll be right with you." Again, pebbles in a tin can rolling down the road. He walked over to where she pointed and sat down in one of the hard, plastic yellow chairs against the wall. He had barely leaned back on his chair when he heard heavy walking sounds above the other noise and then the door labeled IN swung open. A middle aged man wearing a white dress shirt with a solid, dark colored tie and brown pants walked out. He walked right over to Steve, who stood up as the man got closer. He stopped, bent a little at the waste and stared right in Steve's eye.
"Are you Steve Salad?" The man had a stern look on his face.
"Yes, sir, I am" Steve was able to talk without stammering but he was still a little scared. Then the man, who seemed very tall and fit to Steve, broke into a huge smile and put a large hand on his shoulder.
"Welcome, welcome, come back to my office with me and we'll chat." With that, the man turned on his heels and started walking to the doors, heading for the one that read OUT.
"Excuse me, sir?" Steve called after him. The tall man stopped and turned to look at him.
"Don't you usually go in through the in door, and out through the out door?" The man looked slightly puzzled, then smiled at Steve as he explained.
"Why yes, my boy. When I came in the room, I used the in door. Now that we are going out, we'll use the out door." Now Steve was the one who felt puzzled, because he thought it was the other way around. The tall man turned again and walked right through the OUT door, so Steve followed him.
They were now inside a large room, with white walls, even higher ceilings and five times larger than the first room. This was the room where all the noise seemed to be coming from. It was full of people and packages, forklifts driving and beeping, which the tall man walked right past. He was walking quickly and Steve had do a kind of half run to keep up with him. They walked in a mostly straight line, with just the occasional turn. Steve noticed the path they took was right between two strips of yellow tape on the floor. The other people in the massive room were not in the path that he and the tall man were on. They seemed to be very busy, and never looked at Steve at all. The noise from the sound bouncing off the walls reminded Steve of being in gym class.

When they finally got to the far side of the huge room, the man climbed a short staircase and stopped. He had started to turn the handle on a door that read "M. Melvin, Manager". He opened the door and turned to Steve who had stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

"C'mon in, my boy." The mans' voice and face were very cheery now, and that helped to make Steve a little more comfortable with his surroundings. He climbed the five steps to the small landing and walked into the small office. When he shut the door, Steve couldn't hear anything in the large warehouse room he had just left. There was a large picture window beside the door so he could see the room, but no sound penetrated the office when the door was closed.

The man moved behind the large desk, covered with neatly arranged stacks of papers. He made a motion with his hand to a chair on the other side of the desk while looking at Steve. Steve sat down in the chair, then the tall man sat behind his desk. He smiled at Steve and put his hands flat on the only part of the desk not covered in papers. Then his smile turned to a surprised, kind of shocked look and his eyes got big.
"I'm so sorry, I haven't introduced myself." The man stood again and extended his right hand. "I'm Melvin." Steve took his hand and shook it.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Melvin, I'm Steven Salad." Melvin shook his hand in turn but also shook his head.
"No, son, Melvin is my first name." Then he paused for a moment.
"It is also my last name. And my middle name as well." This seemed to confuse him for a minute, and Steve as well.
"So your full name is Melvin Melvin Melvin?" Steve asked.
"Yes, so is my fathers. He couldn't afford to buy me a different first or middle name, so I got what he could give me." Now Steve was even more confused.
"Why would you have to buy a name? Don't you just get named whatever your parents want to call you?" Melvin looked at Steve kind of strangely, then his face softened again as he sat back down.
"Where I come from you have to buy any name other than your last name. Some families either don't have the money or don't want to spend it. My two brothers and my sister have the same name as me." This turned Steves' confusion level to maximum.
"So..." Steve began, starting slowly as to keep it all straight, "...your name, your fathers' name, both your brothers and your sisters' name is Melvin Melvin Melvin?"
"Yes.", this particular Melvin said. Steve thought a moment on this.
"So how did your mother call for you when you were growing up, and not have your brothers or sister answer?" Melvins' confusion level seemed to have gone up when Steve asked this.
"She would call out 'Melvin', and I would answer."
That makes no sense, Steve thought. Melvin saw this his face and tried to explain.
"We all have the same name, but we don't look alike." That didn't help Steve at all, but his next words did.
"Well, enough about me...let's talk about you and this job." As nervous as he had been about the interview, now Steve was happy it was about to begin.