The End of Mr. G.(Short story - Thursday words)

The End of Mister G.

‘7 has a magic to it. 7 wonders of the world. 7 -11. 7 heavenly virtues, 7 deadly sins. ‘7 bello’ (‘beautiful 7’). God rested on the 7^th day. 7 is perfection, 7 is completeness. Why 7?’

Those were the thoughts passing through Nick’s head as he crossed over the Tiber River. The sun had just begun to set, leaving the sky a midnight blue canvas high-lit by cool, lovely orange clouds. As usual at that hour vast flocks of starlings were weaving and forming and dis-forming shapes in a vast 3 dimensional kaleidoscopic display, fluttering black dots suspended in the twilight. And the bridge that Nick G., a noted lawyer – 'Il Presidente’s' - and member of parliament, was on was the best place to see the show. The birds would swoop in from afar streaming in single or double lines to temporarily rest on the maple trees lining the roads on both banks. As they came in to land, the usual seagulls and blackbirds would with their long, lumbering wings and beaks try to snatch one out of the air for dinner. Though Nick felt a morbid attraction to those moments, they didn’t happen often. The smaller birds’ vast numbers and phantasm-like maneuvers were an effective defense against such slow predators from above. Below, their large numbers left a nightly trail of tell-tale white guano across the city.

While those large flocks appear to react as one organism, the birds actually fly in organized units of only 7. Like a well-trained squadron they take their cues and turn and dive within that small number. Nick turned his eyes away from the bridge and thought, ‘I wonder if they shit in groups of seven, to.' He smiled - which was a sort of terrifying thing. Nick was a tall, thin man with an expression somewhere between a scarecrow and a drunken first-year college student permanently etched in his eyes - which in turn always appeared oversized on account of the thick plastic-rimmed lenses he wore. The overall look could remind you not a little of the grim reaper’s younger, more stupid nephew. Which was bad enough.

Add to that his monotone voice and the way his lower lip always seemed to express disgust whenever he spoke and, well, you can imagine: ‘How’s your food, Nick?’ ‘Oh-very-very-delicious,’ he might reply like a scarecrow who just had one of his plastic eyeballs pecked out; ‘Merry Christmas, uncle Nick,’ ‘Merry-Christmas-to-you, Tim,’ he might answer like the depressed, strung-out child of the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge. There were urban legends about Nick actually having taken off his glasses, how the person unlucky enough to view the spectacle froze solid like a Greek warrior in front of Medusa’s stare. There were even rumors that he had, once, laughed - the horrible screeching sound of which caused a power outage over half his home region in the northeast, the Veneto. Such reports, however, couldn’t be confirmed.

Indeed, when he thought about the joke of the group of 7 shitting birds, Nick didn’t laugh out-loud. Instead he assumed his usual thin-lipped smile, eyes pointing forward and down as they always did, and then turned right to continue his way over the bridge. A few yards behind, his two secret service guards followed. Like Nick they didn’t laugh in public that often. But sometimes in private the shorter of the two had a blast impersonating the VIP under his watch. Looking at the reflection in his bathroom mirror after scrunching his cheeks and puckering his lips, the agent would say - alternating falsetto and low monotone mimicry - : ‘That was fantastic, Nick. How was it for you?’ ‘Oh-wonderful-for-me-to, Ta-ti-ana,’ doing his best to look like an extra from The Living Dead as he pronounced the later.

Once over the river, they crossed the street and stepped into a popular bar/pastry shop. The bar was a short walk from the rather ugly-ish and structurally questionable Ministry of Justice building. Which meant that the bar was also close to many law and government offices. Which meant that the bar was often filled with lawyers, lobbyists and government officials in expensive suits, expensive shoes and wearing expensive watches.  Nick was a regular. ‘Nice watch, Nick.’ ‘Thank-you-it’s-a-Patek-Philippe.’ He was there to meet a friend, well, a colleague who was friendly with him at any rate, a certain Giuseppe.

Giuseppe held among others the title of under-secretary of the Ministry of Justice. Like Nick he was also wearing a Patek Philippe - though a less expensive model. Giuseppe was already seated in the main dining area along with his own undersecretary who in turn, being an under-secretary of an under-secretary, sported a much more modest Omega. But you wouldn’t have noticed. Giuseppe’s under-secretary wore his jacket sleeves long enough to cover up that defect on his wrist. Nick stepped across the bar to their table, smiling as he did - which caused a bit of startlement in a couple of tourists. ‘Romanin did you see that guy?’ ‘Yeah. Creepy. Must be German or something.’

“Nick, hello,” Giuseppe stood up and reached out. Usually Italians greet each other with kisses on both cheeks but Nick’s presence tended to dampen such physical displays. Even his mother sometimes hesitated. But only a little. Nick was used to handshakes. “Hey, Giuseppe. How-are-you, everything-o-k?”

“Fine, Nick, fine. And you?”

“Oh, fine-but–tired. We’ve-been-finishing-the-draft. I-think-this-one-should-fix-the-court’s-objections. We’ll-place-it-on-committee-tomorrow, a-formality. It-will-go-to-the-floor-for-a-vote-by-the-end-of-next-week. Which-means-it-will-be-applied-next-week.”

“Good, that’s good. I take it Il Presidente is satisfied?”

Nick tilted his long face before answering, which for an instant made him look a bit like animatron in a wax gallery. “He- ex-pected-it. Plus-he-has other-things-on-his-mind. You-know-how-he-is.”

Giuseppe chuckled and nodded. “We all know what’s on his mind.” His young-ish under-secretary with the watch deformity wondered a bit dumbfounded at the mono-tonality of Nick’s speech. Usually people from the Veneto speak in wavy patterns, a gentle rising and descending lilt that feels like riding in a gondola when you listen. He presumed Nick’s voice would be different in person than what he’d heard on the many news shows in which Il Presidente’s trusted lawyer often appeared. Instead Nick’s voice was even more robotic, as if the sing-song rhythm that must have been formed in a part of his brain was channeled into a narrow tube, boiled, strained, chlorinated, processed, packaged and then came out in a different part, the one that spoke, void of life. It was the sound equivalent of over-microwaved popcorn. The undersecretary’s undersecretary could almost smell the kernels burning to a melt.

Nick turned to him and almost smiled as he introduced himself. Thankfully he stopped before the muscles around his mouth pulled his lips too high. Even that half-smiled was enough to bring to mind a Batman villain. “Since-Giuse-eppe-is-his-usual-impo-lite-self, it-falls-on-me-to-ask-you-your-name.” Alberto, the name of Giuseppe’s watch-defective undersecretary, was silent at first, uncertain if Nick was making a threat or merely trying to be courteous. Giuseppe coughed, bringing back Alberto’s attention. “Oh, excuse me. I’m Alberto, congressman G. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“Thank-you, Alber-to, but-call-me-Nick. What-are-you-order-ing?”

“Oh, I thought I’d have an arangino (fried rice ball.)” Nick replied by smirking and bouncing his head back and forth, the effect of which made him momentarily appear like a dancing skeleton. You know, from one of those short cartoons from the 20’s. “I’ll-give-you-a-tip. Here, if-you-ask-Angel-o, in-back-they-make-the-best-Ama-tric-iana-pasta-down-town. Even-if–it’s-a-little-sub-stantial, you-want-to-share-some-with-me?”

Alberto again paused, perplexed, not sure if the congressman was making something of a mafia type threat or sincerely asking him to share a late afternoon snack. Not that the under-under-secretary hadn’t seen his share of odd fellows. In his parent’s hometown in the low mountains of Emilia-Romagna nearly everyone seemed to have a few cards short of a full deck. Aunt Pierina came to his mind. Everyone called her that, Aunt Pierina. Pierina never married. She walked a wounded pheasant she’d found and nursed to health on a leash every afternoon. The bird seemed to like it. Pierina would point to a spider or something else in the main square and with her unexpectedly high-pitched voice – she was a broad-shouldered, strong-armed, big-boned women – say, ‘look, look, a spider. Eat it, eat it!’ Loretta – the bird was named – would look comfortably at her savior, tilt her head and then scamper off after whatever it was, seeming to want to please, the long chord-leash growing tighter as she did. Pierina never wore a watch. She had the most gentle eyes Alberto would ever see.

But the vacant expression behind the congressman’s glasses made him wonder if Nick G. had replaced all of his cards with small, undefined, sharp things. Giuseppe again saved the lull from lasting too long. Smoothing out potentially socially awkward moments was one of the prerequisites of becoming a singular rather than multiple under-secretary. “Good idea. Why don’t we all have a little taste?” He motioned for a waiter.

After eating his half-serving, Alberto’s stomach and mouth’s profound satisfaction was almost audible. Nick was right. “Good-eh?”

“Excellent. Thank you, Nick.”

“My-pleasure. So-you-are-special-izing-in-constitution-al-law?”

“Well, yes. I hope so. It’s already what I do for a living.”

“What-do-you-do-for-a-living?”

Alberto hesitated, wondering if it was a trick question. “I, ah, I write laws. You know. For you guys. The ones you tell me to write.”

A waitress came and set their coffee down. Nick reached over and grabbed four mini-pouches of sugar and poured them into his. Alberto only took one. “You like your coffee sweet.”

“Yes. I-like-how-the-sugar-takes-away-the-bitterness. It’s-what-we-do, dear Alberto. We-adjust-flavors.”

“Excuse me?”

“Like-the-con-stitution. It-says-one-thing. Then-we-take-a-piece-and-change-it. Then-we-take-that piece-and-change-it. Then-we-take-that-piece-and-change-it-again, and-continue, until-it-tastes-as-sweet-as-we-want-it. We-don’t-write-laws. We-interpret-how-laws-will-work, by-dividing-them-from-their-meaning- piece-by-piece.”

Giuseppe flushed his espresso down in one swift gulp. “Alberto, the coffee isn’t important. It’s only bitter water. But if you add enough sugar, well, many little changes can wind up changing the way bigger things taste. How they look, how they’re perceived, how they work. Not the other way around though.” Alberto nodded his head in appreciation, not really understanding or even caring much for that matter. He was still a mere Omega.

“Giuseppe-it’s-been-a-pleasure. I-have-a-meeting-with-Lesso-so-I have-to-run. Send-my-secre-tary-any-suggestions-for-the-academic-reform-clause. See-you-tomorrow.” Nick stood up and walked out the bar. Giuseppe motioned to a waitress to put the bill on the usual expense account.

 

Outside, Nick’s Mercedes was waiting for him as were his two guards in a smaller Opel parked behind. The darkness of the evening hadn’t yet exiled the last of the sun’s rays over the horizon. Flocks of starlings were still swashing through the air but lower now as they headed for their usual resting perches for the night in parks and piazzas here and there throughout town. Nick turned to his two dining companions once they, to, stepped out of the bar. He smiled. The expression sent a chill through Alberto’s spine. For the briefest moment the under-under-secretary swore that color seemed to disappear - as if he’d stepped into a black and white Ingmar Bergman film. The congressman then relaxed his rarely-used facial smiling muscles and returned to a more recognizably human expression. Almost. “Oh. I-didn’t-think-about-it-before. Could-either-of-you-use-a-lift?”

Giuseppe’s eyebrows rose. It was the first time Nick had ever offered him a ride. Though sort of like winning a free vacation to Detroit in January, still it was an offer not to be refused. “Well, actually I could use a lift back to the parking garage. Are you going that way?”

“No-but-I-have-to–stop-off-at-the-Ministry, then-Lesso-will-pick-me-up-there. My-driver-can-swing-you-around.”

“Thank you. Very much.”

Nick and Giuseppe stepped into the back seat while Alberto sat up front on the passenger side. Alberto, who didn’t have his own private car - yet - was delighted at how comfortable the seat was. As the car began to move toward the stoplight he thought about sugar and coffee and pasta and the constitution he’d had to memorize not so many years earlier, then wiggled imperceptibly against the soft, heated leather at his back. His face lit up as if he were a gold miner who had just discovered a fat, shiny nugget in his strainer. He turned his head slightly toward the back seat. “Thank-you, Nick. I get-it now, sugar and-coffee.”

It seemed to him that his voice had taken on a strange, Nick-like monotone but neither Giuseppe nor the congressman seemed to notice, or at least they didn’t mention anything. Nick merely nodded. “I-thought-you-would, Alberto. You-show-promise. I’m-keeping-my-eye-on-you.”

Both their car and the guards following turned right toward the Ministry of Justice, the ‘ugly building’ some call it, others the ‘port of fogs’. An unending stream of starlings flying low, only a few meters above the street, suddenly swooshed up from behind. White splats began popping over and smearing the windows. Their driver turned the wipers on, squirting cleaning fluid repeatedly as the guano began to streak brown and white in long curves over the glass in front. “Yuk. That’s gross.”

The car moved past the light at the square in front of the building, wipers still moving as the flock of starlings kept flying, even lower, overhead, the windshield becoming darker and darker, the arched streaks becoming a sort of opaque guano-hued rainbow. The locals were used it. At that hour they never ventured into the open square or over crosswalks without defending themselves with open umbrellas.

Nick spoke. “It’s-raining-shit. Watch-your-wallets,” a twist on the old italian proverb, 'it's raining, government crooks!'

Alberto began laughing in front, though he wasn’t sure what he found so funny. “It’s raining-shit. Watch your wallets. That’s a-good-one,” he repeated. Giuseppe started chuckling to, as did the driver. The chuckling fed off itself until the three off them were almost doubling over. Finally, with great misfortune, Nick joined in.

His laugh wasn’t at all the stuff of those urban legends describing it - no screeching howl or bone chilling, witch-like pierce. Instead, it began low like the blocked hiccup of goat, a sort of ‘uh-uhmp-uh,’, then grew up and out like a whistle, ‘uhm-heh-huo-huo,’ and finally plateaued in an almost ephemeral, unearthly, rapidly repeating squeak, ‘ahi-ahi-ahi-ahi.” The others stopped laughing, their eyes bulging with a mix of perplexity and surprise. Even the driver, who tried to glimpse his boss in the rear-view mirror. It was, much like seeing a cow walking on two legs or a witnessing an aurora borealis without leaving the Italian peninsula, after all, a once in a lifetime event.

But that distraction led his attention away from the only person, an elderly woman, who had just begun to cross the street – her big red umbrella overhead, transiently polka-dotted with white splats. He likely would have noticed her earlier had her form not been confused with the white-and-dark rainbow streaks on the windshield. He did notice her eventually though, just in time to abruptly turn the car left toward the building as he hammered on the breaks. Which might have ended the story there, a bit unnerving but with no casualties.

The security guards’ Opel didn’t have the non-skid breaking system Nick’s Mercedes did. So when they, too, suddenly swerved in tandem, the thin but effective layer of guano on the street acted much as a white oil patch and they ploughed head-on into the Mercedes. Bodies and heads in both cars began to snap as their respective airbags opened, the Mercedes sliding with its unexpected acceleration into the side of the ‘ugly building’. That should have ended the now fully unpleasant incident still without much harm done - save a few trips to the body shop by Nick’s driver and a transfer of his guards from Rome to the Italian embassy in Yemen. Or Detroit. Wherever there was opening.

Unfortunately, the Mercedes impacted the building with enough force to dislodge one of the flimsily placed large travertine blocks in the wall above. Which in turn was flimsily keeping another 3 blocks in place. Which in turn were keeping a significant part of the second floor from cascading onto the street and sidewalk below. Which now happened, turning the Mercedes into an uneven dark blue pizza, polka-dotted with cream-colored bird-shit splats. A sort of reverse blueberry pancake.

The body guards remained unhurt, their Opel bouncing back just beyond the falling chunks. After the crunching and banging of the falling slabs of Italian rock onto German metal, it went quiet. Above, through the gash in the second floor, someone’s desk leaned over the space that had tragically opened. A small ball about the size of a hacky sack gained only enough speed to roll off and out the building. The two agents watched as it disappeared into the cracked blocks of dark beige stone below. Once the half-moment of utter silence that follows any loud, unexpected explosive event subsided, doors flung open, quick strides were made over to the white-polka-dotted German pancake. Nick’s guards leaned in to check for survivors, the shorter agent on the right, the taller one on the left. Nick was on the right side.

He was breathing. In fact he looked uninjured save for the unusual shape his shoulders had assumed, somehow placed in a sort of disharmonious, exaggerated up and down way only too close together. Combined with his thinness, their distortion made him look a lot like a clay figure from a Tim Burton movie. You know, like the ones in Corpse Bride. On anyone else the oddness would have caused greater alarm but on Nick it seemed more or less natural. His glasses had fallen off. He looked at the shorter guard and blinked. “Oh-shit,” he said. That was all. Then he closed his eyes. The agent stood still, not even breathing, until his taller colleague stepped around the German pizza-pancake and nudged him. The shorter agent stood up, a deep perplexity in his eyes, then sat on the remnants of a travertine block waiting for the ambulance and other emergency vehicles to arrive. Those eyes.

He retired soon after that and moved to Morocco. They say he opened a small cafe in Casablanca that serves good coffee, decent Italian food and offers live entertainment most nights. Wednesdays he takes a break from the kitchen and sings in falsetto.

The education reform bill passed anyway.