Spilt Milk

“Where have you been?”

“Huh?” Virgil glanced over his shoulder at Gwen as he slid the door shut. “I had to check a few things after my shift.” He latched the door and faced her full on. “Why?”

“Have you forgotten something?”

Virgil peered at his hands curiously then patted his chest and bum. With a wry smile he said, “Nope, everything’s where it should be.”

Gwen stood in the passageway, unimpressed as she pushed strands of auburn hair behind her ears. “So, you’ve forgotten nothing, then?”

Virgil studied Gwen as he unzipped his environment-suit. “What, Gwen? Just say it.”

“Oh, I guess it’s nothing.” She half turned, leaned her bum against the wall and looked at her feet. “It’s just that, well, today’s--“

“I bloody well know exactly what today is!”

Gwen spun her head back at Virgil, her mouth agape; she hadn’t expected him to come at the topic so short-tempered and shouting.

He pulled his arms out of the environment-suit as he spoke. “Look, Gwen, it’s been five bloody years. Enough is enough already.” He bent at the waist and slid the rest of his suit down below his knees and stepped out of it.

“Okay, fine.” She pushed off from the wall and walked back toward the kitchen. She gripped the archway as she turned into the blindingly bright room. A wave of sorrow and depression washed over her as she paused for a heart-beat. She had to sit. She hurried toward the eating vestibule and slumped into a chrome plated chair. With both elbows on the table she smothered her face in her hands.

Virgil followed and sat across the table from her. “Gwen, please. Are we really still here? Are we honestly still stuck in this place?”

Gwen shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s bad enough,” Virgil continued, “we’re stuck in these measly living quarters on this godforsaken ship, but to still be stuck here, in this moment...Look at me, Gwen, please.”

She raised her head, sliding her face up her hands so that her fingertips still covered her mouth. Her eyes were damp and etched in red.

“Gwen, I love you, and I hate snapping at you, but it’s been five years. Five years! How are we supposed to...” He consciously dialed back his aggression before adding, “Can we please put this to rest?”

“I’m not harping.” She pulled the cuff of her crewman’s sweater and used it to dab her eyes and wipe her nose.

“Okay, you’re right, but all year long we keep this devil buried. Banished. Forgotten. And then, today, you up and excavate it.” He glared at her. “Why?”

“Why? Why?” She slapped both hands on the table.

The loud smack echoed through their small quarters and Virgil looked left and right as though someone would witness the hysteria going on.

“Virgil! It’s not buried.”

“Sure it is,” he said, resting his attention back on Gwen.

“It’s not! If it were, we wouldn’t be in this moment.” She sat straighter, feeling less defeated and prepared for a fight. Like a walrus crossing a sandy beach, she bum-shuffled herself forward in her chair and pressed her stomach against the table. She extended her hands across to Virgil and said, “This isn’t a movie, Virgil. I’m not a hologram or a floating spirit. This is me, this is my--this is our reality.”

Virgil accepted her hands, squeezed them, and pulled them to him.

“Virgil, please talk to me about this.”

“I can’t, Gwen. I can’t.” He squeezed her hands tighter and pulled her arms further toward him. “I keep trying to forget, but you...”

“Let go of my hands,” she said, tugging gently.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. He pulled tighter and Gwen lifted her bum up off the chair to accommodate Virgil’s strength.

“Virgil!”

“Gwen, I...” His eyes were firmly shut making his crow’s feet ripple from eye-socket to temple.

With little choice, Gwen turned her hip slightly and brought her right knee up on to the table. Her left leg followed of its own volition and with the sudden release in tension, she slid across the table toward Virgil. She half landed in his lap--her torso and legs remained on the table.

Virgil released Gwen’s hands, clasped her head, and lifted it to look into her eyes.

“Virgil, stop this, please.” The palms of her hands were on the edge of his seat bracing her, helping prevent a neck injury and falling face-first into his belly. She pleaded with her eyes as he stared at her. Then his eyes widened, his pupils dilated, and finally glossed over. Tears welled and he began to cry.

Gwen swung her legs around and slid off the table onto Virgil’s lap. As she straddled him she now held his face in her hands. “You haven’t buried it either, have you?”

He shook his head.

“It’s okay, Virgil. Everything’s okay.” She pulled his face to her chest and hugged him tight.

Virgil clutched her and sobbed, his body shuttered violently. “I miss him, Gwen--every damn day.”

“Me too, Virgil. Me too.”

They remained holding each other on the chair. Neither of them spoke, they just held on as they rocked back and forth, soothing their pain, swaying away the demons and the devils bouncing around their quarters begging for attention.

Their front door triggered a series of beeps; notification someone on the outer deck was requesting entrance to their quarters. Without speaking, Gwen lifted herself off Virgil. He stood and squinted as he walked through the kitchen, and ran the sleeve of his engineering sweater over his eyes as he headed for the front entrance. He stopped at a panel on the wall and pressed a button. An eight-inch screen set in the panel instantly flickered to life and displayed the image of someone standing in the passageway looking up and waving into the camera.

“It’s Shon,” Virgil shouted for Gwen’s benefit.

“Yeah?” she replied.

“Should I invite him in?”

“I guess so.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think so. You?”

“Yeah, sure,” he agreed, and then mumbled to himself, “Come on in. Join the party.”

He pressed another button on the panel that both released the lock on the outer door and lit a tiny red bulb to indicate the door’s breach. Virgil continued looking at the screen until he was sure Shon had entered the anti-room and resealed the door behind him. The tiny red bulb went off.

Virgil stepped to the main door, unlatched it, and slid it open. “Hey, neighbor, what’s up?”

Shon was still in the process of removing his helmet, but once it was off, he hung it on a hook in the anti-room and then stepped into the hallway. He shook his head to loosen the matted flatness caused by the helmet, “Hey, neighbor, what’s up?”

“Nothing,” Virgil said with an ironic smile, “I just said that.”

“Said what?”

“I asked you ‘What’s up?’”

“Oh. Nothing. You?”

“Huh?”

“I’m sorry, forgive me.” He unzipped his suit and it quickly shed itself from his upper body and slid all the way to floor. He stepped out of it and peered over Virgil’s shoulder. “Where’s Gwen?”

“She’s back there,” Virgil said and nodded over his shoulder. The sight of his unannounced neighbor standing there with ‘nothing’ to say was troubling. “Seriously, Shon, what’s up? What brings you round without contacting me on the communicator first?”

Shon controlled his wandering, inhuman eyes and turned his attention back to Virgil. “Oh, right. Well, Malia and I were thinking you guys might like some company tonight.”

“Oh, really, why’s that?”

Shon’s eyes took off again, this time he looked at his wrapped feet and prodded nonchalantly at the floor. “Well, you know...We, uh...We were thinking that...”

“Shon! Jesus, mate, spit it out.”

Shon was startled, but quickly got a grip on himself. “Virgil, we know today’s the anniversary of your son’s death.”

Virgil was taken aback at Shon’s bluntness. Then again, he had tried to dance around the subject. Despite the earlier episode in the kitchen, Virgil slipped easily into hating the perennial situation they were in. He got his back up and said, “Not just our son, Shon.”

“I know, but we--“

“Don’t worry about us. Gwen and I are fine.”

Just then Gwen appeared in the kitchen archway and Shon looked toward her. She was so blazingly back-lit by the kitchen’s array of lights she seemed to glow. “Shon,” she began, “how are you?”

“I’m well, thank you.”

“Where’s Malia?”

“She’s at--“

“Shon just stopped by,” Virgil interrupted, “to see if we wanted company tonight. Tonight being the anniversary and all...”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, Gwen. Please, if you require an evening alone, I shall be on my way.” Shon stepped back toward his suit.

Virgil watched his neighbor redress while anger and hate welled inside him. Gwen stepped next to Virgil and clasped his hand, she sensed Virgil’s frame of mind deteriorating.

“Shon,” Gwen said. “Thank you for stopping by.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Shon replied genuinely. “I understand you need to be alone tonight. I am still learning your ways.” Shon had both feet in his suit and was pulling it up his torso when he added, “But Malia insisted--”

“It’s okay...Shon,” Virgil said, cutting his neighbor off again. His tone dripped of sarcasm, though mostly lost on Shon, but not Gwen--she dug her nails into Virgil’s hand. He shook his hand free and pressed on, “Really, Shon, it’s okay, but if it were my race that destroyed your planet, I’d make damn sure I steered clear of you for several days on either side of the anniversary of said planetary destruction.”

Shon continued pulling on his suit, desperately fumbling with the sleeves. He needed to get covered up before Virgil’s verbal assault became worse. Unlike Earthlings who blush or blanch in concert with their state of mind, Kooyanians have scales that stand on end to form a protective armor. Shon knew he had to get his body covered up before his skin shifted--he did not want to fight Virgil.

“Shon. Honestly, I try to approach every situation with a level head and an optimistic assumption the beings I interact with mean me no harm--mentally, physically, or otherwise.” He studied his neighbor for a second before adding, “Do you get that, Shon?” He then stepped closer, “Does what I’m saying make any sense to a Kooyan?”

Shon got one arm in, but half-way through sliding home his second arm his scales shot up, rigid. The scales on his neck erected next and then the elongated scales covering his scalp furrowed making his head look roughly twice the size.

“You come looking for a fight, Shon?”

“No, but your attack will not go undefended,” Shon replied. He stood next to the door, half dressed in a suit that now appeared freakishly small. “You know how we react to aggression.”

“Virgil,” Gwen said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Leave Shon be. It’s not his fault, and we’ve known Shon for years.” She looked passed Virgil to where Shon stood motionless; she knew his predicament and feared for him. She feared for Virgil too, but mostly knew the shame Shon felt and would feel further if things got out of hand.

Shon didn’t move. He didn’t want to splice his suit with his razor-sharp scales in their agitated state. Instead, he said to them both, “I am sorry for stopping by today and I will once again explain the inexplicable depths of your psyche to Malia.”

Gwen smiled.

Virgil looked at the floor while bitter thoughts tumbled through in his head. Settling on one, he brought his head up and said, “You know what, Shon. Fuck you and fuck this fucking ship we’re stranded on!”

“Virgil!” Gwen pleaded.

“Virgil, don’t do this,” Shon managed to say evenly.

“Don’t do what, Shon? Don’t do what?” He got right in Shon’s face, shrugging Gwen’s hand off his shoulder. “Your people, Shon, your people destroyed our planet--you guys annihilated planet Earth. It’s gone, Shon! Gone! Gwen and I can never go home.”

Shon acquiesced with just a gentle, self conscious nod.

“So you’ll excuse me,” Virgil continued, “if I get irritated at the insensitivity of you coming over here expecting us to smile and enjoy your company. Today of all days!”

Shon remained motionless. He struggled to control his instincts, every fiber of his being wanted to violently defend himself and his honor. “Virgil, I--”

“You what?” Virgil spat.

“I do not wish to fight you, Virgil, but I will remind you,” Shon continued in hopes of quelling his neighbor’s irrational anger toward him, “that in the Earth-year 2073 your planet was in chaos. Its natural resources were depleted, the population was unsustainable, and the governing body overseeing the wellness of Earth decided it was time to aggressively explore those planets identified by NASA’s Kepler II satellite telescope as being Earth-like.”

“And?” Virgil shifted his feet and placed both hands on his waist. He’d heard this argument before.

“And, it was Earth that launched the first salvo against Kooyan. We simply retaliated in self defense. It was the weakened state of your ozone that destroyed your planet, not us. We had no idea our attack would level such dire consequences.” Shon sensed Virgil was calming down; his pores no longer emitted the testosterone-rich musk that triggered Shon’s scales into action. His scales began to settle down. “Virgil, this is why you and thousands of other Earthlings live aboard this ship and others like it. We know the devastation our counterattack caused.”

Gwen reached again for Virgil’s shoulder as he dropped his head in defeat. To Shon she said, “It’s been an emotional day. We’re trying.”

Shon nodded as he shrugged his suit fully on. “I will leave you now,” he said and turned to unlatch the door.

“Shon, wait,” Virgil said. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not your fault. I just...”

“I know,” Shon said, assisting his neighbor--it would seem he had a better grasp on Earthling behavior than perhaps once thought. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow you will come next door and dine with Malia and me.”

“Sounds great,” Gwen said. “And thank you.”

The double entendre was not lost on Virgil. Shon was a good neighbor, and in the deep recesses of his mind Virgil knew they were lucky, as Earthlings, to have had the Kooyanians as neighbors. Despite Earth attacking first, for the rich Kooyan natural resources, the Kooyanians remained steadfast in their refusal to let the human race die off. They’ve kept us with them. They’ve embraced us as one of them--as fellow Milky Way Galaxians.

Not The Heisting Kind

“Son of a bitch!” John slapped both hands against the wood paneled door.

“What?” I asked, spinning toward him.

“The stupid door.”

“What’s the problem?”

He glared at me over his shoulder. “It’s locked.”

“Locked?”

“Yeah, locked.” He turned fully around and kicked the door with the heel of his foot. “Shit.”

“Who locked it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s self-locking. Maybe you locked it. What matters is it’s locked and we’re on the wrong bloody side.”

John, or Johnny D as he’s known in the neighborhood on account of his getting straight D’s through grade school, was the official leader of our gang. I say ‘official’ in the sense that his leadership was uncontested – no one else was interested. Where John lacks the intelligence to pull off better grades or, say, operate an ATM, he makes up for with street smarts. Petty crimes? John’s your man, we’re your gang: knocking off corner conveniences, shaking down food vendors, muggings, that sort of thing.

That’s why, when this heist was brought to us, I was naturally surprised when John pushed us to move on it. It felt like someone asking a basset hound to go up against a team of greyhounds in a quarter-mile sprint. The idea of burglarizing a mansion out in the suburbs seemed ridiculous. It was simply not something we did.

“I didn’t lock the door,” I offered.

“I don’t care. Let’s just figure a way out. I think the oxygen’s thinning in here.”

“It’s a wine cellar, John, not an air-tight vault. The oxygen’s not thinning.”

“You want to argue with me now?”

“No,” I said. “Where’s Mick?”

“He’s probably upstairs rooting through the fridge.”

“He’ll find us.”

“Not if he’s eating.”

“Eventually he’ll come looking for us.”

“I think you put too much stock in Mick. Odds are, we don’t come get him, he’ll figure he’s not needed and just sit down like a lump – maybe even fall asleep - the dumb ass.”

Mick was the third member of our gang. Picture the stereotypical not-so-smart-but-sweet-as-pie hulk of a man. That’s Mick. I sometimes wonder why he’s involved with us; his demeanor is at constant odds with what we do. If John or I ask him to hold a guy while we rob him, he’ll bear down with the unmovable force of an African Bush Elephant, but he’ll always be polite: “I’m not hurting you am I?” “I’ll do my best not to wrinkle your shirt, okay?” These niceties are constantly met with bewildered complacency. No one expects a walking minivan with a face like an abused fire hydrant to be so civil.

Mick’s downfall, however, is his appetite. The guy can eat. He tips well over three-hundred pounds, and if he’s not sitting down to eat, he’s on his way to the table. This is not to say he’s just some big glob; he spends hours every day at the gym pressing iron in all directions. He’s a massive solid man who requires constant fueling. So it’s not beyond the realm of comprehension to suggest Mick could, at this very moment, be eating and not thinking about us at all.

“So, what you’re saying,” I began with an even measure of calm and angst, “is we’re screwed and on our own.”

John nodded. We stared at each other for a long moment, and then frantically began looking for a way to break out.

I started scanning the racks and walls for a set of keys or a how-to-open-door instruction booklet. “So, just how did the door end up locked?” I asked, tilting my head toward John.

“I don’t know! It just shut on its own. I grabbed for the knob, but it won’t turn,” John explained. “I pushed on the door, but it won’t budge.”

“Hmmm.”

“Go ahead,” he said, stepping aside, perhaps sensing my slight disbelief, “you try.”

I backed as far from the door as the room would allow – about four yards. I gauged the target and took off, pumping full tilt, and at the last moment leapt at the door Bruce Lee style, my left foot forward, heel angled for a perfect strike, whistling through the air like a laser-guided missile. Contact!

Door strong like Ox; ankle fails to support and buckles; knee gives up on keeping a straight leg and collapses; body folds in on itself; failed knee slams into sternum blasting the air from chest. I ended up on the floor in a sick fetal position gasping for air and holding my left foot.

“What the fuck was that, Karate Kid?” John stood over me shaking his head.

“Enter the Dragon,” I gasped.

“Quit fuckin’ around and help me find a way out of here.”

“For... I was... Just...” I struggled to sit up. John looked at me with a thoughtful expression, as though sizing me up for a helmet. “Catching breath,” I whispered, patting my chest for emphasis.

He shrugged and grabbed the wine rack he stood beside and shook it, bottles rattling, testing its sturdiness as he sized it up. “We’re supposed to be stealing these, not locked in here with them.”

I rolled on to my hands and knees and studied the floor waiting to regain a normal breathing rhythm. How did I end up here? Not here on the floor, but here, as in living my life with two felonious childhood mates running about town for a few stolen dollars? How did I end up here?

My name’s Jay, Jason C as I’m known around the neighborhood for the fact that my last name is Castaneda. Of me, John, and Mick, I most definitely rank as the most intelligent (my attempt at the door notwithstanding), best looking, and the coolest. I know how to keep it together.

“John, I think my foot’s broken.”

“Serves you right, Jay. Did you really think you’d bust through like some superhero?”

Standing with most of my weight on the foot I knew for sure wasn’t broken and leaning against a wine rack, I shrugged at John’s rhetorical question.

“Come on Jay, you’re supposed to be the brains. Figure this out.”

I swiveled on my good foot and refaced the door. “MICKY!”

“Really? That’s your plan?”

“MICKY!”

“Are you done?”

“Do you think he heard?”

“No,” he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and then leveled them back at me. “Were you paying any attention when we came down here?”

“Huh?” My ankle was starting to swell.

“We came down two flights of stairs. Mick’s two floors up, probably in the kitchen at the front of the place.” He gestured wildly with his hands, loose locks of hair danced around his forehead as he continued making his point, “Odds are, if he heard anything, he’ll think his food is talking to him: ‘Mick, eat me first, Mick...’” He snickered at his own joke.

I turned back to the door and punched it. The pain was instant, “Damn it!”

“Nicely done, Kill Bill,” John said with a chuckle. He watched a lot of movies, even though he constantly got the stories mixed up. In his addled brain, it was Rambo who destroyed the guns of Navarone.

“You know, I think we could wiggle-walk one of these racks away from the wall and tip it against the door,” John suggested. Sometimes he surprises me with his turn of phrase. Wiggle-walk?

“I hit the door with a lot of force, John. If it didn’t open from my impact, a wooden rack tipping into it from a few feet away isn’t going to do the trick either.”

“Well, fuck!” He slammed his open palm against the rack he’d been eyeballing, “Should we just sit here with our thumbs up our asses?” Again with the rhetorical line of questioning? “Or do we keep trying to escape?”

“I think we should crack open a bottle and mull over our options.” John grabbed the first bottle within reach and tossed it to me.

“Do you have a corkscrew?” I asked.

“You ever know me to carry a corkscrew?”

I looked around the room, my eyes searching for an opener of any sort. I gave up. “Should I just crack it open?” and mimed swinging the bottle down like a hammer. “You know, just bust the neck off?”

“Good luck.”

I held the bottle with both hands, one hand a little more sure of itself than the other, and after a three-count swung the bottle’s neck down on a cross piece of the nearest rack. The bottle shattered entirely showering my legs and shoes in burgundy. I jumped back from the catastrophe like a house cat jarred into action by an oncoming Jack Russell Terrier. I danced around hoping to shed the wine before it soaked through.

John laughed at the spectacle. “You tit,” was all he could manage to say between guffaws.

“Fuck me!” was all I could say.

“You want to try that again?” John asked, his hand on another bottle.

“No,” I replied. I took stock of my current state: mangled foot, twisted ankle, bashed hand, a chest bruise for sure, all topped off with a good waist-down soaking of red wine. How did I get here? “I think I need a doctor, John. I think my ankle may be broken.”

“Think of a way out and we’ll get you one.”

I thought about it. I scanned the cellar for anything that would serve to get us out. “There’s got to be a way out! I mean, would some guy really build a wine cellar that could so easily trap someone? Does that make any sense?”

“Don’t ask me, what do I know about wine rooms?”

“Cellars, they’re called wine cellars.”

“See?”

I continued surveying the room, paying particular attention to the walls and dimensions of the room. Then I had a thought, “John, this back wall and this side wall,” I pointed to and fro, “although they’re paneled in wood, are likely concrete, right?” My thought being, in recollection, this wine cellar was built into the corner of the sub-basement we’d stepped into off the stairs.

John nodded thoughtfully, “Yeah, probably.”

“So then, it stands to reason, this wall here is just studs and drywall, right?” I patted the wall like an old friend - an old friend I intended to smash in the face for ruining my day.

John nodded. “What’re you thinking?”

“Well, the door’s thick and heavy because it’s anchored to concrete, but maybe we can bust through the drywall here.”

“Have at ‘er.”

I looked at John with contempt, “Come on, man, I’m a mess here,” and I gestured with my good hand at my condition like a salesman pointing out the flaws in a used car as though they added character and warranted sympathy versus a cheaper price or a look at something newer. “Feel free to chip in and help me out, asshole.”

“Love to, but, when we do get out of here, someone has to carry these bottles to the van. I’ll help you, but I’m not gonna fuck myself up.”

“Fine. Just stand back, I got this.”

I hunched down like a linebacker, square to the target wall, pressed my weight into my good foot and tensed my shoulders, preparing to charge. On a silent count of three I lunged at the wall with the fierce determination of a lion pouncing on a lame gazelle. To my bitter surprise, it turned out my good foot was planted in the pool of red wine. The moment I summoned the thrust of power, my foot slipped back pitching my entire body forward like a broken catapult. I tried bracing for impact with my arms, but wound up hitting the wall head-first instead. I slid down the wall, scrambling like a lunatic, hoping for a purchase before I wound up doing a lip-stand on the floor. No luck. Floor, meet face. Nice to meet you, face. What are you doing down here? Fuck off, floor.

I rolled onto my back and used my one good hand to map the damage I’d done to my face. My nose didn’t feel right. John stood there, open-mouthed, and staring.

“Holy mother of God, what’s the matter with you? If I had a gun I’d shoot you now, put you out of your misery.”

“Thanks, that’s helpful. I think I broke my nose.” I gently pressed on it and screamed.

“Yeah,” said John helpfully, “sounds broken to me. I think you need to stay put, or I’ll end up having to drag your lifeless corpse out of here.” Only John would feel the need to liven up the word ‘corpse’ with the word ‘lifeless’.

Just then the door swung open and in stepped Mick. He held a sandwich in one hand as he looked down at me. His eyes registered shock as he announced, “Holy shit,” and rushed in, bending down next to the heap on the floor – which was me. “What the hell happened to you?”

“I know,” John offered before I could answer, “the guy’s a fuckin’ mess isn’t he? You know, Mick, I think we need a new partner. Jay’s a hot-headed loose cannon...” Shnick-click. “Fuck! The door!”

I rolled my eyes. “You have got to be kidding me,” I said through my clotted nose. John and I glared at Mick. He calmly took a bite of sandwich, mayonnaise oozing between his fingers.

“What about the door?” Mick said absently looking over his shoulder.

“We’re locked in here, damn it!” John said. “Now that you’re in here too, we’re triple-fucked. The oxygen’s definitely thinning!”

“What are you talking about?” He shoved the remainder of the sandwich in his mouth, turned to the door, and put a mayonnaise-stained hand on the large door knob. He gently pushed the knob and the door clicked itself free and swung open without effort.

John and I looked at each other, the unspoken question being, why didn’t you know?! I shook my head. John arched an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders, palms open, intimating whadda-ya-gonna-do?

“The door’s like one of those restaurant walk-in refrigerators I love so much,” Mick explained. “You just push the knob to open it – it don’t turn or nothin’ like that.” I wanted to hug him, but it hurt too much.

Mick carried me out the front door of the house. I'd have to wait half an hour to see a doctor; John was determined to empty the cellar, now that he knew the secret to the door.

I eased into the front seat of the van parked several yards from the house, and pressed a cold dishcloth taken from the kitchen onto my face. “That’s the last time we do a job like this,” I said. “It’s too fuckin’ dangerous.”

The Encounter

The Encounter

Synopsis: A simple law firm clerk dreams of a bolder existence. His opportunity to be “the guy” finally arrives, but can he handle it?

Logging off and tossing my empty coffee cup in a bin next to my desk, my day was drawing to a close. I work in the research department of the largest law firm in the city. Most law firms employ legal assistants, paralegals, secretaries, and the like, all of whom aid their lawyers with minor research from time to time. For my law firm, with roughly 90 lawyers under the international corporate umbrella, an entire floor is dedicated to research alone. My domain is this floor.

I long for more.

In the movies, lawyers, and often their staff, all seem bound by exciting do-or-die work. My work is the antithesis of exciting and, apart from a collapsing bookshelf crushing me under a heap of leather-bound legal tomes, life threatening it is not. This is not to say I have no joy for the job: I spend the bulk of every day reading and learning new international laws – the perennial student I am - and enjoy passing the knowledge on to the actual lawyers. I am not delusional about my role either; I realize my services are not indispensable, just convenient, and that’s fine.

For me, becoming a lawyer is far from reality. All the lawyers I know are polished, sharp-dressed and comfortable with public speaking. I am none of these.

Just one day I want to overhear someone in the firm refer to me as “the man” or say “I never knew he had it in him.” I want to walk with a sense of pride that comes from more than knowing how to make spaghetti or iron a shirt.

It had been an average day and I was taking my regular route home: out the front door and half a block east to my regular coffee shop. Back outside, coffee in hand, I dug out my cigarettes and lit one as I continued east and then north a few blocks to access the city’s subterranean catacombs of walkways and subway tracks.

It’s shortly past 5 on a Wednesday; the streets overflow with cars jockeying for position like a litter of piglets fighting over too few nipples, and the sidewalks buckle with the herd of steel valley cattle making their way home. I am a member of the herd, and the herd is not friendly. People bump and knuckle their way past me at all times, my pace is never in tune with the herd.

Half a block into my caffeine-and-nicotine-enriched hike I notice a woman approaching me from the opposite direction. Normally I would pay no heed to an approaching woman - not to be indifferent about the idea of a woman approaching me, it just never happens. But this woman was not to be overlooked. Her icy blue eyes pierced mine with a transfixing gaze. I froze in my tracks, while at the same time noticing the herd giving her a wide berth. Her face was ideal; slender nose, high cheek bones, blonde hair pulled back revealing a long slim neck. I was instantly disarmed of all coherence and yet consciously frightened of the prospect of conversing with such female perfection.

I have a tough time striking up natural conversation with most women. Okay - all women. A runway model such as this would have me speaking an unrecognizable dialect akin to that of an Irishman on St. Patrick’s Day.

As the moments ticked by I realized my staring had become a marathon of several seconds. The thought of forcing my eyes from hers was immediately replaced with the revelation: she’s still staring at me! A face-to-face collision was imminent unless one of us moved. As I sidestepped to my right she came to an abrupt standstill directly in my path. Her eyes remained locked on me.

She continued smiling. Or was she? Sort of, yet little joy could be seen in her eyes. Was she sad? No. Mostly she just stared into me with neither contempt nor disgust – both common responses to my interactions with the fairer sex - just a simple pleasantness coupled with what seemed like a sense of urgency.

“May I help you?” I asked with little confidence.

“This is for you,” she said, extending her arm toward me. My eyes struggled from hers to see, clutched in her manicured hand, an envelope. I had noticed little below her neckline – she could have been dressed as Captain Kirk in snowshoes for all I knew. My eyes returned to hers.

I was reluctant. Who is this? What’s in the envelope? Why is she giving it to me? While these questions tumbled through my head, I dropped my cigarette to the pavement and took the envelope from the woman’s hand.

My eyes pulled from hers again to locate the discarded cigarette. Grinding it out with the toe of my shoe, I brought my eyes back up to her.

She was gone, walking away as purposefully as she had arrived. I stood there, my eyes darting back and forth from the back of her head to the envelope in my hand.

Okay, what is this? Do I care? Should I open it? Should I turf it to the curb?

No. This was it.

I needed to safeguard this envelope and examine its contents. The middle of a busy sidewalk is not the place for a careful examination, and with the woman gone, the herd was resuming its attack on my personal space.

I need privacy. I’ll find a quiet bench a few blocks north. No, east. No. There’s no privacy anywhere on the streets in this city. Wait. Why not just get home? Too far, the package may be urgent, and I may need to return to my office. How about the coffee shop? Yes. Perfect. The coffee shop’s washroom will be perfect – a single room with a locking door.

Gripping the lip of my coffee cup between my teeth, I lifted the back of my jacket and stuffed the envelope into the waist of my pants at the small of my back. The envelope was not simple and flat like a bill from the electric company or a letter from Grandma; it was slightly larger, padded with some definite bulk. There was something significant within, and I could feel its coolness through the material of my shirt.

Coffee back in hand, I was now acutely aware of the herd closing in, getting pushier. Suddenly my left leg buckled and I staggered sideways.

“Sorry pal,” tossed a suited man over his shoulder while stepping past me. His briefcase had nailed me in the thigh, leaving me with a leg-numbing charley horse.

“No sweat,” I said struggling out of my leg-favoring hunch, “I’m all good.”

He was already fading back into the herd.

I stepped off the sidewalk to consider my next move. Standing in the gutter between moving cars and moving people, I checked for the envelope – still there. I need to be more careful; the woman may have been followed and anyone could easily relieve me of the envelope. The woman, whoever she is, trusted me. Perhaps she knows the firm I work for, but doesn’t trust anyone there. She knows I’ll know how to handle the contents of this envelope.

I began moving with caution back toward the coffee shop when a sharp blast of noise stuck my ears with such force I leapt off the street and fell to the sidewalk. My coffee flew from my hand, landing like a weak water balloon and soaking my pant leg. A delivery truck hugging the curb felt its duty was to coax me back into the herd, off the street. It worked.

I brought myself up to one knee and checked the envelope again. Now a hand was on my shoulder – another on my elbow. I was being helped to my feet. As I stood I turned to see an old man wearing a flannel coat and a Greek fisherman’s hat. “You okay friend?” he said.

“Fine. Good. Thanks.” I was aware of him staring at me a little too intently, and although I was now at my feet, he still held my elbow.

“Drivers in this city are assholes. Every one of ‘em,” he said, spittle forming at the corners of his mouth.

“It was my fault. I was on the road. I just hate the horns.” I tried moving away.

The old man held firm to my elbow. “You sure you’re okay? You seem a little shaken, sort of pale in the face.”

“I’m fine, I have to go,” I said, twisting my arm slightly in hopes of relieving it from the old man’s grip.

He let go. I turned with relief and waded back in to the herd moving toward the coffee shop.

“Asshole! You’ll regret this one day,” came the old man’s voice.

I looked over my shoulder. The old man stood staring back at me with his fist in the air.

“Thank you!” I yelled back at him. What else was I to say? And what did he mean by “regret”? Regret what? I checked the small of my back. The envelope remained.

Safe from the street and now back inside the coffee shop, I figured the only way I could slip into the washroom unnoticed was to actually buy another coffee. Standing in line I noticed a woman on my left next to the espresso bar staring at me. I looked away. Why is everyone staring at me?

After a few beats I casually rolled my head back in her direction.

Still staring at me she asked “You okay?”

“I’m fine, you?”

“What happened to your pants?”

My pants? She knows. I casually followed her gaze. I had forgotten – my left pant leg was soaked, from pocket to knee - the aftermath of my last coffee.

“I just dropped my coffee.”

“You sure you need another one?”

“I do,” ending the conversation with a shift in my stance to look out the window. Since when did so many people pay attention to me? Maybe I’m being followed and my subconscious is heightening my senses for safety. At that moment I felt a light tap on my back. I tensed, clenching my right fist as I turned to my left. A teenaged boy was staring at me, wide-eyed and anxious. I reached my left arm to the small of my back – envelope still there.

“It’s your turn, man,” the kid said, nodding toward the counter ahead of me.

“Thanks.”

The girl working the till was now staring at me. The guy behind the espresso bar was staring. They know. Everyone knows I’m concealing a valuable secret under my jacket and one of these people wants it.

I finally had a fresh coffee, and although I never drink my coffee black, I took this one as is and moved to the back of the shop. I knew where the washroom was from previous visits so I was able to step with purpose.

The washroom was roomy with an oversized white porcelain toilet in one corner, and a matching pedestal sink in another. The walls were painted terra cotta and decorated by a single large framed poster of an elderly man running his hands through a sack of coffee beans. The floors were tiled off-white with accents of turquoise blue.

I put my coffee on the back of the toilet and removed the envelope from my back. I placed the envelope on the edge of the sink and considered its contents for a moment. I figured it like this: she didn’t look dangerous, the envelope doesn’t appear dangerous, and the location of our rendezvous seemed a little too public for the passing of dangerous or illegal items. I took a deep breath.

I picked up the envelope and broke the seal at one end. I pulled back the torn flap to reveal a small, narrow box. Beside the box was another item in clear plastic wrap. The lighting in the washroom lent little to identifying what I was looking at. Instead of reaching in I tipped the envelope over, emptying the contents into the sink.

The box read: “Cavalier Toothpaste”. The other item looked like a toothbrush. A clever ruse.

Still holding the envelope, I gave it a closer examination. Only then did I notice the small Cavalier logo stamped in the upper corner of the envelope. A rather detailed ruse.

I dropped the envelope and examined the box. I opened it, extracting the apparent toothpaste. I uncapped it. It was toothpaste.

This is ridiculous. Toothpaste?

I put the paste and brush back in the envelope and stuffed it in my jacket pocket. I left my coffee and took off.

Back on the street I retraced my steps passing the spot where I encountered the woman. As I neared the next corner I saw her again. She was rounding the corner in the opposite direction so I picked up my pace to catch her. As I came around the corner I was taken aback by a large red, white and blue banner emblazoned with the words “Be Cavalier in Your War on Cavities”.

There she was, standing next to three other women dressed similarly, smiling similarly, handing out similar envelopes to other men and women similar to me.

I guess being the topic of conversation around the office will have to wait.