 
The Job: Based on a True Story

(I mean, this is bound to have happened somewhere)

By Craig Davis

Published by St.Celibart Press at Smashwords

23 Castlerock Cv. Jackson TN 38305

This volume is available in print at Amazon.com

Copyright © 2009 Harry Craig Davis

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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ISBN: 978-0-9829567-3-1

Davis, Craig, **The Job: Based on a True Story**

(I Mean, This Is Bound To Have Happened Somewhere)

StCelibartPress@yahoo.com

www.StCelibart.com

The Job: Based on a True Story

(I mean, this is bound to have happened somewhere)

By Craig Davis

CHAPTER I

A fly buzzed around his head, a fly the size of a Piper Cub, if the droning's great volume offered any clue. Great, grating buzz. No, wait – it was just the alarm.

Joe B. propped his glazed eyes open, staring down the early-morning darkness, the fly – alarm – still nagging. Surely the ceiling hovered above his bed somewhere. A sublime body next to him, presumably his wife, sighed and shifted. The down of his pillow and comforter seduced him with soft warmth, particularly intoxicating this cold morning, or so it seemed to him.

I sat up in my bed,

And shook my scruffy head,

And said,

I don't want to get up in the morning!

The old rhyme from his children's infancy teased Joe B.'s ears. Cherished memories of giggly snuggling tempted him like a Siren back toward sleep. Fortunately, the siren that was his clock prevailed; somehow he found himself in the shower, slowly waking to another day.

Despite the mental haze of the early hour, Joe B. felt a glow of security grow within his body. The drudgery of daily duties translated in his mind to a sense of purpose and accomplishment, his identity cozily nested in his junior-executive career. The safety of a roof over his head, the affirmation of a helpmate by his side – these products of well-ordered goals and effort persuaded him that all was well in the world, and that he marched in step with prosperity. Everything he could see or foresee at work and play told him he enjoyed the benevolent favor of his Big Boss. Life was good.

" ' _I'm singin' in the rain,' "_ he gurgled in the shower water. _" 'Just singin', and dancin' '_ – that's beautiful." His thoughts turned lithely to fever charts and diagrams, bars and lines, the tools of his toil at Universal Whirligig. As Vice President for the Development of International Integration of Core Technological Orientation (Emerging Nations Division), he served the company as just one in a swarm of junior officers. Together these men and women scurried about at their appointed tasks in a cloud of indiscernible suits and faces, at the behest and under the distant gaze of the Big Boss.

Twenty-one years – from white-collar pencil pusher to vice president – Joe B. had invested at Universal Whirligig. Though he had never blatantly sought promotion, success in the office had consistently found him; instead of climbing on people's heads, he had tried to bring as many co-workers along with him as possible. But, on the other hand, he was not above stealing second at the company picnic softball game, either. Often he opened his office door to colleagues in need of professional or personal advice; no amount of affluence had undermined the firmly fixed principles that had gotten him there.

Joe B.'s attention wandered dangerously away from his razor and into visions of his beloved files, faux-wood cabinets lined up along each wall of his office like a second clutch of dutiful children. Lovingly he tended the files, slipping them delicately out for referral, then gently back in for safe keeping. As the most clever technology whiz among Universal Whirligig's tie-wearing crowd, his reputation had ridden upon the shoulders of his masterful transfer of the firm's records from paper to electronic storage. Gently, firmly, he had coaxed the entire company into the eager hands of the 21st Century. But history dies hard, and now Joe B., instead of making computer backups of paper records, studiously oversaw the requisition of paper backups for computer records, in the most modern way. Constantly cross-checking, he made sure papers matched computers matched papers. This fine work had landed Joe B. in a sleek office with a sleek secretary.

" ' _Can't buy me blub ble, blubble blubble blub,' "_ he sang through his churning toothbrush. The bright blue eyes staring back at him from the mirror said one thing: Watch out world.

A careful application of pomade and comb, and Joe B. emerged confidently from the steamy mists of the bathroom. Rows of stiffly pressed and folded shirts, white as snow, smiled from his dresser drawer, teeth held neatly in place by a brace of pre-selected ties. He hopped around the room pulling on his crisp pants, and knotted his very carefully conservative (but calculatedly fashionable) neckwear to point directly to his belt buckle. Dark socks, strictly businesslike, embraced his feet, shod by oxfords laced securely, no string complete without plastic end intact. Cufflinks, tie tack, collar pin: Let no detail be cast aside as too small.

Upon Joe B.'s dresser awaited an array of wonderful gizmos to gird his loins for joining the capitalist battle. Each item fit into place upon his belt – cell phone, PDA, GPS. A giddy fascination danced in his eyes as he picked up each item, filling him with the joy of novelty. But even with this love of everything new and shiny, Joe B. appreciated what had gone before; his study held a collection of old and rare books, musty volumes filled with priceless treasure. Opening up a dry leather cover to dusty paper pages, scanning them onto his computer and transferring the words to an electronic reading device was a good day spent indeed.

But this was no time to think of the wonders of wisdom found in ancient writings. One by one, he continued, clipping on his gadgets – iPod, pepper-spray pen, key fob – some only to maintain balance, or simply to reserve their space, for they no longer had any practical purpose; sometimes he wondered if his pager even worked anymore, not that it mattered. On and on it went: the spring-loaded tape measure in millimeters, the flash drive, a couple of things he couldn't identify, until finally he stood fully equipped, the modern soldier for corporate war.

He coolly threw his suit coat over his shoulder and crooned, " _'If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere, it's up to U-ni-ver-sal Whir-li –'_ well, whatever."

Wingtips flying down the stairs, Joe B. stooped to quick hugs and kisses from dutiful daughters – Faith, Hope and even Marie, as best as she was able – and glided like Fred Astaire into the kitchen. Their seventh house in fifteen years, this Victorian three-story satisfied every requirement and convenience Joe B. and his family desired. From top to bottom, from vaulted ceilings to solid cherry floors and excruciatingly white trim in-between, this home had put an end to a lifetime of moves, the home they would call home, and made their increasing debt worth every drop of nervous sweat. His feet deftly navigated the dual islands of the kitchen, and his arms found his wife, beautiful already even in her floor-length housecoat. The dog, a Jack Russell terrier they called Jack Russell – they had hit a wall trying to think of a name – jumped excitedly between their feet and waistlines.

Quickly a cup of coffee was poured, and a large dollop of cream splashed into place.

"Do you like some coffee with your cream?" his wife smiled. The crinkled corners of her eyes spoke of years prospered by love.

"Sometimes I do. I'm such a coffee wimp," he replied, theatrically overwrought.

"Now, don't be so hard on yourself, you poor dear."

Joe B. raised high his mug. "Lord, bless this house today, and all within and without."

A full half-dozen of the gizmos upon his belt, along with his wristwatch, bore the correct time, but he cast a quick glance at the clock on the wall anyway. "Gotta run!" he announced and grabbed the bagel with cream cheese his wife offered in his direction. Clumsily sticking an umbrella under one arm and hanging a heavy coat over the other, he took up his briefcase, juggled breakfast and fumbled at the doorknob. The bagel fell cream-cheese-flat to the floor.

"Well, there's a good start to the day," he contemplated the mess.

***

On the directly opposite side of town, Luci Fernandez stirred from a night of lying awake. Years of anger again had twisted the passing hours within her mind and the covers around her body. Never could she let go of her resentment. As a girl she had entertained dreams of becoming a dancer on the stage, graciously accepting the accolades of adoring audiences. Even as a young woman she had entertained dreams of becoming a dancer on the stage, graciously accepting the accolades of adoring audiences. As a middle-aged woman, she realized her dreams had waltzed out the door. She now worked in the Human Resources office at Universal Whirligig, as Executive Officer in Charge of Outgoing Prescription Drug Claims Oversight.

At one time she had been on the company fast track, but even in that she had gained only frustration. Hidden well within her heart she coveted the Big Boss' authority, his place as sole leader of the fabulous corporation. Deep down she believed she could run the company better than him, and deserved to do so. But ill-advised politicking had stalled her climb, and daily she could witness other men and women flying past her in the Big Boss' good graces. Her real duties now, as she saw them, were to make sure no employee's success went unpunished.

Joe B. had not escaped her notice.

Indeed, his advance within the company, and the obvious favor he received from the Big Boss, had made any intervention by Luci impossible.

Her hair paid the price this morning as she ripped her brush through the jet-black curls. A dried-out bottle of mascara fared no better, nor did the shower door it hit. One, two – three, yes, three pairs of hose suffered fatal runs before Luci finally managed to cover her long legs. She wedged her slinky form into a bright red dress.

"If I can't, he can't," she intoned under her breath, brows twitching above her fiery eyes.

A spiked heel snapped as her stamping foot tried to force on a diminutive shoe.

Her preparations continued entirely on auto-pilot as she sorted her scheming for the morning's work. First Tuesday of the month meant a selection of Universal Whirligig's top executives would meet over breakfast with the Big Boss. He would expect a report from the human resources department, and this month her turn came around to represent her office. Luci knew she would have to play her cards deftly to maneuver the Big Boss into doing what she wanted. She glared at the nail she'd broken prying the childproof cap off her bottle of St. John's wort. The cat hid under the bed.

"I have the papers, I can twist the numbers," she thought. "Just little statistics, just little lies. Enough to bring Joe B. down! Bring him down from that big, shiny office. Before he knows it, he'll be out on the streets. Before the day's out, I'll have him cursing the Big Boss. Early meeting, early meeting – I'll have my way! It's earlier than you think, Joe B.!" Laughter and tires screeched as she pulled into her corporate parking space.

A fat little man – light on hair but heavy in the glasses – from the Department of Amalgamated Services in Production Reliability Manifestations leaned into Luci's ear as they entered the conference room. "When in doubt, call a meeting!" he whispered as if his wit would secure him a date.

"Ugh," she sneered.

Rich leather chairs circled the chrome and glass table, located centrally in a cavernous chrome and glass room. A delicate china plate at each chair held a muffin and mint, with matching cup and saucer filled with coffee individually creamed and sugared for each executive appointed to attend. The huge windows offered a grand view of the air and clouds impaled upon the top of the Universal Whirligig skyscraper. Deep carpeting, brightly white but feeling as fresh and soft as spring grass, begged its guests to kick off their shoes. Along the interior walls, history's greatest works of art stood silent vigil over the proceedings. To one side a single door – beautiful in its simply etched glass, mysteriously veiled by sheer curtains laced with shimmering silver thread – blocked entry to a mysterious passageway leading into the upper offices of the Big Boss.

The attendees hemmed and hawed and groused as they awaited the beginning of the meeting. A hush fell as the silvery curtains swayed with anticipated arrival.

The Big Boss strode in.

"I hope everyone found the coffee to their liking?" he began.

"Yes, sir," all chimed in.

"The muffins are a nice touch. Who's responsible for changing from the usual donuts?"

"I am," said Luci. "I thought maybe the donuts were too – holey."

"Miss Fernandez, from Human Resources? Just as well. I find that muffins are good. Well then – what's this month's business?" He looked through the notebook of papers at the head of the table.

"Reports from the factory campus in Ontario show that the new lighting fixtures have improved labor and cost efficiency considerably," one woman offered.

"I thought that would be the result," the Big Boss replied, still mulling the notebook.

"The Clear Air Initiative in Kiev has reduced atmospheric particles by 75%, improving the incidence of clean rainfall," another reported.

"I thought as much," the Big Boss said.

"The Arid Project in Dubai has shown surprising success in moisture-free production of silicon chips."

"My thought exactly."

"Replanting the groves on the Madagascar plantations has not only increased vegetation in the undeveloped areas but also increased resources for the native population."

"I thought so."

"The operations manager in Oslo reports the new day-night shifts are very popular with the associates there."

"Just as I thought."

"Sydney naturalists report that the uterine enhancement devices have had a remarkable effect on animal breeding cycles."

"These were my very thoughts."

"The new elevator music is much better," said a small voice.

"That's what I thought too."

A silence fell around the table, disturbed by only an occasional shuffle of a paper.

"Is that it, then?" continued the Big Boss, and everyone searched for something to add. "Well, after all that, I think each of you deserves a rest."

"I might also mention the new ceramic molds," a hopeful man piped up. "They have been installed in the Dayton plant. Production of the resin compound components is on schedule."

"Good, good."

"Um, sir?" said the fat little man nervously.

"Yes?"

"The resins for the compound come from South American forests."

"Yes?"

"Won't the current political unrest there threaten our resin supplies?"

"I suppose it could."

"Shouldn't the company make some arrangements with the insurgents in those regions? What if they were to overthrow the governments?" The man polished the moisture off his glasses and glanced blearily around the table.

The Big Boss looked grim. "That would violate the company's standards."

"But what else can we do? I think it could become a big problem," the fat little man's hands trembled.

A well-trimmed young executive from the office of Overseas Acquisitions and Trade Imbalance Reparation Cycles looked up from a stack of papers he'd been busily sorting. "Here it is," he smiled. "The company has already stockpiled stores of resin in China. As well, the Department of Research and Development (Division of New Product Facilitation) is working on a synthetic substitute. But the political situation in South America may well be reconciled before our supplies get low and we have to change over."

"There you have it," the Big Boss smiled down at the man with the fat glasses.

"Well," the fat little man sank into his chair. He glanced about at the eyes gathered upon him. "My job is to ring the alarm, not necessarily find the fire." He tried to look invisible.

"What?" said the young executive.

The Big Boss reassured them both, "I'm not sure what that means, but you can put your mind at ease. The matter is settled."

"Moron!" thought Luci.

And so it went as the meeting addressed issues from the building's basement to the penthouse where they all sat. The minutes had rolled into an hour when the Big Boss leaned both fists onto the table.

"Well, I believe we are finished for this month, then? I'd like to say I'm particularly pleased with the report from the Development of International Integration of Core Technological Orientation. The vice president in charge of the sub-division of Emerging Nations has kept his duties and reporting excellently organized and efficient."

Luci saw her opportunity. "Quite a coincidence that you should mention that office, sir. We have a matter of concern over some health insurance claims," she broke in quickly.

"Oh? Is this a matter for this meeting?"

"Well – one employee's claims have spiked. I suspect some kind of fraud, the type of thing that could ruin the benefits you provide everyone, sir. It was one, uh, one Joe B. – " Luci thumbed through papers pretending to struggle for the name.

"The very vice president I spoke of – I know him well. He's always been the most faithful, stellar associate."

"Well, apparently he's not satisfied with his stellar wages. I suspect he's been filing reimbursement claims for medical procedures that never occurred. Some of the charges are for treatments only rarely prescribed."

"Do you say something has escaped my attention?" the Big Boss looked dubious.

"With all due respect, sir, his insurance claims are coming in at an accelerated rate. If it continues, he will become a liability to you and everyone here. You can't afford to run a charity ward, you know."

"I find your accusations hard to believe."

"I'm telling you the facts. Don't you believe in discipline?" Luci grew more pointed. "Or will you just ignore my charges?"

Eyes stared heavily down at the table, not wanting to view the exchange, and bodies shifted uneasily in their seats. The Big Boss paused, thinking deeply, gazing intently into Luci's expression. "I will let you handle this matter."

"But you personally handle all termination matters."

"Yes, I decide all termination matters," replied the Big Boss firmly before turning away. "Now, if he leaves Universal Whirligig on his own, that's one thing; termination is quite another. Short of firing, you handle it."

Luci scrunched her face in frustration. Her thoughts raced, but not fast enough.

"Thank you for coming," and the Big Boss benignly vanished behind the silver-laced veil.

" 'Faithful and stellar,' " she stewed. " 'If he leaves on his own....' Enough pressure, and the Big Boss will see just how faithful Joe B. is."

***

Meanwhile, Joe B. had abandoned his bagel. Good thing, for having missed his train, he needed all available hands and feet to flag down a cab. On top of that, the blowing rain had popped his umbrella inside-out. Finally gaining the attention of the third taxi to pass, he deftly stepped off the curb and into an ankle-deep puddle as he tumbled backwards into the rear seat.

"Buddy!" cried the driver, of indistinct origin. "Get wet umbrella down!"

"Sorry," said Joe B., wrestling the wounded apparatus to the floor. "Universal Whirligig, please."

"That uptown, buddy."

"Yes, I know."

" 'Spensive."

"Yes, I know that too."

The driver smiled slightly, and Joe B. settled in to reassemble his baggage. He thoroughly soaked his handkerchief wiping down the sides of his briefcase, wiping and wringing, wiping and wringing until a limpid puddle formed in the floor behind the driver's seat, directly below an I.D. card reading "Clem." An unshaven face smiled at him from the picture, wearing some kind of brimless, white hat – quick look at the back of his driver's head revealed that it was a painter's cap put on backwards. Joe B. sipped at his cup and quickly confirmed that rainwater does indeed make coffee cold; he briskly brushed the beading drops off his shoulders and wondered why his overcoat still draped his arm. Flipping his cell phone open, he tapped at its blank screen with the butt of a pen. Really, he should let the office know he'd be coming in late, but the phone communicated only his own face reflected back at him. Punching the buttons with furious futility, he growled under his breath, "This thing burns up its battery faster than the Spanish Inquisition." Finally admitting defeat, he tossed the high-tech rubbish into his briefcase. A quick check of the papers inside revealed all remained safe and dry, ready for comfy storage within his files once he arrived at work – "Hey! You missed my turn!"

"No. Construction. Shortcut."

"But – " Joe B. craned his neck, seeing no roadwork on the street Clem should have taken, now quickly fading into the forest of skyscrapers. The puddle at his feet gained an oil slick.

A full half-hour later the cab pulled in front of Universal Whirligig. "Shortcut," the smiling driver reassured Joe B. "Fifty eight dollah, seventy-eight cent."

"Sure," he replied, waving three $20 bills like a white flag. "Keep the change."

"Big spender!" The driver admired the bills gingerly between finger and thumb.

A grand courtyard spread out before the towering Universal Whirligig building, a glorious sight that stretched before Joe B. and his inverted umbrella like a football field. The rain did not make him happy, nor the hail merry. Drops kicked off sides of benches, a driving blitz of stiff-arm torrents standing against his goal, piercing as spikes. Far in the distance the revolving doors mocked him with their dryness. Joe B. drew in a breath and meditated upon the mad dash ahead of him.

"Meter running, buddy," Clem sneered.

Joe B. vaulted from the cab and made a break for the building, spraying great flares of water with each footfall. The umbrella flapped against his pounding legs like a dead turkey. He delicately tried to adjust his speed to the timing of his arrival at the entrance, hoping to avoid disaster; his shoes reached out for the wet marble tile of the doorway, but gripped with a disappointing lack of commitment, and he slid into the revolving door's rotation heavily upon his bum. The carousel vomited him out into the lobby, small electronics skittering across the floor.

"Wow," was all he could say as his head spun. He'd never noticed the ceiling before. He glanced up at the lobby's grand bronze statue of an ancient man – burly, with heavy brow and long beard, in one hand holding a massive hammer and in the other a goblet – hovering over him, staring indifferently at his unfortunate entry. Joe B. collected his regalia but left his dignity flat on the floor.

He stumbled into the elevator in complete disarray. "Going up?" asked the woman holding the door, staring in horrified amusement.

"I think so."

"You look like a train wreck."

"Thanks. At least the rest of the day will have to go better than this."

Joe B. tried to gather his composure before spilling out of the elevator door and squishing down the hall to his office. "Good morning," he muttered distractedly at his secretary; she merely glanced up from her computer screen, solemn and doe-eyed, as he passed. The gleaming accents upon the door to his inner office caught the light as it swung open, and the file cabinets lined the walls like soldiers awaiting inspection. He threw down his coat and umbrella onto the chair just inside the door, and walked to his desk.

There lay a pink memo from the human resources office.

CHAPTER II

"What's this?!!" he bellowed; Joe B.'s full body exploded into a wild dance of flailing limbs and invective, brilliant showers of water spraying from his ragged hair. His left hand waved the crumpled memo, while his right shook violently, still clutching the briefcase. The lid popped open with a proud snap, and carefully preserved sheets of paper filled the air like an autumn day.

"I didn't put it there," his secretary cringed back at him. "I only saw it."

He stared at his yawning attaché, and forms and files floated blithely to rest all around his befuddled feet. "I know, I know," he conceded defeat, and contemplated the cold-blooded justice of cheap briefcase latches.

The secretary knelt to help gather papers. "I'll get these," she said, trying to fill the gap of humanity with busyness. "Can I get you some water, or a towel? Or coffee?"

Joe B. checked his hands to see if he was still holding his coffee cup. "I haven't even had my coffee," he moaned, mostly to himself, again catching sight of his gaping briefcase.

"I'll get you some," and his secretary, desperate for any escape, scampered away clutching a sheaf of documents in both hands.

Again Joe B.'s eye fell on the pink slip of paper. He began reading, for the first time, the pale type against the glowing paper. "... Unfounded expense... questionable paperwork... unsatisfactory productivity... unkempt appearance??!" He subconsciously felt the briefcase handle slip from his hand and a paper cup take its place. "... Declining returns... malfeasance... missing records... poor review... mailroom... OW!"

"That's hot," his secretary offered, her eyelashes pointing to the coffee.

Joe B.'s scalded lips blew at the steaming brew.

"I don't understand this. How am I supposed to respond to this?"

"Keep blowing; it'll cool off."

She might as well have told him to remember to breathe, for the look he gave her. "I mean the memo."

"Oh. It came from Human Resources, didn't it?" the secretary crept closer, though carefully as though the paper might reach out its grip and take hold of her. "Maybe they have an explanation. Maybe it's a mistake."

Joe B. brightened some. "Sure, they must have made a mistake."

"Should I call up there for you?"

"No, I'd better go myself. Phone calls never settle anything." He moved toward the door, both hands and head occupied with coffee, papers and doubts.

"Maybe you should freshen up a little first," the secretary's voice sounded timid.

"Yeah, sure," and the latch clicked behind Joe B.

He stared at the memo, vaguely aware of his feet alternating along the floor below as he made his way back to the elevators. He tried to devise in his mind an explanation why he would receive such a dire message; for years he had climbed the corporate ladder without faltering, and he knew his job performance had not changed now. Perhaps the memo was really directed at someone with a name similar to his? Joe B. ran through his memory, trying to think through all the names of his fellow employees, but it was a vain exercise – Universal Whirligig was just too vast. Still, that had to be it: Some other poor sap was supposed to get this poison-pen memorandum; Joe B. would find that he was never meant to see this letter, and someone else would receive his own copy. Boy, did Joe B. feel sorry for that guy. The elevator opened its gaping maw and swallowed him up.

The other passengers stared sideways at the crumpled vice president, still preoccupied with his communiqué. Without thinking he punched his executive permissions PIN number into the keyboard and selected his floor. He studied each word carefully as the buzzing crowd glided upward. The elevator car came to a misleadingly soft stop.

The security guard – his presence one of the perks of an upper-management office floor – shot Joe B. a surprised look as he stepped out of the elevator. "Which way to Human Resources?" he asked, and the guard silently pointed down the hall to the left. As Joe B. headed in that direction, the guard considered him from behind and pulled the two-way radio from his belt.

Joe B. peered without effect through the glazed glass of the Human Resources Office door before venturing inside. He could see only dark, ill-defined forms moving about as though floating on clouds of deep-pile bliss. Inside he found a deep, elongated room with glass doors along every wall. Through those panes he could see a honeycomb of offices branching off in every direction. But first, directly before him, stood a double phalanx of secretaries at their desks.

"Excuse me, I have an in-house memo I need to talk to someone about," Joe B. approached the desk nearest to him at the front.

The secretary's eyes bulged as she lunged for a stack of triplicate forms. "You're dripping!" she wailed.

"Oh, sorry," Joe B. backed away a step.

The secretary sat back down in an exasperated fashion and huffed at him; she blotted at the second-hand raindrops deliberately so as to make him wait. Her point made, she testily asked, "What inter-office division did it originate from?"

"Umm," said Joe B. "The... uh... the Office of the Executive Officer in Charge of Outgoing Prescription Drug Claims Oversight."

"To the left, third from the back," she shot back.

"Huh?" he riposted.

"To the left, third from the back," she repeated firmly, her thumb thrown over her shoulder to indicate the columns of desks.

Joe B. spotted the appropriate secretary and made his way slowly through the women's glancing gauntlet of forced disinterest. He tried to apologize for each drip that inadvertently hit one of the stylish composite desktops. His eyes met those of the secretary of his destination, staring in horror at his approach.

"How did you get in this office?" she asked. "I already gave to United Way."

"I'm not looking for a handout," Joe B. replied with a frown. "I work here."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure!" Joe B. spewed. "Do you think I've been coming here every day for twenty-one years by mistake?"

"Well, okay, then. You just don't look like you belong here. What office are you from?"

"Core Technological Orientation. I'm vice president of Development of International Integration (Emerging Nations Division) there."

"Oh! Well, what can I help you with?"

"I mistakenly received a memo this morning – I believe it was meant for someone else."

"Did you read it?"

"Well, yes. How else would I know it's not for me?"

"If it's someone else's memo, you shouldn't have read it. I'll have to write that up."

"Well, no, it's addressed to me, but I think – "

"So it's your memo?"

" – It has to be for someone else."

"So it has someone else's name on it?"

"No, just mine."

"So it's your memo?"

"But it can't be directed to me. Listen – "

"Does it have your name on it, sir?" The secretary sounded too sincere to be sincere.

"Yes."

"Then for the sake of argument let's just say it's your memo."

"Fine." Joe B. took theoretical ownership of the memo.

"We'll look it up." She sat poised at her computer. "Reference number?"

"Uh – "

"It's a fourteen-digit number followed by a hyphen and twenty-three figures, possibly an acronym for your office but possibly only meaningless letters."

"Uh – "

"It's probably typed in the upper right hand area."

"Um – 76900000001187-DIICTOENDQWERTYXZCHDAMP." Joe B. couldn't believe the last four letters.

The secretary pounded wildly on her keyboard, so much so that Joe B. doubted she really knew what she was typing.

"I'm sorry, that doesn't come up. Apparently there are too many zeroes."

"Well, take one out."

"Which one?"

"Gosh, I don't know! Maybe the middle one?" Joe B.'s flabbergastion flared.

"Sir, I'm trying to help you."

Joe B. remained silent.

"Our files show that memo was processed through the Office of Inter-Office Communications. This office can't address your concerns until you have a clearance from them that they legitimately received and passed on that information."

"But you have a record of it." Joe B. waved weakly at the computer screen.

"It's Universal Whirligig policy, sir. Some years back when all records were changed over to data files, hard copy backup files on paper were required as a safety measure. Without paper confirmation, the computer data is deemed unreliable. The whole idea became someone's pet project, as I remember. The Office of Inter-Office Communications handles inter-office memo confirmations."

Joe B. quietly cursed the day he was born. "The Office – ?"

"Office of Inter-Office Communications. You'll find them thirty-three floors down."

"Thirty-three floors?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay. Thanks. I think."

Joe B. packed up his wrinkled memo and sullenly walked out of the office. Lost in his thoughts, he didn't see the security guard waiting for him down the hall.

"I'm sorry, sir, these elevators are reserved for managers of Universal Whirligig," the guard interrupted his approach. "You must be at least a junior executive."

"I'm a vice president," Joe B. sputtered. "Is that junior enough for you?"

"Not according to this morning's exclusionary directive." The guard – whose grandfatherly look apparently only meant he'd walked three miles in the snow to school every day – waved a piece of paper. "I've already double-checked with HR."

"Well, I'm about to get that straightened out. I just need to take the elevators down to some office."

"I'm sorry, sir. You'll have to take the stairs."

"Stairs? It's thirty-three floors down!"

"Sorry sir. Company policy."

"What genius came up with that idea?!!" Joe B. blurted, pretty sure it wasn't him this time. "Just let me get on that elevator!"

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Oh, come on now, man! Be reasonable! What could it possibly hurt to let me use the elevator this once?"

"It could hurt a lot, sir." The guard placed his hand on a can of pepper spray clipped to his belt.

Joe B.'s hand unconsciously went to the pepper-spray pen on his own belt, of course in its designated place. The two stood there, suspended in time, like cowboys facing off in a bad TV western. Joe B. had visions of a wild spraying shootout, ending with him falling through a window to the street miles below. He saw the guard's can was substantially bigger than his. Slowly he stood from his slight crouch and considered the guard shrewdly through squinted eyes.

"These elevators are reserved for managers only, and you will have to take the stairs," the guard hissed. "It discourages unwanted visitors."

"All right, pilgrim," Joe B. parried. "The stairs it'll have to be."

Joe B. backed away carefully, not taking his eye off the guard until he was safely behind the industrial steel door opening to the vast stairwell. He stopped to sigh as he surveyed his descent.

The minutes plodded along with him as he worked his way from floor to floor. He found himself counting his footsteps, but eventually the echoes within the deep cavern confused him too much to continue. His mind returned to the memo and what might be the cause of it.

"One thing's for sure," he thought. "But I don't know what it is."

Several times he stopped to rest, and several times he suddenly thought he had gone too far and had to double-check the floor he'd just passed. At last he reached his destination and emerged from his safety-stepped purgatory.

Dazed and breathless, Joe B. looked about for a likely office. "Excuse me," he asked a passerby with a disgusted look on her face. "Where is the Office of Official Office Memos?"

"Do you mean the Office of Inter-Office Communications? That's my office, young man," she said sternly. "Follow me."

"Great," Joe B. thought, and lurched behind.

"Now, what is your problem?" she asked once perched at her desk.

"I just climbed down thirty-three flights of stairs."

"What? You walked down thirty-three floors?"

Joe B. nodded forlornly, thinking the woman might extend him some sympathy at the news.

"And soaking wet like that? Why, that's a safety risk! What if you had slipped? You'll have to fill out the OSHA forms for this incident!"

Joe B. sat silently, sullen as he contemplated the Foreign Legion.

"But I really meant, what do you need from this office?" she continued.

He wondered the same thing himself for just a moment. "I got this memo," he finally raised his hand weakly.

The woman held her hand out like she wanted a tip; Joe B. was gratified to rid himself of the paper. "It's a memo," he explained, starting slowly in hopes of heading off conflict.

"Yes, I can quite tell," the woman explained in return.

"Yes," he agreed. "I'm certain it was meant for someone else, but the office that issued it —"

"Office of Outgoing Prescription Drug Claims Oversight in HR?"

"Yes, they told me —"

"Oh, you don't want to mess with that office."

"No, ma'am, I don't. They told me —"

"That office will bend you over backwards for the least little infraction. One line left blank or one detail recorded wrongly, and they'll send your paperwork directly to your supervisor. Send you a memo, too."

"Yes, ma'am, and they told me —"

"We get their memos all the time."

"That's just it. I went there to straighten out this mistake, and they sent me here to get confirmation that the memo came from them."

"Yes, seems silly doesn't it? Offices can't even confirm that memo information comes from them. But, some manager years ago came up with the idea, and the Big Boss passed off on it, so we keep the memo confirmations independently. It's complicated, but it keeps sensitive information secure from the idly curious, I guess. 'Ours is not to question why —' " She let her voice trail off.

Joe B. sat silently. The woman tapped industriously at her keyboard. "Incident number?" she asked at last.

"Uh – 76900000001187-DIICTOENDQWERTYXZCHDAMP."

"That's the reference number. I need the incident number."

"Uh – "

"It's a series of seventeen numbers followed by letters specific to your division of Universal Whirligig, followed by a five-letter status code."

"Uh – "

"It's probably in the lower left area, under the carbon copy notice."

"Carbon copies? Of this memo?" Joe B.'s distress multiplied, knowing that copies of this mistake might accidentally spread around.

"So to speak. Of course, nobody uses carbon paper anymore. In fact, Universal Whirligig is the only company in the world that still makes it. It's mostly for emerging markets."

"I know," Joe B. said flatly.

"Number?" the woman mechanically prepared for information.

"Uh – 78354023588391018-EIRAMENNA-SNAFU." Joe B. couldn't believe the last five letters.

"Hmmm – " she hammered away mercilessly upon her keyboard. Joe B. worried about the work he wasn't getting done.

"Yep. Checks out," she announced.

"I thought you were supposed to look at the hard copy backups?"

"Oh, we have them. But they're computerized."

Joe B. blinked his glassy eyes. He decided to skip it. "The memo did come through here then?" Joe B. instead pursued his task at hand.

"Yes, I can confirm the memo came through this office."

"Is there a mistake in it?" Joe B. leaned over her desk to gain a view of the computer screen.

"Oh, no, I can't divulge that information," the woman said in a panic, turning her screen away from his prying eyes.

"What?!"

"The memo's contents are confidential, sir. I can't let you see it."

"But it's my memo!"

"So you say," the woman looked suspiciously at him.

"No, you're right, it must be someone else's memo," Joe B. went back on defense. "But how can I prove that if I can't see the records?"

"You'll have to go back to the issuing office. Here, now fill out this paper." She handed him a triplicate form.

"What's this?"

"You want to confirm your visit to this office, don't you? Fill out this paper, and I'll stamp your copy of the memo."

Joe B. growled as he took the form and slunk off to a chair. Curled over his work like a squirrel with his nut, he grumbled as he answered each question. Half-an-hour later he stole out of the office, newly stamped memo in hand.

Before him loomed the stairwell, and next to it stood the elevator. He looked about; the coast was clear. He pushed the elevator button.

Once inside he quickly punched in his executive PIN number, before anyone could stop him, had anyone been there. Then nothing happened. He paused; nothing happened again. He entered the number once more, and then a third time, and leaned his forehead against the elevator wall. Finally, he could no longer deny the obvious – he had been cancelled. Pushing the "open door" button, he exited the elevator and faced up to his new encounter with the stairs.

He soon proved what he had always believed: Going up thirty-three flights of stairs is harder than coming down thirty-three flights of stairs. Along the way he thought about the security guard and what he could do with his two-way radio. Unfortunately, his message had to wait, because the guard and his radio both were absent when Joe B. emerged back on the floor of the Human Resource offices.

"Must be taking a late donut break," he thought.

Joe B. walked manfully into the Human Resources office, only slightly damp by this time but no less bedraggled. Without seeking counsel he made his way through the phalanxes of desks directly to Ms. Left, Third From The Back.

"I'm back," he announced.

"Can I help you?" she returned.

"I'm back," he insisted, and rustled his forms at her. "I have the paperwork you wanted about the memo I got by mistake."

"Oh, I see," she said, glancing at the papers. "I can't help you with that."

"Huh!?" Joe B. belched, and panicked visions of another long experience with the stairs taking him to offices unknown raced through his head.

"No, you have to go to that desk over there," she said, indicating right, five from the back.

Joe B. nearly fainted at the good news. "Thank you, thank you," he genuflected.

"I have a problem," he said to the tightly packaged young woman at the right desk. What eyebrow hairs she had left were all neatly in place.

"So I see," she said.

"This memo accidentally came to me this morning from this office."

"Are you sure – "

"Yes," he interrupted. "Here's the confirmation that it originated in this office." He shook the same handful of papers.

"All right, then, let's look at it," she somehow talked through her lipstick. "Yes, mm-hmmm. Okay. Yes, I see it. Yes. Yes. Well, then. Yes." She addressed the last word at Joe B.

"Yes what?" he replied.

"Everything is in order."

"Nothing is in order. This can't be my memo."

"But it is."

"But it can't be."

"I assure you, that memo was directed to you from the office of Outgoing Prescription Drug Claims Oversight."

Joe B. dropped all pretense of denial. "Which office is that?" He looked about at the surrounding doors, suddenly overcome with desperation. Even as he asked, his eyes lit upon the glassy entrance lettered with the offending phrase, "Outgoing Prescription Drug Claims Oversight," beyond the left row of desks. He took a step in that direction.

"You can't go in there!" the woman cried. "Nobody goes in there!"

Joe B. didn't answer, instead striding more boldly to the door. The secretaries of the phalanx jumped to their collective feet – "No! You can't go in there!" Many of them reached Joe B. before he made it past the desks, and he dragged them along behind. Others gathered in front of the door to block his way. Within the secretive enclosure, blurred behind the frosted glass, figures stopped and seemed to study the hubbub going on, as if observing a distant world. Joe B. moved forward undaunted, leaving a trail of secretaries and practical footwear behind him.

Then he stopped. The wall of women blocking the door parted, revealing two burly security guards who had appeared apparently from nowhere. They towered over Joe B., barely able to cross their beefy arms over their beefy chests as they defied his entrance, like geniis before Ali Baba's cave. Joe B. quickly reconsidered his strategy.

"Well, then" he said with forced calm, straightening his coat. "Where do I go?"

"The memo says the mailroom," the first secretary panted, stretched out on the floor, hanging on to his knee like life itself and now a total mess. "You've been demoted to the mailroom, so you have to check in with the foreman there."

The mailroom, quite oblivious to Joe B.'s anguish, resided serenely in the basement. Sixty-six floors down.

Joe B. took one more look at the cumbersome sentinels, and slowly turned for the exit. "Sure," he murmured. "Sure, why not?"

The secretaries left off their defense of the office door and stood, or sat, in silence as Joe B.'s defeated figure shuffled quietly out of the room. His limp demeanor dragged behind him, as might his arms had they been long enough. The long hallway stretched before him like a very stiff snake, prepared to swallow him whole. Joe B. didn't even glance at the elevator guard, now returned to his elevated post. He submitted to the stairwell, the heavy door closing behind him, a slow-motion coffin lid, latching with a metallic clunk.

Joe B. sat upon the top step, studying the stairs in a daze as they diminished before him, took a sharp turn and descended like Dante into the Inferno. He wondered how he got there. His mind flashed back to a summer years ago – selling ice cream from a truck, ringing a bell twelve hours a day. Small children gathered around the vehicle as if it were an idol, eyes round and deep, ready to do any kind of homage for the sticky goodness it promised. Behind them, parents glowered, especially around supper time, digging deep for a begrudging quarter. Then in the late night hours he would deliver newspapers to those very same parents. Joe B. remembered feeling that he'd barely survived that difficult schedule, but he'd persevered and earned his college tuition. Now he thought the world or fates or whatever it was had finally caught up with him, finally found its target.

Eventually he realized how uncomfortable the grate of the safety step had become, and stood to face the music. He had never even met anyone from the mailroom and had no idea what to expect. But first he must address the stairs, which he had become well-acquainted with, more than he had ever wanted. This day they had put their stamp on him. Oh, that somehow either snow or rain or heat or maybe even gloom of night might stay him from his appointed ground floor.

For sixty-six floors he drifted downward. For sixty-six floors his feet complained, trapped during all the day's travels inside shoes made stiff by their morning soaking. For sixty-six floors his brain pounded, stupefied by the drab gray walls dimly lit, turning over and over the events that drove him deep into the bowels of Universal Whirligig's building, operations and culture.

At last the stairwell came to a dead end, the bottom step standing indifferently in front of industrial-strength double doors. A ragged paper sign read, "No cell phone service." Two small windows revealed only darkness, offering no hint to what lay beyond. Joe B. pushed gingerly on the bar to one door, then leaned into it more heavily before realizing it was locked. He peered through the window, unable to see anything, a condition made worse by the fog of his breath. He switched to the other door and gave it a mighty shove; not only was this door not locked, but it opened so easily that Joe B. spilled out upon the mailroom floor.

All about him stood quiet machinery enveloped in an indoor dusk. Not a single hourly wage-earner stirred. Joe B. pulled himself to his feet and happened to glance at the time clock, on the wall just inside the doors. The hour grew late, far past the end of the day's shift. Joe B. sighed and knew he had missed the foreman, and the chance to finally confirm or deny his status. Then his eye fell upon a time card next to the clock, tucked in a rack along with hundreds more, his name printed neatly at the top.

The name on that card seemed a stranger to him – some random person who by odd coincidence shared his same name. At once he felt like an unwelcome guest in this place that before seemed almost home, almost like family. His mind turned to the weekends and long evenings he had toiled over the years, sure that his faithful service would gain the favor of his superiors. Now the very thing he had strived to avoid had come about, and in his distress he supposed he never should have tried to cater to his bosses at all.

"Working hard to excel only makes you a bull's-eye. Doing a good job only puts you under more scrutiny," he groused inside his head. "I should have kept out of sight, or let mediocrity be my security. I should have messed up in little ways to divert attention from my overall work. I should have been a reverse psychologist."

Joe B. returned to the stairwell and worked his way laboriously back to the lobby – only a merciful three flights up. He thought, and quickly forgot about, his coat and crippled umbrella, still tucked away in his lofty former office high above him. Or were they? He would have to climb way too many stairs to find out, to possibly discover they had disappeared. After the day's run-around, he decided to simply revolve the door that would direct him home. As he trudged across the lobby's gleaming marble floor he caught sight again of the brawny statue towering overhead, dark in its countenance, each arm out, offering mercy on the one hand or might in the other, either sustenance or judgment.

Joe B. stopped for just a moment, a brief contemplation before turning away into the night. "So today it was the hammer."

CHAPTER III

"Can I use a curse word?" Joe B. stared blankly at the seven tiles with seven letters lined up before him.

The game board spread out between him and his wife, miming diversion but largely ignored in the silence. "We've always kept our Scrabble family-friendly," his wife admonished him. "We've never allowed profanity before."

"I don't mean the game. I just feel like doing a little cussin'."

He suddenly realized he could spell the word "overjoy." He decided not to.

The day's events had weighed heavily upon Joe B.'s household that evening. The oldest daughter, Faith, had not really understood what had happened, but she did know it wasn't good. Dutifully she had helped get the little ones into bed.

"Come on, Hope. Time to brush your teeth," she had said.

"I want an Oreo, sisty," replied Hope, the youngest at only three.

"You can't have an Oreo. It's time for bed."

"Daddy's eating an Oreo." Hope pointed to Joe B., hunched dejectedly over a pile of cookies and cookie crumbs. "Daddy's eating all the Oreos."

"These aren't really Oreos," he explained. "When you're eating cookies just because you don't know what else to do, you're not really enjoying them. Then they're more like chore-eos."

"Oh," said Hope, confused.

"You're weird, Dad," said Faith, as she herded her little sister away.

"Thanks."

But now the girls all snuggled in bed, and only Joe B. and his wife shared the disconsolate night.

"Not one thing went my way today. It seemed like the entire world came crashing down on me," he groaned.

"You're sounding paranoid."

"Everyone says that."

"Universal Whirligig certainly seems to be against you all of a sudden. Maybe you should just wash your hands of the whole place," she said. "After all you've given to that company? This is some way to treat a loyal employee! Your boss has forgotten what it's like to be a normal man with a normal family. You could always get a job somewhere else, you know."

"Who would hire me? I'm not exactly an entry-level employee anymore," Joe B. held his head in one hand, elbow propped upon the table. "And what do I say when they ask why I left my last job? 'I was demoted to the mailroom' sounds really promising. I can't even believe I just said that! 'I was demoted to the mailroom!' Nobody will give me a position like what I had."

"But look at what Universal Whirligig has done to us. How could you stay there? And just who does your boss think he is? How can you still be loyal to him?"

"I don't think I have any choice. Where else could I still earn retirement? I have twenty-one years invested in our plan, just four years from full vestment. And what about our health coverage? We have to keep that – we have to."

His wife agreed by silently doing nothing.

Joe B. continued. "Things are going to be tough until I get this straightened out. All I know is, what I did at work yesterday was no different from what I'd done for twenty-one years. If I could talk to the Big Boss, I know he would reinstate me. But for now we've got to try to keep our lives on an even keel as much as we can." He leaned his forehead heavily into both open palms. "I hate to think of what to cut back."

"Let's start a list – " his wife began, happy to have something to do.

The next few hours the couple labored over the luxuries and necessities they had come to know during two decades of building their lives. One list after another fell discarded as Joe B. and his wife set priorities. Entertainment expenses got the ax first – TiVo became dish television, which became cable that became broadcast. Gourmet coffee took its place on the chopping block. Vacation came under serious threat. The pool man was fired. At the bottom of the list sat the most frightening word, "house." Marie's needs weren't even considered.

"Well, you can go on working for your big boss if you insist," Joe B.'s wife said at last with low anger. "But that doesn't mean I have to be happy with him. If I were you, I'd give him a piece of my mind."

Later as they lay in bed, Joe B. watched the distant ceiling. "Thank you for this day, Lord," he thought. "And thank you that it's over."

For long hours he stared into the dark. Memories and worries drifted through his mind, each merging into the one before and pushing it from his attention, swirling together like smoke into an undecipherable haze. He thought of the births of his daughters, each in turn, days of wonder and joy but still also fear and trembling. He though of his files, meticulously ordered and pampered, true friends always ready to serve when he called. In his mind he stood before the Big Boss, pleading his case without really knowing what to say. Suddenly he no longer recognized the Universal Whirligig offices, but instead saw his mother's home, the house Joe B. grew up in. Behind the Big Boss his mom wielded a paddle and a stern look. A vulture wheeled about overhead. Joe B. became aware that an important assignment had somehow slipped his notice, and now he had no report to present. The Big Boss loomed before him, speaking in deep echoes that he couldn't understand. He lifted a huge hammer over Joe B.'s head. Joe B. looked around him, confused and feeling itchy. Suddenly he felt a chill, and he doubted his pants. A huge fly buzzed into his ear.

Joe B. rolled over and slapped his hand on the alarm button. With no idea what to do, he lay on his back for a few minutes. What was he supposed to wear for mailroom work? Would they allow him to bring in coffee and breakfast? What would his work station look like? Would he get hit by a truck?

He decided to go in early, to try to arrange a meeting with the Big Boss before reporting for duty.

The line of electronic gadgets awaited him forlornly upon his dresser. He touched each wistfully before turning away, taking up only – the pager.

"You'd better work, baby," he thought.

This morning he had no trouble catching his train, running quickly and cheaply through the underworld. The sun smiled brightly as he emerged from the station and walked the final two blocks to the Universal Whirligig complex.

First he braved the stairs again, trudging up to his former office. His legs still ached from the previous day's workout, and soon they were crying out again against the same old ascent. "Corporate ladder, shmorporate shmladder," he thought. "This is the hardest climb of all."

Joe B. didn't recognize his office at first; his name had already been removed from the glass door. He peeked in timidly, glancing around, afraid he might spy his replacement, like walking in on a new suitor with an old girlfriend. Instead he saw only his secretary, dutifully puttering about her desk.

"Oh!" she said.

"Sorry!" he replied in a whisper, as though he were trying to get away with something.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered back loudly.

"I want my coat and briefcase." Joe B. pulled back from the door slightly, to signal he really didn't want to intrude.

"Here, I tucked them away," the secretary returned hoarsely. "They threw away your umbrella."

"Good enough for it," said Joe B. with a parched croak, remembering the grief it had given him the day before. "Look, I don't want to run into your new boss."

"Yeah, I have a new boss." Her eyes looked moist, and her whisper trembled. "But he won't be here today. The movers are working on his office."

"The _who?!!"_ Joe B. bellowed. Without warning he burst into the room and flew toward the large, frosted window separating his former office. Fully pressed to it like a criminal up against a wall, he could see two blurred images clumsily at work. The tapping of a hammer arrested his attention like the beat of a bad rap. He pulled nervously at his cuffs as he witnessed the unwarranted assault of the subjects, both clearly packing, not leaving a solitary item with which he'd done time for so long.

"Movers. And construction guys," said his secretary, still trying to keep her voice low. "They're remodeling your office," and at the last word she broke down, holding it out like an operatic soprano.

Joe B. stared in disbelief at the bumbling workers, aghast at their invasion.

**Worker 1:** "Here, take the end of this tape measure down there."

**Worker 2:** " 'Kay. All the way down?"

**Worker 1:** "Yeah. Okay, that's twenty-two-eight. That means coming in to seventeen-two for the new wall – "

The man walked down toward the new measurement, on his way tripping on one of Joe B.'s prized file cabinets. Joe B. audibly gasped as the man grabbed the cabinet and roughly shoved it to one side. His eyes rolled backwards as drawers slid out of place, and the whole shebang threatened to tip over. The worker kicked the lower drawers closed, and Joe B.'s face reddened. He felt woozy.

**Worker 1:** "Uh. What was that measurement again?"

**Worker 2:** "I don't know. What did you say?"

**Worker 1:** "I don't remember. Weren't you paying attention?"

**Worker 2:** "I don't know. Weren't you?"

**Worker 1:** "You're no help at all."

**Worker 2:** "Look, all I remember is that on my end it said 'zero'."

"Oh, man," Joe B. groaned and went white.

**Worker 1:** "Hand me that crowbar."

Joe B. wheeled around to face his secretary, who flinched at the sudden movement. He braced himself against the window. "I've got to get a meeting with the Big Boss!"

"Are you crazy?" she blurted in reply. "Nobody gets a meeting with the Big Boss!"

Joe B.'s eyes flashed desperation. "I have to. I can't keep working here like this. They're tearing my office apart! All my years of effort here are going to waste, they're being destroyed just like me. That's worse to see than being demoted."

"I know, it's terrible, it's terrible – " his secretary's voice trailed off for a moment. "But you can't just walk into the Big Boss' office. Nobody gets to see him."

"I have to try. Look, I know he must think he knows what he's doing, but didn't he know what he thought he was doing when he hired me?"

"Huh?"

"You know what I mean. And didn't he decide to promote me all these years? Has he just turned his back on that judgment? Why would he set me up in success just to destroy me?"

"Don't ask me. This isn't easy for me either, you know."

"Why hire me in the first place?" Joe B. continued. "Twenty-one years ago, he saw me as a good employee. In all those years, I have done nothing to hurt him or Universal Whirligig. Nothing I did last week or last year was any different. Still, he must find some fault in me, to do this. Was it that stapler I snuck out of the building that time? That was three years ago – and I brought it back. Or maybe some stupid thing I did as a kid is back to haunt me. Curse the Internet! But how am I to know, if he doesn't tell me? His silence is driving me crazy – he should tell me what I've done, or just fire me."

"You need to calm down."

"Look, the Big Boss is not like you and me. His life is not like mine. He doesn't have to worry about paying off his house, or how to afford medical care for his daughter. He doesn't have to worry about losing his livelihood. Why can't he take pity on those who do? Why would he terrorize those in a weaker position than him? Especially employees he's chosen! He made me what I am – or was – and am – at Universal Whirligig. Why does he send me back to the lowest rung of the ladder here? It's his work he's wasting, not just my whole blinking life. I have to talk to him, face to face."

"You're starting to worry me." His secretary straightened out her desk in a fidgety kind of way.

"He's done this to me! My career is over – better for him to fire me than to let me waste away at minimum wage! Why can't a job be a place of joy? Why must work lead only to worry, then to despair? My future plans are gone! Everywhere I look now faces seem to mock me, on people who used to greet me pleasantly and offer me respect. Now I have to sneak into my own office! And look – even you stare at me like I'm covered with boils or something,"

Joe B's secretary stared at him like he was covered with boils. "Yes, for good reason. You're scaring me." She was becoming less sympathetic. "Why don't you get your meeting with the Big Boss, spit in his eye and quit?"

"Oh, I get it – sarcasm. Just what I need." Joe B. calmed down some. "Of course it's not likely, but I have to see him somehow. I can't sort this out in my own head. I can't imagine what explanation he could give me. Thinking about it is like trying to play yourself in chess – someone's bound to cheat eventually. In the end it's only me playing games in my mind, if I can't talk to him. Certainly he would listen to my questions."

"Well, good luck with that."

"Is there any way you can help me?"

"I'm not your secretary any more." Her eyes turned back to watery sympathy.

Joe B. tried to stand tall. "Right. Well. Thanks for my coat, anyway."

Worker 2: "Think we can hit the Dumpster from the window?"

***

After a full day of sorting letters and shaking off paper cuts, Joe B. stretched the kinks out of his back and listened carefully to the rattle his pager made as he shook it. No matter how hard he stared at it, he'd gotten no calls during the day. He found that standing stooped over a conveyor belt made his feet sore, but his right wrist wasn't as stiff as it used to be at the end of a day. He worked his way gingerly toward the heavy double doors.

Armed with a new priority PIN, he mounted the elevator and rode to the highest floor of allowed access. Along the way he rehearsed his dispute against the Big Boss. He had no idea what to expect as he would try to enter the boss' palace of offices. The elevator doors slid open.

"What?" he blurted. The floor number read "10."

"I can't even get to my old office floor?" he asked disgustedly to nobody there, knowing he'd have plenty of time to answer himself in the stairwell.

Like the wisdom of an ancient culture, Joe B.'s second encounter with the stairs that day began with a single step. The problem was the thousands of steps that followed. Amid the clanging and banging of doors and footsteps, he made his way slowly from one floor to the next. Only once before had he been in the penthouse office suite, when he was chosen to help at the First Tuesday meeting in the absence of the First Vice President of Development of International Integration of Core Technological Orientation (Comprising All Pertinent Corporate Divisions). He hadn't actually attended the meeting, but he stood outside the windows, prepared to assist at any moment, able to see dim figures moving about within the conference room. That time, as a junior executive, he had been allowed to use the direct elevator to the office complex. Now he worked in – the mailroom. Joe B. didn't even know where the stairway door would open to.

As he made his winding ascent, Joe B. tried to prepare himself for every response he could imagine coming from the Big Boss:

"I'm so glad you're here! There's been a terrible mistake!"

_or_ "What can I help you with?"

_or_ "What was your name again?"

_or_ "Who do you think you are?"

_or maybe_ – "Security!"

A couple of times Joe B. talked himself out of going through with it and nearly turned around, only to brace up his courage again and continue up the stairs. His surly feet reminded him of their mistreatment over the past two days. Lost in his thoughts, at times he believed he heard the laughter of a multitude gathering around him, and the voices of those who stand looking. One after the other, his feet went to their mechanical duty as he stared down at them. He did not notice as the surface of the steps changed from a toothy grating to lustrous brushed steel. He nearly bumped his head on the single door, the crown of the building's stairwell, that finally stood before him. Squaring his shoulders, he caught his breath before trying the knob.

Sheepishly he peeked through the narrow opening.

"Oh, no!" he groaned.

Standing calmly by the door, the guard from the day before jounced merrily upon his toes and hummed a tune. Joe B. ducked silently back behind the door.

"How could he be on duty on this floor?" he thought with gritted teeth. "What if he recognizes me? Or do all the guards just look alike?"

This thought intrigued him, and he peered unsuccessfully past the door again. He couldn't tell.

"I should have gotten his badge number," he thought, wondering if the guard even had a badge number. "I'll have to think of some way to get past him." Joe B. glanced around the landing for some loose object he might use to shield his face from the guard's scrutiny. In his former job he might have had a file or some loose papers on hand he could pretend to read, burying his face deep in false concentration, but not as a mailroom worker. He didn't have even a single stray envelope to use as a disguise.

In the end Joe B. decided to rely on the old coughing trick, using a handkerchief to cover his face and a fit of lung-exercise to excuse interaction with the guard. Years of movie-going had prepared him for this moment – it had to work.

He shook out his handkerchief and carefully covered the lower half of his face, hacked mightily and stepped through the door.

"Gracious!" exclaimed the guard with real concern, taken quite by surprise. "Are you well, sir?"

Joe B. made somewhat urgent eye contact and tried to indicate that he would indeed be just fine as he proceeded to cough as if he'd inhaled a good part of the Mojave Desert. He pointed lamely toward a pair of doors at the end of the hall and took a tentative step in that direction.

"Those are the outer offices of the Big Boss, sir," said the guard gently. "Unusual for him to have a visitor this time of day. Is he expecting you, sir?" The guard spoke with grace and quiet confidence, not at all like the day before, and Joe B. looked a little closer to make sure he recognized his old nemesis. He pretended to say something through more coughing and took another small step.

"Please let me help you, sir," the guard persisted, taking Joe B. by the elbow. "Perhaps get the door for you?" Joe B. coughed and nodded, not believing this was the kind of security the Big Boss had for his own offices. The pair walked down the hall like a new bride and groom, and Joe B.'s cough suddenly got much better. He continued to hold his handkerchief to his face, though, just in case.

The doors opened to a richly appointed room lined with deeply upholstered furniture, surrounding a large central desk. A belt-high barrier like an altar rail branched off the desk to each side, extending to opposite walls. The desktop lay completely bare, all business taken care of for the day, with a beautiful but determinedly professional young woman sitting behind. She smiled brightly at her two visitors.

"This young man needs help," offered the guard. "He seems to have something caught in his throat, or at least he did have," looking to Joe B., who coughed helpfully, but not very hard.

"Oh, dear," replied the woman sympathetically. "Can I get you some cold water, or perhaps you'd rather have tea? I have some nice Earl Grey, not bags, but loose leaf. I'd be happy to brew you a cup if you think that might help?"

Joe B. couldn't believe his good fortune. This was going to be a piece of cake.

"Would you care for a piece of cake?" she added, gesturing toward a platter of individually wrapped pastries. Joe B. stared in wonder.

"I need to see the Big Boss," he said in a convincingly ratchety voice.

"I believe he has an appointment with the Big Boss," the guard interpreted.

"Well, then, let me check out my appointment book," the young woman smiled confidently. She sat behind her desk and carefully pulled the center drawer out, from which she produced a large book bound in leather. The ribbon hanging from the bottom edge opened the book easily to the correct date, which, at this late hour, had already been changed to tomorrow. Her brow furrowing as she turned back the page, the young woman politely studied the foregone conclusion.

"No, I'm afraid there are no more appointments with the Big Boss left for today. Do you like sugar in your tea?"

"It's not really an appointment – yes, thanks – just a little meeting," Joe B. stammered. "I need to ask a question."

"Do you?" the woman asked, pouring hot water into a china teapot. "May I try to answer it?"

"It's a simple question, but a difficult answer."

"You've come such a long way up those stairs," she replied, pouring the tea into a delicate cup balanced on a saucer. "You did have to take the stairs, didn't you?" Joe B. nodded pathetically. "Are you quite sure I can't be of some help?" The guard was gazing at Joe B. like a beneficent old uncle.

"I'm from the office of Development of International Integration of Core Technological Orientation (Emerging Nations Division) – "

"Really?" asked the woman. "Has your office relaxed the dress guidelines all this much?"

"Well, no," Joe B. said, glancing down at his blue-collarness. "I worked in the mailroom today. That's the point of my question – "

"Did your office get some mail they shouldn't?"

"Yes, or no, that's not it at all – but yes. Sort of."

"I must say, that tea was just what you needed. You sound much better now."

"Oh, yes, thanks." Joe B. had forgotten he was supposed to be deathly ill.

"Well, let me call the upper offices and talk to the Big Boss' secretary. We'll see what we can do for you." She opened up a side drawer of the desk and pulled out a phone.

Joe B. almost interrupted to make sure the woman understood why she was calling, but thought better of it. Progress is progress, he said to himself, and best not to get in the way.

"Hello? Yes, there's a man... indeed... yes, he is. I don't know. Should I find out? No, I don't think so. Yes. Oh, yes, I'm sure of that. He doesn't appear to be. Do you want me to call down there? Okay. Okay. That's all right then. Yes. That's what I'll do. All right, that will be fine. Yes, that's the best thing. Of course. Yes, of course. Okay. Good-bye," she said between pauses.

She set down the receiver and smiled at Joe B. "The Big Boss won't see you today."

"What? You didn't even tell them my name."

"He knows your name."

"But what was that whole conversation?" Joe B. at once felt confused and frustrated and bordering on angry.

"Never mind that. I want to do everything I can for you. What would you like?"

"I'd like a meeting with the Big Boss."

"That's the only thing I can't do today. The Big Boss simply isn't seeing anyone else today. Please, tell me something else I can do for you?"

Joe B. was about to think of something she could do when she smiled up at him in such a pleasant way that he changed his mind. He wanted desperately to be furious, but somehow he couldn't bear to take his annoyance out on just a fellow cog in the machine. Dumbly he stood before her like a schoolboy with a crush.

"You've had such a hard day, sir," offered the guard. "Perhaps you'd like to lie down for just a moment."

"Yes, please do," the young woman joined in, taking his half-empty cup and saucer. "I think you'll find these couches quite comfortable, and I'll fetch you a pillow. It will help you to rest your mind."

Joe B. sank into the plush leather and the soft cadence of the woman's voice as well. He unexpectedly felt his body lose its tension, and he started to think of ducklings.

"Whatever your questions for the Big Boss are, they must be very troubling," she continued. "Otherwise you wouldn't have gone to such effort to come here. We try so hard to keep everything running smoothly, but you know in an operation as big as Universal Whirligig, things are bound to go wrong sometimes. Even though the Big Boss couldn't see you tonight, please understand he cares deeply about every one of his employees, and he wants what's best for each one."

Joe B. snapped out of his daydream just long enough to think, "Yeah, right."

"Ha, ha, I remember this one time," the guard chimed in, shaking his head. "I was on night shift, and the Big Boss was working late. I didn't know he was here, so when I found his upper office door unlocked, of course I fastened tight the mechanical deadbolt, with him inside. Well, not only that, but then when I was checking out the stairwell, my key ring slipped off its hook and fell straight down that tiny gap through the flights of steps. I couldn't have done that if I'd tried. I was only a few floors down to fetch them when I got the Big Boss' call on my radio. I tell you, that stairwell is a long piece of business." – Joe B. grimaced – "And those keys fell thirty or forty floors before they kicked onto a landing. It took me two hours to get the Big Boss out of his office. Boy, was he mad, but he didn't say anything. I sure thought I was done for, though.

"Well, I tell you, the next evening I came in, and there was a stack of Key lime pies sitting by the door of my locker. 'Here's an extra set of keys,' a note said. There was enough for all the lads to have a slice, plus an extra to take home to the missus. The Big Boss, he's all right."

Joe B. thought and wondered hard at the story, but he couldn't help but smile a little, too.

"I'm sure you've had a difficult day, sir," the young woman broke in. "Here's a little something, an expression of this office's sympathy, and please do call again if you ever want to contact the Big Boss."

She helped him rise from the couch and handed him a pen-and-picture-frame set made of antique brass, heavily weighted, thick felt on the bottom and the Universal Whirligig logo engraved on the top. Perfect for the well-appointed desk. Joe B.'s shoulders drooped as he gazed at the gift and softly thanked her.

"I do hope the days to come are much easier for you, and any time you'd like to talk again, I'd truly like to see you. You are a very important part of the Universal Whirligig family, and I personally want to make sure you feel welcome at any time." She led him gently toward the door.

"Now, here's a card with a temporary priority PIN, so you can take the elevator all the way down. It's only good once, so I'm afraid you won't be able to come back on the elevator. But if you do come up again, please make sure you tell me how everything is going for you. I really want to know, and I want to do everything I possibly can for you." She looked like she might cry. Joe B. heard the door click shut behind him.

He stood silently for a moment, unsure whether he'd been blessed or blown off. The Big Boss surely was not going to listen to his complaints, but on the other hand, it seemed like he knew them already. The receptionist's rejection was so gracious and sincere, he almost felt good about it. He almost felt like he was right back in his old world.

But as he approached the elevators, and saw his dirty and disheveled reflection in the polished stainless steel doors, he knew he was not.

CHAPTER IV

A week had passed like a lifetime. A new Monday dawned, the sun spilling over the city's horizon like a steamroller. Seconds blinked their alarm upon the clock, warning each minute of its appointment with oblivion.

Joe B. peered into his cup of bargain-brand coffee. "This isn't so bad," he remarked.

His wife literally bit her tongue and made a face.

"I've become a coffee Philistine," his voice broke with angst, and his weak attempt at a smile turned into a grimace.

"You look like a gargoyle," said his wife.

"I gargoyled right after I brushed my teeth," he replied. "Surely things will turn up this week," he speculated to no one in particular.

The morning sent a shooting cascade of envelopes through Joe B.'s fingers, blank flashes of white and brown destined for anonymous offices scattered throughout the building overhead. The afternoon dumped thousands of outgoing envelopes, white and brown, flowing like blood through veins – a hundred lengthy chutes, branching into countless smaller chutes, leading from those same offices. Joe B. sorted as his eyes glazed over.

Never did his mind wander from the atrocity of his predicament.

When the day was done, Joe B. slapped the paper fibers off his hands and gazed at the dry skin of his palms. The reality of the new week had sunk in, with its verdict of a steady stream of flying mail and nothing more. Slowly he trudged up the stairs to the lobby floor and called his wife on the public phone at the reception desk.

"Yeah, hi, it's me," he said. "Yeah. No, no different. I don't know, I just need to take a break. I think I'll go somewhere for awhile before coming home. Sure. No, I'll be careful not to miss the train. No, not too long. I'm not sure. I think maybe I'll go sit for awhile in Saklov & Ashe's. 'Bye."

Joe B. hung up and headed out the door. Saklov & Ashe's was an Irish pub owned by a Russian and a Brit. The barmaid, Elle O'Hara, was true Irish, and while stuck in such an unlikely position, always had insisted she preferred the Russian – Ashe made her pour black and tans. Only two blocks down from the Universal Whirligig multiplex, Saklov & Ashe's offered an after-work toddy for an easy walk, so Joe B. was not surprised to see a handful of Universal Whirligig employees there.

As he made his way toward a barstool, he spied a tell-tale toothpick.

It hung from the mouth of Eli from the office of International Widgetry Integration Dependency Among Indigenous Ecologies. Eli was well-known throughout the Universal Whirligig offices for always having a toothpick in his mouth, dancing between his teeth or upon his tongue. Over the years he'd chewed so many toothpicks, he'd earned the nickname "The Termite."

Eli the Termite sat contemplating a pint at the bar.

Joe B. sat upon the vacant stool beside him.

"Termite," he said flatly.

"B.," came the reply.

Joe B. sat and listened for a moment as "My Way" played in the background. "I used to want that song played at my funeral," he said at length. "Now I'm not sure."

"You'd better decide quick, the rate you're going," Eli said into his pint. The toothpick hung precariously from his lower lip.

"So you've heard?"

"Are you kidding? It's all over the building. You've become the terror of the corporation – the Big Boss' golden boy, sent packing to the basement. There's an email going around about you; I've gotten it three times already. It says, 'It could happen to you! No employee is above discipline. Before you know it, you're fired, so figure it out!' Something like that. Let's face it, any one of us could have taken that sucker punch."

"There's got to be more to it than that," Joe B. replied, nibbling a stale pretzel.

"More to the email? No, that was all."

"No, more to my predicament."

"Oh. You know, I always thought you shouldn't have had your office on the 13th floor. That's just asking for trouble."

"Thirteenth floor? No, that can't have anything to do with it."

"You're not superstitious?"

"No, I don't believe in superstitions – they're bad luck."

"Well, then, perhaps you'd like to share your thoughts on the matter?"

"Oh, I have several thoughts. Believe me, I've had plenty of time to think, particularly in the middle of the night. Things like, 'Why does the Big Boss have to watch us at all?' And, 'Does he want to be respected, or would he rather be feared?' I have no answers. I don't know why I'm left sorting mail. All I do know is, I don't know. I was doing the same quality work as an executive the last year as I did the first twenty. I don't understand why the Big Boss is getting his jollies at my expense." Joe B.'s voice began to rise.

"Shh, keep it down," Eli warned, looking around the room suspiciously. "There's plenty of Universal Whirligiggers here, and you don't know what might get back to the Big Boss. Be careful of what you say!"

"Why? What have I got to lose?"

"You could be terminated." Eli's eyes grew like plates as his voice went Austrian.

"I wish the Big Boss would terminate me, take the decision away from me. That seems to be his M.O. – pull strings you didn't even know were attached."

"You say that now," reasoned Eli, "and maybe it's so. But as long as you're not fired, you at least have the opportunity to work your way back into the Big Boss' good graces. If you work hard, you can earn his favor."

"Earn it? What was I doing before? Do you have any idea how many years it would take to rise to a vice president again? I'm old! Look at me! My hair is in all the wrong places – the shower drain in particular. My joints pop more in the morning than my cereal. I don't have another twenty years for ladder climbing."

"You would be an American success story."

"My American dream has turned into a nightmare. Now I know what a dartboard feels like."

Eli accidentally let his toothpick drop into his beer, and, while he wedged his fingers into the glass to retrieve it, tried to think of something positive to say. He couldn't. "Well, it's tough. How's your family holding up?" he managed at last.

Joe B. calmed down a little. "They're hanging in. The budget cuts haven't been so bad yet, so everyone's being a good soldier. But my Jack Russell terrier is depressed."

Eli snorted. "That's a good one."

"It's true."

"That's what you need, something to take your mind off work. You're down now, but lighten up a little and you'll feel better – try to think of something funny. Go ahead, tell a joke."

"I can't tell jokes."

"Sure you can."

"I'm serious, I always mess jokes up some way."

"Oh, go ahead, try."

"All right! All right – watch out. Okay, there's this chicken. He goes into a store, and he's checking out, and he's buying Chapstick. So he says to the checkout guy, 'Put it on my bill.' "

A slight pause hung in the air. "A chicken?" Eli asked.

"Yeah?"

"A chicken doesn't have a bill. It's got a beak."

"Oh, yeah. The chicken was wearing a baseball cap. Did I mention that?"

"Wow." Eli looked like he'd been hit with a skillet.

"I tried to warn you," Joe B. shrugged. "But you forced me into it – so now how about a little support? You're supposed to laugh anyway."

"I am?"

"Of course. Didn't you know that? If I had a dollar for every courtesy laugh I busted out with, I wouldn't be working in the mailroom – I'd be retired. You're not supposed to leave your mates hanging. I can't count the number of lame jokes I've laughed at without knowing why." Joe B.'s face turned grim.

"It's part of the game, where you play by the rules and hope they don't change along the way," he continued. "So I always supported the good efforts of my colleagues, and tried to counsel others away from causing disaster. And if a project did run into criticism from the Big Boss, I always gave him the benefit of the doubt. I always stood up for his good judgment. Now the shoe is on the other foot – the wrong foot – and it's not comfortable."

"Well, gentle or terrible, the Big Boss had the right to demote you," Eli drained his drink. "His decision to make."

"Yeah, and he made it all right. Now I know what a spittoon feels like," Joe B. said, heavily emphasizing the "toon."

"That's putting yourself down a bit much, don't you think?"

"It's my way. I derive my self-esteem through self-deprecating humor. It's a vicious cycle."

"I'll bet. But that's not going to be very productive. Now this is what I think – what I have to say is plain and simple. There's no great mystery to what's going on here. Now, don't take this the wrong way. I don't want to come down too hard on you, but the fact is, you screwed up."

"Oh, well, thanks for going easy on me."

"You have to realize there's more happening in the Big Boss' world than just your job. He's got no more than a few seconds to ever think about you. From what you say, you must think the whole company revolves around you. You have some kind of Copernican complex."

"A what?"

"You know – when you realize you're not the center of the universe. Wasn't that Copernicus? He discovered the Earth goes around the sun. Didn't he? Or was that Jan Brozek? I always get those two confused."

"Clearly a bi-Polish disorder," Joe B. observed.

"Well, anyway, with your attitude, you were ripe for a fall," said Eli testily. "The Big Boss finally had to put his foot down."

"Yes, and he put it down right on top of me."

"That's right. Sitting up there in your office, building walls out of file cabinets, you thought you were safe. You thought you had it made in your little ivory tower."

"Yes, you're right. I see it now. Even my hummingbirds were fat and happy. Even my bugs were too snug in my rugs. I got what I deserved, all right." Joe B. was just plain unpleasant. There's no other way to put it.

"Make light if you will, but you need to listen to me. You thought you'd figured out how to work the system, but the Big Boss knew what was going on all along. He never lets his employees down when they're doing the right things. He always rewards good work. You've been demoted, so what do you think? Obviously you've done something harmful to Universal Whirligig."

"Don't you suppose I've thought of that? I didn't do anything – it can't be that simple. There has to be more to it than that."

"Of course it's that simple – what else could it be? The Big Boss makes his best employees prosper, and the bad ones end up in the mailroom. You prospered for awhile, but then you did something wrong. Bada bing, bada boom. What you need to concentrate on now is doing better work."

"Sort mail better?" inquired Joe B.

"Do what you have to do. But just as the Big Boss punishes bad work, he rewards good work, and the best employees always rise to the top."

"I have not done any bad work," Joe B. insisted, turning hot again. "I have done the same work I always did, and the one thing I thought that job preformance would protect me from has happened – the Big Boss hates me."

"He doesn't hate you, he only hates your work."

"That's just silly – I am the sum of my work. And how do you know who the Big Boss hates? You've got him all figured out now? What, you have lunch with him on Tuesdays? He calls you in the evening for advice on the coming day? Got him tucked neatly into your little box?" Joe B. spewed.

Elle the barmaid stared, polishing a glass.

"Don't get mad at me just because you don't understand him," Eli retorted. "He's got to watch out for Universal Whirligig. Any bad employee makes the whole company look bad, makes him look bad. Whoo, boy, if you make him look bad, he'll get you. Cross him and he'll make you pay. Do what he wants and he'll keep you happy."

"Now that you've got him fitting inside your head, the Big Boss turns out to be pretty small," Joe B.'s voice turned into a growl. "Does he hide behind doors, waiting to spring out and catch his underlings at something? Petty, superficial – that's our Big Boss all right."

"The problem with you is you can't take friendly advice. You need to listen to me," Eli snarled back.

"Oh, you're doing a bang-up job with your advice! I demote you."

"You don't know what's good for you. I'm trying to help you here."

"You have helped me. You've helped me see that you're an idiot." Joe B. patted him on the shoulder.

"Oh, hardee-har-har. I'll ignore that, because you're upset, and I've had only one beer. This is what you need to do – get the Big Boss' attention and show him you're worthy of his favor. You have to work your way back into his approval. Now, you go back to Universal Whirligig and crank out so much work that you overcome whatever you did that was so terrible. Do everything you can to gain his notice, then send him gifts and good wishes to win him over. You're in the mailroom now – start by sending him a card."

"What?!" Joe B. blurted.

"Sure, it's a natural. Just slip a greeting card into his mail. It's a small start, but it's a good idea! Get back on the Big Boss' good side! A nice card will soften him up for whatever you think of next. Don't get one too fancy. Send it up to his office, then he'll start watching you doing well again!"

"Now you've officially gone nuts. Do you really think a greeting card is ever going to make it onto the Big Boss' desk? Do you really think it would make any difference? He already sees me. What I needed was for him to ignore me a little more. Maybe you could as well."

"Look, I don't need this aggravation," Eli turned defensive. "I don't have to waste my time with your problems. I'm doing you a favor, and don't you forget it. Some gratitude you're showing! You're in no position to refuse my advice. You should just take it and be happy!" His toothpick shot out of his mouth and twirled past Elle the barmaid. He deftly pulled a new one from his coat pocket.

Joe B. slapped a five-dollar bill upon the bar and stood up. " _You_ don't need this? _I_ don't need _your advice_. You just make me more miserable, you and your stupid suggestions. My advice to you is to get a new hobby! Pickertooth! Peckerwood!" He threw his arm up in the air as he ranted out of the tavern.

"You'll be sorry!" Eli shouted after him. "You'll find out! Do what I say – send a nice card!"

Joe B.'s trip into Saklov & Ashe's had not had its desired effect. Indeed, it left him even more agitated about his sorry circumstances. He stormed down the street, stormed onto his train, stormed into his house. He stormed about so much, by nightfall he was drained. Still, he lay awake in bed next to his lightly slumbering wife, staring by the dim light at the same page of his book for hours. His mind turned about randomly within his skull. He considered going crazy.

Then the phone rang. It was Eli.

"Hey, sorry to call so late. I need to ask you a question. I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No," Joe B. replied coldly. "But thanks for asking. Glad I could help out." And he hung up.

The following mornings sent a shooting cascade of envelopes through Joe B.'s fingers, blank flashes of white and brown destined for anonymous offices scattered throughout the building overhead. The afternoons dumped thousands of outgoing envelopes, white and brown, flowing like blood through veins – a hundred lengthy chutes, branching into countless smaller chutes, leading from those same offices. Each new day dawned like the one before. Each day, that is, until Thursday. On Thursday afternoon Joe B. caught sight of the fullness of his new reality, in the form of his first paycheck as a mailroom employee. He stood and stared at the grim figure, at the meager future it offered.

"I have to get a meeting with the Big Boss," he thought with renewed vigor, or perhaps desperation. Immediately he devised a brilliant plan.

At the end of his shift, Joe B. went to the supply room and signed out a two-wheeled hand truck. "I have a large load to deliver to an upper office," he told the crusty old man behind the window.

"Will you return the truck today?" he asked.

"Yes, but it may be late. I'll leave it next to your office door," Joe B. proposed.

"Here's the form," said the man matter-of-factly.

"The form?" Joe B. asked.

"To check it back in. Put the form in this slot," the man indicated a shallow shelf built into the wall next to his window.

"Doesn't the hand truck sitting here indicate it's checked in?"

"Have to do the paperwork. Some vice president decided we have to back everything up with a paper trail. So fill out the form."

"Oh, yeah, that guy," Joe B. muttered.

Just as the time before, Joe B. and his hand truck took the elevator to the highest floor possible. Then he switched to the stairs, carefully lifting the truck behind him over each step. Gradually he made his way to the floor only one level below the Big Boss' office complex. He peeked through the door, making sure no one would spy him out, then entered the hallway and officiously pushed his dolly on an expedition to the snack room.

"I'll get in to see the Big Boss if it kills me," he thought, hoping for the best.

Once in the break room, Joe B. faced a long row of vending machines backed up to the wall. Considering them all carefully, he thought hard about what the Big Boss would most likely want at his disposal – soda, or juice? Chips, or fruit? Sandwiches, or pie? At the far end stood one filled with spinach pizza and freeze-dried sorbet. Joe B. had his target.

With no little difficulty, he lifted the machine just enough to get the hand truck wedged underneath. With a mighty grunt he tipped the snack cornucopia up toward himself and pulled it away from the wall. The electrical cord strained against the wall socket before popping out and dragging along the floor like a 16-gauge tail.

"Give the Big Boss a card!" he scoffed to himself. "I'll give him something he'll really notice!"

Lugging the machine down the hall was one thing, but maneuvering it up a stairwell was something completely else. Joe B. had a full floor still to climb to get to the Big Boss' offices. The break room door itself barely accommodated the machine. The thing must have weighed a ton as Joe B. hefted it up the stairs, one herniated step at a time.

"Lift with the legs, lift with the legs," he chanted to himself, almost wishing he had not slept through all the safety videos he'd sat in front of over the years, but at the same time pretty sure they'd not covered this particular situation. The hand truck wheels slowly mounted the edge of each step before Joe B. stopped to brace himself and rest his back. Then another, then another, thirteen steps in all, and he had made it to the landing halfway to the Big Boss' floor.

Joe B. stood breathing hard, staring up the remaining flight to the door at the top. He tried to stretch the kinks out of his back as he wondered whether to give up. The hulking machine told him he might not be able to haul it all the way up, but he sure wasn't going to take it back down. Again he tilted its weight back on the dolly and moved toward the stairs. How he longed for the elevator, but on the other hand the stairwell provided him cover, as nobody else used the stairs to leave the building. Taking this detour, he was sure not to run across anybody who might wonder what he was up to.

With a final groan Joe B. vaulted the huge box of spinach and sorbet over the top step, almost losing his grip and sending it careening back to the landing. But he recovered in time to pull the hand truck safely away from the precipice, and he paused to catch his breath as well.

After a moment to compose himself, Joe B. peeked through the door. The coast was clear as far as he could tell – he didn't even see a security guard – so as quietly as possible he wormed his load through the narrow opening and into the hall. Slowly he approached the Big Boss' offices, where at least the swinging double doors offered him much easier access.

"I have a delivery for the Big Boss," he said gruffly, crouching behind his leaning tower of pizza.

"We are not aware of any deliveries today," said the same young woman as last time, shuffling through a small stack of papers on her desk.

"They told me to bring this machine up for his personal use – in his office."

"In his upper office?"

"Uh, yeah – "

"That's odd."

"They told me he wants to keep some snacks handy. To serve guests."

"That's what's odd," said the woman, no longer shuffling. "Because that's why he had a full kitchen installed."

"A full kitchen?" Joe B. asked blankly.

"With a chef."

Joe B. mentally slapped himself on the forehead. Of course the Big Boss wouldn't need a snack machine! He could have a five-star restaurant if he wanted one.

"Well, then, I guess – I don't know – why they asked me to – uh – bring this – up here," Joe B.'s voice trailed off as he nervously pointed to his delivery.

"Don't I recognize your voice?"

"Um – I doubt it. I need to take this up to the Big Boss' office." Joe B. thought he could hear himself sweat.

"You won't be able to get it upstairs from here. Why didn't you use the service elevator? It opens directly to the kitchen area."

Joe B. mentally slapped his forehead again, and harder this time – "The service elevator!"

"Of course, you can't get here from there, either. And didn't you really come to see me?"

"Uh – " he offered.

"Sir, nobody really sent you up with that vending machine, did they?"

"I need to see the Big Boss," he croaked.

"Sir, I can't let you see the Big Boss today. You're clearly up here under false pretenses." Her eyes glowered sternly, in a pretty kind of way.

"Well, it's not really a lie if you don't expect anyone to believe it, is it? I mean, you never believed the machine was for the Big Boss, did you?" Joe B. reasoned.

She wasn't buying this argument either. "No, sir, I didn't, and I'm afraid you couldn't see the Big Boss even if I did."

"But you don't realize, I have to talk to the Big Boss! For the sake of my family, I have to see him." Joe B. had set down the machine, and gripped the edge of the young woman's desk with both hands.

"Yes, I remember from the other day. But nobody can just knock on the Big Boss' door and walk in. He decides whom he will see, and sometimes it takes a long time to bring an issue before him. Please be assured, he knows of your request. If he decides to see you, I will let you know personally."

Joe B. knew nothing to do except stare at his vending machine. "What about this thing?"

"We'll take care of the sorbet server," she smiled. "A Building Supervision and Maintenance Department employee will come get it in the morning. You know, one of those men in a green uniform? They pretty much always take care of these things."

Joe B. looked down at his dusty denim coveralls. His forehead flinched.

"Please take this with you," she continued, reaching into a cabinet next to her desk to retrieve a suede-covered notebook stamped with the Universal Whirligig logo. "it's got pockets and pen holders inside, with a nice clip for a large notepad. Until the Big Boss can see you, if he so chooses, let this token remind you that he cares about all his employees. And here, here's a temporary PIN for elevator priority."

Loot in hand, Joe B. turned and exited silently, decidedly more depressed than before. For all his scheming and striving, he was no closer to getting through to the Big Boss. He looked down at the notebook – surely he was the only mailroom worker to have ever received one – and considered its cold solace.

In the lobby he realized he'd forgotten the hand truck.

CHAPTER V

There once passed a day when Joe B., figuratively, kicked the tires. He studied the control panel and breathed deep the leathery newness. He gauged carefully the ample leg room in front and storage in the back. Joe B. even fell into a dreamlike state over factory GPS and satellite radio. He signed the papers with no hesitation. But now the day had come to trade away the family SUV, before it was taken away.

Joe B. pulled the vehicle into Daddy Bill's Showroom, a combination used car lot and service station, whose ads bragged, "We'll sell you a car and give you gas." He gave the stick shift a farewell caress before sliding out; the door shut behind him with a clunk of finality.

The gravel skritched and scratched under his shoes as Joe B. passed rows upon rows of dull sedans and station wagons, windshields resplendent with numbers and exclamation points. Strings of flags fluttered overhead; sunshine blinked between the waving red and blue triangles of plastic, flickering in Joe B.'s eyes as he scanned the questionable bargains spread before him like grave markers. Through the glare he thought he saw a silhouetted figure approach.

Indeed, a huge man, the sun to his back, swaggered toward Joe B. like a grizzled cowboy just finished with months on the range. His form riding against the sky, shoulders broad as a wagon, a 10-gallon belly hanging prominently over his belt – with even steps the man mosied up to this stray customer. Joe B. had heard these beefy chaps didn't horse around, and might stampede him into a sale, or at least saddle him with a lemon. Just one look at this guy was all it took to spur such thoughts.

"Kin I he'p yew today, son?" the man roared in an exaggerated drawl.

"Maybe. I need to make a trade." Joe B. continued to scan the lot in order to avoid eye contact.

"Well, then, I'm the man you want to talk to. I'm Daddy Bill his very own self." The man thrust out a hand that looked like a cleverly carved ham. "You've come to the right place – your first tank of gas is on us, you know. That your vehicle over there?"

"Yeah. Well, about a third of it."

"Now son, that's a nice vehicle over there. Let's get you out of this section here and find you something closer to what you're accustomed to." Daddy Bill started to pull him toward a different part of the lot where the cars gleamed in the morning brightness.

"Well, no, I need to avoid taking a loan," Joe B. said, looking toward his SUV like a lost love.

"Hmmm –" Daddy Bill's face fell. "What you looking for then?"

"I've got a family of five to carry around. Plus I need room to stow a wheelchair. I was thinking maybe this one." Joe B. indicated a nearby station wagon with wood paneling on the sides.

"No, son, you don't want that one," Daddy Bill broke in. "That one done is bust. Come over this way."

"I have to keep the cost down," Joe B. insisted. "I got a pay cut at work, and we're trimming back."

"Sad story, son. Let's see what we got for you."

The two passed through the boat-sized American classics; Joe B. heaved a sigh as they turned toward the minivans.

"This here's a pretty little thing. She's got all the room you need plus a surround sound system. Look at the size of them speakers! Shag carpet throughout the back. I think we can make a deal considering your happenstances – it's a hard economy, and a lot of companies are making adjustments."

"I think I need something more appropriate for young children," Joe B. surveyed the carpeting, scrunching his nose at the funny smell. "I wish it was just the economy. Fact is, I don't know why I was kicked downstairs. The economy doesn't have much impact on Universal Whirligig."

"Oh, Universal Whirligig..." Daddy Bill said in a knowing voice.

"Yeah, we're pretty well known around here." A spark of pride still flew up from Joe B.'s voice as he talked about his company.

"Shore do, and everyone knows your Big Boss, too. He's scattered his works all over this city – made him famous. Just down the street is the library he built. Some folks love him for it, and some folks hate him."

"Same at Universal Whirligig, and it doesn't seem to make a bit of difference to their careers."

"Yes, well, I tell you one thing, I'd hate to have crossed a man like him. If you did something he didn't like, no wonder he cut you down to size."

"I don't know that I did cross him." Joe B. suddenly sounded peeved. "I just got demoted out of the blue. What good is taking me to the woodshed when I don't know why? I just can't believe I deserve this."

"Seems like maybe there is something more going on then," Daddy Bill allowed.

"Believe me, there are people at Universal Whirligig who cut corners, who shortchange the company or play fast and loose with their customers. They don't get demoted – only I do," Joe B. groused.

"Well, at least you've still got a job."

"Sort of. I've tried to adjust, but every time I have to do something like trade in my car, it reminds me I'm working for someone who's drawn a target on my back. And it's gone on for weeks now. I find trusting in the future a hard sell."

"Well, ol' Daddy Bill will make you a bargain that will be a nice, easy sell. Let's just find you a good pre-owned vehicle to make you happy right now. Never mind the future; think about what you can do now. Here we go. Look at this spunky little classic." Daddy Bill approached a VW bus.

"That does not cheer me up."

"Not only does this little darlin' have all the passenger and cargo space you need, but she's a collectible, too."

"So I guess one day when we're through with it I can sell it on eBay?" Joe B. offered facetiously.

"Why do you keep talkin' about the future? Just think about now. You need a car, let's us just concentrate on that."

"Sorry. I can't seem to take my mind off it. I'd have been better off if I'd never been hired. I envy people who just pump gas or flip burgers, who are happy with that and don't have great ambitions. Now all I can really look forward to is just trying to stick out the next few years."

"There you go again! Stop thinking about the future, and focus on what will make you happy today! Your Big Boss will finish with your punishment, and then you'll get a better job. Or maybe you won't. You just can't predict what he might do. But you can get what you came here for. Then we'll both be happy. Now, here's a little beaut with only 180,000 miles on her."

Joe B. noticed they were walking toward something that looked like a box on wheels. "How can some silly possession make me happy?" he wondered aloud. "The very man I most wanted to please is treating me like a red-headed stepchild."

"I tell you son, you just stop that!" blurted Daddy Bill, not sounding quite so cheerful. "Why do you keep talking? Your Big Boss is a crazy man, a crazy man! You say you did nothing, and yet he beats you down! He will do what he wants! Obviously, he has no, what you call, humanity! Now, this here van will meet all your needs. Climb up in there and feel how good it fits!"

"How can you call him crazy? He built Universal Whirligig from scratch."

"Get up in the van, son. Okay, maybe crazy isn't the right word – he's a great businessman, okay? Like my father, the original Daddy Bill, who built this car lot from the ground up. He gave his whole life to make this business a great success, and to pass it along to me. The generation that builds a company loves it more than any other. And I could always tell when he was unhappy – he made sure of that. He could sure make me miserable if he wanted to. A great businessman, but no people skills." Daddy Bill seemed to be staring at something in his mind, and his folksy accent mysteriously faded.

"The Big Boss, or your father?" Joe B. asked.

"Um – yore Big Boss," Daddy Bill's attention snapped back. "Now, what you want is this fine piece of foreign engineering."

"I'm not sure he just wants to make me miserable. But what else could he be thinking?" Joe B. stared at his feet as he followed Daddy Bill absent-mindedly. He suddenly realized he was face-to-face with a car as big as a whale, complete with fins.

"Oh, what's the use?" Joe B. intoned. "I can't make a decision. Now I think no matter what I do, it'll backfire on me. Whatever I drive home, my family will be too afraid to tell me what they think of it, but my friends won't be able to stop laughing at it. Every new turn of events torments me, and it all goes back to the Big Boss. I just wish I could know why he's angry with me."

"Your friends won't make fun of you. Keep your mind on the car. Why, five million Frenchmen drive this car."

Joe B. made an effort to look interested. "It looks like they did," he said, inspecting the sagging undercarriage. "What about those bugs on the windshield? Are they standard, or will they cost me extra?"

"Now, no need to get nasty. Just take your mind off _that car_. I'll find you something."

"Just sell me anything. I can't concentrate. Making any kind of choice is like playing roulette – you pick a number and spin the wheel, then the ball flies out and hits you in the eye. It's like running a marathon over broken glass when your shoelaces are tied together in some tangled Gordian knot. Why's it so tough to get through this life? It shouldn't be so hard to figure out – it's not rocket surgery! It's not concert pianism!"

"Why are you still talking such nonsense?" Daddy Bill broke in. "I can't make head nor tail of what you're saying. 'Pianism?' You know, around here something close to English is speaken – er, spoken. 'Gordianot!' What kind of hifalutin talk is that? Now here's a sweet little sedan –."

"All I'm saying is it's totally arbitrary. Maybe I do deserve to be demoted to the mailroom, but if I do then surely everyone does. My service to the Big Boss maybe wasn't so great, but it was as good as anyone else's. But nobody will take my part before the Big Boss. I can't see him, and nobody else will talk to him for me. I need someone to stand up for me. And until that happens, until I can be either vindicated or told what my misdeeds are, I won't quit! Nobody can make me quit!"

"No, don't quit. How you gonna pay for this vehicle if you quit?"

"If only someone would stand up for me," Joe B. said again.

"What good would that do, anyway? Son, I've heard all about your Big Boss, and he's not the type to listen to anyone. He's the type who thinks he always knows everything that's going on. You made mistakes, boy – at least he thinks you did. That's all that matters. And so you're paying the price. Now, just cast your peepers on this fine Studebaker –." A sign on it read "Make an offer."

"That's just the point – if I made mistakes, I'll never know what they were, because nobody will tell me. Just tell me what they were!"

"You say that over and over! You sound like a broken record!"

"What's that?" Joe B. asked, betrayed by his advanced technological experience.

"Well, back when we had the phonograph" – Joe B. gave Daddy Bill a puzzled look – "Oh, never mind. You just need to get off this constant complaining. You're obviously never going to get any answer out of your Big Boss. Life now is as good for you as it's going to get, so it's better for you to just be afraid of your Big Boss, and not expect anything better from him."

"But I don't want to be afraid of him. I'm stuck in the middle with nowhere else to go. All I can do is hang in there and adjust – I need a cheap car – will you please stop distracting me and sell me a car?"

Daddy Bill gave him a disgusted look, but then the shimmering dollar signs returned to his pupils, and again the two picked their way through the lot. Before long, Joe B. was easing the VW bus out of the drive, nearly jarring the rear bumper loose as he bounced off the curb. The long bench seat stretched out to his right, and before him the dashboard proudly displayed its speedometer and AM radio, complete with five preset buttons. From the floorboard emerged a spindly gearshift, reaching up like a skeletal arm from the grave. As he parked in front of his house, his wife turned silently away from the window and let the pulled drape fall back into place.

"You expect me to drive that thing?" she greeted him.

"I'm afraid so."

"In public?" she displayed her horror.

"Well, that's where most of the streets are."

"This just isn't fair!"

"I know," Joe B. tried to comfort her. "But it suits our needs for now, and we even got some cash back for our SUV. Eventually I'll get to the Big Boss and straighten all this out."

"Your Big Boss!" she replied through taut lips. "May he never die, until I shoot him!"

The afternoon waned, and evening began to draw to a close. As drowsiness began to bring bedtime chores to mind, three-year-old Hope approached Joe B.

"Daddy, what's a hanker-chef?"

"What? I don't know – a cook with a cold? Why do you ask?"

"Mommy says you should take yours and go blow your nose."

"Oh. Well, she's just frustrated. So am I."

The time came to prepare Marie for bed. Profoundly beset by cerebral palsy, she was unable to see to any of her own needs. She had endured and survived a number of complications over her short number of years, nearly dying twice, only to be saved through treatment at a large medical facility. Joe B. and his wife had passed long hours in the center's family care unit, receiving tender care from support staff even as doctors and nurses worked tirelessly to save Marie. She pulled through each time, and now spent her days bound to a wheelchair, signing a few simple words and smiling. Joe B. fed her the fifth small meal of her day, carefully wiping the remains of each tiny mouthful from her chin. Sips of juice dribbled onto her bib, utensils and napkins accidentally flew onto the floor, and gurgles of laughter danced off the walls.

Then it was off to the tub, where Joe B. supported Marie's frail body while his wife bathed her. Next, the kitchen sink, Marie's head propped upon the edge to get her hair washed. Gingerly sudsing and rinsing, then lovingly drying with towel and blower, Joe B. hoisted the delicate bundle into her specialized bed. Her rigid limbs made dressing difficult, but Joe B. had perfected a system that quickly made her cozy warm in her fuzzy flannels.

Two hours spent, he gazed deep into her eyes, wondering about futures past. Thoughts raced through Marie's little brain, never to gain expression. Joe B. studied the sparkle in her bright iris, then watched it fade. A glaze overcame her face, and an alarm blared in Joe B.'s head. She was sinking into a seizure. Her hands gestured blankly, suspended in time, and her body wrenched slightly. Joe B. reached to take her up in his arms, to caress her straining muscles and coo her mind into calm. She twitched again and vomited the whole of her dinner, on Joe B., on her pajamas, her hair, on her sheets. In but a moment she relaxed, relieved but limp after her ordeal, soiled and spent.

And so did the routine begin again. Marie coughed and moaned as she was lowered back into the tub. As Joe B.'s wife took care of Hope and started the laundry, Faith, at eleven years old already a little adult, helped her dad gingerly wash the folds of Marie's ears and the corners of her eyelashes. She picked up extra towels and shampoo as Joe B. carried his gasping daughter back to the kitchen counter to clean her hair a second time. Lying there helpless, Marie's body startled again. A panicked look flooded over her face, and she coughed and gagged with another seizure.

Years of seeing and not understanding boiled up within Faith. Standing by her sister's head, she couldn't take any more. "This just isn't fair!" she cried, and tears spilled out over her cheeks.

Joe B.'s wife, crossing the room, stopped in her tracks.

Little Marie, hardly able to squeak out a single word, reached her contorted hand to Faith's face and wiped at a tear. Plainly she said, "Faith. No."

At last she was clean and calm, and fell into restless sleep after a spare snack of crackers and juice. The family members spread to different parts of the house, each to seek a separate peace. Joe B. arrived in the bathroom, weeping and cursing and praying.

The darkness grew yet more deep, and Faith first crawled into the sanctuary of bed, then later her mother, and finally Joe B. The room filled with heavy blackness and sighing. As he contemplated the invisible ceiling and what lay beyond, and the hole he felt within his heart, no lack of light could hide the redness of Joe B.'s eyes.

"With all the hurt and burdens the world has laid on Marie, still she cares more about Faith's suffering than her own."

"Faith put me to shame tonight," added his wife without turning from her side. Quietly her chest heaved with heartbreak.

"Every time Marie tries to take a step, or signs a word, or smiles, she overcomes all the evil the fall has dumped on her. She wins a battle over everything that's against her, over everything that God hates. She is the mightiest warrior in this family," Joe B. replied. "I can do at least as much."

CHAPTER VI

Time flowed through the seamless days and weeks, leaving Joe B.'s prosperity further behind but bringing him no closer to the day when his full vestment in Universal Whirligig's retirement would set him free – or at least so it seemed to him. He felt stuck in a high-rise purgatory, separated from the life that went before and with no definite future in sight. As events slipped through his fingers, so did the family's savings, try as they might to stretch each ATM withdrawal. Credit cards had suffered an early sacrificial fate, first under the blade of some large scissors, then again on all the family's favorite internet retail sites. But as investments inevitably dwindled, painful cuts remained to be made.

The sun arose that day like any other morning, but there was nothing light about it. A van sat upon the driveway, cargo hold gaping open, waiting to swallow the contents of the grand Victorian house. Joe B. had no choice but to move his family into more affordable housing. With no salary worthy to justify a new mortgage, they would have to settle down in an apartment. The master bedroom would accommodate Marie's equipment, and Joe B. and his wife could squeeze into the small bedroom. Faith and Hope would be thrown together in a loft over the living area.

Packing down a three-story house into a smallish apartment took creative planning, hard decisions and lots of boxes. Many items accumulated over the years, so seemingly precious at the time, received the dreaded tag for sale out in the yard. The book collection was long gone, each volume gradually sold off in attempt to save the homestead, a battle now lost. Fortunately, Universal Whirligig's health insurance paid for Marie's bed, inhaler, physical therapy paraphernalia and wheelchair; but everything that had fallen out of use or could be spared went onto the auction block.

"My lingerie armoire!" bemoaned Joe B.'s wife.

"I know," Joe B. offered her weak support. "It's a beautiful piece, but maybe that will help us get a good price. And we just won't have room for it."

At the sale Joe B. talked the armoire up for a prospective customer: "It's got a genuine veneer finish."

"For real?" she asked.

"Faux real."

"Huh?"

What didn't sell so well was a box of Joe B.'s electronic gadgets. The intervening months since his demotion had turned his technology into anachronisms. Only his pager brought in a decent price, from an antique dealer. But as the family sorted out its belongings, one piece of electronics gave Joe B. a sudden inspiration, and so he set aside the video camera for later use.

One day soon thereafter, Joe B. arrived at work particularly early toting the camera and a suit bag, both of which he stowed away in his locker like a ninja. After a long shift of sorting letters and receiving packages, he shambled back into the locker room and set his brilliant scheme into action. He spent the next fifteen minutes rubbing lotion into his parched hands, a daily exercise that failed to have any effect on the open and bleeding cracks in his skin. Then he peeled off his coveralls in favor of the suit and tie that had waited all day for this moment, and took up his camera.

Well versed now in the ups and downs of the Universal Whirligig building, Joe B. once again confidently rode the elevator to the highest floor he was allowed privileges. Then he yet again mounted the stairs and began working his way to the Big Boss' office suite, official Universal Whirligig notebook tucked under his arm and camera dangling from its shoulder strap. He paced himself evenly, pausing momentarily at each new floor so he wouldn't appear winded when he got to the top. At each step the camera swung back and forth, and Joe B. caught himself silently repeating the mantra:

I will fulfill your kitty wishes

And fill full your kitty dishes,

which he'd heard Hope reciting that morning as she skipped around the cramped kitchen of the new apartment, dancing with the terrified cat.

At the top of the stairwell and out the door to the hallway – tie knotted up and shirt smoothed down – Joe B. met his old nemesis, the security guard. But would he be the grumpy, retributive guard of his first encounter, or the gracious, kind-hearted guard of the second? Joe B. suddenly realized he should have shaved.

"So nice to see you on this floor again, sir," he greeted Joe B.

"Yes. Thank you," Joe B. replied officiously. "I'm here to see the Big Boss." He flashed his notebook as if it meant something.

"Well, sir, you may be able to see his outer secretary, if she's at her desk. You'll find her just beyond those double doors."

"Yes, I know," Joe B. said smugly, savoring the lame private joke with the guard before striding off in a manly way.

The guard rested his hand on his walkie-talkie.

Sure enough, there sat the secretary, behind her desk.

"Hello!" he greeted her like an old friend, trying to sound confident.

"Hello again. This seems to be your time of day for a visit," she returned with a fleeting look at the clock.

"Is that so?" he said, not wanting to let on that he was on the mailroom schedule. "Is the Big Boss in?"

"Um." The secretary cast about some thoughtful if not suspicious glances. "Yes. He's in."

"Well," Joe B. began his calculatedly spontaneous spiel, "I'm here for his interview." He laid his hand on his camera as though he were petting Jack Russell's head. "We're preparing a documentary about Universal Whirligig – its beginnings and development, the role it plays in the world – and of course we have to talk to the Big Boss."

"I have no time set aside for an interview," the secretary was looking through her accursed date book, "which doesn't surprise me, since the Big Boss doesn't do interviews, especially not for television."

"Oh, this isn't for TV," Joe B. tried hard to get her to buy the idea. "We're going to post this online, on SchmoozeTube. It's all about the new media, you know. Great promotion with the younger generation. You know, 58 percent of all youths ages 15 to 37 get at least 79 percent if not more of their information from the Internet or some other source."

"Well, nonetheless," she replied, "there's no interview scheduled."

"I can't imagine why not," Joe B. pretended to study her date book from his upside-down perspective. "My producer promised me he'd set one up for today," he lied.

"Your producer?"

"Certainly. I'd have never come up here if he – uh, she hadn't said it was okay." Joe B. was wide-eyed.

"I'm afraid he or she didn't call me. I surely would have made a note of it on the Big Boss' advisory list. He wants to know every time someone seeks his attention."

"Every time?" Joe B. felt like he had been caught at something.

"Oh, yes. Every time."

"Like last time with me?"

"The time before, too."

"Well," Joe B. swallowed hard, "I do apologize for the mix-up. And I'm sorry for leaving that dolly, too, last time. Thanks for not telling the supply clerk. Anyway, could I talk to the Big Boss anyway? Since I'm here with all my equipment?"

The secretary considered the compact camera hanging from his shoulder. "I'm sorry you had to lug all that up here for no reason, but the Big Boss just doesn't do interviews."

"It wouldn't take very long. I need only ten minutes."

"I'm sorry sir – "

"Five minutes?"

The secretary smiled sweetly and shook her auburn curls. "I'm sorry, the Big Boss won't do an interview. Questions lead to answers that lead to questions. But some things just can't be known."

"What? Are you saying he's afraid of corporate sabotage or something?" Joe B. wasn't sure he bought it.

She smiled again. "No, the Big Boss is hardly afraid. Universal Whirligig is a huge industrial concern, and questions about its operation only go astray. One reporter learns about the hardwood forests we plant, and suddenly Universal Whirligig is a clothes pin factory. Another latches onto our third world power grid and turns us into a maker of twinkle bulbs for Christmas. Both are right, and both are wrong."

"But what if I asked the right questions?" Joe B. put on a face of hard-nosed insight, but found it hard to hide his sarcasm.

"It can't be done. Simple questions tend to reduce the truth down to answers that fit too neatly – conclusions that might fit on a bumper sticker. Universal Whirligig operates on all seven continents, and the Big Boss just has no interest in trying to boil it down into a sound bite."

"Look, I'll do all the research," Joe B. turned anxious. "I'll do the work to make sense of everything. But my report just won't mean anything if people can't know who the Big Boss is."

"Oh, to know the Big Boss! That's different!" the secretary said.

"Yes, thank you, finally! It's different!" Joe B. blurted.

"Yes, understanding the Big Boss is far more elusive than sorting out Universal Whirligig. Some people have known him, but no one I know."

Joe B.'s sudden hopefulness crashed into a mighty fireball, igniting his temper. "Now wait! You're saying I can't understand the Big Boss?! He's that much better than me?"

"Well," the secretary paused calmly, "I'll make no judgment about you, sir, but let me put it this way. Universal Whirligig is a giant complex reaching around the world, and yet it all fits into the Big Boss' mind. He conceived it all and brought it all about. Can a goldfish understand what lies outside its bowl? If I can't grasp all the inner workings of his company – and I can't – then I surely can't understand the man who put it together."

"So you know your place, then – can't ask the Big Boss any tough questions! He can't handle it! Tell me, haven't you ever wanted to at least try?" Facetiousness turned Joe B.'s attitude ugly.

"Oh, yes, and since I see him every now and then, I do get a peek into his world occasionally," she said. "But the more I learn, the more I realize I have left to learn."

"So you won't give me the opportunity to try?"

"Oh, I'd be happy to," she replied brightly. "But the Big Boss doesn't give interviews."

Joe B.'s shoulders sank.

"But here's something, so you don't leave empty-handed," she continued, handing him a camera bag with an embroidered Universal Whirligig logo.

"Man, they think of everything," he thought as he studied the fine leather. The bag was just the right size, and it included lots of pockets for accessories, and Joe B.'s face froze as he suddenly noticed the battery conspicuously missing from his camera.

He turned resignedly to leave and saw his old friend the security guard standing in the doorway, grinning like a grandfather. His insipid expression sparked an impulsive thought in Joe B.'s brain. Much to the guard's surprise, Joe B. abruptly wheeled back toward the office and made a break for the barrier partitioning the office beyond the secretary's desk. Three long strides and he was there, setting his hand atop the rail to vault its height; but the Big Boss had set a high bar, and at the last moment Joe B.'s foot caught its edge. The ceiling seemed to whirl about in his vision, and somehow, in spite of his momentum, he fell back into the reception area. His head hit the floor with a sickening crack.

"Now, sir, I'm shocked at you! That was just silly!" the secretary hovered over him like a spectre, applying first aid.

Joe B.'s eyes slowly cleared. "I suppose the Big Boss will hear about this?" he groaned.

"Oh, yes, he'll know," she replied, tending to him. "I hope your head is not badly injured."

"No, probably not – apparently there's nothing in there to injure," Joe B. concluded.

***

The weeks rolled past like a square wheel. Any remaining hope that he would ever plead his case before the Big Boss drained out of Joe B. His days became a parading procession of mindless sorting, dealing letters out to bigger players, endless decks of cards in a huge game of Pluto Hold 'Em.

Each morning he slogged into work and punched in – though he felt thoroughly punched out – and his hands automatically went to their duties. But his eyes and thoughts wandered across the mailroom to the faces of his fellow workers. How did they end up there? Did anyone share a story similar to his? On the other hand, how many in the mailroom saw their jobs as a godsend, the one thing keeping them from falling destitute? As time droned on, Joe B. became familiar with all those faces, and learned at least a little about the person behind each one.

Summer had arrived, and the sun smiled from its lofty perch, friendly leaves waving as tree branches combed the wind. Flowers graced the land, and birds fowled the skies. The mailroom remained just as dank and dark as ever. Then one day Joe B. noticed a new face, one set atop a tall body, young and slender. Just the hint of soft whiskers graced the face, and eyes not yet dulled by the drudgery of days shone from under a strong brow. The fellow seemed completely familiar with the mailroom from his first day.

According to professional protocol, Joe B. waited the appropriate time before offering a handshake. "Hi, young fella," he grinned. "Name's Joe B."

"Hi, nice to meet you," he said. "You can call me Manny, I guess."

"Glad to have you aboard, so to speak. This a summer job?"

"Yes. I'm a student at the university. Have to make a little money for the fall semester," he smiled sheepishly.

"Well, I suppose this is as good a job as any for that," Joe B. did not try to hide his frankness.

"Are you here just for the summer, too?" Manny asked.

"No, no, I'm here long-term," Joe B. sighed.

"I'm kind of excited about it, I guess," Manny looked around at the equipment, long trails of conveyor belts and overhead tracks, hooks and pulleys. "I know this is all pretty simple technology – it's easy for you guys to take for granted – but it's kind of fascinating. Every gear, every wheel has to turn just right. One break in the system, and the whole process grinds to a halt. A lot of planning put it together, and constant oversight is needed to keep it going." He smiled at Joe B. at the wonder of it all.

"Yep," said Joe B., realizing he had no idea how to make the machinery run – and even then, to understand how something works is a far cry from inventing it. He wasn't even sure where to find the start button.

"And that's just this room," Manny gushed. "I can't wait to learn all about the rest of the operations."

Joe B. stared at the young man like he had antlers growing out of his head. "You're going to have to put some time in before you learn everything about this place," he offered sarcastic analysis. "And even then it might do you no good."

"Oh, I know it'll take awhile. But I have high hopes."

"Well, don't let them get the best of you," Joe B. turned more serious. "I thought I was on the right track here, but then one day I found out my hard work had gotten me nowhere."

"So you've been working in the mailroom a long time?"

"No, not at all. I was demoted here a – seems like a long time ago – but I'd worked for years as an executive."

"Wow, really?" Manny's expression seemed truly concerned.

"Yes, and I don't know why. And I can't find out why. But I do know why I'm frustrated. I can't get any information from anyone, and I can't see the Big Boss at all. I need someone to speak up for me, but I don't know where to turn anymore. Surely there's somebody here. So, anyway, I don't think a kid like you is going to have any luck learning what goes on at this place."

"Yeah, well – I'm sure it's hard for you having to wait and not hearing anything, but I don't think I'll have that much trouble."

"Really?" Joe B.'s sarcasm returned. "You think it's just a hop, skip and jump from the mailroom into the high offices? Do you think the Big Boss is looking for junior executives down here in the basement? I'm telling you, he isn't. I can't get his attention even for a second."

"I know. But that's not so hard for me," Manny replied.

"Oh, really? And why not?"

"Because he's my father."

Joe B. felt his jaw drop and imagined a fly buzzing into his mouth. He gulped anyway.

"Your father?"

"Yeah."

"You're his son?"

"That's the way it works."

Joe B.'s thoughts rattled around in his head. One fell out of his mouth. "Well then why are you stuck in the mailroom? I mean, aren't you going to run this whole place someday? Shouldn't you at least be an intern in a divisional office?"

"Dad says I have to know what it means to work at the company before I can ever take over running it," Manny explained, then smiled. "Have to start at the bottom!"

Joe B. stood in silence for a moment, awkwardly inspecting his hands. "You know," he said softly, "I didn't mean to say anything against your dad. I know he's busy."

"I know. You're frustrated, and I understand that. I'm waiting too. It's never easy when you really want something."

"I just want to talk to him. I just want to know what's going on. There must be some reason for putting me here, but for the life of me I can't think of anything I've done to make the Big Boss unhappy with my work. And I refuse to believe he's just randomly mean."

"I hope you get your answer eventually."

"It's the 'eventually' part that's killing me. The delay is getting too long for me. I'm beginning to see time slipping away," Joe B. looked blankly over the mailroom. "Time is like a caterpillar on a leaf – it chews away and chews away until there's nothing left for it to stand on."

"Yeah, we're all kind of locked into time, but is it really all that important? Should we be its slave?" Manny pondered.

"I think so – I mean, that it's important – what is it you study, anyway? Philosophy?" Joe B. was nonplussed if not annoyed.

"You might say that – kind of the ways people live out their priorities."

"In a way it seems like time is slipping through my fingers, and in a way time's got me by the throat. The days are as long as the years, and vice-versa."

"Now that's philosophical!" Manny said.

"I think of it as more like irony. And irony can hurt when it hits you over the head."

"Well – it is made of iron."

"Seriously, I have a family at home to take care of. I have three daughters whose futures are only going to get more expensive. All the responsibility I took on years ago wasn't based on me working in a mailroom."

"I'm sure things will work out. Dad – the Big Boss always seems to know what's best in the long run."

"Well," Joe B. started slowly, "With all due respect to you as my future boss, if I last that long, that's easy for you to say about your father."

"Yes, I know. But you don't know him like I do."

"No, I don't, and I suppose I never will."

"I can't say. Maybe you will – you're getting to know me now. Can I ask you something? I've been wondering about this."

"What's that?" Joe B. couldn't think of what Manny would want to ask him about the Big Boss.

"When you come across a letter without a bar code, how do you scan it to make an electronic record of its arrival?"

"Oh," Joe B. felt a little crestfallen, as though answering a question about mail was all he was fit for now. "These stamps have a temporary postal bar code," he indicated a line of rubber stamps in a tray just beyond the conveyor belt. "They tell the computer to redirect the letter to that bin over there until its final destination can be determined and a permanent bar code applied."

"See what I mean?" Manny sounded enthused. "That's just fascinating!"

"Well, I guess. It's part of our computerized record-keeping. The envelopes themselves provide the paper backup. That saves filling out an extra form."

"Good idea. The guy who decided that was on the ball."

"Yeah, right."

"It's a good thing you're down here, or I might never have learned that."

"Well, anything I can do to serve," Joe B. replied in a weary voice.

A bell rang, the machinery suddenly clanked into motion, and with a jarring jerk a large canvas basket dumped a pile of letters and small packages onto a carousel separator. As if by magic, mail of different sizes mechanically sorted itself onto a half-dozen conveyors spreading out like fingers. Joe B. locked eyes with the young man, and silently they parted ways, each to his own post.

The foreman wheeled up another huge canvas basket to Joe B. and announced gruffly, "Sort these." Joe B. looked down and saw a great load of completely blank envelopes. In both hands he grasped a sampling of the mail and lobbed his boss a puzzled stare, and time hung in limbo. Without warning an eruption of envelopes shot out of the bin, Joe B. bellowing hoarsely as the gorilla exploded from his pile of fake letters, scattering them into the air, a Halloween mask disguising a fellow mail-sorter. At the top of his lungs the man screamed "happy birthday!" A dozen or more fellow workers piled onto Joe B. and wrestled him to the floor, whooping loudly and slapping his back. Joe B. struggled valiantly against his attacking friends, throwing each one off in turn, until he finally regained his feet, laughing and panting. His eyes caught Manny across the room, smiling broadly.

Not until he got home that evening did he see, with his wife's considerate help, the bar code rubber-stamped upon his forehead.

CHAPTER VII

The happy leaves had waved goodbye and fallen underfoot, and the skies were lead. The days had dwindled to their shortest span. Arriving at and leaving work in the dark did nothing to lighten Joe B.'s outlook.

Halloween had been a horror story of bargain basement candy rejected by tiny ghouls and zombies alike. Thanksgiving dinner paraded by, a pitiful banquet of humble pie, the poor fare a bitter dressing down for Joe B. With things beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Joe B.'s present seemed like no more than foiled plans wrapped in wreathes of smoke, and he was taking a ribbin'. He was fit to be Yule-tied.

The family decided against a tree for the apartment, instead hanging some ornaments on a large potted plant. With their lack of discretionary income, Joe B.'s daughters learned the delight of baking Christmas presents. Faith helped her younger sisters accept the probability of a sparse holiday harvest, but little Hope remained optimistic. Joe B. determined in his head that each one would at least get one thing from her modest wish list.

With this mission in mind, Joe B. left work one dim evening and boarded the train for the south side of town. In the poorer district he hoped to find discount knock-offs of the highly coveted brand names each girl had listed. Perhaps he might even score the real thing from a shady character on the street. Joe B. considered this approach little better than Dumpster-diving, and so he prepared his Self-Contained Under-the-table Buying Apparatus – cash.

Night had fully fallen when he disembarked from the train. As Joe B. walked the sidewalk, with one eye he scanned the names of the stores lining the street and kept another on each careful step and yet another on the people approaching him. Old prejudices colliding with his new frustration made this an onerous job indeed. He tried hard not to make eye contact. In the far distance a silhouette caught his attention, sitting huddled against the dim light of a lamppost, waving its arm and calling out in an indiscernible voice.

As he drew closer, Joe B. could make out the figure of a woman, bundled up against the cold in a rag-tag collection of hats and sweaters. She addressed the passersby in a thick central African accent, looking at each in only a general manner. From this Joe B. ascertained she must be blind.

A young mother leading a little boy by the hand came up from the opposite direction, and the child silently and innocently attached his gaze upon the strange woman.

"Don't stare at the blind woman," the mother said in one of those whispers meant for everyone to hear. "You'll make her feel awkward."

The homeless woman jerked her head toward Joe B. and looked sharply at something just beyond his shoulder. "Files flies!" she yelled hoarsely, and grasped desperately at the air. "Fleas flees, flies files! Files flies through an open window!"

Joe B. thought back to his first day in the mailroom, and the men renovating his office, preparing to throw his file cabinets from the Universal Whirligig building. He wondered how this woman could know about that.

"What did you say?" he stammered.

"Peace of mind, piece of pie – pizza pie won't get you what you want!"

Joe B. remembered his attempt to see the Big Boss with a snack machine. A shiver ran down his spine, as they usually do. He felt sure that something was going on here, or perhaps not. "Who are you?" he squatted down beside the woman.

"My name Zola. Zola from far away land. Lando Calrissian. Buildings high in clouds!"

"Like the Universal Whirligig building? What are you trying to tell me?"

"Cease your foolish talk! You will answer to the man!"

Joe B. wasn't sure what to do with that information. He decided to pursue a more direct approach.

"Did you say something about my files? What do you know about my files?"

"The man see his rivals! Enemies seek high offices! Better to be regular Joe! Cup of joe."

Now Joe B. began to feel creeped out for sure. He stared at the woman as she absent-mindedly picked at one of her ragged, mismatched knit gloves, looking off into the sky. First she refers to his files, and then to his office – and was she calling him by name as well? He couldn't shake the feeling she had something to say to him in spite of being an apparent homeless woman on the street. Still, he had no idea where she was from, and she had no idea where she was now.

"I don't take real good care of my toenails," she stated.

Joe B. was on the verge of giving up and simply walking away when she motioned with both hands for him to come closer.

"I know the man!"

"Who is this man you keep talking about? Do you mean the Big Boss?"

"Grandest man I never met!"

Partially out of curiosity, but also because he wanted to postpone his scavenger-hunt shopping, Joe B. probed further. "How could you mean the Big Boss? You can't possibly know him. So who's 'the man' – do you mean the police? Or society? Who is this man?"

"Enemies of the man get no good! Cross the man, you get no good!"

"I'm not the enemy of anyone. I don't think I've crossed anybody."

"No good! You do no good! Nobody deserve good from the man!"

Joe B. couldn't believe his value to society was being scrutinized by perhaps not the city's most solid citizen. But something about her words arrested his attention – maybe she did mean the Big Boss after all.

"Soft bed, warm house, cardboard box – nobody deserve good from the man," Zola continued. "Stop your foolish talk! The man will hear! Howard?"

Joe B. still had no idea what she was thinking. "The Big Boss has already heard me, I'm sure, though he's got no answer for me. His answer is silence. He's bound to do whatever in the world he wants to do."

"It a short walk from upbeat to beat up. The man come down hard on his enemies! Beware the man!"

"Look, if I thought the Big Boss was my enemy, I wouldn't hope he'll do right by me someday. And I wouldn't bother trying to talk to him."

"The man – he everywhere!"

"You know, that's something that's kind of bothered me – I know he's in the same building with me. We walk the same halls, take the same elevators – sort of – but I never see him. Never once have we crossed paths. I know he's there, he's busy at work all the time, but I have never cast an eye on him even once."

"Infidel! Do not tempt the man! Little you know the wrong you do the man! Panic early and often. Beware! Beware!"

Joe B. caught his breath. "Look, just what do you know about the Big Boss?" he asked without considering whether he might get a lucid answer.

"Everyone a man pass by in life, he pass by a second time. Will he be fooled twice? Beware the second!"

Joe B. didn't know how to take this, but it sounded wise to him, so he went on. "Please, tell me what you know about the Big Boss. I don't care so much anymore about my career. At my age, that opportunity is gone and won't pass my way again. What bothers me most now is how my family has to suffer, and the Big Boss can still change that. My children will barely have any Christmas because of what he's done. Their lives are completely out of control, and there's nothing I can do about it. If you know anything about him, please tell me."

"The man know who in control! Ground control to Major Tom."

This pearl did not sound like wisdom to Joe B., and he nearly got up to go when her words again stopped him.

"Zola tight with the man – the man care for Zola. He no care about record. You get better records, the man like you better. Good records – hit records." Her eyes wandered.

"Are you talking about my files again? Did you find them in the trash or something? My records were perfect!"

"Hush up foolish talk! Shame, shame on you! Zola tell you what the man say! Zola know what the man say."

Once more the woman's peculiar talents changed in Joe B.'s mind from crazy to savant. He was ready to grasp at any straw. "You know what the Big Boss will say? When? Are you saying you see into the future?"

"See the future easy – Zola just look east."

Joe B. rolled his eyes at his own question. "Sure, but what about the Big Boss? What do you think he will say?"

"I know what the man say. Zola know."

Somewhere, a fuse blew. "What?!!" Joe B. spewed.

Zola paused. "Should five percent appear too small, be thankful I don't take it all. The man."

Joe B. fell upon his bum and bowed his head into both hands. "What am I doing here?" he moaned, and wary shoppers rushed home with their treasures. "I'm sitting in the dark on a cold sidewalk, talking to a woman who's completely daft. What has happened to me? I must be a raving lunatic myself."

"You go against the man, you not be so happy for very long. You pay for your wrong sooner than later," Zola offered in encouraging tones.

"Happy? You call this happy? I'm wasting my time here, when I could be wasting my time in some dollar store – you obviously don't know anything about me, or my files, or the Big Boss."

"You the enemy of the man?"

"Oh, shut up. If I were enemies with the Big Boss, I wouldn't care what he has to say. But you can't tell me what that might be, can you?" Joe B. turned downright surly.

"Zola no enemy of the man!"

"Who said you were? You're the one accusing me!"

"No more foolish talk! The man, he come down hard on such words! No foolish talk in Zola's ears! The man send you down, down!"

"I'm afraid all the foolish talk is coming from you, madam."

"The man send you down! My brother – Zola's cousin – someone – back in Zola's homeland, he climb tall tower. Up, up he climb, all the way to the top. Up high, he lean out the window, and the man send him down! Down he fall – _'AAAAAAAA!'_ – tomato! Flat! The man knock him down! Send you down too!"

Joe B. smiled at this. "You think the Big Boss will throw me from the Universal Whirligig building, maybe? I'm afraid that wouldn't solve my problem, or at least my family's problem. As it is, it would have been better if I'd never been hired."

"That the most unheard-of thing Zola ever hear of. Cease your foolish talk! Crazy talk!"

"I guess you could say that. Especially you. For the rest of us, maybe so and maybe not. The Big Boss always seemed kind of mysterious tucked away in his offices, but now his silence feels like a punishment added to demotion. It's worse than never having his favor at all. Now that I work in the mailroom, I feel really far removed from him, but I'm still on his payroll. He's still the boss. But there's no way to get through to him regardless of what my job is. I can't make him talk to me."

Joe B.'s words lurched to a halt, and he wondered why he was explaining himself.

"Fiend! You make your own plans!" Zola went off like dynamite. "Where do you put the border? You serve yourself! Self serve! Soft serve. You plot against Zola! Against the man! The man see you! You will fall hard for your smirking jokes now!"

This outburst took Joe B. by surprise. "Huh?" he quipped.

"You love the taste of wickedness; you chew every bite and swallow it slow! But your food turn sour and poison your belly! The man will take away the wealth you gobble down! You will die at the fangs of vipers! Your deeds will end in nothing gained, when you cheat the poor and take their homes!"

A glazed malevolence rolled across Zola's blank eyes like a fog, and shook Joe B. Her whimsical craziness had taken a turn. What was all this talk about poisonous snakes? And the only one who'd lost a home was him.

"Greedy people want everything, and they never satisfied!" she continued. "When nothing left for you to grab, you be nothing! Once you have everything, despair will strike you down! The man make you swallow his blazing anger! All evildoers wiped out! Listen to what the man say."

"Believe me, lady," Joe B. interrupted angrily. "I've already done the despair thing! I think the Big Boss has already had about all he the revenge can if he's angry at me! He even keeps me around so he can vent his anger on a daily basis. So you see, I'm not being wiped out, I'm being kept alive. And besides, wouldn't you say that only the good die young?"

"Never hesitate to push the hero button," Zola said nonchalantly.

Joe B. didn't try to figure out what this declaration meant, if anything, but he thought it would fit nicely on a billboard. He decided to proceed with caution. "I never wanted to be a hero, and I don't want to die of snake bite. I just want to do the best work at Universal Whirligig I can and retire with some satisfaction. Some will retire as executives, and others just as wage earners, but everyone will eventually retire. It looks right now like I'll be the wage-earner. But where there's a job, there's hope, I guess. At least I've still got that." Zola sat directly down from his nose as he looked at her.

Zola's agitation matched the level of Joe B.'s disdain. "Cease the foolish talk!" she blasted, catching Joe B. by surprise again. "You run from native spears! But arrows of bronze, they kill you, the shiny tips go right through you! You will be trapped in your terror, and what you treasure most you lose in the dark!"

Joe B. had finally had enough. This pitiful woman was obviously blind in more than just her eyes. Her wild imaginations swirled now into a storm of pained spite, and Joe B.'s fascination with her repartee had run thin under her onslaught of bronze arrows. He rose to leave.

As he stepped away down the sidewalk, Zola's voice rang after him. "The man send flames, destroy you in your home! Everyone talk against you! All your possessions they will drag off when the man get angry! This the man say against all evildoers!"

The snow danced in the air, looking like silence, turning the paved ground back into nature. Joe B. shook his head slightly as he turned Zola's accusations over in his mind. He didn't know whether to hate or pity her, or why to hate her at all. Maybe deep down he feared she was right, and for years he'd simply been setting himself up for a fall at Universal Whirligig. Yet another insult added, for a crazy woman to mine this suspicion well-hidden within him. He felt like Elmer Fudd, outsmarted by a rabbit.

"Everyone thinks they have all the answers," he thought as he walked along, back to scanning the store signs but not really reading any of them. "Everyone thinks they know all my problems and have all the solutions. I don't have any answers, so how could any of these numbskulls? The more I hear, and the more I think, the less I know.

"How can these people really believe they know me? How can they pretend to understand the Big Boss? He's not like the rest of us — he doesn't let anyone in on his secrets. They're just plain arrogant, that's all there is to it, trying to fit him into a box. They're all as nuts as that woman – they're all knocked silly bumping their heads on their puny thoughts. What passes as wisdom boils down to nothing more than foolishness. 'Stop that foolish talk!' " he mocked Zola, safely out of earshot.

Joe B. sighed heavily. "If only I could see the Big Boss. But that's not going to happen."

A faint tinkling sound gradually came to Joe B.'s attention as he made his way. He turned a corner and met with a familiar navy blue uniform and red kettle. The young woman ringing the bell smiled warmly at him, and snowflakes lit upon her long lashes. Joe B. stopped in his tracks and watched her graciously thank a child for the quarter carefully donated with a clink. Suddenly he realized that as bad as his life had turned, Zola's was worse, and as little as he understood, she understood even less.

He turned on his heel and marched double-time back to the blind woman, and without speaking pressed twenty dollars into her frazzled glove.

"Stop bogarting the mustard," she said to his general direction.

CHAPTER VIII

The holidays had faded into memory and a new year begun, at least according to whoever that guy was who got to choose New Year's Day. The Chinese might disagree. February crept by in its bitterly cold way, and the calendar reached that extra day that comes around every now and then.

"Daddy, what is a Leap Day?" little Hope had asked that morning at breakfast.

"It's a day for kangaroos. The kangaroos got together long ago and lobbied Congress for a day, and they're a very powerful special interest group. They have Congress in their pocket. They got together with these eleven lords, and they passed a bill. Then they passed a football, and one of them made a leaping catch."

"Dad, you're weird," said Faith as she left the table.

"He's lying, isn't he?" Hope asked.

Work that day was nothing more nor less than another cascade of letters and packages filing by. The conveyor belt churned away, dragging a parade of names and addresses before Joe B.'s bleary gaze. By this point he was able to do his job without thinking, blindly sorting and stamping while replaying last night's basketball game in his head. But suddenly his eyes caught a sight that snapped him out of his daze – an envelope addressed to him. The oddly shaped parcel seemed more stiff than a typical letter. Joe B. felt like a squirrel with a nut, and he didn't know why. Maybe this envelope held something good.

It was a Christmas card. From Universal Whirligig.

"Best Wishes for this Holiday Season."

Joe B. stared at the card until his fellow workers on the line screamed at the backup of mail. He stuffed the wadded message unceremoniously into a pocket and resumed throwing letters as hard as he could into bins. Did Universal Whirligig think only that much of him? A preprinted card sent out as a two-month-old afterthought? Or did the incompetence of his own mailroom delay the card so long? Would that be blamed on him too? At that moment, in his mind, Joe B. gave up.

He bulled into Saklov & Ashe's Tavern and slammed his body onto a stool. Elle O'Hara, the barmaid, cast him a discerning glance. "The usual," he barked.

"What's that?" she said.

"You know, that – that stuff over there."

"All right. Something wrong?"

"Oh, no, nothing couldn't be better." Joe B. sounded so bright and cheery, the guy next to him moved.

"Good, 'cause I don't want any trouble in here tonight. I'd hate to have to throw you through that window," all five-foot-two of Elle replied.

"That would really top everything off," Joe B. groused.

"Now, see, that makes me think something's wrong," and she turned on her mother eyes as she pushed his drink toward him.

"Oh, same old thing. The world is a hard place sometimes."

"Yeah, I know," Elle joined in. "My old priest once told me, 'The more involved you are with the world, the more vulnerable you are to it.' It's hard to escape, though he did – he joined a monastery."

"That's not a bad idea. Do they take kids?"

"I don't think so, unless they're goats. They probably like having goats there," Elle tried to lighten things up.

"Well, apparently I'm a big ol' scapegoat, so maybe I should sign up. The mailroom is probably the best job at a monastery."

"Still working down in the dungeon then?"

"Yes, I'm still there, tossed into a corner like a fat, bald bundle of junk mail myself. There's no end in sight. If I knew what I did wrong, I'd admit to it just to end this. But I don't know what it was, and to be honest, I don't believe I did anything."

"So, perfect in every way?"

Joe B. took some offense at this suggestion. "Of course not. I can't work every day for years and not make some mistakes. I'm sure the Big Boss would have done some things differently in my position. But I shouldn't get demoted for doing my job the way that works best for me."

Elle wiped her hands studiously on her bar towel. "Look, don't get me wrong. I'm on your side. I know I'm young and everything, but hear me out. A lot of people come and go in here, and I listen to all sorts of problems. I've seen you coming in more and more. I overheard you talking with your coworker long ago, and I have to say, he seemed awfully quick to accuse you."

"Eli? Yeah, the Termite. I'm such an outcast now, not even he will hang out with me anymore."

"I've noticed that, too. It's a shame, and his attitude was all wrong, I thought. The problem's simple, so just face it – you could never do your job just the way your Big Boss would. He's a wholly different person. No reason to get away in the head about it."

"To get what?"

"Away in the head – lose your senses. An Irish phrase, it is. But you will go crazy thinking you've got your Big Boss figured out. There's no way you could get inside his mind and serve him perfectly. In the same way, what he does in return is his call, and you may never understand it."

"You got that right. I sure would like to try, though. I miss my old life, when he seemed to like me. I used to know every single transaction that went down in that building, what happened in every office, but I'll never know what happened to me. That's what means most to me – just to know."

"Well, should your Big Boss set up a meeting to explain every particular that he wants from you? Do you make the rules, or does your Big Boss?"

"Who makes the rules around here?" Joe B. rejoined in a snit. "Shouldn't you be getting me another drink?"

Elle frowned at him slightly. "You're not developing a drinking problem, are you?"

"Who, me? Of course not. I don't have a drinking problem." Elle turned her back and clinked some bottles as Joe B. continued. "Now, my dog, he has a drinking problem. We call him Jack the Dripper. What a sloppy drinker! He thinks we have water to burn. But his real problem is on the other end. He's got every square inch of our apartment marked as his territory. He's like a garden hose. When it comes to staking out territory, you might say he has no peer. One day I told him, 'I should call you Frenchy, 'cause you're a peein' dog.' Get it?"

"Very clever," said Elle, setting his glass back within easy reach. "Maybe you should call him Jacque Pierre." Joe B. took it silently.

After a moment Elle rekindled the conversation. "I'll tell you who makes the rules here, since you ask. There's a Russian named Saklov and a Brit named Ashe. Saklov is in every day, checking on inventory, checking on payroll, tinkering with the equipment. Ashe never comes in. Saklov makes sure this place works, serving beverages in a safe way, providing a place to relax and enjoy friends' company. Ashe doesn't care a thing about that – dumb Ashe! – he only cares about the money. Black and tans – what a way to waste the Black Stuff! He does my head in!"

"What?" Joe B.'s face twisted into a question mark.

"Sorry, Irish again. He drives me up the wall. But even with him, there's higher purposes behind this tavern. Saklov and Ashe may have wives and families, or old debts to pay – things that I don't know about. I don't presume to ask. My place here is to just do my job as it develops each day."

"Sure, that's all I ever did," Joe B. drew his finger through the water rings on the bar. "I had no secret agenda, and I tried hard not to break any policy. Listen, from day one I never worked simply for promotion. I was careful not to join in office gossip, I didn't slough around during work hours, I wasn't cruel to my secretaries or anyone else working for me. I didn't throw my accomplishments in other folks' faces, or take pleasure when others struggled. Doing a good job for the Big Boss was always the most important thing to me. I always 'fessed up to my mistakes, and I'd do it all the same way again if I had the chance."

"Well, the Big Boss has your attention now, so maybe you'll learn eventually that you did make some mistake. But even then you may not know what his purpose is – you seem sure you were demoted for some kind of discipline, but maybe it was not about that at all."

"Either way, only the Big Boss can help me, and he's not stepping up to the plate. If he told me what he was up to, I'd tell everyone. I'd climb the spire of the Universal Whirligig building and shout it. I'd sing it to the tune of 'Material Girl.' 'I'm living in a Whirligig world, and I am just a Whirligig girl,' " he sang, snapping his fingers. Two more people moved away.

"Now you sound like a little kid, like a child on a playground. You brought your ball, but the Big Boss won't come out and play. You whistle a tune, but he's not dancing. He's not at your beck and call."

"Yeah, well, whatever. Hit me again."

"What?"

"Get me another drink, wench. And don't talk to me about children."

"Sensitive subject?"

"You can't believe what all this has done to my kids. This culture pushes children into becoming physical adults way before their time, but nobody raises them to be metaphysical adults. For girls, it's all make-up and piercings and fashion before they're teens, but they're married with their own kids before they learn how to make a decision or take responsibility. But my oldest, no, she has the weight of the world on her. She's had to be an adult since Marie was born. Now this financial hardship on her shoulders as well has made her old. Her eyes look tired. She deserves a better childhood – she deserves a childhood."

"She must be amazing."

"Amazing isn't the word for it. She's everything good I see in myself, and my wife."

"Wow. You really love her."

"Well, she's my first, and she turned out great, sometimes in spite of her parents. In a way, we had to learn to be adults too – we sure made some mistakes when she was little. You know, young parents can be insufferable, especially when they exchange child-rearing ideas. We had this attitude that we'd arrived, that finally someone was going to do parenting right. Before long those learned philosophies give way to spanking. We learned quickly enough, and I think she appreciates that. Kids want parents to be parents, not their pals."

"And your younger children, too?"

"Oh, yeah. By the time Hope arrived, we had switched on auto-pilot. Middle-aged parents are just too tired to think everything through. You just go on gut instinct. And Marie took so much of our time. Unfortunately, I sometimes let my job take me away from my fathering duties too much."

"I suppose that's an easy habit to fall into."

"Are you kidding? I didn't fall, I dived in head-first. Sometimes I used to wonder what was up with the guys who just wanted to work till five then go home. Now I'm one of them. I used to pore over my files like they were the most important thing ever – I let them own me."

"Well, do you think that was a good thing?" Elle wiped the bar.

"Sure it was!" Joe B. burst with enthusiasm. "Everyone longs to cuddle with file cabinets! What do you expect me to say? I've almost forgotten about my files now. They're gone and lost forever."

"Okay, stupid question. So you've realized that you were taking your job too seriously. If you're not so obsessive about your work, maybe then you'll see your Big Boss as more than just a way to make your place in the world. Maybe you'll actually get to enjoy your work, and working for him, for its own sake."

"I think I've learned there's no use to sweating over details that in the end mean nothing. I certainly realize my files were a vain work, though I admit it was fun puttering around with them. Alphabetize by the second letter, alphabetize by the third letter! Organize by department, by office and by desk!" Joe B.'s face fairly glowed at the glorious prospect of it all.

Elle stared back blankly.

"All right. I get the point," Joe B. fell back to Earth. "I do see I made too much of those files. But that wasn't the only thing I did at Universal Whirligig. I treated my co-workers just as well. Almost, anyway. You know, there were times when people would come to me for help or counsel, and I always came through for them. If they were in trouble, I'd take up their cause. Kindness and justice were my coat and hat."

"That makes for a nice outfit. Helping your friends was probably the best work you did. The good you did them turned around and became good service to the Big Boss."

"Maybe so, but he's getting along fine without me now. My friends are, too – get a load of this," Joe B. pulled a badly folded piece of paper from a pocket. "I found this printout of an email the other day. Apparently one of my buddies is a poet.

" ' _Joe B. thought his office was cramped_

And said, "My job must be revamped."

So he bribed the Big Boss

With much pizza sauce,

And that's how his buttocks got stamped.'

"Now, first of all they've got the story wrong. I was demoted before the pizza incident. Not only that, but I never complained about my office. It was great! But the main point is, I've become a joke among people I always treated well. They used to know I had the Big Boss' favor, and that gave me credibility. Now that he's turned on me, I'm no more than a subject for bad limericks. I want another drink."

"Steady on. After such an exemplary life, now is no time to look for answers in foolish behavior," Elle said. "I've seen a few drunks in my time, and they only get thrown out and show up again later even drunker." She looked sternly at him as she set down another glass.

"That's none of your bees wax," Joe B. retorted, and wobbled a little.

"Have it your way, then."

"I think I will."

An awkward silence fell over the bar. "The Good, the Band and the Ugly" played on the jukebox. Elle shook her head slightly.

"You guys have some sort of meeting every month, don't you?" she asked as if just making small talk.

"Every first Tuesday of the month. I almost went once."

"It's a big deal?"

"Oh, to meet with the Big Boss, that's so far out of reach for regular Universal Whirligig workers, it's beyond a big deal. It's like you've died and gone to Heaven. Some of the other vice presidents used to tell me that's their only real career goal. No promotion, no awards, just to go to that meeting, just once."

"That's remarkable."

"I know. That's why I remarked on it."

"So a bunch of people meet with the Big Boss and tell him what they want?"

"Well, not really. There are ways to fill the needs of your department without directly involving the Big Boss." Joe B. thought for a moment. "I suppose you could bring up a particular request directly to him at the meeting, but only if you were really arrogant."

"Oh. Only arrogant people ask the Big Boss for stuff?"

"Well, yeah, I mean, there are channels. Who's going to stand up to the Big Boss and demand more paper clips or something?"

"I don't know. Who would do that?"

"Okay. I give." Joe B. played pointy-finger with the ice in his drink. "I've given up on ever talking to him anyway."

"But even if someone did, your Big Boss wouldn't necessarily give them what they wanted, would he? So it's really no surprise he's not taking up your requests to meet with him, either."

"I guess not."

"Probably just as well," Elle polished a glass with gusto. "Who knows what might come out of such a meeting? You might say something you regret later, or force him into a drastic decision. Catch yourself on."

"Colorful Irish idiom again?"

"Aye, and a darn good one – it means wise up. Be careful what you wish for. If it is his desire to have mercy on you, then that's what he'll do. If not, all your reasoning won't change his mind, and might even make him bring down the axe quicker."

"I suppose."

"As long as you're not fired, you have a chance at getting your job back. Challenge your Big Boss, and you might push him past his limit. It would be like burning bridges behind you. But as long as you're working for him in some way, even in the mailroom, then you still have a chance to get your old job back."

"Sure, why not?"

"I wish you'd let me get a word in edge-wise," Elle demurred, trying to take the brashness off her monologue. "But it's true, if he fired you, then you'd really be in trouble. You wouldn't have a prayer then."

"I've tried prayer. Nothing seems to be happening."

"Well, keep at it. People at the top can be hard to reach."

"I guess I'm always praying inside my head. I hope that counts. I don't like praying aloud when I'm alone, because sometimes I think I'm just talking to myself. If I'm praying with someone else, then I know I'm not talking to myself, because the other guy would think I was crazy if I were."

"It's a good practice, any way you work it – though it seems the answer you most often get is 'wait.' "

"That is certainly so."

"You can just never tell what the purpose might be." Elle looked like she might be thinking of something else.

"Well," Joe B. was thinking of something else too, but not the same thing. "I don't even know what to want anymore. There was a time when I thought I knew what I wanted, or what I needed. Now I just feel like a fish flopping around in the sand."

"Yes, I know that feeling. But some things you just can't make happen by the force of your will – most things. If you're striving against your Big Boss' plans, you'll only end up in a worse spot than you are in now."

"That may be, but right now it seems to me to be of no account. It certainly doesn't pay to try to earn his approval."

"Well, maybe you can do greater work or lesser work, but that doesn't make you a greater or lesser worker. Maybe that has little to do with being a good employee. Your Big Boss knows what you are, not just what you do. Maybe you should put more consideration to that."

"I sure thought my good work meant security. I guess I was wrong about that."

"But the Big Boss is still keeping you around."

"He must know what's good for the company after all," Joe B. offered lamely.

"Yes, and in good time he'll have you back in your office. And you'll see how gracious he is to you, and how patiently he's dealt with you. An oak tree takes a long time to grow – better to be an oak than a squash."

"Is that yet another old Irish saying?"

"No, I made that one up. But that makes it Irish, begorrah, and it is a saying."

"It makes sense to me only because I'm drunk," Joe B. sputtered and slumped lower over the bar.

"You're what?"

"Well, I feel a little tipsy. I may need a cab to get home, so I'm not stumbling to the train station."

"Tipsy, eh? That's funny."

"Funny? What are you talking about?"

"Funny because you haven't had any alcohol."

"What?!" Joe B. suddenly filled with indignation, and snapped into proper posture.

Elle smiled knowingly. "I've been plying you with molasses all night. Surprising how it mimics the flavor of rum. The first drink was legit – the others are on the house."

"Oh, well, thanks. I guess I'll probably thank you more in the morning." Joe B. collected his coat. "And I suppose you don't need to call me a cab."

"I will if you want me to."

"Well, perhaps – "

"You're a cab."

Joe B. grimaced. "If I weren't so sober, I'd have seen that coming."

"Are you away then? Cheerio!"

***

Joe B. successfully slept off his sorghum hangover, and a new day dawned.

He followed his train route to work by rote, getting off his stops and making transfers without realizing nor knowing. The hours passed with no relief from the mailroom's mechanical tedium. Letters flew past his eyes like cucumbers from a Salad Shooter. Joe B. felt his humanity caught in the gears, ground into hamburger and set sizzling upon a grill. The electronic chime announced five o'clock, and he turned sullenly to register his existence with the time clock.

Before him stood the outer secretary from the Big Boss' office suite, her face locked into a stunned expression. Joe B.'s heart sank.

"I thought I should tell you this face-to-face," she began, her voice unsteady.

"The Big Boss will see you now."

CHAPTER IX

The queasy feeling of a long elevator ride doubled up in Joe B.'s stomach. In his mind he armed himself against the worst accusations he could imagine. Would the Big Boss be a heel and order him to knuckle down and work harder, or perhaps finger him for a tendency to belly-ache around the joint? Whatever Joe B.'s response might be, it would have to have heart if he was going to get ahead.

The elevator car came to a gravity-defying halt, and the doors opened, not to the 40th floor, and not to the top operations floor, but directly to the Big Boss' upper offices.

"This is the end of the line for me," said the secretary. "Michaela will take care of you from here." She motioned toward a somewhat older but pleasant-looking woman behind a long, gently curving counter.

Joe B. stepped tentatively into the foyer. The ends of the long reception desk reached around like arms embracing him, and the lady smiled. "The Big Boss is waiting for you. Please come around this way," and Michaela opened a door cleverly concealed within her counter.

Spreading out before him lay an office the full width and depth of the Universal Whirligig building. Lush, delicately designed Oriental rugs stretched grandly across the floor, revealing only at the edges the gleaming green marble underneath. Joe B. could hear the fibers crunch beneath his shoes as he timidly strode across the vast expanse. Great plates of glass to each side served as walls, providing an uninterrupted vista of clouds and stars and other denizens of the blue sky. This day a dark storm roiled in the turbulent heavens, safely held at bay. The ceiling featured heavy Elizabethan paneling, and the back wall as well. Dozens of portraits lined that wall, lovingly framed pictures of former Universal Whirligig associates, having finished their tenure well and now being well remembered.

Plush leather chairs formed a broad horseshoe shape in the middle of the room, the lucky ends pointing toward the back wall. Each had its own table large enough for a saucer and a small plate, with a built-in computer touch screen. Overhead hung a grand chandelier, hundreds of dangling crystals shooting flashes of brilliant light in every direction. Circles of spotlights surrounded the chandelier like rings radiating from a stone cast into still water, filling the office with brightness so that no room remained for a shadow.

Stretching past the ends of the horseshoe stood a number of tables, each bearing up under neat stacks of papers and a collection of cryptic electronic gizmos. Behind the tables and against the wall stood an equal length of fresh- and salt-water tanks, fish floating languidly among the coral and anemones. The tanks in turn were flanked by tall potted palms, cacti and succulents, and by statuary of classical personages. Socrates seemed in conversation with David, as Confucius made a point to Chaucer. But the centerpiece of the whole arrangement was a small, simple desk, battered by decades of use, and behind it stood the Big Boss, who had labored at it all these many years.

"Sir?" Michaela asked. "The Mr. Joe B. you sent for."

The Big Boss looked up benignly. "Yes, thank you. Did you have a question for me, Mr. Joe B.?"

Joe B. squeezed out a "Yes, sir" past his heart, firmly wedged within his throat.

"My son mentioned you to me," the Big Boss continued. "He called you a man not afraid of the truth. I'm fond of the truth myself. So let's hear it – what can you tell me?"

Joe B. hadn't expected this. "Well, yes – sir – " he began deliberately. "I once worked as one of your vice presidents, but you sent for me today from the mailroom. You put me in the mailroom. If that's what you're going to do to me, then I wish you'd never hired me. If I'd never had a career, I could have been content being a schlub somewhere. But under you I learned to love prosperity. As one of your vice presidents, I rose in your company steadily and never once received any kind of discipline. I excelled at every assignment given to me, but I never let success make me lazy. I always gave you my best effort. I realize now that I can't buy your favor, but I know as well you are not against me, or you wouldn't be seeing me now. So why do you treat me this way? Tell me now how I offended you, while others cheat you. Why do you set out to ruin me?" Joe B. swallowed hard.

"Is there anything more? I can take it."

Joe B. looked at his hands, a parched mess. "Well – sir – I don't know what I did to deserve this – I suppose you could pick out something. But I don't live in a vacuum. My family suffers along with me – my children can't understand what's happened to their world. They can't figure out why their dad stays loyal to a man their mom is furious at. My marriage is just barely hanging on. My old friends shun me. My life has crashed and burned, and I have lost all hope of a better future! I have no future to offer my kids, and you don't seem to care! Universal Whirligig surely is your company, and you can do with it as you wish. But that also means that you did this to me, and you alone! And all I ask is, why? I just can't understand." His voice shook as he laid the remainder of his life on the table.

The Big Boss considered the words. "You did do something – you have been a good and loyal associate. So you became a target in the eyes of some. How long have you been with Universal Whirligig, Joe B.?" he said after a moment.

"More than twenty-two years, sir." Joe B.'s chest pounded.

"Yes, I know. That is a long time. But I've been here longer, and Universal Whirligig has been within me since the very beginning. I believe the idea of it was mine from as far back as I can remember. Even as a boy, I put into motion the work that has made Universal Whirligig what it is, starting in my father's garage. As a teen-ager, I lugged around a huge sample case door-to-door, trying to find retail clients. I spent hours looking up contract law as I developed markets with large outlets. I'd stay up designing new innovations early into the morning, then it was right back to selling the next day. Every extra penny I earned went right back into the company, and I ate nothing but ramen noodles as I prepared a job for you.

"The first man I ever hired was a salesman out of work for three months. Hard times had taught him a lot. While he took over the selling, I turned my attention to creating new products and building markets. He became just as dedicated to my plans as I was. There was nothing I held more dear than his simple friendship. There's his picture, there at the top. He gave me someone to walk with.

"I saw that everything I had accomplished was good. Still, I pored over every step of new development. Our expansion out of state I postponed until everything was in place for overnight distribution. Seven deadlines passed before coast-to-coast service started up, as I made sure no customer might fail to get a delivery. The day I signed our first international contract, dancing filled the halls back in our old rented warehouse. But that day came only after three years of ironing out every detail."

The Big Boss picked up a toy steam shovel from his desk for a moment. It had a "UW" decal on its side. "Of course, we couldn't stay in that warehouse. Do you remember when this building went up?"

"No, sir, that was before my time."

"Yes, I know. Everything the company owned, I turned into collateral to finance this building. Those were lean times for our cash flow, and some associates had to go on hiatus, but I never let anyone go. Many gave up present comforts for promises of a better future. I knew the grade of steel in every girder used in this construction, and the type of concrete poured. I knew the strength of the reinforcement, and the weight of the glass. I knew the temperature used to fire the brick. Not a single detail escaped my attention. Even the mailroom apparatus you toil at, Joe B., I designed specifically for our purposes.

"Nobody begins a project without counting the cost, if he is wise. In my case, the cost included taking ownership of these decisions, and that continues to be my debt to Universal Whirligig. I weigh what I have to take from one division in order to add to another. What foregone alternative is an equitable price for any particular choice? What are the long-term ramifications of making any change, or not making it? What mix of the human element works best within a specific work environment? I never stop thinking about these issues.

"As Universal Whirligig grew into a global concern, certain divisions moved into markets where the competition was fierce, if not unfriendly. We could easily have driven these competitors into the ground, or swallowed them up. But how would aggressive takeovers affect our standing in those business communities? What reputation would we then have with their customer bases? Instead, I studied each culture and found a way to bring these competitors into partnership.

"Our expansion continues, and divisions spin and turn, revolving around each other in a system of inter-connected activity. The needs of one division will affect a dozen others down the line. Each division's strengths must be matched with the weaknesses of others in order to make a whole corporation. I alone can weigh which options best serve the company. At some point, everyone who works for me will think he's been short-changed, but in the end the benefit of working as one body will be obvious to everybody."

Joe B. spoke. "Certainly you've accomplished great things, sir. But why must it mean nothing but suffering for me?"

"A great man does not show his strength with terror, but with gentleness. Have you heard of Bethsaida Waters, Joe B.?"

"Why, yes – we get most of my daughter's medical care through that center," Joe B. stammered.

"Yes, Bethsaida Waters Center for the Treatment and Prevention of Profound Birth Defects. You'll have to forgive me – I like long titles. Bethsaida Waters has ministered to hundreds of thousands of children, treating both body and soul, on every point of the globe. The center is in constant contact with hospitals worldwide, seeking out the broken and crippled who might be served. Bethsaida Waters is fully funded by Universal Whirligig, as is the medical school that pours doctors and nurses into the center, as are the companies that develop and build the medical equipment. So Universal Whirligig is not just about the selling of widgets and gadgetry, nor the keeping of files. In a way the firm is beside the point, just a means to an end, a greater good. And Bethsaida Waters is just the tip of the iceberg."

Joe B. didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything, and thought only of Marie.

"So you see, you do speak rightly about me, Joe B. – I am in charge here. I am the final authority, and every move is my responsibility. But where do you go from there? Should I share each decision, each strategy with every employee? Am I constrained to seek counsel from each associate who will be affected by the choices before me? Do I halt operations as I call every office across the globe before making a decision I know has to be made? Do you get advice from your mail carrier before choosing a mailbox? Do you explain to your grocer why you pick up a loaf of bread at another store? What do you say, Joe B.? Will you do what you ask of me? Or am I just a doddering old man, prattling on about the old days? Can you take my decisions from me, and guide Universal Whirligig yourself?"

"You know, sir," was all Joe B. could offer.

"You are full of questions, Joe B., but you received only foolish answers."

"Yes, sir, that is so. Even Eli who works for you said some things that just didn't ring true. Please don't hold it against him. He doesn't understand that he doesn't understand," Joe B. said.

"You speak rightly, that he doesn't understand, and to say the same about yourself – though perhaps you can counsel Eli now. You can't know what it is to be me, and I daresay, you never will. But, you now have a greater appreciation of me than you had before, when I made you prosper. I do not limit my judgments to only reacting to the behavior of people around me. But as well, you are more to me than whatever work you do. In truth, your relationship with me never changed, only your circumstances did."

The Big Boss turned his attention to something on his desk. "You are full of questions indeed, but I'm afraid upper management decision-making must remain confidential. You have waited a long time to receive a right answer, but you will not know one until a day comes when you are promoted. A man's depth is not found in spilling out all his thoughts, but in allowing others to search them out.

"However, I think we can rectify some of the things you do know. In your absence, the paper backup records have fallen into disarray. I can think of no one I can better trust to make this situation right than you. Unfortunately, your former office has undergone some changes and is no longer sufficient to your needs. I think you'll like your new suite somewhat higher up – shall we say floor 50 or so?"

Joe B. stared.

"I believe there's a matter of some back pay as well. I'll have my outer secretary take care of that. I think she's taken a liking to you. As you know now, I am well aware of your daughter. We've looked into the special needs she has in terms of living quarters and home therapy, and I'm sure we can help line you up with an appropriate house. Your case has led me to alter the health coverage for Universal Whirligig associates, so experimental treatments should be more available. I've also arranged for the world's leading specialist in cerebral palsy to move her practice to Bethsaida Waters, so we'll set up an appointment for Marie. I hope you will find that acceptable.

"I will let you in on something, not because you need to know, but because I want you to know. Your demotion was based on lies, which comes as no surprise to me. But you saw it through. I put my trust in you, and knew you would not fail. There are those who have accused you, who now will have to take responsibility for their boasting. Some people know what's right but refuse to believe it. They can't be told – they have to be shown; I'll deal with her in due time. But for now, Joe B., thank you – you've helped me today."

"But what about – I still can't understand," Joe B. said in a small voice.

" 'Can't' is the right word. You work at an appointed time and place, and I trusted you to arrive at this moment. I am what I am. The fullness of my thinking I keep to myself." The Big Boss paused. "Will there be anything else?" He had a patient expression that meant the interview had reached its end.

Joe B. kind of rattled and managed a "no" and a "thank you" before turning to walk back toward the entrance of the upper office. As he passed Michaela's desk, he overheard the Big Boss' voice instructing her over the speaker phone, "Send Luci Fernandez up to see me."

***

Joe B. rebuilt his home and his career at Universal Whirligig, and he kept the old VW bus, just to help him remember. He gathered his wife and children around him, and they all lived to a great old age, joyful and content, except Marie, who remained happy and comfortable but never improved, until one night when she triumphed over all things and sweetly slipped into the lap of a loving God, abundant with room for playing and dancing and singing.

###

After earning bachelor's and graduate degrees at the University of Missouri, Craig Davis toiled for 20 years at newspapers, and has spent a lifetime in biblical scholarship. He has also authored "Feallengod: The Conflict in the Heavenlies" and "Wars of the Aoten." An amateur musician, he was once wrestled to the ground by a set of bagpipes. To keep up with The Job and other works by Craig, please join our Facebook page at  http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Job-Based-on-a-True-Story/104805546240239. Also, please visit http://www.StCelibart.com.
