Take Two and Call Me in the Morning

Take Two and Call Me in the Morning

  By Patrice Stanton

  copyright 2013 Patrice Stanton

  Illustrations (cover & glyphs) copyright 2013 Patrice Stanton

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  This book is a work of fiction and any similarities within it to other persons (living, dead, or fictional), businesses (public, private, non-profit, or fictional), places (actual or fictional), or events (current, historical, or fictional) are purely coincidental. The work (and therefore all elements it consists of) are products of the author’s imagination, so are used fictitiously.

  Dedicated first and foremost to my dear husband, James and, secondly, to all other hard-working, too-often massively underappreciated, American men everywhere.

  Table of Contents

  Section 1 - Late Friday night; inside a single guy's apartment

  Section 2 - same time; outside Ed-Center I

  Section 3 - Saturday morning, early; outside Ed-Center I

  Section 4 - Monday, mid-morning; on the phone

  Section 5 - Somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico

  About the author

  Section 1 -Late Friday night; inside a single guy’s disheveled studio apartment

  The cellphone in Hereford’s pocket beeped sharply, volume increasing after each pair of sounds. A half dozen passed before the man jerked his head upright with an audible boney pop. Fully awake, he rubbed the back of his neck, blinked a few times, then silenced the phone's racket by pressing the thing - through the pocket of a colorful Hawaiian shirt. His nap had been needed for sure, but unplanned. In front of a computer screen was where he spent his working hours; he preferred to take the little sleep he managed to squeeze in outside those hours somewhere less cramp-inducing.

  The slide show of extra-special priced-to-sell-NOW Caribbean island properties continued to cycle slowly and sounds of waves crashing on white sandy shores - the music to his ears that’d inadvertently caused him to drift off to sleep – did the same. He clicked on the one he’d bookmarked back when he’d arrived home. Its cash price had been reduced again by another $100,000. If only, he thought, setting the machine to “suspend” and pushing away from the desk.

  Section 2 - Late Friday night; outside Ed-Center I

  Hereford Bolton IV’s flip-flops slapped the sidewalk with a hollow staccato in the cold night air. Supremely concerned about what must be happening inside his computer lab, he’d left home without even changing into “proper ” footwear. He juggled his tool kit and fast-food sack with Friday’s cold lunch remains, growing uncharacteristically annoyed - the Michelin-man thick ISD-uniform jacket not only decreased his dexterity it made it impossible to hold anything under his arm. To add insult to injury the district’s green policy forbade exterior lighting outside normal work hours so he also held a small flashlight in his teeth. All this just to swipe his ID card and get into the “secure” education facility. It was just shy of midnight on Friday. Just shy of seven and a half hours since he’d punched out for the weekend, supposedly. He glanced up at Ed-Center II, a.k.a. The Tower, the brand new ten-story chrome and glass “sister facility” across the courtyard. I ought to be going to work in the lab over there, he thought.

  It wasn’t like he didn’t expect to be back before Monday. He’d predicted something extra bad would happen this weekend and was just sorry to be right. Friday had been this year’s Bring-Your-Daughter-In-and-Let-Them-Work Day. He of course had no offspring, male or female. But, he wondered, could someone’s have been given access to his work space after he’d left? Messed with his things? He shuddered at the thought.

  His phone alert had come barely fifteen minutes ago and he’d rushed to get there. He’d programmed it way-back-when in a unique multi-stage-of-a-disaster way. After the especially hellacious week he’d just had (he’d practically run from the building at 4:30, even with the dark misgivings of all those kids milling around) he’d cancelled the lower level “warning” alert (even that typically put him in a full Pavlovian state). He knew he had to get some sleep. Had to.

  The error level he’d bumped the phone up to was so high he’d gambled it’d never trigger; figured he’d get a full night’s sleep. He’d joked with friends online that the Ed Centers would need to be on fire before the thing would sound, and that “since he lived practically within walking distance he’d hear the fire truck’s sirens before his phone could even begin to bleep. LOL.” Wrong.

  The narrow flashlight beam struck the “IV” on his card. It glinted. An erroneous t-h following the IV also lit up. The “th” always confused people; they ended up saying, “Here-Ford Bolton EyeVeeth.” He’d tried to get it fixed but those responsible for fabricating such cards seemed unable to read his clear, block-printed forms. So his family names and the proud signifier of their longevity suffered countless indignities in his possession.

  Too bad his great-grandfather hadn’t come from a more exotic place, he'd often mused. Some “old country” from which he’d’ve brought a romantic sounding name and a romantic second language for his ancestors to make political- or financial-hay with. If only.

  “Herf is simpler,” he always said preemptively, “you can call me that.” As he carefully closed his side of the heavy double doors he was annoyed that the District never could seem to find anyone to fill the second full-time tech job he was continually expected to do. He was 30-something and still not making half of what he’d overheard some of the oldtime paper-pushing secretaries in the front office were pulling down.

  “Damn education leeches,” he said aloud as he wiped saliva off the flashlight and stowed in his non-regulation rip-stop cargo-pants’ pocket. He enjoyed hearing his own curses echo down good old Ed Center I’s wide, heavily waxed and perfectly buffed tile floors. It was the town’s “historic” first school building and during a weekday he wouldn’t dare say such things aloud in the “reclaimed” 1950’s school building. He already got enough grief this past week for his supposedly-sudden sour disposition.

  “Hef, sweetie,” a retired school-teacher-turned-“admin” had said, “you’re just too darn cute to scowl so…”

  “It’s, Herf, not Hef…” he’d answered. Of course he’d wanted to add something like, “You’d scowl too, if your job was nothing but dealing with dried up cloned-idiots (like you) and the synapse-free wide-bodied pantsuit hangers like the Big Boss all day. Everyday.” Wanted to but never did.

  “So now I get to come here and clean up their messes every other night, too,” he shouted down the first hall. The automated lighting system had illuminated each space of the re-designed school at his approach. Sensors in each fixture then detected absence of movement behind him and told hidden switches to - in turn - extinguish themselves.

  Very green of them. Course it had cost hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of dollars. “Leeches, ” he muttered. The long, drawn out time of their installation had sure made a mess for the ISD workers, not the least of which was himself – responsible for keeping the “information network’s nerve-center” clean, meaning dust-free, and running.

  Another turn and he entered the appropriately named bowels of the former school. His “office” by usual standards was large. It had been the Teachers’
Lounge. It had been transformed into his very own computer lab although now he longed to set up shop in The Tower’s new space. But, once again “budgetary shortfalls” meant it was still mostly empty and therefore unusable. He’d make do in this one, which despite its age was highly air-conditioned, all year, and extraordinarily clean by virtue of expensive filtered venting - not to mention because access was limited to him alone. At least until they could make someone else a first-offer they’d be stupid enough to accept, too. Like he’d been four years ago…due to school loans and other bills piling up. Oh yeah, and his parents’ ultimatum. Relocate. Now.

  If I ever do get some property in The Islands, he thought, stomping his sandals more than necessary to warm up his cold feet, Mom and Dad will not be on the first dozen guest lists.

  He considered the machinery he was on his way to tinker with – how many hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth he couldn’t say. At a fairer wage he’d added at least a hundred-thousand in overtime “value” to it in the last year alone. Now he could finally admit to what a sad sight it must have been the day his Desperation had met the ISD’s Bloated Bureaucracy.

  When they found Herf no negotiations were needed; it was a match made in budget-cutback Hell. He knew at his hiring- and pay-increase-rate the glittering internet fueled sun and sand dream he spun every chance he got would take a lifetime to realize. Yeah, his disposition was turning sour.

  Even though, so far, Herf had lasted three and a half times as long as the previous he-couldn’t-remember-how-many techs. Girls. Females. Women. Whatever. They couldn’t hack it (pun intended). The nights, the weekends, the necessary expertise. And the constant air conditioning, summer, winter, spring. That didn’t help either. Each woman was a budgetary disaster because by the time it became obvious she wasn’t “working out” the powers-that-be took forever trying to and finally firing her. The result? The ISD went way over budget for several years. Contract computer geeks? Not cheap. Probably what Herf should do if he had the guts, if he could find the nerve. If.

  Finally the lab was just ahead.

  Maybe, he thought as he set his food down, I won't be at it long enough to get hungry. But it always paid to be sure in this place, for once he left, even to grab a drive-up snack, the “system” wouldn’t allow him back in for 12 hours. Without, that is, another qualified employee buddy sliding their card before his.

  Nobody in their right mind would volunteer to come back to the office after midnight on a Friday. For the geek.

  Hereford Bolton IV wasn’t even close to prepared for what “greeted” him once he’d found the right keys, undone the multiple locks, and pulled the door open.

  “Crap,” he said, again to no one in particular. He picked up his food and hefted it a couple of times. “Should’ve said, ‘Yup’ to that double-meal-deal yesterday.”

  A multitude of tiny electronic eyes stared back at him, all unblinking. The green and blue ones, though less numerous than he’d like, were welcome. The yellow ones however sent a chill up his pant leg greater than the arctic blasts continually coming up from the super-chillers hidden beneath the perforated tiles. It wasn’t a legion of demon serpents making the sign of the actual Apocalypse he was sure, there’d’ve been more of a brimstone smell – but in his considerable experience this would likely qualify as an event running up to the Big A.

  Herf went instinctively to his cluttered worktable, clear across the room. He plugged the “8-10 cup” coffee pot in and dumped the waiting carafe-full of water into the reservoir. Understandably he lost track of how many scoops of the precious Jamaican Blue Mountain grounds went into the tarnished permanent filter, scattering some as he looked up at one server then back down to the coffee and up again to the next. His gaze traveled all around the space; he was desperate to find a few, Hell, even one that still had its lights properly lit. No such luck.