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Kraken
Federated Suns
Marshal
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 2755
Location: United States
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 Posted: 14-Mar-2002 17:13 Post subject: Truth and Carelessness- A Novel Pt. 1 (take 2) |
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Trust and Carelessness
By Darren Blair (Kraken)
1
Trust and carelessness, in all their forms, are at the heart of my dealings. Trust comes from both views of
it in my field. Lack of trust from some due to my profession as a lawyer. And yet I seem to gain trust from others in
plentitude due to some as of yet unascertained but fully disarming quality I would appear to possess. And in giving
me this trust, they also show an alarming habit of carelessness. For whatever reason, people are always sharing
with me their secrets. The more damning, it seems, the more they want to tell them to me. It’s almost always
“Mister White, I need to talk” or “Hey, Desmond, I got something to tell you” or some other reason like that. It’s as
if they have no recognizance of my being the one and only Desmond White, one of the best and most determined
lawyers around.
And yet, they still keep coming to me. At first, I paid it no heed. But it has begun to grate on me as of late.
And yet no matter how bluntly yet politely I express my displeasure, no one seems to notice, or if they did to even
care. Day in and day out, it’s always the same. I would practically have to leave the country for a while to get them
to stop and yet I would most likely only be hounded wherever my travels would take me.
And for whatever reason, all that I am told stays fresh in my brain, no matter how long it has been since
they last discussed it with me. Especially those with the potential for the most havoc. Like my friend from college,
Roger, sitting on the other side of the cafe. By all appearances, he’s the happiest husband in the state. Yet one
would scarcely believe that from the tales that he tells me. Or the popular schoolteacher, Ms. Janet Lee, who has
confided in me twice to cheating on her taxes. And that look on her face while she toys nervously with her food
would suggest that she has done it again. Were it not for her cousin, who apparently has some feelings for me, I
might, nay should, have very well turned her in years ago. But it would have served no purpose to me, so I resolved
not to act until it would.
But my only hope for the day was to escape lunch without being tormented again, and to go back home
and declare my vacation for the rest of the week. And after what I have just experienced, no reasonable man could
pass blame.
Ogler’s and Phepp’s was perhaps one of the largest and most successful, or at least the most powerful, of
all the banks for miles around. Security was so tight that it was rumored that even a traffic violation could get you
removed from your position, whatever it was at the time. However, one wondered whether or not it was more their
image than their customer’s safety that prompted such measures.
So it was both a great shock and a rapidly circulated story when one of their most trusted accountants
revealed that a large sum, mainly in cash, had just disappeared from the coffers of not only the bank, but of some of
the customers, leaving neither trace or excuse. I, being of the finest, was immediately hired as their lawyer
practically the same day (In fact, it was but three minutes past midnight when I was awakened by their call.) I
would rather have not taken the case, especially in light of what it led to, but my extended absence from the courts
due to a broken leg incurred while playing a round of football with some of my friends began to eat at my accounts.
I rather needed the money, so I had no choice.
In reality, tough, I usually avoid working for large firms such as these. They remind me too much of when
I worked for the city and how much I hated that; but I digress from the point at hand. Two of the many things I
hated, however, resurfaced during my work for them: having to play to the media with scripted responses, and
having to be present at hours of often meaningless interviews. Pandering to the media in itself is usually enough to
bother me; but having to listen to and sort through all those hours of employee interviews combined with it to
almost make me ill with sheer disgust, a sensation which I swear that I shall forever try to avoid again.
On top of that was the near-raving masses of customers who all wanted immediate answers and who
refused to leave without them. No matter how many times they were told, however, that the missing money was
being investigated or that the government would, by virtue of the law, be repaying the customers much of their
money. I can understand how they feel; I remember one time when a careless clerk at the financing department
reversed a few numbers on my paycheck once and in the process nearly cost me almost half of a month’s pay when
I was still paying off some loans; yet another of the reasons I went into business for myself when I got the money.
But I can’t ever recall going into a fury like what some of the customers here were doing, and in fact are still doing
to this day.
And what’s worse, none other than Julius Ogler and Anthony Phepp themselves were at each other’s
throats over the situation, each blaming the other’s incompetence in some area or another for allowing this to
happen. Apparently, according to some of the workers, this issue forced to the forefront a long-standing grudge
between the two that had so recently escalated into a virtual feud. Apparently Anthony had never quite lived down
the fact that while he had contributed most of the capital funds for their first bank, it was Julius who had
supposedly received the most attention in the media, prompting his name to be put first in order and not the coin
toss that was recorded in their official history. It was here that my doubts about taking this case began to pan out.
Had but Fate allowed me to listen.
_________________
"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat." -Edgar Allen Poe"I knew there was something special about you, but I never realized you were really a cat." Wolfwood to a random cat (Trigun)
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