There’s a feeble green light visible through the crack under the door. Otherwise, it looks completely dark in there.
There’s no sound from the other side either, except a faint clicking or clacking, which could be from anywhere really – some office equipment operating nearby but not seen, the secretary tapping her heels under the desk, electrical wires hidden behind a wall and about to short-circuit, ignite rotten dilapidated plaster, explode into an instantaneous inferno that sends dozens of office workers fleeing from the building in panic for their lives…
“The Publisher will see you now.”
The older, still well-built man rises from the waiting room armchair reluctantly, using both hands to hoist his heavy frame from its uncommonly comfortable seat cushion.
If someone were at that moment to offer him a pipe and slippers, to kindle a small fire in a fireplace near his feet, he wouldn’t dream of budging from that chair for all the pay raises or promotions in the world. He would just sit there oblivious to the office setting that surrounded him, and the world at large, for that matter, with all its vainglory temptations, its foul-minded inhabitants, all the backstabbing subordinates who’d do or write anything about a man to boost themselves up the career ladder.
The small brass doorknob turns easily enough in the man’s large fingers. The door, as if made of cardboard, yields instantly to his powerful grip. It feels as if he could rip the flimsy slab of wood from its hinges singlehandedly, toss it to the side and then stride shoulders swinging into the near complete blackness of the Publisher’s office.
But with that first foot not having touched down on the carpet on the other side of the threshold, his sturdy frame tottering in the limbo between light and dark, frozen in time like the X-ray image of a person passing through security at the airport, the man can’t make out where to go.
But he pushes ahead blindly into the shadows where the outline of a small chair can nevertheless be made out in front of a large heavy desk.
The seat is cold and plastic, and there are no arms. So his upper limbs have to hang heavy and limp, his fingertips now and then dangling against the chair’s aluminum legs. He wants to fold his arms across his chest, making tight fists under his armpits, but he’s not in his own office, after all.
Not much on niceties, the man still finds himself making them. Yes, his family is fine, the wife, the kids – hell, even the dog. He himself is in good health, as one can plainly see. No plans for early retirement, No, sir, not that his scheduled retirement was far off. What’s that? So-and-so has cashed out and he’s not much older than me? Well good for him is all that I can say. I only knew him casually, but I’m sure he knows what’s best for himself… as I know I do.
The Publisher was anything but a public man. Everyone who’d worked for him and thus the agency knew this and accepted it without question. The agents wouldn’t question it because their job was to dig down and into, not up and around. All inquiries, orders, and instructions at the agency came from the top, not the bottom… just like their pay.
It wasn’t like some corporation with a board of directors or supervisors. It wasn’t a bureaucracy either. Nor was it a criminal enterprise where fear kept everyone in line. The agency gave its men free rein to pursue their investigations. And it expected from them the same kind of latitude in return.
All the snooping, wiretapping, document requests, interviews and interrogations were conducted with minimum oversight from above. The only thing that interested anyone on top was results, getting the dirt, finding out what the guys behind the guys behind the guys – whoever they ultimately were didn’t matter – had asked for.
And despite all the man’s hard-earned field experience, personal grit, hands-on know-how and in-depth understanding of this never-resting mechanical man-farm of sleuths, sneaks, and surveillance specialists, the operation procedure in place at the agency would continue as it had, with or without him.
There were no whistleblowers in the agency, because every agent was just as interested in keeping his own private life, personal demons, past crimes, and petty perversions as secret as those of his colleagues and superiors.
“Everyone just has to mind his own business,” the man suddenly hears himself say.
“That’s right and that’s the way it has always been around here. Is it my business what you do in your free time or even while at work, so long as you do what’s required? I’m not privy to the contents of your head or heart and have no intention of trying to gain access thereof. It follows that I deny the same access to you or anyone else. The essence of our relationship is a two-lane highway of information and reports going back and forth between us. There are no lights or signposts along the shoulder, but everyone seems to find his way. There are, of course, exit ramps. But once you’re off, you’ll find yourself quickly back on the street, taking the slow lane, with all its annoying stop signs and traffic lights, pedestrian crossings.”
The older still well-built man begins to rise again from his chair, which is small and hard and feels like it doesn’t want to release him. His buttocks and back hurt even after he’s got to his feet. He turns toward the door and is surprised at how dark the room still appears, as if his eyes hadn’t adjusted at all.
He must be getting old, he thinks, but finds the small brass doorknob all the same, and swings the door back and then closed behind him, as if it were made of paper.
Filed by John Smith, February 7, 2018