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.