12
Tonight a couple makes a visit to their unfinished condo. They enter the dark dwelling. The woman falls down an empty shaft that does not have stairs, yet.
So her boyfriend calls an ambulance.
I suddenly see my job under a new light.
Insurance coverage.
I finally gain insight about why only one security guard works here.
Waiting for the ambulance, as I’m telling the worried man the construction site is a work in progress, with tons of things to trip over, he starts yelling about a lawsuit.
So it hits me again. Insurance coverage.
The ambulance leaves.
I fire up my monster truck and I make for the exit, onto the highway, driving downtown to the public library before it closes at eight.
Once there, I do a quick scan of the computer database for any books about insurance policies. I find a whole list of matches, to be located on the top floor. I practically borrow every book on those shelves, before going back to work.
During my drive back to the construction site, a heavy fog hangs low on the highway. I almost drift into the guardrail.
I get back to the trailer office.
Inside, I read from the insurance books.
I take a short break outside, near a newly built condo foundation, nothing overhead, just four concrete walls. There, below ground level, I smoke crack to better aid my detective skills. My mind begins to race and flutter with a bunch of what-if-scenarios.
I go back to the trailer, refresh my cup from the water cooler, dive straight into those books. One small law book grabs my attention. It explains in one section about permits, what makes a builder liable in case of an injury. It tells how adding a security guard will lower the rate on the insurance policy.
In effect, I learn that my boss, Frank Benzino, created the security post as a way to cut corners money-wise. Just having me on the payroll, protects him legally.
Bingo. Bulls-eye score. Jackpot.
I’m not here to prevent eco-terrorists from another arson spree.
I’m just another coupon in a rich man’s wallet.
Suddenly I get a dark vibe, then a spike of suspicion.
I look all around the trailer for any trace of the crooked underhand.
So I peer into the industrial lights which hang above.
I go through the files in the desk draws, finding only the bill of sales for shipments supplied and delivered.
I measure every inch of the trailer with scrutiny, pacing back and forth, probing the place.
Cameras could be in the lights.
Cameras could be in the computer speakers.
Tiny cameras, the size of pin, could be planted anywhere.
Are the drugs making me paranoid? Is my imagination at work?
I think to myself, I need to calm down.
I step outside and the fog is the thickest I’ve ever seen fog. The main road is one heavy wet cloud. I can’t see my outstretched hand before me.
I walk to the side of the trailer where the utility box connects the phone line. I unscrew the bolts on the box, peeking inside with my flashlight. There are two open lines in the trailer, one for the phone and one for the fax. But when I open the utility box I see a third port that blinks. My first immediate thought, the phones are tapped.
At this very moment, just when I’ve uncovered something sinister, the headlights of a squad car emerge from the haze. The window unrolls and Officer Swain dips his head into the mist.
“Officer Swain, what a surprise to see you,” I say.
My heart drops and skips a beat. I’ve never been so nervous to talk to anyone in my life. His timing catches me off guard. His sudden appearance has a startling effect that ripples through my body.
“Surprise,” the retired cop says. “I thought I might surprise you.”
I say, “A bad night to be driving. Where are you coming from in this fog?”
“Where am I coming from?” he repeats, like the question is meddlesome, like I’m prying into his business. There’s a tense, awkward silence that’s hard to ignore. I swallow a guilty gulp.
The cop says, “I was at the race track. Losing all my money.”
“Oh,” I say, try to console him. “You win some, you lose some.”
“You lose some is damn right,” Swain says. “I’m out five grand.”
I say nothing in return, put a restriction on my tongue, because I don’t believe him about being at the race track.
Then Officer Swain says, “So how are things holding up around here? Good?”
“Yes,” I say. “Good.”
“Goody good,” he says. “That’s what I like to hear.”
Then, to fill the silence between us, I say, “Working every night, I’ve come to find out something about myself.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“That I’m very good at observing and recording.”
The cop forces a short laugh, saying, “I knew you would be, that’s why I hired you.”
Then he turns on me, saying, “What have you observed lately? What have you observed tonight?”
Frightfully, I wonder if he refers to the tapped phones in the trailer.
I say, “As you can see, this fog, it limits my full range of vision.”
“Fog,” he says. “So then, how are you staying busy, in meantime.”
“A book. I brought a book. I hope you don’t mind. Slow night.”
“You know, there are certain organizations that monitor the books you take from the library.”
“Oh, really?” I say, petrified. “I wasn’t aware of that.”
Nervous, I try to lighten the mood with a joke: “Well, it looks like I’ll have to return all my books on bomb making materials, you know, before they track me down.”
The cop doesn’t laugh, tells me he doesn’t enjoy comedy.
Then he says, “Mike, let me tell you something else. What you see at this site is to be shared by only us. No need to publicize anything.”
“Completely,” I say, nodding. “I understand.”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing with the security sheets and you’ll be fine. Those security sheets are very detail oriented. That’s what I like.”
“Okay, sir. I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing with the security sheets. Eyes open at all times.”
“As this place livens up, so should the details.”
“True. That is very true.”
“And you saw nothing out of the ordinary tonight?”
“Nope, just the fog.”
“Goody good,” says Swain. “You’ll do fine with us.”
“Yeah, because I’m always wondering if I’m doing a good job here, providing enough detail—”
But the cop makes a motion, as if he were zipping his lips, sealing his mouth. Then he rolls up the car window. Without saying goodbye, he disappears into the gray.
I actually forgot to tell Officer Swain about the old woman who fell into the basement. I was too nervous to remember. Also, I still refuse to snitch on Vickers.
What remains tonight are the foggy notions of my employer that continue to spring my active mind.
For the rest of the night, I sit under those industrial lights, sitting at the computer workstation, using the internet.
I seek to break down the catchphrase that Carl Busby uses so often. It was something the eccentric old man said to me when I first met him.
“From monks and bells to the nanosecond. Now rise up, boy, rise!”
So I enter those specific words into a search engine: monks, bells, nanoseconds.
On a website about religion, I learn how the Romans were the first ones to develop the concept of the hour as a measurement of time. The Benedictine monks were the first ones to actually utilize it. Like clockwork, they would ring bells every hour to represent a new task, whether it be eating, sleeping, praying, or sweeping the steps. The townspeople who lived in the area surrounding the monastery were quick to adopt the clock device, finding it to be a more effective way of meeting people, traveling, scheduling work times and wages. Thus, a clock tower was built in the center of town for folks to base their lives around every tick. Culture was born.
On a website about computer programming, I discover that a nanosecond is a billionth of a second, faster than a finger snap or the blink of an eye. A nanosecond is the segment of time used in programming a computer. An electric pulse is the amount of time a computer takes to make a decision. A nanosecond is so fast it falls under the level of human perception, so decisions based on this time frame cannot be detected. Human senses can’t even conceive of how quick this is, nevermind weigh those decisions.
I now understand the catch phrase a little more. It’s about the progression from clocks (those monks and their bells) to computers (those decisions made in nanoseconds). From the industrial age to the information age.
The night becomes so quiet. The fog starts to lift.
I feel I hold something against my boss.
I wonder if it’s because he’s rich, and I’m not.
I wonder if it’s because his lie reflects my lie. How his criminal empire makes me examine my own crimes.
I can stand on my head for eight hours a night, just to save my already rich boss more money at tax season.
Right now, I think I hear what might be footsteps on the trailer roof.
I go out to investigate.
I see nobody up there, unless they are sprawled flat.
I wonder if it’s Vickers, fiddling with the tapped telephone wires, up there monkey wrenching.
In a faint ghost whisper, one that whooshes into my ear, I can almost hear Call Busby telling me, “From monks and bells to the nanosecond, now rise up, boy, rise!”