Weird Relativity

The law firm Max worked for occupied three floors of one of the tallest buildings in downtown Los Angeles. It was thirty-two stories high and was considered somewhat of a novelty when it was new. The elevators in the parking complex took you to an area that was below ground level. This area contained several fast food places, a large bookstore, a barbershop, a shoeshine stand, an optometrist, and some small, retail establishments. At ground level there was an enclosed plaza. The plaza was like an artificial canyon that was surrounded by the soaring walls of the building, and it had skylights that allowed the sun to bath it in a warm glow. To the south of the plaza was a large department store. To the east was a hotel belonging to one of the major chains. The fine restaurants at the hotel were considered a good place for the power lunches favored by the business executives and the lawyers who occupied the offices to the west of the plaza. The corporation that owned this building boasted about it being like a small town. “It contains just about everything a person needs,” its spokesman said. This made it a good location for the offices of the attorneys who practically lived at their firms. But, as Max would soon learn, the building had a bad reputation for unexpected events.

Max and another associate of the law firm, Gini, were sitting in his office. They had just finished discussing a motion they were collaborating on. She stood up to leave. He expected her to turn toward the door, but she hesitated.

“Something weird is going to happen,” she announced.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because something weird happens about once a year, and we’re overdue.”

“What do you expect to happen?”

“I don’t know. It varies from year to year.”

“Are you thinking of something like the earthquake that trapped all those people in the elevators last year?”

“Yes. The quake itself wasn’t that weird. What was weird was that it struck at four- twenty on a Friday, and everyone who was capable of restarting the elevators had left work early. Those poor people were stuck in the elevators for over four hours!”

“That must have seemed terrible and weird to the people who were stuck,” Max said.

“I’m sure it did.” She turned and started walking to the door. She tossed the words over her shoulder at him. “Be careful, Max!”

Max laughed and said he would, but he could help thinking that she was making too much of this once a year thing. Several hours later he got up to go to the men’s room. He was walking past the receptionist when a small earthquake struck. Since the quake was nothing of consequence he ignored it and kept walking. He was returning to his office when he looked over at the receptionist. She seemed to be very concerned about something.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. I was just sitting here when the whole building started shaking!”

“It was an earthquake.”

“There was an earthquake?”

“A little one. Nothing to be afraid of.”  

“Oh, thank God! I thought I was having a stroke or something, and you’re the reason why.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You showed no reaction at all. You just kept strolling along as though nothing was happening. So I thought it must be me.”

“Well, you get used to those little bumps after a while.”

“Maybe you’re that used to them, but normal people react to them.”

Max laughed. He thought weird was a relative thing. What some people find weird can seem perfectly normal to other people. What Gini thought of as weird had to be more monumental than the little bump of an earthquake, it had to be something that would have a greater impact on people.

It began with the arrival of a small woman with fire red hair. Her name was Trudy. She was a secretary. A temporary agency sent Trudy to the firm to fill in for Gwen, who was on maternity leave. Trudy was wearing a navy blue skirt and a matching jacket that covered an austere white blouse. The outfit resembled the dress uniform of a female sailor. Reinforcing this image was the purse she carried. It could have easily served as a sea bag.

The office manager, Vera, escorted Trudy to the cubical where Gwen worked. Trudy set the heavy sea bag on the floor. She then sat down in the chair and began fiddling with the lever and knobs in an effort to adjust the chair to her liking.

“I’ll let you get settled,” Vera said. “Call me if you need anything.”

“I need something now. This chair won’t do. It’s too uncomfortable, and I can’t adjust it to the proper height for the keyboard.”

Vera rolled her eyes and hailed her assistant. “Try to make her comfortable,” she told the assistant.

Vera walked off, leaving the poor assistant to her task. The assistant hauled five chairs down to the work station from the storage area. She brought one chair at a time, and Trudy complained about each and every one of them.

“Sorry, but that’s all we have.”

“I don’t know about this. It’s going to make my job very difficult. Are you sure you don’t have any suitable chairs?”

The assistant resisted the temptation to say that other people found the chairs quite suitable, and said yes, she was sure.

“Well, if I have to use one of these, I guess this one will have to do.”

“Good.” The assistant began the process of carrying the rejected chairs up to the storage area.

Trudy took the pictures of Gwen’s family and Gwen’s other personal items and piled them in a corner of the cubical. She then reached into her sea bag and removed an old movie poster for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne. The poster depicted the Nautilus being attacked by a giant squid. If there is one thing you have to say about Trudy, it is that she came prepared. She had a box of tacks and a small hammer she used to tack the poster up on the back wall of the cubical. When she was through with that task, she pulled out a dust cloth and proceeded to dust the already clean work station and every item in it. It was as if she was preparing for some sort of inspection.

Charles walked up to her and handed her several tapes of his dictation. “Transcribe these for me,” he said.

“How soon do you need it?

“As quickly as you can do it.”

“That’s going to be difficult in a place so disorganized.”

“Start on it now, and give me your best effort.”

Trudy jammed the tape into the machine without further comment. She put on the earphones and glared at Charles to let him know she did not want him to watch her work. She had just finished typing the first page when she stopped. She reached over, picked up the receiver of the phone, and dialed Charles’ extension.

“This won’t do,” she said.

“What won’t do?”

“The light above me.”

“Did it burn out?”

“No, it glares! You have to replace it immediately.”

“It’s the standard light. It’s all we have.”

“Well, it has to be replaced.”

“It can’t be replaced. You’re going to have to live with it.”

“I can’t!”

“Look, if you can’t work here, I’ll have to ask Vera to find someone who can.”

“So that’s how it’s going to be!”

“That’s how it is.”

“Fine!” And she hung up on him.

In spite of all her complaining, she was an accomplished typist. She quickly and accurately transcribed the dictation. She then walked into Charles’ office and set the transcription on his desk without uttering a word. He watched her return to the cubical. She looked down at her watch, shading that instrument with her hand in an effort to shield it from what she considered to be the excessive glare of the overhead light. There was less than an hour left of her workday. She clucked a few times and set about rearranging everything in Gwen’s desk to make it “more efficient.”

When Charles went to give her more dictation the next day, she was wearing the same type of navy blue clothes and a green eyeshade. It was the sort of eyeshade worn by accountants in another era.

“What’s with the eyeshade?”

“The glare,” she said. “I told you that light had to be replaced.”

“And that’s your way of dealing with it.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, but what’s with the poster? Do you really think it’s appropriate for a law firm?”

“Of course it’s appropriate. As an English major, I can tell you it’s a classic novel and a classic Disney film. Why wouldn’t it be appropriate?”

Charles just rolled his eyes and walked away. There are some things you do not want to stir up. He had lunch with Max and Gini, and he used it as an opportunity to vent. He characterized Trudy as a flaming pain in the ass.

“She has that damn poster on the wall, and with the exception of the awful green eyeshade, she’s dressed like a sailor. She and the poster are clearly visible to any client going to the conference room or my office. How am I going to explain her to our clients?”

“I’d introduce her as Captain Nemo,” Max said.

“Have you complained about her to Vera?” Gini asked.

“No. The problem is that she’s very competent at what she does.”

“Then I guess you’re going to have to put up with her.”

"I’m afraid so.”

People were allowed to smoke in their offices back then, and cigarette smoke wafting out of the doors of the offices was far too common. When Charles returned to his office, he leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette. Trudy’s nose twitched once, and she pointed it at the sky like a hound that was about to bay at the moon. She quickly picked up the receiver of her telephone and dialed Vera’s extension.

“This is Trudy, and I smell smoke!”

“Smoke?”

“Yes, and it’s thick!”

“Oh, my God!”

There was no small problem as far as Vera was concerned. She treated anything that went wrong as though it was going to instantly trigger Armageddon and no one was going to have a chance to repent. She raced out to the hallway and set off the fire alarm, thereby causing the evacuation of the entire building. The people on the floors above the law firm hiked up to the roof. The people on the floors below the firm made a dash for the street. The fire engines quickly arrived, and firemen were soon climbing the stairs to the law firm. It took the better part of the day to sort out what had happened. Fortunately for Vera, the partners of the firm were fairly tolerant about such things, and everyone had a good laugh over it.

“Was that weird enough to qualify as this years thing?” Max asked.

“I hope so,” Gini replied.

The next day Charles entered Max’s office. His face was as white as a ghost’s, and he plopped down in a chair as though he was carrying the weight of the world.

“You’ll never guess what that creature just did!”

“You mean Trudy?”

“That would be her. She thought there were still some grammatical errors in the motion I had just edited, so she rewrote the entire thing! She said she wanted to make it more readable.”

Gini walked into Max’s office in time to hear Charles’ complaint.

“I guess she was trying to be helpful,” Max said.

“Either that, or she was trying to gain some recognition,” Gini said.

“I don’t care why she did it. It’s really dangerous when a layman, who does not know the words of art, starts rewriting legal motions. I have to rewrite the whole thing, and the partner wants it this afternoon. What the hell am I going to tell him?”

“Tell him Captain Nemo nuked it,” Max said.

Charles laughed but there was no joy in it. Gini looked at him sympathetically.

“Did she destroy the tape of your dictation?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why don’t we have my secretary transcribe it, and Max and I will help you edit it.”

“You’re life savers, but I’m still going to tell the partner that Captain Nemo nuked it!”

“I hate to see her get fired, but I can’t say that I blame you,” Max said.

Given the mix of personalities involved in the Trudy and Vera fire drill, the event was not all that weird. This made Max think about the population of the building. There were a lot of people there, and there were many interactions between diverse personalities. He found it amazing that weird things did not happen more often. “Maybe they do,” he thought. “Maybe we don’t hear about them because they don’t impact a large number of people. Charles thought Trudy’s rewriting of his motion was weird, and the receptionist thought my lack of reaction to the earthquake was weird. All of which confirms my opinion that weird is relative.” This made him laugh. “It’s my theory of weird relativity. You won’t find in a book, but it’s certainly a part of life.

First published in macsbackporch.blogspot.com on Apr. 22, 2009