(time to reflect, perhaps personals ad bit here instead, change scene, or otherwise diverge. Stuff on addiction?)
It was time for Elliot’s move. “Sid!” he called out just as the big, burly man was about to enter the Atlantis Building. He paused and suspiciously eyed Elliot as he approached. “Hey, Sid! I’m glad I caught you. Benny asked me to bring you his rent.”
“Oh yeah?” grunted Sid.
“Sure, I’ve got it right here.” Elliot took a check out of his wallet written on the account of the DC Herald Publishing Company and made out to Sid (Grovestein).
Sid took the check and looked it over with amusement. He chuckled somewhat and said, “Listen, I don’t know you from Adam. I don’t know if you’re part of Benny’s scheme or just some patsy he’s picked up along the way. It’s doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. What I do know is that a check signed by Benny isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. I told him to get me cash by today or else I’d lock him out.”
“Cash!” said Elliot. “He didn’t say anything about cash!”
“Big surprise,” said Sid as he handed the check back to Elliot and turned towards the door.
“Wait, maybe we can work something out.”
“Not with that check,” said Sid.
“But Benny’s out of town! And the check’s made out to you. I can’t cash it. Come on, give me a break. I promised I’d take care of this.” Elliot ran in front of Sid’s path to slow him down. “Look, let’s just go to the bank right now and get the cash.”
“That check’s not worth anything,” Sid said dodging to get around Elliot.
“Then I’ll make it good myself.”
Sid stopped and eyed Elliot threateningly. “You’ll make it good? How?”
Elliot threw up his hands helplessly, “I’ll just have to … well, I’ll cash it at my bank if I have to. You endorse it to me and I’ll cash it at my bank. But you’ll need to show them sopme identification. Come on. Let me make it right for you.”
Sid snorted and said, “Well, Mama told me to never walk away from cash. Now I’m curious to know if he’s got you so turned around in your own head that you’re willing to pay his bills for him. Okay, let’s go.”
“Great. It’s just two blocks from here. I’m just going to call Benny’s wife while we walk and see if she knows how to reach him.” Elliot didn’t call the house, but Benny’s mobile beeper number and punched in a pre-arranged code signaling that Elliot was taking Sid away from the building.
Upstairs in the Atlantis Building, Benny had been directing Sergio and Pedro to stack the various guts of the DC Herald in the twelfth floor elevator lobby in order of priority before moving them downstairs. The most important items included the computer and copy equipment, files of unpublished articles, and names and addresses of contacts.
They had just begun organizing lower priority items when Benny felt a vibrating tickle in his pocket. He pulled out his beeper and read numbers on the LED screen. Good, he thought. Plan 111 seemed to be on track. Plan 222 had some serious weaknesses, and he didn’t even want to think about Plan 333. Benny called out to his helpers, “OK! Let’s go! Vamos! Pronto!” They hurriedly began to move the first load of boxes into the old elevator.
This is where a little planning can turn a menial task such as moving into a work of art. Benny’s greatest talent lay in finding methods of energy efficiency in everyday acts of life. The trick in this case was to maximize the utilization of tools, equipment, and manpower. That meant keeping a steady stream of boxes moving towards and into the truck. One man could drag a load of boxes into the elevator from the office and then drag them into the lobby while the other two were moving the previous load from the lobby to the sidewalk and then handing them up into the truck.
Plan 111 depended on Elliot keeping Sid busy with the promise of money long enough for Benny and the two movers to get as much as they could out of the building before Sid returned. If they ran out of time, the lowest priority items would be simply abandoned. The biggest complication was the uncertainty of when Sid would return and how to get away before he knew what was happening. That’s where Plan 222 came in.
Benny felt a tickle in his pocket and read the numbers 222 on his beeper’s LED screen. He hurriedly dragged one last pile of boxes through the elevator door, which had been straining and banging against the boxes left earlier to block its closing. He paused just for one second for one last nostalgic look at his old digs before mashing the down button.
This was perhaps the hardest part for him. There was absolutely nothing he could do during the one minute or so ride down to the first floor. The instant the doors began to open, he called out, “Sergio! Reverse!” and dragged the contents of the elevator into the lobby. Sergio ran inside to drag just one pile of boxes out to the sidewalk staging area, and then called up to his uncle Pedro, “Ok! El otro camino!” Benny ran inside to hide as Pedro began handing boxes back to Sergio on the sidewalk where they had been just a moment earlier.
Benny correctly predicted that Sid would be in a huff and hurry to return to the Atlantis Building when it became evident that Elliot wasn’t going to get him his promised cash after all.
“What’s all this stuff?” demanded Sid when he reached the van.
“Are you Sid (Grovestein)?” asked Sergio.
“Yeah. What of it?”
Sergio handed Sid a clipboard with an old shipping ticket made out the the DC Herald with the date inconspicuously torn off. “A delivery for The DC Herald. You can sign for it.”
An incredulous Sid roared, “I’m not signing for nothing! I’ve got nothing to do with the DC Herald!”
Sergio held up his palms to his side, “I’ve got to have a signature or else I’ll have to take it back.”
Sid began to walk off. “Well, it looks like you’ve got it all figured out then. Now get this stuff off my sidewalk before I call the cops!” He turned back toward the van when he reached the door to the lobby and bellowed, “And that goes for the stuff in the lobby too!”
“Okay, okay! We’ll take care of it.” Turning to Pedro and motioning with his hands, Sergio said (in Spanish) “Let’s put it all back in the truck.”
Through the cracked stairway door, Benny watched Sid lumber across the lobby into the waiting elevator. Good. It looked like Sid was heading straight upstairs to the Herald office. Benny slipped through the doorway, tiptoed across the lobby, and out onto the sidewalk. Sergio and Pedro were just getting into the truck cab when Benny saw a uniformed man kneeling by the front wheel of the van about two seconds away from clamping on an orange metal parking boot. Benny screamed, “G-G-GAAAAHHH!” The entire street within earshot including the boot man turned toward the source. Benny ran toward him shouting, “Help! A woman is being attacked in there!”…
“Not my problem, man. Call 9-1-1,” said the ambivalent parking enforcer.
Benny strode purposefully to the open back of the van, picked up a cardboard box about one foot square on each side, and said, “Oh yeah? I’ll bet you’d be more interested in …” Then he heaved the contents of the box into the air as he shouted so loud everyone nearby on the sidewalk could hear, “… a box full of money!” Crisp bills fluttered like confetti in the breeze as pandemonium broke loose in a wild orgy of clutching fists and screaming people sprawling on the sidewalk gathering as much as they could stuff in their pockets. One or two seconds of the parking enforcer’s wide eyes and open mouth were all it took for Benny to jump into the truck and signal Sergio to get gone quick.
From the end of the block, Elliot could see a virtual riot in progress on the sidewalk. What looked at first to be cash fluttering in the breeze turned out to be coupons for advertising discounts in the DC Herald. He saw the van pull quickly out into traffic just as Sid came out shouting after them. Elliot ducked back around the corner and hopped into the van when it slowed to pick him up. He crammed himself into the front seat with the other three as Benny muttered about the “Fascist dictatorship” of the DC parking enforcers.
“I see what you mean about having a car in the city,” said Elliot. They drove around for half an hour before thinking it safe to return to the area to complete the move into the new office around the corner from the old. That was ample enough time for Benny to talk the movers into taking out ads in the DC Herald in lieu of cash payment for their services.
thermodynamics of ideas 