Having founded the agency in the waning years of the twentieth century, Oatma's client list had been packed with family, friends, and a constant parade of walk-ins looking for work. Most took jobs they would probably hold until retirement, yet those who embraced failure with what he saw as a subconscious passion to get fired, provided a challenge Oatma never lost. His cousin Juniper, a dimwit the Board of Education relieved themselves in the seventh grade on the boy's eighteenth birthday, took nearly a dozen attempts before Oatma removed him from his daily headache list. Juniper lasted three days at the Post Office, nearly a month as painter's assistant (there wasn't that much paint on the woman's carpet) and had been placed in a string of failed beachfront restaurants in nearby Ft. Lauderdale, jumping from one to another over a three-year period before landing a job with Delta Airlines as a catering supervisor.

Oatma had staffed warehouses, shopping malls, office buildings, and even several of the major cruise lines with his hungry job seekers as the rebirth of credit, cheap gasoline, and a flurry of government checks had staunched the crowds flowing into unemployment offices in South Florida. Signing bonuses to flip hamburgers were as common as health benefits for part-time car wash employees. If Oatma could have cloned the people he hooked up with employers there wouldn't have been a help-wanted ad in any newspaper south of West Palm Beach.

Unfortunately, the process of success eroded his business as surely as a sand castle melts with the incoming tide. Oatma's skill, combined with the roaring economy, left almost no one who needed his service. So, with little else to do and the ocean just a short walk away, he took to exploring the beach in the style of a modern-day Ponce de Leon. And it was there, on the shoreline, that Oatma discovered more than a mere fountain of youth. He found an intoxicant to rival a three-hundred dollar bottle of Scotch, to turn a morose husband into a dreamer, to blot out in a single drop all that was wrong with the world - the cool spray of the Atlantic.

It was the taste of saltwater, a fine mist of flavored pearls carried in by the breeze that powdered his face. Not directly on his tongue, but instead it was a coating on his inhaled breath that barely caught the last tastebuds before a swallow. Well beyond refreshing, a hurdle past soothing; it was energizing and erotic. Far too soft and tantalizing to make him want to reach for freshwater, its power ebbed and flowed with the tide. Oatma cared for little else when he was there and only that when he was not.

Almost daily, he would stroll to beach and place his chair within inches of the high water mark, daring a wave to leap over the sand wall built with his heels and tapped solid with his toes.
Time slowed, paused, became irrelevant.
The ocean mist was an addiction with no cure.

Thus, it wasn't long before Felicia, Oatma's wife of thirty years, started to complain about her husband's bizarre reluctance to work.
"So, this is Thursday." Felicia unpinned the calendar from the corkboard next to the refrigerator and tossed it into his lap. "You think you might get your lazy ass out of the chair and visit your office?"
Oatma shrugged. "I thought we'd go to the beach."
"You want I should look like an old, cracked alligator handbag?" Checking several coupons next to the space normally occupied by the calendar for their expiration dates, Felicia shook her head. "You saw what happened to your sister-in-law with the melanoma."
"Those were jellyfish stings."
"So, she got it on the beach."
"On a cloudy day."
Felicia crumpled two Publix coupons and shoved them into her apron. Walking out of the kitchen she called back to him, "The worst part of the sun comes right through the clouds!"
Oatma mumbled under his breath, "Alligator handbag? Feh! From your fat ass they'd make an entire set of luggage."
"What?"
"Nothing, dear." He dropped the calendar on the floor and slid his feet into a pair of rubber flip-flops. "I'll go in after lunch. Are you coming to the beach or not?"
They'd had this conversation dozens of times in the past few months. So many, in fact, that Oatma had no need to wait for her response. She'd never go to the beach again. Even the smallest of mishaps added any activity to her ever-growing list of restrictions. Bird droppings on the car? Can't park under a tree anymore, gotta park out in the hot sun. Bad meal at a restaurant they'd eaten at for years? Last check, please. Oatma loved the steaks in Digbys with their mashed potatoes literally plugged with cloves of roasted garlic - little mouthfuls of joy, he called them. But she'd never go back there because of... what was it? The salad dressing she swore made her sick? Shaking his head, Oatma turned away from her and pulled a cold bottle of water from the refrigerator. He closed the door with his elbow and, stuffing his cellphone in his bathing suit pocket, headed for the garage.

The lower of the two floors Oatma was leasing had been emptied of furniture and employees over a month ago. Despite his morning plan of relaxation, on what would be an almost vacant beach with the annoying snowbirds and tourists away for the summer, he did have to meet with the building manager at one o'clock to turn over the keys to the law firm that was subleasing the space. Of course, this would mean spending time with Vicky and Vanessa, the twins currently tasked with managing his office, and the focus of sixty-two-year-old Oatma's only sexual fantasies; a high point in what was shaping up to be a perfect day.

Felicia claimed it was the saltwater that deflated Oatma's desire, adding fuel to her argument about the dangerous aspects of the beach. It was at her insistence that he went to the doctor seeking a prescription more embarrassing than hemorrhoid cream. The results were not only disappointing but expensive, as well. Oatma was certain that it was his wife's two hundred and forty-five pound chassis that needed repairing and not his wilted love tool, but no longer complained to her. The girls, on the other hand, always got a rise out of their boss, although Oatma was careful not to let his dreams cross the road lest they become realities with bad endings. They were the last of his staff and he needed them to keep the illusion of his business alive, at least as a tax write-off.

And on the topic of his diminishing business, it should be noted here that while the net Hydec income had dropped from several thousand dollars a week to where anything not available for purchase with a coupon was excluded, Oatma continued to enjoy expensive whiskey and extravagant lunches with "his girls". He had sold Felicia's Lexus under the pretext of her getting a less expensive lease as soon as the new models came out. Instead, Oatma, in a rage of testosterone fueled by an unexpectedly good week, had come home with a new Cadillac, claiming it was best to show prospective employers that he was still solvent.

The beach, on a weekday, was as expected. There was one crying baby, but Oatma moved upwind of the howler and close enough to the surf to mute the anguished racket and catch the mist. A handful of local teens were demonstrating their skills on waves any experienced surfer would have scoffed at, but it did offer a distraction as Oatma sat and savored the rush of his salty high.

As the business had ratcheted back, slowing to where there was really no reason for him to make the twenty-minute drive other than to ogle the two young secretaries, the beach had become a substitute for the friendly tavern. It was here that he could block out the sad realities of his life: a wife too large, a business that was shrinking, and a never-ending supply of bills delivered by a postman who seemed far too pleased with the task. There were days when Oatma padded barefoot onto the sand at sunrise and didn't leave until the three o'clock changing of the lifeguards. Reluctantly even then.

He'd never been to the beach while living in Brooklyn and hadn't spent more than a few anxious minutes on weekends for the first twenty years they'd lived in South Florida. Now the soothing flush of the surf sprinkled with the occasional squawk of a gull or the sharp tweet of the lifeguard's whistle were the musical accompaniment for his addiction; a tune sweet enough to drown out the incongruous blather from his wife and the disenchantment reality had foisted on him.

His brain shifted into gear at the peak of the high to ponder his future and perhaps change course. "I could go back to school," he declared to a seagull, busily pecking for crumbs in front of him, "There's all sorts of free programs for senior citizens and Florida residents. But what's to learn? I'm sixty-two years old, do I really need to be schlepping a book bag?" Digging his feet into the sand, Oatma stretched back in his folding chair. "And in four years, I'll be sixty-six. Who wants to hire a man one year past normal retirement anyhow?"
The bird looked him up and down before taking to the air with a screech as it swooped over Oatma's head.
"And can you imagine what Felicia will say?" He picked up a small seashell and tossed it into an incoming wave. "That's what I need - 'So you want to go back to school? It isn't enough that you've got the Bimboleena twins to look at; you need a whole classroom of little girls? You think you'll be able to keep those lecherous eyeballs glued to some farkacktah textbook with children in halter tops and bikinis sitting next to you?'" Oatma smacked his forehead. "More headaches."

Oatma had finished high school and worked a succession of jobs - parking cars, typewriter repair, bookkeeper (until he could no longer balance the company's checkbook), and had even spent a summer as a travel agent's apprentice, but nothing that could qualify him for any profession that would solve the Hydec's looming fiscal collapse. What savings he had accumulated went to car payments, the local high-end liquor store, and the chilling quantity of food his wife consumed on a weekly basis. Their mortgage had been satisfied five years ago, so that was one branch of the rotting tree that wouldn't fall on them, but it seemed no matter how little they went out these days, their credit card bill was always over two thousand dollars a month. Oatma had briefly thought about putting Felicia on soda crackers and ice tea for thirty days and chaining her to the toilet in the guest bedroom, but he was certain in Florida there were laws against that sort of behavior.

Even with the hundred or so companies Oatma had used for placements, he knew there were no positions he was qualified to hold, regardless of salary. Oatma's only talent was finding jobs for others; he'd never considered his own personal need to find one. "More brilliant planning," his wife would scold. And even if he did have the necessary skill set to work at one of his former clients, it would wreck havoc with the laidback lifestyle Oatma had adopted as his business slowed. Did he really want to give that up?
He glanced at the salt-pitted Timex on his wrist. "Almost noon," he sighed, taking a last hearty breath of the Atlantic, "time to go and see the girls."

As he drove from the beach, north to Boca Raton on the coast road, Oatma considered a list of possible jobs in his head.
"Accounting is out of the question. I tried to learn it once and failed, shoot almost bankrupted that shoe store. Ever since, I've had Vicky handle the books." Swerving to avoid a group of spandex-clad bikers, Oatma pushed the air conditioning fan up another notch. "Juniper says that air travel is booming. Perhaps I could go back into the travel agency." He shrugged. "Besides Brooklyn, the Bronx, and South Florida, where else have I been in thirty years?"

Pulling up to a line of cars waiting for the bridge over the Intracoastal to reopen, Oatma looked to his left and watched a man in a suit animatedly talk on a cellphone, banging his fist on the dashboard of a late model BMW for punctuation. "Businessmen, feh, they'd be nowhere without me sending them hourly slaves. And now, when I need a job, what's there for me?" He spit out his window, missing the Beamer, just as the barricade lifted.

Oatma crossed the bridge and turned into the parking lot for his building. The ground floor, all retail space, had contained six empty storefronts out of eleven until this past Christmas. His agency had filled all of the new tenants - a hair salon, three fast food restaurants, a bookstore, and a bait shop that only opened between four and eight in the morning. Every employer and employee in the building was on file three floors up; Oatma knew that none of them needed another hand.

"A dozen good places to work." He slammed the door of his Cadillac and marched across the parking lot to the entrance. "You would think there would be a place for me. But no, they're all filled up." Kicking the automatic door to spur it open faster, Oatma turned his face away from the rush of cold air and sidestepped into the lobby.
Vanessa (or was it Vicky, he could never tell for sure) was standing by the elevator, her arms crossed over the ample cleavage Oatma enjoyed staring at on his infrequent visits. "Last week's paychecks bounced." She thrust two slips of yellow paper at his nose.
Oatma shook his head. "Impossible. Your sister said there was more than enough to cover them."
"There was, until you took five hundred in cash for the liquor store." Vanessa (he was almost positive now as he got closer; something about a mole on her left ear...) raised her eyes toward the chandelier and shook her head slowly back and forth with each word, "And that's just not cool."
"I'll make it good this week, in cash, with a little extra." Oatma reached for his wallet, suddenly remembering it was in the center console of the car. "Let me go to the car, I can cover most of it right now."
Behind her, the elevator doors opened and a delivery man - Choody or Chowdy, Oatma always screwed up the man's name, but he was certain he'd gotten him the job - walked out pulling a handtruck. He nodded as the man passed him and left the building. Oatma was about to follow him out in order to retrieve his wallet as Vanessa stepped closer. She shoved the two worthless checks down the front of his swimsuit. "Don't bother. We quit. The law firm moving into the second floor hired us an hour ago."
"You... you're... you're leaving me?"
"Like a bad date at a wedding."
"But..."
"But this, Mr. Hydec. But nothing. But so long, good luck, hasty bananas as they say." The girl spun on her six-inch heals and walked into the elevator, the doors whooshing closed behind her.

Oatma stood in the lobby for several minutes, silent except for the sound of his own angered breaths and the piped-in music that entertained visitors and tenants in the common areas of the building. The elevator returned to the ground floor and opened. His heart momentarily running faster in the hope that the girls would be there and this was just another cruel joke in what was becoming a most depressing afternoon. But it was only Ivan Cooperstein, the building manager and resident pothead, who'd seen Oatma's Cadillac in the parking lot and had come to get the keys to the vacant space on the second floor.
"I was waiting upstairs for you, man. What's goin' on? The doors are locked, all the lights are on, but like, no one's home."
Oatma dug into his pocket and fished out the ring with his office keys. Dropping them into the kid's open hand, he turned and looked out toward his car. "Here, take these as well, it'll cover the balance of the lease." He pulled his house key off the other key ring and gave Ivan the keys to the Cadillac.
"Hey man, you can't quit. It's your business." Ivan tried to put the keys back into Oatma's hand, but Oatma jammed them both in his pockets and started for the door. "Hey, where're you goin', man?"
"The beach." Oatma sighed. "Maybe they're hiring lifeguards."