As Luck Would Have It (14 page)

You might think that this strategy would result in a lot more work being done from all of the people that the company decided to
k
eep, and for the most part, you are right.  In truth, much of it was meaningless busy work, but by its very definition, busy work keeps people busy and a lot of people were very busy making sure that every form was properly filled out and that every rule was meticulously followed, without exception, regardless of how much time it took or how little benefit might be gained from all the time spent.  Any suggestion of reducing waste, eliminating redundancies, effecting change, or maximizing efficiencies was considered so far out there that everyone knew
that it would be suicidal to
even
suggest
such a thing.

Technically speaking, I was a link somewhere in the long chain that spread from wherever it was that work was generated until it meandered its way to completion.  At first, there was a good deal of work coming across my desk, as you have so correctly assumed given the structure and the environment that I have attempted to describe.  This was of course concerning me as I had become quite accustomed to doing as little as possible and the prospect of working hard for who knew how many additional years, due to the battering my retirement plan had taken, was a rather unpleasant one.  But it didn’t take long for me to realize that the work I was doing, not unlike that of the lower level associates who had to fill in all the boxes on all of the forms, was also meaningless in that whatever I did or didn’t do, whatever input I made or not, whatever revisions, modifications, suggestions, corrections
, al
terations, even something basic like formatting or sentence construction had to be reviewed again by a minimum of two levels above me
.  So the easiest and most logical way for me to get the work out and keep it moving along the chain with a minimum of kinks or interruptions, was merely to initial the appropriate space on the correct form for whatever was placed in my inbox and simply move it to my outbox, knowing with complete confidence that if there were changes needed, those who would review the work after me were as qualified, or even more qualified to make them, given the obvious fact that they were above me on the chain, rather than the other way around.

The bigger and more bloated Flanders and Associates became, the less I would have to do.  But for my strategy to work effectively, two key prerequisites were essential; first, it had to appear that I was bu
s
y and had work to do, and second, the quality of the work that made it to my inbox had to be reasonably good, that is somebody might get wise to me if I just stamped off on work that was obvious crap.  It would take awhile to train the people who were actually doing the work so that it would be deemed of sufficient quality and appear acceptable to someone at my level or higher.  Might not a subordinate possess the same reasonable motive that I did to avoid work if they thought they could get away with it?  Yes, they probably would, so my job was to set them straight and make sure that they weren’t cutting corners that would make me look bad when I passed the work up to the next level of oversight, the next man or woman who as we have already seen, should have been quite capable of reviewing the adequacy of
it
.  I returned the first few reports I saw whether they contained errors or not, marking them with illegible comments written in red ink and
circling spaces on forms and punctuating comments with self-explanatory exclamation points.  By doing so I was actually helping them in a way and in the process
,
serving notice on my underlings that they were expected to perform at a higher level, fortunate as they were even to have a job in such a miserable economy, and that I wasn’t going to just fix their senseless mistakes and shoddy work.  Within just a few weeks, my system was working quite well on both fronts; the associates were performing to the level of their ability, or at least to my reasonable expectations, and everyone else either thought I was doing some work or was afraid to say anything if they thought I wasn’t.

Joseph and I finally set up the new stereo my parents had given me in my bedroom at the Needham’s house
.  It took me nearly
four
months to bring myself to take it out of the box; it reminded me so much of Mom and Dad and my final day having them with me. 
It was a beautiful system though, with its separate amp and tuner, with
its
three-way speakers that produced
such
a
rich sound.
 
Often when
Joseph would come over, he would bring
a couple of
albums from his brother’s collection and we’d listen to them while talking or doing our homework.  Borrowing the records previously had been more than problematic, and even though we had
chanced
it a few times without incident, had Richard discovered them missing, both of us would have had to pay dearly for such a transgression.
I better never see either of your greasy peanut buttery fingers on my records or I’ll use your tongues to clean them with.
I didn’t blame him for that at all; no one in their right mind would want two kids messing with
the recordings
, which he kept in nearly pristine condition.  We were bound to scratch them no matter how careful we were, or worse, drop one the tile floor and crack it, or spill a Coke on one of the jackets.

But Richard’s attitude towards his records had changed
after
my parents died, and once when I was admiring the collection while at their house, he offered to share them with Joseph and me without us even having to ask.  Richard was a decent guy
, even if having a queer
younger
brother wasn’t exactly his first choice
in a
sibling, and even if he had to put up with his own share of insults and abuse from others because of it.  Letting us borrow the albums was a nice gesture on his part and I’m certain when he put the value of his beautiful collection into perspective, he was happy to offer them up as
some minimal
consolation for what I’d been through.  If you scratch them, I’ll crack your head asshole, is what he said as he handed Joseph his newest addition,
Pretzel Logic
, by Steely Dan.

Christian was
an
obviously gifted musically and he started spending a lot of time with us listening to records, and on rare occasions, going to see a live concert, assuming we could manage to come up with both the money for tickets, and the even more tricky permission to go.  I was amazed both by how much he knew about contemporary music and his uncanny ability for being able to play nearly any instrument he picked up.  One day he pulled out an old harmonica he had found in a pawn shop only a week or two before and started in on an impressive version of Bob Dylan’s
Blowin
’ i
n the Wind
.  I was impressed, but Joseph was awestruck.  I knew the first time I saw his face light up when I introduced Christian at a picnic his parents invited us to, that Joseph was captivated by him.  And why not?  He was friendly right off,
with his good looks to go along with his good manners,
not to mention those dark eyes that must have pierced right through any sort of
defense
that Joseph could have
summoned.
  He just starred and blushed a lot that day, trying to engage Christian in conversation without being too obvious, while eating his hamburger that Charles had done on the grill, and going to some length to describe the glorious summer camp he’d be going to again in just a few more weeks.

You had to really admire him for all of it; here he was with what could have been the biggest crush he’d yet to experience up to that point, with someone who was very likely not gay and in all probability not able to return the same look with the same warm glow of infatuation that we all have experienced, frustrated by a surge of feelings, new and confusing enough as they were in their own right, but made worse by the knowledge that Christian’s reaction to him could not possibly compare in intensity
.
But Joseph seemed to be managing on his own just fine, chatting with some of Christian’s other friends, helping his mother carry the watermelon from the kitchen, and
sympathizing
with Mr. Casslemond about yet another
disastrous season likely to be facing the Cubs.

God, why couldn’t I have been more like him, secure and confident in almost any setting, not obsessing over wha
t he could not possibly control?
  No, what I am I saying
here
, he was in
perfect
control and it was me who had
to wonder again, probably for the hundredth time, how was someone like Joseph created
;
what seemingly unrelated convergence of experience, environment, destiny and chance had worked silently behind the scenes to mold him into this guy who I could never be equal to and would probably never fully appreciate
?
  You doing OK, buddy?  Yeah, this is great
Clifford
, thanks for inviting me.  I like your friend Christian. 
Tell me,
anyone, please,
how
does he do this?  What
were
the hidden secrets behind that crooked smile that seemed to
effortlessly
guide him around in this
painful world that I found so difficult to steer through?

The feelings must have been at least a little bit mutual, because after the picnic, Christian started hanging out with us more and more over the upcoming weeks.  We’d sometimes play baseball or take our bikes on the
five
mile trail that ran through his neighborhood, but what the three of us
seemed to
share most of all was our love of music. 
If our tastes had previously been geared mainly towards the mainstream,
Christian introduced us to a musical world
far
beyond what
we might
ever
hear on the popular stations.  He’d play new wave bands we’d never heard of and he had Frank Zappa’s entire collection on cassette tapes, which we would listen to while Christian pretended to play along on an imaginary xylophone somewhere in his head.

My favorite band was still The Beatles and always would be, even though they had broken up a few years before.  Christian considered them to be somewhat conventional, but was nevertheless adamant that John Lennon was the greatest musical genius since
B
uddy Holly, whose scratchy albums he would play at my house after reminding us to be very careful not to bump the turntable or otherwise unwittingly damage the prized recordings.  He pampered them with special cleaning solutions and expensive lint free cloths, while Joseph and I respectfully observed the ritual purifications.  I had every Beatles recording released to that point and one day Christian spent nearly an hour treating each of them in this manner, as if they were some sacred scrolls or artifacts that must be preserved.  Then we would play them and sing along with
John
and Paul, trying to duplicate their delicate harmonies.

He’s a real nowhere man

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

Then, the harmonica would appear from somewhere and Christian would cover John’s solo on
I Should Have Known Better
, while Joseph shook his head and did his best Ringo impersonation.

He knew the musicians
from all the great bands and had
something
like 300 records, all saved up for from money he
’d
put away from paper routes or part time after school jobs.  Once when we were listening to
Like a Rolling Stone
, he proclaimed Bob Dylan to be the greatest American poet of the 20
th
century.  Dylan, really?  Not T.S. Eliot, not Robert Frost?  I wondered what our American literature teacher, Mr. Mercer would have thought.  He was one of the few pleasant and intelligent teachers we had and I laughed out loud as I imagined
him
there listening to the music with us and what
he
might have said
in response to Christian’s proclamations
.
I strutted around the room like
Mr. Mercer liked to do
when lecturing
and tried to imitate his deep voice while Joseph cracked up. 
Mr. Casslemond, please enlighten us further
; what do you think of Sylvia Plath?  Perhaps you would be you be so kind as to recite a verse from E. E. Cummings.  But Christian could not be shaken; yes Ginsburg was a great poet, but sorry Mr. Mercer, he was no Dylan.

One day Christian announced that the three of us would start a band.  As I believe I may have previously mentioned, Joseph’s family was musically inclined and piano lessons had been seen to for both of the
b
oys, so now Joseph would play the electronic keyboard that his parents had given him for Hanukah two years before. 
He wasn’t exactly
proficient at the keyboard
, but what Joseph lacked in musical
expertise
would be easily compensated for by his theatrical flair and his enthusiasm for the performance.  Christian would play the bass and saxophone, no worries there, but what was I going to do on stage, tell jokes?  I had developed a talent for sarcasm, but not much else.  Of course we would need a guitar player and Christian had already made up his mind that I was going to be the next Brian Jones.