When Elves Attack (5 page)

“Okay, okay, yes. Jesus, I didn't realize you two were so close.”

“He's my hero. I want to be just like him.”

“Really?”

Serge nodded. “Sorry about freaking you out there for a minute, but I'm sensitive about this.”

Nicole's breathing was coming back down. “No biggie.”

“I'll make you a deal,” said Serge. “Jim needs your help and love in his struggle. Do me a favor and show him respect.”

“Why not?”

“That's better.”

“But you said a deal,” countered Nicole. “What do I get?”

“Back at the house, I heard something about you wanting a tattoo?”

“Oh man, my mom will really hate you.”

“No, she won't. I know how to handle women like her.” Serge hit the gas again. “You leave that to me.”

“I don't think you really know my mom. She'll go ape.”

“It's all about the art of conflict. Most people go in headfirst.” Serge made a skirting gesture with his right hand. “Whereas I outflank.”

“You're going to sneak up on my mom?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Serge took another swig from his coffee thermos. “Give you an example: the Positive Protest.”

“Positive?”

“Say you've got some kind of protest group that wants concessions from the powers that be. But the conflict is going nowhere. So the only option is to take to the streets, creating a massive public disturbance of anarchy that brings the city to its knees. Except for some reason, the city is the only one with a riot squad. Don't ask why, it's just the way they set it up at the beginning. And they come storming in with shields and helmets and batons, sweeping you off the pavement like autumn leaves.”

“I've seen it on TV.”

“That's where they all go wrong. If I was in charge of the mob, I'd stage a Positive Protest. And when the shock troops start goose-stepping in with the tear gas, you begin waving signs and yelling slogans demanding higher police salaries. Then their bullhorns blare for you to disperse, and you say you totally agree with what they're asking, and it's a shame that the people who have to make you disperse don't receive better benefits and pensions—and that your group will vote en masse for any politician who jacks up their compensation. The riot team can do nothing but stand mute. I'm dying to try it out! Except I don't have a cause yet . . . I could always phone in my grievances later . . .”

“What's that got to do with my tattoo?”

“You'll see when we get there.” Serge passed the dog track and pulled into a strip mall. “Because of your age, you'll need parental consent. That's me; they never check. Plus I know this guy.”

“Wow, you're really going to help me get a tattoo. That's so cool.”

TRIGGERFISH LANE

The front door opened.

Martha came racing out of the kitchen. “Where on earth have you been?”

“Out.” Nicole walked by with a sullen expression.

“I want more of an answer than that,” said Martha. “Did they hurt you?”

“Don't be lame.”

As Nicole left the living room, Martha happened to glance down below the small of her daughter's back. A tiny bit of ink peeked out above the waistband of her shorts. An audible gasp. “A tattoo! . . . Jim, come quick; it's Nicole! It's an emergency!”

Jim ran out of the den. “What's the matter? Is she okay?”

“She got a tattoo.”

“I thought she needed parental permission to get one.”

“She's got one.”

“What is it?”

“Does it matter?” Martha stomped down the hall to a closed bedroom door. She tried the knob. Locked. Pounded with fists. “Open the door this instant! You're in so much trouble!”

The door didn't open. Thumping rock music inside. Joan Jett.

“ . . . Hello Daddy, hello Mom, I'm your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb . . .”

Martha turned. “Jim?”

“What? Kick the door in?”

“No, get a key.” Martha kept pounding.

“Where's the key?”

“I don't know.” More pounding. “Try the junk drawer.”

“I'll go look.”

Before he could leave, the door opened. “What's all the racket out here?”

“ . . . Don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation . . .”

“You got a tattoo!”

“So?”

“We forbid you! And we didn't give any permission!”

Nicole shrugged. “Serge got it for me. He's really cool.”

“Serge!” snapped Martha. She began strangling something invisible in midair. “I'll kill him. He disfigured our daughter!”

“You're such a drama queen,” said Nicole.

“Turn around immediately!” said Martha. “I want to see what that monster did to you!”

“No!”

Martha looked sideways. “Jim!”

“Nicole,” said her father. “Turn around.”

The teen opened her mouth. But then remembered her promise to Serge. “Okay, Dad.”

She turned around, lifting her shirt and pulling the waistband down an inch.

The parents leaned in for a close inspection.

There it was, just below the tan line. A word in feminine cursive script:

Family
.

Nicole dropped her shirt and turned around to face them again. “Satisfied?”

Her parents stood mute.

“Serge also told me to be more grateful for you guys. Whatever.”

Nicole went back in her room and closed the door.

Chapter Five

THE NEXT DAY

Coleman burped. “Look at this line.” He stuck his head around the side in an attempt to see the front. “It's like Disney.”

“Maybe longer,” said Serge, licking a stamp.

“We drove like forever to get here, and now . . . where are we? This is the middle of nowhere.”

“Twenty miles east of Orlando to be exact.”

Coleman strained his neck for a view of the counter. “But what's the point?”

“Because Florida doesn't get snow, we have a chronic inferiority complex when it comes to Christmas.” Serge handed Coleman a stamp. “So we overcompensate: Santa Claus on water skis, on Jet Skis, on surfboards, Christmas cards with barefoot Santas in beach chairs drinking beer, inflatable snowmen, reindeer in tropical shirts, town celebrations where they bring in special machines that shred ice and blow out fake snow that melts immediately and makes the children cry . . . But this place just might be the weirdest.”

“What is it?”

“The post office in the city of Christmas, Florida, where thousands descend each year to get their holiday cards postmarked. It's the best tradition we got, so fuck it, I'm rodeo-riding this cultural mutation.”

“Why's it called Christmas?” Coleman licked his own stamp. “They have a big celebration way back or something?”

“No,” said Serge. “On the twenty-fifth of December, 1837, they began construction of Fort Christmas to fight the Second Seminole War. Nothing says the ‘Prince of Peace' like a military installation.”

“Who are we mailing your card to?”

“Me,” said Serge. “It's got a bitchin' cool Florida postmark. I tried to think who might appreciate it more but drew a blank.”

Coleman looked at his own envelope. “Mine's addressed to me, also.”

“I did that.”

“But when I open this, there'll be no surprise.”

“You won't remember,” said Serge.

“What's this address, anyway?”

“You'll find out after we drive back to Tampa.” Serge used the envelope to fan himself in the heat. “A
lot
of people will be surprised.”

TAMPA

Jim Davenport packed a fake-leather briefcase. “Sure feels good to be back on Triggerfish Lane.”

“It's not like we had a choice,” said Martha. “We were upside down on the house.”

Jim shuffled papers into a file. “The economy hit everyone. We came out better than most.”

“I liked Davis Islands better.” Martha cradled a large mixing bowl and stirred. “This just doesn't feel . . . as safe.”

Jim snapped the latches shut on his briefcase. “This neighborhood's perfectly safe. Kids play in the street, neighbors know each other . . .”

Martha stopped stirring. “And remember what happened last time we lived here?”

“So there was a little crime.” Jim grabbed the handle of his attaché. “We also had our problems on the island.”

Stirring again. “Where are you off to?”

“Work.”

“It's one in the afternoon.”

“You know my job has odd hours.” He gave her a quick kiss. “I won't be back for dinner.”

“I'll cover a plate in the fridge.”

“Love you . . .”

Jim indeed worked strange hours. And it was true the Davenports had fared the economic downturn better than most. Those two facts went hand in hand. There are opportunities in even the worst economies. Jim had caught one.

He was a consultant.

His company was called Sunshine Solutions, and his specialty was everything. Didn't matter the industry—manufacturing, hospitality, transportation—Jim got all the biggest accounts.

Not because he had broad experience. He actually knew squat about most of the accounts. In fact, he seemed like the most ill-suited person to offer any kind of advice whatsoever. Which is why he was perfect.

“You're perfect,” said the executive who hired him after his interview. “Here's your first account.”

“But I don't know anything about hospital administration.”

“You don't need to.”

“Then how am I supposed to consult?”

“You're not,” said the exec. “We're in the consulting business. We don't consult.”

“What do we do?”

“Fire people. It's what our clients pay us for. When heads need to roll, they want the ax in the hands of someone who doesn't work in the building and nobody's seen before.”

Jim sat puzzled. “Why?”

“Because fired people get pissed off. Some even start shooting. I'm sure you've seen the headlines.” The executive came around and sat casually against the front corner of his desk. “Who needs that kind of shit in their lives?”

“So I'm getting paid to have people shoot at me?”

The executive waved dismissively and walked back around his desk. “Probably never happen. Most of the shooters have to go home to get their guns. By the time they get back, you'll at least be able to make it to the parking lot, maybe the highway, if you're lucky.”

“Sounds dangerous, especially if they realize I know nothing about their business and have no legitimate basis to fire them.”

“Oh, they'll definitely realize that. It's part of the plan.”

“Plan?”

“Most of the firings are unjust anyway, merely to dazzle Wall Street by cutting operating costs in the portfolio and making top management rich from stock options. So if these employees are given walking papers by some consultant who wouldn't last a day in their mail room, it shifts blame for the injustice—and the direction of the gun barrel.”

“But why me?”

“Because you're non-confrontational.” The executive opened a file and removed a computer scan sheet with little ovals filled in with a number-two pencil. “The psychological test when you applied.” He leaned back in his desk chair and held the sheet toward a ceiling light. “In all our years, we've never seen anyone score so high in conflict avoidance.”

“I don't think I agree with what this company—”

“You're wrong!”

“Okay . . .”

“That's the spirit.”

So Jim hopscotched from Clearwater to St. Petersburg to Sarasota, firing people and apologizing that it was the wrong thing to do. Then the economy picked up, and the demand to fire people dropped, so his consulting company hired another consulting company, which fired Jim.

A decade passed. The economy tanked again. Jim was back in business.

On this particular day in December, Jim took Interstate 4 out to a distribution warehouse in Lakeland, just east of Tampa.

The company gave Jim a temporary office close to the parking lot.

A knock on the door.

Jim waved the person in through the glass. The employee stuck his head inside. “They told me to see you?”

Jim gestured with an upturned palm. “Have a seat.” He faced the employee with an expression like his dog had died. “I'm afraid I have some bad news . . .”

Five minutes later:

“You're firing me a week before Christmas!”

“I know.” Jim looked down at the desk. “It's very wrong.”

“You don't know shit about this business, do you?”

“Not really.”

“Then how is this fair?”

“It's not.”

“I'll bet your name isn't even Jensen Beach. They're keeping your actual name a secret to protect you from retaliation.”

“You're right.”

“Well, I'm going to find out what it really is!” The employee got up and went to the door. “How do you sleep at night, motherfucker?”

The door slammed.

Jim hopped up, grabbed his briefcase, and walked swiftly to where a security guard was holding open a side door to the parking lot. “We moved your car closer. Hurry . . .”

Jim half walked, half trotted to his car. He stuck a key in the door.

From behind: “There you are!”

Jim spun around . . .

Spreading misery day in, day out wasn't Jim's cup of tea, money or not. He would have quit long ago, except he received a second set of duties. Because all the firings were simply window dressing to impress Wall Street, many of the companies became severely understaffed and unable to meet quarterly projections. Wall Street wasn't impressed.

His consulting company needed headhunters. They called Jim in. He knew just where to look for new employees: the totally qualified old ones he had just fired.

His bosses were bowled over. “Where are you finding all these great prospects? Our clients are thrilled!”

They gave him a promotion and a company car.

It was the same car that Jim now stood next to in the parking lot of a Lakeland distribution warehouse as a husky man charged toward him. Jim hurried with the keys, but his hands were shaking too badly. The man reached Jim and seized him with both arms in a bear hug, lifting him off the ground.

“Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I haven't been able to find a job in months, and now I get one just before Christmas! My children will have presents! It's all because of you!”

With all the firing and hiring, there wasn't much middle emotional ground in Jim's line. All mountain peaks and mine shafts. On average, his work mood was indifferent. He was very happy.

But that was Jim. Counting his blessings. And overthinking the worst-case scenario.

As the man had asked, how did he sleep at night? Two eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Then the digital alarm clock with green numbers: 2:04, 2:44, 3:19. Perspiration. Aware of every heartbeat. Running checklists of family precautions through his mind. To look at Jim was, well, to look at anyone else on the street. Non-muscular, a little on the thin side. The kind of person people can't identify to police. “He was just average.” “Anything else?” “Seemed the quiet type, like he could be pushed around.”

Martha Davenport took up the slack. Attractive in a mature way. Which meant unpretentious clothing that hid the fact she was even more attractive. And full-bodied, fiery red hair that didn't lie about her temperament. She slept the sleep of small children.

In one way, Jim was like Spock from
Star Trek,
calmly computing any conflict through to all permutations of final outcome, deciding that most were pointless and perilous enough to be strenuously avoided. Martha started at DEFCON 5 and went from there. She had opposed Melvin playing Little League, because of how she heard the other parents behaved. Then, clinging the chain-link fence behind home plate: “Ump! Are you blind?”

In their case, however, the extremes of the marriage created a whole that was greater than the sum of the parts. All in all, a good collaboration, like Lennon-McCartney.

A company car finished the drive back from Lakeland and pulled up a driveway on Triggerfish Lane. Jim came through the front door with his briefcase. “Honey, I'm home . . .”

“How was your day?” asked Martha.

“Great!” said Jim, loosening his tie. “It was so-so.”

“I had a great day, too,” said Martha. “I went to the mall.”

“Find something on sale?”

“No, I went to see the assistant manager about that mall cop.”

“I thought you handled that on the phone.”

Martha shook her head. “They called back. Said they couldn't prove anything about the fight in the bathroom, and they reviewed the security tapes. Concluded it was elves after all. So they wanted to interview me.”

Jim folded his jacket over the back of a chair. “What for?”

“Said they wanted to fire him anyway, and needed more details about my complaint.”

“Honey, I really wish you hadn't done that.”

“Why?” said Martha. “I'm tired of the jerks getting away with stuff. It seems people like us who obey the rules are the only ones who ever get punished.”

She grabbed a pair of binoculars from a drawer.

“What are you doing?”

Martha walked to the window. “We're getting new neighbors. That rental house across the street. I saw the landlord take down the sign and change the locks today.”

“I'm not sure you should be looking out our front window with binoculars.”

“Relax, everyone on the street does it.” She adjusted the focus. “I wonder what we'll get this time. Hope they're like those nice Flanagans whose kids used to babysit Nicole when she was younger. Hope it's not like the Raifords, whose dogs kept getting loose . . .”

“And who received a copy of your anonymous dog complaint.”

“They were the ones breaking the rules. And then they blamed us, making crank calls at all hours.”

“I remember that,” said Jim. “Using pay phones so the calls couldn't be traced when you reported it to the police.”

Martha scanned the windows, trying to see if any furniture had arrived. “Remember the dental hygienist who left the blinds open and had men coming and going, and that old man who kept digging holes in his yard in the middle of the night? . . .”

“The police never found anything after you called.”

“ . . . The newlyweds who never left the house for weeks until all his clothes were on fire in the driveway, and those college kids who left the door open and played Pink Floyd all the time, and . . . Oh no.” Martha slowly lowered the binoculars.

“What is it?” asked Jim. “Jesus, those veins in your head are throbbing again.”

Across the street, a '72 Chevelle pulled up. The driver's door opened. “Coleman, imagine our luck being able to rent a house so close to the Davenports. I can't wait to see the look on their faces!”