Aside from being the short form of the name Joseph, ie a man’s name, there is also a derivative for women, Jo.
The name Joe is said to be used from the mid-1800s.
My favourite Joe name is Joe Bloggs, and he features in some of my stories.
It’s anonymous enough for someone to use as a cover when booking into a sleazy motel and is a little more refined than Smith or Jones, names that more than likely already feature in the register.
Jo could be a short form for Josephine, a name I’m sure some women would prefer not to be called.
But…
Did you know it’s also a name given to a cup of coffee?
Well, that didn’t make much of a splash. I don’t think anyone these days refers to coffee as Joe because there are so many different variations with names I couldn’t pronounce let alone spell, I think it’s been lost in the mists of time because there was only one type of coffee.
It was called coffee. Funny about that.
However…
There is another definition, and that is for the ‘average Joe’, an ordinary fellow who works for a living.
Odd, because I thought that was what most of us did, but perhaps it refers to tradespeople, or blue collar workers, not the white collar brigade.
Hang on, isn’t there a GI Joe, a universal description of the average soldier?
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
They reached a point a few kilometers from what was known as Brenner Pass at four in the morning, having navigated their way through patchy snow, icy roads, and bitter cold.
Progress at times was slow and the roads were difficult, the driver, at times, nearly losing control of the car.
The checkpoint appeared almost when they were on top of it, one that hadn’t been marked on the map, so they had not been prepared for it. Too late to turn back, they had to stop.
Once again the soldier that came out of the hut beside the boom was an army Unteroffizier who was more concerned about the cold than those in the car.
The Standartenfuhrer once again explained the nature of their business, and again the sentry went back to his hut and made a call.
While he was there the driver was checking the number of other soldiers were in attendance and had pulled his weapon out from under the seat and had it ready to use.
The Standartenfuhrer had done the same, also having checked the extent of the staffing of the post.
Then the driver said, “This looks like one of several. I think we may have walked into a hornet’s nest. The Brenner Pass is very important to the Germans for supplies from Germany to its soldiers in Italy.”
“You think our luck has finally run out?”
They had both seen the guard change expression, from the languid guard worrying more about the cold than a lone car at night, to a soldier who looked like he was about to attend a Nazi rally.
“I think they’ve finally discovered that our friend Mayer is missing.”
“Which means we’re about to get a small platoon of soldiers down on us. OK. You keep them off as long as you can so Mayer and I can get into the woods.”
The Standartenfuhrer turned to Mayer. “This is it, then end of the line for driving. We’re about to get a lot of unwanted visitors.”
He thrust the folder of plans into Mayer’s hands along with a coat.
“Let’s go.”
“Where?” Mayer was almost panic-stricken. The situation was deteriorating with each passing second. He, like the others, could see six men jogging towards them.
Their only advantage was the lack of illumination.
The driver said, “See you on the other side.”
The Standartenfuhrer leaned over, opened the door, and said, forcefully, “Get out, now.”
Mayer tumbled out almost slipping on the icy surface, and the sudden cold hitting him hard.
The Standartenfuher was right behind him, closing the door, and then literally dragging him off the side of the road and towards the tree line about 50 meters away, just barely visible again the dark sky. Thankfully there was no moon peeking through the clouds. But light snow just began to fall, and it would hide them behind an artificial white wall.
They made it to the edge of the forest just as the soldiers reached the car.
Mayer turned to look and could see the sentry now with a torch, probably checking the car which was now barely visible to them. He had seen three people before, now there was only one.
No time to see the inevitable, the Standartenfuhrer dragged him away with, “We have to go before they bring out the dogs.”
Further into the trees, and moving as quickly as they could through the trees and undergrowth, and at times slipping and sliding on both snow and ice, it was five minutes before they heard six shots in rapid succession, followed by the sound of a machine gun.
“Let’s hope he killed at least six of them before he died.”
The problem was, Mayer thought, there was probably another hundred others waiting to take their place.
Mayer had come totally unprepared for the snow, and the cold. At least he had a coat.
Another problem was that he was hungry and that only added to his discomfort. And now they had no means of transport, it was going to take a lot longer to get to Florence, or anywhere for that matter.
An hour passed as they worked their way steadily through the trees, and cover. The dreaded dogs had not been unleashed on them, but they had to assume that someone at the border checkpoint would raise the alarm that there were fugitives in the area, and probably wait until morning before looking for them,
They could calculate how far they had walked and sent in search teams from there.
Or not.
Four hours after they’d left the car, they stumbled upon a cabin. It was not much, having been abandoned quite some time ago and left for the forest to reclaim, but it was shelter and a place to rest. It was not long before first light, and then they could assess their situation.
It was also time for the Standartenfuhrer to give Mayer all the information he needed once he got to Gaiole because at some point they were going to have to split up and Mayer would have to go alone.
After leaving the hotel in Zhengzhou, what was once one of the eight ancient capitals of China, we are going to Dengfeng city, and the home of China’s most famous martial art – Shaolin Kung Fu.
The Shaolin Temple nearby is the origin of Chinese Zen Buddhism, and the Songyang Academy, called “the Centre of Heaven and Earth” is located 87 Km from Zhengzhou, or, as we were advised, a 2 hour drive. It will be scenic because we are heading towards the mountains.
As one of the four ancient Song Dynasty Academies, Songyang Academy is one of many schools in the province. It is both on a large-scale, is quite spectacular, and is a comprehensive Wushu training base where students are trained to spread the Shaolin Wushu Kung fu style at home and abroad.
There is a 500 seat demonstration hall where you are able to observe 30 minutes of various martial arts in shows starting on the hour.
Outside there is a specific area that generally has about 600 trainees learning kung fu elements during the day, but can hold 5,000 [ep[;e when outdoor performances are required.
The kung fu school
The thing you notice most about the kung fu school is it’s size and then the number of buses which tells you that it is a popular tourist stop.
And with that size comes long distances between the car park and the venues we need to go to, the first of which is about half a km, and that’s just to get to the ticket plaza.
But, it is pleasantly set out and is quite a large number of shops for both souvenirs and food
We pass by some of the students going through their paces
From there it’s another long, long walk to the show arena, where we’re supposed to see various kung fu elements on display. We watched this for a few minutes, then headed off towards the hall for a more intense demonstration of kung fu, and because there is limited seating we have to start lining at the head of the queue to get a seat.
But…
Everyone else has the same idea and we join the throng which then becomes a ride, and true to the Chinese they start finding ways to push in, even using the imaginary friend somewhere ahead in the queue.
The doors open and then it’s open slather, with the hoards pushing from behind and sliding up the side to get in first. We go with the tide, and manage to get in and find a seat though we were separated from three of our group.
It was an interesting show even though not one word of English was spoken, which from our point of view was a disappointment because we had no idea what was going on.
However…
It wasn’t hard to follow
What the performers were doing was relatively self-explanatory, and quite fascinating especially the guy who broke a sword over his head, and the guy who stopped two spears penetrating the neck, both examples of very disciplined men.
Boys gave a demonstration of kung fu moves, and intensity and age increased as this progressed to the end.
Next, we were taken in hand by an instructor in Tai chi or an equivalent, I was not quite sure what it was called, and went through the twelve or maybe more moves that constituted a morning or afternoon exercise session or it could be just for relaxation. I lasted the first session but it was a little difficult to do with my sore limbs and a bad back.
Not that I could remember any of it now other than hands overhead, hands in front, bent knees, and a few gentle kung fu hand moves.
Perhaps when I get home I might seek out someone to show me the moves.
Whilst the others were following their training instructor, I wandered about, finding a large statue
And some smaller statues
Lunch in the Zen Restaurant
After all that exercise it was time to have the lunch purportedly the same food as the king fu masters. It’s in the Zen restaurant, aptly named, and the food when it came, came thick and fast, but some of it wasn’t very nice, meat with bones, tofu, a tasteless soup, but some good dishes like the vegetables and noodles with meat, without bones.
The only problem, nothing to drink except a pot of hot water. No tea, no cold water, and if you wanted a cold drink you had to pay for it. After paying 550 yuan why should we have to pay more for a drink when we have not had to so far.
But no cold water? That was just not on, and when we brought this to that attention of the tour guide she just simply ignored us. We just didn’t get anything.
That basically tainted the whole experience.
After lunch, we had the Shaolin Temple, and the Pogoda Forest to visit.
I’m going over the conversation Olga is having with John now that he is her prisoner.
On the first run through it seemed to make sense, but as we all know, when you read the conversation out loud, often it sounds terrible.
A question of, “Would I say that?”
Whilst snatching John off the street was a rather simple task, made easier by the fact he was not expecting it, Olga is not sure whether it is a big act.
Working with Irina has made her wary of everyone and everything, even more so since Irina had left her charge, but she knows just how much Irina evolved into the Zoe her son tried to keep on a leash, with spectacularly awful results.
Had she been training John to be like her?
Has Sebastian been training John to become a spy, or was he one already? After all, why is someone like John, if he is that reputed computer nerd type, doing with a girl like Irina.
Her preference would have to be someone strong, authoritative, masculine, like Alistair. The problem was she hadn’t driven out all of the emotions in the time she spent with her.
So, sitting opposite each other, John and Olga try to do their individual assessments.
She finally admits that she doesn’t want to kill Irina, just rehabilitate her.
John, of course, is horrified at the thought of them brainwashing her, especially if they send her after him again.
It comes down to a single point. Will he do as she asks, and invite her to come and get him?
What neither of them realizes Irina already knows where they are, and any plans Olga might have will be useless.
…
Today’s writing, with Irina, otherwise know as Zoe, on the way, 1,232 words, for a total of 63,154.
There was an X marked on a star map, a place where someone said was a liveable planet, designated M. None of us knew why it was designated M when on the map it was an X, maybe we’d find out when we got there.
But that was a part of the confusion that surrounded this mission. What kicked it off was an imminent threat of an ELE, otherwise known as an extinction life event, when an approaching meteor was on track to collide with our planet in eighteen months’ time.
Of course, none of these predictions ever came true, but this time someone had pressed the panic button, and the mission, which had been slated for two years’ time, was brought forward.
I was just one of 10 astronauts pressed into service ahead of time, brought together in haste, of different temperaments, attitudes, and ideals. It was not the most cohesive group, but the thinking was, in a crisis we would all pull together.
I had my doubts.
But I wasn’t in charge of anything, just an engineer that essential was there to keep everything running, one of three who were specifically there to keep everything running.
The rest all had designated roles, from mission commander down, but everyone had to know everyone else’s job, just in case. Mission commander or 2IC were the two jobs I never wanted, so long as there was someone in front of me in the pecking order.
And, having the role I had, I was there, every hour of every day, working with the scientists and engineers and constructors, so I could know every nut and bolt on the ship.
Then, our time on earth was up, and we were blasted into space, on our way to the moon base where the spacecraft we were to make the voyage to X, or M, in. It had been built on earth, deconstructed, sent into space, and rebuilt at the moon base, as had others before it, with varying degrees of success.
That record, one out of four a success weighed on our minds heavily. Well, on the record, it didn’t bother me all that much because I’d seen it put back together, and the team had done a brilliant job
We had a final inspection, the moon base commander signed the clear for take-off form, and without any formal acknowledgment or ceremony, we launched.
Successfully.
…
The voyage to M, or X, was to take the better part of five months, and there was no need for all of the crew to be available all the time.
It had been decided that only one crew member was needed at any one time to look after the systems, that were designed to run themselves.
That one person was also assisted by the mission robot, or Android, a very life-like almost person who was for all intents and purposes a human. Except it could hold in storage every schematic, every piece of data about the ship, the mission, if not everything we knew about space and the galaxy.
There had been a debate about whether to build a computer or an Android, and the Android won. Personally, I liked the Android, whose name was official David, reputedly an acronym, but while he and I were alone on the final shift before arriving at the X on the map, I shortened it to Davy
One of David’s principal jobs was to monitor the crew while in stasis, to bring them out, and put them in. Soon he would have to bring them all out, once we arrived. Once there, individual missions were organized, and it would be left to David and me to maintain the main ship, so we could get back home to report on the feasibility of life being preserved elsewhere in the galaxy if we lost earth.
It would be terrible if M was not viable.
How are our sleepyheads,” I asked, the start of the new day’s routine?
“Nominal.”
They could have programmed a dozen different responses than just nominal.
“You could say fine, Davy.”
“My name is David. Do you need me to explain the significance of my name again?”
“No. You’ve already told me. You need to lighten up, Davy. Everything is not about exactness or correctness. There is more than just black and white, there are various shades of grey. Do you know what grey is Davy?”
“A color of paint once used to cover the hulls of sea-going naval ships, hence the term battleship grey. It’s one of many examples. Would you like more?”
“No, Davy. How are the ship’s systems?”
“Nominal.” Then a few seconds later, he added, “except for a power glitch in the stasis room.”
“Is it serious?”
“No. But it could lead to…”
A red light started blinking on the panel in front of me, indicating a problem with the connection of life support to one of the stasis pods, that of the mission commander.
“On my way, Davy. You have the bridge.”
…
The stasis room was at the end of the living quarters and crew recreation and dining area. It was, with no one in it a largely empty, very quiet space.
The ship was designed to have nearly five hundred people on board, the deck below, completely given over to passenger quarters, and it was envisaged that this ship and a dozen or so others would form the first fleet of colonists bound for a new world.
Below that deck was the cargo hold where all the materials to build a space station, or rather, the infrastructure in the new world. It was a huge leap for mankind, like the pilgrims going to America, or the convicts to Australia.
Except, for now, there were ten of us in a large empty cavernous ship. Just imagine if there were five hundred stasis pods.
I crossed quickly to the pod and checked all the systems. On the parent in front, there was no alarm, and nothing other than, as Davy would say system nominal.
That means we had a glitch on the bridge.
I started on my way back, heard a noise, then stopped.
Had the pod just opened and was the Commander awake.
I turned to see a boy, about ten or twelve years of age standing by the pod, peering in. His hand was touching the Perspex window, and the panel was going crazy.
“Who are you,” I asked, somewhere between shock and surprise.
“I come from the planet where your ship is heading towards.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I assure you it is. You see me as a boy, not unlike your people, actually a rendition of the person inside this capsule. This is not my true form. I have been sent to ascertain your intentions.”
“My intention at this moment is to prevent this person from dying. It might help if you didn’t touch the pod. I suspect you are generating some electrical charge…” or he was pure electrical or other energy.
OK, now I was beyond shock and curiosity. It was pure fear.
“You always wanted to travel in space.” A statement, not a question. The exact thought I had at that exact moment.
Oh, God, he could read minds.
“That is rather remarkable sir, how do you create a child version of the commander?”
Davy had come down to check on me, standing orders if we didn’t report back in an emergency.
“A robot. You are indeed more civilized than we expected.”
“You know about us?”
“Of you, not by experience. Your world is about to suffer a catastrophic event, but, then if it wasn’t going to be a meteor, you were managing to destroy it yourselves. You come to see if this was a place you could send people if or when your planet became uninhabitable.”
I had to stop thinking. Too late to ease my way into the conversation.
To the robot, the boy said, “I’m borrowing this person. I assume you can run this ship?”
“Better than the humans can, yes.”
“Then we’ll be back soon.”
With that, one second I was standing on the deck of the ship, hurtling through space, then next I was standing in a field with trees, grass, blue sky, a gentle breeze, and sunshine, and yet none of it felt real.
“It is a world created to make you feel at ease. Now, tell me. What is the real reason you people are coming here?”
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
I took a moment longer to study the differences in the maps, trying to see what our edge was.
“So, according to this map, Alex would be looking for a stretch of shore with two rivers going inland, which you say are no longer there.”
“I do because they’re not. Well, they’re not visible these days from the seaward side, and not really visible from shore either because I think one of the two might have started where the mini marina is.”
The mini marina wasn’t as marina as such, rather an area of seawater surrounded by a promenade with a bridge over the entrance from the ocean, and a lot of expensive Italian tiles. It was part of the redevelopment of the old marina when the shopping mall had been built.
“Wasn’t that the old marina, which was part of the old navy yard for PT boats?”
Everyone knew the potted history of the town and the navy yard that put it briefly on the map. There had been an inlet where a marina was built in the early days. Then with war looming, the navy was looking for a place to build PT boats, carry out repairs to medium-sized warships, and train PT crews.
“One and the same. There’s very little in the archives about what happened back then, but I did manage to find a document, mentioned in my father’s notebook, about the navy set up a base. Attached to it was a geological report that stated two facts, the first, they would be building over a watercourse which at the time was believed to be underground, and secondly, deep foundations would be required. In the event all of it was ignored, they built the port and it was operational up until the end of the war.”
After which as everyone knew they shut the facility down, put up fences and signs with the words hazardous and dangerous, and trespassers would be shot, and it sat there like a festering eyesore until a plan was mooted to turn the site into a mall.
It was a favorite place for us children to go and play, having the fearless mentality that every child was born with. Yes, there were hazards on the grounds, in for form of rusting metal and hundreds of barrels holding what must have been hazardous material, but best of all, there were two nearly intact boats moored there, and I remembered being captain at least once on a vessel that had taken on everything the enemy had.
“And then they built a mall.”
He nodded. “My father always said that it was doomed to failure. There’s a section in his notebook about an earlier plan to rebuild the marina with facilities to repair those new larger ocean-going yachts that proliferate in Bermuda and places like that, only he couldn’t find anyone to back the project. The Benderby’s at the time didn’t like the idea, and since they basically owned the town nothing was going to happen without their approval.”
The mall, however, was something the Benderby’s could get their hooks into, in the building of it, then a slice of every business that moved in. It would also be good for employment, and people employed mean customers for their other criminal activities. Deals were made with the Cossatino’s and everyone was happy. For a few years anyway.
That’s when a newspaper expose on the mall was published.
Exposes were never plucked out of thin air and presented, there had to be a catalyst. There had been allegations of corruption regarding all aspects of the mall, from planning through the opening day, and especially in the building. Allegations of payoffs to get approvals, substandard materials used, and the worst allegation, that the builder had not properly cleaned up the site before building commenced.
All of this came to a head when, not long after the tenth anniversary of opening, large cracks started to appear in the floors and walls, so bad that nearly half the mall, that part that had been built over the old navy base, had to be closed, and now was in danger of collapse.
The mini marina, the focal point for the mall, had also been closed because the pool had become polluted from the old navy base waste that had been improperly disposed of in the foundations rather than being properly removed and stored in a special dump. But there had also been other problems like excess water continuously flooding the lower level carparks, and flowing into the sea pool making it unusable, and at times, very smelly.
Boggs’s father had discovered at the same time as his research for the treasure maps, that the water came from the underground river that had been mentioned in the geological report made before the naval base had been built. Just because it hadn’t been there at the time, didn’t mean it wasn’t there at all. It just depended on rainfall back up in the hills, and the year the problems started for the mall coincided with the wettest period for the area in more than 50 years.
His father’s notebook was a goldmine of information, Boggs said.
“It appears there was a lake right where the map says it was, about a hundred years ago. Since then an earthquake caused a fault line that drained the lake and makes a river instead. That river ran from the hills to the sea. Until someone decided to build on the old lake, raised the level and piped the river underground, and drawing from it for the towns and sounding areas water supply. That in effect reduced the water flow from the lake to the sea to a trickle, or rather a stream.
“But every now and then when it rains heavily and for a long period, the stream becomes a river, and it backs up until with nowhere else to go, it floods the mall carparks. The lowest level carpark is actually the lowest depth of the river, and it comes out at the sea where the pool now is. Unfortunately, with the old naval waste rotting in those old rusting barrels, it collects that waste and not only stinks up the mall but also the pool area which is why it’s now closed.
“And the bad news is, it can’t be fixed. But that’s got nothing to do with our quest. It’s just an aside to our quest, proving that three of the landmarks on the treasure map actually existed once, and in some form still do. The thing is, neither the Benderby’s or the Cossatino’s will realize that which means we have a clear run at getting past the first hurdle and with any luck we will be able to identify the river from the hills which is the starting point.”
A simple job, no doubt in Boggs’s mind. He never had any trouble coming up with hair-brained schemes, only the logistics to carry them out. This one required proper transport because there was no way we’re going to be able to cycle there and back in a morning, the only time I had free for exploring.
“How do you propose we do this?”
“Rico’s car. It’s sitting in the marina carpark. The keys for it are on his boat.”
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
Probably the sagest piece of advice I had ever been given, just before I headed out onto that highway called the rest of your life, was from an aunt who died not long after she delivered it. She was old and cranky, which I thought had been because my mother was such a pain in the neck to her, but it was more because she was simply old and tired.
Always look to the intentions of people who ask you to do things for them. People can be lying, cheating, deceitful creatures who dress up their motives in sugar-coating, so you don’t realize what their true motives are.
It hadn’t happened to me yet, and yes, we had been taught to take people at face value, but I suspect she had seen a bit more of life from all angles than both my parents. But at the time, when she delivered it, along with a lot more advice on what I should do with my life, I didn’t take much notice.
What grandchild did?
…
We are taught to take people at face value, that we should respect them until they prove otherwise. It worked most of the time because we all have that sixth sense that tells us if something is too good to be true, it generally is.
It can equally apply to goods as it does to people, though with people there are some who know how to confuse even the most trusting of souls. They just take a little longer before they reveal themselves.
Me, I had a few bad experiences that led to a degree of cynicism. Relationships that had failed, and jobs that didn’t end up quite as described. That’s why when I found my current role, and the fact I’d been asked for personally, made it all that more satisfying.
Of course, there was an element of flattery involved, but after so much disappointment, maybe I lowered the blinkers just slightly. But all things withstanding, it had turned out to be rewarding as well.
A few awards, some paid vacation days for meeting milestones, I thought I was going well.
Then, as the latest reward I’d been sent do a conference on the other side of the country, the equivalent to and all expenses paid junket, the sort only senior management went on.
It was an eye-opening experience, with team building exercises that supposedly only senior management went on. There were people from all over the country, from a variety of companies.
On the first day we were put into teams of four, two women and two men. The idea was that we were all equally responsible for each other, removing the gender stereotyping.
For me, it was what I understood out company was undertaking. For the other male member, he was not so gender neutral, though he spoke the words, his actions were quite different away from the women. It was wrong, but I ignored it because it was only for a few days.
On day two, at the end of the day’s exercises, I ran into him at the bar downstairs. He was more sociable than I, and was the sort who was the life of the party, only u think others had realised his shortcomings, possibly from the night before, and was nursing a drink at the bar on his own.
I was going to go somewhere else, but he saw me before I could escape, so I crossed the room and sat on the next bar stool. There was a familiar scent in the air, and it might have belonged to one of the two women. He had said earlier that he fancied the blonde, and it was clear what his motives were.
It was probably why he was alone.
“What have you got on for tonight?”
I’d barely got on the seat and caught my breath. A replacement drink arrived in front of him, a large cocktail that looked lethal.
I asked the bar tender for a club side with lots of ice.
“You’re not going to have much fun with that,” he said after the bar tender left.
“Not much of a drinker, I’m afraid.”
“Bit hard to let your hair down then?”
Like all drunks, he believed a good time could not be had unless soaked in alcohol. I’d had arguments with friends no more on exactly that subject.
“Perhaps not, but that’s not why I’m here.”
“Didn’t your boss tell you it was just a junket. There’s no working just playing. Do the stuff they throw at you for a few hours so you can get the attendance certificate that no one fails, then move on.
And I thought I was cynical.
“Where did you say you worked again?”
I told him.
“Do you know a chap called Jerry Blowfell?”
“My boss as it happens.”
“Is it now? I used to work for him at a different place, on the east coast.”
“What was he like then?’
“A mongrel. Used everyone to raise his profile in the company, taking promotions that others should have got by stealing the credit for their work.”
“Doesn’t sound like the same man.”
Short chap, likes turtleneck sweaters, black hair with a white streak.”
That was Blowfell. But it didn’t sound like him.
“He does have a white streak.”
“Got it when he was struck by lightning, or so he said. It was really caused by using the wrong sort of hair shampoo.”
It was clear from his manner that he didn’t like him.
“Tell you what, call him back at the office, mention my name and see what result you get.”
It sounded like it might be like a red rag to a bull situation. I said I’d think about it, had another drink, then left.
…
His words had made an impression. I had thought at first there was no way he was right, that it was just the words of a spiteful drunk.
Then I stewed over it for no real reason because there was no suggestion of impropriety.
But I would call him and see what he had to say about Jerry. It was going to no doubt confirm Jerry’s sour grapes after being fired, because very few people left of their own accord in the current economic climate.
So, when the time differences allowed, I called the office and asked to be put through. It ended with an unfamiliar girl’s voice.
“Do you know where he is,” I asked, after she told me he was not in the office.”
“Paris taking a well-deserved reward for his hard work on the Johnson contract. The board were delighted with the result.”
“Oh,” I muttered, then hung up.
He had done nothing towards the Johnson contract, other than to hand the file to me. Our last conversation, the day before I left for this conference was to confirm the details of the settlement.
And yet he was the one in Paris. My first thought, that should be me.
My second thought, Jerry was right.
But the question was, how did he manage it?
It wasn’t hard to work out. Taking people with low expectations, he had dazzled me with this conference, firstly to get me out of the office, then secondly to go away, perhaps over the exact same period, and in normal circumstances I might never discover what happened.
Such was his skill at compartmentalising, none of us in his tear ever knew what the others were doing spread out as we were around the country. The fact was, I only discovered what had happened from someone outside the country.
I took breakfast on my room, livid. But as angry as I might be, I didn’t want Jerry to know he was right.
Instead, I came up with endless scenarios of tackling him about it, but knew, if he’d been doing for this long, he would have the bases covered, and my complaints would fall on deaf ears.
If he was going to get caught out, I would have to come up with an elaborate scheme to trap him.
…
Fast forward three months
I got over my anger, went back to work, and pretended like nothing had happened. My boss had got back from Paris the day before I returned from the conference and was there to greet me when I returned.
It was a strange feeling to cast eyes upon someone in such a different light. I figured that if I tried to find out what else he had perpetrated on the back of other team members, he’d find out, and asking anyone who could tell me, could be potential conspirators. Doing what did did could not be done on his own, so there had to be others.
But, one by one, when the opportunity arose from a work perspective, I spoke to each of the other people in the team, and all had been sent to the same conference I had. Only one voiced an opinion, one I had not asked for, and that was to say they thought they’d seen him at the conference but must have been mistaken.
But it got me thinking, and I looked up the venue and the online presence of the program. It was well received and awarded by chambers of commerce and industry associations alike.
There was a history of how it came into being, theme changes that had been made in response to changing times and new industry regulations, and a profile of the man who brought it into being.
My boss’s brother. There was a picture of him, and there was no mistaking the family likeness. It wasn’t a stretch to believe that my boss may have leaned on his brother to grant places on his courses, paid for the company. It wasn’t wrong, but if he could steal credit where it wasn’t due, maybe he arranged kickbacks for places.
It was all that I could assumed because there was no proof of his deeds anywhere and that might have been part of a non-disclosure agreement made with anyone who discovered his secret.
It was nothing I could take to the board. I would have to find another way. That presented itself some weeks after I returned when he dropped a new file on my desk.
Our specially was to analyse companies or organisations that were teetering on the edge of disaster and set them up in such a way that larger companies could step in and take them over for a mutually beneficial deal.
The last, what we call settlements, was that which my boss had taken the credit for, involved a sole trader who had a great product but hadn’t been able to manage the financial aspects of the business, and with the downturn, which caused him to close the doors.
This case was something similar in that the owner had taken his idea and made it into a successful business, then tried to turn it into a franchise. The only problem was, with a pandemic induced downturn that heavily relied on people presenting themselves, the sudden loss of those people threw everything into disarray.
He needed a buyer, someone with a lot of financial backing to tide the business over until the market returned to normal.
When I did my investigation, I discovered that one of the casualties of the imminent collapse was none other than the boss’s brother, and the man who ran the conference I had recently gone to. He was one of about a dozen around the country who were, through no fault of their own, in trouble.
It was most likely a call from him that resulted in the file that I now had sitting in front of me.
It led to the creation of two solutions, one of which I would give the boss and he would run with as his own, and the other I would keep in the filing cabinet to pull out and save the day. It would no doubt cause considerable consternation for his brother for a short period, but it was going to solve the problem we analysts had.
And something else that I hadn’t realised was the MSN who was in charge of us was not sufficient versed in the processes that drove our solutions, just very savvy in his ability to pick people who were. It meant that he would not be able told discern the solution provided would not necessarily solve the problem with the best outcome. Only those who vetted it before it was implemented would.
And once I’d completed the two analyses, I set the plan in motion.
It was two weeks before a person I’d never seen before, but whose name was familiar gave me a call.
He introduced himself as one of those who acted on the information we supplied, to whom the boss would have sent the file I had supplied him.
“So, here’s the problem. After we looked at the file he supplied, it showed some critical errors, which is a first for his work, and when we asked him to explain how he’d reached his conclusions, he said some of it was obtained externally, and when pressed gave us your name and number. What can you tell me?”
I was not sure what I was expecting as an outcome to my subterfuge but perhaps this was the only chance I was going to get to plead my case.
“That none of it was his work, and that he has been taking the credit when it was not due.”
Then I explained what I’d done, and then emailed the correct version of the file, and after he had read the relevant sections I ended with the damming phrase, “if he had the necessary experience and accounting knowledge, he would have seen though it fairly quickly like you had.”
When he had he would look into the allegations I’d presented, I suddenly though I may have overstated my case, particularly when I didn’t hear anything back. The only saving grace was that I hadn’t been fired which if he had a strategy in place in case someone like me tried to burn him would have happened reasonably quickly.
Then one morning I got a phone call from one of the other analysts.
“Have you ready your email this morning?”
I hadn’t. Not feeling well, I hadn’t gone into the office and decided I would work from home if anything came up. We had recently been set up to work remotely because of the pandemic and subsequent shutdowns.
I went online and opened the mailbox. At the top of the inbox was an email advising that the company had accepted the resignation of our former boss who had cited personal reasons for leaving.
In other words, he had jumped before he had been pushed.
Below it was another email from HE advising they were recruiting his replacement from within and were looking for applications.
And there was one more, almost hidden by the white noise of spam, one that specifically thanked me for my contribution to the recent file, with an invitation to meet the people who implement our plans.
With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.
That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.
He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.
I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.
Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.
Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.
At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.
A yellow car stopped inches from me.
It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.
Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.
My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.
At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.
At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.
At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.
I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.
Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.
Now my imagination was playing tricks.
It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.
In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.
I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.
The Fairmont at Lake Louise, in Canada, is noted for its ice castle in winter. This has been created by the ice sculptor, Lee Ross since 2007, using about 150 blocks of ice, each weighing roughly 300 pounds.
When I first saw it, from a distance, looked like it was made out of plastic It’s not. Venturing out into the very, very cold, a close inspection showed it was made of ice.
And, it’s not likely to melt in a hurry given the temperature when I went down to look at it was hovering around minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 