Double Shift

He knew that one day, one of his jobs would kill him.

Stephen hated his jobs, both of them.  He would often joke that he didn’t know which one would kill him first.  At the end of the day, though, he reasoned it didn’t really matter.  Either one would kill him just the same, by sucking the life right out of him.

His day job he did because he liked the finer things in life–food and shelter.  His evening job–well he didn’t know why he did it.

It was Monday, and it was May, and it was sweltering in D.C.  It was also 9:02 a.m. and Stephen was late to work at Dewey, Cheatem & Howe, the esteemend law firm.  It wasn’t the real name of course, but it might as well have been.  Stephen spent twelve hours each day as an attorney helping rich people fight over money. 

He bribed the receptionist with a candy bar not to say anything, and he tip-toed past the senior partner’s office.  The man was already yelling at some poor sap on the phone.  It was gong to be a wonderful day.  Stephen slid into his chair behind his desk and booted up his computer.  There was a hearing the next day.  A bakery owner, a sole proprietor with a little store on King Street in Alexandria, was suing one of the firm’s clients for stealing his trade secrets.  Stephen knew that the client had done it, but he was supposed to be reasearching some creative way to screw the baker over at the hearing. 

 Around seven o’clock, he eased open the door of the senior partner’s office.

“Mr. O’Donnell,” he said.

“Yes,” the man behind the desk growled.

Mr. O’Donnell loved the law.  He loved it so much that the made up things to do when he ran out.  He once deposed a man for nine days straight.  He lived to bait opposing counsel into petty fights over disclosing documents.  No motion was ever too frivolous to bring, and of course, it was all billed out at the standard hourly rate.

“I have that memo for you,” Stephen said.

Mr. O’ Donnell sat up, took off his glasses, and looked at Stephen.  “You probably thought that it would be okay for you to hand this to me now, because you knew that I would be working late on this, didn’t you?”

Well, yes.

“I’m sorry sir,” Stephen said, “It took me longer than I expected.”

“Then you should have come in this weekend.  When I was your age, I worked seven days a week.”

Yes, but you’re a masochist.

“My apologies, sir, I’ll try to use my time better in the future.”

“You’re just lucky I wasn’t planning on leaving early tonight.”

But you weren’t planning on leaving early!  You have a hearing tomorrow!

“You’re right, sir.”

Mr. O’Donnell smiled, put his glasses back on, and returned to what he had been reading, tossing Stephen’s memo aside as he did.  Stephen sighed and shut the door behind him.

Despite the longer days, when Stephen left the office, it was already dark.  He walked to the Metro station as quickly as he could, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw the shadow of someone else walking behind him.  He turned his head to look, but there was no one there.  A few minutes later, the same thing happened.  This time, he definiely saw a figure duck into the darkness afforded by an alleyway.  He also saw that the figure hadn’t cast a reflection in the window of the building across the street.  He stopped, knelt down, and pulled the wooden stake out of his briefcase.  He’d be starting his second job early this evening.

Reviews

[Calypso]

I liked this story. The ending was a happy ending in a way.