In a time before there were alleged weapons of mass destruction, anthrax, Katrina, 9/11, before presidents read children’s stories such as “My Pet Goat” while the country was under attack, resumption of nuclear weapons testing. Before the maddening proliferation of private discourse in public, before bird flu, tsunamis, Kim Jong il, and obesity epidemics and tea-parties, this story chronicles a short period in the life of Peter Caisson, a worker in the corporate cubicle mines, a white-collar gulag, (a veritable bleaching of America), when life seemed superficially prosperous and promising, yet at the same time thinly concealing a dark undercurrent of delusion, arrogance, and rapacity. A tale of the 90s.
Prescripts:
“The 80-hour man sizzles…”
--From Juliet Schorr’s The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, quoting a corporate recruiter.
“Karoshi” in Japan.
“Death from too much work is so commonplace in Japan that there is a word for it -- karoshi. There is a national karoshi hotline, a karoshi self-help book and a law that funnels money to the widow and children of a salaryman (it's almost always a man) who works himself into an early karoshi for the good of his company.”
--The Washington Post, July 13, 2008
“People are going to have so much leisure time, that one of society's biggest challenges will be figuring out how to keep citizens occupied.”
--A popular magazine from the 1950s predicting life in the 21st century.
“idle hands are the devil’s workshop” (proverb)
“With a very few exceptions, the world of jobs is characterized by stifling boredom, grinding tedium, poverty, petty jealousies, sexual harassment, loneliness, deranged co-workers, bullying bosses, seething resentment, illness, exploitation, stress, helplessness, hellish commutes, humiliation, depression, appalling ethics, physical fatigue and mental exhaustion.”
--From How to be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson.
Almost 20,000 words; outlined to the conclusion.
168 Hours: a Tale of the 90s
by
Joseph A. Domino
1 SATURDAY…
Peter Caisson watched the runway and Newark airport fall away as the Continental flight soared out over the Atlantic, beginning its course south toward Florida. Pete Jr., angrily sulking in the aisle seat, alternated between fierce glares at his father and a pensive study of the Game Boy he clutched. Marilyn, Peter's wife, stared straight ahead at the seat in front of her, seemingly oblivious to the roar of the jet engines. Peter considered the peculiarity of how his son actually got along better with his mother than he did with him. She was often distant with her son and that seemed to keep the peace between them.
If he examined the relationship, he found it odd, so rather than probe their passionless compatibility, he concentrated solely on the surface of their life together. Often void of emotion, of strong feelings on a subject within or without the marriage, Marilyn at times seemed "just there". Dependable, occasionally working outside the home, dealing with Pete's fiery outbursts in an even, if uninspired manner. She often approached sex the same way, but was sympathetic in a distant kind of way when he began having difficulty in bed. Marilyn reassured him that it was a passing thing, after all they were approaching middle-age, the job stress. Nothing unusual. When the passing thing persisted for months, Peter withdrew from any discussion, and Marilyn failed to broach the subject. He wanted her to confront him, but he didn't know how to get her to do it. Peter met her during his first two years at AT&T, when she had been in Marketing. They dated for over a year, when the subject of marriage arose spontaneously. Peter, still smarting from the emptiness of his lost first marriage with Alice, wanted to jump at any chance to avoid going home to an empty apartment.
Now, Alice had been a different story altogether. Beset by the lure of various social causes, ranging from helping homeless children to protecting the environment, Alice wanted to move her "stagnating career", as she referred to it in a local government office to Washington. With an opportunity pending at AT&T, Peter wouldn't hear of it. They would sit up all night and argue while sharing a bottle of Vodka. Some of those arguments even concluded in ferocious lovemaking, scenes Peter still played over in his mind even to the present day. The marriage lasted two years; she hadn't threatened for support, but the lawyer she retained had talked her into it. She never remarried, continuing to devote herself to correcting society's ills. It was the spark he missed, and sometimes even the arguments.
Newark airport completely disappeared from sight and only a fleeting glimpse of the Jersey shoreline remained. Within moments the plane was engulfed in the blankness of puffy clouds. As the engines droned and the landing gear retracted with a rumble, Peter took a deep breath, hoping to dispel the doubts, which consumed him.
Peter waited until Pete had put his earphones on before turning to Marilyn. "I just hope we're doing the right thing."
Marilyn turned and smiled absent-mindedly with a half-hearted reassuring pat on the knee. "Maybe the change will do us all good."
Damning with faint praise? Pete had been understandably upset about leaving his friends and even school, of which he had been none too fond. Peter hoped to have sold the house and lock in the job offer before summer vacation ended, so Pete could have a "clean" break and start school the in mid-August. But no, here it was the first weekend in October. Poor kid, he lamented; there seemed to be no way to make it up to him.
Paragon Technologies, he murmured, somewhat unsettled about how little he knew about the company. He interviewed electronically through a video conferencing link. Peter waited weeks for the offer, exhausting all local possibilities for employment. As a technical writer in the computer industry, he had worked for AT&T for 16 years and had avoided the many rounds of layoffs for some time, but his luck finally ran out. Over the course of many years, AT&T had jettisoned thousands of workers equaling the populations of small towns. Where would all those displaced people go? He had been priced out of the local job market and, at the age of 44, didn't look forward to the prospect of becoming a floor clerk in some Wal-mart.
It had been early June, right after Marilyn's family reunion over Memorial Day weekend. Rumors had persisted for weeks, but mysteriously subsided just before the holiday, an eerie calm settling over the embattled office. He walked in the Tuesday following the long weekend, a little late for him, just before eight a.m. Peter liked to arrive early and fool around with his novel writing on the computer in his cramped windowless office, although of late, without creative juices flowing, he surfed the net, more and more frequently drawn to pornographic sites. He had been trying to get a second novel off the ground for months, but family and job encroached on more of his spare time and he spent his increasing idle moments passively, attracted to impossible sex offerings. After many years of unsuccessful publication attempts, his first novel lay in a spare room closet collecting dust. With a master's degree in the amorphous-sounding Humanities, with a concentration in literature, he had kind of fallen into his technical writing career when a fledgling computer company ran an ad for a "documentation person" who had good English skills. He thought about continuing on in graduate school, but Alice had kind of sidetracked him; he felt he owed her some kind of commitment, so he opted for the practical course....
The office seemed consumed in an unusual bustle for the early hour. Co-workers strode up and down the aisles, speaking in hushed whispers. Lights in the larger managerial offices were on, the conference rooms abuzz with secretaries and administrative assistants. Had he missed something? Before he could get his coffee, the intercom blared an announcement that at nine a.m. all members of the Telephony Research Department were to report to the main conference room. Uh-oh, sighed Peter, tempering his alarm by rationalizing that previously layoffs always came on Friday.
The number of new products for Peter to document had continued to dwindle for some time. In fact, his manual on software protocols for field support personnel was just about finished with no new assignments in sight. A sure sign, or was it? Peter had been floating his resume for some time. The ads were sparse, professional placement agencies all reacted uniformly: "You're making that much, huh? Solid background, but you're overpriced. We might be able to get you a lateral if you go into Manhattan, but even then...."
Twenty-five programmers, analysts, and project managers crowded into the conference room, hushed and tense like rush-hour commuters on a subway. The Vice-President entered somberly, fidgeting with a stack of envelopes in his left hand, about twenty-five of them Peter estimated. The envelopes were thin and Peter believed he saw colored paper inside. Pink?
A senior programmer spoke up. "This is it, isn't it John?" Peter recalled many of the programmers playing computer games when they had run out of work.
John Delrasio, fifty, and now visibly shaken, running trembling fingers through his thinning hair, looked like he wanted to sit down, although there were no empty seats.
He nodded, struggling with the words. "I got one, too," he mumbled, holding up the envelopes." Now, their status confirmed, a few groans were uttered, but mostly dead silence swallowed the conference room. "Before you ask, no options exist at this time for reassignment to other divisions. Our projects are being reassigned to an outside consulting group."
"What?" piped out a voice, "to those Pakistanis who write code for ten bucks an hour?"
Delrasio wanted to ignore the comment, but he nodded in agreement. "There are severance checks in these envelopes, but they are not as generous as with past downsizing, uh, layoffs."
Sure, thought Peter, while the VP had a job, it was downsizing and now that it happened to him, he called a spade a spade.
"Six weeks full pay and ninety days medical coverage."
More groans. "Jesus, last time they got twelve weeks."
"I know and probably those who go after us will get even less."
Peter felt his heart thumping against his rib cage. His feet tingled as he ambled down the stark hallway, blazing now with florescent lights. Everyone ignored him. He had expected at least token handshakes and best wishes, but everyone behaved as though in a trance. By the time he returned to his office, two large empty boxes had been placed on his desk, almost like coffins, beckoning the condemned to climb in and close the lids. When Pete and Marilyn found him home at four p.m., right after school, he was sitting in his recliner with the cat in his lap, staring vacantly.
"You'll find something," Marilyn offered.
Pete, genuinely confused, wondered now about the new computer his father had promised.
The next day, Peter contacted the employment agency and his assigned representative offered hollow condolences, adding that no one was safe these days.
"But have you got anything?"
"As I said, the market is sluggish. You'd have to take a substantial pay cut. Even Manhattan doesn't look that good right now. Let me check a few leads and I'll call you back in an hour."
The rep called back the next day. "Have you given any thought to relocating, you know out-of-state? It's going to be rough carrying that mortgage."
"Don't I know it." Out-of-state. Was he up to it? How would the family react? They had no real close friends. Marilyn's family was in Pennsylvania anyway and he had no living relatives. Pete was nearly done with school. Actually the timing for such an undertaking was pretty good. "What have you got?"
"Florida. Boca Raton. High-tech company called Paragon Technologies. They do circuit boards and bundle software. Motherboards, accelerator cards. You've documented hardware." Peter thought yes, but he had been working primarily with software engineers for the past year. Still, he had done it. "I got some details. They have a one-man department there, poor guy probably works eighty hours a week. They seemed to imply this guy was approaching burnout. It's a very aggressive new product schedule."
Peter cringed. Sure, the guy burns out and then I go up in flames eighty hours a week. Working at AT&T hadn't exactly been a nine to five endeavor, but his schedule had normalized to maybe nine or ten hours a day and an occasional Saturday morning and not so much of that in recent months. Of course, it was a generally accepted practice that no one leave at five p.m. An eight-hour day meant you didn't have enough to do.
"Best of all it's an Adobe shop. Framemaker. Your resume says you've been using that for years."
Peter brightened. "Boca Raton. Isn't IBM there?"
"Forget it. They're dumping people there about as fast as AT&T. Paragon's a small company with big plans. Now, understand, comparable salaries are cheaper there, but so is the cost of living. A little. You could get a new house probably for half of what you sell for up here."
"Are they actually interviewing? Is there an open position?"
"Absolutely."
"Should I take a flight down?"
"Not necessary. We'll do it here via video conferencing. It's actually one of their systems. I said it's a high-tech company. Some call the area Silicon Beach. Think of it. You're a few miles away from the beach, boating, fishing. It doesn't get cold."
Peter wondered how those who worked long hours would have time for that kind of recreation. "I don't know anything about Florida."
"Well, it's a place. Semi-tropical climate. Suppose the opportunity was in Arsewipe, North Dakota?"
"You've got a point."
"If they're interested, we can hook you up with a realtor down there. They'll mail you videotapes of homes.”
"Right. That’s convenient."
"See? Your whole life could be set up before you step off the plane."
All too facile, thought Peter. Something airy, insubstantial about it. But his other options bore little if any promise. If he went to work at some local retail chain, there was no way they could keep the house. The agent, growing decidedly impatient, added, "Opportunity comes knocking, you've got to answer the door." Peter formed the image of a knocking at the door and opening it only to find no one there.
He broke the news at home, braced for objections and plaintive counter-arguments, but the reaction was surprisingly non-combative, if not supportive.
"Wow, just a few miles from the beach," said Pete, "babes in bikinis year round." His parents chuckled.
"Maybe we could plant fruit trees in the backyard," offered Marilyn.
"You both realize I have no leads up here. Very dry. What I do as a necessary skill is sort on the periphery of the computer industry. Not exactly vital services. And my age doesn't help matters. They want hungry young lions. Unattached lions who live, breathe, and eat the company seven days a week. I'm a little old for that crap. Sure, they're always hiring at the retail stores, but we'd have to sell the house anyway and move into an apartment. None of us wants that." They nodded in agreement, or was it resignation? Peter couldn't tell for sure.
"Dad, can we get the new computer when we get there?"
They sold the house with relative ease in July with a closing scheduled for August, assuming the offer from Paragon would arrive by then, but a final decision was not soon forthcoming. The closing proceeded with the arrangement that the Caissons would remain in the house for two additional months, sweating out the offer, while assuming the buyer's monthly mortgage payments. Peter knew full well that if the deal fell through, they'd have to move into an apartment and he'd be working six and a half days a week in Wal-mart. The weeks were tense as Marilyn responded to the stress with an assortment of ailments ranging from insomnia to outbreaks of acne and hives. Pete languished in sulky moods, listening to loud rock music in his room, surrounded by half-packed boxes. Peter combated this by jogging daily, managing to lose eight pounds. At first he thought he'd attack his novel with all the free time on his hands, but found his ability to concentrate so diminished, he only felt like watching daytime re-runs.
Peter felt the energy required for his literary enterprise had been diluted by his bland family and work life. Now, tingling with apprehension, he couldn't muster up a decent attention span. Who was he kidding? His first novel, a sci-fi allegory, had been fairly artificially crafted, that is without the benefit of research and experience. That's what an agent had told him after collecting a fee of $200 to "represent" the book for six months and producing not even a nibble of interest. The Altarhan Solution had come solely out of his head. Sure, he had read a lot of sci-fi, but in looking back it seemed he had made little use of it. In The Altarhan Solution, a heavily populated solar system faces the problem of how to deal with capital crimes since execution is forbidden, although the system, with many pioneering settlements, experiences thousands of murders. The offenders seem to just disappear. A man named Qantar, killing in self-defense, is convicted and learns the secret of what happens to the condemned.
He had coerced Marilyn to read a chapter here and there, but she had never digested the finished work in its entirety. The whole process seemed to have taken place in a vacuum. In recent years, the book receded from him like a distant relative who had moved away, hardly remaining in touch. Maybe the Florida move would kickstart him into another undertaking. Of course, he would barely have time for paying bills and mowing the lawn if he were engulfed by the work weeks which had consumed this other tech writer.
After numerous follow-up calls to the agency produced no news, he began to call Paragon weekly, but the Human Resources manager, patient, even lethargic, repeated the same message each time: "Not to worry, Mr. Caisson, they're still very much interested in you. They're still working on the budget."
When Peter explained the problem with moving out of his house, the manager merely repeated, "I understand. Not to worry...." Peter fully expected that, after a few calls, "they'd leave a recording: "If you are Mr. Caisson, please press 2." “If you require assistance, please hang up.”
By early September, he began to look for apartments and to float his resume around again, pretty much giving up on Paragon. Marilyn grew more tense. Pete seemed to brighten at the prospect at not having to leave his friends, although he still ardently maintained that school sucked.
On September 14, he received a registered letter from Paragon, which announced his reporting date of Monday October 3 with a starting salary of $29,000. He blinked at the number. He had been told during the videoconference the position paid in the range of $32-35K. He had made $38K at AT&T. Lower cost of living down there, he reassured himself. Right? Still, he called the placement agency and the agent seemed annoyed with his mild protests.
The employment rep, an eager young man two years out of college, named Chris Reaper, had ushered him into a small, Spartan conference room with a computer. A miniature black camera sat perched on top of the monitor. Reaper called Paragon and, after several minutes, got the Human Resources Manager, Margie Freele, on-line. Peter had heard of these new systems but had never seen one operate.
"The product hasn't been out on the market long," said Reaper confidently. "Their first release is kind of a market test."
"Well, Mr. Caisson," began Margie brightly, "what do you think of the product? It's pretty leading edge stuff, wouldn't you say? We're already working on enhancements." Enhancements? Peter had been around long enough to know that meant fixing the things that didn't work properly first time out. Peter had positioned himself in front of the grainy, occasionally shearing picture on the computer screen and ventured a boldness.
"Hello Margie. What's your market like for this thing?"
Margie didn't expect the question. "Mr. Frank Steadman, Engineering Operations Manager can discuss that with you. He'll be along after I'm finished." Margie went on with the standard questions, concluding with a canned overview of Paragon, sounding like she was reading from the company brochure. "Well, Peter, you sound like what we need down here. I'll get Mr. Steadman."
Frank Steadman, appearing disheveled as though he hadn't gotten much sleep, slumped into the chair in front of the camera. Peter thought he hadn't shaved, but couldn't be sure, considering the picture quality. "Good background, Pete," he said, dispensing with formalities. "Like the samples you sent. Your Adobe Framemaker experience is key. We do a volume business with documentation. Maybe fifty new products a year." Peter wanted to comment. It seemed like an awful lot for a technology company with 150 employees and an engineering department of 12.
"Jack, the other tech writer is excited about the prospects of you joining the team."
"Would it be possible to speak with him?"
"Great idea except he went home a little while ago to catch some shut-eye." It was nine-thirty in the morning. Peter somehow knew that if this Jack were working eighty hours a week, his arrival on the scene would not mean a 40-hour shift for each of them. "Sometimes Jack gets a little off course. So much coming at him at once. We expect the documentation people to be technical; sometimes they have to know more than the engineers. Anyway, Pete, we'll set it up with HR. Margie will be getting the offer out to you if everything else checks out."
"You mean past employment?"
The picture began to break up, but Peter thought he saw someone off camera tugging at Frank's sleeve. Frank seemed to bolt out of the chair. Reaper tried to re-establish the connection, but could not. He called Margie right back and Peter watched him smile and nod mechanically. Reaper glanced over at Peter and gave the thumbs-up sign. All through the interview, he sat off in a corner, making annoying hand gestures of encouragement and reassurance like a sidelines coach.
Peter was certain Margie Freele had stated the salary was in the $32-35K range.
"Considering the entire situation," Reaper had barked impatiently over the phone, "I wouldn't quibble at this point. Go down there and make a splash and the numbers will take care of themselves."
Just as Peter began to leave the conference room, he turned and asked, "Was there a problem with the unit? Maybe the manual has some suggestions."
"Manual?" repeated Reaper. "I don't know if anyone looked at it."
Off in a corner of the room he saw a box with PARAGON printed on the side. The manual, still in its shrink-wrapping, protruded from the top.
Pete exploded when told they were really going, slamming his bedroom door so hard, it came off one of its hinges. Now, what about housing down there? An apartment made the most sense, especially after the "reduced" salary, but after calling the realtor in Boca, decided they would go through with the house they had picked back in July. West Boca. New 3-bedroom house, small lot, two-car garage, $99,500. He would clear $50,000 from the sale of their current home. $50K mortgage, good rate, monthly payments of $489, cheaper the realtor reminded him than renting. Peter confided to himself that he really didn't want to deal with Marilyn and Pete in the close confines of an apartment while adjusting to their new lives.
He mailed a deposit to the realtor who promptly returned the deed and keys. As soon as his lawyer approved the contract, they hired a moving van and they vacated the home they had lived in since Pete Jr. was two. He had vague misgivings about not having seen the house in West Boca, but again the realtor assured him, stating that every square inch of the house was guaranteed for one full year. Structure, appliances, the works. On the eve of moving, Peter chastised himself for not researching their destination any more than what he had been fed by Paragon and the realtor, which was precious little.
Memories flooded him as he stood in the empty house. Just so much space now. He could summon up nothing heartfelt, his emotions stripped from him, his sense of place and purpose out of joint. It all went smoothly. The closing, the moving truck on Wednesday. They stayed three nights in a local motel before boarding the Continental flight out of Newark. He sighed dejectedly when he thought of how they would miss the leaves changing color. He tried to cheer himself up by thinking if things went well, he would buy a boat and take up deep-sea fishing, maybe even diving. Take advantage of the things the area offered. He had read about local boaters diving for lobster right off their own boats. His first wife, Alice, loved the outdoors and the water. There was simply scarce enough common in their inner lives to sustain the marriage. They parted amicably, the fire of their passions inexorably quenched. Rather than a mutually agreed separation, he viewed their parting as something lost he might find again one day. Another vacated space.
His mind drifted back to Marilyn's family reunion. Brothers, cousins, sisters, aunts, uncles appeared to go through the motions of displaying warmth and tenderness, regretting lost years of silence, of distance. For Peter, the gathering was summed up Memorial Day morning by a single image, which had haunted him all summer.
Many of Marilyn's relatives had already left by Monday morning; two cousins lingered, sleeping almost till noon. An uncle of Marilyn's, Uncle Rob, seemed intent on summarizing his glorious thirty-year career as an electrician. Pete watched TV in the sunken recreation room, decorated with rustic touches. Peter and Marilyn formed a captive audience as Uncle Rob droned on. Peter mentioned that he was a technical writer in the computer industry. What? said Uncle Rob, appearing not to comprehend. Marilyn offered no help, so Peter half-heartedly elaborated, "You know, I write the manuals for the products that go inside computers."
"Oh, the manuals, right. Never look at 'em. I can put anything together."
Peter nodded vacantly, admitting to himself that this technical writing thing sometimes felt like working in the dead letter office. As Uncle Rob continued, Peter's rambling thoughts brought him back to earlier that morning when he was one of the first ones up. The big party for the weekend had been yesterday at poolside in the unseasonable heat. Marilyn's Aunt Maddy had hosted the reunion, having lost her husband, who traded bonds in Philadelphia, to a stroke at the age of sixty-one six months ago. Everyone had a good time, although by evening, the stores of jokes and family stories had been exhausted and most guests began speaking in one-syllable expressions and responses. Maddy forged gamely ahead, refreshing drinks and setting out snacks, but by ten p.m. everyone had sacked out.
Sunlight glistened off the pool, making Peter blink as he sipped a gin and tonic. Even Pete seemed to be having a good time—as long as he was in the water, intently studying a second cousin named Cheryl, sixteen and with a swimsuit which left little to the imagination. Like an undercurrent, an insidious background noise, a small portable radio played an oldies station, all kinds of folk songs from the sixties. Peter almost felt ashamed for his nostalgia; his son always made faces when he smiled at the likes of James Taylor and Carole King, the latter a special favorite of his first wife, Alice. He chuckled to himself, recalling every month's alimony check, calling it "AliceMoney". They stayed in touch and from all apparent indications, she never met anyone. Once, he asked her about it.
"There's no one to meet. Men and women seem to be disappearing, or at least withdrawing." Peter said he wouldn't disagree with that. There was something about the tinny reverberations of the radio, hauntingly distant as in years swept away from him. The radio sounded like a bad long-distance connection. Peter smiled at the thought; it was exactly that.
The next morning he stepped out the back for a breath of air to discover that the radio had been left on, still running its oldies festival. It gave him chills as he glanced around the empty poolside, even less than twenty-four hours later unable to clearly recall the faces, some even happy or at least content, memories rushing away, ever farther, their immediacy never again to be gleaned.
They left for the return drive to Jersey around mid-day. The next day, he received the long-dreaded pink slip. He struggled to remember what he had produced of lasting value during his 16 years. Especially during the fleeting life cycles of the electronic products he had documented, where planned obsolescence reigned. Just before he exited his office for the last time with a box of meager possessions, he noted his printed manuals on a bookshelf and the thick dust, which obscured their titles.
The entire sequence of events made loneliness weigh heavily on him. Like the pounding in his ears now as the plane made its descent into foreign territory. When he considered the many events of his recent past as he hurtled away from it at 500mph, it seemed as unreal as their destination. At the moment, he felt caught in between realities, locked in a kind of phantom zone....in the rush of the descent, deafening, rumbling from within their bodies caused a strange mix of exhilaration. Breath caught in their throats as the tires screeched upon impact with the tarmac.
When Peter opened his eyes, he discovered that Pete and Marilyn still had theirs screwed shut. Peter strained for a view squinting at the blinding glare reflected from the white runway. From his narrow field of vision, he could see a barrier, a dividing point where the runway ended, framed by tall thin scrub pines. The sky was a powdery blue, almost misty. As the plane slowed, Peter focused on its lumbering route as it made its way to the terminal. Heat waves radiated from the bleached concrete surface as though it were a convection oven. The pilot's voice lazily droned that the current temperature in West Palm Beach was 88, a "bit" unseasonably warm.
Peter shook his head as the seat belt signs went off. "October, middle of October." Pete Jr. glanced his way, seeming to know what he was thinking. "Not exactly frost on the pumpkin, is it?"
His son replied, "More like sweat on the coconut."
The pilot added, “We’re on time today, folks. Last week, we couldn’t deplane until they got the thirteen-foot gator off the runway.”
Some kind of joke for the tourists, or did he hear right, Peter wondered. He could barely hear anything, his ears clogged from depressurizing, just a faint hum of engine and human grunting as passengers shed jackets and retrieved their overhead luggage, preparing to disembark. With a whoosh, the hatch was thrown open and Peter felt as though he were standing in front of a baker's oven. Before this could really sink in, they exited the tunnel to be greeted rudely by “high-chilled air,”as Pete Jr. described it. Peter's glasses immediately fogged up. Was it so murderously hot outside that the interiors of all public buildings had to be as frigid as meat lockers? It made the beads of sweat running down his spine feel like icy pinpricks.
As the Caissons followed the passenger flow to baggage claims, Peter noted a handful of chauffeurs, or simple hired drivers, standing with signs, looking for their charges. Peter halted abruptly on his heels when he spotted a "PARAGON TECHNOLOGIES?" sign. Was it a coincidence? No one said anything about a driver picking him up. And what did the question mark mean? Like someone questioning the legitimacy of his new venture. Pete Jr. stared at his father impatiently. Marilyn looked right at the man with the sign, but showed no comprehension, looking to her husband for interpretation. The driver was dressed ordinarily in checkered shirt and tan slacks; his scuffed shoes and rumpled hair belied any importance he might represent. Peter, brooking the flow of the other single-minded passengers, hell-bent on their luggage, tentatively approached.
"Excuse me, sir?"
The man grew animated, "Oh, you must be Mr. Carson, for Paragon Technologies."
"Uh, no. I relocated—uh, I was hired by Paragon. My name is Peter Caisson."
"No, sir, I'm here for a Mr. Carson."
"Do you know who he is?"
"No, sir. It looks like he missed his flight or something."
He turned and saw that no more passengers were spewing from the access ramp.
Caisson/Carson, wondered Peter, close enough for a mistake in transcription, at least, although the hand printing on the cardboard was distinct enough.
"Do you have a first name?"
“Me, I’m Darryl.”
“No, sorry, I mean the first name of the man you’re supposed to pick up.”
Darryl, flustered, but straining to remain helpful, reached in his pocket for a crumpled piece of paper. "Oh, yeah, I remember. 'Fletcher'.
Confusion there, thought Peter. "Is he a new employee?" asked Peter, hoping he was not, since having a ride waiting for him would elevate his status over poor Peter, the lowly, but somehow necessary technical writer. "Uh, customer?"
The driver shook his head. "That's really all I know," he said, as disappointment and frustration crept across his face. Without ceremony, he disgustedly tossed the sign on the floor and turned towards one of the stairwells, which led to the multi-tiered parking lot.
Now, continuing on, following directional signs for their luggage, the Caissons passed rows of machines offering all kinds of assistance and benefits, all snugly fitting under an umbrella of "24/7 SERVICE TO MEET YOUR NEEDS ANYTIME, ALL THE TIME." Flight insurance, limo service, tourist resources, real estate referrals, even food deliveries to hotel rooms. 24/7, mumbled Peter to himself, imagining the faceless, monotonous recordings, awaiting any seekers of these services, should they call off-hours.
Peter re-focused on the abrupt environmental shift he and his family had undergone. Floor to ceiling heavily tinted glass windows and doors offered impossible views of rustling palm trees and people dressed in tank tops and flip flops, many of the inhabitants browned to perfection from the Florida sun. Peter wondered at the UV rays, considering the pasty complexions the family all bore. All those days watching soap operas when he should have been researching the area: the economy, the climate, even some history. Unprepared for an October day of 88 degrees, he imagined they felt like they'd been transported to a tropical jungle. Hell, it's hotter than this up north in the summer, Peter blurted out, seeking self-assurance, another form of whistling in the dark. But it's October, Dad, was the quick response at his side. Peter wondered at the summers.
Their visible consternation continued thus to the baggage claim. As the baggage slowly appeared and grew in number on the carousel, the image of traveling circuitously to an uncertain destination leapt out at Peter. A stranger, having arrived on their flight, noticed the bewilderment, the lack of preparedness, and offered some friendly conversation, if not assurance.
“First-time down here?” said the middle-aged man with an engaging smile, who wore a Florida Marlins T-shirt .
Peter’s mouth twitched a smile in return. “More than that. We’re relocating. Job offer in Boca. Guess we weren’t completely prepared for the climate change.”
“I wouldn’t worry.” Pause. “Too much. Summers rarely get over ninety. We're near the ocean, so that keeps the air moving. Although in July and August, the humidity is fierce. But, who cares? Everything is air-conditioned.” Peter noted a rim of fogging on the man’s glasses, yet the glasses continued sliding down the man’s nose. Perspiration? Would they encounter contradiction at every turn? “Late summer,” the man continued, “it's the hurricanes you have to watch out for.”
“Hurricanes?” said Peter, avoiding the man’s eyes, not wanting to reveal his alarm. Pete Jr. glanced up from his Game-Boy and even Marilyn appeared to be paying attention. The man smiled pleasantly but with a glint in his eye as if to convey, ‘good luck, greenhorns’, as he nodded and moved to retrieve his luggage as it approached. Hurricanes? wondered Peter. He knew that south Florida faced occasional threats. They were occasional, weren't they? Or, was it something to be circled on the calendar every fall like Halloween. Actually, if he recalled, season officially ran from June 1 through November 30. But, statistically, at least, the storms were more likely from September on. Prime season. He glanced up at an overhead TV screen to note the Weather Channel meteorologist speaking of ‘intercontinental convection zones’ displaying puffy white rotating blobs being expelled from the coast of Africa and spurting westward. Oddly, he saw the friendly man who just had spoken to them looking up at another TV, also tuned to the Weather Channel. He had dropped his bags at his feet and was rubbing his hands as if in joyful anticipation, his head bobbing almost wildly, very much like a Type A pilot about to fly into a storm, welcoming the challenge wrought by the elements. The man turned and noted the Caissons’ interest in the telecast.
“Just the way Andrew started out in ’92. I remember the week before. I was in Charleston. South Carolina. On business. I talked to locals who lived through Hugo in ’89. Low-lying area, subject to flooding. There was this two-story house. The owner moved all his furniture to the second floor on account of the expected flooding. Know what happened? The roof blew off.” The man’s eyes sparkled, taking the in Caissons from head to foot, fully assessing their look of stunned amazement, and then he abruptly turned and disappeared up an escalator.
The Caissons simply stood there, having plucked their luggage from the conveyor belt, and Peter didn’t know where to turn next. The moving truck was not due to arrive at the house until Sunday morning. Same with the bonded driver bringing their car down, although he would bring their cherished Volvo directly to the hotel. Marilyn said something about checking the pet reception area to make sure Spot was all right, but then what to do with her? Of course, the pet reception station was no help and couldn’t offer any useful advice. Peter called the Radisson across from the airport, where they would stay overnight, but they did not allow pets and had no contingencies for anyone temporarily without their permanent shelter, even if for just overnight.
A kindly old woman, there to pick up her Cairn terrier, suggested they call a local vet to board the cat overnight, or until they got into their house. Peter guessed he would take a taxi and get Spot boarded and pick her up during the week, the sooner the better.
Peter was fond of Spot, but found this snag over a family pet a bit much, considering all that was at stake. Marilyn seemed on the verge of panic, Pete Jr., indignant and bored, and taking these delays more and more personally. Peter found himself muttering imprecations against his new employer, who had offered no sort of relocation package or expenses. Peter felt he should have had a contingency for this; how much else had he failed to plan for adequately? After asking the pointed a question about a local vet’s office, a short rotund woman behind the pet station desk, volunteered an address and phone number. “Not two miles away. Palm East Animal Hospital. But I’d hurry. It’s going on noon and it’s a Saturday.” Peter could not imagine why this information had not been provided when they first arrived at the station.
He instructed Marilyn and his son to take all their bags and wait for the shuttle that would take them directly to the Radisson. Meanwhile, Peter would take Spot in her traveling cage and get a cab. The air outside hit him like that from a coal furnace as Spot, obviously suffering acute dislocation, mewed incessantly. Peter climbed into the cab, explaining what he was doing with the cat, as though it might have mattered to the taxi driver. The balance of the day passed without incident, although considering the uninformed beginnings of their new life in south Florida, the Caissons still had no true feel for their surroundings. Marilyn and Pete Jr. took the shuttle to the Radisson while Peter hailed a cab, managing to make it to Palm East Animal Hospital a full seven minutes before closing. Since they were closed Sunday, Spot would have to be picked up some time Monday. All the while Peter felt compelled to ignore his surroundings, except for the occasional swaying of a palm tree in the hot breezes. The staff at Palm East were helpful and efficient and Spot appeared in good hands.
On the cab ride back to the Radisson, Peter estimated the mileage from Boca back to the animal hospital to be at least twenty-five miles. First day at work Monday. He would have to entrust Marilyn with driving the unfamiliar route. They certainly didn’t need an immediate expense of $30 a day to board Spot if it could be avoided. The Radisson was cheery and bright and fraught with wild tropical pastels, and frigidly ventilated air in the room and lobby. Outside, an oppressive mugginess descended at nightfall. After reviewing the prices on the menu at the hotel restaurant, the Caissons readily agreed on a having a pizza delivered. While Marilyn dozed, Pete Jr. channel surfed at blurring speed and Peter kept parting the heavy curtains, watching the deepening shadows by the pool, which featured only a handful of swimmers. Beads of condensation formed in every corner of the windows.
That evening, after an hour or so of joining Pete in channel surfing—at considerably slower pace—Peter felt too jittery to sleep, or even settle down in bed and read. Maybe a drink at the bar would take the starch out. He had cut way back on drinking in his second marriage, primarily because it made Marilyn, a devout teetotaler, uneasy. Her father, dead at 59 of cirrhosis, had been a classic case of alcohol addiction, not to mention his gambling. During Peter’s first marriage, Alice made cocktails for them almost every night after work. Regardless, in recent years, it helped keep his weight down. That and his jogging which he hadn’t done in a week.
“Hey, tell your Mom if she wakes up that I went for a beer and maybe a walk.” He looked at his father with a pained expression as if the obviously lame choice of activity were done to infuriate him personally. The last thing Peter heard as he closed the door behind him was his son muttering curses at the remote control he so arduously gripped with two hands, a weak undependable talisman. Sure, the kid did well enough in school, but he was not going to charm his way into social circles with that short fuse and intolerance that bordered on the fanatical.
Leaning slightly forward, Peter did not immediately notice that the descending elevator was occupied as it came to a rest at his floor. He hadn’t seen a soul in the third-floor hallway. A stunning young woman dressed in a black cocktail dress leaned against the back wall. She had medium-length curly brown hair and very tanned complexion, heavily accented with blush and eye shadow. Her perfume, redolent of peach blossoms, thickened the already stale air in the elevator. Peter immediately detected a secondary odor? Drying perspiration? The woman was a bit flushed like she could have just come in from a brisk walk. Peter nodded and looked away as he got in. The woman, whom he now judged to be in her mid-twenties, fished a brown cigarette from her purse and placed it in her lips. Peter hoped she wouldn’t light up until they got out. She noticed him glancing at her and she smiled back before returning to the contents of her purse, looking for her lighter Peter assumed. But no, she produced a brilliant scarlet business card with raised black lettering and held it out.
“Hey, honey, I’m in the area a lot. Give me a call if you want a good time.” He nodded again, not daring to speak, and took the card, which sported a fleur-de-lis design in the upper left-hand corner. The center of the card featured the name “Angela” in script-lettering and a phone number. “Or if you want,” she continued with the unlit brown cigarette bobbing in her mouth, “look for me at the Raisin Bar.”
“Uh, sure, where’s that? I mean, I’m new here and I’m kind of stranded. No car.” Peter winced, unable to account for his pointless volunteering of information.
“Me either. I mean mine’s at the Raisin Bar. Just up the road. Near Congress off Southern. It’s within walking distance. I got a ride waiting for me.”
Just then, a beeper went off in the woman’s purse. As she reached in to switch it off, she also produced a cell phone. She stamped her feet impatiently waiting for the elevator to come to a rest, hardly expecting the phone to transmit or receive clearly in the confines of the elevator. Finally, the door parted and the woman exited with some urgency.
For some reason, Peter called after her: “Walking distance, you say?” He didn’t think she heard him, but as if in acknowledgment, she seemed to wave in the affirmative, while rapidly speaking into the cell phone. During his brief foray into the outside world here in Palm Beach county, that is, the outside world being other than Palm Beach International Airport or the animal hospital, or the Radisson, he really had no bearing on what kind of an area it was.
By the time he reached the lobby, the slinky-dressed woman had departed. He saw two people in the lobby, not counting a somnolent desk clerk. A man, close to his age, sat in a high-backed foam chair. He wore a white tank top and pink shorts and thick-strapped sandals. Considering how chilly the lobby was, it was odd to see him there, casually flipping through a phone book. Nearer to the desk a younger woman, maybe in her thirties wore a thick white sweater and alternately folded her arms and blew on her hands for warmth. Peter tended to side with the woman. Fortunately for him, since he wore a t-shirt and shorts, he hoped the climate in the hotel bar would be more moderate. But this was not the case. So frigid was the ventilated air that Peter kept rubbing the gooseflesh on his arms. Instead of a cold beer, he ordered a coffee from a pot probably made hours ago, given its tar-like consistency and rancid smell.
Somehow, he had suppressed the anxiety about the moving truck and car arriving tomorrow without a hitch. He simply reasoned that for the moment it was out of his hands. He even felt kind of detached mulling over his start at Paragon. Could it be burnout? Temperamentally, he could accept a job as a clerk in a video store and it would not have made any difference. It was just a question of money. Seemed a slow night in the bar considering it was Saturday, he thought. The bartender stood nearby, both hands on the bar, staring at the plate-glass windows illuminated by floodlights set at the base of various palm trees, trimmed oleanders, hibiscus. Sprinklers had come on and a cascading sheen of water played on the glass, simulating the effect of a miniature waterfall. Warming one hand with his coffee cup, he turned the red business card over. When he looked up he saw the bartender looking at it. Embarrassed, Peter hastily volunteered an explanation. “Some woman gave me this in the elevator,” he said defensively.
“Workin’ girl,” said the bartender. “They work the place and get a fair number of clients.” The smile now forming on his face seemed to convey a wry judgment on Peter for still having the card in his possession. Peter tried to ignore the gesture, yet could not refrain from asking,
“Someone,” he began, feeling as if he should not allow a connection to the ‘working girl’, “mentioned a place called The Raisin Bar.” The bartender turned up his nose ever so slightly. “That it’s in walking distance.”
“Yeah, it’s in walking distance,” replied the bartender with a careless shrug, as though he had been asked this question before. Peter was mystified at his inclination to venture out and seek the place, as if something were driving him onward. He would never go in a place like that. If it were a place like that, thinking back to all that online porn, which seemed captivating at the moment, but he hardly missed it and wouldn’t dare visit those sites on his home computer, which Pete used more than he did. Trying not to appear like rushing out, he forced down the remains of the foul coffee and pulled out money to pay for it, stretched and placed his hands in his pockets, casually sauntering back in the direction of the lobby, appearing aimless and bored. After glancing at a stray newspaper, he meandered toward the lobby exit. As he pushed through the revolving door, he was greeted by a curtain of muggy air with hardly a breath stirring. The south Florida night was alive with exotic chirping and buzzing, broken only by the occasionally passing automobile. He walked past the check-in driveup, glancing behind him at the floodlights reflecting off the Spanish tile roofs on the modular intersecting units. At the end of the driveway, he stepped out onto a dimly lit sidewalk and scanned the road in both directions.
Not exactly a tropical paradise. A plain concrete road running east and west, two lanes in either direction. While palm trees lined its median, their bases adorned with various pink and red flower arrangements, tall rank weeds sprouted from these same clusters. Not to mention the Burger King bags, wrappers, crushed beer cans, and half-filled brown bottles. Across the highway to the south was the airport, brightly lit as expected, appearing normal. Obviously, the Radisson had been strategically placed here for airport business, possibly some other business clientele. Yeah, like The Raisin Bar, Peter chuckled to himself. He knew at least they were in West Palm Beach, some miles west of downtown. What lay to the west? The outer fringes of the Everglades? Would he have been more prepared if they had been on vacation?
He began walking east on an old sidewalk stained with sulfur from the sprinklers. The road curved sharply, concealing what lay ahead. He considered that his insular relocation was some subconscious expression of his detachment from or avoidance of responsibility. The occasional rush of speeding cars provided a counterpoint to the cacophony of insects, frogs, and fish jumping around in the adjacent canal to his right, which broadened as he continued his pace due east. A loud splash made him stop in his tracks and when he squinted into the dimness, he saw the snout of an alligator surface briefly and sink below the oily black water. At the end of its wake, its tail brushed against a rusted shopping cart, which lay on an angle, partially submerged at the water’s edge. He shook his head in amazement and continuing on, he rounded the corner, where he saw a string of convenience stores, burger joints, bars, odd storefronts where lighting fixtures, bargain shoes, auto parts and various other consumer flotsam were sold. Not far from an intersection, he saw a neon sign atop a one-story brick building, which had been painted red and white. THE RAISIN BAR.
Peter expected a run-down bar with a seedy clientele and maybe a dancer or two in perhaps partial state of undress, so he was hardly prepared for the phantasmagoric sights and sounds, which assaulted his senses. Loud thumping music he could feel inside his breastbone. Flashing strobe lights reflecting off full-length mirrors on every wall. Ceilings painted black. A bar tucked away in one corner with a small mounted television running some kind of porn flick. In the center area was a small, raised stage, circled with a railing. Some patrons sat close. Others lounged sullenly in darkened corners. A dancer, wearing only a diaphanous nightie, had just emerged on the stage and had wrapped herself around a shiny brass pole. Other women, heavily perfumed, strode the aisles, their cigarettes glowing eerily in the skewed light. Someone came in behind him and the street lamps briefly illuminated a corkboard, festooned with hundreds of business cards, from past patrons he guessed. Satisfied customers, cards perhaps collected at some point for a free drawing. Peter made his way to the corner bar and paid $6.50 for a bottle of beer, half-heartedly scanning the area for Angela from the elevator. Off to his left on a wood shelf painted black was a small color TV and video player featuring a tarty older woman with dark circles under her eyes, stroking an enormous glistening penis with two hands. The organ appeared as though disembodied, with the rest of the man removed from the camera's field of vision. Peter stared transfixed, not having viewed anything quite like that since he attended a bachelor party just out of college. He failed to notice a rather grimy unshaven man sitting to his right, who moved closer.
The man wore a grease-stained purple tank top, which glowed iridescently in the strobe lights. Tattoos of snakes and dragons adorned both shoulders. A front tooth was missing. He wore a cap, which said 'MOVERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA'.
"Y'all come here much?" he asked in a gravelly voice. Although he probably looked like a greenhorn, Peter decided against the truth.
"Sometimes. Not often."
The man glanced at Peter's wedding ring. "Y'all bring your wife here?"
He wasn't sure how he meant the question. "No, just me."
"Ever bring her here?"
"No, I wouldn't do that"
"Why not?" asked the man, genuinely interested.
Peter thought about it. "If my wife wanted to be with me now, I guess I wouldn't be here in the first place." He estimated Marilyn had been asleep for three hours already. Confusion spread across the man's face like a scrub brush fire. Peter just wanted to finish his beer and leave. He turned on his stool, but suddenly his view was blocked by one of the women, a thin, almost malnourished waif, very pale, but with a friendly smile and full red lips. She wore lingerie with tassels, white boots, and a white cowboy hat. She patted Peter on the top of his hand, as he almost flinched.
"Hiya, my name's Lorene [daughter of Paragon exec.; shows up at a Company function]," a southern accent dripping from her pouty lips like warm molasses. "You want some company?" Peter glanced down at the wilted dollar bills tucked in the girl's garter. Lorene interpreted this as a silent inquiry into the terms of service. Peter felt anchored himself to the spot, unable to muster enough will to sprint for the exit. "Come on, let's sit over there," said Lorene. She led Peter, stricken with indecision, to one of many dark crannies with battered two-seat sofas. She sat and pulled Peter down next to her. As she draped one bare leg over his, she lit a cigarette, and behaved as though this was the most natural arrangement in the world. Peter tensed his muscles, not knowing what to expect next, as Lorene bobbed her foot in time to the music. "I've had myself a day," she began cheerily, "things were down for a while, but business has sure picked up. I just bought myself a condo in Lake Worth and been decorating. Gettin' everything painted. I ordered special upholstery covers. You can't get these in the store. Light-weight fabric with pastel covers. Then I got all these accent pieces, wicker and bamboo end tables with glass tops. Lamps, I'd like to put in recessed lighting but it's so expensive. Maybe track lighting. I'm still payin' on my stereo. Got this really nice collection of music CDs. Classic rock. 60s, 70s, 80s bands. Don't like much of what they got today. After I get my massage license, I can do some work at home and cut back on the hours here. I don't want to be doin' this the rest of my life. Customers and the other girls rippin' you off. One girl stole $300 from my purse. Another customer stiffed me in the Private Lounge. Heck, even one of the contractors at the condo took a deposit for redoing the ceilings and then never showed up no more. But I'm getting' back on my feet."
Peter felt perspiration running down from his armpits. He smiled foolishly and nodded, feigning concern for this young girl's travails. She had taken his hand and was using it to stroke her bare thigh. The sensation made him feel light-headed. He felt adrift, floating, as if watching himself participate in this episode.
"Anyway, I treat my customers real good. I like that silvery mane of hair a yours. Well, more salt and pepper I guess. You can't be a day over thirty-eight, though." Peter wanted to tell her that he bet she said that to all the perverts. "I can tell you're in good shape. Her hand edged down to his crotch and miraculously he felt a stirring, something, which had not happened for weeks. "In fact, I'd like to get my hands on that hot cock of yours." Lorene pushed his head back and kissed him full on the mouth, offering up a thick fleshy tongue, sweet and glistening like glazed pastry. Peter responded in kind, feeling the commands to his brain originate elsewhere.
"Hey, baby, she crooned, I bet you'd like a private session. Won't charge you for the dance." What dance, wondered Peter. Just a hunerd seventy-five. I'll ride you like there's no tomorrow. Regular cowgirl. See the hat? I got rubbers, too. Gotta be safe."
"Uh, well, that's tempting."
"You know you want to. I can tell," she said, reaching for the bulge beginning to press out from his trousers.
"I don't have that much cash on me," Peter croaked.
"Credit card's fine, dear, don't even say 'Raisin Bar' on the slip. Y'all get a free pair of boxer shorts. Says 'Club Raisin Bar' on 'em."
Before Peter could process what was really happening, Lorene was leading him into a black hallway, with several small rooms on either side, sealed off with white chintz curtains. Peter could barely feel his feet as he was drawn further into the darkness. She led him to another two-seat sofa and eased him down. "We got half an hour, honey." Lorene removed his shoes, his pants, his undershorts. Peter closed his eyes as he was wont to do when riding a rollercoaster, which had just negotiated a sharp curve and was beginning a steep, angular descent. Before he knew what was happening, Lorene, now completely naked, was in fact riding him. He was surprised at his fullness, which had been latent these many months. As he moaned softly, she took his head, and whispered, "Yeah, darlin', that's fine, real fine. What's your name, honey?"
"Jack," he said, feeling indeed as though he were someone else. He hardly remembered getting dressed, reaching for his credit card, getting the slip back.
Completely, businesslike, Lorene cleaned up, gave him a peck on the cheek and reminded him she was there Wednesdays through Sundays. The reality of what had just happened did not come into focus until Peter was standing near the exit. For some reason, he glanced up at the corkboard again as he reached for the door and he stopped cold, blinking several times. He was reasonably certain the card was not there on the way in. But, now, affixed with a pushpin directly in the center of the board was a business card, which in bold red lettering read, "PARAGON TECHNOLOGIES." A stab of tension sliced right up his middle. Quickly glancing about to see if anyone noticed him, he took the card and looked for a name. No name. Just the company, address, phone number, and web site. A generic card used by someone who normally didn't use cards. He turned the card over in his hand and his breath stopped when he saw a name scribbled. "Jack" it read. Peter replaced the card and hurried out, unable to refrain from looking over his shoulder as he walked back to the Radisson, the black canal water belching at him.
Because he smelled of cheap perfume and cigarettes, he was determined to head straight for the shower. He needed hot water and lots of soap and he needed to scrub himself. A token gesture of purification. And yet there was some puerile, adolescent sense of accomplishment, even conquest. Something he had not been able to achieve with Marilyn for months. But no, he was rationalizing as though field-testing the equipment in a different venue. No matter what failures or circumstances had led him to this, Peter accepted responsibility for acting on these impulses. He knew he would taste the bitterness of this indiscretion for some time. Haggard and guiltily withdrawn, Peter plodded across the lobby, his eyes fixed directly in front of him as he shuffled wearily.
He only glanced up in the direction of the bar to see if the bartender was watching him return. As he did so, the desk clerk hailed him, waving a sheet of paper. “Mr. Caisson, right?” Peter stopped and stared. “It’s a fax for you, Mr. Caisson.”
“When did this come in?” he asked before checking to see who sent it.
“Maybe twenty minutes, half-hour ago. There was also a call to your room right around the same time. Maybe to confirm receipt of the fax.”
Peter examined the bright features of the punctilious bastard, repressing an urge to smack his shiny, shaved jowls. He refocused and examined the fax, which of course was from Paragon. No surprise there. Sure, he had given them the hotel number when they asked, but he hardly expected to hear from them, especially near midnight on a Saturday.
“Hi Peter Caisson. We look forward to you joining the team Monday morning!” “Bright and early” added as an afterthought, a reminder. Yeah, thought Peter, sluggard that I am. Although the fax had just come in, he reasoned that it was probably done with some kind of auto-scheduler. But then, what about the phone call?
“Did you take a message for the voice call?”
“No, sir, someone in the room picked it up.”
He gritted his teeth. He knew Marilyn to sleep through a ringing phone. That meant Peter Jr. “Okay, thanks, I appreciate it.” Peter hesitated as if he wanted to ask for more. For absolution. He leaned his head against the elevator’s interior. At least he knew he was not physically impotent.
When he reached for the room key, he chanced upon the scarlet business card. He flung it down on the floor. Inside, the walls flickered with blue light from the TV. Pete Jr. sat in a chair in the far corner of the room, seemingly awake, but he did not acknowledge his father’s presence. Continuing to stare at the TV, he hissed, “Where the hell were you?”
He didn’t feel up to the challenge, so he simply shrugged. “Stayed a bit at the bar and then took a walk. I saw an alligator,” he added, hoping to spark some local interest and deflect attention from his promiscuous tryst. “In the canal…”
“Some asshole called before. Woke Mom up. From your new job.”
“Sorry, I can’t understand why they called now.”
“Didn’t leave a name. Just checking to make sure you got a fax?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Peter said waving it in the air. Pete Jr. screwed up his features, as if to say what are these people doing faxing and calling so late on a Saturday. Peter shook his head, knowing full well he disdained the style, the flavor of this communication, the assuming encroachment into his personal sphere, almost an ominous thinly veiled warning. Oddly, the fax was unsigned, not even a name.
“I got to take a shower,” said Peter reaching in a suitcase for a change of clothes. “And then I’m going to bed.”
“Good night, Dad,” said Pete Jr., turning over and grabbing a handful of covers. “I sure hope your new job won’t be calling late like this when we’re in the new house.”
Peter stopped in his tracks, the words sounding like those of a prophet in the wilderness. G’night, he mumbled, but Pete seemed already asleep. Peter removed his outer clothes discretely behind a hidden corner next to the bathroom and left them in a heap on the floor. He trudged into the brightly lit bathroom and when he turned and looked at himself in the wall mirror, he froze, recognizing his grievous error. Before he could react, Marilyn flung open the unlocked door, asking what the yellow charge slip for $175 was, her voice trailing off as she noted the white boxer shorts with the bright red lettering: THE RAISIN BAR.
(X)
2 SUNDAY
The Caissons were awakened early Sunday morning by a rainstorm. Booming thunder shook the windows, where Peter peeked out. Lightning illuminated the pool terrace in a ghostly pale sheen. Great start to a new life here, he muttered. To Peter, his extraordinary indiscretion seemed remote this next morning, his explanations to Marilyn lame, though she demonstrated little interest in deeply probing these anomalies. She dismissed the credit card slip, as Peter lied, almost stammering, about the cost of the animal hospital. As for the boxer shorts, these being more visual and immediate, her eyes lingered briefly as he mentioned during his walk, how he had passed a “titty bar”, and these gals in bikinis were out front handing out boxer shorts as a promotion, an enticement to come on in. Peter really laid it on, saying just before Marilyn entered the bathroom, he decided to try them on for a joke. Fortunately Marilyn grew quickly bored and did not glance at the heap of clothes on the floor, or note the absence of his real shorts, which probably lay in a dark damp corner back at the Raisin Bar, in some abhorrent heap of used condoms and soiled tissues.
Late into the night, as he lay suspended between cognizance of his surroundings and the unfamiliar landscape of drifting downward into sleep, yet another disturbance jarred the process. A loud thumping crash reverberated from the hallway. Was it after three a.m.? He sat bolt upright as Marilyn snored peacefully. Uncharacteristically, Pete remained asleep, fitfully it seemed, twitching and muttering.
Peter slid nimbly off the bed, threw on a robe and went out into the hall, easing the door to behind him. Halfway down the hall to his right, he blinked at the sight of a rather large soda machine, tipped forward at a 45-degree angle, the top of its front resting against the opposite wall. Crouched down, half-shoved against the wall was a man, short, balding, flabby, under the shadow of the looming machine.
Suddenly roused to his senses, the man scampered out, stood, up and backed away slowly, as though considering not reporting the incident, but stopped when his gaze caught Peter’s. Oddly, no one else emerged to investigate.
“Goddam soda machine stole my buck. I smacked it, shook it, started to rock it and before I knew it the thing almost came down on me.”
Peter caught a glimpse of its reflective plastic front, writhing with bright colors of skiers, swimmers, boaters, refreshing themselves with cascading spouts of soft drinks against a bright azure background, surf, snow kicking up, overwritten with a blazing white script which read: “Refresh yourself anytime, all the time”.
“Goddam Radisson. Everything closed. Just a lousy, stinkin’ soda and I almost get killed. They’re gonna pay for this. Helluva lawsuit on their hands.”
Peter noted that the man appeared uninjured and had no idea that he was clearly responsible for damaging hotel property.
Their eyes met again, and when the man detected confusion rather than sympathy, he turned abruptly, strode past Peter down to the other end of the hallway and disappeared around a corner. Peter again glanced at the soda machine, feeling, vaguely, illogically, given the damage versus the cost of a soda, in some way that he had been cheated as well, but not before noticing the man was clad only in white boxer shorts with white lettering which read: “Raisin Bar.”
"That's an awful lot for a deposit?" Marilyn commented the next morning without conviction.
Basically two things upset Peter, aside from his spontaneous transgression. He lied all too easily, and secondly, Marilyn disappointed him for not challenging him more. Did he want to get caught to rouse her, to spark some reaction, raise fire from the ashes? He wish he knew, for now it seemed as though something outside of himself was pulling him along and he felt no compulsion to resist.
The storm began to subside as he sat on the edge of the unmade bed, watching TV, looking for news or weather. Pete Jr., half-dressed, thumbed through a game strategy magazine. Marilyn was getting dressed in the bathroom. He had just caught the tail end of the "Tropics Report", something about a system moving westward, getting better organized, which would probably be upgraded to a tropical depression later today." Pete didn't linger as he moved to CNN, where the headline flashed, "TRAGEDY AT NORTH CAROLINA AMUSEMENT PARK."
Pausing, Peter saw the camera pan up from the reporter to a Ferris wheel, which had very abruptly halted its counter-clockwise rotation and pitched a young man forward, who plunged to his death "witnessed by hundreds of horrified onlookers, one of whom managed to record the disaster". The victim, described as a teen, five foot ten, 190 pounds “sailed helplessly to his death." Peter watched the grainy videotape as a plump body, flopping like a rag doll, arms and legs outstretched, spinning, and finally disappearing into what appeared to be a clearing next to a food court. Peter was seized by the suddenness, the vulnerability, as though something similar could happen to his family at any moment. He in fact wondered if the poor soul was hurtling through space about the time as their flight southward crossed the same latitude.
Pete Jr. looked up. "What's that? Some dumb carnival?" When this elicited no response, he changed the subject. "Why can't we pick up Spot on the way to the house?"
"They're closed." Why did he have to explain things like that? "It's Sunday."
Rather than opt for breakfast at the hotel, the Caissons decided to hit the road, or more accurately Interstate 95 and head south to Boca Raton, stopping for a quick breakfast along the way. The traffic, while not thick, was steady. Steam rose from the hot white concrete pavement as the sun pushed its way through the clouds. Roadside trees and vegetation appeared lush and freshly green again and Peter felt his tempered optimism returning, reassured now that the white Volvo had been delivered by the bonded driver at 8 a.m. on the dot to the Radisson without even a smudge of dirt. Optimism tempered with the normal anxiety of expecting (hoping?) the moving truck to have safely journeyed more than a thousand miles with nearly all of their possessions intact.
"The truck could be late. Lost. Suppose it had an accident?" asked Marilyn munching on a bran muffin, dropping crumbs all about. Before Peter answered, he noticed that she was wearing her hair differently. Combed back or something.
"They're bonded. Like the Volvo. We would have heard something," said Peter growing tense again, his fingers gripping the steering wheel, his knuckles whitening. Sure, all the good fortune had been used up with the safe delivery of the car. And then his merciless memory, forever ferreting out the woes of all the earth, recalled the story of a fellow technical writer, who, when relocating, suffered the moving truck and everything he owned in it burned in a fire. The insurance hardly covered half of it.
They proceeded without incident southward, exiting on Palmetto Park Road and heading west past discordant stretches of fast-food joints, shopping malls, office buildings. Suddenly, there it was on the left: Heron Preserve, its name suggesting untouched nature, a refuge, placid and bucolic. As they entered and continued on down the main street, they watched bikers, joggers, and dog-walkers, they all commented on the bright atmosphere, lush landscaped lawns, the rows of palm trees, community park and playground, the cheerful pastels of the stucco homes accented with Spanish tile roofs.
Although Pete Jr. said "everything looks nice," he added, "I thought we were going to be closer to the beach," his features darkening.
In surprise, Peter pointed to the rear bumper of a car directly in front of them, which had a blue sticker with "PARAGON TECHNOLOGIES" in bold white lettering.
"I had forgotten but Paragon had said they had a lot of employees living in this development."
"Why is that?" said Pete Jr., sneering, "so they can watch each other?"
The comment sent shivers down Peter's spine as they turned onto their cul-de-sac. He stopped the car and got out. Before them was a single completed home, just like the one in the video, surrounded by three other homes in varying states of completion, not to mention a pile of building debris, including boards and rusty nails, sand, cinderblocks, and damp earth from which weeds had sprouted. But, 1515 Egret Lane stood apart, new and inviting, complete with a palm sapling in the center of the front yard. The St. Augustine grass grew thick and spongy. Best of all, the blue and white moving van had already arrived, its cab curled outward in front of their house, causing the truck to assume a kind of fetal position. Everyone smiled in relief, for they all fully expected sitting in an empty house for hours, scanning the road for signs of the van. Peter pulled the Volvo behind the van, then got out and looked around. Nothing stirred, so he went around to the driver side of the cab, where the window was rolled down, and stepped up on the sideboard. The driver, unshaven and sweaty, was slouched down with a cap over his eyes, his belly rising with regular breaths as he slumbered.
"Excuse me. We're the Caissons. Just got here. I can unlock the house. Hello?"
The driver stirred not a bit, so Peter repeated the greeting louder. Same result, which was no result. Next he knocked on the door and shouted "Hey there!" He had no recourse left at this point except to shake the man bodily.
Pete Jr. approached. "Is the guy dead or something?"
"These guys drive for 48 hours at a time and then crash like this." Tentatively, Peter reached inside and shook the man's shoulder. Still no response, but he was clearly breathing. Although not dead, perhaps the man had undergone a seizure, so now Peter had visions of borrowing a neighbor's phone to dial '911'. Suddenly Pete Jr. jumped up beside him, reached in, and pressed the horn, which was thunderous and deafening up close.
The driver sat bolt upright and his cap flew from his face. Peter's jaw dropped when he saw the man to be the very same one who challenged him at the Raisin Bar last night. The man even flashed a gap-tooth smile of recognition before Peter could put on his sunglasses. Sure enough, his cap, which had "Movers Association of America" stitched across the front came to rest on the cluttered dashboard. Peter immediately wondered where he had stored the rig while patronizing the Raisin Bar.
"The Caisson family, eh?" winked the mover, glancing over at Marilyn who was inspecting the shrubs which lined the driveway.
"Everything go OK?" asked Peter.
"Sure enough, Mr. Caisson. Got here around dawn. Caught up on my shut-eye. Movin' company runs us ragged. Too much work, not enough pay," he said, pausing to look Peter over from head to foot. "'Sides, we got to depend a lot on tips. That must be the missus," he thumbed over at Marilyn, smiling again. Tips, wondered Peter. Could that be true or was he trying to shake him down. "Man, I had me a time last night in this girly joint up by the airport. Whoo-ieee. Name's Jackson. First name. Jackson Daley," said Jackson, stepping down from the cab. "You'd be surprised at the number of married men what show up there. And I don't just mean cruisin'."
Peter would neither deny nor confirm the implication. He'd call his bluff—probably. "Well, let's see how quick and efficient you can unload our stuff and there might be a little something extra. Where's your help"?
"Naw, sir, it's just me."
"Don't you need at least two guys?"
"Naw. For 'em big pieces, we jockey 'em up on the dolly and just down the ramp I open up from the side and back. I'd let you give me a hand, but it's against the insurance reglations.”
Smooth and efficient, Jackson Daly made it look easy. Of course, Peter held doors open, helped position large pieces such as the sofa and bed. Amazingly, Jackson had emptied the van by two p.m. and was presently enjoying a hastily concocted, but cold glass of iced tea from mix, which Peter thought odd that Marilyn had carried in her purse.
"Simple. I knew we'd all be tired, hot, and thirsty. So, all I had to do was find the pitcher in the boxes marked 'kitchen'. And the new refrigerator's got an icemaker, all ready for us."
Jackson nodded his assent. "All the new houses down here come with all the appliances. The works. Convenient and less stuff to move." Marilyn and Jackson were smiling and winking at each other.
Peter dug out $100 cash as a tip, which Jackson slowly accepted, as if considering that the gesture was inadequate. He paused at the front door, looking over Peter's shoulder until he caught Marilyn's attention.
"I live up in Delray Beach, next town north of Boca. When I'm not on the road, I has me a little side business. Handyman, that sort of thing." He retrieved a personal business card, which gave just a phone number with a heading which read, "HANDIMAN, ODD JOBS". Odd is right, thought Peter. Peter wondered if Jackson had left behind the same card at the Raisin Bar, amidst the others on that weary corkboard. All those cards suggested territorial markings with overtones of sexual conquest. Man, I had me a time last night in this girly joint up by the airport.
Whoo-ieee.
Peter countered, "Like you said, everything in the house is brand new and if there are problems, we have a one-year guarantee."
Jackson seemed ready for that reply. "What about the landscapin'?" Peter, now joined by Marilyn gazed about the front yard with its freshly-planted xeriscape shrubbery and centerpiece palm tree. "Fer example, grass in hot, muggy season needs cuttin' ever week, sometimes 4-5 days if there's an especial amount of rain. I don't remember unloading no mower or any garden tools for that matter." Peter raised an eyebrow, attempting to control his outrage. Did the lout inventory their possessions even as he unloaded the van?
"I did have my heart set on some fruit trees," said Marilyn hopefully.
"Easy, I can pick up saplings at Home Depot. Whacha like? Orange? Lemon? Ya like grapefruit, get the ruby red. Best there is. There's a particlar lime tree which is year-round. The other is citrus, bears in the winter. Some people get mango. Mango ain't citrus. Bears in the summer."
"We'll think about it," said Peter, extending a hand toward the front walk.
Jackson saluted with his finger, sauntered down the driveway, and drove off. Peter went inside and did a quick tour of the rooms. Even their misfit furniture ("early Caisson" as they jokingly referred to it), blended in well enough. The vertical blinds in all the rooms had been left wide open, admitting the outdoor light, which cast a cheery glow on all the furnishings. Pete Jr. had busied himself hooking up the old computer. "When are we getting a Pentium III?" Peter's reaction would normally have been some practical counter-argument such as "We need to see about a second car," but he knew that would be futile, even inflammatory. Fortunately, the passing request did not deteriorate into a protracted rant. Peter considered that his son, although initially hostile about the move, seemed to have no regrets about leaving any friends behind. Hardly a surprise, thought Peter, knowing Pete had not been much of a social creature. Pete Jr. continued with the TV, stereo, and cable, and produced a smoothly functioning entertainment center in no time. Marilyn put away dishes, glasses, marveling at the counter and cabinet space.
Peter kept touring the house, inspecting the central air, the faucets, shower, toilet, genuinely pleased that everything simply worked. He pondered the single-floor "ranch-style" home, something reassuring about its single-tiered design. No stairs to trudge, especially at night, to unfamiliar dark hallways, which always intimidated him as a child, not even fond of their newly departed Cape Cod home with its steep stairway, narrow doors, dormered bedrooms, creaky floors, and transient shadows. What little odds and ends they kept would have to be stored in the crawlspace attic over the attached two-car garage.
Marilyn appeared relaxed, watching TV and sipping more iced tea as Pete Jr. adjusted and fine-tuned all the integrated settings. Peter experienced a kind of vibrating apprehension, unable to sit still or even remain in the same room for more than a few minutes. Pulling out his wallet, he searched through his accumulated business cards, this recalling the corkboard from The Raisin Bar last night. Locating his new boss, Frank Steadman, he held the card in front of him, squinting at the tiny black print. ‘Paragon’ stood forth in bold, red embossed letters (was that the same typeface as the Raisin Bar?) prominently in the upper left hand corner as if to dwarf the tiny, insignificant individual represented below. Surreptitiously, Peter reached for the wall phone in the kitchen and began to call Steadman at his home number, sneaking quick glances at the living room, hoping he would not have to explain why he’d be calling his boss the Sunday before starting work. A token of good will and positive attitude. Just to let him know the family was all settled in and that he was all set to go first thing in the morning—as the sender of the midnight fax so obnoxiously presumed. Or, would the call be interpreted as some spineless sucking-up gesture? He expected to arrive at eight a.m. sharp. Surely earlier than that would prove pointless. Or, would he be cooling his heels in the lobby for an hour waiting for the H.R. people so they could do his orientation. Truthfully, from what he had gathered so far, orientation probably consisted of, “Hi, here’s a handbook, here’s your desk, now get to work.” “And would you like to know where the men’s room is?”
The phone rang four times, and then a faint recording droned mechanically, listless, reeking of fatigue and exhaustion. “If I’m not at home, I’m probably at the office.”
Peter hung up slowly, not exactly prepared for the message. Probably the oddest answering machine message he had ever heard. No invitation to leave a message. “I’m probably at the office.” What about his family? Could it have been a private number just for Steadman. Was it an implicit if not open suggestion to contact him there if the caller got that message? Peter looked at his watch, which blinked 3:00. Three o’clock on a Sunday and his boss was at the office. This did not bode well. Should he call him there? Hiya, Pete, come on over and meet the gang. And if he didn’t call, would his number show up on their caller ID? Pete knew where to get me and he didn’t bother to try or even leave a message. Peter was just too stunned and tired to extend further effort.
Not thirty seconds after he put the phone down, it rang. Some kind of automatic callback feature? But no.
“Mr. Caisson, this is Jilly at Palm Beach Animal Hospital. I’m a technician. I had a call from the vet to come in and check on one of the dogs that was ill. I’m here until four. You can come up and get Spot. Normally we wouldn’t be open. And the file of recent admissions notes that you only needed Spot boarded until today.”
“Yes, thanks. Is she okay?”
“Oh yes, no problem. Gray tabby, right?”
“Hold on one second—Marilyn!”
“Who’s that?” said Pete Jr. with a low growl, challenging, on the brink of menace. At least the kid defends his turf, even if his territorial imperative runs to extremes. If he were a king, he’d put up walls to keep his subjects in as much as foreigners out.
“I can pick up Spot now.” He glanced again at his watch. Marilyn nodded in the affirmative. “But I have to leave right away.”
“I’ll get out the kitty litterbox and food.”
“I’ll look for her favorite ball,” said Pete Jr.
Nice homecoming, thought Peter. “I’m on my way,” he said to Jilly.
He put the phone down and it rang again immediately. Had Jilly made a mistake?
“Hello?”
“Hiya Pete Caisson. Welcome to where the sun keeps shining in the pouring rain,” a somewhat manic voice crooned.
“Who’s this?”
“And the Caissons keep rolling along….”
“Beg your pardon?” squeaked Peter, a dull ache forming in his left temple, leaking exasperation.
“Over hill, over dale, as we hit the dusty trail, and the Caissons go rolling along.
In and out, hear them shout, counter march and right about, and the Caissons go rolling along.
Then it's hi! hi! hee! In the field artillery, shout out your numbers loud and strong, for where e'er you go, you will always know that the Caissons go rolling along.” Was this some kind of gag recording? But created by whom. Only Paragon knew they were here in south Florida.
“I’m going to hang up if you don’t tell me who this is.”
“Here’s a clue: ‘Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book, it took me years to write, will you take a look? It's based on a novel by a man named Lear and I need a job, so I want to be a technical writer, technical writer…’”
Peter glanced nervously at his watch, about to hang up, but the sing-song frenetic voice did in fact provide a clue.
“It’s Jack.”
Jack? Jackson? Jackson Daley the mover? Jack of the business card at the Raisin Bar. Was Daley, as menacing voyeur, now harassing him with prank calls, as a prelude to a systematic stalking and shakedown? But no, this guy was too witty to be Jackson (Woooiiee) Daley.
“Jack the ‘other’ technical writer. At Paragon dear fellow,” the voice now spoke, pointlessly mimicking a British accent. “Your soon-to-be partner in technical writing crime, in wordsmithing, invention of techno-delusional fantasies.”
“Well, hi, this is Peter Caisson,” said Peter, dumbfounded.
“Yes, I know that.”
“Where are you?” groaned Peter, a full-blown near migraine headache settling in with suddenness and relentless ferocity of a bursting dam.
“At the office. See you tomorrow. Don’t talk to anybody else or they’ll have you coming over now. I’ll try to meet with you as soon as possible.” Jack now sounded reasonably serious, if possessing a hint of desperation, a jarring contrast to his manner a few moments earlier. “But my hours are all over the place. My Circadian rhythm is a bit mucked up these days. But then what can we expect when the door to the Engineering department has a poster with the picture of the face of a clock with no hands. Might as well say, ‘abandon all hope, ye who enter here,’ I suppose. See you tomorrow, Peter. Dr. Jack recommends a good night’s sleep.”
Click. Some character, thought Peter, again checking his watch. Nearly 3:20. He really had to be going. Without glancing outside, he grabbed his keys and wallet and ran out the side garage door. When he faced the driveway where he had parked the Volvo, he saw a small procession of women, some with small children walking in slow lockstep, most carrying covered trays, pie tins, cake boxes. Not an adult male in the bunch. Come to think of it, all the small children appeared to be girls. Could this be some kind of welcoming committee? Guys must be out with their boys fishing or something.
Brief introductions revealed that the four women were all wives of Paragon employees, here to welcome the Caissons. Who had told them? Perhaps the news had been passed to neighboring employees as a matter of course from Human Resources at Paragon. A real enclave here, apparently combining work and home life. A dubious arrangement, Peter thought, but perhaps some good would come of it. Marilyn came out cheerily took to them right away and vice-versa. Peter waited politely, stepping back inside, sweating the time, in the relatively uncluttered living room as Marilyn passed out paper plates and they all ate cake and cookies and
with iced tea, which she had made a couple of hours ago. In a quick exchange, he learned that all four families lived within two blocks of the house. No one offered anything about the husbands/fathers, other than stating obliquely that their spouses were employees at Paragon. Three engineers and a quality assurance technician, all of whom worked in the Engineering department. Peter supposed this welcoming was more of a female thing. He apologized, saying he had to run an errand before four o’clock. As he closed the door behind him, he had wished he had asked his sulky son to join him, extricate him from the female-dominated event, which had taken on the flavor of an impromptu housewarming shower. Still, he felt there was something shallow, if not insincere about it. Furthermore, as he glanced over his shoulder before closing the door, Pete Jr. was standing in the midst of the group, smiling, smiling demurely, holding a plate of cake, a “paragon” of polite society.
Fiercely driving north on I-95, Peter tried to exclude the sensory input from the whole day. Tired, but wired was how he described himself to the animal technician, Sally, who buzzed him in through the front door of the hospital at precisely 3:52. She could probably see the tension oozing from his pores.
“Didn’t think you were going to make it, Mr. Caisson.” Sally was a reserved, yet pleasant rotund woman in her twenties.
“Thought you were closed Sundays.”
“Normally yes. I had to look in on a sick terrier. I checked the admissions files and saw that, uh, Spot was due to be picked up Monday. There was a note about work conflict…so.”
Peter, mopping his brow, replied, “It’s real helpful. My family and I just relocated. Moved in today. I start my job in Boca tomorrow and right now we only have one car. Things have been a bit ragged and stressed.”
Sally made an odd face, trying to remain polite, but sighing unsympathetically. “Well, I dunno. Things are generally like that down here. People don’t get paid much. Either have to work a lot of hours to make ends meet, or get a second job or both—like me.”
“Sounds rough.”
“They pay me $6.50 an hour here. I’m also a checkout at the Winn Dixie on the weekends. In fact, just came from there.” For a moment Peter’s features froze in surprise, remembering the comparative lower wages in general in south Florida, the insulting pay cut he took, the reneging on the original salary offer. “Anyway, let me get the kitty.” Sally waddled off down the narrow corridor.
Peter wondered why no one had said anything about the possibility of picking Spot up before Monday. Probably better this way. Better than getting his hopes up only to have to race up here tomorrow at lunchtime. Did every experience lack a missing thread of information?
Sally returned shortly, holding the carrier with two hands. “She’s a might agitated.” Peter wondered at this, for Spot had always been exceedingly docile. Peter bent down and peeked through the plastic bars to find that Spot had been transformed into a snarling feline terror, who even swiped at the bars with her claws. “We did trim the claws,” Sally added. “The poor thing is probably traumatized from plane trip and coming in here, but it’ll pass.”
Peter placed the carrier on the front passenger seat. Spot continued howling and hissing. On the way back to I-95, in less haste, he noticed the Raisin Bar. The parking lot was deserted and he observed that the neon sign was missing. Had it been shut down? Raided for illicit activities? He could see the newspaper article now: club’s records seized, records that would include his charge slip for his indiscretion committed with Lorlene. Woooiee. It really looked as though no one had been there in weeks. Just because he was paranoid didn’t mean “they” weren’t after him.
As he approached the entry to Heron Preserve, Peter decided on a whim to drive by Paragon, wondering about his boss’s strange answering machine and the call from Jack. It was only a few miles south, just off county road 441.
Palmetto Park Road ended abruptly at Highway 441, which ran north and south. Beyond, to the south, lay vast stretches of fields, some of it baked farmland, other portions wild entanglements of unchecked growth, perhaps even the outer edges of the Everglades. As he headed south, Peter noticed at least three new developments, deserted bulldozers and other assorted heavy equipment, bone-dry dust swirling about from the late afternoon western gusts. Suddenly, on his left, a landscaped commercial park appeared, sprinklers whipping about in a frenzy to moisten the parched grass. A series of non-descript buildings lay recessed from the road, some as warehouses and assembly plants. Farther down the palm-lined access road, he saw one-story office buildings, all bleach-tan stucco with smoky tinted glass windows. The names rushed by: Amdek, Blaine Systems, Suburban Micrographics, Kestler-Heiffer, Inc., Tall Tree Software. A car here and there in their respective parking lots. Paragon Technologies occupied prime space at the end of the extended cul-de-sac. The adjacent parking lot was more than half full of cars. As he slowed to take in the scene, Spot grew even more restless, howling, scrambling, jostling the cage back and forth, straining at the flimsy plastic bars. To one side of the building, he noticed an area with picnic tables under a spreading cypress, but no sign of anyone. Well, they obviously were not having a family picnic on the surrounding lush rolling landscape.
It was a one-way access. To turn around, he’d have to drive up nearly to the front entrance to make a U-turn. Here, he saw a second sign, staked in the ground near the double doors: PARAGON IS FOR YOU. No doubt a recruiting slogan, perhaps dated since there had been budget concerns and a delay in his salary offer, which was not only late, but less than first agreed upon. Peter clenched his teeth at the memory and Spot hissed with seeming sympathetic anger. PARAGON IS FOR YOU. It also reminded him of some antiquated, Elizabethan street challenge: “I am for thee, sir”. Peter made the U-turn and floored it, speeding all the way from the industrial park setting, to 441, and finally Palmetto Park Road and the entrance to Heron Pointe Preserve in less than eight minutes. He didn’t realize he was that close to the office. Time would tell if it were a blessing or a curse.
By the time he pulled into the driveway, Peter fully assumed the affable but automated welcoming committee had departed. Instead, some members had spilled outside as Marilyn continued chatting breezily with two of the wives on the subject of the freshly sculpted landscape. Wives. Semi-consciously he had already ascribed a referential identity to these obliging women.
They seemed not to be individuals; they were spouses of Paragon employees who, at least in the technological segment of the industry, had formed an almost unassailable bastion of male dominance.
The sun was low in the sky, but offered little if any relief from the heat, only sharp angular light, blinding as it was searing. As Peter lugged the cat carrier up the driveway, Marilyn brightly acknowledged his presence, or at least the safe retrieval and delivery of the family pet. Poor, beloved Spot, traumatized by dislocation, remained highly agitated, bouncing about in the carrier, causing a side-to-side motion as Peter lumbered up to the front door.
“Looks like you’ve got a tiger by the tail,” said one of the indistinguishable wives pleasantly enough, yet an element of heartfelt humor was missing. Peter released Spot as soon as he crossed the threshold. Spot, with her gray fur standing on end, bolted for the dark claustrophobic safety of the sofa’s underbelly.
Peter Jr. appeared abruptly from around a corner. “They’re all ordering pizza and soda,” he mumbled, reflective and confused, as though distant relatives had invited themselves to stay the night. His father waited for the other shoe to drop. “You know, there’s a county park just down the road. All kinds of neat stuff. One of the ladies mentioned it.”
Peter brightened. “You want to go check it out?” He knew he couldn’t sit still in the living room balancing a piece of cake on his knee.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Your mother seems to be having a good time. Too much estrogen collecting in there for my comfort level anyway.” Peter Jr. cracked a smile in spite of himself. “Let me change into my running shoes.”
Peter made the gracious excuse of the ‘boys’ needing to check out the park. One of the wives said it was less than a mile walk through the development. A narrow dirt-packed trail led to a bridge spanning a moderate-sized canal leading to the park, which was maintained by the county. Softball and soccer fields. Basketball, tennis, picnic pavilions, walking and biking trails. Marilyn said they’d save some pizza for them, but Peter felt too jumpy to eat anyway. Perhaps a light run on a mulched jogging trail would not only release some desperately needed endorphins, but restore his appetite. [Possibly, here, add a scene with just Marilyn and the women to balance out the length of the chapter—Stepford Wives associations—maybe later]
“Not much going on in the ‘hood,” said Pete Jr. as they began their walk, his father turning as he heard shrieking laughter emerge from their new home, the klatch of women now having assumed the aspect of a gossipy sewing circle. Little activity in the winding streets. A few dog walkers. The odd child or two playing in their front yard. Someone washing a car. The only person who acknowledged their presence was an elderly woman who waved from her screened in porch, as she tended a cage with a squawking parakeet.
“Place is kind of dead,” said Pete Jr., more in the spirit of observation than complaint.
“It’s late on a Sunday afternoon. People are winding down, gearing up for work tomorrow.” Maybe at the beach or boating, he added to himself, or wishing they were.
“And watching football,” added his son.
“Yeah,” Pete smiled, “that, too. We’ll see who’s playing when we get back.” Pete Jr. strode with his hands in the pockets of his baggy shorts, kicking at loose gravel and pebbles as they went. “You’re not worried about school?” Peter wondered at his phrasing, for he too could understand the apprehension, the stomach knotting up; after all, they were all new kids on the block. Adults for the most part seemed to possess an advantage in this situation, based on the crumbly belief that at least basic rules of civility applied in the office workplace. High school could be scary, much more so than when he was a kid. The rank cynicism, street-toughness, the atrophy of compassion and dissolution of courtesy had gripped society’s youths at a much earlier age. It was a chilling notion to consider that many of them would inherit the corner offices and dead-end cubicles of the white-collar workplace, all too familiar to Peter, as his generation was gradually phased out by attrition, or even more aggressive policies of forced obsolescence.
“I guess not. School’s school. At least no heavy coats to wear.”
“Think you’ll miss the leaves changing and the snow?”
“I dunno. Never thought about it. If we did, we could go back for a visit, right?” A fair enough response, thought Peter as he nodded in the affirmative. “School bus pickup is just two blocks from our house, according to one of the wives,” Pete Jr. added, thumbing backwards, indicating they already passed it.
“It’ll be a snap,” said his father, trying to sound convincing. ‘I mean we’ve only got the one car. Your mom will have to be driving me to and picking me up from work unless she wants to be stranded at the house all day.”
“Sometimes I get the feeling that she wouldn’t mind that.”
Peter would have normally agreed, but the change in latitude had wrought a transformation, some of it even not so subtle. Marilyn, now gregarious with neighbors she had just met. Up north, neither of them had much interaction or even contact with their neighbors. And she kept on about the fruit trees. Well, next weekend, he’d see about it, not entrust it to the likes of Jackson Daley. Wooooiee. If it would make her happy.
“Anyway, we’ll see about a second car. Got to get a firm grip on our expenses down here and what we can put aside.” Pete braced for the spontaneous insistence of some large-ticket purchase such as a new computer, but Pete Jr., remained oddly silent, even pensive.
Up ahead, a few short blocks, stood a brown and white sign with an arrow, directing them to the right. The sign read: “Okalachee Park”. They trudged across a narrow wooden bridge, recently painted and passed through a gate in a chain-link fence. Skies to the west darkened as anvil-shaped thunderclouds loomed up in the distance. Peter spotted a large pavilion area with tables, some with brown paint blistered by the oppressive unrelenting heat.
“Hey, Dad, I gotta use the restroom.”
“Sure,” said his father absent-mindedly, sitting down at one of the tables, squinting into the light of a setting sun at a nearby basketball court, filled with youngsters, adolescents, appearing not too threatening, perhaps true jocks and less interested in sporting doo-rags and gold jewelry and hip-hop strides. One had a red Chicago Bulls jersey. Number 23 of course. Another sported a Miami Heat t-shirt. Peter leaned back and watched the five-on-five full-court contest unfold, memories seizing hold of him, returning him to his school days and even college where he last played a little. The only exercise he afforded himself in the better part of the last two decades was the occasional jog through the hilly terrain of north Jersey neighborhoods, curtailing his regimen when the cold winds blew and retreating to a stationary bike in the basement. As he watched the game he felt like taking a turn at the jogging trail he saw wind off in the distance, freshly mulched, with friendly markers announcing the progress of those who took the trail.
The glare became more intense so he decided to move back under the pavilion to shield his eyes. Now, from this dark venue, he looked out upon the court, the scene now framed as through a filtered lens, soft and blurry, indistinct flashes of white as players twisted, drove through the air, reversed direction, sprinted down court. The light grew so intense it seemed to dissolve the scene as in some cinematic fadeout, so that now he was transported back through the years, viewing the radiant light from a time portal, watching the former care-free hours of his youth. Before responsibility, during days of innocence when commitment was to the moment, to make the shot, to stop the break, to flow with the pace of the game as to become one with it.
Reveries of lost youthful innocence ground to sudden halt as Pete Jr. flung the restroom door open. “Hey Dad! You want to see something weird?”
Adjusting to the change in light as he turned about, Peter squinted at his son who appeared to be holding an oversized greeting card by its corners, as though it were some unwholesome object, soiled and infected. It appeared to be some folded shiny card, or at least something printed on glossy stock, like a cover. Pete Jr. set it down like he had just cleared the sidewalk of dog excrement. His father stared, frozen for a moment or two. In large blue letters across the top of the printed piece were the words ‘PARAGON’ in some flashy font, perhaps intended to convey speed and progress. Some other abstract art appeared in hues matching the printed font. Near the bottom, the words “USER GUIDE” appeared. Centered directly above that was a rectangular cutout. Peter was slow to assimilate this because the most striking feature of this, this artifact was its worn and battered condition. Wet spots, frayed corners, soiled fingerprints, even suggestions of tire treads as though someone had run over it repeatedly in the parking lot. A loose staple hung from the scoring where the cover folded. Inside nothing but white glossy surface, still soiled and fouled. On the back, the PARAGON logo in smaller letters. Peter did realize the cutout would have been a cost-saving measure. Many generic covers could be printed up for any product. The name of the product would then appear in just the right position on the first page to show through the cutout. Not particularly aesthetic, but exceedingly practical. Suddenly, he wondered why he was focusing on these details instead of the larger question. He finally looked up at his son, who seemed to be waiting for eye contact.
“This is from your new company, the Paragon place. This is the stuff you’d be working on, right? Why is it out here in this park in some dirty public restroom?”
Peter shook his head slowly. “I can’t begin to guess. It is bizarre, isn’t it?”
Peter Jr. rolled his eyes. “Let’s go home. This creeps me out.”
His father looked over at the basketball court to discover that not only had the game ended, but all the players had vanished. “Yeah, let’s get washed up and grab some pizza.”
As they headed back, the sun dropped near to the horizon behind them, arrayed in fluffy streaks of pink and gold, the thunderheads having missed them and moved on. Peter sighed with relief as they entered the front door to discover that the Paragon wives had finally left. Marilyn sat in the living room with the lights off, stroking Spot who now deigned to sit in someone’s lap. Staring off into space, she managed a distant grin, not aimed at her returning family, but at some secret inner realization. Peter wanted to conclude it was the excitement of meeting new friends, supportive neighbors, the spouses of Paragon people, yet he had to admit he couldn’t determine the cause of these changes in his wife’s behavior.
“We had a nice chat,” she began, as Pete Jr. headed for the kitchen to rummage through the pizza boxes. “A lot of the Paragon families relocated here.”
“They seem like a close-knit group, said Peter, fishing for cracks in the cheery exterior of the Paragon clique, but Marilyn added nothing further.
“They did mention the storm brewing, but having lived here they kind of take it in stride.”
“What storm? You mean that system on the Weather Channel we saw at the airport?”
Marilyn stepped forward, as though to offer an opinion. “Well, yes, but we just have to pay attention, not ignore it or panic.”
Peter felt his eyebrows raise. Balanced, sensible advice, of which Marilyn was capable, but he hardly found it characteristic of her to venture forth so boldly, as though it were the last word on the topic for the family. Peter certainly had nothing to add, so he nodded agreeably and managed an approving grin. The sun had dropped below the horizon and low, shimmering shadows crept across the family room, filtering through the vertical blinds, which swayed in the light breeze stirred by the air conditioner.
“I need a shower,” said Peter, turning on his heels, thinking of nothing but hot water cascading down his tense shoulders, lathering himself liberally, and.... It took seconds, stripping off his damp, sour shorts and t-shirt, unconsciously locking the bathroom door behind him, the stream of water inviting, soothing, and suddenly, the image of Lorene reared up before him, soon followed by something else rearing up, his arm bending, his hand clutching mechanically—and the spell suddenly broken by a pounding on the door.
“Hey Dad!”
“Almost done. Hold on.”
He rinsed quickly, his tumescence quickly growing flaccid, as he dried himself and threw on a robe. It had gotten colder in the house and he found himself almost shivering. Not even bothering to comb his thinning hair, he emerged to find Pete staring hopefully and innocently.
“There’s that old movie on TV that you like. That body snatcher thing.”
Peter smiled appreciatively, if not thrilled at the interruption and intrusion on his privacy. He ran a towel quickly though his hair and followed Peter to the family room, passing Marilyn in the kitchen, who seemed bustling, making lists, arranging more carefully earlier placed items, concentrating, focusing. She behaved as though she were stationed there on assigned duty.
Peter smiled at the thought of the old movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, from the fifties, but no it was the serviceable, if inferior remake from ’78 with Donald Sutherland.
“Hey, Dad, that’s the guy who looks like you.”
“Really? No one’s ever said that before.” Peter mused at the comparison. Some facial similarity, but the character was ragged, driven, desperate, about how Peter felt he looked. Had he really avoided looking in the mirror while showering?
“It’s cool. All this weird stuff happens, people turning into pod-people making everyone like everyone else.” Wrapped in a towel, Peter sat down to watch the last twenty minutes, focusing particularly on the mindless mob chasing the unconverted protagonist in the street, shouting “you’re next!” just after his girl friend had succumbed to sleep and had turned into one of “them”. Haunting strains of “Amazing Grace” piped up in the background. It gave him chills.
Around 9 p.m., everyone seemed wiped out by the eventful weekend. Pete Jr. played
some music in his room, softly, distantly, though the bedrooms adjoined. And Peter thought of
the film and how the victims turned into one of the pod people if they fell asleep. All too wired, Peter discovered he couldn’t sleep and after thirty minutes went into spare room and opened the box containing his manuscript, flipping through the pages absent-mindedly as he slumped into an old easy chair. It was soon two a.m. He tried to close his eyes for a few minutes, not sure if he had dozed off. He thought he heard something in the kitchen, Spot perhaps getting into mischief. Surprisingly and unaccountably, Marilyn had gotten up at some point and was silently doing stretching exercises. In the kitchen, her apparent center of comfort. Startled, deciding not to intrude, he returned to bed and feigned sleep. Marilyn soon returned and went right to sleep. Before nodding off fitfully, he thought he heard car doors opening and closing, the click of heels on pavement, purposeful, if not furtive for this hour. Lastly, birdsong. The last image he recalled was the Spot on the window sill staring out at the pre-dawn crescent moon, listening, waiting for the song to materialize into her object of desire.
MONDAY
3
Peter discovered that the parking lot at Paragon less full than yesterday, still plenty of cars at eight a.m. Marilyn said she would start putting the house in order, enroll Pete Jr. in 8th grade. Of course, he could manage with the school bus. They still had the problem of the one car. Fortunately, Paragon was less than a ten-minute drive. For now, the arrangement would be for Marilyn to drop Peter off and pick him up. Perhaps some days she could pick him up and they could go home for lunch. Marilyn some time ago, though not recently, had talked about getting a job, but she had not spoken of any particular line of work. She had last worked as an administrative assistant, before their son was born, some part-time hours after that with day care thrown in. But her position had been eliminated. At AT&T, Peter had done well enough for her to become a fulltime housewife. Now, a second job had practically become a necessity and that would mean a second car, used, minimum insurance. These thoughts raced through Peter’s sleep-deprived brain as he found a parking spot, got out, took a deep breath, adjusted his tie and passed through the “gates” of Paragon.
He spotted the Human Resources department just past the lobby. After he signed in with the receptionist, Margie Freele appeared, seemingly bored and preoccupied.
“Well, Mr. Peter Caisson, today’s the day, eh,” she said, stifling a yawn. “You’re the only new employee starting today,” she continued, leading him to her windowless, unadorned office. Stacks of folders lay in disarray. Peter glanced at her computer where it seemed she had been working on some kind of spreadsheet.
"We'll keep orientation simple.” She grimaced. “I’m afraid there’s less staff to prepare fancy presentations since the layoffs a few weeks back.”
The remark didn’t immediately register, but Peter piped up reflexively, “Layoffs? No one said anything about layoffs during the interview.” An insidious sourness crept into the pit of his stomach.
Margie paused, as if distantly recalling having lost a close co-worker. She turned to a shelf on a bookcase and grabbed a packet of forms, company profile sheet, and an employee handbook. Peter noticed a layer of dust on top of the packet.
“Margie, please understand, but it’s a bit unsettling to have relocated all this distance for a new job and to hear of layoffs.”
Rather than assuaging and reassuring, Margie countered with a question. “Uh, who originally interviewed you?”
“Why it was a Frank Steadman I believe.”
Margie’s features sagged at this reply but before she could speak, a man poked his head in the door.
“Marge, you’re needed in the main conference room right away. Hanson’s calling all the executive staff. He’s about to go ballistic about the third quarter earnings.”
Margie jumped up and shouted, “Trish!” A young woman suddenly appeared in the doorway. The messenger had already fled. “This is Peter Caisson. Show him around. He starts today in Engineering. When you’re done, take him to Steve Polk. Gotta run.”
“Hi Mr. Caisson. I’m Trisha.” Trisha bore no expression, that is to say showed no reaction to the sudden, unanticipated bustle.
“Are you Margie’s secretary?”
“Actually I’m secretary/administrative assistant, chief cook and bottle washer for all the top managers. It’s gonna be one of those days. Woooieee.” Somehow, she reminded him of one of the women at the Raisin Bar.
Trish proceeded with the “tour”, which consisted of pointing out the restrooms, a kind of makeshift lunch room with a few tables, refrigerator, vending machines, and two coffee makers. Trisha tossed a limp hand in either direction as they continued down a main hallway. “That’s Sales and Marketing. That’s Accounting. That’s Tech. Support.” Peter maintained a smile on his face, but kept considering the issue of the third quarter earnings, obviously not joyous news based on the reaction of….
“This Hanson?”
“Bob Hanson, the CEO.”
“Tough, demanding?”
“You could say that. His motto is ‘lean and mean’,” she recited in an expressionless, robotic-like manner.
As they approached the end of the main corridor, Peter saw a closed door, a potted plant, faring none too well next to it, but most striking of all was the poster on the door: the face of a clock with no hands, as Jack had described. No captions. Why was it there and what was it supposed to mean? Something measured as timeless? The whole point of measuring time was to segment the day, the diurnal portion, cycle of activities, parenthetically enclosed by sleep. Was it intended to suggest that there were no segments? That Paragon employees’ singular purpose was an all-consuming devotion to the company?
Inside, there were of course the requisite cubicles, a few enclosed offices. Escorted past these by Trisha, he came upon an open tiled floor, a combination test/development lab with benches, ripped apart computers, cables, piles of electronic circuit boards, various and sundry test equipment with voltmeters, soldering irons, gauges, oscilloscopes, in such a state of disarray that it resembled nothing so much as a backstreet warehouse or chop shop garage.
Prescripts:
“The 80-hour man sizzles…”
--From Juliet Schorr’s The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, quoting a corporate recruiter.
“Karoshi” in Japan.
“Death from too much work is so commonplace in Japan that there is a word for it -- karoshi. There is a national karoshi hotline, a karoshi self-help book and a law that funnels money to the widow and children of a salaryman (it's almost always a man) who works himself into an early karoshi for the good of his company.”
--The Washington Post, July 13, 2008
“People are going to have so much leisure time, that one of society's biggest challenges will be figuring out how to keep citizens occupied.”
--A popular magazine from the 1950s predicting life in the 21st century.
“idle hands are the devil’s workshop” (proverb)
“With a very few exceptions, the world of jobs is characterized by stifling boredom, grinding tedium, poverty, petty jealousies, sexual harassment, loneliness, deranged co-workers, bullying bosses, seething resentment, illness, exploitation, stress, helplessness, hellish commutes, humiliation, depression, appalling ethics, physical fatigue and mental exhaustion.”
--From How to be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson.
Almost 20,000 words; outlined to the conclusion.
168 Hours: a Tale of the 90s
by
Joseph A. Domino
1 SATURDAY…
Peter Caisson watched the runway and Newark airport fall away as the Continental flight soared out over the Atlantic, beginning its course south toward Florida. Pete Jr., angrily sulking in the aisle seat, alternated between fierce glares at his father and a pensive study of the Game Boy he clutched. Marilyn, Peter's wife, stared straight ahead at the seat in front of her, seemingly oblivious to the roar of the jet engines. Peter considered the peculiarity of how his son actually got along better with his mother than he did with him. She was often distant with her son and that seemed to keep the peace between them.
If he examined the relationship, he found it odd, so rather than probe their passionless compatibility, he concentrated solely on the surface of their life together. Often void of emotion, of strong feelings on a subject within or without the marriage, Marilyn at times seemed "just there". Dependable, occasionally working outside the home, dealing with Pete's fiery outbursts in an even, if uninspired manner. She often approached sex the same way, but was sympathetic in a distant kind of way when he began having difficulty in bed. Marilyn reassured him that it was a passing thing, after all they were approaching middle-age, the job stress. Nothing unusual. When the passing thing persisted for months, Peter withdrew from any discussion, and Marilyn failed to broach the subject. He wanted her to confront him, but he didn't know how to get her to do it. Peter met her during his first two years at AT&T, when she had been in Marketing. They dated for over a year, when the subject of marriage arose spontaneously. Peter, still smarting from the emptiness of his lost first marriage with Alice, wanted to jump at any chance to avoid going home to an empty apartment.
Now, Alice had been a different story altogether. Beset by the lure of various social causes, ranging from helping homeless children to protecting the environment, Alice wanted to move her "stagnating career", as she referred to it in a local government office to Washington. With an opportunity pending at AT&T, Peter wouldn't hear of it. They would sit up all night and argue while sharing a bottle of Vodka. Some of those arguments even concluded in ferocious lovemaking, scenes Peter still played over in his mind even to the present day. The marriage lasted two years; she hadn't threatened for support, but the lawyer she retained had talked her into it. She never remarried, continuing to devote herself to correcting society's ills. It was the spark he missed, and sometimes even the arguments.
Newark airport completely disappeared from sight and only a fleeting glimpse of the Jersey shoreline remained. Within moments the plane was engulfed in the blankness of puffy clouds. As the engines droned and the landing gear retracted with a rumble, Peter took a deep breath, hoping to dispel the doubts, which consumed him.
Peter waited until Pete had put his earphones on before turning to Marilyn. "I just hope we're doing the right thing."
Marilyn turned and smiled absent-mindedly with a half-hearted reassuring pat on the knee. "Maybe the change will do us all good."
Damning with faint praise? Pete had been understandably upset about leaving his friends and even school, of which he had been none too fond. Peter hoped to have sold the house and lock in the job offer before summer vacation ended, so Pete could have a "clean" break and start school the in mid-August. But no, here it was the first weekend in October. Poor kid, he lamented; there seemed to be no way to make it up to him.
Paragon Technologies, he murmured, somewhat unsettled about how little he knew about the company. He interviewed electronically through a video conferencing link. Peter waited weeks for the offer, exhausting all local possibilities for employment. As a technical writer in the computer industry, he had worked for AT&T for 16 years and had avoided the many rounds of layoffs for some time, but his luck finally ran out. Over the course of many years, AT&T had jettisoned thousands of workers equaling the populations of small towns. Where would all those displaced people go? He had been priced out of the local job market and, at the age of 44, didn't look forward to the prospect of becoming a floor clerk in some Wal-mart.
It had been early June, right after Marilyn's family reunion over Memorial Day weekend. Rumors had persisted for weeks, but mysteriously subsided just before the holiday, an eerie calm settling over the embattled office. He walked in the Tuesday following the long weekend, a little late for him, just before eight a.m. Peter liked to arrive early and fool around with his novel writing on the computer in his cramped windowless office, although of late, without creative juices flowing, he surfed the net, more and more frequently drawn to pornographic sites. He had been trying to get a second novel off the ground for months, but family and job encroached on more of his spare time and he spent his increasing idle moments passively, attracted to impossible sex offerings. After many years of unsuccessful publication attempts, his first novel lay in a spare room closet collecting dust. With a master's degree in the amorphous-sounding Humanities, with a concentration in literature, he had kind of fallen into his technical writing career when a fledgling computer company ran an ad for a "documentation person" who had good English skills. He thought about continuing on in graduate school, but Alice had kind of sidetracked him; he felt he owed her some kind of commitment, so he opted for the practical course....
The office seemed consumed in an unusual bustle for the early hour. Co-workers strode up and down the aisles, speaking in hushed whispers. Lights in the larger managerial offices were on, the conference rooms abuzz with secretaries and administrative assistants. Had he missed something? Before he could get his coffee, the intercom blared an announcement that at nine a.m. all members of the Telephony Research Department were to report to the main conference room. Uh-oh, sighed Peter, tempering his alarm by rationalizing that previously layoffs always came on Friday.
The number of new products for Peter to document had continued to dwindle for some time. In fact, his manual on software protocols for field support personnel was just about finished with no new assignments in sight. A sure sign, or was it? Peter had been floating his resume for some time. The ads were sparse, professional placement agencies all reacted uniformly: "You're making that much, huh? Solid background, but you're overpriced. We might be able to get you a lateral if you go into Manhattan, but even then...."
Twenty-five programmers, analysts, and project managers crowded into the conference room, hushed and tense like rush-hour commuters on a subway. The Vice-President entered somberly, fidgeting with a stack of envelopes in his left hand, about twenty-five of them Peter estimated. The envelopes were thin and Peter believed he saw colored paper inside. Pink?
A senior programmer spoke up. "This is it, isn't it John?" Peter recalled many of the programmers playing computer games when they had run out of work.
John Delrasio, fifty, and now visibly shaken, running trembling fingers through his thinning hair, looked like he wanted to sit down, although there were no empty seats.
He nodded, struggling with the words. "I got one, too," he mumbled, holding up the envelopes." Now, their status confirmed, a few groans were uttered, but mostly dead silence swallowed the conference room. "Before you ask, no options exist at this time for reassignment to other divisions. Our projects are being reassigned to an outside consulting group."
"What?" piped out a voice, "to those Pakistanis who write code for ten bucks an hour?"
Delrasio wanted to ignore the comment, but he nodded in agreement. "There are severance checks in these envelopes, but they are not as generous as with past downsizing, uh, layoffs."
Sure, thought Peter, while the VP had a job, it was downsizing and now that it happened to him, he called a spade a spade.
"Six weeks full pay and ninety days medical coverage."
More groans. "Jesus, last time they got twelve weeks."
"I know and probably those who go after us will get even less."
Peter felt his heart thumping against his rib cage. His feet tingled as he ambled down the stark hallway, blazing now with florescent lights. Everyone ignored him. He had expected at least token handshakes and best wishes, but everyone behaved as though in a trance. By the time he returned to his office, two large empty boxes had been placed on his desk, almost like coffins, beckoning the condemned to climb in and close the lids. When Pete and Marilyn found him home at four p.m., right after school, he was sitting in his recliner with the cat in his lap, staring vacantly.
"You'll find something," Marilyn offered.
Pete, genuinely confused, wondered now about the new computer his father had promised.
The next day, Peter contacted the employment agency and his assigned representative offered hollow condolences, adding that no one was safe these days.
"But have you got anything?"
"As I said, the market is sluggish. You'd have to take a substantial pay cut. Even Manhattan doesn't look that good right now. Let me check a few leads and I'll call you back in an hour."
The rep called back the next day. "Have you given any thought to relocating, you know out-of-state? It's going to be rough carrying that mortgage."
"Don't I know it." Out-of-state. Was he up to it? How would the family react? They had no real close friends. Marilyn's family was in Pennsylvania anyway and he had no living relatives. Pete was nearly done with school. Actually the timing for such an undertaking was pretty good. "What have you got?"
"Florida. Boca Raton. High-tech company called Paragon Technologies. They do circuit boards and bundle software. Motherboards, accelerator cards. You've documented hardware." Peter thought yes, but he had been working primarily with software engineers for the past year. Still, he had done it. "I got some details. They have a one-man department there, poor guy probably works eighty hours a week. They seemed to imply this guy was approaching burnout. It's a very aggressive new product schedule."
Peter cringed. Sure, the guy burns out and then I go up in flames eighty hours a week. Working at AT&T hadn't exactly been a nine to five endeavor, but his schedule had normalized to maybe nine or ten hours a day and an occasional Saturday morning and not so much of that in recent months. Of course, it was a generally accepted practice that no one leave at five p.m. An eight-hour day meant you didn't have enough to do.
"Best of all it's an Adobe shop. Framemaker. Your resume says you've been using that for years."
Peter brightened. "Boca Raton. Isn't IBM there?"
"Forget it. They're dumping people there about as fast as AT&T. Paragon's a small company with big plans. Now, understand, comparable salaries are cheaper there, but so is the cost of living. A little. You could get a new house probably for half of what you sell for up here."
"Are they actually interviewing? Is there an open position?"
"Absolutely."
"Should I take a flight down?"
"Not necessary. We'll do it here via video conferencing. It's actually one of their systems. I said it's a high-tech company. Some call the area Silicon Beach. Think of it. You're a few miles away from the beach, boating, fishing. It doesn't get cold."
Peter wondered how those who worked long hours would have time for that kind of recreation. "I don't know anything about Florida."
"Well, it's a place. Semi-tropical climate. Suppose the opportunity was in Arsewipe, North Dakota?"
"You've got a point."
"If they're interested, we can hook you up with a realtor down there. They'll mail you videotapes of homes.”
"Right. That’s convenient."
"See? Your whole life could be set up before you step off the plane."
All too facile, thought Peter. Something airy, insubstantial about it. But his other options bore little if any promise. If he went to work at some local retail chain, there was no way they could keep the house. The agent, growing decidedly impatient, added, "Opportunity comes knocking, you've got to answer the door." Peter formed the image of a knocking at the door and opening it only to find no one there.
He broke the news at home, braced for objections and plaintive counter-arguments, but the reaction was surprisingly non-combative, if not supportive.
"Wow, just a few miles from the beach," said Pete, "babes in bikinis year round." His parents chuckled.
"Maybe we could plant fruit trees in the backyard," offered Marilyn.
"You both realize I have no leads up here. Very dry. What I do as a necessary skill is sort on the periphery of the computer industry. Not exactly vital services. And my age doesn't help matters. They want hungry young lions. Unattached lions who live, breathe, and eat the company seven days a week. I'm a little old for that crap. Sure, they're always hiring at the retail stores, but we'd have to sell the house anyway and move into an apartment. None of us wants that." They nodded in agreement, or was it resignation? Peter couldn't tell for sure.
"Dad, can we get the new computer when we get there?"
They sold the house with relative ease in July with a closing scheduled for August, assuming the offer from Paragon would arrive by then, but a final decision was not soon forthcoming. The closing proceeded with the arrangement that the Caissons would remain in the house for two additional months, sweating out the offer, while assuming the buyer's monthly mortgage payments. Peter knew full well that if the deal fell through, they'd have to move into an apartment and he'd be working six and a half days a week in Wal-mart. The weeks were tense as Marilyn responded to the stress with an assortment of ailments ranging from insomnia to outbreaks of acne and hives. Pete languished in sulky moods, listening to loud rock music in his room, surrounded by half-packed boxes. Peter combated this by jogging daily, managing to lose eight pounds. At first he thought he'd attack his novel with all the free time on his hands, but found his ability to concentrate so diminished, he only felt like watching daytime re-runs.
Peter felt the energy required for his literary enterprise had been diluted by his bland family and work life. Now, tingling with apprehension, he couldn't muster up a decent attention span. Who was he kidding? His first novel, a sci-fi allegory, had been fairly artificially crafted, that is without the benefit of research and experience. That's what an agent had told him after collecting a fee of $200 to "represent" the book for six months and producing not even a nibble of interest. The Altarhan Solution had come solely out of his head. Sure, he had read a lot of sci-fi, but in looking back it seemed he had made little use of it. In The Altarhan Solution, a heavily populated solar system faces the problem of how to deal with capital crimes since execution is forbidden, although the system, with many pioneering settlements, experiences thousands of murders. The offenders seem to just disappear. A man named Qantar, killing in self-defense, is convicted and learns the secret of what happens to the condemned.
He had coerced Marilyn to read a chapter here and there, but she had never digested the finished work in its entirety. The whole process seemed to have taken place in a vacuum. In recent years, the book receded from him like a distant relative who had moved away, hardly remaining in touch. Maybe the Florida move would kickstart him into another undertaking. Of course, he would barely have time for paying bills and mowing the lawn if he were engulfed by the work weeks which had consumed this other tech writer.
After numerous follow-up calls to the agency produced no news, he began to call Paragon weekly, but the Human Resources manager, patient, even lethargic, repeated the same message each time: "Not to worry, Mr. Caisson, they're still very much interested in you. They're still working on the budget."
When Peter explained the problem with moving out of his house, the manager merely repeated, "I understand. Not to worry...." Peter fully expected that, after a few calls, "they'd leave a recording: "If you are Mr. Caisson, please press 2." “If you require assistance, please hang up.”
By early September, he began to look for apartments and to float his resume around again, pretty much giving up on Paragon. Marilyn grew more tense. Pete seemed to brighten at the prospect at not having to leave his friends, although he still ardently maintained that school sucked.
On September 14, he received a registered letter from Paragon, which announced his reporting date of Monday October 3 with a starting salary of $29,000. He blinked at the number. He had been told during the videoconference the position paid in the range of $32-35K. He had made $38K at AT&T. Lower cost of living down there, he reassured himself. Right? Still, he called the placement agency and the agent seemed annoyed with his mild protests.
The employment rep, an eager young man two years out of college, named Chris Reaper, had ushered him into a small, Spartan conference room with a computer. A miniature black camera sat perched on top of the monitor. Reaper called Paragon and, after several minutes, got the Human Resources Manager, Margie Freele, on-line. Peter had heard of these new systems but had never seen one operate.
"The product hasn't been out on the market long," said Reaper confidently. "Their first release is kind of a market test."
"Well, Mr. Caisson," began Margie brightly, "what do you think of the product? It's pretty leading edge stuff, wouldn't you say? We're already working on enhancements." Enhancements? Peter had been around long enough to know that meant fixing the things that didn't work properly first time out. Peter had positioned himself in front of the grainy, occasionally shearing picture on the computer screen and ventured a boldness.
"Hello Margie. What's your market like for this thing?"
Margie didn't expect the question. "Mr. Frank Steadman, Engineering Operations Manager can discuss that with you. He'll be along after I'm finished." Margie went on with the standard questions, concluding with a canned overview of Paragon, sounding like she was reading from the company brochure. "Well, Peter, you sound like what we need down here. I'll get Mr. Steadman."
Frank Steadman, appearing disheveled as though he hadn't gotten much sleep, slumped into the chair in front of the camera. Peter thought he hadn't shaved, but couldn't be sure, considering the picture quality. "Good background, Pete," he said, dispensing with formalities. "Like the samples you sent. Your Adobe Framemaker experience is key. We do a volume business with documentation. Maybe fifty new products a year." Peter wanted to comment. It seemed like an awful lot for a technology company with 150 employees and an engineering department of 12.
"Jack, the other tech writer is excited about the prospects of you joining the team."
"Would it be possible to speak with him?"
"Great idea except he went home a little while ago to catch some shut-eye." It was nine-thirty in the morning. Peter somehow knew that if this Jack were working eighty hours a week, his arrival on the scene would not mean a 40-hour shift for each of them. "Sometimes Jack gets a little off course. So much coming at him at once. We expect the documentation people to be technical; sometimes they have to know more than the engineers. Anyway, Pete, we'll set it up with HR. Margie will be getting the offer out to you if everything else checks out."
"You mean past employment?"
The picture began to break up, but Peter thought he saw someone off camera tugging at Frank's sleeve. Frank seemed to bolt out of the chair. Reaper tried to re-establish the connection, but could not. He called Margie right back and Peter watched him smile and nod mechanically. Reaper glanced over at Peter and gave the thumbs-up sign. All through the interview, he sat off in a corner, making annoying hand gestures of encouragement and reassurance like a sidelines coach.
Peter was certain Margie Freele had stated the salary was in the $32-35K range.
"Considering the entire situation," Reaper had barked impatiently over the phone, "I wouldn't quibble at this point. Go down there and make a splash and the numbers will take care of themselves."
Just as Peter began to leave the conference room, he turned and asked, "Was there a problem with the unit? Maybe the manual has some suggestions."
"Manual?" repeated Reaper. "I don't know if anyone looked at it."
Off in a corner of the room he saw a box with PARAGON printed on the side. The manual, still in its shrink-wrapping, protruded from the top.
Pete exploded when told they were really going, slamming his bedroom door so hard, it came off one of its hinges. Now, what about housing down there? An apartment made the most sense, especially after the "reduced" salary, but after calling the realtor in Boca, decided they would go through with the house they had picked back in July. West Boca. New 3-bedroom house, small lot, two-car garage, $99,500. He would clear $50,000 from the sale of their current home. $50K mortgage, good rate, monthly payments of $489, cheaper the realtor reminded him than renting. Peter confided to himself that he really didn't want to deal with Marilyn and Pete in the close confines of an apartment while adjusting to their new lives.
He mailed a deposit to the realtor who promptly returned the deed and keys. As soon as his lawyer approved the contract, they hired a moving van and they vacated the home they had lived in since Pete Jr. was two. He had vague misgivings about not having seen the house in West Boca, but again the realtor assured him, stating that every square inch of the house was guaranteed for one full year. Structure, appliances, the works. On the eve of moving, Peter chastised himself for not researching their destination any more than what he had been fed by Paragon and the realtor, which was precious little.
Memories flooded him as he stood in the empty house. Just so much space now. He could summon up nothing heartfelt, his emotions stripped from him, his sense of place and purpose out of joint. It all went smoothly. The closing, the moving truck on Wednesday. They stayed three nights in a local motel before boarding the Continental flight out of Newark. He sighed dejectedly when he thought of how they would miss the leaves changing color. He tried to cheer himself up by thinking if things went well, he would buy a boat and take up deep-sea fishing, maybe even diving. Take advantage of the things the area offered. He had read about local boaters diving for lobster right off their own boats. His first wife, Alice, loved the outdoors and the water. There was simply scarce enough common in their inner lives to sustain the marriage. They parted amicably, the fire of their passions inexorably quenched. Rather than a mutually agreed separation, he viewed their parting as something lost he might find again one day. Another vacated space.
His mind drifted back to Marilyn's family reunion. Brothers, cousins, sisters, aunts, uncles appeared to go through the motions of displaying warmth and tenderness, regretting lost years of silence, of distance. For Peter, the gathering was summed up Memorial Day morning by a single image, which had haunted him all summer.
Many of Marilyn's relatives had already left by Monday morning; two cousins lingered, sleeping almost till noon. An uncle of Marilyn's, Uncle Rob, seemed intent on summarizing his glorious thirty-year career as an electrician. Pete watched TV in the sunken recreation room, decorated with rustic touches. Peter and Marilyn formed a captive audience as Uncle Rob droned on. Peter mentioned that he was a technical writer in the computer industry. What? said Uncle Rob, appearing not to comprehend. Marilyn offered no help, so Peter half-heartedly elaborated, "You know, I write the manuals for the products that go inside computers."
"Oh, the manuals, right. Never look at 'em. I can put anything together."
Peter nodded vacantly, admitting to himself that this technical writing thing sometimes felt like working in the dead letter office. As Uncle Rob continued, Peter's rambling thoughts brought him back to earlier that morning when he was one of the first ones up. The big party for the weekend had been yesterday at poolside in the unseasonable heat. Marilyn's Aunt Maddy had hosted the reunion, having lost her husband, who traded bonds in Philadelphia, to a stroke at the age of sixty-one six months ago. Everyone had a good time, although by evening, the stores of jokes and family stories had been exhausted and most guests began speaking in one-syllable expressions and responses. Maddy forged gamely ahead, refreshing drinks and setting out snacks, but by ten p.m. everyone had sacked out.
Sunlight glistened off the pool, making Peter blink as he sipped a gin and tonic. Even Pete seemed to be having a good time—as long as he was in the water, intently studying a second cousin named Cheryl, sixteen and with a swimsuit which left little to the imagination. Like an undercurrent, an insidious background noise, a small portable radio played an oldies station, all kinds of folk songs from the sixties. Peter almost felt ashamed for his nostalgia; his son always made faces when he smiled at the likes of James Taylor and Carole King, the latter a special favorite of his first wife, Alice. He chuckled to himself, recalling every month's alimony check, calling it "AliceMoney". They stayed in touch and from all apparent indications, she never met anyone. Once, he asked her about it.
"There's no one to meet. Men and women seem to be disappearing, or at least withdrawing." Peter said he wouldn't disagree with that. There was something about the tinny reverberations of the radio, hauntingly distant as in years swept away from him. The radio sounded like a bad long-distance connection. Peter smiled at the thought; it was exactly that.
The next morning he stepped out the back for a breath of air to discover that the radio had been left on, still running its oldies festival. It gave him chills as he glanced around the empty poolside, even less than twenty-four hours later unable to clearly recall the faces, some even happy or at least content, memories rushing away, ever farther, their immediacy never again to be gleaned.
They left for the return drive to Jersey around mid-day. The next day, he received the long-dreaded pink slip. He struggled to remember what he had produced of lasting value during his 16 years. Especially during the fleeting life cycles of the electronic products he had documented, where planned obsolescence reigned. Just before he exited his office for the last time with a box of meager possessions, he noted his printed manuals on a bookshelf and the thick dust, which obscured their titles.
The entire sequence of events made loneliness weigh heavily on him. Like the pounding in his ears now as the plane made its descent into foreign territory. When he considered the many events of his recent past as he hurtled away from it at 500mph, it seemed as unreal as their destination. At the moment, he felt caught in between realities, locked in a kind of phantom zone....in the rush of the descent, deafening, rumbling from within their bodies caused a strange mix of exhilaration. Breath caught in their throats as the tires screeched upon impact with the tarmac.
When Peter opened his eyes, he discovered that Pete and Marilyn still had theirs screwed shut. Peter strained for a view squinting at the blinding glare reflected from the white runway. From his narrow field of vision, he could see a barrier, a dividing point where the runway ended, framed by tall thin scrub pines. The sky was a powdery blue, almost misty. As the plane slowed, Peter focused on its lumbering route as it made its way to the terminal. Heat waves radiated from the bleached concrete surface as though it were a convection oven. The pilot's voice lazily droned that the current temperature in West Palm Beach was 88, a "bit" unseasonably warm.
Peter shook his head as the seat belt signs went off. "October, middle of October." Pete Jr. glanced his way, seeming to know what he was thinking. "Not exactly frost on the pumpkin, is it?"
His son replied, "More like sweat on the coconut."
The pilot added, “We’re on time today, folks. Last week, we couldn’t deplane until they got the thirteen-foot gator off the runway.”
Some kind of joke for the tourists, or did he hear right, Peter wondered. He could barely hear anything, his ears clogged from depressurizing, just a faint hum of engine and human grunting as passengers shed jackets and retrieved their overhead luggage, preparing to disembark. With a whoosh, the hatch was thrown open and Peter felt as though he were standing in front of a baker's oven. Before this could really sink in, they exited the tunnel to be greeted rudely by “high-chilled air,”as Pete Jr. described it. Peter's glasses immediately fogged up. Was it so murderously hot outside that the interiors of all public buildings had to be as frigid as meat lockers? It made the beads of sweat running down his spine feel like icy pinpricks.
As the Caissons followed the passenger flow to baggage claims, Peter noted a handful of chauffeurs, or simple hired drivers, standing with signs, looking for their charges. Peter halted abruptly on his heels when he spotted a "PARAGON TECHNOLOGIES?" sign. Was it a coincidence? No one said anything about a driver picking him up. And what did the question mark mean? Like someone questioning the legitimacy of his new venture. Pete Jr. stared at his father impatiently. Marilyn looked right at the man with the sign, but showed no comprehension, looking to her husband for interpretation. The driver was dressed ordinarily in checkered shirt and tan slacks; his scuffed shoes and rumpled hair belied any importance he might represent. Peter, brooking the flow of the other single-minded passengers, hell-bent on their luggage, tentatively approached.
"Excuse me, sir?"
The man grew animated, "Oh, you must be Mr. Carson, for Paragon Technologies."
"Uh, no. I relocated—uh, I was hired by Paragon. My name is Peter Caisson."
"No, sir, I'm here for a Mr. Carson."
"Do you know who he is?"
"No, sir. It looks like he missed his flight or something."
He turned and saw that no more passengers were spewing from the access ramp.
Caisson/Carson, wondered Peter, close enough for a mistake in transcription, at least, although the hand printing on the cardboard was distinct enough.
"Do you have a first name?"
“Me, I’m Darryl.”
“No, sorry, I mean the first name of the man you’re supposed to pick up.”
Darryl, flustered, but straining to remain helpful, reached in his pocket for a crumpled piece of paper. "Oh, yeah, I remember. 'Fletcher'.
Confusion there, thought Peter. "Is he a new employee?" asked Peter, hoping he was not, since having a ride waiting for him would elevate his status over poor Peter, the lowly, but somehow necessary technical writer. "Uh, customer?"
The driver shook his head. "That's really all I know," he said, as disappointment and frustration crept across his face. Without ceremony, he disgustedly tossed the sign on the floor and turned towards one of the stairwells, which led to the multi-tiered parking lot.
Now, continuing on, following directional signs for their luggage, the Caissons passed rows of machines offering all kinds of assistance and benefits, all snugly fitting under an umbrella of "24/7 SERVICE TO MEET YOUR NEEDS ANYTIME, ALL THE TIME." Flight insurance, limo service, tourist resources, real estate referrals, even food deliveries to hotel rooms. 24/7, mumbled Peter to himself, imagining the faceless, monotonous recordings, awaiting any seekers of these services, should they call off-hours.
Peter re-focused on the abrupt environmental shift he and his family had undergone. Floor to ceiling heavily tinted glass windows and doors offered impossible views of rustling palm trees and people dressed in tank tops and flip flops, many of the inhabitants browned to perfection from the Florida sun. Peter wondered at the UV rays, considering the pasty complexions the family all bore. All those days watching soap operas when he should have been researching the area: the economy, the climate, even some history. Unprepared for an October day of 88 degrees, he imagined they felt like they'd been transported to a tropical jungle. Hell, it's hotter than this up north in the summer, Peter blurted out, seeking self-assurance, another form of whistling in the dark. But it's October, Dad, was the quick response at his side. Peter wondered at the summers.
Their visible consternation continued thus to the baggage claim. As the baggage slowly appeared and grew in number on the carousel, the image of traveling circuitously to an uncertain destination leapt out at Peter. A stranger, having arrived on their flight, noticed the bewilderment, the lack of preparedness, and offered some friendly conversation, if not assurance.
“First-time down here?” said the middle-aged man with an engaging smile, who wore a Florida Marlins T-shirt .
Peter’s mouth twitched a smile in return. “More than that. We’re relocating. Job offer in Boca. Guess we weren’t completely prepared for the climate change.”
“I wouldn’t worry.” Pause. “Too much. Summers rarely get over ninety. We're near the ocean, so that keeps the air moving. Although in July and August, the humidity is fierce. But, who cares? Everything is air-conditioned.” Peter noted a rim of fogging on the man’s glasses, yet the glasses continued sliding down the man’s nose. Perspiration? Would they encounter contradiction at every turn? “Late summer,” the man continued, “it's the hurricanes you have to watch out for.”
“Hurricanes?” said Peter, avoiding the man’s eyes, not wanting to reveal his alarm. Pete Jr. glanced up from his Game-Boy and even Marilyn appeared to be paying attention. The man smiled pleasantly but with a glint in his eye as if to convey, ‘good luck, greenhorns’, as he nodded and moved to retrieve his luggage as it approached. Hurricanes? wondered Peter. He knew that south Florida faced occasional threats. They were occasional, weren't they? Or, was it something to be circled on the calendar every fall like Halloween. Actually, if he recalled, season officially ran from June 1 through November 30. But, statistically, at least, the storms were more likely from September on. Prime season. He glanced up at an overhead TV screen to note the Weather Channel meteorologist speaking of ‘intercontinental convection zones’ displaying puffy white rotating blobs being expelled from the coast of Africa and spurting westward. Oddly, he saw the friendly man who just had spoken to them looking up at another TV, also tuned to the Weather Channel. He had dropped his bags at his feet and was rubbing his hands as if in joyful anticipation, his head bobbing almost wildly, very much like a Type A pilot about to fly into a storm, welcoming the challenge wrought by the elements. The man turned and noted the Caissons’ interest in the telecast.
“Just the way Andrew started out in ’92. I remember the week before. I was in Charleston. South Carolina. On business. I talked to locals who lived through Hugo in ’89. Low-lying area, subject to flooding. There was this two-story house. The owner moved all his furniture to the second floor on account of the expected flooding. Know what happened? The roof blew off.” The man’s eyes sparkled, taking the in Caissons from head to foot, fully assessing their look of stunned amazement, and then he abruptly turned and disappeared up an escalator.
The Caissons simply stood there, having plucked their luggage from the conveyor belt, and Peter didn’t know where to turn next. The moving truck was not due to arrive at the house until Sunday morning. Same with the bonded driver bringing their car down, although he would bring their cherished Volvo directly to the hotel. Marilyn said something about checking the pet reception area to make sure Spot was all right, but then what to do with her? Of course, the pet reception station was no help and couldn’t offer any useful advice. Peter called the Radisson across from the airport, where they would stay overnight, but they did not allow pets and had no contingencies for anyone temporarily without their permanent shelter, even if for just overnight.
A kindly old woman, there to pick up her Cairn terrier, suggested they call a local vet to board the cat overnight, or until they got into their house. Peter guessed he would take a taxi and get Spot boarded and pick her up during the week, the sooner the better.
Peter was fond of Spot, but found this snag over a family pet a bit much, considering all that was at stake. Marilyn seemed on the verge of panic, Pete Jr., indignant and bored, and taking these delays more and more personally. Peter found himself muttering imprecations against his new employer, who had offered no sort of relocation package or expenses. Peter felt he should have had a contingency for this; how much else had he failed to plan for adequately? After asking the pointed a question about a local vet’s office, a short rotund woman behind the pet station desk, volunteered an address and phone number. “Not two miles away. Palm East Animal Hospital. But I’d hurry. It’s going on noon and it’s a Saturday.” Peter could not imagine why this information had not been provided when they first arrived at the station.
He instructed Marilyn and his son to take all their bags and wait for the shuttle that would take them directly to the Radisson. Meanwhile, Peter would take Spot in her traveling cage and get a cab. The air outside hit him like that from a coal furnace as Spot, obviously suffering acute dislocation, mewed incessantly. Peter climbed into the cab, explaining what he was doing with the cat, as though it might have mattered to the taxi driver. The balance of the day passed without incident, although considering the uninformed beginnings of their new life in south Florida, the Caissons still had no true feel for their surroundings. Marilyn and Pete Jr. took the shuttle to the Radisson while Peter hailed a cab, managing to make it to Palm East Animal Hospital a full seven minutes before closing. Since they were closed Sunday, Spot would have to be picked up some time Monday. All the while Peter felt compelled to ignore his surroundings, except for the occasional swaying of a palm tree in the hot breezes. The staff at Palm East were helpful and efficient and Spot appeared in good hands.
On the cab ride back to the Radisson, Peter estimated the mileage from Boca back to the animal hospital to be at least twenty-five miles. First day at work Monday. He would have to entrust Marilyn with driving the unfamiliar route. They certainly didn’t need an immediate expense of $30 a day to board Spot if it could be avoided. The Radisson was cheery and bright and fraught with wild tropical pastels, and frigidly ventilated air in the room and lobby. Outside, an oppressive mugginess descended at nightfall. After reviewing the prices on the menu at the hotel restaurant, the Caissons readily agreed on a having a pizza delivered. While Marilyn dozed, Pete Jr. channel surfed at blurring speed and Peter kept parting the heavy curtains, watching the deepening shadows by the pool, which featured only a handful of swimmers. Beads of condensation formed in every corner of the windows.
That evening, after an hour or so of joining Pete in channel surfing—at considerably slower pace—Peter felt too jittery to sleep, or even settle down in bed and read. Maybe a drink at the bar would take the starch out. He had cut way back on drinking in his second marriage, primarily because it made Marilyn, a devout teetotaler, uneasy. Her father, dead at 59 of cirrhosis, had been a classic case of alcohol addiction, not to mention his gambling. During Peter’s first marriage, Alice made cocktails for them almost every night after work. Regardless, in recent years, it helped keep his weight down. That and his jogging which he hadn’t done in a week.
“Hey, tell your Mom if she wakes up that I went for a beer and maybe a walk.” He looked at his father with a pained expression as if the obviously lame choice of activity were done to infuriate him personally. The last thing Peter heard as he closed the door behind him was his son muttering curses at the remote control he so arduously gripped with two hands, a weak undependable talisman. Sure, the kid did well enough in school, but he was not going to charm his way into social circles with that short fuse and intolerance that bordered on the fanatical.
Leaning slightly forward, Peter did not immediately notice that the descending elevator was occupied as it came to a rest at his floor. He hadn’t seen a soul in the third-floor hallway. A stunning young woman dressed in a black cocktail dress leaned against the back wall. She had medium-length curly brown hair and very tanned complexion, heavily accented with blush and eye shadow. Her perfume, redolent of peach blossoms, thickened the already stale air in the elevator. Peter immediately detected a secondary odor? Drying perspiration? The woman was a bit flushed like she could have just come in from a brisk walk. Peter nodded and looked away as he got in. The woman, whom he now judged to be in her mid-twenties, fished a brown cigarette from her purse and placed it in her lips. Peter hoped she wouldn’t light up until they got out. She noticed him glancing at her and she smiled back before returning to the contents of her purse, looking for her lighter Peter assumed. But no, she produced a brilliant scarlet business card with raised black lettering and held it out.
“Hey, honey, I’m in the area a lot. Give me a call if you want a good time.” He nodded again, not daring to speak, and took the card, which sported a fleur-de-lis design in the upper left-hand corner. The center of the card featured the name “Angela” in script-lettering and a phone number. “Or if you want,” she continued with the unlit brown cigarette bobbing in her mouth, “look for me at the Raisin Bar.”
“Uh, sure, where’s that? I mean, I’m new here and I’m kind of stranded. No car.” Peter winced, unable to account for his pointless volunteering of information.
“Me either. I mean mine’s at the Raisin Bar. Just up the road. Near Congress off Southern. It’s within walking distance. I got a ride waiting for me.”
Just then, a beeper went off in the woman’s purse. As she reached in to switch it off, she also produced a cell phone. She stamped her feet impatiently waiting for the elevator to come to a rest, hardly expecting the phone to transmit or receive clearly in the confines of the elevator. Finally, the door parted and the woman exited with some urgency.
For some reason, Peter called after her: “Walking distance, you say?” He didn’t think she heard him, but as if in acknowledgment, she seemed to wave in the affirmative, while rapidly speaking into the cell phone. During his brief foray into the outside world here in Palm Beach county, that is, the outside world being other than Palm Beach International Airport or the animal hospital, or the Radisson, he really had no bearing on what kind of an area it was.
By the time he reached the lobby, the slinky-dressed woman had departed. He saw two people in the lobby, not counting a somnolent desk clerk. A man, close to his age, sat in a high-backed foam chair. He wore a white tank top and pink shorts and thick-strapped sandals. Considering how chilly the lobby was, it was odd to see him there, casually flipping through a phone book. Nearer to the desk a younger woman, maybe in her thirties wore a thick white sweater and alternately folded her arms and blew on her hands for warmth. Peter tended to side with the woman. Fortunately for him, since he wore a t-shirt and shorts, he hoped the climate in the hotel bar would be more moderate. But this was not the case. So frigid was the ventilated air that Peter kept rubbing the gooseflesh on his arms. Instead of a cold beer, he ordered a coffee from a pot probably made hours ago, given its tar-like consistency and rancid smell.
Somehow, he had suppressed the anxiety about the moving truck and car arriving tomorrow without a hitch. He simply reasoned that for the moment it was out of his hands. He even felt kind of detached mulling over his start at Paragon. Could it be burnout? Temperamentally, he could accept a job as a clerk in a video store and it would not have made any difference. It was just a question of money. Seemed a slow night in the bar considering it was Saturday, he thought. The bartender stood nearby, both hands on the bar, staring at the plate-glass windows illuminated by floodlights set at the base of various palm trees, trimmed oleanders, hibiscus. Sprinklers had come on and a cascading sheen of water played on the glass, simulating the effect of a miniature waterfall. Warming one hand with his coffee cup, he turned the red business card over. When he looked up he saw the bartender looking at it. Embarrassed, Peter hastily volunteered an explanation. “Some woman gave me this in the elevator,” he said defensively.
“Workin’ girl,” said the bartender. “They work the place and get a fair number of clients.” The smile now forming on his face seemed to convey a wry judgment on Peter for still having the card in his possession. Peter tried to ignore the gesture, yet could not refrain from asking,
“Someone,” he began, feeling as if he should not allow a connection to the ‘working girl’, “mentioned a place called The Raisin Bar.” The bartender turned up his nose ever so slightly. “That it’s in walking distance.”
“Yeah, it’s in walking distance,” replied the bartender with a careless shrug, as though he had been asked this question before. Peter was mystified at his inclination to venture out and seek the place, as if something were driving him onward. He would never go in a place like that. If it were a place like that, thinking back to all that online porn, which seemed captivating at the moment, but he hardly missed it and wouldn’t dare visit those sites on his home computer, which Pete used more than he did. Trying not to appear like rushing out, he forced down the remains of the foul coffee and pulled out money to pay for it, stretched and placed his hands in his pockets, casually sauntering back in the direction of the lobby, appearing aimless and bored. After glancing at a stray newspaper, he meandered toward the lobby exit. As he pushed through the revolving door, he was greeted by a curtain of muggy air with hardly a breath stirring. The south Florida night was alive with exotic chirping and buzzing, broken only by the occasionally passing automobile. He walked past the check-in driveup, glancing behind him at the floodlights reflecting off the Spanish tile roofs on the modular intersecting units. At the end of the driveway, he stepped out onto a dimly lit sidewalk and scanned the road in both directions.
Not exactly a tropical paradise. A plain concrete road running east and west, two lanes in either direction. While palm trees lined its median, their bases adorned with various pink and red flower arrangements, tall rank weeds sprouted from these same clusters. Not to mention the Burger King bags, wrappers, crushed beer cans, and half-filled brown bottles. Across the highway to the south was the airport, brightly lit as expected, appearing normal. Obviously, the Radisson had been strategically placed here for airport business, possibly some other business clientele. Yeah, like The Raisin Bar, Peter chuckled to himself. He knew at least they were in West Palm Beach, some miles west of downtown. What lay to the west? The outer fringes of the Everglades? Would he have been more prepared if they had been on vacation?
He began walking east on an old sidewalk stained with sulfur from the sprinklers. The road curved sharply, concealing what lay ahead. He considered that his insular relocation was some subconscious expression of his detachment from or avoidance of responsibility. The occasional rush of speeding cars provided a counterpoint to the cacophony of insects, frogs, and fish jumping around in the adjacent canal to his right, which broadened as he continued his pace due east. A loud splash made him stop in his tracks and when he squinted into the dimness, he saw the snout of an alligator surface briefly and sink below the oily black water. At the end of its wake, its tail brushed against a rusted shopping cart, which lay on an angle, partially submerged at the water’s edge. He shook his head in amazement and continuing on, he rounded the corner, where he saw a string of convenience stores, burger joints, bars, odd storefronts where lighting fixtures, bargain shoes, auto parts and various other consumer flotsam were sold. Not far from an intersection, he saw a neon sign atop a one-story brick building, which had been painted red and white. THE RAISIN BAR.
Peter expected a run-down bar with a seedy clientele and maybe a dancer or two in perhaps partial state of undress, so he was hardly prepared for the phantasmagoric sights and sounds, which assaulted his senses. Loud thumping music he could feel inside his breastbone. Flashing strobe lights reflecting off full-length mirrors on every wall. Ceilings painted black. A bar tucked away in one corner with a small mounted television running some kind of porn flick. In the center area was a small, raised stage, circled with a railing. Some patrons sat close. Others lounged sullenly in darkened corners. A dancer, wearing only a diaphanous nightie, had just emerged on the stage and had wrapped herself around a shiny brass pole. Other women, heavily perfumed, strode the aisles, their cigarettes glowing eerily in the skewed light. Someone came in behind him and the street lamps briefly illuminated a corkboard, festooned with hundreds of business cards, from past patrons he guessed. Satisfied customers, cards perhaps collected at some point for a free drawing. Peter made his way to the corner bar and paid $6.50 for a bottle of beer, half-heartedly scanning the area for Angela from the elevator. Off to his left on a wood shelf painted black was a small color TV and video player featuring a tarty older woman with dark circles under her eyes, stroking an enormous glistening penis with two hands. The organ appeared as though disembodied, with the rest of the man removed from the camera's field of vision. Peter stared transfixed, not having viewed anything quite like that since he attended a bachelor party just out of college. He failed to notice a rather grimy unshaven man sitting to his right, who moved closer.
The man wore a grease-stained purple tank top, which glowed iridescently in the strobe lights. Tattoos of snakes and dragons adorned both shoulders. A front tooth was missing. He wore a cap, which said 'MOVERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA'.
"Y'all come here much?" he asked in a gravelly voice. Although he probably looked like a greenhorn, Peter decided against the truth.
"Sometimes. Not often."
The man glanced at Peter's wedding ring. "Y'all bring your wife here?"
He wasn't sure how he meant the question. "No, just me."
"Ever bring her here?"
"No, I wouldn't do that"
"Why not?" asked the man, genuinely interested.
Peter thought about it. "If my wife wanted to be with me now, I guess I wouldn't be here in the first place." He estimated Marilyn had been asleep for three hours already. Confusion spread across the man's face like a scrub brush fire. Peter just wanted to finish his beer and leave. He turned on his stool, but suddenly his view was blocked by one of the women, a thin, almost malnourished waif, very pale, but with a friendly smile and full red lips. She wore lingerie with tassels, white boots, and a white cowboy hat. She patted Peter on the top of his hand, as he almost flinched.
"Hiya, my name's Lorene [daughter of Paragon exec.; shows up at a Company function]," a southern accent dripping from her pouty lips like warm molasses. "You want some company?" Peter glanced down at the wilted dollar bills tucked in the girl's garter. Lorene interpreted this as a silent inquiry into the terms of service. Peter felt anchored himself to the spot, unable to muster enough will to sprint for the exit. "Come on, let's sit over there," said Lorene. She led Peter, stricken with indecision, to one of many dark crannies with battered two-seat sofas. She sat and pulled Peter down next to her. As she draped one bare leg over his, she lit a cigarette, and behaved as though this was the most natural arrangement in the world. Peter tensed his muscles, not knowing what to expect next, as Lorene bobbed her foot in time to the music. "I've had myself a day," she began cheerily, "things were down for a while, but business has sure picked up. I just bought myself a condo in Lake Worth and been decorating. Gettin' everything painted. I ordered special upholstery covers. You can't get these in the store. Light-weight fabric with pastel covers. Then I got all these accent pieces, wicker and bamboo end tables with glass tops. Lamps, I'd like to put in recessed lighting but it's so expensive. Maybe track lighting. I'm still payin' on my stereo. Got this really nice collection of music CDs. Classic rock. 60s, 70s, 80s bands. Don't like much of what they got today. After I get my massage license, I can do some work at home and cut back on the hours here. I don't want to be doin' this the rest of my life. Customers and the other girls rippin' you off. One girl stole $300 from my purse. Another customer stiffed me in the Private Lounge. Heck, even one of the contractors at the condo took a deposit for redoing the ceilings and then never showed up no more. But I'm getting' back on my feet."
Peter felt perspiration running down from his armpits. He smiled foolishly and nodded, feigning concern for this young girl's travails. She had taken his hand and was using it to stroke her bare thigh. The sensation made him feel light-headed. He felt adrift, floating, as if watching himself participate in this episode.
"Anyway, I treat my customers real good. I like that silvery mane of hair a yours. Well, more salt and pepper I guess. You can't be a day over thirty-eight, though." Peter wanted to tell her that he bet she said that to all the perverts. "I can tell you're in good shape. Her hand edged down to his crotch and miraculously he felt a stirring, something, which had not happened for weeks. "In fact, I'd like to get my hands on that hot cock of yours." Lorene pushed his head back and kissed him full on the mouth, offering up a thick fleshy tongue, sweet and glistening like glazed pastry. Peter responded in kind, feeling the commands to his brain originate elsewhere.
"Hey, baby, she crooned, I bet you'd like a private session. Won't charge you for the dance." What dance, wondered Peter. Just a hunerd seventy-five. I'll ride you like there's no tomorrow. Regular cowgirl. See the hat? I got rubbers, too. Gotta be safe."
"Uh, well, that's tempting."
"You know you want to. I can tell," she said, reaching for the bulge beginning to press out from his trousers.
"I don't have that much cash on me," Peter croaked.
"Credit card's fine, dear, don't even say 'Raisin Bar' on the slip. Y'all get a free pair of boxer shorts. Says 'Club Raisin Bar' on 'em."
Before Peter could process what was really happening, Lorene was leading him into a black hallway, with several small rooms on either side, sealed off with white chintz curtains. Peter could barely feel his feet as he was drawn further into the darkness. She led him to another two-seat sofa and eased him down. "We got half an hour, honey." Lorene removed his shoes, his pants, his undershorts. Peter closed his eyes as he was wont to do when riding a rollercoaster, which had just negotiated a sharp curve and was beginning a steep, angular descent. Before he knew what was happening, Lorene, now completely naked, was in fact riding him. He was surprised at his fullness, which had been latent these many months. As he moaned softly, she took his head, and whispered, "Yeah, darlin', that's fine, real fine. What's your name, honey?"
"Jack," he said, feeling indeed as though he were someone else. He hardly remembered getting dressed, reaching for his credit card, getting the slip back.
Completely, businesslike, Lorene cleaned up, gave him a peck on the cheek and reminded him she was there Wednesdays through Sundays. The reality of what had just happened did not come into focus until Peter was standing near the exit. For some reason, he glanced up at the corkboard again as he reached for the door and he stopped cold, blinking several times. He was reasonably certain the card was not there on the way in. But, now, affixed with a pushpin directly in the center of the board was a business card, which in bold red lettering read, "PARAGON TECHNOLOGIES." A stab of tension sliced right up his middle. Quickly glancing about to see if anyone noticed him, he took the card and looked for a name. No name. Just the company, address, phone number, and web site. A generic card used by someone who normally didn't use cards. He turned the card over in his hand and his breath stopped when he saw a name scribbled. "Jack" it read. Peter replaced the card and hurried out, unable to refrain from looking over his shoulder as he walked back to the Radisson, the black canal water belching at him.
Because he smelled of cheap perfume and cigarettes, he was determined to head straight for the shower. He needed hot water and lots of soap and he needed to scrub himself. A token gesture of purification. And yet there was some puerile, adolescent sense of accomplishment, even conquest. Something he had not been able to achieve with Marilyn for months. But no, he was rationalizing as though field-testing the equipment in a different venue. No matter what failures or circumstances had led him to this, Peter accepted responsibility for acting on these impulses. He knew he would taste the bitterness of this indiscretion for some time. Haggard and guiltily withdrawn, Peter plodded across the lobby, his eyes fixed directly in front of him as he shuffled wearily.
He only glanced up in the direction of the bar to see if the bartender was watching him return. As he did so, the desk clerk hailed him, waving a sheet of paper. “Mr. Caisson, right?” Peter stopped and stared. “It’s a fax for you, Mr. Caisson.”
“When did this come in?” he asked before checking to see who sent it.
“Maybe twenty minutes, half-hour ago. There was also a call to your room right around the same time. Maybe to confirm receipt of the fax.”
Peter examined the bright features of the punctilious bastard, repressing an urge to smack his shiny, shaved jowls. He refocused and examined the fax, which of course was from Paragon. No surprise there. Sure, he had given them the hotel number when they asked, but he hardly expected to hear from them, especially near midnight on a Saturday.
“Hi Peter Caisson. We look forward to you joining the team Monday morning!” “Bright and early” added as an afterthought, a reminder. Yeah, thought Peter, sluggard that I am. Although the fax had just come in, he reasoned that it was probably done with some kind of auto-scheduler. But then, what about the phone call?
“Did you take a message for the voice call?”
“No, sir, someone in the room picked it up.”
He gritted his teeth. He knew Marilyn to sleep through a ringing phone. That meant Peter Jr. “Okay, thanks, I appreciate it.” Peter hesitated as if he wanted to ask for more. For absolution. He leaned his head against the elevator’s interior. At least he knew he was not physically impotent.
When he reached for the room key, he chanced upon the scarlet business card. He flung it down on the floor. Inside, the walls flickered with blue light from the TV. Pete Jr. sat in a chair in the far corner of the room, seemingly awake, but he did not acknowledge his father’s presence. Continuing to stare at the TV, he hissed, “Where the hell were you?”
He didn’t feel up to the challenge, so he simply shrugged. “Stayed a bit at the bar and then took a walk. I saw an alligator,” he added, hoping to spark some local interest and deflect attention from his promiscuous tryst. “In the canal…”
“Some asshole called before. Woke Mom up. From your new job.”
“Sorry, I can’t understand why they called now.”
“Didn’t leave a name. Just checking to make sure you got a fax?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Peter said waving it in the air. Pete Jr. screwed up his features, as if to say what are these people doing faxing and calling so late on a Saturday. Peter shook his head, knowing full well he disdained the style, the flavor of this communication, the assuming encroachment into his personal sphere, almost an ominous thinly veiled warning. Oddly, the fax was unsigned, not even a name.
“I got to take a shower,” said Peter reaching in a suitcase for a change of clothes. “And then I’m going to bed.”
“Good night, Dad,” said Pete Jr., turning over and grabbing a handful of covers. “I sure hope your new job won’t be calling late like this when we’re in the new house.”
Peter stopped in his tracks, the words sounding like those of a prophet in the wilderness. G’night, he mumbled, but Pete seemed already asleep. Peter removed his outer clothes discretely behind a hidden corner next to the bathroom and left them in a heap on the floor. He trudged into the brightly lit bathroom and when he turned and looked at himself in the wall mirror, he froze, recognizing his grievous error. Before he could react, Marilyn flung open the unlocked door, asking what the yellow charge slip for $175 was, her voice trailing off as she noted the white boxer shorts with the bright red lettering: THE RAISIN BAR.
(X)
2 SUNDAY
The Caissons were awakened early Sunday morning by a rainstorm. Booming thunder shook the windows, where Peter peeked out. Lightning illuminated the pool terrace in a ghostly pale sheen. Great start to a new life here, he muttered. To Peter, his extraordinary indiscretion seemed remote this next morning, his explanations to Marilyn lame, though she demonstrated little interest in deeply probing these anomalies. She dismissed the credit card slip, as Peter lied, almost stammering, about the cost of the animal hospital. As for the boxer shorts, these being more visual and immediate, her eyes lingered briefly as he mentioned during his walk, how he had passed a “titty bar”, and these gals in bikinis were out front handing out boxer shorts as a promotion, an enticement to come on in. Peter really laid it on, saying just before Marilyn entered the bathroom, he decided to try them on for a joke. Fortunately Marilyn grew quickly bored and did not glance at the heap of clothes on the floor, or note the absence of his real shorts, which probably lay in a dark damp corner back at the Raisin Bar, in some abhorrent heap of used condoms and soiled tissues.
Late into the night, as he lay suspended between cognizance of his surroundings and the unfamiliar landscape of drifting downward into sleep, yet another disturbance jarred the process. A loud thumping crash reverberated from the hallway. Was it after three a.m.? He sat bolt upright as Marilyn snored peacefully. Uncharacteristically, Pete remained asleep, fitfully it seemed, twitching and muttering.
Peter slid nimbly off the bed, threw on a robe and went out into the hall, easing the door to behind him. Halfway down the hall to his right, he blinked at the sight of a rather large soda machine, tipped forward at a 45-degree angle, the top of its front resting against the opposite wall. Crouched down, half-shoved against the wall was a man, short, balding, flabby, under the shadow of the looming machine.
Suddenly roused to his senses, the man scampered out, stood, up and backed away slowly, as though considering not reporting the incident, but stopped when his gaze caught Peter’s. Oddly, no one else emerged to investigate.
“Goddam soda machine stole my buck. I smacked it, shook it, started to rock it and before I knew it the thing almost came down on me.”
Peter caught a glimpse of its reflective plastic front, writhing with bright colors of skiers, swimmers, boaters, refreshing themselves with cascading spouts of soft drinks against a bright azure background, surf, snow kicking up, overwritten with a blazing white script which read: “Refresh yourself anytime, all the time”.
“Goddam Radisson. Everything closed. Just a lousy, stinkin’ soda and I almost get killed. They’re gonna pay for this. Helluva lawsuit on their hands.”
Peter noted that the man appeared uninjured and had no idea that he was clearly responsible for damaging hotel property.
Their eyes met again, and when the man detected confusion rather than sympathy, he turned abruptly, strode past Peter down to the other end of the hallway and disappeared around a corner. Peter again glanced at the soda machine, feeling, vaguely, illogically, given the damage versus the cost of a soda, in some way that he had been cheated as well, but not before noticing the man was clad only in white boxer shorts with white lettering which read: “Raisin Bar.”
"That's an awful lot for a deposit?" Marilyn commented the next morning without conviction.
Basically two things upset Peter, aside from his spontaneous transgression. He lied all too easily, and secondly, Marilyn disappointed him for not challenging him more. Did he want to get caught to rouse her, to spark some reaction, raise fire from the ashes? He wish he knew, for now it seemed as though something outside of himself was pulling him along and he felt no compulsion to resist.
The storm began to subside as he sat on the edge of the unmade bed, watching TV, looking for news or weather. Pete Jr., half-dressed, thumbed through a game strategy magazine. Marilyn was getting dressed in the bathroom. He had just caught the tail end of the "Tropics Report", something about a system moving westward, getting better organized, which would probably be upgraded to a tropical depression later today." Pete didn't linger as he moved to CNN, where the headline flashed, "TRAGEDY AT NORTH CAROLINA AMUSEMENT PARK."
Pausing, Peter saw the camera pan up from the reporter to a Ferris wheel, which had very abruptly halted its counter-clockwise rotation and pitched a young man forward, who plunged to his death "witnessed by hundreds of horrified onlookers, one of whom managed to record the disaster". The victim, described as a teen, five foot ten, 190 pounds “sailed helplessly to his death." Peter watched the grainy videotape as a plump body, flopping like a rag doll, arms and legs outstretched, spinning, and finally disappearing into what appeared to be a clearing next to a food court. Peter was seized by the suddenness, the vulnerability, as though something similar could happen to his family at any moment. He in fact wondered if the poor soul was hurtling through space about the time as their flight southward crossed the same latitude.
Pete Jr. looked up. "What's that? Some dumb carnival?" When this elicited no response, he changed the subject. "Why can't we pick up Spot on the way to the house?"
"They're closed." Why did he have to explain things like that? "It's Sunday."
Rather than opt for breakfast at the hotel, the Caissons decided to hit the road, or more accurately Interstate 95 and head south to Boca Raton, stopping for a quick breakfast along the way. The traffic, while not thick, was steady. Steam rose from the hot white concrete pavement as the sun pushed its way through the clouds. Roadside trees and vegetation appeared lush and freshly green again and Peter felt his tempered optimism returning, reassured now that the white Volvo had been delivered by the bonded driver at 8 a.m. on the dot to the Radisson without even a smudge of dirt. Optimism tempered with the normal anxiety of expecting (hoping?) the moving truck to have safely journeyed more than a thousand miles with nearly all of their possessions intact.
"The truck could be late. Lost. Suppose it had an accident?" asked Marilyn munching on a bran muffin, dropping crumbs all about. Before Peter answered, he noticed that she was wearing her hair differently. Combed back or something.
"They're bonded. Like the Volvo. We would have heard something," said Peter growing tense again, his fingers gripping the steering wheel, his knuckles whitening. Sure, all the good fortune had been used up with the safe delivery of the car. And then his merciless memory, forever ferreting out the woes of all the earth, recalled the story of a fellow technical writer, who, when relocating, suffered the moving truck and everything he owned in it burned in a fire. The insurance hardly covered half of it.
They proceeded without incident southward, exiting on Palmetto Park Road and heading west past discordant stretches of fast-food joints, shopping malls, office buildings. Suddenly, there it was on the left: Heron Preserve, its name suggesting untouched nature, a refuge, placid and bucolic. As they entered and continued on down the main street, they watched bikers, joggers, and dog-walkers, they all commented on the bright atmosphere, lush landscaped lawns, the rows of palm trees, community park and playground, the cheerful pastels of the stucco homes accented with Spanish tile roofs.
Although Pete Jr. said "everything looks nice," he added, "I thought we were going to be closer to the beach," his features darkening.
In surprise, Peter pointed to the rear bumper of a car directly in front of them, which had a blue sticker with "PARAGON TECHNOLOGIES" in bold white lettering.
"I had forgotten but Paragon had said they had a lot of employees living in this development."
"Why is that?" said Pete Jr., sneering, "so they can watch each other?"
The comment sent shivers down Peter's spine as they turned onto their cul-de-sac. He stopped the car and got out. Before them was a single completed home, just like the one in the video, surrounded by three other homes in varying states of completion, not to mention a pile of building debris, including boards and rusty nails, sand, cinderblocks, and damp earth from which weeds had sprouted. But, 1515 Egret Lane stood apart, new and inviting, complete with a palm sapling in the center of the front yard. The St. Augustine grass grew thick and spongy. Best of all, the blue and white moving van had already arrived, its cab curled outward in front of their house, causing the truck to assume a kind of fetal position. Everyone smiled in relief, for they all fully expected sitting in an empty house for hours, scanning the road for signs of the van. Peter pulled the Volvo behind the van, then got out and looked around. Nothing stirred, so he went around to the driver side of the cab, where the window was rolled down, and stepped up on the sideboard. The driver, unshaven and sweaty, was slouched down with a cap over his eyes, his belly rising with regular breaths as he slumbered.
"Excuse me. We're the Caissons. Just got here. I can unlock the house. Hello?"
The driver stirred not a bit, so Peter repeated the greeting louder. Same result, which was no result. Next he knocked on the door and shouted "Hey there!" He had no recourse left at this point except to shake the man bodily.
Pete Jr. approached. "Is the guy dead or something?"
"These guys drive for 48 hours at a time and then crash like this." Tentatively, Peter reached inside and shook the man's shoulder. Still no response, but he was clearly breathing. Although not dead, perhaps the man had undergone a seizure, so now Peter had visions of borrowing a neighbor's phone to dial '911'. Suddenly Pete Jr. jumped up beside him, reached in, and pressed the horn, which was thunderous and deafening up close.
The driver sat bolt upright and his cap flew from his face. Peter's jaw dropped when he saw the man to be the very same one who challenged him at the Raisin Bar last night. The man even flashed a gap-tooth smile of recognition before Peter could put on his sunglasses. Sure enough, his cap, which had "Movers Association of America" stitched across the front came to rest on the cluttered dashboard. Peter immediately wondered where he had stored the rig while patronizing the Raisin Bar.
"The Caisson family, eh?" winked the mover, glancing over at Marilyn who was inspecting the shrubs which lined the driveway.
"Everything go OK?" asked Peter.
"Sure enough, Mr. Caisson. Got here around dawn. Caught up on my shut-eye. Movin' company runs us ragged. Too much work, not enough pay," he said, pausing to look Peter over from head to foot. "'Sides, we got to depend a lot on tips. That must be the missus," he thumbed over at Marilyn, smiling again. Tips, wondered Peter. Could that be true or was he trying to shake him down. "Man, I had me a time last night in this girly joint up by the airport. Whoo-ieee. Name's Jackson. First name. Jackson Daley," said Jackson, stepping down from the cab. "You'd be surprised at the number of married men what show up there. And I don't just mean cruisin'."
Peter would neither deny nor confirm the implication. He'd call his bluff—probably. "Well, let's see how quick and efficient you can unload our stuff and there might be a little something extra. Where's your help"?
"Naw, sir, it's just me."
"Don't you need at least two guys?"
"Naw. For 'em big pieces, we jockey 'em up on the dolly and just down the ramp I open up from the side and back. I'd let you give me a hand, but it's against the insurance reglations.”
Smooth and efficient, Jackson Daly made it look easy. Of course, Peter held doors open, helped position large pieces such as the sofa and bed. Amazingly, Jackson had emptied the van by two p.m. and was presently enjoying a hastily concocted, but cold glass of iced tea from mix, which Peter thought odd that Marilyn had carried in her purse.
"Simple. I knew we'd all be tired, hot, and thirsty. So, all I had to do was find the pitcher in the boxes marked 'kitchen'. And the new refrigerator's got an icemaker, all ready for us."
Jackson nodded his assent. "All the new houses down here come with all the appliances. The works. Convenient and less stuff to move." Marilyn and Jackson were smiling and winking at each other.
Peter dug out $100 cash as a tip, which Jackson slowly accepted, as if considering that the gesture was inadequate. He paused at the front door, looking over Peter's shoulder until he caught Marilyn's attention.
"I live up in Delray Beach, next town north of Boca. When I'm not on the road, I has me a little side business. Handyman, that sort of thing." He retrieved a personal business card, which gave just a phone number with a heading which read, "HANDIMAN, ODD JOBS". Odd is right, thought Peter. Peter wondered if Jackson had left behind the same card at the Raisin Bar, amidst the others on that weary corkboard. All those cards suggested territorial markings with overtones of sexual conquest. Man, I had me a time last night in this girly joint up by the airport.
Whoo-ieee.
Peter countered, "Like you said, everything in the house is brand new and if there are problems, we have a one-year guarantee."
Jackson seemed ready for that reply. "What about the landscapin'?" Peter, now joined by Marilyn gazed about the front yard with its freshly-planted xeriscape shrubbery and centerpiece palm tree. "Fer example, grass in hot, muggy season needs cuttin' ever week, sometimes 4-5 days if there's an especial amount of rain. I don't remember unloading no mower or any garden tools for that matter." Peter raised an eyebrow, attempting to control his outrage. Did the lout inventory their possessions even as he unloaded the van?
"I did have my heart set on some fruit trees," said Marilyn hopefully.
"Easy, I can pick up saplings at Home Depot. Whacha like? Orange? Lemon? Ya like grapefruit, get the ruby red. Best there is. There's a particlar lime tree which is year-round. The other is citrus, bears in the winter. Some people get mango. Mango ain't citrus. Bears in the summer."
"We'll think about it," said Peter, extending a hand toward the front walk.
Jackson saluted with his finger, sauntered down the driveway, and drove off. Peter went inside and did a quick tour of the rooms. Even their misfit furniture ("early Caisson" as they jokingly referred to it), blended in well enough. The vertical blinds in all the rooms had been left wide open, admitting the outdoor light, which cast a cheery glow on all the furnishings. Pete Jr. had busied himself hooking up the old computer. "When are we getting a Pentium III?" Peter's reaction would normally have been some practical counter-argument such as "We need to see about a second car," but he knew that would be futile, even inflammatory. Fortunately, the passing request did not deteriorate into a protracted rant. Peter considered that his son, although initially hostile about the move, seemed to have no regrets about leaving any friends behind. Hardly a surprise, thought Peter, knowing Pete had not been much of a social creature. Pete Jr. continued with the TV, stereo, and cable, and produced a smoothly functioning entertainment center in no time. Marilyn put away dishes, glasses, marveling at the counter and cabinet space.
Peter kept touring the house, inspecting the central air, the faucets, shower, toilet, genuinely pleased that everything simply worked. He pondered the single-floor "ranch-style" home, something reassuring about its single-tiered design. No stairs to trudge, especially at night, to unfamiliar dark hallways, which always intimidated him as a child, not even fond of their newly departed Cape Cod home with its steep stairway, narrow doors, dormered bedrooms, creaky floors, and transient shadows. What little odds and ends they kept would have to be stored in the crawlspace attic over the attached two-car garage.
Marilyn appeared relaxed, watching TV and sipping more iced tea as Pete Jr. adjusted and fine-tuned all the integrated settings. Peter experienced a kind of vibrating apprehension, unable to sit still or even remain in the same room for more than a few minutes. Pulling out his wallet, he searched through his accumulated business cards, this recalling the corkboard from The Raisin Bar last night. Locating his new boss, Frank Steadman, he held the card in front of him, squinting at the tiny black print. ‘Paragon’ stood forth in bold, red embossed letters (was that the same typeface as the Raisin Bar?) prominently in the upper left hand corner as if to dwarf the tiny, insignificant individual represented below. Surreptitiously, Peter reached for the wall phone in the kitchen and began to call Steadman at his home number, sneaking quick glances at the living room, hoping he would not have to explain why he’d be calling his boss the Sunday before starting work. A token of good will and positive attitude. Just to let him know the family was all settled in and that he was all set to go first thing in the morning—as the sender of the midnight fax so obnoxiously presumed. Or, would the call be interpreted as some spineless sucking-up gesture? He expected to arrive at eight a.m. sharp. Surely earlier than that would prove pointless. Or, would he be cooling his heels in the lobby for an hour waiting for the H.R. people so they could do his orientation. Truthfully, from what he had gathered so far, orientation probably consisted of, “Hi, here’s a handbook, here’s your desk, now get to work.” “And would you like to know where the men’s room is?”
The phone rang four times, and then a faint recording droned mechanically, listless, reeking of fatigue and exhaustion. “If I’m not at home, I’m probably at the office.”
Peter hung up slowly, not exactly prepared for the message. Probably the oddest answering machine message he had ever heard. No invitation to leave a message. “I’m probably at the office.” What about his family? Could it have been a private number just for Steadman. Was it an implicit if not open suggestion to contact him there if the caller got that message? Peter looked at his watch, which blinked 3:00. Three o’clock on a Sunday and his boss was at the office. This did not bode well. Should he call him there? Hiya, Pete, come on over and meet the gang. And if he didn’t call, would his number show up on their caller ID? Pete knew where to get me and he didn’t bother to try or even leave a message. Peter was just too stunned and tired to extend further effort.
Not thirty seconds after he put the phone down, it rang. Some kind of automatic callback feature? But no.
“Mr. Caisson, this is Jilly at Palm Beach Animal Hospital. I’m a technician. I had a call from the vet to come in and check on one of the dogs that was ill. I’m here until four. You can come up and get Spot. Normally we wouldn’t be open. And the file of recent admissions notes that you only needed Spot boarded until today.”
“Yes, thanks. Is she okay?”
“Oh yes, no problem. Gray tabby, right?”
“Hold on one second—Marilyn!”
“Who’s that?” said Pete Jr. with a low growl, challenging, on the brink of menace. At least the kid defends his turf, even if his territorial imperative runs to extremes. If he were a king, he’d put up walls to keep his subjects in as much as foreigners out.
“I can pick up Spot now.” He glanced again at his watch. Marilyn nodded in the affirmative. “But I have to leave right away.”
“I’ll get out the kitty litterbox and food.”
“I’ll look for her favorite ball,” said Pete Jr.
Nice homecoming, thought Peter. “I’m on my way,” he said to Jilly.
He put the phone down and it rang again immediately. Had Jilly made a mistake?
“Hello?”
“Hiya Pete Caisson. Welcome to where the sun keeps shining in the pouring rain,” a somewhat manic voice crooned.
“Who’s this?”
“And the Caissons keep rolling along….”
“Beg your pardon?” squeaked Peter, a dull ache forming in his left temple, leaking exasperation.
“Over hill, over dale, as we hit the dusty trail, and the Caissons go rolling along.
In and out, hear them shout, counter march and right about, and the Caissons go rolling along.
Then it's hi! hi! hee! In the field artillery, shout out your numbers loud and strong, for where e'er you go, you will always know that the Caissons go rolling along.” Was this some kind of gag recording? But created by whom. Only Paragon knew they were here in south Florida.
“I’m going to hang up if you don’t tell me who this is.”
“Here’s a clue: ‘Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book, it took me years to write, will you take a look? It's based on a novel by a man named Lear and I need a job, so I want to be a technical writer, technical writer…’”
Peter glanced nervously at his watch, about to hang up, but the sing-song frenetic voice did in fact provide a clue.
“It’s Jack.”
Jack? Jackson? Jackson Daley the mover? Jack of the business card at the Raisin Bar. Was Daley, as menacing voyeur, now harassing him with prank calls, as a prelude to a systematic stalking and shakedown? But no, this guy was too witty to be Jackson (Woooiiee) Daley.
“Jack the ‘other’ technical writer. At Paragon dear fellow,” the voice now spoke, pointlessly mimicking a British accent. “Your soon-to-be partner in technical writing crime, in wordsmithing, invention of techno-delusional fantasies.”
“Well, hi, this is Peter Caisson,” said Peter, dumbfounded.
“Yes, I know that.”
“Where are you?” groaned Peter, a full-blown near migraine headache settling in with suddenness and relentless ferocity of a bursting dam.
“At the office. See you tomorrow. Don’t talk to anybody else or they’ll have you coming over now. I’ll try to meet with you as soon as possible.” Jack now sounded reasonably serious, if possessing a hint of desperation, a jarring contrast to his manner a few moments earlier. “But my hours are all over the place. My Circadian rhythm is a bit mucked up these days. But then what can we expect when the door to the Engineering department has a poster with the picture of the face of a clock with no hands. Might as well say, ‘abandon all hope, ye who enter here,’ I suppose. See you tomorrow, Peter. Dr. Jack recommends a good night’s sleep.”
Click. Some character, thought Peter, again checking his watch. Nearly 3:20. He really had to be going. Without glancing outside, he grabbed his keys and wallet and ran out the side garage door. When he faced the driveway where he had parked the Volvo, he saw a small procession of women, some with small children walking in slow lockstep, most carrying covered trays, pie tins, cake boxes. Not an adult male in the bunch. Come to think of it, all the small children appeared to be girls. Could this be some kind of welcoming committee? Guys must be out with their boys fishing or something.
Brief introductions revealed that the four women were all wives of Paragon employees, here to welcome the Caissons. Who had told them? Perhaps the news had been passed to neighboring employees as a matter of course from Human Resources at Paragon. A real enclave here, apparently combining work and home life. A dubious arrangement, Peter thought, but perhaps some good would come of it. Marilyn came out cheerily took to them right away and vice-versa. Peter waited politely, stepping back inside, sweating the time, in the relatively uncluttered living room as Marilyn passed out paper plates and they all ate cake and cookies and
with iced tea, which she had made a couple of hours ago. In a quick exchange, he learned that all four families lived within two blocks of the house. No one offered anything about the husbands/fathers, other than stating obliquely that their spouses were employees at Paragon. Three engineers and a quality assurance technician, all of whom worked in the Engineering department. Peter supposed this welcoming was more of a female thing. He apologized, saying he had to run an errand before four o’clock. As he closed the door behind him, he had wished he had asked his sulky son to join him, extricate him from the female-dominated event, which had taken on the flavor of an impromptu housewarming shower. Still, he felt there was something shallow, if not insincere about it. Furthermore, as he glanced over his shoulder before closing the door, Pete Jr. was standing in the midst of the group, smiling, smiling demurely, holding a plate of cake, a “paragon” of polite society.
Fiercely driving north on I-95, Peter tried to exclude the sensory input from the whole day. Tired, but wired was how he described himself to the animal technician, Sally, who buzzed him in through the front door of the hospital at precisely 3:52. She could probably see the tension oozing from his pores.
“Didn’t think you were going to make it, Mr. Caisson.” Sally was a reserved, yet pleasant rotund woman in her twenties.
“Thought you were closed Sundays.”
“Normally yes. I had to look in on a sick terrier. I checked the admissions files and saw that, uh, Spot was due to be picked up Monday. There was a note about work conflict…so.”
Peter, mopping his brow, replied, “It’s real helpful. My family and I just relocated. Moved in today. I start my job in Boca tomorrow and right now we only have one car. Things have been a bit ragged and stressed.”
Sally made an odd face, trying to remain polite, but sighing unsympathetically. “Well, I dunno. Things are generally like that down here. People don’t get paid much. Either have to work a lot of hours to make ends meet, or get a second job or both—like me.”
“Sounds rough.”
“They pay me $6.50 an hour here. I’m also a checkout at the Winn Dixie on the weekends. In fact, just came from there.” For a moment Peter’s features froze in surprise, remembering the comparative lower wages in general in south Florida, the insulting pay cut he took, the reneging on the original salary offer. “Anyway, let me get the kitty.” Sally waddled off down the narrow corridor.
Peter wondered why no one had said anything about the possibility of picking Spot up before Monday. Probably better this way. Better than getting his hopes up only to have to race up here tomorrow at lunchtime. Did every experience lack a missing thread of information?
Sally returned shortly, holding the carrier with two hands. “She’s a might agitated.” Peter wondered at this, for Spot had always been exceedingly docile. Peter bent down and peeked through the plastic bars to find that Spot had been transformed into a snarling feline terror, who even swiped at the bars with her claws. “We did trim the claws,” Sally added. “The poor thing is probably traumatized from plane trip and coming in here, but it’ll pass.”
Peter placed the carrier on the front passenger seat. Spot continued howling and hissing. On the way back to I-95, in less haste, he noticed the Raisin Bar. The parking lot was deserted and he observed that the neon sign was missing. Had it been shut down? Raided for illicit activities? He could see the newspaper article now: club’s records seized, records that would include his charge slip for his indiscretion committed with Lorlene. Woooiee. It really looked as though no one had been there in weeks. Just because he was paranoid didn’t mean “they” weren’t after him.
As he approached the entry to Heron Preserve, Peter decided on a whim to drive by Paragon, wondering about his boss’s strange answering machine and the call from Jack. It was only a few miles south, just off county road 441.
Palmetto Park Road ended abruptly at Highway 441, which ran north and south. Beyond, to the south, lay vast stretches of fields, some of it baked farmland, other portions wild entanglements of unchecked growth, perhaps even the outer edges of the Everglades. As he headed south, Peter noticed at least three new developments, deserted bulldozers and other assorted heavy equipment, bone-dry dust swirling about from the late afternoon western gusts. Suddenly, on his left, a landscaped commercial park appeared, sprinklers whipping about in a frenzy to moisten the parched grass. A series of non-descript buildings lay recessed from the road, some as warehouses and assembly plants. Farther down the palm-lined access road, he saw one-story office buildings, all bleach-tan stucco with smoky tinted glass windows. The names rushed by: Amdek, Blaine Systems, Suburban Micrographics, Kestler-Heiffer, Inc., Tall Tree Software. A car here and there in their respective parking lots. Paragon Technologies occupied prime space at the end of the extended cul-de-sac. The adjacent parking lot was more than half full of cars. As he slowed to take in the scene, Spot grew even more restless, howling, scrambling, jostling the cage back and forth, straining at the flimsy plastic bars. To one side of the building, he noticed an area with picnic tables under a spreading cypress, but no sign of anyone. Well, they obviously were not having a family picnic on the surrounding lush rolling landscape.
It was a one-way access. To turn around, he’d have to drive up nearly to the front entrance to make a U-turn. Here, he saw a second sign, staked in the ground near the double doors: PARAGON IS FOR YOU. No doubt a recruiting slogan, perhaps dated since there had been budget concerns and a delay in his salary offer, which was not only late, but less than first agreed upon. Peter clenched his teeth at the memory and Spot hissed with seeming sympathetic anger. PARAGON IS FOR YOU. It also reminded him of some antiquated, Elizabethan street challenge: “I am for thee, sir”. Peter made the U-turn and floored it, speeding all the way from the industrial park setting, to 441, and finally Palmetto Park Road and the entrance to Heron Pointe Preserve in less than eight minutes. He didn’t realize he was that close to the office. Time would tell if it were a blessing or a curse.
By the time he pulled into the driveway, Peter fully assumed the affable but automated welcoming committee had departed. Instead, some members had spilled outside as Marilyn continued chatting breezily with two of the wives on the subject of the freshly sculpted landscape. Wives. Semi-consciously he had already ascribed a referential identity to these obliging women.
They seemed not to be individuals; they were spouses of Paragon employees who, at least in the technological segment of the industry, had formed an almost unassailable bastion of male dominance.
The sun was low in the sky, but offered little if any relief from the heat, only sharp angular light, blinding as it was searing. As Peter lugged the cat carrier up the driveway, Marilyn brightly acknowledged his presence, or at least the safe retrieval and delivery of the family pet. Poor, beloved Spot, traumatized by dislocation, remained highly agitated, bouncing about in the carrier, causing a side-to-side motion as Peter lumbered up to the front door.
“Looks like you’ve got a tiger by the tail,” said one of the indistinguishable wives pleasantly enough, yet an element of heartfelt humor was missing. Peter released Spot as soon as he crossed the threshold. Spot, with her gray fur standing on end, bolted for the dark claustrophobic safety of the sofa’s underbelly.
Peter Jr. appeared abruptly from around a corner. “They’re all ordering pizza and soda,” he mumbled, reflective and confused, as though distant relatives had invited themselves to stay the night. His father waited for the other shoe to drop. “You know, there’s a county park just down the road. All kinds of neat stuff. One of the ladies mentioned it.”
Peter brightened. “You want to go check it out?” He knew he couldn’t sit still in the living room balancing a piece of cake on his knee.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Your mother seems to be having a good time. Too much estrogen collecting in there for my comfort level anyway.” Peter Jr. cracked a smile in spite of himself. “Let me change into my running shoes.”
Peter made the gracious excuse of the ‘boys’ needing to check out the park. One of the wives said it was less than a mile walk through the development. A narrow dirt-packed trail led to a bridge spanning a moderate-sized canal leading to the park, which was maintained by the county. Softball and soccer fields. Basketball, tennis, picnic pavilions, walking and biking trails. Marilyn said they’d save some pizza for them, but Peter felt too jumpy to eat anyway. Perhaps a light run on a mulched jogging trail would not only release some desperately needed endorphins, but restore his appetite. [Possibly, here, add a scene with just Marilyn and the women to balance out the length of the chapter—Stepford Wives associations—maybe later]
“Not much going on in the ‘hood,” said Pete Jr. as they began their walk, his father turning as he heard shrieking laughter emerge from their new home, the klatch of women now having assumed the aspect of a gossipy sewing circle. Little activity in the winding streets. A few dog walkers. The odd child or two playing in their front yard. Someone washing a car. The only person who acknowledged their presence was an elderly woman who waved from her screened in porch, as she tended a cage with a squawking parakeet.
“Place is kind of dead,” said Pete Jr., more in the spirit of observation than complaint.
“It’s late on a Sunday afternoon. People are winding down, gearing up for work tomorrow.” Maybe at the beach or boating, he added to himself, or wishing they were.
“And watching football,” added his son.
“Yeah,” Pete smiled, “that, too. We’ll see who’s playing when we get back.” Pete Jr. strode with his hands in the pockets of his baggy shorts, kicking at loose gravel and pebbles as they went. “You’re not worried about school?” Peter wondered at his phrasing, for he too could understand the apprehension, the stomach knotting up; after all, they were all new kids on the block. Adults for the most part seemed to possess an advantage in this situation, based on the crumbly belief that at least basic rules of civility applied in the office workplace. High school could be scary, much more so than when he was a kid. The rank cynicism, street-toughness, the atrophy of compassion and dissolution of courtesy had gripped society’s youths at a much earlier age. It was a chilling notion to consider that many of them would inherit the corner offices and dead-end cubicles of the white-collar workplace, all too familiar to Peter, as his generation was gradually phased out by attrition, or even more aggressive policies of forced obsolescence.
“I guess not. School’s school. At least no heavy coats to wear.”
“Think you’ll miss the leaves changing and the snow?”
“I dunno. Never thought about it. If we did, we could go back for a visit, right?” A fair enough response, thought Peter as he nodded in the affirmative. “School bus pickup is just two blocks from our house, according to one of the wives,” Pete Jr. added, thumbing backwards, indicating they already passed it.
“It’ll be a snap,” said his father, trying to sound convincing. ‘I mean we’ve only got the one car. Your mom will have to be driving me to and picking me up from work unless she wants to be stranded at the house all day.”
“Sometimes I get the feeling that she wouldn’t mind that.”
Peter would have normally agreed, but the change in latitude had wrought a transformation, some of it even not so subtle. Marilyn, now gregarious with neighbors she had just met. Up north, neither of them had much interaction or even contact with their neighbors. And she kept on about the fruit trees. Well, next weekend, he’d see about it, not entrust it to the likes of Jackson Daley. Wooooiee. If it would make her happy.
“Anyway, we’ll see about a second car. Got to get a firm grip on our expenses down here and what we can put aside.” Pete braced for the spontaneous insistence of some large-ticket purchase such as a new computer, but Pete Jr., remained oddly silent, even pensive.
Up ahead, a few short blocks, stood a brown and white sign with an arrow, directing them to the right. The sign read: “Okalachee Park”. They trudged across a narrow wooden bridge, recently painted and passed through a gate in a chain-link fence. Skies to the west darkened as anvil-shaped thunderclouds loomed up in the distance. Peter spotted a large pavilion area with tables, some with brown paint blistered by the oppressive unrelenting heat.
“Hey, Dad, I gotta use the restroom.”
“Sure,” said his father absent-mindedly, sitting down at one of the tables, squinting into the light of a setting sun at a nearby basketball court, filled with youngsters, adolescents, appearing not too threatening, perhaps true jocks and less interested in sporting doo-rags and gold jewelry and hip-hop strides. One had a red Chicago Bulls jersey. Number 23 of course. Another sported a Miami Heat t-shirt. Peter leaned back and watched the five-on-five full-court contest unfold, memories seizing hold of him, returning him to his school days and even college where he last played a little. The only exercise he afforded himself in the better part of the last two decades was the occasional jog through the hilly terrain of north Jersey neighborhoods, curtailing his regimen when the cold winds blew and retreating to a stationary bike in the basement. As he watched the game he felt like taking a turn at the jogging trail he saw wind off in the distance, freshly mulched, with friendly markers announcing the progress of those who took the trail.
The glare became more intense so he decided to move back under the pavilion to shield his eyes. Now, from this dark venue, he looked out upon the court, the scene now framed as through a filtered lens, soft and blurry, indistinct flashes of white as players twisted, drove through the air, reversed direction, sprinted down court. The light grew so intense it seemed to dissolve the scene as in some cinematic fadeout, so that now he was transported back through the years, viewing the radiant light from a time portal, watching the former care-free hours of his youth. Before responsibility, during days of innocence when commitment was to the moment, to make the shot, to stop the break, to flow with the pace of the game as to become one with it.
Reveries of lost youthful innocence ground to sudden halt as Pete Jr. flung the restroom door open. “Hey Dad! You want to see something weird?”
Adjusting to the change in light as he turned about, Peter squinted at his son who appeared to be holding an oversized greeting card by its corners, as though it were some unwholesome object, soiled and infected. It appeared to be some folded shiny card, or at least something printed on glossy stock, like a cover. Pete Jr. set it down like he had just cleared the sidewalk of dog excrement. His father stared, frozen for a moment or two. In large blue letters across the top of the printed piece were the words ‘PARAGON’ in some flashy font, perhaps intended to convey speed and progress. Some other abstract art appeared in hues matching the printed font. Near the bottom, the words “USER GUIDE” appeared. Centered directly above that was a rectangular cutout. Peter was slow to assimilate this because the most striking feature of this, this artifact was its worn and battered condition. Wet spots, frayed corners, soiled fingerprints, even suggestions of tire treads as though someone had run over it repeatedly in the parking lot. A loose staple hung from the scoring where the cover folded. Inside nothing but white glossy surface, still soiled and fouled. On the back, the PARAGON logo in smaller letters. Peter did realize the cutout would have been a cost-saving measure. Many generic covers could be printed up for any product. The name of the product would then appear in just the right position on the first page to show through the cutout. Not particularly aesthetic, but exceedingly practical. Suddenly, he wondered why he was focusing on these details instead of the larger question. He finally looked up at his son, who seemed to be waiting for eye contact.
“This is from your new company, the Paragon place. This is the stuff you’d be working on, right? Why is it out here in this park in some dirty public restroom?”
Peter shook his head slowly. “I can’t begin to guess. It is bizarre, isn’t it?”
Peter Jr. rolled his eyes. “Let’s go home. This creeps me out.”
His father looked over at the basketball court to discover that not only had the game ended, but all the players had vanished. “Yeah, let’s get washed up and grab some pizza.”
As they headed back, the sun dropped near to the horizon behind them, arrayed in fluffy streaks of pink and gold, the thunderheads having missed them and moved on. Peter sighed with relief as they entered the front door to discover that the Paragon wives had finally left. Marilyn sat in the living room with the lights off, stroking Spot who now deigned to sit in someone’s lap. Staring off into space, she managed a distant grin, not aimed at her returning family, but at some secret inner realization. Peter wanted to conclude it was the excitement of meeting new friends, supportive neighbors, the spouses of Paragon people, yet he had to admit he couldn’t determine the cause of these changes in his wife’s behavior.
“We had a nice chat,” she began, as Pete Jr. headed for the kitchen to rummage through the pizza boxes. “A lot of the Paragon families relocated here.”
“They seem like a close-knit group, said Peter, fishing for cracks in the cheery exterior of the Paragon clique, but Marilyn added nothing further.
“They did mention the storm brewing, but having lived here they kind of take it in stride.”
“What storm? You mean that system on the Weather Channel we saw at the airport?”
Marilyn stepped forward, as though to offer an opinion. “Well, yes, but we just have to pay attention, not ignore it or panic.”
Peter felt his eyebrows raise. Balanced, sensible advice, of which Marilyn was capable, but he hardly found it characteristic of her to venture forth so boldly, as though it were the last word on the topic for the family. Peter certainly had nothing to add, so he nodded agreeably and managed an approving grin. The sun had dropped below the horizon and low, shimmering shadows crept across the family room, filtering through the vertical blinds, which swayed in the light breeze stirred by the air conditioner.
“I need a shower,” said Peter, turning on his heels, thinking of nothing but hot water cascading down his tense shoulders, lathering himself liberally, and.... It took seconds, stripping off his damp, sour shorts and t-shirt, unconsciously locking the bathroom door behind him, the stream of water inviting, soothing, and suddenly, the image of Lorene reared up before him, soon followed by something else rearing up, his arm bending, his hand clutching mechanically—and the spell suddenly broken by a pounding on the door.
“Hey Dad!”
“Almost done. Hold on.”
He rinsed quickly, his tumescence quickly growing flaccid, as he dried himself and threw on a robe. It had gotten colder in the house and he found himself almost shivering. Not even bothering to comb his thinning hair, he emerged to find Pete staring hopefully and innocently.
“There’s that old movie on TV that you like. That body snatcher thing.”
Peter smiled appreciatively, if not thrilled at the interruption and intrusion on his privacy. He ran a towel quickly though his hair and followed Peter to the family room, passing Marilyn in the kitchen, who seemed bustling, making lists, arranging more carefully earlier placed items, concentrating, focusing. She behaved as though she were stationed there on assigned duty.
Peter smiled at the thought of the old movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, from the fifties, but no it was the serviceable, if inferior remake from ’78 with Donald Sutherland.
“Hey, Dad, that’s the guy who looks like you.”
“Really? No one’s ever said that before.” Peter mused at the comparison. Some facial similarity, but the character was ragged, driven, desperate, about how Peter felt he looked. Had he really avoided looking in the mirror while showering?
“It’s cool. All this weird stuff happens, people turning into pod-people making everyone like everyone else.” Wrapped in a towel, Peter sat down to watch the last twenty minutes, focusing particularly on the mindless mob chasing the unconverted protagonist in the street, shouting “you’re next!” just after his girl friend had succumbed to sleep and had turned into one of “them”. Haunting strains of “Amazing Grace” piped up in the background. It gave him chills.
Around 9 p.m., everyone seemed wiped out by the eventful weekend. Pete Jr. played
some music in his room, softly, distantly, though the bedrooms adjoined. And Peter thought of
the film and how the victims turned into one of the pod people if they fell asleep. All too wired, Peter discovered he couldn’t sleep and after thirty minutes went into spare room and opened the box containing his manuscript, flipping through the pages absent-mindedly as he slumped into an old easy chair. It was soon two a.m. He tried to close his eyes for a few minutes, not sure if he had dozed off. He thought he heard something in the kitchen, Spot perhaps getting into mischief. Surprisingly and unaccountably, Marilyn had gotten up at some point and was silently doing stretching exercises. In the kitchen, her apparent center of comfort. Startled, deciding not to intrude, he returned to bed and feigned sleep. Marilyn soon returned and went right to sleep. Before nodding off fitfully, he thought he heard car doors opening and closing, the click of heels on pavement, purposeful, if not furtive for this hour. Lastly, birdsong. The last image he recalled was the Spot on the window sill staring out at the pre-dawn crescent moon, listening, waiting for the song to materialize into her object of desire.
MONDAY
3
Peter discovered that the parking lot at Paragon less full than yesterday, still plenty of cars at eight a.m. Marilyn said she would start putting the house in order, enroll Pete Jr. in 8th grade. Of course, he could manage with the school bus. They still had the problem of the one car. Fortunately, Paragon was less than a ten-minute drive. For now, the arrangement would be for Marilyn to drop Peter off and pick him up. Perhaps some days she could pick him up and they could go home for lunch. Marilyn some time ago, though not recently, had talked about getting a job, but she had not spoken of any particular line of work. She had last worked as an administrative assistant, before their son was born, some part-time hours after that with day care thrown in. But her position had been eliminated. At AT&T, Peter had done well enough for her to become a fulltime housewife. Now, a second job had practically become a necessity and that would mean a second car, used, minimum insurance. These thoughts raced through Peter’s sleep-deprived brain as he found a parking spot, got out, took a deep breath, adjusted his tie and passed through the “gates” of Paragon.
He spotted the Human Resources department just past the lobby. After he signed in with the receptionist, Margie Freele appeared, seemingly bored and preoccupied.
“Well, Mr. Peter Caisson, today’s the day, eh,” she said, stifling a yawn. “You’re the only new employee starting today,” she continued, leading him to her windowless, unadorned office. Stacks of folders lay in disarray. Peter glanced at her computer where it seemed she had been working on some kind of spreadsheet.
"We'll keep orientation simple.” She grimaced. “I’m afraid there’s less staff to prepare fancy presentations since the layoffs a few weeks back.”
The remark didn’t immediately register, but Peter piped up reflexively, “Layoffs? No one said anything about layoffs during the interview.” An insidious sourness crept into the pit of his stomach.
Margie paused, as if distantly recalling having lost a close co-worker. She turned to a shelf on a bookcase and grabbed a packet of forms, company profile sheet, and an employee handbook. Peter noticed a layer of dust on top of the packet.
“Margie, please understand, but it’s a bit unsettling to have relocated all this distance for a new job and to hear of layoffs.”
Rather than assuaging and reassuring, Margie countered with a question. “Uh, who originally interviewed you?”
“Why it was a Frank Steadman I believe.”
Margie’s features sagged at this reply but before she could speak, a man poked his head in the door.
“Marge, you’re needed in the main conference room right away. Hanson’s calling all the executive staff. He’s about to go ballistic about the third quarter earnings.”
Margie jumped up and shouted, “Trish!” A young woman suddenly appeared in the doorway. The messenger had already fled. “This is Peter Caisson. Show him around. He starts today in Engineering. When you’re done, take him to Steve Polk. Gotta run.”
“Hi Mr. Caisson. I’m Trisha.” Trisha bore no expression, that is to say showed no reaction to the sudden, unanticipated bustle.
“Are you Margie’s secretary?”
“Actually I’m secretary/administrative assistant, chief cook and bottle washer for all the top managers. It’s gonna be one of those days. Woooieee.” Somehow, she reminded him of one of the women at the Raisin Bar.
Trish proceeded with the “tour”, which consisted of pointing out the restrooms, a kind of makeshift lunch room with a few tables, refrigerator, vending machines, and two coffee makers. Trisha tossed a limp hand in either direction as they continued down a main hallway. “That’s Sales and Marketing. That’s Accounting. That’s Tech. Support.” Peter maintained a smile on his face, but kept considering the issue of the third quarter earnings, obviously not joyous news based on the reaction of….
“This Hanson?”
“Bob Hanson, the CEO.”
“Tough, demanding?”
“You could say that. His motto is ‘lean and mean’,” she recited in an expressionless, robotic-like manner.
As they approached the end of the main corridor, Peter saw a closed door, a potted plant, faring none too well next to it, but most striking of all was the poster on the door: the face of a clock with no hands, as Jack had described. No captions. Why was it there and what was it supposed to mean? Something measured as timeless? The whole point of measuring time was to segment the day, the diurnal portion, cycle of activities, parenthetically enclosed by sleep. Was it intended to suggest that there were no segments? That Paragon employees’ singular purpose was an all-consuming devotion to the company?
Inside, there were of course the requisite cubicles, a few enclosed offices. Escorted past these by Trisha, he came upon an open tiled floor, a combination test/development lab with benches, ripped apart computers, cables, piles of electronic circuit boards, various and sundry test equipment with voltmeters, soldering irons, gauges, oscilloscopes, in such a state of disarray that it resembled nothing so much as a backstreet warehouse or chop shop garage.