Stripper Lessons

by John O'Brien

  He walks away wanting to puke. Maybe it’s the blue thing in her red stuff. He’ll find SoLo/Bombgate all right. He’ll find it.

  At his desk there has appeared over night a memo from the office manager outlining a new numbering system that is being considered by the Executive Committee for possible implementation as early as next month. Said system, the memo goes on to explain, would be initially applied exclusively to the relatively small entertainment department, its efficacy there to be used in an ultimate determination of whether to adopt it firm wide. To facilitate the ordering process for the vendor, as well as to commence what will become a weekly tracking procedure of all entertainment files, would Carroll please update that department’s inventory, file contents and current location, no later than three days prior to the next Executive Committee meeting. He rereads the memo, puts it down, picks it up and reads it again. Entertainment is indeed small, so small in fact that the department itself handles and stores all its active files and he hardly knows what’s up there. In theory, of course, he is presumed to be right on top of every file jacket in the firm, where it is, what’s in it—call ‘em off the top of his head, instant recall: you’re a lifesaver. In practice he handles mostly litigation. That department being the largest and tending to have several attorneys working on the various ancillary actions and cross complaints of a single case, they need a nexus for their files, a reliable yet expendable scapegoat. The other departments seem to know this and generally leave him alone, handling their own work, only occasionally sending down a hoary old stuffed-to-splitting jacket for shipment to the archives or requesting a new file number and jacket, labeled, stapled, creased, and cross-referenced in an always out-of-date card file on Carroll’s desk. This memo is asking for at least twenty hours of work. Normally he would jump on it just to get it off his desk and to keep it out of his dreams. But it seems puny compared to Solo, and he feels fortunate that they’re breathing down his neck about finding the latter; it’ll make for a good excuse should the office manager bust him for not plunging into this silly-ass entertainment inventory.

  Drawing off a long sticky string of Highland (really made by Scotch) Magic 810, he’s about to tape the memo to the top of his desk for safekeeping when he gets an idea. Entertainment is on twelve. Pam’s advice notwithstanding, so is SoLo/Bombgate. In fact the fat fuck’s office is at the same end of the hall. The more Carroll thinks about this the better it sounds. Hell, it’s likely that the corporate clown has some entertainment files on his off-limits credenza. A lot of the partners muscle their way into these matters to meet some future falling star of a celebrity, or just to get their initials added to the routing slips of the firm’s entertainment subscriptions, the trades. Carroll’s almost sure he heard this guy in the elevator one day crowing over his lunch at Jimmy’s with Ed McMahon. McMahon’s been in the office before—Carroll’s seen him—so he might well be an entertainment client. Who knows. Either way, this memo would work fine. It’s a one-stone way to hang around on twelve all day. It’s a passport back into that office. It’s a way to get his nose in that credenza. Excited now, he puts the memo in the back of his inventory clipboard and carefully winds the pulled–out tape back onto its roll.

  Strong of mission, he ascends the special company staircase, which the firm was finally permitted to construct only after leasing one hundred percent of the square footage on both floors, eleven and twelve, late last year. A massive wooden winding affair and long yearned for since the ticky-tacky elevators revealed their propensity for downtime, as well as should-have-been-downtime, the prestigious trick of building it was managed, evidently, through some back-room negotiating involving the brusque building manager who sported short sleeves and military tattoos, and the comically skittish owner of the strange import company that was very comfortable on twelve with one little corner suite and only two years down on a five-year lease. Carroll got this much because the next day he was offered overtime to help the import guy move out over the weekend. It was one of the few times he’s ever been comfortable with a stranger, but though they hit it off from opposite ends of mysterious corrugated cartons, Carroll never got the details of the meeting or why the guy was clearing out, only dots and dashes of tight-lipped yet oddly wry advice about vegetarianism and sex with two women. Everybody had the idea that this guy had been somehow muscled out, but after moving day, Carroll couldn’t shake the notion that the firm and the building had played right into his hands. Carroll still has his tip, one of those wicker finger traps; when they parted the guy put it in his hand like a palmed twenty, only better.

  Twelve is gearing up for battle. The people up here fancy themselves an elite force, lots of hard, intense work followed by lots of hard, intense play. Sipping their coffee as they run down the hall, cradling phones while rifling through files, sometimes two phones, even a headset on one girl, sweat, success, going-for-it–ness, car phones, vanity plates that spell out stuff like STAR LAW, assertiveness training, business class then first class, greased palms and last-minute reservations at four different restaurants for the same time just-in-case-we-change-our-minds, watches and cars and houses disguised as life’s rewards because they can’t come up with any better ideas, because it’s the best they can do anyway and they know it. Work hard, play hard. The whole lot of them make Carroll wonder what the point is. He’s an insect to them, and this is one of the few things he likes about himself. They also keep most of the chiefs-of-staff up here, torpid old partners like the corporate fuck who’s sitting on Solo. Strategically dilatory, especially in contrast to the urgency surrounding them, these guys are either holed up in their offices or ambling about the floor, grunting each other’s name should they pass, dropping in a low voice some wry conspiracy, a dollar figure or a date, like some great cholesterol-driven amorphous brain trust. Maybe they’re on display here as motivation for the minions, something to either fight for or aspire to. Carroll just wishes the place were empty so he could get on with his job. Even at night—two, three in the morning—there’s always some jerk up here reviewing a contract or drafting a brief. Only once was Carroll up here alone, last year when the newly constructed staircase was being varnished. Some sort of ventilation problem caused a secretary to faint, and they evacuated the office for a few hours. On the sidewalk with sirens in the distance, Carroll was surreptitiously sent back up to twelve at the bidding of an entertainment associate who, remembering that there were pay phones in the garage, pined for his Rolodex. His secretary was simultaneously dispatched to the savings and loan in the lobby for rolls of silver—an insult there somewhere—while her boss nervously quipped to an onlooking partner that the phone change would be billed off to Julio Iglesias . . . or was it Prince?

  Today the plan is to lie low, spend the morning in the secretarial bays actually working on the entertainment inventory. This way he will establish a presence on the floor to add to his credibility should he get busted snooping during lunch. He’ll also keep the memo handy for just such an emergency. His papers.

  So it goes. Throughout the morning he makes a big show of peering into overstuffed file drawers, consulting his clipboard, and making notes. By eleven o’clock he has worked his way around the corner and as near as possible to the SoLo/Bombgate file. He’s listing entertainment files stacked on the floor of the empty secretarial bay next to Mr. My-office-is-hallowed-ground’s secretary, Beth Minnery (known predictably behind her back as Misery). Ninetysix pounds, alabaster white in complexion, been with the firm a villion years, Beth’s your basic harmless nightmare who thinks she’s got a line on the same brand of power and truculence found in your basic not-so-harmless terrorist group. She is nervously seated at her desk, typewriter covered, her purse before her, poised for takeoff. Though it’s only just after eleven, she likes to be ready from now to eleven-thirty, avoiding any long-term commitments, like say typing a letter. About this time each day she grows anxious, afraid that her boss’s door will open and she’ll be given something to do, something urgent that wo
uld infringe on her lunch time. But provided that doesn’t happen she will, as she has done for as long as anyone can remember, disappear in her 1966 Oldsmobile Cutlass from eleven-thirty to one-thirty. No one knows where she goes, what she does. Two-hour lunch. Every day. Carroll, in line with the common wisdom, assumes they give her this as a way to give her nothing else.

  “Young man, we have some boxes over there. I hope you’re not picking through our boxes,” she challenges Carroll from over the partition. Evidently she has decided that this would be a safe way to eat up a few minutes without risking a long-term conversational commitment.

  Carroll decides to scare her off. “I was about to come see you about that, Miss Minnery. I have an inventory to do here, and wonder if you could maybe help me out with your files. I know you’re busy, but it should only take twenty or thirty minutes.”

  Silence. Then flustered rustling. “I have an appointment for lunch. . . . I’m much too busy today. . . . Isn’t that your job? My time is far too valuable to be spent helping the support staff. . . . Couldn’t you work it out while I’m gone so you’re not in my way next week?”

  He hears her getting ready to bolt. He impulsively decides to take a chance and press it. Informing Misery that he’ll be in her boss’s office would really cover his ass. “Umm, okay. I was told to list everything asap, so I hope you’ll have time to at least peek into HIS office before your appointment.”

  Suddenly she is before him, purse on arm, a wellmonitored Timex strapped around the other, worn way up on the forearm, almost to the elbow. She looks about to burst under the pressure of this unexpected quandary. For a moment he thinks he blew it, of course she would know the history, would have been told to keep him out of HIS office at all costs. He should have stuck with the original plan of lunchtime snooping. But no, she’s too wrapped up in her getaway.

  “I’m afraid you’re on your own,” she says, gaining resolution as she speaks. “HE’s already left for a long weekend. And I’ll be taking off the afternoon.” She pauses before committing, but a glance at her watch opens this final gate. “You’ll simply have to work it out yourself. And don’t make a mess!” And she huffs off down the hall before he can even thank her.

  It is a Friday; lunch is of a greater concern than it would be on any em through tee-aich, and in no time the twelfth floor is real quiet. Sweating under the collar despite all the green lights, Carroll slips stealthily into the office. It seems even more disorganized than before. He was only in here for a minute the last time, but he could swear that there are even more files strewn about. An entire shelf’s worth is lined up on the brown leather sofa though the credenza looks as overloaded as before. Maybe he’s just seeing more this time because he knows he’s got more time to look. In fact, there’s quite a lot of goofy stuff in this office: the usual corporate awards, framed certificates commemorating stock issues, Lucite cubes flanked by gold Cross penpencils and bearing an imprisoned microchip; turn-of-the-century pen-and-ink caricatures of sideburned solicitors and beer-bellied barristers holding fast in meretricious frames; four different briefcases (for a guy who hasn’t carried anything away from his office in twenty years); three umbrellas for the relentless Southern California rain. . . . What’s this? A small photograph under the glass desk top, and it’s too much: there he is, the fat fuck himself, looking fatter and older than ever, and seated, face all red and self-satisfied, between two gorgeous women. They’re barely dressed, panties and bras. This must be from some repugnant old-guy stag party or something. These girls have got to be hookers, cause the jerk has his arms all the way around their backs, one hand firmly planted on each outside breast. Unbelievable. Guess when you get that old you can touch anything you want. Carroll shakes his head, dumps his clipboard on the desk (over the photo), and once again scopes this fucker’s credenza in search of the elusive SoLo/Bombgate file.

  There he stays throughout the lunch hour, working the credenza. File after file, shelf after shelf, some packed so tightly that he has to struggle to pry apart the corners of the file jackets for a glimpse of the name, he works, driven. The afternoon commences, and he dashes downstairs to check for messages and to mark himself out and in for lunch; they’ll get suspicious if they see he didn’t take that lunch. He even goes so far as to make the IN time show him as five minutes late, a touch of authenticity and a nice touch at that, despite the fact that this then will be the first time he has ever returned late from lunch—a nice touch of irony, as well.

  There is one message on his desk. Pam wants to know how the search is going. No she doesn’t, he thinks as he scratches her an interoffice note: Making progress—will keep you posted. Goodnuff. He runs back upstairs, two steps at a time. He’s invigorated by the search. It seems the most meaningful thing he’s ever done at the firm. Maybe it’s the autonomy of it, the way he can use them against themselves to satisfy their own request. He’s the clockmaker. . . . No, that’s not it. . . . He’s an evil genius. . . . No, that’s not right either. It’s just that he needs to find this file, okay? Find the fucking file. Don’t worry about why. Don’t consider all the ways and reasons you have to never find it. Just find it. And, of course, don’t ever never ever never think about where you’ll be left once it’s found. Best look for it. That’s it. Look for it for all you’re worth. By sweet George! How long it takes. How he longs to see this file. He really wants to win this. Shadows longer. Credenza down. Sofa.

  But as with the credenza, and as Carroll works into the dark and into the stacks behind the door, into Misery’s bay, the adjoining bay, into places where nothing of any use to anyone is ever kept, into desperation, it is obvious that Solo is Not Here. Late is the day, now, to him, but not over; this word is given him in one of those divinely maddening sparks that serve as flashes of motivation like so many coupons in the middle of the Wednesday newspaper. He’s driven to the point of temporary abandonment, but only because it’s a way to ensure resumption. Solo may not be on this floor—that much can be admitted. Solo may not be anywhere—shh! don’t say that yet.

  The restaurant is not exactly jumping. In fact they have the place to themselves, Stevie and her boyfriend. Around them waiters wipe silver and position water glasses, chef (cook) glares through his porthole unseen and returns to the early entrees. Stevie’s boyfriend snaps his fingers and drinks are mixed at the bar. Nothing he could do. His wife needs dinner too, and if this is a little early, so what? Stevie should be glad for any time they can share. It’s catch as catch can, one of the liabilities of an extramarital affair; she knows that as well as he does. If she wants to sit there and pout after he went to all this trouble to make it as nice as possible under the circumstances and got his Industry buddy who owns the place to open up early or at least to slip them in for an early bite as a favor and never mind that it’s only about the most expensive fucking place on the west side and even this little time was hell for him to arrange on the homefront and that apartment doesn’t come cheap either. . . . If she wants to sit there and pout WELL FUCK HER! And he wasn’t gonna mention it but why the hell not who knows how much that carpet cleaning will cost . . .

  “I came by the condo the other day. You weren’t around—which is fine, you’ve got your own life, and I’m sure you were only out shopping or something—so I let myself in—”

  “You let yourself in?” interrupts Stevie, trying to sound angrier than she is. She plays it mostly from memory. She would have been very angry at one time, but now she really couldn’t care less. He’ll never notice the difference, and he wouldn’t accept it if he did.

  “Why the fuck shouldn’t I?” he says, rolling with it yet holding back the I pay the rent, though she hears it just the same.

  She looks down, resolutely straightens the napkin in her lap for the twentieth time since she put it there but does not remove it. “Maybe it’s time I thought about moving,” she says.

  Swell. Here we go. He decides to bring it down a notch, to circumvent this too-familiar argument. “Look,” he begins
, slowly fanning the air with his palms pushing down on either side of his plate: take it eeeeazzzzy. “I’m sorry. You’re right, and I won’t ever use my key (which he paid for) again. Now, if that’s settled, what I wanted to mention was the footprints on the carpeting.” He pauses; they couldn’t possibly have had this conversation before, yet it too sounds familiar, like deja vu, like he knows she’ll speak here.

  Oh! This is classic! Footprints on the carpeting? “Footprints on the carpeting?” she says incredulously. “Huh?”

  Patiently: “Yes, there were white powder footprints all over the place. You must be putting baby powder on your feet and then walking around.” A sip of water here to underscore this revelation, this inductive gem.

  “So what?” she wants to know.

  Fine. He’ll tell her. “That carpeting cost a fortune, and there’s no reason that you can’t be a little more careful. Couldn’t you wait until you’re ready to put on your shoes before using the powder . . . or make sure that you stay in the bathroom until you’re ready to put on your shoes . . . or—”

  “No,” she says simply. “No. I can’t do any of that, and I can’t tell you why. The carpeting will just have to be replaced every six months, okay?” She adds, “Call it a hidden expense,” immediately regretting it for her own sake.

  Entrees are coming. Time to calm her down. “Whatever. (more fanning) But you should know that I have people coming to clean it. They’ll be there next Wednesday morning. I told them to call first, but don’t worry about waiting around because I’ve informed the building manager and he’ll let them in.” And, using a tool he learned from his father, he puts his palms together and cleaves the air in front of him: That’s that.

  Oh looky! Here comes eighty bucks’ worth of food to go with this great conversation. Time to chill out. “I’ll try to be more careful,” she says with a tired old trace of hollow supplication. Food. It’s about time. It’s a good thing she called the club and told them she’d be late. That filet sure looks overdone.