Tim Dorsey - When elves attack

“I don’t think I agree with what this company-”

“You’re wrong!”

“Okay…”

“That’s the spirit.”

So Jim hopscotched from Clearwater to St. Petersburg to Sarasota, firing people and apologizing that it was the wrong thing to do. Then the economy picked up, and the demand to fire people dropped, so his consulting company hired another consulting company, which fired Jim.

A decade passed. The economy tanked again. Jim was back in business.

On this particular day in December, Jim took Interstate 4 out to a distribution warehouse in Lakeland, just east of Tampa.

The company gave Jim a temporary office close to the parking lot.

A knock on the door.

Jim waved the person in through the glass. The employee stuck his head inside. “They told me to see you?”

Jim gestured with an upturned palm. “Have a seat.” He faced the employee with an expression like his dog had died. “I’m afraid I have some bad news…”

Five minutes later:

“You’re firing me a week before Christmas!”

“I know.” Jim looked down at the desk. “It’s very wrong.”

“You don’t know shit about this business, do you?”

“Not really.”

“Then how is this fair?”

“It’s not.”

“I’ll bet your name isn’t even Jensen Beach. They’re keeping your actual name a secret to protect you from retaliation.”

“You’re right.”

“Well, I’m going to find out what it really is!” The employee got up and went to the door. “How do you sleep at night, motherfucker?”

The door slammed.

Jim hopped up, grabbed his briefcase, and walked swiftly to where a security guard was holding open a side door to the parking lot. “We moved your car closer. Hurry…”

Jim half walked, half trotted to his car. He stuck a key in the door.

From behind: “There you are!”

Jim spun around…

Spreading misery day in, day out wasn’t Jim’s cup of tea, money or not. He would have quit long ago, except he received a second set of duties. Because all the firings were simply window dressing to impress Wall Street, many of the companies became severely understaffed and unable to meet quarterly projections. Wall Street wasn’t impressed.

His consulting company needed headhunters. They called Jim in. He knew just where to look for new employees: the totally qualified old ones he had just fired.

His bosses were bowled over. “Where are you finding all these great prospects? Our clients are thrilled!”

They gave him a promotion and a company car.

It was the same car that Jim now stood next to in the parking lot of a Lakeland distribution warehouse as a husky man charged toward him. Jim hurried with the keys, but his hands were shaking too badly. The man reached Jim and seized him with both arms in a bear hug, lifting him off the ground.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I haven’t been able to find a job in months, and now I get one just before Christmas! My children will have presents! It’s all because of you!”

With all the firing and hiring, there wasn’t much middle emotional ground in Jim’s line. All mountain peaks and mine shafts. On average, his work mood was indifferent. He was very happy.

But that was Jim. Counting his blessings. And overthinking the worst-case scenario.

As the man had asked, how did he sleep at night? Two eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Then the digital alarm clock with green numbers: 2:04, 2:44, 3:19. Perspiration. Aware of every heartbeat. Running checklists of family precautions through his mind. To look at Jim was, well, to look at anyone else on the street. Non-muscular, a little on the thin side. The kind of person people can’t identify to police. “He was just average.” “Anything else?” “Seemed the quiet type, like he could be pushed around.”

Martha Davenport took up the slack. Attractive in a mature way. Which meant unpretentious clothing that hid the fact she was even more attractive. And full-bodied, fiery red hair that didn’t lie about her temperament. She slept the sleep of small children.

In one way, Jim was like Spock from Star Trek, calmly computing any conflict through to all permutations of final outcome, deciding that most were pointless and perilous enough to be strenuously avoided. Martha started at DEFCON 5 and went from there. She had opposed Melvin playing Little League, because of how she heard the other parents behaved. Then, clinging the chain-link fence behind home plate: “Ump! Are you blind?”

In their case, however, the extremes of the marriage created a whole that was greater than the sum of the parts. All in all, a good collaboration, like Lennon-McCartney.

A company car finished the drive back from Lakeland and pulled up a driveway on Triggerfish Lane. Jim came through the front door with his briefcase. “Honey, I’m home…”

“How was your day?” asked Martha.

“Great!” said Jim, loosening his tie. “It was so-so.”

“I had a great day, too,” said Martha. “I went to the mall.”

“Find something on sale?”

“No, I went to see the assistant manager about that mall cop.”

“I thought you handled that on the phone.”

Martha shook her head. “They called back. Said they couldn’t prove anything about the fight in the bathroom, and they reviewed the security tapes. Concluded it was elves after all. So they wanted to interview me.”

Jim folded his jacket over the back of a chair. “What for?”

“Said they wanted to fire him anyway, and needed more details about my complaint.”

“Honey, I really wish you hadn’t done that.”

“Why?” said Martha. “I’m tired of the jerks getting away with stuff. It seems people like us who obey the rules are the only ones who ever get punished.”

She grabbed a pair of binoculars from a drawer.

“What are you doing?”

Martha walked to the window. “We’re getting new neighbors. That rental house across the street. I saw the landlord take down the sign and change the locks today.”

“I’m not sure you should be looking out our front window with binoculars.”

“Relax, everyone on the street does it.” She adjusted the focus. “I wonder what we’ll get this time. Hope they’re like those nice Flanagans whose kids used to babysit Nicole when she was younger. Hope it’s not like the Raifords, whose dogs kept getting loose…”

“And who received a copy of your anonymous dog complaint.”

“They were the ones breaking the rules. And then they blamed us, making crank calls at all hours.”

“I remember that,” said Jim. “Using pay phones so the calls couldn’t be traced when you reported it to the police.”

Martha scanned the windows, trying to see if any furniture had arrived. “Remember the dental hygienist who left the blinds open and had men coming and going, and that old man who kept digging holes in his yard in the middle of the night?…”

“The police never found anything after you called.”

“… The newlyweds who never left the house for weeks until all his clothes were on fire in the driveway, and those college kids who left the door open and played Pink Floyd all the time, and… Oh no.” Martha slowly lowered the binoculars.

“What is it?” asked Jim. “Jesus, those veins in your head are throbbing again.”

Across the street, a ’72 Chevelle pulled up. The driver’s door opened. “Coleman, imagine our luck being able to rent a house so close to the Davenports. I can’t wait to see the look on their faces!”

Birds chirped.

More accurately squawked. Green parrots. Flying over the light poles in the parking lot of the new Tampa Bay Mall.