by steve higgs
‘A relationship?’ Big Ben had said the words as if they were uncomfortable in his mouth and he wanted them out as quickly as possible. ‘Generally, I look for a way out.’
‘So, you just move from girl to girl never worried that you may have already met the one?’ she asked.
‘Hell, no. Honestly, I don't believe in the one. Please understand there is nothing misogynistic about my actions. I do not pretend that I intend to do anything other than ruin them for all other men and move on. I am very open about my one night only policy.’
‘And women actually agree to sleep with you?’ she said incredulously.
‘An abundance of them.' I chipped in a degree of glumness in my voice.
‘How on earth do you convince them?’
‘Convince them? Babe, I don’t have to convince them. They have formed a queue and taken numbers. How do I put this in simple terms?’ he asked and made a humming noise. ‘For a lot of women, present company clearly accepted, a night with me is a lottery win.’
Amanda made a scoffing noise.
‘I understand your disbelief, but the evidence stacks on my side. Some people are good at maths, some are good at writing. Some people have a physical skill that makes them Premiership football players or the lead England fast bowler. I have a body and loins that were put on this planet to make ladies moan in pleasure.’
Amanda did not look convinced.
‘Let me put it this way. If this were Harry Potter my Patronus would be a giant cock.’
Her bottom jaw fell open. She was staring at Big Ben in the rear-view mirror and trying to work out if he was pulling her leg.
‘Sooo.’ I said, scrambling for a new topic.
Much of the rest of the short journey back to Big Ben’s car in the supermarket carpark was conducted in silence.
As she pulled up next to the car, Big Ben and I thanked her and got out. I was tired from a lack of sleep and needed to eat, shower and distract myself with some ordinary working day activities.
Amanda’s car peeled away and disappeared out of the car park. Big Ben shrugged wordlessly at me. The meaning of which was indecipherable but may have been “Women!” Or “Shall we go?” but he did not appear to be looking for a response, so I climbed in and promptly fell asleep, waking as he pulled up at my house.
I thanked him and waved him off.
Interviewing an Admin Assistant. Tuesday, 13th October 0900hrs
Having not returned home last night no one had let the dogs out and I was greeted by a couple of neat little parcels on my dining room carpet. The boys appeared from the living room looking a little sheepish. I patted them both and apologised for not getting home for them. I felt bad. They had probably paced and paced until they decided they could no longer hold it. I let them outside and made them an extra special apology breakfast of scrambled eggs.
When they were finished with their food, I gave them a helping of milk then clipped their leads on and took them for a good walk. Only once I was content that they were properly dealt with did I sort myself out.
By 0900hrs, I was just pulling into my parking space behind the office. The fatigue from a poor night's sleep had retreated under a barrage of hearty breakfast and hot shower. I felt fresh and relaxed although still ready to murder when I remembered Brett Barker.
As I approached my office from behind the building, I wondered what might be causing the susurration I could hear. The cause, I learned as I turned the corner and my office door could be seen, was the muted voices of a hundred or so people lining up outside my door.
When Amanda suggested I hire an admin assistant to sift emails and perform other basic office admin tasks, I had acknowledged that she was right. It had already been my plan, I just had not done anything about it until two days ago when I had placed the advert on the jobs page of the website for The Weald World. In the excitement of yesterday, I had forgotten about it. I had expected applications to come by email and had feared that there might not be very many.
The advert read:
Administrative assistant required. Part time flexible hours, circa 20 hours per week. Applicants must be computer literate, familiar with Office software, able to work alone and have a solutions-based attitude.
The ad went on to state salary range, desired qualifications, the location of the job and name of the business.
I stared at the line for a moment, my mouth open and my feet motionless while I took in the sight. Backed up along the building, leading away from my office door and down Rochester High Street was a queue of people (probably) dressed as Jedi, wizards (I could tell by the hats, wands and in several cases rather convincing beards), vampires, Ghostbusters and Bram Stoker looking crazies for as far as I could see. They were leaning against the wall or fiddling with their phones or sipping coffee from the coffee shop across the street. They were young and old, men and women, short, tall, fat, thin, different races and I had invited every one of these nut bags to interview for the admin assistant job.
I could not see a way past them and there were several at the front that had spotted me. Sighing deeply, I gave myself a mental slap and accepted my fate.
‘Good morning.’ I said to those near the front as I drew my keys and opened the door. ‘I will need a minute and the office is too small to accommodate more than one interviewee at a time so please wait here and I will come to fetch you in a minute.’ I said to the chap at the front. He was dressed rather oddly, and I suspected it was supposed to be a Batman costume. Its homemade nature - the cape appeared to be a black bin bag, made it a little hard to tell.
I trudged up the stairs to my office, banged my head on the door frame a few times, collected myself and went inside. I prayed the phone would ring with an urgent matter to which I would have no option to attend but it resiliently defied me with its silence. I put my bag down, switched my mobile phone to silent and turned around to go back downstairs and fetch the first applicant. At that point, I jumped out of my skin because the Batman, or whatever he was supposed to be, was already stood in my doorway.
‘You see that?’ he asked in a voice he was forcing to be deep and husky. He sounded like a crap version of Darth Vader doing a Batman impression. ‘Have you ever witnessed anyone move more silently than that? I can sneak up on anyone. That is why they call me the slug.’
So, not Batman then.
‘Tell me you don’t need a sidekick with a skill like that.’ This guy had crazy eyes and they were bugging out of his head.
‘I don’t need a sidekick full stop, I’m afraid. I need an administrative assistant that can answer emails, sort files and prepare invoices.’
‘Really?’ he said in a normal voice. He sounded both incredulous and disappointed. ‘I thought that was just superhero code. Are you sure you don’t need the world’s most silent sidekick?’
‘Quite sure, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh.’
‘Do you have any experience with office administration?' I asked although I was sure I already knew the answer.
‘Erm,' he started, ‘not really. I expected to be fighting creatures of the night with you. I slept outside all night to make sure I was the first one through the door this morning.'
‘Well, I commend you for your determination, but I don’t fight creatures of the night. I solve cases that people believe have a supernatural explanation and what I need is an office assistant to handle the paperwork.’ The slug looked a little despondent and I was beginning to feel sorry for him. ‘I tell you what, leave me your email address and if I ever need your particular set of skills I will call you.’
‘Really?’ he brightened.
‘Absolutely.’
Anything to get you out of my office, you total, grade A nut bag.
He scribbled his email address on a noticeboard and skipped back down the stairs. From my position stood near the door in my small office, I could see the next in line peer around the corner, come to a decision and head up the stairs towards me.
From my vantag
e point above him, I could see that he was wearing a suit. A good start, I thought. He also had on a tie, his shoes looked new and neat and his hair was elegantly styled with a side parting.
This could be much better.
As he reached the top of the stairs I took a step forward to shake his hand, but no hand was offered in return. Instead, he grasped the front of his suit with both hands then he yanked hard and ripped his entire outfit off as one, to reveal a Spiderman outfit beneath. He then reached behind his head to pull the face piece down to cover his features.
Perfect.
I had to commend him for his efforts. The suit had clearly been carefully tailored so he could rip it off as one and must have taken some time and effort to create. In addition, although I suspected one could buy such things online, the Spiderman outfit was also utterly convincing, and it fit him well.
There was no getting away from the fact that this was precisely not what I wanted to hire though. So, I skipped formalities and got to the point. ‘I need an office admin assistant, not a Spiderman wannabe. Is there any chance you can wear sensible clothes and perform mundane office tasks?’
‘Are you kidding? You have Spiderman in front of you and you want me to answer the phone and take notes?' He was completely serious.
‘It seems prudent to point out that I advertised for a part time administrative assistant, not Spiderman.’
‘Well yes, but any fool can hire an office clerk. What you need is a crime fighting partner, someone who has superhuman strength and isn’t afraid to trade blows with evil villains.’ I was finding it quite distracting that I could not see his eyes at all and when he spoke I could not see his mouth, only the face mask moving. I gave him another look. He was not very muscular.
Curious now I decided to test him ‘So, with your superhuman strength, how many press ups would you say you can perform?’
‘All of them!’ he shot back.
‘Okay, Spiderman. Crack on.' I took a seat by the window, so he would have the whole office floorspace on which to impress me.
‘Err. Ok.’ he said, sounding decidedly less certain now. He fell forward into a traditional press up position and started actually doing press ups.
‘I'll count for you.' I offered and began to call them out. ‘Two, three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight.' The next one came a little slower than the previous ones. ‘Niiiine.' I counted as he slowly rose back to the start position. He went down again, got about halfway back up and the T of ten died on my lips.
He collapsed on the floor breathing hard. ‘I think,' he managed between breaths, ‘that I have to be actually fighting crime,' more breaths, ‘for the superhuman strength to work.' he finished.
I had pandered to his fantasy for long enough ‘I don't think this will work out. I need an office assistant. Really that's all I need. Thank you for coming in.' I didn't leave him room to present an argument but offered my hand to get him back up. I gave him his discarded business suit as I showed him towards the door. ‘Send the next one up, won't you?' I asked of his back as he descended the stairs.
I checked my watch to see how much time I had wasted already and sat down behind my desk ready for the next candidate.
The next chap through the door was wearing a poor quality black suit and had a very chunky but battered looking briefcase in his left hand. His hair was thinning, and his waist was expanding as one sees in so many middle-aged men. Despite his suit and hair and waist he had a professionally broad smile and came right at me to shake my hand.
‘Reg Parker.' he said introducing himself. He placed the briefcase on my desk, popped the clips to open it and swung it around to face me. ‘I have for you, Mr. Michaels, every piece of high tech ghost-hunting and supernatural detection equipment you could possibly want.' He proceeded to point out and name the gadgets in the case. ‘EMF meter, full spectrum camera, EVP recorder, NVGs, motion sensors able to detect ethereal matter.'
Inside the case was an array of gadgets, some that I recognised, such as night vision goggles, but most were odd looking and obscure with a dubious number of buttons and LEDs. I picked up the set of NVGs.
‘Best that money can buy.' Reg told me, lying. They were old British military issue circa 1990. I had worn the exact same model a few times back in the day. They looked serviceable, but such things were not hard to come by anymore. I put them back in the case, my brief curiosity satisfied. ‘They are not all that special compared with some of my more specialist equipment.' he said, selecting an odd-looking box with a small screen. He flicked it on and to me, it looked like a cheap oscilloscope. The analogue screen could have been taken from a 1970s television except it was only two inches square. He extended two antennae from the top, the old slide out chrome type one would find on an analogue radio thirty years ago. High-tech this was not.
‘What does it do, Mr Parker?’ I genuinely wanted to hear the codswallop that he had prepared to explain the item.
‘The latest in PKE – that is Parapsychotic kinetic energy detecting equipment.’
Wrong, I thought to myself, certain the correct term is Psychokinetic Energy.
‘What this sweet thing will do is allow you to find the source of the ghost's energy, the point that is anchoring it to the earth still. Once found you can destroy the object it has inked itself to and free it to enter the spirit realm. I am happy to give you a full demonstration of each piece of equipment once the purchase is made.
I had to hand it to Reg - he was utterly fluent in bullshit. The meaningless words just fell from his mouth and he delivered them with such conviction. It was entertaining, but I felt that I had better things to do with my time.
‘Mr. Parker, I am curious to hear how much of this equipment you sell.'
‘It would depend on whether you wanted the figure for the domestic market or global sales.’ Again, there was not the slightest hesitation in his lie. I could really admire salespeople. ‘Now, I can offer you today an introductory discount of fifty percent if you spend over £2500.00 and take out finance.’ He paused for effect before delivering the killer line. ‘This is a one day offer only though. I’m afraid I have several customers waiting and quite limited stock because it is in such high demand.’
‘Two thousand five hundred pounds. You cannot take a penny less?’
‘No hard bargaining I'm afraid, Mr. Michaels. I can see you are a savvy customer, but these are rare items. I have the finance paperwork right here. Shall we get started?'
‘I'm afraid it is just too much money for me, Mr. Parker.'
‘Oh. Err, are you sure.’ He looked unsure for the first time since entering my office.
‘Quite sure. You did say you had other customers waiting. Perhaps they will have more secure funds than I.’
‘But, the finance, Mr. Michaels. Very affordable repayments.' he said with a smile.
‘Perhaps you should leave me your card. That way I can contact you if I need any of these items.’
‘Supply and demand, sir. If you need it at a rush it will cost more.’
‘I will take the risk.’
Reg looked as if he were going to restart with a fresh tactic, but either he realised it was pointless or perhaps conceded to himself that he had a case full of crap and had not been able to swindle me and so should move on. Whatever the case was, he gave up and put his sad collection of worthless electronics away.
‘You cannot blame a chap for trying.’ he said as he took his briefcase and headed back out the door and down the stairs.
I decided I had wasted enough time. The endless line of candidates I had seen outside seemed unlikely to yield a worthwhile employee. It was the first time I had ever interviewed someone for a job. I didn’t count Amanda. I had been erring on the polite side and holding my tongue instead of telling the crazies what I thought. I had done that for long enough though.
As I got to the top of the stairs and started down them the door to the bottom opened and a middle-aged woman entered. She was dressed as the fifth incarnation of
Dr. Who - the one that Peter Davidson played. She even had a cricket bat under her left arm.
I held out a warning hand for her to stop. ‘Hell, no.' I told her dismissively, as I brushed past her and out into the street.
It was cool out today and overcast. It threatened to rain again although it was currently dry. The line of applicants for my crappy admin assistant role had grown. I estimated that there must be over one hundred people and they were all wearing costumes of some kind or were desperately odd looking. What I mean by that is they appeared to have not checked themselves in a mirror. Ever. They had crazy hair, their clothes in general not only failed to coordinate but also appeared to have escaped from a prior century. I am not one to follow, or even advocate following fashion, nor do I think vanity is something to be admired. But, come on guys.
I was being watched by the people standing in line. Most were giving me an engaging smile, some were dressed as warriors and were trying to look tough. One, a young lady, blew me a kiss and flicked her head to make her hair move. It was probably supposed to be sexy, but it caught in the beard of the chap behind her who was dressed as a wizard. I ignored the pair while they tried to untangle themselves. I took two steps out into the street so that more of the line could see me and raised my hands.
‘I am Tempest Michaels. I advertised for an administrative assistant. That is the only job on offer today. The job involves managing emails, answering the phone and some filing. Nothing else.’ I could see there were going to be questions. ‘There is no ghostbusting to be had, no fighting the forces of evil. I am not looking to employ someone to help me battle witchcraft or prevent a coming alien invasion.’ Some of the hands that had been beginning to rise had gone back down. ‘Unless you are here to interview for a job that involves a bit of typing, dealing with invoices and sifting emails please leave.’
No one moved for several seconds and I thought I was going to have to reinforce the concept somehow. Then a Mace Windu lookalike gave up brandishing his very authentic looking purple lightsabre, switched it off and began trudging away. It opened a floodgate. Soon the costume party was drifting down Rochester High street, some towards Chatham, some towards the bridge over the muddy river Medway and perhaps onwards towards Strood. Others crossed the road and went into the coffee shop. Just one chap came directly towards me. He was dressed in an outfit that would not have seemed unusual were it not for the company that he had just been keeping. Coming through the crowd of Jedi, wizards, knights, Ghostbusters etcetera I took more notice and could see that his suit was in fact not so much a suit, which of course it was, but it was a suit from two hundred years ago, complete with pocket watch, greatcoat and a swagger stick with a polished chrome knob in his right hand. His face was full of knowing importance. Clearly, my instructions did not apply to him, or at least that was what he believed. I realised he was dressed as Sherlock Holmes. Or better yet as Basil Rathbone dressed to play Sherlock Holmes.