Expect the Unexpected

by John A. Broussard

  Ear plugs? Bill tried them. They were just an added interference with his sleep while still allowing Muffy’s piercing yip to penetrate. Sleeping pills were even worse, leaving Bill with a hangover which was worse than the results of a lack of sleep. Trading rooms with Leticia didn’t help either. She hadn’t inherited Bill’s sensitivity to noise and was quite impervious to thunder, the roar of motorcycles and barking dogs. Muffy’s vocal presence bothered her not at all. And, if anything, she preferred the switch of rooms. Though she never said so in so many words, I’m sure she felt our concerns over Muffy to be stupid, and certainly much less interesting than the ghost and horror stories she had become addicted to reading.

  Yes, Walt even considered poisoning the little brute. What appalled me most was my own reaction to the suggestion. I was much more concerned with being caught, or at least being the obvious suspects—since I’d voiced my concerns to the Morrisons—then I was at the thought of being responsible for a dead cocker spaniel.

  Since we had even called the police about Muffy’s vocalizations (only to be informed the city had no noise ordinance covering dogs) poisoning Muffy seemed like even less of a workable option. I was about to jokingly suggest we poison the Morrisons instead, and then thought better of it when I caught the look in Walt’s tired eyes.

  The upshot was we both became more and more irritable, more and more convinced we were trapped. The days got hotter. Our room air conditioners, which we seldom used because of their noise, now became essential. Even their rattling and hissing failed entirely to mask out Muffy. In desperation, we took our vacations earlier than we had originally planned. We picked Hawai’i, though it stretched our budget, mainly because we’d heard of the pet quarantine. I think Walt was halfway convinced there weren’t any dogs at all on Lanai.

  The two weeks, along with a tacit agreement not to even talk about Muffy, worked wonders. Walt and I got brown as whole-wheat muffins, and Leticia found herself a half-dozen other vacationing playmates of about her age. But the flight back was a silent one. Neither Walt nor I wanted to talk about what waited for us back home, and Leticia was engrossed in her ghost stories.

  As it turned out, the best part of the whole trip occurred when we pulled into our street. A moving van! Right in front of the Morrisons. We celebrated Muffy’s departure at one of the town’s fanciest restaurants. And life returned to normal—for almost a month.

  It was late afternoon when I saw a moving van, from the same company which had rescued us from the Morrisons, back up to the Stanner house. I dreaded telling Walt. I didn’t have to, since the new neighbors pulled up in a sports car just as he drove into our driveway. Walt and I peered through the curtains, while Leticia went out to become acquainted, probably hoping as much for another nearby companion as we were for the absence of a dog.

  We both seemed to be in luck. There was no sign of a dog, but there was a girl, who Leticia later informed us was named Cindy, just two months older than her, and would be starting in the same class and school as her in the fall. Having made the announcement, she retired quickly to the front room to get in her allotted hour watching television—a mindless soap opera which she had chosen as her own special program.

  As I prepared supper, I could hear Walt grilling an obviously annoyed Leticia. The information came in dribbles during the commercials. “Their name is Farris. Her dad runs something like a bulldozer. Her mom is going to work at the bank. Cindy has an older brother who’s away at college. They’re going to stay a long time, Cindy says. Her folks signed something. I think she said a least or something like that.”

  I stood stock-still as I listened to the obvious next question.

  “Do they have a dog, Letty?”

  A long pause—waiting for the commercial. “Uh-huh. Three of them. Cindy says her dad’s going back to the airport to get them this afternoon. There wasn’t any room in the car for them on the first trip.”

  I might just as well not have cooked a meal, since Leticia was the only one who ate any substantial amount, and she gobbled it down as fast as she could so she could extend her visit with her newfound friend. Walt and I simply hovered near the front room curtains, waiting for the return of the sports car. A pronounced atmosphere of mourning hung over the house. It became even more profound when the heavy-set Farris unwound himself from behind the steering wheel and, with the help of Leticia and Cindy, herded three disreputable, Muffy-sized, mongrel-looking creatures into the fenced-in yard.

  I doubt Walt and I said more than a half-dozen words to each other between the time of the unloading and when we went to bed. The neighborhood was silent. I put my hand out and could feel his stiffened body. I knew what he was waiting for. My wild thoughts included thankfulness we didn’t keep firearms in the house.

  Somehow, I went to sleep. Walt didn’t. He looked worse the next morning than he ever had after surviving any of Muffy’s nightly revelry. “I didn’t hear them bark.” I said, tentatively. He gave a weary nod. “I didn’t either. The waiting was worse than if they had barked.”

  Breakfast was an extension of the previous day’s silence. As a family, we had always prided ourselves on devoting mealtimes to family discussions. Breakfast had soon become an exception, since Walt couldn’t resist the morning paper. I took the time to balance our checkbooks and catch up on bills, so we could hardly object to Leticia reading one of her horror stories.

  Walt broke the silence—inanely, I thought.

  “Letty, did you hear any noise from the neighbor’s dogs last night?

  “Huh?” Leticia barely took her eyes from her book.

  “I mean, did you hear them bark?”

  Leticia placed her finger on her place, gazed condescendingly at Walt and said, “Daddy! Their dogs are Basenjis. You know. Egyptian dogs. They can’t bark. They couldn’t bark, even if they wanted to.”

  She paused, looked thoughtful, then added, “I wonder if they ever want to.”

  DOWNSIZING—CHINESE STYLE

  The first thought Martin had when he heard about the coming downsizing at the hotel was of his Mercedes-Benz Vision SLA, then the condo facing the golf course with a view over the Pacific and, finally, Leilani Rouper. Those weren’t necessarily listed in order of value or importance, but it was the order in which he was due to lose them if his lucrative room service job went down the drain. His stock-market playing had kept him in luxury, but the generous tips at the hotel were the underpinning of his life style. Now, with the economic downturn, those tips were more important than ever before.

  The first rumble had come with the news the large resort hotel on the Big Island of Hawai’i had been bought out by Dum Seng, a Chinese conglomerate. The second came from Bart Chen, another room service waiter on the night shift, who was in the fortunate position of having an uncle as assistant-manager—so this was more than a rumble.

  “Uncle Wes says they’re figuring on laying off twenty percent of the employees. They’re even sending over one of their senior board members to do the downsizing.” The entire night room-service crew had gathered around Chen, who basked in the attention he was receiving as the bearer of evil tidings.

  Martin was too appalled to ask questions. Payments on the SLA and the rent of the condo took virtually all of his current employment income, while Leilani’s tastes in clothes, jewelry, fine eating establishments and miscellaneous dissipations were cutting into what little profit he was making from his now meager stock investments.

  Young Sook Kim, the Korean on the night shift, broke in, her usually expressionless features now alight with something akin to terror. “Room service, too?”

  “Across the board,” Chen said, with a knowing look on his face.

  Martin did some quick calculating. With five of them on the late shift, and five on the morning shift, plus a half-dozen floaters who filled in on sick calls, vacations or extra demand, it could mean as many as three would go bye-bye. Most likely the shifts would be reduced to four, and Martin had to admit to himself the hotel could
in fact get by with four on the night shift, maybe even three. He interrupted Chen to ask a question.

  “Does Wesley know how they’re going to decide who to let go?”

  Chen shook his head. “Wes met the board member. He’s a crotchety old efficiency expert, still living in the past. Wes says he reminds him of Grandpa Liao who used to run his restaurant on Oahu with an iron hand. I can remember how Grandpa used to carry a ruler in his pocket and go around measuring the amount of shoyu in each of the bottles on the tables. It had to be exactly a half-inch from the top, or all hell broke lose. He used to check every waiter’s bill at least a couple of times. If anyone looked like they were slacking off, he would make their life utterly miserable and enjoyed every minute of doing so. Anyhow, this old geezer is going to spend six weeks here evaluating work performance, and then the axe falls.”

  Slacking off! The phrase sent a shiver through Martin. He’d done plenty of slacking off—profitable slacking off. Early on he had learned how to corral the lucrative patrons, the ones most likely to hand out generous tips. A twenty-dollar bill to the fry-cook every evening guaranteed the best orders would be held back for Martin, and he gave those guests special service. One glorious night had found him providing room service to a very rich, very drunk, very generous Abu Dhabi prince. That memorable evening alone had provided much of his stock-market money.

  But such selectivity meant fewer orders taken. He could see the Grandpa-Liao type counting up Martin’s comparatively few orders and promptly filling out a pink slip. Martin looked around at his fellow night crewmembers. Kim wouldn’t go. She never stopped running during the whole evening shift, filling in orders with an eagerness and frequency unequaled by any of the others. Chen certainly wouldn’t be hurt. With an uncle already retained by the new management, his was one job which was clearly safe.

  Grace Fuller might get it, though. The slender, pretty haole probably had almost as few deliveries as Martin, but for a very different reason. She seemed especially eager to run orders to single, male guests, and spent an inordinate amount of time providing them with room service. And there was a remote possibility Derek Ishimaru would be one of those selected out. But he had the longest seniority and was almost as gung-ho as Kim. No! Martin felt he, himself, was the one with the X mark on his forehead.

  But there was a six-week breather. Martin had to find a way to guarantee he would keep his job. Orders! Why, of course. The more he filled, the more he emulated Kim—who raced down the underground tunnel pushing a food trolley when she couldn’t find an electric go-cart—the better his chances to survive the coming holocaust. He could see the old Chinaman going through the orders now, checking them off against the names of the room service waiters. Suddenly, it dawned. There was a way to absolutely guarantee his pile of orders would be the biggest.

  Seniority had always ruled at the hotel. Newcomers on room service started as temporaries and, if permanently hired, got the morning shift. The old timers moved on to evenings. The number of breakfasts far exceeded dinners, the guests were sober then, hangovers were far more likely, and the tips—if any—were often miniscule. Seldom was a room service waiter stiffed in the evening, but receiving nothing in the way of a tip was a not unusual occurrence on the morning shift.

  Dreading the thought, Martin still decided the only solution to his dilemma lay there. He had a cousin on the morning shift who would give his eyeteeth to go on evenings, and poor old boring and tedious Ferdie wasn’t bright enough to know he would be risking his job by doing so. Furthermore, even if he survived, Ferdie was so inadequate it would be easy to persuade management to move him back to mornings after the crisis passed. And he was eager to move to evenings. The changeover took only a couple of days to arrange.

  Martin hated every minute of the new position. He ran his legs off to deliver coffee and toast so he could get back to pick up another order of tea and orange juice. The tips were hardly worth picking up, but the orders with his initials on them piled up at a phenomenal rate. Another twenty dollars palmed off to one of the morning kitchen-help provided him with all of the more meager and quickly filled orders. Life was hard, but an SLA, a view condo and Leilani Rouper required it. A rapidly declining stock market virtually clinched the need for it.

  And, when the six weeks ended, Martin knew he was safe. Ferdie wouldn’t be so lucky, though. From all he’d heard, his cousin had the fewest orders of anyone on his shift. So, for Martin, the mandatory visit to the downsizer held no terror, and the old man’s first words more than reassured him. With only a slight accent, he expressed his amazement at the stack of Martin’s orders he had evidently just been examining.

  “You are a remarkable young man. You seem capable of handling twice as many orders as any other room service personnel.”

  Martin answered with a modest bowing of his head.

  “I know there have been rumors abounding,” Downsizer went on. “The twenty-percent figure you may have heard most certainly did not apply to room service personnel. They are the very heart of a hotel’s organization. The core of its goodwill.”

  The shock wave rolled over Martin. The smiling executive might be overdoing the value of room service, but clearly there would be no twenty percent cut in the crew. Six weeks of running for nothing. Now he’d have to find some way of persuading an unwilling cousin to go back to the morning shift. What could be worse?

  The old man’s eyes were running down a list. “Let me see. There are five waiters on evening shift and five on morning shift. I’m quite sure four on night shift are quite sufficient, so I’m going to move one of those to day shift.”

  Martin could now see the worst coming. With little seniority, Ferdie would be the one moved. So how would he ever be able to persuade any of the other regulars to change shifts? It still sounded as though one of the room service waiters would go. With luck it would be Ferdie so, at least, Martin wouldn’t have to work with him.

  He was barely listening as Downsizer droned on. “Chinese business tradition is very different from Western practices. We are very reluctant to let go of our less-efficient employees. They would find it difficult to obtain work elsewhere.”

  Martin heard. Worse yet. Ferdie would not only be kept on but would be working cheek by jowl with Martin.

  “We are committed to our employees, even after they have left our service.” He paused, then—as though merely thinking aloud—added, “Yes, Chinese traditions are very different. So, naturally, when cutbacks are necessary we also practice the reverse of not letting go our least-efficient employees.”

  He nodded his head and scribbled something on his notepad. “Since one of our morning room-service waiters will have to be dropped, then there will be no problem in picking out the best one. I’m sure you will have no difficulty finding work elsewhere.”

  THE FINAL SOLUTION

  To my lord, the most reverend and divinely beloved Innocent, Bishop of Rome;

  John, Bishop of Carthage, sends greeting in the Lord.

  We are hesitant to approach Your Grace regarding yesterday’s mundane events, yet they may serve as guidance in the shepherding of your own flock.

  As you know, our diocese of Carthage has been severely afflicted with the pestilential sectarians of Novatus who—in defiance of all sense and logic, and despite their blasphemies against our Redeemer—call themselves Christians.

  Following your excellent advice, we approached one of their number whose wife is a devout and faithful member of our congregation. Since he was guardian of the scrolls which encompass the beliefs of this perfidious cult, it was a simple matter to persuade him—through the good offices of the holy woman—to deliver these heretical documents to our care.

  Unfortunately, the heretics, led by one Maximus Corsa, immediately petitioned the proconsul to force us to return the said documents, and we were informed of this petition by the proconsul himself.

  You may well imagine our consternation when the proconsul’s message also informed us a Roman legion and
a large troop of Numidian auxiliaries had encamped outside the city walls. They were sent here under direct orders from the Emperor to take action against Christians. The reason, as relayed by the proconsul, is to punish the members of our flock who were involved in the recent disturbances here in the city, when Jewish buildings were destroyed and several of those perverters of the scriptures were slain.

  Needless to say, we expected little consideration from the military force and were prepared for the worst. Fortunately, in this instance, our long-standing good relationship with the proconsul, upon whom we have showered many gifts, bore priceless fruit. He assured us he had personally interceded on our behalf with the military, and no harm would come to us, providing we cooperated fully with them.

  Shortly before midday our personal slave reported that a small group of legionnaires was approaching our domicile. Rather than allowing them to spread the dung of the camp across our marble floors, we ourselves went out to meet them in the gardens.

  What we were confronted with discloses the tragic state of the Empire. There was not a Roman face to be found among the dozen soldiers, and all appeared to have newly sprung from the depths of the northern forests. Their spokesman, a centurion whose name was unpronounceable and who sputtered incredibly atrocious Latin, was the most barbaric appearing member of the crew. Pale of face, blue eyed, of gigantic stature and with a neckless head sitting on enormous shoulders, he immediately demanded we turn over all of our sacred writings—which he claimed defamed the Emperor.

  God himself inspired us at the very moment. We told our slaves to bring out the Novatian documents we had confiscated. There were several arms full of scrolls, and these we delivered to the barbarian, whom we were quite certain was virtually illiterate. As we suspected, he barely glanced at them and then turned them over to a legionnaire who struck a flint. Within moments the flames consumed the vile documents.