The Monkey Wrench

Chapter 5

[Preface to this chapter. This scene was written back in 1986-7 time period. Weed was illegal then and they would actually put you in jail. This was especially so for a lawyer who could easily lose his license for a pot bust. By present day standards, PJ’s paranoia seems ridiculous and the discussion of weed and its how to use it makes me cringe a little. But I will leave it in for now. I assure you, at the time, this is the way it felt, anyway. I would love to hear opinions on this in the comments.]

CHAPTER 5

LAW OFFICE KINEMATICS

Now

we view the

wonders of the modern age,

feel the power of ancient terrors,

get the scoop on the value of suffering

and meet strange bedfellows as the torch of power

is passed on

to

a new and younger generation of

assholes.

A. GETTING BACK TO NORMAL

CLICK — FFFFFFFFFFTTT — WWHHR-R-R-R-R-R-R-R.

You slip that rainbowed circlette into the C.D. player’s electric womb, where a laser begins to track the cleverly encoded messages to be found there; the newest gizmo technology rendering sound, through computer-chipped miracle logic, numerical — air wave vibrato obligato’d via SCIENCE en nomeros!..Si..Oui..Huit..Neuf..Pont Neuf..Pointilism — the numbers, now digitalized, affixed somehow to a four-inch disc of plastic — Plastique! Bruno, give me zee plastique explosive, you big, brawny resistance fighter you — is inserted into the player — modern Japanese triumph of post-war gadgetry rebirth — which reads the messages — left there by some silicone life forms in California Doctor! They’re reproducing themselves through these little discs! We’ve got to stop them before we are all transformed. Doctor? DOCTOR! — resolving the numbers into electrical pulses, then sound — et finally musica! — all artificially created. It is technology! It is very precise and orderly.

As the music starts: low, cool and bright, you hear the guitar jangle out a ratcheting cackle, while you take another friendly pull off of your pipe — purchased in Mexico from a colorful mestizo, carved from the bole of some rare black tree growing only near Oaxaca, Senor Sloan; just Five Dollars American — smoke whispering to the ceiling, the ashtray powdered with the ash of two prior-charges of primo Baja weed — the newest thing PJ, the high comes in waves and waves. Grown by the DEA, — NO SHIT! — to fund the purchase of killer speedboats off the Florida coast. They’re looking for high voltage coke busts and rooster-tailed sight-bites for the Nightly News — Now an older and more primitive technology begins to take effect: the plant — gaseous ganga fermentis, indigenous to semi-tropical ecosystems — produces tetrahydrocannabinol, commonly THC, stored in the leaves — the frustrated female of the variety is especially prized — which are surreptitiously collected — Sinsemilla. Man! — sold through a secret system of black-market purveyors — Hey pal, you holding? — rolled in paper or — never got the knack of those doobies; always had to rely upon — specially designed paraphernalia — pipes, one-hitters and the notorious bong — then combusted. The smoke is inhaled into the unfortunate lungs which transfer the THC to the bloodstream by means of a naturally occurring gas transfer system — evolutionistic respirate corpuscle reversal — which in turn has its intended impact upon the brain cells, producing a feeling of euphoria and altering the operation of the — binary-brain-star-system-stem-stamen. It is of nature, natural, au naturelle. It is not precise nor is it orderly. It is a criminal act; Es ist verboten; C’est illegal, Amigo.

You call the attainment of this euphoric psychological state, “getting high,” alternatively “a buzz.” And one of the techniques to boost the buzz is not to just smoke the dope as you would tobacco; oh no! you must “toke” it ... it’s more than a pull or inhale ... hold it ... hold it ... let a little out and catch your breath ... Urp ... urp ... urp ... you make little high squeaks, trying not to lose any of the ... trying to hold onto every last bit of the ... urp ... uurp ... boozy buzz juice. A cold Heineken stands sweating at your side, ready to ease down the blistered throat. It’s not cool to cough, and that makes you laugh. Hold that smoke. Urp! Hold it as long as you can ... urp ... don’t let the buzz escape.

On the Sony Trinitron, the legal-erotica of the film Body Heat is playing with the sound off; you don’t need the words as you have seen it now maybe 10 times. Had to buy the VHS tape, as the trips to BlockBuster were getting ridiculous and sometimes it was out. Kathleen Turner — Jesus is she hot or what? You feel your top lip, where that moustache you have been cultivating to ape the one William Hurt sports as he pursues her.

You move sideways, craning your neck in the leather chair to look at the stereo’s readouts, trying to make an objective judgment regarding the music by reading the sine-waves and troubling bar graphs there, visual alternatives to the colored neon chutters of sound emanating from your six thousand dollar video/music system: Trinitron; Yamaha; Nakamichi; Bang & Olafson — top of the line. The music begins to pound — a shot to the ribs — a humping, groaning guitar comes buzzing out of the speakers while you watch the LEDs spike the highs — a sonic map indicating the way to eardrum paradise. You can turn it up just as loud as you want in this room that you have had soundproofed with some special foam they pumped into the walls. Here, you are protected; you can sit satisfied and safe, no worries of intrusive interruptions; you’re a yolk in your egg. The sound is almost substance now, a gel between the space and the solids of your existence, consisting of the music, the cooling, imported beer, the hi-tech gizmos, good pot and the protection of a place you can’t be touched by the outside — all creating a conscious perception of satisfaction, happiness and safety. Yes, you feel good.

This is what you need — a safe place, after your daily efforts of survival out there in the cannibalistic spheres of Power and Money, after the long hours, the late hours, the evenings of youth spent caged in an office or a library, or sweating through all-night contract negotiations. After all that, you deserve a place to hide, you need this escape-pod where you get a little forbidden R&R to make it all worthwhile: a place with no eyes, a dangerous place, an irrational place. Now you think about irrationality and smile. Limited irrationality is another luxury you afford yourself here, offsetting the ever-present control and super-rationality necessary for the practice of Law. Many things are afforded to a man like you. You can own a soundproofed room, for example, you can put anything you want in that room, and you can do whatever you want there. In this room you can retreat, and think, or not think, of anything. (Here you realize that your face is clenched in frown. What were you thinking of: oh that run-in with Roger Fehler the other night.)

At this point in your career, Mr. P.J. Sloan — an almost Partner and downtown law firm yuppie in the employ of Sullivan, Cramer, Rollins & Weldon — it’s too late for regrets, isn’t it? Let’s not get maudlin again about these surrounding symbols of random success and the things done to get them. But then, it’s not random, is it? Don’t you sometimes wish it was luck that got you here? Don’t you wish it wasn’t a daily matter of choice; these things and objects and status symbols flowing from not only knowing how to play the game, but then playing it so well? You do what is asked. You do what is necessary, all that and more. You give yourself up to their plan of ... Wait-a-minute! That’s not you. That’s Roger talking again. That’s what he said; that’s him and his garbage-can philosophy. And look where it’s got him. You remember? At the Dolphin the other night? Oh yeah … yeah. Considering how he’s come down in the world, wonder if he still feels that way? Doubt it. Doubt it very much.

No PJ, you don’t feel that way. You no longer think about the alien beliefs and images you assimilated and now maintain as your own; you don’t think about the morality of your position any longer. (Did you ever? Roger did.) You found out that being a lawyer was more than knowing the law and working long hours, and it was more than learning to be hard, even cruel sometimes. It was also erasing those parts of your personality which would render you suspect among the people who made a difference; it was fitting a form; it was looking like them and becoming as serious as they were about the things they were serious about. Roger had no trouble with the law; he could even be hard if necessary — if the ethics of the thing weren’t too sketchy. But Roger couldn’t forget himself, couldn’t artfully manage the submersion of his personality to fit their expectations, and keeping the kernel of YOU safe.

He wouldn’t, he said. He knew what they wanted, but there were some things you don’t give up. Roger couldn’t put on an obedient face and wait until he could afford a room like this where he could be himself, where he could keep that part of the man still hidden. Look where he is now. And look where you are PJ. Look what you’ve got.

All these toys are members of that materialistic set of things which is roughly described as “anything you want” — Gold AMEX card, BMW, $5O haircuts (what else? Anything else! That’s the point.) — these are not luxuries; these are the just desserts given to a man who knows how to curve himself into a form that those above him would value, ready to do what is needed to Win. And the first law of Winning, is that someone else has to Lose. Roger never learned that; you did. And that explains a lot, doesn’t it PJ?

To dispel these maudlin thoughts — which could spiral down into THC hell — you take the remote control from the table at your side and touch a button that changes the disc in the machine’s internal magazine. There are other buttons here: volume, power, video, something called “spatial balance,” even the room lights and ventilation can be controlled by infra-red beams emitted from this little box. Now, inside the machine, the ghostly numbers created by some other group are chewed by the player’s guts — a nanosecond at most of precious time is wasted — and then the music appears in the air. Here is the clang-jangle of 12-string approach, and in your altered state, you begin to sense the music in a new way — consciousness becoming a microscope, a telescope, an antenna, a visual cartographic processor which can dissect out the discrete strands of sound, sensing each musical element separately: two guitars, a drum and bass, and the singer and his surrealistic words:

—There’s a Creature waiting inside you.

jang-jang jaja-jang-jang jang-jang- jajajang-jang

chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-

bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat

bo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop bo-du-du-doop

—Wants to swallow you up.

jang-jang jaja-jang-jang jang-jang- jajajang-jang

chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-

bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat

bo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop bo-du-du-doop

The silver, confused web of thought infecting you rustles and vibrates as each ... you are constantly forgetting ... forgetting ... forgetting what it is ... what were you thinking of?

This music seems significant. There is a reliance upon ... upon ... upon dark humor and dark glasses ... and ... what? ... how do they get that music onto ... into ... onto that C.D? Isn’t that amazing. Wait. Try to slow down. Those initials: C.D. Notice how the meanings flip depending upon the context? Certificate of Deposit ... some financial, interest earning gimmick; then Compact Disc ... by who? The Pogues ... Bob Marley ... old Thin Lizzy and Miss Patsy Cline ... a plastic, round and shiny indestructible thing that plays rock or jazz or classical or country-western retro reverb bebop. Lost your C.D.? Which way? Could be a minor annoyance or a financial catastrophe, depending.

Somehow this makes insane sense; significance scattered across the landscape and a searching, recursive consciousness seeing something in each scintilla of sparkling surface there. Meaning is grasped voraciously by that mind set free, racing, flashing on everything; anything now is important and crucial. You try to decide whether this observation regarding context and perception is stupid. You guess that it might be, knowing from experience that Reason cannot be trusted now. Then you think about writing it down and tell someone about it tomorrow. Who would you tell? Used to be Roger — momentary pang of guilt here, instantly forgotten in mechanistic defense-reaction — no one now.

This song — just ending — hits you right, there is the false feeling of significance and drama again telling you that you will love these words forever — or until you forget them. You touch the button on the remote marked:

And, seconds later the song returns, a perfect digital reflection of the music heard only minutes before:

—There’s a Creature waiting inside you

jang-jang jaja-jang-jang jang-jang- jajajang-jang

chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-

bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat

bo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop bo-du-du-doop

—Wants to swallow you up.

jang-jang jaja-jang-jang jang-jang- jajajang-jang

chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-

bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat

bo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop bo-du-du-doop

Great words. Creature waiting. What else can C.D. stand for? Crimes of Depravity; Collections Department; Clinically Dead; Causes of Divorce. Oooh

The verse repeats:

—There’s a Creature waiting inside you.

jang-jang jaja-jang-jang jang-jang- jajajang-jang

chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-

bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat

bo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop bo-du-du-doop

ringgggggggg ringggggggggg

—Wants to swallow you up.

jang-jang jaja-jang-jang jang-jang- jajajang-jang

Then the second guitar:huka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-

bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat

bo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop bo-du-du-doop

ringgggggggg ringggggggggg

The world is a creature, isn’t it? It crushes us all unless we’re careful ... wait ... what? What’s that? Something that wasn’t there before ...

The dissective mode of your mind comes in handy here, plucking apart the strands of sound and cutting through the music in a surgeonistic approach, removing anatomical layers of sound to find that new tumor of discord. First the voice and guitar are gone:

chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-

bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat

bo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop bo-du-du-doop

ringgggggggg ringggggggggg

Then the second guitar:

bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat

bo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop bo-du-du-doop

ringgggggggg ringggggggggg

and the drums

bo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop bo-du-du-doop

ringgggggggg ringggggggggg

and the bass, until only the discordance is left:

ringgggggggg ringggggggggg

(Omigod!!! The phone. Telephonic visitor. Shit! Telephonic shitter!)

PJ lunges for the phone and falls out of his chair, knocking the bottle of beer onto the floor, the liquid glooping out happily into the shag carpet. He unravels himself, reaches again for the telephone again and succeeds in knocking it to the floor as well, unpitching the receiver from its cradle. The music, whole again, plays on:

The music, no longer held by your mind repeats:

—There’s a Creature waiting inside you.

jang-jang jaja-jang-jang jang-jang- jajajang-jang

chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-

bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat

bo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop bo-du-du-doop

PJ grabs the earpiece:

—Hello! Hello! I’m here.

He can hear nothing over the music and reaches up to splatter the power button on the remote control with his foot. A velvet hush; the internal darkness of a dead-still room; blackness; a crypt silence through which PJ hears the distant sound of breathing. There is a long pause, then a strained and high-pitched lisp coming through the phone into his ear:

—Hello? PJ? What wath all that racket?

Omigod! This is the worst of possible voices: it is the voice of power, of authority, of law and order, the voice of another generation, a voice that doesn’t — can’t — won’t understand or accept chaotic spare-time kicks like marijuana and Rock & Roll. It is the parental voice of Willis Whipper, Managing Partner at SCR&W, and the Lord thy God and, don’t say it out loud (the Lisper in Chief). PJ is stunned dumb, his brain on overload with nothing to think about but the quality of the panic he is experiencing.

—Hello? PJ? Is that you? (And then almost to itself, the voice mutters.) Have I got the right number here?

This sudden suggestion of escape possibilities is picked up by a mind that is not too pot-fried to consider survival as an option. PJ lowers his voice two octaves, into an impression of white-trash baritone:

—da-fuck? Who is this? Pee-Wee who? You got the wrong number numbnuts! Know what time it is?

—Oh! Sorry. And the phone clicks dead.

PJ knows he only has a momentary reprieve; just enough time to try and collect his scattered wits while Whipper redials. He coughs, feels about wildly in the dark for the remote control and the light-switch. His hand splashes through a puddle of beer as the phone sounds again: ringggggggg!

—Hello?

—Hello? Is that you PJ?

—Yes. Willis? Is that you Willis?

—Yes. Heh-heh. I just got the weirdest call. I mean I made the weirdest call ... No, I tried to call you and got a very strange answer.

—Pardon me?

—Forget it. No i’th nothing.

PJ is staring hard into the reverberating dark, trying to concentrate, trying to sound normal, but there is a psychic echo of music floating about his head, asking PJ if waiting Creature might be still there. Whipper speaks again:

—PJ, I hate to call you at home, but I need you to do something for me.

—Now?

—Yeth now. A client, an important client of the firm’s ith in trouble tonight and needth … needs to be bailed out of jail.

—Tonight?!

In the darkness, PJ estimates the position of his wrist. Luminous analog numerals swim into view and inform him that it is 11:45 p.m., that it is Saturday and the middle of July. The dial fails to render an opinion on the degree of his disorientation, but he doesn’t need his watch for that; the fact that he can no longer feel his tongue or remember his middle name tells him that going outside of this room tonight could be dangerous. The disembodied lisp continues:

—Yeth. I know it’s a pain in the asth. But, as I said, an important firm client is in trouble PJ and I know I can count on you.

Hearing the code words of duty invoked, PJ straightens himself instinctively and tries to focus his mind, and, as if confidence and responsibility might have a sobering effect, answers with words he immediately regrets:

—Sure. Sure, Willis. I’ll take care of it. What needs to be done?

—You’ll have to go down to the office and pick up a firm check — you’ll find the checkbook in my desk, right-hand top drawer, in the front — and go over to the County Jail and bail out a Mr. Norman Eithenshtein. You got that? PJ? You sstill there?

In the darkness, PJ’s mouth is moving, trying hard to form words, but his larynx has taken a short vacation, not operating just now. And good thing too, for the sentences which PJ is putting together might cause Mr. Whipper some consternation:

—Oh no sir. You can’t be serious. You have to understand that I’m stoned here, totally out of my mind. You wouldn’t want me within ten miles of a Police station tonight. Why the smell alone would probably knock them over. And that’s not all. I’ve been drinking.

Fortunately, PJ cannot make a sound. He massages his throat as that voice again lisps into his ear.

—PJ? The phone’th gone dead! Are you there?

—Yes.

There is the whisper of returning vocal rhythms.

—Is thomething wrong? I can barely hear you. Are you thick?

Once again the faint glitter of a rescue option shines through the darkness, and PJ grasps for it.

—Uhh ... yes Willis. That’s it. I’m sick. I’ve been in bed all day. The flu. Diarrhea! I’ve got spots. Migraine! I’m dizzy and faint. He adds a small cough.

Here, there is a void of thoughtful silence, during which PJ, holding his breath, hopes for Whipper to realize that there are ten other junior lawyers at the firm who can carry a check over to the Courthouse to bail out a client who got a little frisky on a Saturday night.

—Well that’ss too bad PJ; thorry to bother you. Tell you what, take tomorrow off. Now don’t forget, top right-hand drawer. The Bail’s five hundred dollars, Asth … Assault & Battery, and we need to do this tonight as the injured party is in the hossspital and may die. As i’th only A&B right now, and not Aggravated or worse, this hath to happen tonight, before day judges and the Thate’s Attorney get there in the morning. The name’s Norman Eithenstein; have you got that PJ? Norman Eisssenstein.

Before he can object, cough again, add more symptoms or even remind Whipper that tomorrow is Sunday, not a workday anyway, PJ hears a terminal click and he is sitting in the darkness, listening to nothing but the deafening silence of a lone heart beating in a soundproofed room.

*

The streetlights fan by, their light prismed into stripes of sweating color demanding your notice as you drive along War Memorial Drive towards some uncertain location in the City. Each moment is a separate chapter in your life, a second seems to span hours of living time, swelling to fill the universe — so much time, how is it possible that we ignore it all? Suddenly you stop the car and begin to fumble with the glove box for a piece of paper. You want to write something down. Despite hulking paranoia, there was something back there you had wanted to remember ... to write down ... what was it? ... HEY! My God! You’re in the middle of the road; stopped in the middle of the street with the Doppler- Effect Honking-Cars- screaming around you!

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeepppp

—Get the fuck outta the road asshole!

—MOVE IT!

You put the car into gear and slowly inch back into the flow of traffic. Fear, remembering you, comes to sit on your thumping heart, which beats in time to some song that you heard once long ago ... What was it?

Now you have your hands carefully positioned at Ten O’clock and Two O’clock, just as the driving instructor told you ... when? ... back in high school — taking Driver’s Ed with Mr. Ford ... Hah! ... Mr. Ford and in a Ford ... and Kathy ___ ... what was her name?... biggest tits you ever did ... driving on the wrong side of the road ... you remember that ... while you were looking at her in the mirror ... exchanging rearview glances drifting over the centerline and Mr. Ford grabbing the wheel, threatening to flunk you if ever you ...

Your head jerks up as the sudden bloodshot headlights bear directly in from another time and somewhere else; arms pulling the wheel to the right in instantaneous articulation as a full and angry lane of traffic goes rocketing by. Jesus Fucking Christ!

You sit at the side of the street, the right tire resting on the curb. You’re breathing hard. Shit. Collect yourself. I was going ... where? To jail? — Do not pass go; do not collect — bail money?

You try to remember what mission you have been sent upon — (Why Am I Here?) — Too deep PJ — but each time you do you only forget again where you are, and have to re-observe your surroundings, re-experience, re-process, re-forget, recall — a constant and recursive birth into consciousness, again, again, and again — until finally you are forced to retrace — CONCENTRATE! — by pneumonic steps, your short-term memory, calling up the significant highlights of the last two hours:

1) Friday night and Sinsemilla;

2) There’s a Creature waiting inside you;

3) Ringggggggg Ringggggggggg;

4) Client ... Bail check ... Right hand, top drawer;

5) Click. Buzzzzzzzz.

6) OMIGOD!

At this point, the circumstantial elements of your predicament flash across the screen of visual recall, displaying all those frantic strategies to get straight, everything you could think of, an encyclopedia of old wives’ methodology to get back to normal and lose this “buzz” was employed: you brewed a potful of black coffee and drank it within fifteen minutes, causing a quick flash on the bag of croissants in the breadbox which were eaten with gusto and orange marmalade (Yum!). Then it occurred to you that exercise might help. Sure, get the old blood moving and the metabolism pumping out those nasty chemicals into stratospheric pressure release. You mounted your exer-cycle and pedaled to Chicago and back, but then became entranced with the movement of the numbers on the odometer; you did jumping jacks and push-ups, leg lifts and chin-ups in the doorway; there was a fully clothed cold shower and more push-ups. You flipped on the news-channel and focused on video tragedies & bomb-plots in Venezuela; you reeled off the capitals of the fifty states:

—Montgomery, Juneau, Arizonanana, Aquamarine, North Rhinoceros ... or something.

Until finally, convinced that you could see things more clearly than before and would be upright, logical and lawyerly by the time you got to the police station, you slid the key into the ignition of your BMW M-Z3 and drove downtown.

Now where are you? Where are you PJ Sloan? Why you’re sitting in your car, hands at Two and Ten, licking your lips and listening to ringing words of memory that seem more significant by the minute: “There’s a Creature waiting inside you.”

*

PJ shakes his head, realizing, yes, he does feel a little better: rationality is returning, like a thick and serious friend. He looks about and knows where he is: County Jail; downtown; car on the curb; bail check in his pocket. He backs the car off of the sidewalk, switches the ignition dead and takes a long breath. He regards the facade of the Peoria County Jail Building, which glowers in fortress facsimile, a WPA monolith built back when the world was cheaper and buildings as substantial as this were still possible. The frontage wall, so much like a face (drugs or runaway imagination?) with those grinning, grilled teeth, the pale and windowed eyes screaming the colors of violent justice, doorways yawning out like a hundred mouths to swallow you, a thousand ways to suck you dry; arms; limbs; tentacles! Oh shit!

Shake it off. Think! Concentrate on it. Yes. I remember. Bail out ... Eisenstein? Wasn’t that ... any relation? Maybe that’s why he’s so important?

He finds the night entrance and folds himself in. Here, there’s an eerie movie-track hush in which the ringing footsteps of approach become a preternatural focal point as PJ crosses a floor span of empty linoleum between the door and the Desk Officer. It’s the size of the Bradley Field House. It may take hours to cross. He is practicing the words he will say, suggestions dropping in on him from B-MovieLand: “Pardon me officer. My name’s Paul Sloan, I’m an attorney downtown and I believe that you have my client in jail.” No too polite. “Hey flatfoot, I’m here to spring ...” Omigod no! PJ is still trying to decide the correct attitude when he hears his mouth improvising:

—I’m Attorney Sloan. Do you have an Eisenstein here?

The Desk Officer looks up with a slow, appraising squint, then back to his book. There are lines of names there, a chronological order of crime, the roll of daily Peorian incarceration laid out in rough symmetry.

— Yeah, got a Norman Eisenstein pulled in here about 4:30 this afternoon on an Assault & Battery. The night judge set bail at Five Thousand. The Officer looks back at PJ with a deprecating grin. You guys take your time huh?

PJ’s eyes flick to the wall-clock: 2:19? His pulse stutters a Reggae beat under the influence of the cop’s menacing grin, which looks to PJ as the informed smile of a man who has taken a 5-day, intensive summer-course at the local junior college, “How to Recognize the Casual Abuser: 7 Easy Tips to a Drug Bust and Promotion.” While holding his breath to reduce the possible flow of incriminating internal gases, PJ manages an answer.

—I just found out about it. You say Five Thousand bail? I was told Five Hundred.

The Officer’s face wrinkles into a slightly pained, somewhat tired and superior look of a man who is comfortable with the context. His voice comes at PJ with condescension.

—Ten Percent. You only gotta put up Ten Percent of the bail. Don’t handle too many of these do you?

—No. I’m on the civil side; corporate, tax, municipal ... ah some junk bonds, insurance ...

—Ambulance chaser.

—What?

—All you guys’re ambulance chasers. You’re either State’s Attorney, P.D. or an ambulance chaser. The first two don’t pay nothin’, and anybody with the dough to pop out a Assault & Battery johnny on a Saturday night is an ambulance chaser.

—No. I don’t do any negligence work — well a little medical malpractice defense — but not any ...

—Ambulance Chaser!

The Desk Officer says this with the authority of a man who holds the keys, a man who can hold those keys in front of PJ’s nose all night if he wants; the invocation of the secret power of the petty bureaucrat. And PJ, recognizing real power when it slaps him in the face, decides that the less said now the better, and shuts up. PJ lowers his eyes from the Desk Officer’s direct challenge and fumbles in his pocket.

—You’ll take a check won’t you?

—Personal?

—No. A firm check. A law firm check.

—Yeah. This time.

PJ knows that the “This time” is only the D.O.’s self-aggrandizing suck of power from a rule he would have to follow anyway: law firm checks are always accepted; there’s only the question of how much hoop-jumping will be required before the rule is eventually obeyed. What “This time” means is: I won’t make it tough on you “this time,” we’ll do it the easy way “this time,” I could muck-up things something fierce here, but just follow my lead and there’ll be no problems, “this time.”

As he thinks this, PJ recognizes the return of his cynical side.

He starts to scratch out the Payee, Amount (numerical and script), and the Date, and it occurs to PJ that he seems to be handling this fairly well after all, at least for a man so stoned a few hours ago that he couldn’t stand up. Gone are paranoia, the cottonmouth, the skewed perception and tunneled memory of his surroundings. But there is still the slight ghost-line of sensory pick-up; things seem too real, too close, too tactile, and oddly timed, but that could be just THC afterburn. The Desk Officer picks up a phone and tells someone named Fred to come up for a “Pop-out,” which PJ figures to be some sort of jailhouse slang for the posting of bond. Yes, he does feel better. The world is roughly falling along expected lines again, and PJ can feel his brain processes slowing down to an almost manageable crawl.

There is a complicated clicking and scraping sound to the left of him and a steel door opens outward. Another officer — thin, incredibly thin — stands waiting in the doorway. The man is eating something — a sandwich and potato chips — and holding the door open as PJ walks to the door, which, as he reaches it, he notices leads down to a steaming and beige-pink walled stairway. There is something familiar and threatening about this corridor down: the veined cracks in the walls, a waiting valve-like door at the bottom, the gurgling of liquids and the feeling of moist sponginess somewhere near. As PJ slowly follows the skinny-cop down the stairs he almost slips. Fred mumbles through whatever it is that he’s eating:

—Watch yuh step. In this hot weather we get condensation. Hot air hittin’ these cold stone walls, y’know, everything gets slippery as snot.

PJ touches the wall and confirms the warning. The wall is slicked with sweating droplets, their coolness making him realize the warmth of the surrounding air. There is a long away thrum of some machine rhythmically working out its tensions deep in its bowelled hideaway, the sound entering the world in a system of low vibrations: bo-doop boo-doop boo-doop bo-doop bo-doop.

Now they’ve reached the bottom of the stairs and the cop is fumbling with his keys at the door, holding his sandwich in his mouth, the bag of chips between his knees. His hand against the odd mushiness of the wall, PJ listens to the keys hitting against each other as the man tries each one at the lock: jangle jang-jang-jang-jangle jang jajajajajaja-jangle.

Finally, the proper key hits home. Fred turns and gives PJ a grin around the edges of the bread and swings the door open. This operation has focused PJ on the sound of the man’s keys hitting with symphony force against his popping hip as they begin to walk through the underground entrails of the building: jang-jang ... jang-jang ... jang-jang ... jang-jang; PJ feeling the menacing flash of familiar paranoia return — a signification ... the sound! What next? Then it is gone.

*

As you follow the Jailer — Turnkey ... Passkey ... Three Skeleton Key, rats all around the lighthouse — you imagine the dreamed-out denouement to this Saturday — oh hell, it’s Sunday — Nightmare. Yes, you can guess the cautious end to this night of roller-coaster ups and downs: the client will be some fifty year-old paunch — the high comes in waves and waves — in leather pants and strands of hair combed over his bald-spot — the trait of baldness being carried by the Y chromosome, hence the female of the species is the carrier of this scourge to humankind — who was driving too fast in his T-Bird or Corvette — T-Bone Burnette, Charley Arquette, Petticoat Junction! — a little too much liquor on his breath to suit the local constabulary, and a blond named Debbie in the bucket seat beside him. Being set free — “Popped-out” they said. C’mon screw, this is a pop-out — the client will pump your hand with mighty strokes and thank you — Merci beaucoup, vous etes un tres bon avocat — for the rescue. All he will want to do is just get home to the little woman — end titles begin to roll — and explain away the hours as some ... No wait, it was Assault & Battery! Not drunk driving. What were you thinking of?! — You were thinking it was something else, dufus. — Well, then probably a fight in a bar over a blue collar insult thrown by somebody named Jack or Billy-Bob with a chair over the back sending a thousand toothpick pieces — un grand spectacle and spidery splinters of barroom mirrors every^­where. The result was the same grateful client and you are home soon, getting back to normal — & Resting in Peace.

You follow the Jailer down the corridor, his keys jangling with each bump of the hip; that far away machine booping along in time. On either side of you are the cells — some empty, some with occupants. On the right, a young white man with more tattoos than skin watches your approach and calls out to Skinny-Fred:

—Hey Fred baby, give me some-a-dose chips. C’mon Ahm hungry and Ah can’t sleep.

SkinnyFred stops, stuffs his mouth full of potato chips and chews them loudly for the prisoner’s benefit: chuka chuka chuka.

The man wails and stomps his feet as you and Fred walk away:

—Fred you sonofabitch. Give me some chips or Ahm gonna wake up this whole fucking cell block.

Fred continues to chew the chips, stuffing them in his mouth as he walks away and crunching — chuka chuka — and the walls catch the sound, echoing it in metallic ringing reverb: chuka chuka chuka chuka chuka chuka chuka chuka chuka.

From behind, the prisoner takes off one of his sneakers and starts to slap the floor with it:

—God damn you Fred. Bat-bat-bat-bat. You sadistic sonofabitch. Bat-bat-bat-bat.

As you walk away, the young man gives up his yelling, but the sneaker continues: Bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat.

You are sweating now. Maybe it’s the humidity. Maybe it’s something else, something familiar. A remembered dream seems to be coming back, returning from edgedom. There is a surge of sensation, everything is unreal again, becoming surreal. What is that memory? What is it? Why does this all seem so familiar? You just want this to be over, “pop-out” the client and be away from this heat and the sweating walls and this dark construction of a nightmare that someone else is having; not you. You want to be home where those familiar sounds aren’t ... you want to stop hearing those keys, the chip chomping cop, the tennis shoe splatting the floor, that ringing machine somewhere else, you want to stop hearing all these sounds that have somehow all fallen together to sound like this:

jang-jang jaja-jang-jang jang-jang- jajajang-jang

chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-chuka-

bat bat bat bat bat bat bat

bo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop boo-doo-doo-doop bo-du-du-doop

And lacking only one significant element to render this jailhouse cacophony familiar and complete.

All ... All quiet. Fred has halted in front of one of the cells, his skinny arm swinging invitingly to the interior, his hand pointing in like a game show host offering you the prize you deserve. You peer in, cautious now, quivering, afraid of what you might see in there. Inside there is a movement, a twitch, a hulking presence on a bunk in the rear. You draw closer, your eyes adjusting to the light slowly as an odd shape begins to take form in the swirling darkness. A hulk. A derelict, an abandoned void, a fundamental outline which defies reification. A glaring and dark thing is sitting in there with a crude tinfoil helmet covering its skull. Your throat constricts as the metallic disks of its eyes raise from the floor of the cell to meet your own, and your bowels constrict suddenly, as you suddenly know where that aural memory jogged by the jailhouse sounds comes from, and what it lacks to be complete: a nasal voice calling out from the past, the world of recent abnormality arriving with a fiendish laugh to become part of the real and the here & the now:

—There’s a Creature inside … inside …inside.

B. Elliot’s Smile

Buildings can have personalities — Don’t you think? — somehow communicating their natures and affiliations through secret structural languages, floor-plan linguistics, windowed codes, brick text and the vocabulary of doors. Institutional buildings are the easiest to decipher, those schools, hospitals, churches and Masonic Halls eventually all beginning to radiate the textures of the rituals they encase. But even more generic structures may become accustomed to specific habitations and, thus, resist improper tenancies. Some houses are made for families, some will abide nothing but spinsters or a smelly old bachelor who keeps a dog; there are storefronts where only shoes can be sold, or magazines or pipes and tobacco, try anything else and the “going-out-of-business” sign will soon appear in the window. Even multi-unit buildings, apartments, office-buildings and hotels — despite the secret uses that their rooms are put to by all those numberless tenants over time — develop very real temperaments and somehow learn to reflect the years of occupation. You’ll notice that our tour spends a large amount of time on buildings and the physical environs; this has been planned out by the Management as an efficacious manner to become familiar with the area and gain that experience you have paid for. Yes, we can all read buildings, though some may deny it.

So far, we have briefly touched upon the sturdy majesty exhibited by the great Trust & Savings Bank Building, jewel of the Downtown, where all that money and power resides. We’ve spent more time within the dilapidated shell of The Peoria House, everything there tending towards descent into chaos (even the Machine, that City-Killer creation at the Hotel’s top, which seems to violate the principle of decay by its steady and accretive growth, has destruction and dissolution as its goal). We will visit these places again; they figure largely in our future.

But for now here’s another building — one we’ve seen before — transmitting it’s character, communicating a Karma, putting out a vibration which hits notes of personal doom and failure, radiating these attributes from its past, and generating its future. The Orpheon Building is notorious in Peoria — a dark magnet of fate attracting financial collapse, an elephant graveyard of office buildings, the place where careers come to die. This is where on-the-skids entrepreneurs wait for that next idea (which will never come); here you will find dentists who haven’t heard of Novocain and doctors who lose an unseemly number of patients; this is where former collections lawyers who now can’t pay their bills reside. To have The Orpheon as your address connotes shabby suits and professional decline; it engenders sympathy notes from former friends; it is the end of the line, fella. The Orpheon — seven floors of random and ramshackle offices; the hallways have strange puddles in them that never dry up; the higher you go in the building, the more the light grows oddly dimmer; there are skulking figures in the shadows. The Building’s edifice is made up of sooty, depressing brick and flaking mortar; some 2nd floor windows evidence the gold lettering of commercial strategies from yesteryear and continue to blare out surreal advertising from residents long gone:}

But something about the famous gloom of the Orpheon Building is different today, no? There seems to be a lightening of that pessimistic effervescence which usually issues like invisible radon from the Building’s fractal, brick edges. Yes, I’m sure of it. There is something pushing back against the negative energy here. Could it be the sun, or the light in our eyes? Reflections from some other dimension? Wishful thinking? It has been quite warm the past few days, maybe we’ve gotten a bit too much of this Midwestern heat and humidity? What could have caused this? Aren’t there the same privations in the air, the same causes for despondency and desperate measures? Why should there be any reason to believe that the World has changed. Has it? Or has something gone right at last? Wait ... there’s someone we know! It’s Roger Fehler’s secretary, Mildy, hurrying out of the coffee shop, crossing the street against the light, almost skipping into the Orpheon with a bag full of Danish and coffee; a smile on her face.

Roger’s office has changed little from our previous visit; here are the same worn out magazines, broken down furniture, the same skewed picture on the wall — but surely something seems different here. The air is flavored with optimism, rejuvenation, redemption. Why should this be ... Ah, wait! There is a client here. And not one of Roger’s regular clients, no. This man has a familiar suit three-piece wool suit on in the middle of one of the hottest summers on record! There he is, with his new neck brace on and both eyes still black — Elliot Grace! His nose has a novel bend in it. He has a slightly puzzled and concerned look on his face, complicated by that enigma of a smile, which is further complicated now by pressure of that neck brace. And there stands Roger, his hand held thus: an expository and explanatory mode. His face beams. His eyes are dreamy. He expostulates! Let’s listen in:

—... medical bills and rehabilitative costs are obvious, they won’t argue about that, not really anyway, even though they’ll make a show of it. That’s just to lower our expectations a bit. It’s just a strategy they’ll use — Do you understand? You see? — trying to convince us that our costs are too high, that you went to see quacks, that some of your problems are imagined, speculative; that you were somehow at fault.

These last words cause Roger to pause, halting mid-spiel with a look of sudden worry creasing his face, he leans in close, grabbing the loosened knot of his tie for support as his eyes bug with questions:

—You didn’t do anything to provoke the attack, did you Elliot? Didn’t act threatening in any way? Didn’t invade his space? Call him a name? Make any sudden gestures?

Elliot’s whole body shifts — his neck, encased by the foam & aluminum of the neck brace, cannot move — his eyes blink rapidly before he somehow answers over the contraption, his chin pushed up and words coming through, lips moving but teeth and jaw wired shut:

—No. No. I was just witnessing.

Roger stiffens. Elliot was a witness ... a witness to what? How will this complicate the case? Will it bring in other plaintiffs, new defendants? Could his case become inextricably enmeshed in one of those never-ending million-dollar litigations? Would Roger lose control of the lawsuit because Elliot was witness to a gangland slaying or alleyway rape? What thing did Elliot see out there on the street? Roger’s young world of promise is suspended in space as he watches, like a worried father, the void into which a new fact is being born. Would it help him, or smash his case to pieces? He inquires further:

—What did you witness Elliot? What did you see?

Elliot again blinks as he looks straight ahead into that mist of signs floating in the air before him, swimming through a soup of signifiers and the signified, then recognizing the miscommunica­tion, looks directly at Roger with a queer sideways grin on his face.

—No, no, Mr. Fehler. I didn’t see anything. I was Wit-ness-ing. In the religious sense. You know, preaching the Gospel. The Book. I’m a preacher; I witness for God.

Ah yes, that kind of witnessing. A flat and ironic chuckle bleats from his mouth, uncorking a shiver of tension that he did not know was there.

The door to the outer office swings open and Mildy rushes in. There is a fast scuffle of papers, the prying open of packages and the squeak of styrofoam. There is also a soft serenade of tuneless humming here, courtesy of a happy secretary.

—Mistah Grace? You take cream or sugar in your coffee?

Roger is unnerved by Mildy’s courteousness. She has been voodooed into servility by the news of the “Big Case,” as Roger had called it the morning that Elliot Grace’s face had appeared, a blurry photo at the bottom of page two of the Sunday Journal Star, capping a story which was beaming signals to Roger.

The average reader wouldn’t have given this small blurb regarding street carnage a second glance, but the average reader wasn’t Roger Fehler, and the average reader wasn’t a down-on-his-luck lawyer wobbling on his final, desperate legs and ready to believe in anything, even in the mythology of rescue by that last minute calvary charge which comes hooting over the hill. And the average reader didn’t recognize in that grainy news photo a part of his daily routine, that moon-shaped face (complete with mysterious smile) insinuating itself into his path with the reoccurring offer of spiritual safety; now barking out an offer of worldly salvation in the form of the “Big Case” to this eager reader.

Yes, this text had spoken to Roger in a way that average reader wouldn’t understand — another aspect that Theory of Relativity. Your everyday Peorian would — maybe — flick eyes over the headline before moving to the funnies. Even the attentive reader, would barely give a “tsk” regarding the state of the world. But Roger — bringing all his needs and wants to the page — had read and constructed his own do-it-yourself rescue guardian angel, a recognizable piece of life which had arranged itself by the operation of contact magic into just the thing to save this lost cause. After reading this newsprint talisman, Roger had shrieked:

—Look! Sonofabitch! Here it is! It’s him again. Wow!

He called Mildy on the phone — The only other person that Roger could think of that would care. She had answered the phone with a peppy hello (her day off) but then her face changed to a look of disgust and curiosity. Why was he calling her at home. She had enough of him during the week. What was up now? She was “just this far away” from quittin’ that job. Hell, she was lookin’ for a job when she found this one, honey. Plus, that idiot, he been runnin’ around all parts of the night with that white trash he picked up on the outside of town, that ‘Fancy’ Francy. That boy ain’t been worth nothin’ since he took up with her, not that he was worth anything before.

— Carmen! you gets yawself outta that icebox! You never gonna lose that weight, you keep feedin’ your face!

—What’s got you het up Rawger? What’s all this noise?

*

And now the “Noise” is sitting politely in Roger’s office with his new neck brace and nightshade eyes, smiling that maddening smile and listening to Roger Fehler, Esq. talk about his case, taking the offered coffee from this novelty of an obsequious and servile secretary, trying to understand the strange ways OUR LORD moves when His will is operating in this World and when we become His implements, His tools. Quiet now, one of these tools is still talking:

—... no, there’s no real question about liability Elliot, and I’ve put together about forty-one thousand dollars in medicals at this point; two weeks in the Hospital — Ain’t it a crime? Of course, intensive care! — but that works to our advantage — thank you Mildy — the Pain & Suffering figure will be affected by your Actuals. And that’s where the serious money is. There won’t be a real argument about the medicals, as I said. That’s just a show. The real battle will be fought over Pain & Suffering, that’s where we need to shine in our testimony.

Roger pauses for a breath, collecting his thoughts and arranging in his mind the tricky discussion on the importance of Pain & Suffering, how to keep a Pain-journal, the sympathetic suggestions regarding that slow, careful recovery, the need to get used to this neck brace as a fixture of life — at least until after the trial. Roger really begins to feel it now, that life turnaround is here, finally, the glory days have begun at last. But into the silence resulting from his momentary and reflective pause comes a small voice, sounding somehow teacherly and regretful at the same time:

—Suffering is good for man, Mr. Fehler. Pain is part of God’s plan for us. I don’t know how I can expect to get paid for that.

Roger’s eyes are ice cubes. His smile is the North Sea. There is a glacier moving through his bowels with incredible speed, and icebergs begin forming in his blood. In the outer office a lusty coffee-slurp is abruptly pinched off by a spit-take.

—Pardon me?

Roper is watching Elliot closely, trying to decipher his words and that smile.

—Man was put here to suffer. Suffering is in God’s plan; that’s why we are here. Our souls are purified by suffering Mr. Fehler. It’s a test.

The new wetness at Roger’s armpits spreads swiftly, crawling with map-accuracy through the low countries of Panic, armies of perspiration approaching each other in pincer movements threatening his composure with an underwear Waterloo. In the outer office there is the loud quack of an indignant secretary suddenly remembering herself again, and the sound of shredding paper. Roger, realizing that he must not lose control of the matter at hand, continues, as if nothing has been said. Nervously, his eyes flick over the room, looking at everything but his client, trying to forget that smile. He continues:

—Ahhhh, yes, uhhh ... Now, Elliot, the way we will prove ... at the trial ... I mean ... prove up our damages ... all of our damages ... your medical expenses, rehabilitative costs, future costs too ... and anything else that might be recoverable ... you’ll have to testify ... about, ahhh ... those ... you know ... a large part of ... Well, the first thing to do is to get a complaint on file, not give them time to ...

—Mr. Fehler? I don’t know about that pain ... about my suffering. I don’t see how you can get paid for something like that. How can I expect someone to compensate me for hurting? How can you know how much someone hurts? As if we deserve to feel good; as if the Lord had promised us Paradise here, on Earth. We lost that, you know.

Silence crashes down around their ears, Elliot and Roger sit immobilized trying to understand each other. They are two gears unmeshed from each other and spinning in empty space; there is the imagined sound of clockwork machinery unsprung from its functions, unequal time. For seconds, which seem to stretch into hours, they dumbly stare at each other, two out-of-sync robots, remembering: they had been each other’s angel, each had a vision of the other — a vision now threatened.

That news story had pulled Roger from his office to the hospital — breaking every ethical canon of his profession — where he prayed at the comatose bedside, waiting for Elliot to pull through and need a lawyer, convincing himself in his fever, of this:

(This poor man, no one comes to visit him, laying here alone ... friendless, for weeks, almost dead, only his wife. I’m his friend, here to make sure they don’t take away his rights, pull the plug or make him sign something when he wakes up (oh god let him wake up!)

And Elliot had come out of his coma with that vision still burning in his head: an Angel was promised him, this must be the man, the Angel of the Lord.

But is this the man after all, the Angel, the one his vision promised would be sent to help him save Peoria? Not save, no, to test, to search as God’s Angels searched in Sodom for ten, just men, even one: and found they Lot! Lot, who was saved when those other abusers — those Sodomites — were punished; sent away, lifted up above the terror and destruction — the fire and brimstone raining down upon Sodom, HIS punishment for their violation of HIS law, to protect the world from the spread of evil — smoke rising from the plain like a furnace. Saved were Lot and his children who mourned for their mother of salt, she who had disobeyed; they were carried up above the destruction, by the righteous and good Father of us all. But I need a sign; something that will tell me that this is Your Angel.

The clamminess of Roger’s skin suddenly feels as if he might be sinking in slow, dark water; the breathy whispers of the River calling again:

His grip is wavering, the black waters closing together over his head in sucking silence of finality and self-negation and peace ... NO! Don’t lose your last chance! Roger turns to Elliot with sudden force and the power of a man trying to regain control, not ready to give up; Not yet. And suddenly, Roger’s fear of losing this last chance at pulling himself from the sucking black-hole of failure brings real force to his words, and his voice is charged with the flow of emotion. Perspiration glistens on his cheek, forehead, his blue shirt is suddenly dark and slick, giving his figure an incandescent quality. He stands still; his face full of a mixture of pleading and misery; one arm at his side, one arm outstretched — in appeal? A hand of help? an invocation or benediction? No matter; the effect upon Elliot is electric. The words; the image of suffering, strength, pity, pain; his conviction and perspiration, and even the fidgeting secretary in the outer office maintains a respectful silence.

—Think of it as a punishment for the wrong that they caused, Elliot, consider the lawsuit as a punishment. You are a good man, a just man, trying to right the wrongs in Peoria, but there are negligent, bad men in this City, and the only way we have to protect people is by the law. This man wronged you, abused you; consider a lawsuit as a test, as a search for truth.

Elliot is transfixed, the words striking hidden chords within him, messages which have been left behind become mnemonically aware and tingling:

... and Elliot must do everything that the Angel told him to do. No matter what the Angel told him to do, he must do it. No one knows God’s mind, nor his ways. And the Lord promised that if Elliot did this, even though Peoria could not be saved, that he would be borne up towards Heaven on the day of destruction.

Elliot is convinced. This must be the man, the Angel:

—Yes. You’re right. Whatever you say Mr. Fehler.

Elliott says this out loud to a relieved Roger; and inside, he is intoning: “Thy will be done.”

C. Into the Presence

The receptionist — that fortyish and cool-as-they-come number with the southern accents crawling out her mouth when she answers the phone — nods as PJ Sloan swings through the massive, carved-oak doors of Sullivan, Cramer, Rollins & Weldon.

—Mawnin’ PeeJay. Heah yoah calls.

She hands him a small package of messages which pinkly plead for response and flutters her eyelashes in that teasing manner of hers — she flirts with everyone, PJ has discovered; there’s nothing behind those batting lashes. The phone rings and her eyes —all suddenly business again — click ahead as she returns to her trade.

—Sullivan, Cramer, Rollins & Weldon, may Ah direct yoah call?

The offices of the SCR&W — the crowning four top floors of the Peoria Trust & Savings Bank — are already abuzz, at 8:05 a.m., with these predictable law office kinematics: law-clerks, pens held fast in their mouths and arms full of legal pads, bound up the spiral staircase to the library where they hope to corner Certainty; the fingers of secretaries fly over the faces of crenelated keyboards as they intently crouch forward, listening at their earphones and try to catch the ghostly echoes of words dictated — elsewhere, elsewhen; sly-eyed and suspicious Partners edge past each other to get to the coffee machine, mumbling “Hello, “G’morning” or “‘Scuse me please;” the harried associates of the firm — or associates trying to imitate that necessary, harried look — check their watches, monitor their heartbeats, pop a few Tums, and act as if they were headed somewhere; in the supply room, someone takes a handful of manuscript size envelopes for personal use; three floors up, a bookkeeper erases a “7” and replaces it with a different “7”; a Lat Will & Testament (which will later be the subject of probate litigation in Oklahoma or Colorado) is being executed in a corner office, as one of the witnesses touches another in a private and unob­served place; a woman, a broken toner-bag on the floor in front of her, is softly crying on a chair next to the copier. All this, as the telephone rings again:

—Law Aw-fices, may Ah direct yoah call?

PJ walks into his office, hefts his briefcase onto a chair, and thinks about returning those messages, but stops. In the middle of his desk blotter is a note — tiny and crabbed handwriting, almost unreadable, instantly recognizable, scribbled onto personalized desk stationery:

What now? PJ looks at his watch — 8:19; he checks the digital clock on his desk for confirmation – 8:15. 8:19 or 8:15? He is temporarily bewildered by the conflicting opinions of these unconscious objects, but decides that there’s time to get a cup of coffee no matter which device is telling him the truth. As he walks to the kitchen, PJ turns over in his mind those files he is handling for Whipper which might be cause for a summons into the presence:

—83-0012-W97: In re Marriage of Handy, Julie. Divorce. A friend of one of Whipper’s kids needed some help with her domestic squabble.

—81-1496-W03: King, Thomas R. vs. Trustees. Local university having some problems with a radical professor.

—83-2317-W7524: Bugeon, Gillian Immigration problems complicated by shoplifting and a vicious dog.

—84-8723-W92: Fitzgibbons, Dale. Federal indictment for baiting of game fowl; prior conviction for snipe-hunting. Well-to-do; money no object (sauna in house!); get him off.

There were various others, all of it personal stuff that Whipper didn’t want to waste any of his own time on, but important enough — friends’ problems, or friends of friends’ problems — that Whipper wanted to make sure the matters were handled correctly, thus farmed out to a senior associate who could be trusted. However, none of these would warrant a mandated conference; rather a sudden head poked through the doorway:

—How’ that Bugeon item going PJ? Got her a green card yet? Important stuff, you know. Let’s get on it.

As PJ spoons some powdered, non-dairy creamer into his coffee and thinks about what Whipper could want, that new strawberry-blonde paralegal, Janice, the one with the nice ass walks by. He’s going to have to find out if that wedding ring on her finger is really serious. Have to start using her more. PJ has some files that need cleaning up doesn’t he? Maybe see what a little collaboration might lead to? Some small talk over lunch, as well?

What does Whipper want? He looks at his watch — 8:20, plus or minus; time enough to bird-dog a certain strawberry-blonde paralegal.

—Ahem. Say Janice, think you could drop by my office around, oh, 11:45? I need a little help.

*

—PJ I’ve got something thpecial for you; something important.

PJ is trying to concentrate, trying to focus on the words that Whipper is saying, but there are two things which are stripping him of the ability to function at this moment. The first is the suspended question of the Presence; the second, concerns the manner of self-control.

Firstly, in the corner of the office, half hidden in the shadows, is a wheelchair holding what appears to be a dusty and crumbling old mushroom; who’s there? — Oscar Weldon! The O.G. (Oh God!); the Old Gnome, the last “name” Partner around and excruciatingly shriveled-up link with the past that is kept alive up on the top floor in an office the size of an airplane hangar. PJ has been up there once or twice, the traditional aspect of the Old Gnome being invoked on ceremonial occasions. Mr. Weldon never spoke at these appearances but only made palsied movements of the hands or threatened drool as he was introduced to new associates or theoretically presided over a Partnership announcement[1]. But Partnership is two years away yet for PJ, one at least. What’s the Old Gnome doing here? Something is up. PJ doesn’t remember any recent fuck-ups deserving a trip to the woodshed, and Mr. Weldon wouldn’t be involved in that anyway — not unless it was very serious. But right now PJ has a more pressing concern than trying to figure out the “why” of the O.G.’s presence; for at the moment, PJ is concentrating on not laughing at the second thing.

*

—Yes, this is very important PJ. I want you to put everything else on your desk aside for this.

You don’t dare laugh. In fact, you don’t dare even think about it. Whipper will decide if and when you ever make Partner. He’s the man who has crushed the lives of many, a man to be feared, not to be trifled with. You are biting the tongue and then your lip — do not laugh. This man — this corner-office Managing Partner is looking directly at you and you are concentrating at keeping eye contact. You’ve long ago gotten used to that lisp — a necessary bit of survival around the firm — and this absurdity only occurs occasionally. Sometimes, after a long conference with him, you even unconsciously begin to mimic it: the “Dreaded Whipper Effect” as it is known. Whipper’s lisps only slipped out occasionally and very subtly during the daytime, but, as Whipper had once let out, during late night drinks, when he was tired or trying to contain himself or two “s” words in a row or when he was trying to contain himself or excited — like the other night, when his call tripped the levers of that cannabis fever dream, Lispy-Willis came out to play.

As you entered the office into the lushly carpeted office — the twenty-seven framed certificates and awards blasting from the wall; an electric shoe-polisher over there; the tuck & roll leather sofa; a mahogany desk doing its impersonation of a football field with the goal-post luxury of its onyx desk-set — there Whipper stood, his back to you, at the window, like an eagle observing his regal domain from his storied aerie. Then, he had turned with significant slowness, that White shock of hair piled high on top of his head, a black streak running parallel to the hard part just to the left of the widow’s peak; his thin, tall frame twisting towards you; hands clasped behind the back — his form, his attitude, his look expressing confidence, friendly danger, and the superiority of his species. But you don’t laugh, despite his fly hanging open and his shirttail flying from that gap like a banner of buffoonery, you don’t dare laugh. Yes, this is a perfect incongruity: the top-dog, bull-ape, alpha male of your tribe, this shrine to the god-like power of money and the appeal of total authority, pulled down to his base-metal and rendered human by the ridiculous sight of a man who forgot to zip his fly — a penile shirttail snaking out with glee. You bite your lip hard and look away, only to meet the glittering eyes of the Old Gnome in the corner, who appears to be chortling soundlessly in his wheelchair.

You keep your face straight, doing statue imitations with a set­up cement mouth. This man inspires fear and will not be trifled with. Despite the friendly demeanor and the lisp, there is no humor allowed within these walnut paneled walls. You know that he has the capacity for sudden and explosive rage lashing out at the nearest available employee, which is you at the moment. As he approaches, holding a file in his hand, you bite the inside of your cheek, seeking the therapeutic resolve of pain. Regarding the cover of the thin file he is handing you, you and try to focus on his words, suddenly wondering what the hell he is getting at — something special? Before you can look at the file name, Whipper is speaking again.

—That thpecial (Why the hell does he keep using that word, when he knows can’t pronou...) case I asked you to take for me late month. Remember? The Assault & Battery? Eisenstein?

You feel an abrupt chill of mortality as you hear that name again. The smell of marijuana and jailhouse urine are at your nose, memories of music, the clanging doors of justice; you feel the drilling stare of those aluminum-maniac eyes meeting yours from the depths of that cell. OMIGOD. You try to calm yourself and answer.

—ATH... Ass-ualt & Battery! (Dreaded Whipper Effect engaged. Calm down now.) Eisenstein. Right. I bailed him out. Has it been a month already?

You steal a look at the file. Predictably, it reads:

—84-SCW-5779 (WW): Eisenstein, Norman

Oh shit. Your hands begin to sweat, they remember that year-long night too; your heart pounds like a cannon drumming down an ice-cliff somewhere in Antarctica. Whipper is talking again.

—Yes. Well, we can rest easy. There were some complications at first — talk about possible manslaughter if that street preacher didn’t pull through. But, through some connections, I have gotten the charge reduced to just the Assault & Battery now. No problem really. The worst that we can expect is a thuspended sentence, and the State’s Attorney has assured me there won’t be any jail time. This Grace person ... there were extenuating circumstances ... provocation ... plus, well Norman, he’s Max’th boy, you know.

Here, Whipper for the first time acknowledges the presence of the Old Gnome in the corner by nodding his way, pausing, then continuing:

—A great friend of both Mr. Weldon and mine, Max. Taken before his time. Of course we will do all we can. A suspended sentence? (Here he nods again at the old man in the corner.) The boy can stand that, can’t he? Heh-heh. No jail time, which is all we care about. It’s all worked out.

You feel relief charging through you. The case is gone. All taken care of he said; wrapped up. But then, why the file?

—However, we’ve had some recent communication from Mr. Grace’s ... ahhh ... representative. At first I was worried about a Wrongful Death action — not to mention the criminal charges — thinking that Mr. Grace was going to kick. But then he held on longer than the Doctors thought; he didn’t flat wave, so then I was thinking about maintenance — nursing homes, loss of consortium, the whole bit. Better off dead, really, from a financial point of view. But then the best thing that could possibly happen: he woke up! Just like that, out of coma, awake and aware. No real problems or permanent disabilities. Now it’ a simple Assault & Battery with suspended sentence. Buu-uut ...

You feel the return of something basic; there is always a “but,” always a qualitative “however” here. Your life and your career depend upon such suspensions of closure and the hanging expectations of causality. You are the kind of man people come to when they are seeking someone willing to risk an answer — that uncertain and never-ending “however” being fundamental to the operation of law. Whipper waits for your response.

—But? You want me to draft the order? No. The State’s Attorney would do that. Get a release from the estate ... family — er from Mr. ah ... Grace?

Whipper looks at you gravely. He is serious now; he wants you to know how serious he is. Whipper is using that famous trial strategy of his, holding back the final particle of information from a jury, building up evidence bit by bit, and hence the tension, until you could see them almost begging for that last piece; so that when it came, it was with the rushing force of inevitability and logical release. “Of course, I knew it all along.” You try to look grave and serious too. However — there is always that “however” — he has not yet noticed his open zipper and the white shirttail still waves at you with punch line enthusiasm. You are having trouble with your concentration and that nervous smile crawling onto your face. Whipper continues his dialogue.

—No, not a release. We have been contacted by ... ahh ... Mr. Grace’s attorney. (Here there is a small smirk on Whipper’s face and a glance at the O.G. You smirk in agreement. When in doubt, it’s always better to agree.) There has been a demand for five million dollars against Norman and The Peoria House, which is owned by Trust Estate of Max Eisasenstein. (He pauses.) Did You know that? Have I ever had you do any of my Trust work PJ? Was Mr. Eisenstein still at the firm when you started here?

—No. No, I never knew Mr. Eisenstein. I think I met Mrs. Eisenstein at the Christmath party once.

There it is, the “Dreaded Whipper Effect” is kicking in. Your nerves are grabbing, locking up. The cumulative combination of tension and hilarity is causing your skin to vibrate.

—Right. Max died ... it must be over seven years ago now. Tragic fall from his balcony. (Whipper seems lost in thought for a moment, then continues.) Well, PJ, you should know that Max was a great friend of mine, my mentor, and a friend of this firm and Mr. Weldon. Responsible for the very floorboards we walk on – that’ not saying too much is it Oscar?

From the corner, the mushroom croaks out:

—You live in his house.

—Quite right. You remember that PJ? I got an option to purchase the house after Flo’s death for a quite reasonable amount. I love it up there away from all the noise and dirt. It was a ‘Springing Interest” — remember that from law school? It was one of those things we studied hard trying to understand that never comes up, until it does. Like the “Rule Against Perpetuities.” I had to look that one up again when that movie came out. Can’t remember the name of the movie.

—Body Heat.

—What?

— Body Heat. That’s the title of the movie.

—Yeth, that Kathleen Turner was in it. Man, she is a dish.

Whipper leers at you a little here. Your stomach flips over. You glance at the corner again. The mushroom does not move.

—But down to details. Max’th Will left me in charge of the Estate; irrevocable trust with Flo and the son as beneficiaries; now that Flo is gone, just Norman. The Peorian was one of his properties and I’ve been managing it ever since. Norman has lived up there since his mother’s death. Seems to prefer it really.

Your pulse is quickening, Whipper’s drift falling into logical peg-holes. There is the feeling of danger somewhere close, the glint of electronic eyes and the smell of ozone; the fundamentality of something pressing in on you hard. There is an urge to grow eyes in the back of your head.

—Uhh ... we’ve got to work out something on the Grace matter? Shouldn’t be too bad. The liability insurance will take care of the ...

Here you see Whipper’s grim look become strangely apprehensive, almost a touch of fear in his face. Your mind is catching up with his; comprehension arrives and your stress-lock begins to fade. The inevitable last piece of the puzzle; you can predict his next words before he says them as now the early meeting, the Old Gnomes in the corner all make sense to you now.

—There is no insurance, PJ.

But how could that be? The Hotel, without insurance, could put the entire Trust was at risk and any serious judgment could emasculate it, maybe wipe it out. How could any trustee be so blind? We’re talking breach of the old fiduciary duty now and the trustee could take a serious personal hit ... WHIPPER! Whipper is the trustee! Ohhhh, now you see. It’s malice and it’s malfeasance, it’s willful and wanton conduct and all other terms of art. It’s the million-dollar judgment homing in with nucleus accuracy. Yes. It’s lawyer-liability-time with Whipper as the bull’s eye. The last piece of the puzzle, and suddenly all is so clear.

A successful, high-stakes claim against the Hotel with no insurance means the Trust will be depleted. And then it follows that Whipper is at serious risk. He’s not stupid; he couldn’t have forgotten the insurance; it must have been intentional. And if he had mishandled the Hotel’s matters on so basic a level, what else did he do? Did he commingle? Mix Trust funds with the firm’s accounts, or with his own? Maybe even the firm could go down.

You steal a look at the Old Gnome in the corner, who is now looking back with an intelligent light in his eyes. Yes. He knows too; that’s why he’s here — wheeled out on special occasions. Sullivan, Cramer, Rollins & Weldon is at risk! They’ve been playing fast and loose with the Trust assets, with the properties and funds left behind by their dear friend, and you are being tapped to save Whipper and the firm.

And at his moment of clarity, you understand and recognize that you are at an inflection point in your life. This is your chance. This is the case that will make you Partner a year or two ahead of time, with even a little extra thrown in. This is not just another personal file. It’s the personal file — Whipper’s file, the O.G’s file; the Firm file. This is the place where power does a double-take as the torch is passed to the tap-dancing and ballsy young kid with enough guts to grab it. And if the cards fall right, who knows, this office may be yours someday. You could be the next Willis Whipper … Yeth.

Now this is touchy. PJ must conduct a delicate political maneuver here: letting Whipper know that he knows that the really significant thing here — Whipper’s own fault in the matter — must always stay in the background. Who knows how far this goes? PJ needs to carefully approach his acceptance of the case; mustn’t come on too strong, smelling of blackmail or advantage taking. But it is clear that in taking this case, Whipper becomes the virtual client. You are protecting him in fact, if not in name. And that shifts the power between them. For PJ to take ahold of this piece of dynamite he will be saving Whipper and Whipper — and by association, the O.G. am SCR&W — and they will owe you. PJ understands and will do everything necessary to fix this, but in fixing this, letting them know that power is shifting fundamentally.

PJ looks for some words that say it all, but not too much. Yes. He knows, somehow. Somehow the perfect formula suddenly comes to him. Something so simple. He folds his hands behind his back (the way Willis Whipper always does) and speaks.

—I understand Willis. Everything will be taken care of. By the way, your fly is down.

Whipper looks down, gapes, turns swiftly to the window and zips himself up. Turning back, beet-faced, Whipper has a suddenly embarrassed smile on his face. There is a pause, then looking relieved, also slightly conspiratorial and cagey, Whipper starts talking again.

—Good. I knew I could count on you PJ

He takes PJ’s arm and steers him through the door and into the hallway. The Old Gnome is left behind, a forgotten prop.

—I’m glad that we each see the importance of this matter PJ, and I know I can count on you to give this your best effort.

As PJ walks down the corridor he flips open the Eisenstein file and looks at the top page, which is the expected and righteously indignant demand-letter addressed to the proprietors of The Peoria House. Something strange here; the letter’s words are calling out to PJ beneath a letterhead with familiar elements in it. A letterhead PJ has never seen, but he somehow knows. He stops and begins to read.

July 6,1984

Sirs:

Our office represents the Reverend Elliot Grace, who was gravely injured by a grievous assault committed by a tenant exiting the western entrance of The Peoria House on June 2, 1984. Mr. Eisenstein (the tenant) is obviously quite disturbed, and I am informed that The Peoria House has Actual Knowledge of his instability. It is our opinion that harboring such an individual, can be characterized as a Nuisance and Public Danger and the Hotel can be held liable for this act.

In order to avoid the publicity and cost of a trial on these issues, our office has been authorized by the Reverend Grace to explore settlement options with you. At this point we estimate Reverend Grace’s damages at no less than $2,500,000.00 (conserva­tively). Considering grievous nature of the injury, rehabilitative costs, pain that my client has suffered and the punitive aspect, we feel this to be a very reasonable estimate.

Reverend Grace is quite anxious to “have his day in court” and, considering his profession as a man of God, we believe he will make a formidable witness. Not only do we think so, we believe a jury will too. If we do not hear from you within two weeks of your receipt of this letter, we will be forced to pursue other avenues of recovery. Please give this matter your most serious attention.

Yours Very Truly,

Roger S. Fehler RSF/mmb

PJ looks up. While he read the letter, Whipper has continued towards the end of the hall and the door of that small conference room reserved for special clients. PJ’s voice croaks out; suddenly all his saliva is gone.

—Willis ... Fehler? Grace is represented by Roger Fehler?!

Whipper turns at the end of the corridor, his hand on the doorknob of the conference room; there’s that strange smirk on his face again. PJ feels the nervous thrill of fear return as Whipper opens the door. From inside the room, there is the quiet buzz of nuclear dynamos eating their energy and a bluish glow of light is waiting in pulses of heartbeat rhythm; there is a throbbing, somewhere close, and the malevolent discharge of static electricity. Whipper smiles as he motions PJ forward, saying:

—Well, we did get one break on this one, didn’t we? After all, it’s only Fehler threatening us with a suit. Let him complain away. No match for the likes of us, huh PJ? Also there’s that “we” and “our offices.” What’s he got, a turd in his pocket?

Whipper’s face is bathed by the evil blue of that light emitted from the room. He doesn’t seem to notice, but looks at PJ here and moves his hand with a waving motion which impels PJ forward, calling him, drawing PJ to the doorway and some awaiting presence. From behind, PJ can hear the squeaky and ominous sound of a rapidly approaching wheelchair. As PJ’s legs obey hidden commands that reel him forward, Whipper looks into the room, then to the sides, then towards the ceiling and raises his eyebrows. Here he says in an almost paternal voice:

—What are you doing up there, son? Come down now. I’d like you to meet the lawyer who will be handling your case. PJ? I’d like to present our client, Mister Norman Eisenstein.

---

[1] It had been Roger’s theory that the Old Gnome was not alive at all, but was a ventriloquist’s dummy worked by Whipper to shore up his own position in the firm. There were others at SCR&W who held Mr. Weldon still operated on a cognitive level and it was he who gave the orders to Whipper, rather than the other way around.