Section 4 - Monday, mid-morning; on the phone
“What do you mean, you’re sick?” she was going shrill. Herf had to take the phone away from his ear, switch it to the one “protected” by buffering Internet sounds. “You can’t be sick, I need you, we need you, something…” Slowly the female voice was “drowned out” as Herf bumped the earpiece’s volume control up once, twice…allowing the surf sounds from the NOW-Caribbean real estate site he’d been frequenting to swell.
Herf replied, slowly moved the phone closer word-by-word, “I’ve-been-to-the-doctor,” and then finished normally, “over the weekend.” He hoped his recently discovered inner-calm would ooze through the phone somehow to work on her. Good. She was quiet at least, or maybe she’d died. “You there, Sydney?”
“Yeah,” she said resignedly, “a doctor, and? And what?”
She did sound calmer, Herf thought. “Well, Sydney – you don’t mind that I call you that?” He didn’t wait for an answer, “So the doc gave me some pills, which I’ve been taking like he said to, and--” she cut him off.
“And what?” the shrill was creeping back in, “You just need a couple of hours rest this morning and you’ll be in around noon? You know it’s Monday, right, and the Super has her first tele-conference with every single principal. Come on, Herf, you know they’re out for blood; we’ve all been working on this so hard. I thought you were a team play--” now he cut her off.
“No, not noon,” he said, rolling the clear pill bottle back and forth on the table. The capsules it contained were transparent too, their contents, a red blocky-crystalline looking substance. He’d noticed it especially glittered in the light from the halogen reading-lamp. He’d never much liked red before. Now the color alone seemed to sooth him as much as the crystallized chemical clearly did. The label only had the emergency doc’s name, phone number, and dosing instructions, “Take one or two daily, as needed, with the beverage of your choice.” Herf now noticed there was no prescription number, no generic or name brand, not even the hospital’s name.
“But, but the conference is at 2, and you still need to show her how--” she began. He cut her off again.
“Look, Sydney, Syd,” he said surprised at his own boldness, “um-m-m, I hope you don’t mind if I call you that,” again not waiting, “but, Syd, I spent 3 hours with the woman last Friday which was 2 hours more than I’d scheduled, so--” she cut him off again. Apparently it had become a mutual interruption society.
“I can’t help that, she claims she’s forgotten most of it and nobody here can help her,” Sydney sighed, perhaps relieved that he let her get it all out.
Herf’s stomach was beginning to knot with guilt after spending such a pleasant evening and then that godsend of a restful night. For once. Then there’d been all of Sunday. The deep relief he’d gotten from the doc’s prescribed “personal time” the two red pills he’d taken so far was slipping away. In its place all the ugly old tension and resentment was seeping back in. All the stuff that had driven him “this close” to his breaking point Saturday morning.
“I’ll tell you what, Syd,” he started slowly, thinking, plotting, planning on the fly, “you tell the Big Boss I’ll show up at 1:45 and be with her all the way through, OK? Syd?” He could hear fumbling with and covering then uncovering the phone and she was back.
“Is that the soonest?” she said, then her voice dropped to a whisper, “You can’t imagine what she’s been like this morn…” There was another fumbling sound along with an angry un-Syd sounding, “I’ll take that…” The Big Boss had probably ripped the delicate headset phone off her secretary’s ears.
Herf could picture the Boss’ mammoth hands trying to position the flimsy plastic earpieces onto her own head. Like putting a watch cap made for a cantaloupe-sized noggin onto one the size of a watermelon. Probably beyond its capacity so he listened for a crisp plastic snap…instead, but not surprisingly, the connection was lost.
He waited for the woman to either hit redial or find an old-fashioned handset or wind her way out of her underlings’ cubical maze and back to her own spacious office and phone. As he waited he continued to roll the pill bottle with its twinkling contents up and back, up and back.
But it was Sydney who was the first to call back.
“I promise to show at 1:45,” Herf told her, “And you know full well I keep my promises.” Which was more than he could say for their boss, Superintendent Claudia (cloudy-uh) Bigsby. Like she’d kept promising to hire another tech, all the while dodging with a tired, “our budget is just so-o-o terribly stretched at the moment, Mr. Bolton…”
Well, his patience, not to mention his overall health and well-being was “so terribly stretched” too. After discovering that mess Friday night he’d practically become a grim statistic, nearly snapped his own neck with a damn rope under the strain of his unending 60-75 hour weeks. Thank God for that doc and his red pills.
The phone buzzed again. He pushed “Talk” more or less on auto-pilot, continuing his thoughts aloud – albeit quietly – “Thank God for the internet, too.”
“What?” came the screech from the other end. “That you, Heffer?” asked Superintendent Bigsby, her somewhat masculine voice resonating off the walls of her large, modernly Spartan room.
Of course it is, you moron, he wanted to say, you called me…but he didn’t; he just smiled. He’d “have his way with her,” or more accurately, with her gargantuan ego, soon enough.
”Yes-um, it is, Superintendent,” he said, his mood buoyed in the knowledge her screech meant on a subconscious level she was coming to grips with the fact that the first shoe, his first shoe, was dropping. She didn’t know it yet, and couldn’t imagine it from any of his past milquetoast behavior, but only a few short hours from now he’d be letting the second one fall, too.
“Good,” her vocal chords must have relaxed some, “Now, I need you to get your skinny little hide over here to The Tower on the double.” It had come out matter-of-factly. As if she knew nothing of his earlier conversation with Sydney Waterton. He knew full well Bigsby’d had been told – or had eavesdropped on - the pertinent parts. It was just that the Big Boss liked to pretend sometimes. Pretend she could force reality to be what she wanted it to be, what she declared enough times it should be.
“Um-m-m, Superintendent, I already told Syd, Sydney--” she cut him off. What was it with these woman?
“That’s Mizz-z-z Waterton to you Heffer, don’t you forget it. I mean, gads, what is it with you men and your lack of respect these days?”
He could write volumes on lack-of-respect and he for sure wouldn’t be forgetting any of this, at least not for a few more hours. Then who knows, maybe the first thing he’d dip into his newly created offshore accounts for would be a lobotomy – after he'd told his realtor it was a “go” of course, and the electronic “check cleared” for his private Caribbean island and its fully staffed villa.
He walked back to his laptop which sat on the airport-hotel’s fine, solid wood desk. Checking the “updated hourly” real estate site he noticed the place he had more than his eye on now had gone down another $999. Cool. A few keystrokes later he’d edited some dollar amounts then pushed “send” winging the buy-order electronically to his new realtor. In his own good time he turned his attention back to his almost ex-Boss.
“Heffer?” she said, “I hear you working. Just where, exactly, are you if you’re not on campus?”
He so wanted to tell the cow if she was lucky - or a lot smarter - she could figure it out for herself soon enough, but he didn’t.
“It’s ‘Hereford,’ Superintendent, like the cattle, and I already told Ms. Waterton I’d see you concerning your problem, and only your problem, at 1:45 which’ll be plenty of time to--” she did it again.
“No! You listen to me, Her-Fer, I need you now, this instant, to prep for that conference. If you don’t show up in 30 minutes – or less – you’re fired and trust me when I say ‘check your hiring documents.’ There’ll be no retirement fu
nds, no separation pay, and I’ll see to it your last check won’t be deposited to your bank when I’m through with you…” He was quiet. What was there to say to such ravings? “So now, Miss-ter Bolton, I suggest you get out of your flip-flops and luau costume and into a pair of proper work shoes and put that borrowed uniform of yours on and…”
Herf gently pushed the “End” button. Let her sweat, he thought. He smiled as he thought about how she might want to check her own retirement account and incoming electronic pay-stub rather than vice-versa. Over the past few months he’d also been tracking the staffing budget and every new-hire she’d authorized throughout the ISD.
She’d lied to him at least a dozen times about being “too short on funds” to even bring in a rent-a-geek. He’d made notes on those total expenditures. This past weekend he’d “cashed in” those “notes” and reduced her retirement funds accordingly.
So now he didn’t give a flying carpet for that last check of his or his pathetic retirement savings account. What he’d earned - digitally - over the weekend was more than both buildings’ gaggle of ISD girls’ annual salaries and golden retirement packages combined. When the Big Boss finally figures it out, he thought, it’ll send her running to the little girl’s room. To throw up.
Herf looked down at the flip-flops he was wearing. How’d she know, he wondered? His phone rang. He answered it only because it wasn’t from any Ed-Center number he knew.
He listened, then said, “Five minutes? Great. I’ll be in the lobby waiting.”
After packing away his laptop he went about checking the suite for items he’d overlooked.
He realized it would take either a hotel cart or two trips to get his bags out to the elevator. Then there was a knock at the door. His stomach clenched. Damn, he thought, won’t I even make it to the island before I get caught? He answered weakly, “Yes?”
“Here for your luggage, Sir,” a mature male voice said.
Just to be safe Herf looked out the peephole. Sure looked like a hotel employee. All the guy had with him was one of the luggage carts. It hadn’t dawned on Herf that by giving them the time of his flight that the hotel would know when to come up for the bags.
He sure had a lot to learn, like the fact that he had others working for him, now.
Section 5 - Somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico, pushing 1:45 p.m. CST
The private jet was only half full so Herf had plenty of room to spread out. He’d been assured by his realtor “the bird” was fully equipped for communications, including internet access, of course. He was getting used to the treatment; had accepted a beautiful (and delicious) gourmet lunch and now was relaxing with his third – or fourth – mostly rum “punch.” The smooth amber liquid the bartender wielded so excellently was definitely getting him in a tropical island mood, though he’d never even been to one before. Except for Padre Island. Ten or eleven years earlier.
At 1:44:30 p.m. CST and with 30 seconds to go, he was settled in and again thanking the rather fetching flight attendant. This time she’d made a final adjustment to the collar of his “luau costume’s” shirt. He still wanted to look good – even out of uniform - for the unique, nay, historic long distance meeting he was about to have with his now ex-Boss. He pushed “connect” and waited. Suddenly her sour face came up in the chat window.
“What?” the Superintendent said. He scrolled his headset volume down just a little. “Heffer? Where are you? What are you doing on my screen and not in my conference room? And what are you doing out of uniform?” she seemed to struggle to maintain the semblance of professionalism.
He smiled. That spacious state-of-the-art video-conference room high up in Ed-Center II sure was something, alright. He’d noticed immediately how it’d rather effectively mellowed out the woman’s screeching tones.
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