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.