Complimentary

In the last few years, Mark had been doing a lot of traveling. He had bought a piece of equipment for his lab, that if rumors are to be believed, he was passionately in love with. He was so enamored with it that the company asked if he would be a reference for others who might be interested in purchasing it. He enthusiastically said yes, and what started as phone consults with would-be buyers turned into the company paying travel expenses for him to attend biotech conferences and give a talk centered around their product. After one of those meetings, Mark had dinner with the CFO who said that he was one of their best salesmen, racking up over a million dollars worth of sales directly attributed to him. This was a good professional marriage and even the company sales rep would come to his funeral, telling me that Mark hugged her every time she came to pay him a visit. “That was a first for me,” she told me at the back of the church. “Nobody ever hugs their sales rep.”

These meetings were in and out kind of deals. Fly in the night before, give a talk the following day, go out to dinner, and then fly home the next day. Mark always wanted me to go with him, but though my job is part-time and very flexible, it wasn’t so flexible that I could take a few days off every other month to hang out with him.

When Mark would come home and unpack, he’d cheerily announce, “Brought some more soap and shampoo,” and he’d scoop up his tiny bottles and bars from the bed and dump them in the bathroom cabinet. I would let out a deep sigh every time. “Why do you do that,” I’d ask him. “Soap isn’t even expensive.” “Because,” he’d say, “it’s my way of sticking it to The Man.” Mark had been on a decades long quest to stick it to The Man – that elusive, anonymous person who overcharged, underpaid, had his foot on the neck of our bank accounts, salaries, and 401K, the one who was relentlessly on our tail causing us to constantly hustle to stay one step ahead. I didn’t think pilfering tiny soaps and shampoo bottles from a hotel room was really sticking it to anyone but Mark thought differently. For him those dwarf-sized samples were a moral victory.

One day last year we were driving to Lowe’s and I announced that come thigh-high snow or polar vortexes that I would be going to Florida the following February. “Okay,” Mark said eyes straight ahead on the road. After a long silence he said, “So can I go?” “You can,” I said, “but you have to give up a full week of work. You can’t overschedule yourself so that it winds up only being four days. A full week commitment, got it?” He got it and we shook hands on the deal. The deal, of course, went to hell when he died but I did go to Florida last week with my daughter and her family, where two of my siblings have places in Fort Myers. I have traveled without Mark before but that was when I knew he’d be waiting at home when I’d get back. This trip was a different beast. I was doing okay when we got there and the sun and warm temps were wonderful, but when I walked into that hotel room and looked at that perfectly made bed for two, I cried until I finally fell asleep.

Little did I know that coming home five days later to this lifeless house would make that night seem like a cakewalk. At day’s end I went upstairs to unpack my suitcase which didn’t take much time since I hardly wore most of what I brought. When I was finished, I scooped up the tiny shampoo bottle and soaps off the bed and dumped them in the bathroom. Don’t you worry, Mark Fisher, I said to myself. The Man might have claimed you but I’ll be damned if he’s going to get your soap.