affirmative action

[dukealien]

This changes style as it goes for dramatic effect.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
 
As the ten wheeler left the loading dock, his gaze went from bulking crates
to Alan, come to help.  Alan always came to help, though with the company
only six months longer and dark as he was light. Alan taught him how to open very subtle on the race here - nice
cartons, slicing sides not tops so layers of product could be quickly removed.
 
Alan told him which supervisors to trust, which to avoid. Alan this, Alan that. good - annoyance not chalked up to racism.
Helpful yes, but he would have learned all that by himself--sooner or later.  speaking in the man's thought-voice, cliche OK
While Alan was only a high school grad, he had a bachelor’s degree
tucked for six years in his bureau. Same pay, same hours for both-
until Alan was promoted and moved elsewhere on the corporate campus. a shipping company has a campus?  slightly off
 
Affirmative Action, thought the red-haired college graduate, condemned  "condemned" in his own mind - maybe a little strong
to the same pay, complaints, remedial training and repeated orders.  might use a different word for "same" since sense is different than when used above.  Not that the thinker would try to vary, but keep readers straight and interested
 
The world wasn’t fair.  A telling statement:  AA, which tries on its face to be fair, results in perceptions (if not the fact) of unfairness
 
With his parents off partying, the darkening house is his.  Now we're not in his head anymore, hence change of style
Straightened from bending low to burn his diploma in the fireplace,
his eye catches the elegant chandelier twelve feet from the floor.  Does the idea just now come to him?  No note?
Check living room doors, assure they’re locked.
Chandelier tight to the ceiling? Knot at its base double tied?
Four-foot rope moving smoothly through the cylinder of eight careful turns?  thirteen, traditionally
Looped over, around neck, pulled snug? Feet square on step ladder?
A quick one-footed shove, ladder clattering to the floor,
its splayed legs collapsing with an unheard wooden bang.
The body jerks with a lifelike twitch just strong enough to prompt
a gentle chorus of faint tinkling from the fixture's crystal pendants.  thought it was tight?
 
Outside, as if impelled by Wagnerian opera, a car’s demanding horn mocks the end,  Frankly, this verse is unnecessary.  There is, in us academic/military types, an urge to summarize.  Hard to resist, but see how the poem reads without it.
its swerving headlights briefly sweeping away living room shadows, signaling a curtain's
closing on an empty life.
 
Alan is the only company representative at the small funeral. He had sent a modest bouquet
with an awkwardly-written note, and now speaks softly to the guilt-ridden, broken parents.
 
Affirmative Action  As with the "Outside" verse, I think this summary is unnecessary.

This is very subtle - hope I've got it all (and readers who may lack some of the referents get it all).  Coments on the craft above, hereafter on the outer story.

It's all told third-person omniscient, which is about the only way it could be done without resorting to dialogue (including inner).  This way, it comes across just a bit cool and anlytical, which is not unreasonable (tracking a large issue with closeups).

The nameless suicide's motives are not explained.  There's jealousy, but no envy:  he doesn't want Alan to fail, though he resents Alan obtaining what was rightly (based on credentials though not seniority) his.  Maybe he sees he's in a dead-end job that disappoints his parents, though in fact (needs advice and retraining, has to have orders repeated) he's reached his level of incompetence.  What on earth did he major in, to have that little application?

So the connection between the policy of affirmative action and his suicide is implied, at most.  Nothing wrong with that:  mysteries are part of life, and certainly of poetry.  What's left equivocal is whether his suicide was in part motivated by the existence of the policy as an excuse for his failure when he might have pulled up his socks and earned promotion, or at least accepted his lot if the excuse didn't exist.

We also do not know, though it is implied, whether affirmative action bias did exist in his company and he'd seen it elsewhere - providing a possible background for what is apparently a delusion in his own case.

But most of that's external and speculative.  This is a first-rate exploration of that policy (as well as the tragedy of one man) with its unknowables very competently left so.