The Stretch Goal (Fiction)

(I do not think that I have presented this before. If I have then both the blog's archive and I are senile!)


The Stretch Goal

By Mark Lax

I woke up and removed the crudely scrawled ‘Bash Casualty’ sign from my forehead. After retrieving my trench coat, I spotted the phone. Working a hunch, I phoned directory assistance. The voice that came on the phone was distant, digital.

“Do you know where I am?”

She very nicely rattled off the address I was at. I went for the stretch goal, asking “Do you know where my car is?”

That, sadly, she couldn’t help me with. I thanked her for her assistance and set the business end of the pastel green princess phone back into its cradle. Something was stirring in the direction of what I perceived to be the bedroom. All I could see from my perspective on the puce living room pit group was the hall washroom door. It was coming from the right of that, whatever it was.

I am not saying something may have happened. For all I know furniture was always overturned in this apartment. Maybe that broken lamp had been on the floor for days? I really couldn’t say. As far as I can remember I never entered the apartment in the first place. Not that I fear the unknown, but I do not relish blame. I feared that blame or perhaps something worse was approaching from the unseen right and thus, having been granted a general location of my location, I beat my feet the heck out of there.

Someone may have said something in my direction at the time my posterior found the exit, however my perception is not keen enough to recount it. This led me to a hallway, one of those non pile brown carpet jobs with white walls, which presented me with two options: an elevator or the stairs. Being a control junkie, I took the stairs down. Two at a time.

Three floors and sixty seconds later, I was deposited on Clark Street, several blocks from Wrigley Field. The day was overcast. Apparently other people were up at whatever ungodly hour this was, since the street was buzzing with cars.

It was sleeting. No one has ever written a poem about sleet. For a moment, I thought about it. Then I realized that I was freezing. As many a disc jockey will tell you, the Christmas song that starts “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” was actually written in the middle of July. I immediately postponed my ode to frozen rain until at least May. Or until I move someplace nicer, which I often do.

I realized that I was freezing because my attire consisted of a pair of thin black sweat pants (with a silver and white stripe down the outside leggings), an oversized green tee shirt and my non-lined off white trench coat. Thankfully I still had my moccasins and my black socks—or my feet would have been wetter.

Given my state I knew that any search for my car keys, wallet and cell phone would be fruitless. (The modifier ‘my’ here is open to interpretation. These things are mine when they are in my possession, it is more exact to say.) This is not the clothing that those objects live in. My wardrobe is quite specific to situation. Sometimes, however, my situation can change before I am properly prepared. I am assuming that this is what happened.

I dodged cars, blatantly but without malice, jaywalking Clark Street. Partially I was seeking awnings under which to partially shelter myself and partially I was looking for a pay phone. The changing wind was conspiring against any chance of cover and the widespread acceptance of cell phones had seemingly thwarted my other objective. Two blocks further east, I found both.

I didn’t know what the store was at first. A green polarized shade had been pulled down across the front window. What attracted me here was that the door was chocked open. As it turned out, it was a Laundromat in the form of a shaft. The entire place could not have been more than fifteen feet wide. It was, however, rather deep; at least fifty feet. From back to front there was one wall of pale orange washing machines facing one wall of recessed oval dryers, in the usual mismatched number.

The area right by the front of the store had three benches of those wonderful rainbow color array plastic chairs; the types which are welded to beams. One bench was in the traditional position, aligned with the backs directly pressing against the front window’s green plastic shade. The other two were placed backs to backs at a diagonal to the first.

On the wall right by the door was a vending machine purveying boxed soap. I found a quarter under it. Next to it was another machine which sold bags and cracker cheese shrink wrap things from last decade. The floor there yielded another quarter.

Aligned on a wall fifteen feet directly across from these machines were not one, not two, not three, but seven pay phones all in a line. I never heard of the pirate operation which ran these phones, but they were charging 75 cents for a local call. It was here that I went first. No, they would not allow a toll call. They wouldn’t even give you a dial tone without getting their blood money first. Hence my subsequent search for quarters.

Having struck silver twice at the machines, I returned to the phones and began methodically checking their change returns. For those of you unfamiliar with it, this neighborhood is something of an entertainment district, chock full of late night bars. I can imagine that there are times of day when the pay phones get more traffic than the washing machines do.

At present, which per the little round clock on the wall was 10:40 (AM I am guessing) on a Thursday, per the newspaper sticking to the sole of my moccasin, there was absolutely no one in the place. At least two machines were operating, but their operators were missing. There is some sort of wear-a-beret sprouts and soup place next door where they probably were at.

With another quarter I could summon my assistant Paulie. Again, I use the words ‘my’ and ‘assistant’ suspiciously, although the real world definition is exactly that. I was exactly two phone coin returns into my search when the washing institution was descended upon by a pants suit clad army of women. One by one, five Hillary Clintons filed in through the door, followed by the resident Republican—a woman in a sensible red cotton coat; the type Nixon said his wife wore.

In the Republican’s hands were a stop watch, two rolls of quarters, a little note pad and a pencil. Her women turned to face her as she barked out orders. She was the smallest of the number, which always seems the case with these leader types I am told. Not that I’ve actually ever had a boss.

“I want five,” she said, starting the watch. “You have fifteen.”

Each woman took three quarters from her and went to a pay phone. They punched in numbers. As for me, I froze with a phone in my hand and pretended to be talking.

The woman next to me, Olivia Holmes, was the only one who seemed to get through her five calls in time. Each time she would leave a terse message and then go back for another set of quarters. The others were doing the same, but none of them seemed quite as professionally frightening as Olivia was. At least in voice, she was the alto version of Darth Vader.

One of her messages went “This is Olivia Holmes with Finance Solutions calling you in regards to your case number 11234. I believe I spoke to you the other day in regards to resolving this issue. At that time you said you would be calling me first thing on Wednesday morning. It is now Thursday. If I don’t hear from you by the close of business today I will have no choice to mark your file as non responsive.”

She didn’t leave her number. None of the girls did.

Another of her calls went “This is Olivia Holmes calling you from the law offices of Gregory Notalawyersname on behalf of Settlement Payment Company. I spoke with you on the 1st regarding resolving this issue. At the time you said your husband or your attorney will be getting back to be. Neither of them has so far and, as it stands, I have no choice but to forward this for further action. If you have any other options which come to mind, it is imperative that you contact me immediately.”

If you closed your eyes and just listened to her, she was pretty intimidating. But when you looked at her, she just was sorting through coupons. Her posture as relaxed as it could be.

Olivia was all of five feet two, with the slightly teased black hair so favored by Hispanic women. Bad red business suit with halfback shoulder pads or no, she wouldn’t hurt a fly. I guess it’s a form of acting. All of the girls were leaving messages on behalf of Performance Something, Payment Something, Something Solutions. They weren’t working from notes, although I think one of them had a list of numbers.

Olivia’s last call went “Sarah Smith, this is Olivia Justin calling on behalf of Dr. Quacknonname’s office. As of today I have yet to receive any proof of insurance presentation, which you said you would provide me last week. I am forwarding your case to our attorney as of 2:00 today. If you have any additional information, please contact me.”

With that, Olivia Whatever hung up the phone and turned to the Republican, saying “Done.”

“Nothing? No one?” the Republican asked, making a mark on her pad. She then said in a projected whisper “Anyone? Anything? What call are you on? Hands.”

The remaining girls held up three or four fingers. All of them shook their heads no.

Olivia took two steps away from the phone, saying “Two miso soups, one split pea, one vegetable and six diet Cokes, right?”

“Seven-Up. Diet,” said the woman on the phone closest to the window.

Just then, the phone Olivia had been on rang. I quickly sidestepped over it.

The voice on the other end said, in somewhat of a hushed shrill “This is Sarah Smith. I told you not to call me at work. I spoke with my doctor yesterday and he’s never heard of you and he said the bill was paid. If this is for the emergency room when I broke my arm, that bill is paid. And, just for your information, I don’t have to provide you with proof that my insurance paid anything. You’re the ones that have to provide proof that I owe anything!”

“Listen Mrs. Smith, you little bitch,” I said. “If you want to keep that other arm intact you’re going to give us exactly what we asked for. I know where you work. I know where you live. I know what color car you drive. OH! It’s red, isn’t it? That’s right, Sarah. Now I want it delivered to me in person, within the hour. Police? Go ahead, try me. I hope you saw the sun rise this morning.”

I slammed the phone down. The woman next to me dropped her phone and emitted an audible gasp. She rather slowly backed away from the phone bank. And then I checked her coin return. And then Olivia’s coin return.

“Excuse me,” the Republican said, speaking in the direction of my back. Her remaining agents were now pealing themselves away from the phones and retreating behind her. “Was that one of our customers?”

“Sarah Smith?” I asked.

“Why did you answer the phone?”

“It’s my calling,” I said.

The Republican tilted her head up. I could see then how the tip of her nose vaguely resembled the end of a butter knife. She had had short, dark beige (dishwater blonde) hair and her stance was something like a bullfighter on valium. In whatever universe she is from, she is certain that she is THE FINAL AUTHORITY. Composed thus, she asks “I understand you may have just abused one of our customers.”

I cower. I babble before the power of her gaze. “I, I did.”

“Yes, that was not very good customer service.”

“I’m-I’m a… private investigator. What I say is meant to net a specific effect. The way I say it has a certain design to it perceivable only to professionals. You wouldn’t understand.”

If she was simply stalling for time, giving her agents the opportunity to flee the situation, then she had accomplished her task. My guess is that she is going for a stretch goal here. She presses the point with “Was that one of our customers?”

“It doesn’t matter who it was. My goal is to extract information and imply a course of action. In the end, my target is to make them think my objective is entirely their idea, based on their motivation and not my purposes. It’s a complicated structure—“

“—I still don’t see how you’re not in customer service,” she injects, acting upon a type of sophistry practiced by the Jesuit trained: that she is right no matter what I say and that the argument can only end with the confirmation that she is right.

I protest: “That is because we truly have no choice as to what our profession is. Whatever way we think in the first place will determine the career we choose. You see everything as customer service because you are in customer service. No snub to you. That’s just the way things are. I see things differently.”

Of course this is all horse feathers. She’s not in ‘customer service’ at all. As I had deduced, she is in collections and this drill here in the Laundromat is designed to thwart debtors who have caller ID or call blocking or what have you. Sarah Smith must have just hit the ‘return call’ function on her work phone, otherwise she would not have rung the pay phone.

By the way, Sarah Smith never heard a word I said. I hung up on her before I started talking.

The phone behind me rings again. I turn, slowly, look at the phone. I can feel the Republican closing in. Suddenly I reach out and snatch up the receiver. “Sarah Smith? That’s right. Payment Solutions. Should I spell it for you. Shut your stupid mouth and listen. I don’t deal in threats, only promises.”

Turning my back on the Republican fully, I speak with the receiver held out a foot from my face. It is held precariously; pinched between my thumb and index finger. I step a foot to the side of the phone’s actual station. Continuing, I say “Sarah, do you know where your kids are? How would you like them sent back to you—piece by piece? Give me a reason.”

Stretch goal: the Republican knocks the phone from my hand and hangs up the hook. Sprawled all over me: distraction enough for my making two pluckings from her form, each of which I drop into a trench coat pocket.

In a blink, she recoils, catches the receiver before it drops to the ground. She puts it to her ear, only to hear nothing.

Then the phone rings again. Or should I say ‘a’ phone. I had picked up the wrong one.

At that point she takes her first extended look at me. Perhaps she spots the smudge of lipstick which I later found out was on my eyelid? Maybe she takes in my vodka stench? In any case, she drops the phone and whirls away.

She was so flustered I don’t think she noticed that she was missing a roll of quarters. The stop watch was pretty neat too, until fat ass Paulie broke it.

***

I have no idea why these stories are so popular with you blog-reader types. You should all get jobs as editors of crappy little fiction magazines!