File Clerking

By the next afternoon, however, I am cautiously optimistic. It was sort of nice to chat with Sonia over breakfast; maybe too easy and pleasant, because it started reminding my of last year, when it was all nice and companionable before all the trouble started. In any event, after coffee, Sonia raced off to school and my painstakingly boring daily routine went off as planned. At 7:57 a.m., I got on the same bus I always take to work. I read all of the local news in the San Francisco Chronicle in the same order as I always read it on the bus. By 8:30 a.m., I had arrived at my beloved most boring job in the world

I am a file clerk at a law firm. I am really good at this because I have a superior command over the alphabet and have always had a weird love of sorting things. Nobody ever talks to the file clerks: they just leave files for me in a big stack that I deal with alone in the file room all day every day. Sometimes they have me do really basic research, like any high school kid could do for a paper. It is nice and quiet and provides just enough busy work that I am never really left alone with my thoughts.

After lunch, though, it all starts going to hell. First, a secretary comes in to talk to me. Nobody ever talks to me, so this seems all wrong. “I need you to start a new file,” she says. “Chandler.”

I frown, because this is my missing friend Mike’s last name. It’s a common name, I guess. “Is Chandler the plaintiff or defendant?” I ask, starting to fill out a new file information sheet.

The secretary sits down, eager to gossip. “Oh, you haven’t heard? Mr. Chandler is the best friend of one of the senior partners. He is super rich and we helped him after his son got kidnapped a long time ago.”

This can’t be my friend Mike’s father because I 1) wouldn’t I know if Mike were really rich? and 2) if Mike had ever gotten kidnapped, I would never hear the end of heroic tales about it when he got drunk. Still, I am starting to feel kind of weird about this whole thing. “So what’s the deal with the new Chandler file?” I ask.

“Here’s the thing. No one knows. The partners won’t even let us in the room when they are talking about it.”

“Okay,” I say, ready to stop gossiping. “Well, I guess that’s less work for us.”

The secretary giggles. “One more thing,” she says. “They asked me to have you order background checks on Mr. Chandler’s two sons, Sam and Mike, and to also look for information regarding either of them in the files back here.” She closes the door quietly behind her.

Mike Chandler, heir and ex-kidnapping victim. I’ll be damned. I head over to the filing cabinet.

Geo. Kayes

Geo. Kayes is a divey little bar, populated by a mix of old alcoholics from the neighborhood and local art students.  Because I am clearly in the first category, I arrive a little early to have a drink before Sonia arrives.  I sit in my usual seat, the one right by the window.  When I first started coming here, there was a sign above this stool that said “Reserved for Wendell” and I once got kicked out when Wendell, a sweet little white-haired man from the neighborhood, showed up.  But then Wendell died, and we were all very sad in the bar, and I have been sitting at his stool recently.

The bartender brings me a Maker’s Mark manhattan before I say anything.  One thing about this bar: if the bartender likes you, he will bring you a shaker full of your drink along with the glass, like they do with ice cream sodas at some old diners.   Sonia is late and she keeps looking over my shoulder at the window when she finally shows up, like she expects to see someone who she doesn’t like walking down the hill towards the bar.

I sip my drink and wait for her to say something.  I think about whether I have been drinking too much whiskey.  Someone once told me it would give me wrinkles.

“I know where he is,” she finally says.  “But I can’t tell you.”

I wait.

“I can’t go home,” she continues.  “They’ll get to me.  Can I stay at your apartment tonight?”

As she talks and talks about how she would never normally ask a favor like this and how she will pay me back etcetera etcetera, I can see the boring life I’ve painstakingly built for myself over the last year fading away.  I miss it already.  I am almost nostalgic thinking about waking up in the morning, filing papers all day (the most boring job I could find), going to bed, and doing it all again.

I suppose it was too good to last.  I finally nod in assent, like she knows I will.  I always seem to, when people like her show up to ruin my life.

Card Club Girl, Continued

When Sonia started playing cards after work, it turned out that she had not learned as much by watching customers as she thought she had. Also it turned out that she was a born gambling addict, and it did not take her long to lose all her vacation savings. After she ran out of money, a middle-aged card dealer at the club let her play on credit. Eventually, Sonia spent all her time driving the middle-aged card dealer around and running his errands, supposedly to work off her gambling debts. She found that she rarely had time to attend her classes. The errands became increasingly sinister, and more likely to involve driving around with silent, sullen men who appeared to be criminals.

Sonia felt that her life had gotten so horrible so fast that she was like a person outside of it all watching a bad after-school special on the danger of gambling. She was too embarassed to ask anyone for help. That is when my friend Mike, the friendly card club customer, became a little worried about her. He shared meals with her a few times and, without asking any embarrassing questions, told her about other job openings he heard of, in other towns or other states. He encouraged her to get out of the business.

Sonia knew that Mike was engaged to someone else, but she could not help falling in love with the only nice person in her life. When they started eating dinner together regularly during her break, she looked forward to it all day. It was also around this time that the middle-aged card dealer noticed the new man in her life, and that is when Sonia thinks the trouble started.

Card Club Girl’s Story

I would learn later that there was no problem with the card club girl’s English.  Sonia had lived in California since she was twelve and was a semester away from a degree from Berkeley in English literature.  Our communication problem was that she was in love with my missing friend and, having caught a fleeting glance of me getting in or out of his car, mistaken me for his fiancee.

As it turned out, Sonia had known my missing friend Mike for a long time.  He was a regular customer at the card club and one of the few customers that was not obviously dangerous or on death’s door for one reason or another, and gradually they became friends.

Working at the card club was a good job for a college student, she thought at first.  She could work at night and take classes during the day, and there was plenty of slow time at work to sit and do her reading for school.  Sonia had vague thoughts of being a writer when she graduated and figured that all of the weird characters who hung out at the card club would be good fodder for a book someday.

As a pretty fresh-faced college girl in a room full of down-on-their-luck old men, she made excellent tips, even though the cusomers were not really supposed to tip anyone.  Gradually she started working more and more hours with the idea of saving enough money for an actual vacation after graduation.  Then she started playing cards, since she had learned a thing or two from watching all the customers.  Then she got a little down on her luck, and that was when my friend Mike intervened.