Andrew Price - Without A Hitch

Beckett grunted. “I’m not normally this bad with stress. It’s just. . this is a big thing. . with my family and all. If we don’t get this right.”

“You heard the plan. You know the safeguards, and how we have layer upon layer of protection. Every risk has been considered and countered.”

“I know. I understand,” Beckett’s voice contained a tinge of irritation, but also a hint of fear. Beckett ground something into the carpet with his shoe. “It’s just this waiting. I keep thinking, ‘why can’t it be June 14 already?’ ‘Why can’t I be on the train already?’ I feel like I should be doing something.”

“Find something to fill your time.”

“Like what? There’s not really much to keep us busy here, is there?”

“Then think of something else to do. Write the great American novel, study French or FORTRAN or some other dead language, just channel your stress into something productive.”

Becket smiled. “French isn’t a dead language.”

“Give it time.”

Corbin sat at the bar at the Bluetone swirling the beer in his glass. A neon sign above the bar gave his beer a reddish tint. The bar was dark and smelled of french fries. Burnt, aging high-intensity lights on the stage cast a brownish glow over everything, though a series of recessed lights added bright spots throughout the room. Whenever people smoked, the light from these bright spots lit up the smoke and formed snakelike cones of yellowish light amidst the darkness.

The bar owner, Ronnie “Blue” Beltran, wiped the bar clean. He and Corbin became friends after Corbin started playing regularly at Blue’s bar.

“Did I ever tell you I don’t love my job?”

Blue let out a belly laugh. “Let me think.”

“I should have been a musician, Blue.” Corbin picked at a tray of peanuts.

“What stopped cha?” Blue asked in a voice made raspy by years of smoking.

“I don’t know. I do not know. I guess, everyone always told me to stay on the track, go to a good school, get a good job, be a success. I never questioned that.”

“Can’t blame other people for the choices you make in life.” Blue pulled a cigarette from the pocket of his Cuban guayabera shirt.

“I suppose that’s true.”

“And it sure ain’t bad advice to get education or to strive to be a success.”

“That’s true too.”

“Maybe you just picked the wrong job. You any good at what cha do?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. I don’t do anything. So I have no way to know if I’m any good at it.”

“You’re one heck of a musician. I can tell you that. Just got to loosen up a bit, and you’d be serious, man.” Blue stuck the cigarette between his lips and searched the bar for a match.

“Well, I’m just talkin’. I’ve made my choice. I’m stuck being a lawyer. Besides, I only play for fun, as evidenced by what you don’t pay me to play.”

Blue laughed again. “I’ll pay you any time you wanna come play full time.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Hey, I’m a businessman, and you a good investment. Might not hire you to get my dog out of jail, but you can play in my bar anytime.”

“Then let’s hope your dog stays on the path of righteousness.” Corbin lifted his glass. “To your dog.”

Blue raised his own glass. “To making righteous decisions.”

“Have you seen this?!” Theresa tossed a pamphlet onto Corbin’s lap and slid onto the end of his desk. She crossed her legs and smoothed her maroon skirt.

Corbin recognized the pamphlet as the invitation to the office’s summer conference. This was usually held at a ritzy hotel downtown, and it was attended by hordes of industry people, all looking for some advantage to be gained by meeting the office’s senior staff. Cooper Wilson used these conferences to encourage the industry to lobby Congress for more funds for the office.

“Turn to the back,” Theresa said, “you’ll laugh yourself silly.”

Corbin flipped the pamphlet over. “Humma humma humma ‘office continues to struggle in an understaffed capacity’? ‘Imperils the mission’?” Corbin furrowed his brow. “Who wrote this crap?”

“Kak, who do you think?”

“What a lying sack of-”

“Do you think we’ll have to go to this one?” Theresa asked, cutting Corbin off.

“Don’t we always?”

“What’s the date?” Beckett asked. “Maybe I’ll be gone before it happens?”

“No such luck, partner, June 2nd,” Corbin said.

“Shoot.”

Theresa shook her head. “I thought there was some sort of mercy rule: once you’ve been to enough of these, they let you stop attending?”

“You should suggest that to Kak,” Corbin offered.

“Sure, next time we have dinner I’ll mention it right after the dessert course.” Theresa rolled her eyes. She disliked Kak as much as anyone. “At least we get a day off out of it.”

“Day off? From what?” Beckett snickered.

Theresa didn’t laugh. Beckett was treading into an area they had already fought over twice before, and she wasn’t going to let his reference to this ancient antagonism go unchallenged. “From work, what do you think?!”

“What work? Nobody works around here.”

“You know, I take offense at that,” Theresa responded over her shoulder, without turning to face Beckett. “I work hard.”

“I’m sorry, Theresa, but no one here can claim they work hard, especially compared to the real world.”

“Don’t give me that. You can’t compare the private sector to the government. I’m doing a public service, which requires careful deliberation. The private sector can’t do that, all they care about is profit. Besides, what do you expect, we’re underpaid. Do you know how much they get paid? I do. I worked in the private sector before I came here.”

“For six months, ten years ago.”

“It was enough, let me tell you. If they want me to work like I’m in the private sector, they need to start paying me like I’m in the private sector.” Theresa jabbed her finger against Corbin’s deskfor emphasis as she spoke.

“That still doesn’t explain why people here don’t give an honest day’s work.”

“I don’t accept that!”

“Really? How much of your day is spent playing solitaire on the computer?”

Beckett and Theresa both raised their voices.

“That’s not fair! This is a stressful job. I need something to relieve the pressure.”

“What pressure? There’s nothing stressful about this job!”

Theresa slid off Corbin’s desk and circled around toward Beckett like a boxer in a ring. Despite her tight pencil skirt and her unstable heels, she moved smoothly from years of practice as she wore nothing else. “Nothing stressful?! We make decisions that affect real people.”

Beckett stiffened. “No we don’t. We just review files to make sure money was spent properly.”

“It affects people. Not to mention, the support around here is miserable.” Theresa’s face contorted with disgust. Her nose flared, her forehead wrinkled, her eyes narrowed and seemed to come together to a point, and she bared her teeth as she curled her lips. “They do nothing,” she hissed. “I even have to write my own letters because my secretary is totally worthless. Now, she should be fired!” Theresa yelled in a voice that was strangely reminiscent of a Disney villainess. “People like her make the rest of us look bad!”

Beckett was temporarily startled by her tone.

Theresa squinted her eyes. “And let me tell you, I don’t see you working any harder than anyone else!”

“I sure don’t,” Beckett admitted, “but I don’t pretend I work hard.”

“I don’t pretend either,” Theresa gasped.