The Job: Based on a True Story (I Mean, This is Bound to have Happened Somewhere) Read online

  ***

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

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

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

  “That uptown, buddy.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “ ’Spensive.”

  “Yes, I know that too.”

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

  “No. Construction. Shortcut.”

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

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

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

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

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

  “Meter running, buddy,” Clem sneered.

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

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

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

  “I think so.”

  “You look like a train wreck.”

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

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

  There lay a pink memo from the human resources office.