Springsummer
Johnsons
5 Segway Attack
Gilbert Petty sat his front desk security checkpoint,
writing feverishly into a thick 8.5 x 11 notebook. Once more, Gilbert had
secured a job where he could write a novel on someone else’s dime.
The job in this case was evening security officer at the
Pouty Building in downtown Houston, Texas. The ten story office facility housed
lawyers and doctors and architects and consultants. Gone were the days when
security personnel strolled through structures with station clocks. At some
point in video saturation, the smart people decided that officers should stay
“in the pocket” as much as possible, monitoring the cams and other sensors.
Gilbert Petty had fun playing with the diagnostics. He liked
to check the diagnostics. He liked to cross reference the number of people who
entered the building against the number of people who left the building. He
also liked to audit the entrants versus the exiteers at each unit.
Recently, a dentist on the fifth floor had some trouble on
the home front and was sleeping in his office. On Wednesday his unit recorded
one fewer person exiting his office than had entered. The numbers balanced on
Thursday and Friday but on this Saturday morning the dentist left in the AM and
returned around 2 PM, shortly after Gilbert started his shift. The unusual
“exit first then entrance” order of events sent an alert to the security team.
Gilbert Petty typically worked Wednesday to Sunday 3 to 11
PM. The overnight officers would frequently fail to show up and Gilbert would
gobble some Adrafinil and pull a double, much to the pleasure of his
seldom-seen supervisors. On a typical workday the building was 80% cleared by 5
PM and 90% empty by six o’clock.
The only unit that was typically busy past 7 PM was Peacock
Immigration, LLC. Gilbert Petty found the term confusing until he learned that
Peacock was the name of a highly successful immigration attorney.
Gilbert had made the mistake of asking Neil Hutchens, the
7-3 officer, why a law firm would do business as an LLC. Hutchens was a retired
airman who had served at several obscure outposts and filled in his time
reading and reading and reading. He seemed to know everything. Hutchens
explained in waterlogged detail the constraints on law firms as well as the
constraints placed on consultants who proffered legal advice, the merits of
legal liability. The merits of incorporation, the constraints placed on law
firms incorporating as well as the loopholes they sometimes use to get around
these obstacles. Hutchens reminded Gilbert Petty why the writer never attended
law school.
Tonight was shaping up to be a perfect Saturday. 7 PM and
Gilbert Petty already had two and a half hours writing his first installment in
“The Steel Chronicles: The Next Generation.” Even with a scheduled brown sack
lunch and a cyber break, the author might devote five hours to his latest
masterpiece. “Saving Lakota” would be Gilbert Petty’s twelfth novel, his twelfth
western. He was certain that this would
be his breakthrough.
This would be the novel that would bet Gilbert Petty
published. This is the one that would have the public asking, “Are there other
works by this guy?” To which an enterprising agent will say, “Yes! The author
has eleven other novels as well as the best book ever written for the would-be
author.” An industry launches from its pad.
And Gilbert Petty’s life will make sense to his family and
old friends. Sort of. And at the next funeral he can explain his motive for
working all those silly jobs over the years. “Ninety percent of writing is finding the time
to write.” A direct quote from Gilbert Petty’s only work of non-fiction, “How
to Make a Fortune as a Freelance Writer.”
Westerns are overdue for a comeback. Gilbert Petty knew that
for decades. “The problem with most westerns,” he instructed the reader in his
yet to be published how-to book, “is that they are set in the West.” As well,
most of them are set in the late 1800’s. So confining. That is why Gilbert
Petty set his first two westerns on the Erie Canal, the third and fourth along
the Ohio River, the fifth in Appalachia and the sixth in antebellum Florida.
Noticing that his lead protagonists seemed to closely
resemble one another, he created the character of George Washington Steel, the
hero of “The Steel Chronicles.” George
Washington Steel is to firearms what Nicola Tesla was to electricity. In
Petty’s alternate history Steel delivers safe and accurate repeating rifles
decades before their real world arrival. Steel sells his invention to
indigenous peoples, preventing the Trail of Tears and fostering the independent
state of Cherokee that later joins the Union in 1841 as the 27th
state.
Tonight, Gilbert Petty has already tallied three thousand
words of the first draft that would introduce George Washington Steel III. The
social justice warrior gunsmith is an idiom whose time has come. Yes, this
would be the breakthrough. Gilbert Petty was certain of it.
Gilbert Petty took a break and unlocked the downstairs
Carrara White Marble floor men’s room. This respite never stunk and was never
dirty. The floor alone cost more than Gilbert paid for his car. The walls were
a verdant granite that blended well with the white marble and the fluorescent
green pump soap posted in crystal dispensers above each sink.
Gilbert Petty took his time urinating and took more time
washing his hands. The warm, soft water, the gentle soap with the ineffable
odor that smelled more wholesome and nostalgic than antiseptic capped off by
the lotion-induced, high velocity, maximum heat hand dryer. He studied his
reflection in the mirror. As he aged, Gilbert Petty came to resemble a Millard
Fillmore with hair dye. Gilbert said a
silent prayer of gratitude for his Grecian Formula and returned to his post.
Gilbert Petty sat at his elevated desk in the almost-posh
lobby. He had set the cams to “Pause” when he went to the men’s room and now he
replayed them at triple speed until he returned to real time. Nothing unusual.
Gilbert perused the Internet as he ate his lunch of assorted meats and cheeses
washed down with caffeinated diet cola. He spent some time on MyFace looking at
his family, most of who still lived in and around St. Joseph, Missouri.
Gilbert Petty grew up the youngest of six with a tight knit
extended family featuring dozens of warm and friendly first and second cousins.
There were some recurring themes in their online posts. Beautiful families,
gorgeous homes, graduations, weddings, baptisms, long vacations that involved
travel, vacation homes, early retirement, joy.
Gilbert never begrudged his family a penny from their purses
or a minute of their domestic bliss. He was genuinely happy for these great
people. But, oh how he wished he could join in their banquet.
Gilbert had no family to bring to family reunions. He once
had a wife but she never understood why a grown man would pursue something as
uncertain as writing novels. She married a man who could have gone to grad
school or who could have learned a trade or a medical skill or he could have
gone to truck driving school. Why couldn’t he understand, no one wanted to read
his shit?
Gilbert Petty never shared his novel-writing. Nothing says
loser like unpublished writer. He always thought he would be a commercially
successful writer and he would laugh about working as a human guinea pig, a hotel
desk clerk, a security guard….
A security guard! He pledged to never again reveal that he
was working as a security guard. Whereas people found his stories about
managing group homes interesting, or expressed amusement about his pursuits as
a medical research subject, they seemed almost insulted that he worked as a
security guard.
At his father’s wake, Gilbert Petty revealed that he was
currently employed as a security guard. It was an ideal gig. Abandoned factory.
No busy work. The birthplace of two novels.
Standing nearby his father’s casket, Gilbert chatted with
his cousin, Steve. “I thought you would amount to something,” his cousin said
suddenly. Another cousin, Robert, asked unexpectedly, “Weren’t you an honor
student?” An old family friend, Shirley Band asked, “What’s your fulltime job?”
No, Gilbert Petty would never again reveal that he was
working as a security guard, no matter how conducive to writing the job might
be. As far as everyone knew, he still worked as a funeral director and
embalmer’s helper. No one would ever know that he was once more, the man with
the keys.
Gilbert Petty focused on his lunch and tried to remind
himself to chew each mouthful thirty times. Genoa salami, pepperoni, beef
jerky, jalapeno cheese and Spam. Gilbert savored each morsel distracted only by
the bright lights of the computer screen.
Gilbert petty isolated a chunk of Spam and pushed it to the
side of his plate. That nugget was now designated the finale of this kingly
dinner. Spam is always a great conclusion. Always quit on a high note.
Suddenly there was a loud, abrasive noise coming from the
front door. It happened fast but Gilbert Petty was able to process it. A Segway
modified with armor, had extended a battering ram through the plate glass that
divided the revolving door from the wheelchair door.
Sounds of bent metal and broken glass filled the air. The
Segway rolled through the debris and kicked into high gear. It dashed towards
the corner stairwell, opened the fire door and ascended the steps.
Gilbert Petty called 911 immediately. “Yes mam, a Segway. No
mam, that’s not a man’s name, it’s a machine. I think it’s spelled
S-E-G-W-A-Y.”
Gilbert Petty observed the cams. The Segway rolled in front
of Peacock Immigration, LLC, and was pounding its heavy wood door with the
battering ram. As he tried desperately to make sense to the slow-talking
dispatcher, two more Segways entered the building through the broken plate
glass. He observed that both of these were not as heavily armored but they were
equipped with hoses and gadgets and what appeared to be gasoline and propane
tanks.
“A Segway is generally used for personal transportation,
mam.”
On the monitors Gilbert saw large flames shoot from Peacock
Immigration and more firepower was on the way.
“Mam, please call me a fire truck,” he requested politely and placed her
on hold. He then dialed the dentist office. Voicemail. He hung up again as he
looked up emergency contacts for the practice. He used his personal phone to
call the dentist’s cell.
“Dr. Gumm?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Security. The building is on fire. You want to take the
stairway that is to the left of your front door. If you take the stairs on the
right, you will walk into the fire.”
He watched Dr. Gumm slowly walk out of his office as he rejoined
the dispatcher. “Mam, the building is on fire.”
“And you call these things Segways?” the dispatcher
inquired.
Lightning had already struck Gilbert Petty. The attack of
the remote controlled Segways would be a national, if not international, news story.
And the only witness to this sensational event is…The Security Guard…and your
name, sir?
Gilbert Petty briefly weighed the pain and suffering
associated with smoke inhalation. He then grabbed his notebook and his reusable
paper lunch sack and leisurely strolled across the lobby and stepped through
the broken window. He was pleased to see
that Dr. Gumm had preceded him to the sidewalk.
Gilbert Petty smiled briefly and then dropped his head in
defeat.
