Urges (fiction)

Urges?  This from the city attorney.  He sat at a 45-degree angle to his desk, his pen poised to strike at a yellow pad.  His eyebrows raised and his eyes lowered.  It occurred to me that this was not just an expression, that people's eyebrows really did elevate in moments of...what?  Skepticism, suspicion, disdain, surprise?  Whatever the stimulus, the result was this, the city attorney's eyebrows going one direction, while the actual eyes searched the blank yellow pad in the opposite direction.  This stretched his face, opened it up in a certain way.  In the opening there was, yes, palpable annoyance mixed with impatience.  And there were many questions.  I wanted to know who he was, the city attorney, why he sat here all day and what he did.  Even why he was named George.  And if he could have another name, if I offered one right now, promised him in legal terms he would understand that we could effect a permanent and instant alteration.  And he could walk out of his office Bill or Alfonse.  Would he go for it?

Urges.  He stared my way, not exactly at me but in the general direction of where I was sitting.  This was what I didn't like, the looking down on the client, getting all impersonal and stuffy.  Maybe it was because I wasn't a client exactly.  I was a citizen of the city, as many insist on calling it, of Menlo Park.  In this instant, I was also a volunteer.  For I had stepped forward in a public minded sort of way.  And now I rolled forward, wheelchair control clicking, as though invited by his gaze to move closer.  We were on the same wavelength.  Team members.  Something needed to be done.  And by way of understanding his open annoyance, mentally I admitted that there were many things a city attorney had to get done in a day, and my urges were low on his list.

"Well," I explained, "not just press releases about traffic speeders' photos in City Hall.  Other urges too."

"I'm listening."

I wanted to tell George, and I wanted to call him that, to lighten up.  It's downright oppressive and conversationally deadening to go at this discussion with all this antagonism and tone of why-are-you-wasting-my-time rudeness.  For that's what it was.  I didn't have to be here.  Didn't have to be talking to him.  And I was right on the verge of telling him, fuck it, George.  I'll just keep my urges to myself and roll around town expressing them.  But I didn't say this.  I wanted to be here, to see what George did in his office, how he passed his time and what mattered to him.  This was the crux.  Certain things were important to me, but probably not to him, and vice versa.

His phone buzzed.  A blast from the speaker filled his office with the receptionist's voice, that FedEx was here and the Harwich & Bernstein package was going off, and was this okay?  Not a word about was it was okay to interrupt us, the package being so important in all.  La de da.  George waved in the air.  Yes, yes, the package should have gone off yesterday.  

I saw now for the first time that there was something troubled about him, unfulfilled, even desperate.  His gaze, for he was now sending it my way, filled the morning with sadness.  It came to me right then that we could shelve this discussion.  Why not do lunch?  The Mexican place, and I didn't mean the old Mexican place, the one that always seemed a tad too authentic, but the contemporary one with the really good frijoles and the fusion menu, things like seafood rellenos...that was a place lots of people in Menlo Park barely knew about, because it was up a side street and the sign was modest and hard to read.  Anyway, the two of us could repair there for lunch, give all this a rest, and talk about something else.  Like wasn't it unique having a Mexican restaurant without hot sauce?  Salsa, yes, but not those little lava bowls brimming with tomato sauce and pepper seeds.

"Urges?"  He was showing his teeth now, George was.  I don't know what it is about certain attorneys, but it's like they eat raw meat or shoot up on aggression steroids.  Everything is an attack.  I was aware that I needed to throw George a little fresh meat just to keep him occupied.

"Just rolling around downtown in my wheelchair I get these ideas."

George wasn't even listening now, but straightening up his desk the way you do when a meeting has ended

"Violent urges," I said.  "Things I'm about to do.  To the City of Menlo Park."

Wearily George picked up his pen again, stared at the carpet and raised his eyebrows, but only to about half-mast.

"Like I see the crosswalk button at the corner of Santa Cruz Avenue and El Camino and want to smash it."

"Mind if I ask why?"  This was more the style I liked in George, authentically concerned and interested.

No, I said, not at all.  I really didn't mind.  He had every right to ask.  And who wouldn't?  There's this guy in a wheelchair and he sees a crosswalk button and has this idea about smashing it.  And why?  How would George know?  It seemed to me a perfectly friendly matter that would go well with chili verde and warm tortillas.  But I didn't suggest this.  In life you have to let go of certain things.

"I can't reach it," I said, "the button.  There's this little metal button, and someone has positioned it far away on a light pole.  Even if I lean over, half falling out of my wheelchair, I can't press it."

"Is that it?" George was writing something on his pad.  "You tell Palmer.  Public Works will get on it.  Okay."  George was standing up.  He handed me his yellow sheet with Palmer underlined.

"There's no phone number," I told him.

"Reception has it."

"I see that button, and I don't think of crosswalks.  I think of plastic explosive.  I think of terrorist acts against public property, or property that should be public, since I am a member of same."

George was opening the door.  I didn't budge.

"I am a retired person...."

"That is abundantly clear."

"...who has a lot of nasty things on his mind and the time and will to act on them, as you've seen."

"Good luck with all that."

"Forewarned is forearmed."

He disappeared out the door.  Menlo Park's city attorney just up and left in the middle of a meeting.  He'd had enough.  Well, so had I.  I whirred into the empty hallway, looked up and down.  Lunch hour.  City staff was probably hogging all the tables at the good Mexican restaurant, having gotten there early, having scooted out the door conveniently ahead of their wheelchair-bound client.  Because, I decided right then and there, I was their client.  

At 62, my identity might be a little shaky, what with the recent cessation of moneymaking activities.  But I knew a client when I saw one.  And I was seeing one, right now, for I was in the men's room where the mirrors were large and abundant and free.  No, not free, but paid for by taxpayers like me.  No one was around, and I was in a mood to knock over the trash can with my very powerful electric wheelchair.  Too risky, I decided, with my name all over the city attorney's calendar.  And not necessary, for you learned a thing or two in life.  That there are clients.  And there are attorneys.  And there are attorney-client privileges.  As for the latter, what they were wasn't clear.  But dammit, I was going to find out.