The map of Philip J Bradbury's life was a narrow one and, like a child in a cot of steel, can only dream of another life. He awoke from his fitful sleep at 6:30am with his usual sense of foreboding and wondered, again, how it was ever possible to feel elated about the day, about life. Apparently, some people did ...
Intertwined with Arthur's story is the story of the tall, blonde New Zealander, Greg Cousins. Greg's story is the second in The Last trilogy and the following is the opening chapter for your delectation and delight ...
The Last Rejection (2nd book in The Last series)
Monday 5th March 2012
Feeling as cold and lonely as the last bus home in the rain, I started packing my desk up. I knew I'd never see it or anything else in this familiar office again. What do I keep and what do I take? There would be no chance to come back for anything; once I was out the door, I would never be back. When one door shuts, another is supposed to open. Today, however, only the sound of slamming doors could be heard in my soul.
I shook my head, hoping the world would turn back into the one I was used to, but it just hurt my head and everything was still upside down. I was the only one who seemed to notice. There they were, dozens of heads on shoulders, staring at computer screens just like they always did. They controlled the world with their little buttons, and my world was out of control. I had just been deprived of my little buttons and my screen to a world concocted by Microsoft, Mozilla and Money, as well as the desk on which they sat, along with my comfortable executive chair. They had divorced me ... no, I had just been told that they were leaving me because I had been unfaithful. I had proudly blogged to six followers that I had a job at Empire Bank Ltd and, since banks were all about secrecy, that was forbidden. A naïve, country boy in a suspicious city.
I shook my head again, but the vast office was still filled with ordinary people doing an ordinary job on an ordinary British day, and no one noticed my shaking head. I was not at the CIA or MI5. Nope, no badges or guns or secret agent stuff about me I confirmed as I patted myself. Just an ordinary pin-stripe suit as befits a bank's corporate trainer.
I shook my head as I couldn't think of a more useful thing to do. I smiled but the rest of my body couldn't respond to a mind that refused to start.
"You alright, mate?" asked Martin.
What do you say to a question like that? I'm fine, Martin. I've just been sacked for being thrilled to be working in this great place-the job of my dreams. And everyone else thinks it's okay, doesn't care or doesn't know. If I start thinking about it anymore, I'm going to get bloody nasty, punch your stupid pink face in and burn this lousy place down. Probably best not to say that. I could feel my anger rising as my mind went into first gear. I stopped it going into second for fear of the consequences. I quelled the revving motor inside and tried to think of an answer that had nothing to do with my twisted reality but would suit the other world in which ordinary, employed people live.
"Yeah fine, Martin. Just great," was the best lie I could dredge up.
Every year of my life was leaping into my face, demanding explanation for this sudden turn of events.
"All these years at university - wasted!" hissed my twenty-three-year-old self, vehemently.
"Yeah but I was only ..."
"And all that time as an accountant and business coach," whispered my thirty-three-year-old self, sadly, interrupting my reply.
"But it wasn't all wasted ..."
"Not wasted? Not bloody wasted?" demanded my thirty-nine-year-old self, menacingly.
"Well, no, and I didn't know ..."
"Didn't know? Didn't know, he says!" shouted my forty-year-old self into my echoing brain as I tried to concentrate on clearing my desk and computer under Martin's watchful eye. "You always loved to break the rules!"
"But they didn't explain them properly ..."
"Explain them properly. You never ruddy listened," interrupted my twelve-year-old self in my cranium, sounding suspiciously like my father.
"But it was only a family blog, easy to delete ..."
"Family blog? It was a blog, dumb arse! Blog equals the whole wide world," offered my thirty six-year-old self (from last year), helpfully.
"But ... an innocent mistake ... I just wanted to tell my friends how proud I was of this job ..."
"So proud you get turfed out," said my twenty-two-year-old self with vague strains of my mother in its voice.
"Oh hell, I didn't mean to stuff it up ..."
"You okay, mate?" asked Martin hesitantly, a real voice interrupting my inner rant as I said goodbye to my desk.
"Ooh, aah, yeah ... well, not really," I said, quickly returning to the tangible world as I turned and we set off, the bank's green carpet passing beneath my black business shoes. We walked shoulder to shoulder past desk after desk after desk, all containing heads-down-pretending-to-be-working inhabitants.
"Damnably awkward," said Martin helpfully, perhaps afraid of the silence that had descended in this massive acreage of office.
"Awkward? Bloody unnecessary, actually," I said, louder than I'd meant. A bout of sniggers burst around us and was quickly quelled by Martin's withering look at the red faces.
"Just keep it civil, old chap, huh," he whispered as we neared the double doors; one of several double doors my security card opened - the card that was now safely deposited back in the HR department's custody ... the security card I would never see again.
"Look, thanks Martin, I can make my own way out from here. You go back to work if you like," I suggested as we crossed the foyer.
"Thanks Greg, but I need to take you to ... aah, go with you to reception," he said as we strode past the lift doors to the stairs. Easier to be walking down stairs, doing something, than standing together in a lift, mutely and mutually embarrassed.
"To make sure I don't make off with the crown jewels, huh?" I said lightly. He smiled wanly. "Look Martin, I know it's not your fault, mate," I said as our shoes clattered down the stairs, echoing round the fourteen-storey chasm. I stopped, wanting to console him. Wanting to ... I don't know ... perhaps taking in a few last mental snapshots for the family album.
"Come on, we need to keep moving. The cameras cover the stairs too, you know."
"Cameras? What? Oh, security. Yeah," I said as my mind struggled to rise above the tide waters of embarrassment, fear and anger, to the logical things of life and take in one more useless detail. I looked round, one more quick snapshot, and started down again, looking furtively at Martin's stoic, inscrutable face. The poor sod, I thought, twenty years in the same job, his daily three-hour commute by car, bus and two trains, and the same again in the opposite order, every night because of his wife's part-time psychic/palm reading business. He might wear the pin-stripe trousers, but he didn't crack any whips in his household.
Four flights of stairs is one heck of a long way when you really don't want to go, when no one's talking, when you're pretending to the business suited athletes going up that it's just another day, when you're on a mission to hell. Caught between the equally tempting bouts of self-pity and self-righteous anger, I kept my mouth shut and my brain in neutral.
"Hey, aah, you had breakfast?" asked Martin as we reached the double doors at the bottom. He held his plastic badge up to release them.
"What? Breakfast?" My brain struggled to find somewhere relevant to file this unexpected question.
"Yeah, breakfast, you had it? You need a cup of tea?"
"Oh, right, yeah, had breakfast but could murder a coffee." I realised, with frightening slowness, he was offering friendship. I appreciated the gesture and also saw him as part of the enemy, the bastard employer that didn't care a toss about employees. I didn't know whether to hug him or slug him. I could easily have done both.
"Coffee? Aah, yes, you Kiwis prefer your coffee, don't you," said Martin. I sneaked a look - so he wouldn't see me looking - at his lopsided grin.
Poor bugger, I thought, so easy to embarrass.
"You shouting?" I asked w
ith more bravado than I felt, not expecting him to accede and do something he'd never done before - have a chat out of the office with anyone he worked with. Twenty years in this place and neither he nor anyone else in the office knew much about anyone else's social or family life. The English way, you know.
"Shouting? Oh, you mean buying? Buying coffee? Yes, well, of course." I could feel the heat of his embarrassment from here.
"You sure it's okay?" I asked as we approached the high reception desk, the last blockade. "You know, fraternising with the enemy. Shouldn't you really go back to work?"
"Probably not okay at all, old chap," he said stopping and looking me in the eye for the first time today. "But I need ... aah, some air, a cup of tea, something. Dash it all, Greg, I'll see you off the premises and we'll have that cuppa, that coffee, what."
"Only if you're shouting," I said punching him lightly on his pin-striped shoulder.
"Ooh, perhaps you shouldn't do that. Cameras you know ..."
"Ah, yes, sacked employee apprehended for grievous bodily harm to boss." I tried to stifle a giggle but the giggle won. "Hi Penny, I've just been sacked and so I think I have to sign something on my way out."
"Yes sir, this here," said Penny, the receptionist, pointing to a form without changing her plastic welcoming expression. As I went to sign the register, I noticed a folded piece of paper there. I picked it up to hand it to Penny. She looked fleetingly at Martin and then frowned at me, her hand going in and out of her jacket pocket.
"Somebody must have left ..."
"Sir," she said, her frown deepening as she shook her head imperceptibly. "If you would just sign the register, please."
"But there's ..."
"Sir, the register, please," she hissed, looking quickly at Martin again. He'd wandered away a little and her hand began to stuff something in her pocket again. I smiled sheepishly, signed the register and slipped the paper into my pocket. She smiled broadly, nodding happily. Feeling the prickly heat of embarrassment - and a little curiosity - I thanked her and turned to Martin with the wildly stupid feeling I'd lost control of my life ... or that I'd never had it.
Appendix and Afterword
Since the federal government bailed out Bear Stearns in March 2008, the six largest U.S. banks and their main trade associations have paid roughly $600 million for lobbying activities, according to a report released by labour union SEIU and progressive political groups in May 2010. The financial industry spent an average of $1.4 million per day during the reform fight.
But the key to effective lobbying is getting into the upper room. Fortunately, it has a revolving door. In all, 243 lobbyists working for six big banks and their trade associations are former federal government employees, according to the report. Of these, 202 worked in Congress, mostly as aides to lawmakers, while the rest were in the White House, U.S. Treasury or another government agency.
Goldman Sachs has the biggest team of "revolving door" lobbyists. Then it is Citigroup with 37 in-house lobbyists and "outside consultants", followed by JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Bank of America.
Here, as summarized in the report, are some of the big banks' top lobbying guns:
Bank of America - B of A's in-house lobbyist team is headed by John Collingwood, formerly the FBI's congressional liaison and a top official under three different FBI directors. After retiring, he became a top lobbyist for credit card company MBNA and played a major role in passing the 2005 bankruptcy reform bill. When B of A bought MBNA, he became the bank's top lobbyist and brought other credit card lobbyists with him.
Citigroup - Head lobbyist Nick Calio was formerly a top congressional liaison for both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. As the Republican arm of lobbying firm O'Brien-Calio during the Clinton administration, he was hired by big business to lead the lobbying fight over the North American Free-Trade Agreement, fast-track trade authority and expanded trade with China.
Goldman Sachs - Head lobbyist Faryar Shirzad joined the bank after serving as a top national security and international economics adviser to President Bush. He coordinated trade policy for the Bush-Cheney Transition Team in 2000 and was previously a top international trade adviser to the Senate Finance Committee.
JPMorgan Chase - The bank's top government relations executive and in-house lobbyist is William Daley, former Clinton official, brother of Chicago mayor Richard Daley and co-chair of President Obama's inauguration. The bank's top registered lobbyist, Democratic insider Peter Scher, reports to Daley. Scher was a top Democratic staffer during the Clinton years, serving as chief of staff to Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., then to Secretary of Commerce Mickey Kantor.
Bruce Cathie first saw flying saucers over the Manukau harbour, NZ, in 1952. He has published several books, the first being Harmonic 33, which was published in New Zealand in 1968. Quentin Fogarty, an Australian TV reporter (and his cameraman, David Crockett) filmed flying saucers over New Zealand on 30th December 1978 and that was aired on Australia's Channel 10 network. New Zealand authorities refused to allow that programme to be shown in New Zealand.
Robert Adams was former Chairman of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers, Inc., U.S.A., (N.Z. Section). The article about his Adams Switched Reluctance Pulsed DC Permanent Magnet Motor Generator was published in Nexus magazine in January 1993. He died in 2006.
GLOSSARY OF MAORI WORDS
Aroha Love
Aroha mai Sorry
Atua God
Awa River
Irirangi Voice
Iwi Tribe
Kai Food
Kia ora Literally, it means to life. It's used for hello, goodbye, thank you and other friendly greetings.
Korero Talk, a story
Koro Old (wise) man
Maunga Mountain
Ngati Wikitoria Literally it means The tribe of Queen Victoria, English people
Tangata People or the person at the head of a family
Taonga Gift
Tapu Sacred
Waihine Woman
Waka Boat, canoe
Wera Hot
Whanau Family
GLOSSARY OF ABORIGINAL WORDS
Kata Tjuta Literally, it means standing heads. The place is also called The Olgas.
Uluru Ayers Rock
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In New Zealand I experienced life as an accountant, credit manager, company director, shepherd, scrub-cutter, tree pruner, freezing worker, plastics factory worker, saxophonist, army driver, tour bus driver, stage and television actor and singer, builder, lecturer, facilitator for men's groups, reporter, columnist, magazine editor, publisher, writer ...
In South Africa as an AIDS workshop co-facilitator ...
In the Australian bush as a barman, horse and camel trekker and stock-whip teacher ...
In England as a contract accountant, corporate trainer, estate manager, lecturer, singer/songwriter, website editor/writer and freelance writer ...
Now that I'm back in Australia, house renovating, teaching and writing, I'm wondering what's next!
The constant for my wife and I is A Course In Miracles, a psychological life-style course in forgiveness. Through it I have found the peace I had always been searching for - the journey to where we have always been.
Philip J Bradbury in social media
Website: www.philipjbradbury.com
Amazon: amzn.to/25X0CLb
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorPhilipJBradbury/
Smashwords: http://bit.ly/2aNjkic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilipJBradbury
Wordpress blogs:
https://pjbradbury.wordpress.com/
BOOKS BY PHILIP J BRADBURY
Non-Fiction
Whose Life Is It Anyway?
Life Rejuvenated
Change Your Life, Change Your World
The Twelve Week Miracle (with Anna Bradbury)
Some-Fiction
53 SMILES
97 SMILES
Fiction
My Whispering Teachers
Circles of Gold
Gerald the Great of Gorokoland
For more information on these books, see www.philipjbradbury.com
The Last Stand Down Page 33