Adding a Little Levity Page 5
“He’s perfect,” said the prosecuting attorney.
Now, Murray was having trouble finding any more hair on his head to pluck. The image of Ruthie dimmed. He paced the floor, did more research, whimpered, and then concluded that perhaps with a sufficient amount of groveling, he might persuade the sitting judge to excuse him. He called the judge, begged, and pleaded for an interview; after a long silence, the judge said yes. Cartwheels ensued.
Friends advised Murray to tell the judge that he would be unable to remain impartial at a murder trial. Worse, he was not a confrontational person, and if in the minority, could easily cave in to pressure from the majority. Murray prepared well and for the third time would attempt to get himself dismissed.
The judge seemed to be an agreeable fellow, and Murray, hiding his desperation well, launched right in. “I am against all murders, so it will be difficult for me to remain impartial. I am avid reader of murder mysteries, and after every one, I always side with the victim. Also, I can be easily pressured by others. There was this time at work when I knew a zigzag stitch was required, but Uncle Seymour and Uncle Leo both insisted that a straight stitch would suffice, and I changed my opinion.”
“He’s perfect,” said the judge
Murray was devastated. He called Ruthie knowing (hoping?) she would understand. After explaining his predicament and offering several other weeks as vacation alternatives, he heard silence on the other end. “Ruthie? Ruthie are you there?”
For Murray, high hemming season never dragged on as long as this one did. As his jury assignment approached, he tried to think positively. The trial could be intriguing. His fellow jurors might be interesting people. It wasn’t really working.
On the day he was to report for jury duty, Murray woke up, dressed carelessly, ate a bland breakfast, then trudged to the courthouse, head bowed, chin dipping to his chest, and shoulders slightly hunched, still stung by the opportunity with Ruthie that fate had snatched away from him.
After a ten-minute walk made twenty minutes by his lethargy, Murray arrived at the courthouse and read the note posted to the door.
“Due to a conflict in the judge’s schedule, this trial will postponed indefinitely.”
• • •
SECTION 2
LIFE IN THE FAST LANE, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE MY PSYCHIATRIST.
From my humble origins in Queens Village, I burst into the corporate world, determined to rise to the top, only to find that I was claustrophobic and unable to get on a crowded elevator. Harvey Slotnick, a childhood friend of mine and now one of world’s preeminent pescatarians, who carries a 172 average in the Thursday night senior men’s bowling league, suggested I see his psychiatrist. The shrink didn’t help much with my claustrophobia, but he did recommend several companies where the executive suite was located on the first floor.
GOING UP?
Put me in an enclosed space any smaller than the Roman Coliseum, and claustrophobia rears its ugly head. That was before I was treated by the preeminent psychiatrist Doctor Wolfgang Otto von Bleichroeder, world-renowned not only for his seminal research on the psychological effects of bullying on rats during their formative years, but also for curing Fielding Mellish of his nagging self-doubt. The doctor had a quiet way about him but inspired great confidence. Before long, I was comfortably boarding tiny planes, squeezing into crowded elevators, and inserting myself into jammed subway cars. There was no sign of the claustrophobic demon; Doctor B had exorcised it. I would look forward to tight situations, scoff at them, and pity those people around me who were visibly uneasy—I could spot them every time. I was tempted to hand out Wolfgang Otto’s card, but I felt that he might be too pricey.
One day, I was late for a meeting. I sprinted toward the closing doors of a crowded elevator, getting in just in time. The elevator made a half-hearted attempt to rise, but gave up halfway between the ground and first floors. Just another test for which I was well prepared. Although the elevator car was large, there were so many people in it that everyone’s personal space was being violated. I immediately noticed my heartbeat quicken, but I brushed it off as the result of my dash to the elevator. A few drops of sweat appeared on my forehead and ran amok under my arms, but I also attributed this to my recent exertion. Everyone on the elevator seemed to be taking the situation lightheartedly. The fellow behind me, several inches taller than I, began telling inane jokes that everyone thought were funny. Each time he opened his mouth to crack another one, his damp breath, which didn’t smell so good either, would collide with the hairs on the back of my neck and moisten them in the process. Handkerchief in hand, I wiped my neck dry several dozen times in succession, hoping he would get the message, but the stupidity didn’t cease.
Reflected from the inside of the shiny, mirror-like, entombing elevator door, inches from my nose, was my face and the scene behind me. I noted both the laughing expressions of my fellow riders and the growing bulge in my eyeballs. My heart, normally reliable, went a few seconds without beating and then pounded furiously to make up for the work it just missed. I was thankful the closed elevator doors would serve as a barrier, preventing my ticker from flying out of my chest. No more than a few minutes could have passed when my salivary glands forgot about the importance of their role in bodily stasis and caused my throat, mouth, and tongue to become so arid that even sandpaper seemed temptingly moist. Perplexed as to why everyone but me was relaxed about our predicament, I tried to shift uneasily, but space constraints prevented that.
Sensing foam gathering at the corners of my mouth and that urinary bladder control was waning, I frantically dialed Doctor Bleichroeder. I received a voicemail saying that he was in therapy. I was unsure whether he was giving it or receiving it. I dialed eighty-nine more times during the next minute, expecting a different result but not getting one. I would have increased this rate to 109 per minute, but my cell phone overheated and shut down. I convinced the spittlebug behind me to lend me his phone and then dialed it four dozen times before finally getting through to the Wolfman. Although I anticipated some useful advice from him in time to forestall the generation of foam overcoming my ability to clear it, he instead asked me what I thought I should do in this situation.
Gathering myself after the unexpected bursting of several blood vessels in my right eye, I fumed at Doctor B, “I thought I should call you.”
It struck me then, that after ten years and $65,000 worth of therapy, I had never heard the doctor say anything other than, “What do you think you should do?” and “Same time, next week?” even when I asked him to recommend a good Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood.
By now, the noise from my pounding heart was interfering with everyone’s ability to hear the jokes being told, and the sweat patches under my arms had traveled down to my socks. What was I going to do? It occurred to me that I would think positive thoughts. Maybe I did receive some good advice from my therapist—no, now I remember, I read that in Prevention magazine, which if you subscribe for two years, will cost less than sixty cents an issue, a rate somewhat lower than I was paying Doctor B. After several deep breaths, I calmed myself enough to allow my brain to think constructively. My eyes darted to the two people on either side of me, and I wondered if I could eat them if we were still stuck in the elevator after our food supply ran out. Well, that was hardly useful. Then I remembered that, thankfully, I had trimmed my fingernails this morning and would avoid damaging the elevator doors or my fingers when I began trying to claw my way out. So much for positive thoughts, I decided. I will have to remember to cancel my subscription to Prevention once I get out of here.
All of the laughing and joke-telling was interrupted by the sound of periodic whimpering. Everybody heard it. Even I heard it, and we all wondered where it was coming from.
It was me.
I only vaguely remember our extrication. Rescue workers hacked through the elevator doors mere moments before our air supply ran out. Some of my fellow elevator captives kid me, saying t
hat the elevator resumed working properly after four-and-a-half minutes, but I am certain that could not have been true.
Recovery was slow but steady. Within three months, my eyeballs retreated back into their sockets, and my stuttering diminished enough to allow me to order a cup of coffee in public. Intending to pay dear Doctor Bl-Bl-Bl-Bl-Bleichroeder a cordial visit, I gathered together my recent medical records, some pastries, and a baseball bat. When I arrived, I found that his office was boarded up. A kind fellow in the next building told me that the person who used to occupy the shuttered office was Razlan Nicolescu, a Romanian emigre, known in the neighborhood as a skilled carpenter, whose hobby was psychiatry.
• • •
THE JOY OF TRAVELING
Business during the year 2004, which felt much longer than twelve months, had me crossing the Atlantic to the United States from my home in London fifteen times. Squeezed into that schedule were three trips to Japan, further increasing my frequent flier mileage balance and adding to an already unhealthy level of sleep debt. And so it was with a wan smile and some unintelligible murmuring that I greeted my wife’s suggestion to gather up our four children, ages two through eleven, for a year-end vacation to Disney World in Florida.
With undue haste, my wife made our reservations, and we were now just a transatlantic flight (another one) away from jostling with thousands of people competing for the attention of a dozen Disney characters, and the privilege of waiting in line for irrationally long periods of time for a turn on various amusement park rides, lasting a couple of minutes each. The days turned into hours and the hours into minutes, or so it seemed, each day the same, and each evening marked by exhaustion—for the parents only.
I cannot deny that Disney entertains children, and, as always, I enjoyed watching my children have the time of their lives. I even secretly fancied some of the exhibits at Epcot and thought some of rides were thrilling—until we boarded our flight home to London. Following a short daytime flight from Orlando, we left Atlanta on a Sunday night. The accumulation of incessant air travel followed by a week of running after four young children had me bleary-eyed, fatigued, and sobbing involuntarily—but only occasionally. I settled into my window seat, thinking only of sleep. Minutes into the flight, my gentle doze was violently interrupted by the newsworthy announcement—made at a decibel level far exceeding OSHA safety limits—that this flight (like every other one for the past two decades) was non-smoking. Thanks. The Sandman again began to work his magic. Struggling to support the weight of my head and eyelids, I sleepily looked outside the airplane and saw a blue Samsonite suitcase, remarkably similar to the one I checked in, float by the window. Now, I knew just how tired I was; so tired that I was hallucinating.
Before long, I was again shaken from my sleep. Dinner was served. Partway through the meal, the flight attendant took the intercom and announced, “We have a minor technical problem. There is not enough oxygen being sent into the cabin. Do not be alarmed.” What else does one become after a message like that? After a few more tries at saying something reassuring (she was unable to), the captain finally took over and said we were returning to Atlanta because the plane could not maintain cabin pressure above six thousand feet. Apparently, the seal on the cargo door didn’t work properly, and the door was partially open. Well, that explained the suitcase I saw earlier.
We returned to Atlanta, where the captain informed us we were not allowed to deplane because of some arcane customs rule, and that the maintenance crew would work on the plane at the gate. He explained that after the plane was fixed, they would have to test the pressurization of the cabin. During such a test, the doors could not be opened, and if something were to happen—such as a fire—none of us would be able to get out. He wisely reconsidered his position on the custom rules and instructed us to leave the aircraft. The airline offered passengers the option to stay the night in Atlanta, or to wait for the aircraft to be made airworthy. As you might imagine, it was rather difficult to warm up to that particular plane, so we chose to stay in Atlanta.
On Monday night, we shoved off again for London, and on this plane, the cargo door sealed itself like a charm. With only twenty minutes of the flight remaining, the plane was struck by lightning. This pleasurable experience included a loud explosion, a bright purplish flash of light, the rocking of the aircraft, and the flight attendant nearest to me shrieking, “Oh my God!” with her once well-coiffed hair now standing straight up. It sounded to me as if the engines had blown up. I was unconcerned knowing I had my seatbelt fastened. Not a word from the cockpit, then or during the rest of the flight. It probably took at least that long for the pilot to climb out from under his seat and cease his trembling.
Obviously, we landed successfully. As we were deplaning, we overheard one of the pilots animatedly discussing the incident with ground personnel, suggesting that perhaps it wasn’t a run-of-the-mill experience. Sure glad I don’t have to get on another plane for almost a full two weeks.
• • •
THE GANG THAT COULDN’T SHOOT STRAIGHT
They told me on a Friday afternoon, the day before the start of my two-week vacation. When I returned, I would begin working for the European Division of the multinational company that employed me. A transfer to the European Division ranked last in financial performance among all the divisions in the company, was known within the company as the graveyard shift.
Only it wasn’t a shift; it was a three-year assignment. A more suitable description would be the professional equivalent of an elephant graveyard, where careers, instead of elephants, went to die.
The division consisted of fourteen countries, each managed by a seasoned professional of the same nationality. Rounding out the management team were the supervisor of human resources, a British woman so stubborn in her views that she made Margaret Thatcher seem wishy-washy, and me, the lone American, in charge of finance. We all reported to a Swiss-German gentleman, Gunter Blatter, the living embodiment of the Peter Principle, whose social development had sputtered and died sometime around the second grade.
Come to think of it, his cerebral development probably peaked around the same time. Herr Blatter bore a remarkable resemblance—both physically and intellectually—to Sergeant Schultz of Hogan’s Heroes. His thoughts, when he had them, were black and white, nuance as alien to him as showing warmth to a fellow human being.
Tell him a joke or a humorous story, and his eyes would hollow out while his eyelids froze, signaling to the jokester that Blatter’s brain neurons had called one of its customary—and lengthy—time outs.
How he came to be division head of this very large multinational corporation competes with the Bermuda Triangle as one of the world’s great unsolved mysteries. I wasn’t clear about whether Mr. Blatter recognized that each of us felt we must have committed heinous crimes in our previous lives to find ourselves, in this one, as subordinates of his. In his own uncluttered mind, he may have believed he deserved to be boss.
Anyway, here we all were, the European Division managers, ready to be led to greatness or at least to meeting our budget goals. We were an unruly, disparate bunch, and it didn’t help that each member of the team carried with them ancient historical and cultural grudges, some of them at least one thousand years old. Gunter did know how to start and end a meeting on time; however, we actively conspired to negate even those elementary skills.
If the willingness of a group of professionals to run through a wall at the boss’s command is the hallmark of a highly motivated team working for a capable, well-liked, and respected leader, then our dogged hunt for a door was a referendum on Gunter Blatter’s effectiveness.
A typical management meeting, held once a month, conducted in English—although that wasn’t always apparent—began with the French Country Head, Claude Lambert, arriving fifteen minutes late and setting the tone for the rest of the day. Punctuality was sacred to Herr Blatter, a fact that was well known to Claude, who never missed an opportunity to desecrate. A red spot would ap
pear on Blatter’s neck, and, like injected dye, would travel upward until it engulfed his entire face.
Blatter, who had trouble thinking clearly in the best of times, lost control of both mind and speech—and the meeting. This was when we polished up on our German curse words. Claude would smile throughout, as if to remind Blatter who was on the losing end of the two world wars, but also to convey to the boss how unlikely it was that he, Claude, would do anything that Blatter directed him to do. Flummoxed, and determined to get the session back on track, Blatter repeated, for a fourth time, the agenda and goals for the meeting and read some passages from Mein Kampf.
The first manager scheduled to present his financial performance was the Italy Country Head, Aldo Mandolini. At five foot five inches, Aldo was small in physical stature, and small in intellectual stature as well. He gave the impression that he did not know what he was doing or managing, and did so convincingly. Unlike the stereotypical suave, debonair Italian, Aldo’s hair begged for a comb, his suit for an iron, and his breath for a mint.
He always seemed to have just come in from a rainstorm or a tussle with one of his paramours—and that was what he looked like at the start of the meeting. Aldo spoke so quickly and with such a pronounced stammer that no one really knew what he was saying, although it was the considered view of most people in the room that it probably wouldn’t be any different if he spoke slowly without stammering. While speaking, Aldo had a habit of reflexively looking to his right and to his left, probably a vestige of his military days when he was trained to be alert to the signs of a retreating army.
Next up was the Greece Country Head, Stavros Antonopoulos. We all believed that Stav’s wheeling and dealing with his fellow countrymen in the shipping industry (on company time) was earning him far more than the compensation from our company. Throughout the entire meeting, he had a cellphone glued to his ear, gripped tightly by fingers yellowed by the overuse of filterless Camels. When called upon by Blatter, he shrugged while pointing to his cell phone, and he left the room, intending to project a sense of courtesy to the rest of us, which no one ever bought. Blatter’s eye twitch usually worsened. Only when we were onto a new topic would Stav reappear in the conference room, invariably cursing the Turks under his breath for causing his absence. No one bought that either.