1006862.doc
THE DRAGON
by
Patricia Heil
myBlog from a corporate drudge
August 10, 2006 08:40
Here I am at Dulles waiting for this dude we're supposed to do business with and the plane is late. It's a good thing I have my iPod with me or I'd go nuts. I looked at the arrivals board but everything from London is getting marked canceled. WTF? Oh, wait, there goes my cell.
August 10, 2006 08:45
Carnie says the planes from London were canceled because of a bomb scare and I might as well come back to work and then go again when we hear differently. She says get him some aftershave and toothpaste and stuff because they won't let him bring any of it in his carry on, they're confiscating it all. Also get him a bottle of whiskey at the duty free store because if he's rattled, he'll want a drink.
August 10, 2006 08:50
Carnie called back. Get him some sunscreen, SPF 45. He's sensitive to the sun, it's a family thing. I'll know him by his dark hair and sunglasses even when he's inside. Also he has a kind of widow's peak. And a med-alert bracelet. He'll want sushi or steak tartare. Yeah, right, like I know all the restaurants in town that serve steak tartare. Isn't that stuff raw? What about mad cow? Oh wait, we don't have mad cow in the U.S. Do we? Carnie says make sure if it's sushi, it's not tuna or mackerel.
August 10, 2006 09:00
Carnie says I shouldn't blog, I'm a boreblogger really. My best friend.
August 10, 2006 09:10
Carnie says get him some iron supplements, they confiscated his. Carnie says take him to Cities. Carnie says to watch out for crab as well as mackerel and tuna if we go for sushi.
Carnie's not the boss of me no matter how it sounds. We both work for the same boss, and we get paid the same. I think. It's just that Carnie is in the office with Google and I'm not. I asked why I got this job and Pat said the guy has very strict moral rules and it probably would bother him to have a woman there. I asked what is he Muslim and Pat said no, he just would be uncomfortable having a woman alone come pick him up. I asked doesn't he trust himself and Pat said just get out there. Lot of good I'm doing here.
August 10, 2006 09:22
Carnie says she called the hotel to make sure they keep the reservation open. I said why are we putting him up at Comfort Suites and on Route 1 at that, he'll never be able to get out of the parking lot with all the college traffic and commuters trying to get to the Beltway. Carnie says he wants a fridge and microwave. I said if he likes steak tartare and sushi what does he need with a microwave. She said get him vodka, not whiskey, and he likes to drink it warm. She said get him tomato juice, lemon juice, celery salt, Worcestershire sauce, and tabasco. I said what's he going to eat for breakfast? She said don't worry about it. There are lots of food joints up and down the street and we can always bring in stuff to eat over coffee in the morning. I said how do you know he drinks coffee, maybe he drinks tea. She said oh, damn. Listen, since he isn't here yet, run up to Baltimore Tea and Coffee and get a pound of Russian tea and when you come back, go to Giant and get raspberry preserves and sugar. And a strainer. And a mug. And don't forget the receipts.
I said if he's like Russian you'd better call the hotel and make sure the A/C is working because it's hot out there. And by the way, the mileage on my SUV is 45,686 miles and it's 62 miles to Baltimore so you're going to owe me $30 for gas and that's before I go to the Giant and go back out to Dulles tonight. She said bring a receipt and I said yeah, right, like at the Sheetz the pump will be out of receipt paper so you're going to make me go the whole way inside to pay and I don't have any cash. She said how did you think you were going to pay for the tea and stuff and I said ever heard of plastic? She said use an ATM I said what about the fees, she said get a receipt. I said ATMs don't show you the fee in the receipt. She said then go inside and ask. I said if the bank was open why should I use the ATM? She hung up.
Carnie can be a real bitch sometimes.
August 10, 2006 16:30
I'm back at Dulles with ten pounds of groceries in the back of my SUV and I hope none of them can go bad because I'm going to be stuck here for three more hours. I'm pissed. Carnie won't talk to me. There are like 5,000 people here going apeshit because their flights were cancelled or their friends are stuck in London. Babies are crying and wetting their diapers and I'm going like just take them home and put the rest of us out of our misery. Kids are whining and making their parents mad. People have finished their paperbacks and they're roaming around. There's a couple over against a wall who need to get a room.
August 10, 2006 23:13
I found the guy. It's like Carnie said, he has a widow's peak. Looks like one of those Spy vs. Spy guys except he has a Boris moustache. It took us hours to get him to the hotel and get all the food into the room. He has an ugly smile. He tried to smile politely and say thank you but I felt like he was laughing inside. He wears a rosary! Must be Buddhist. Richard Gere should play him in the movie. But he's not that handsome.
But they are – his assistants. I thought I was going to bite my tongue off. I mean tall and in and out in all the right places and eyes – the eyes could kill you. I can't believe we got here because I kept catching myself looking in the rear-view trying to watch them. If it wasn't so late at night we'd have wrecked. Wonder what they assist him with more.
August 11, 2006
OK I'm going to stop the blogging but here's what's happening. Pat published about this computer chip we invented that can detect chemicals and it uses crab shells to do it. The reason people are excited is that it's so sensitive plus they don't need to kill crabs to make it, they can use the shells the restaurants would throw into the trash. So this guy Draco in Wallachia heard about it and his business has contracts with Homeland Security even if they're not American because they're the best. I don't know how unless he used to do stuff for the KGB. Carnie laughed when I brought that up, she said you were what, five when the KGB went away. I said I read.
Anyway these babes of his heard about it and after his business in London was over, he decided to come here. His sister Alexandra is running the business. Hope she doesn't look like him. That would be totally unfair to her.
So we had the meeting and I'm sitting there as gofer and I catch the eyes of one of them. Klara, that's her name. Dark blonde and eyes that are almost black. I mean bottomless. I mean for a while – I don't even know how long – all there was in the world was those eyes. Then Carnie hits me on the head and says go get coffee. And I come back from all this swirling red and purple light and heartbeats and feeling a pulse through the skin on the wrist as it goes faster and faster… I can't believe I could even get up to get the coffee.
So the meeting goes on and then he gets this call and he's saying right, good, that's what you have to do. "These bloodsuckers who think that we are simply aristos with worn-out blood must learn the truth. Soon enough we will have a completely obedient cadre of employees who will prefer to cut their throats rather than lie to us." Can you say take no prisoners? He tells us that his sister caught an employee lying and has charged them with criminal fraud. See what I mean? You don't dare lie to this guy, let alone steal office supplies or commit industrial espionage.
Anyway the meeting ends and it's Friday and Pat asks him for dinner and he declines. Then Pat offers to introduce him to Archbishop Wuerl. Draco says no thanks. Pat asks where he plans to go for mass. He says I'm not sure I will, I'm not sure I would feel comfortable in an American congregation. Pat says why not? Draco says you Americans treated the Pope pretty badly. Pat asks when? Draco says over this pedophilia business. Pat says so we should have just let them all get away with ruining lives? Draco says you can do it without being rude to the Pope. Pat says if the Pope doesn't plan to protect the young people in his church, nobody can blame them for splitting off. That's why there are even Protestants – mistreating the congregation. Draco says reform from within was beginning before Luther and would have continued after. Pat says how many people would have waited once Luther got started? Why didn't the church put Luther in charge of the reforms? Why didn't the Pope put people in charge of the pedophilia issue who were already pushing to get something done? Where was the proof that there were such people or that anybody was listening to them?
Draco says you are an able debater and you ask important questions but we will never know the answers because everybody involved took the paths they did instead of the ones you suggest. It's all history now. But I don't have to approve and I don't have to condone it by submitting my conscience to an American confessor. Wuh.
Carnie was swooning all over the guy's bracelet, the red enameled dragon on it and the gold. He says it's because he's a member of the order of the dragon. I've been looking it up on wikipedia. It's medieval. No really, and it's most famous member was – get this – Dracula. Look it up for yourself.
August 12, 2006
Had to rattle Carnie's cage today. I told her that Draco is Count Dracula re-incarnated, and the dragon bracelet is how he fascinates women into paying attention to him. She'd better watch out because he might turn her into a vampire when she thinks all he's doing is giving her a hickey. "All we have to find out is that he likes to torture small animals, especially if he impales them or sets them on fire." Carnie looked like she was going to hurl. I downloaded Dracula last night and read it; he also has to make her drink his blood but I didn't tell her that.
Mircea came in right then – she's the dark one, I can't make out if she's Indian or Ethiopian – and I said isn't that right? Carnie told her I was goofing on Draco being a vampire and liking to torture small animals. She smiled and looked me in the eyes and said, "You're just the right size, too." For a minute I saw all the swirling colors again and then Carnie hit me on the back of the head and said go get the pastry tray and coffee.
We met in the Laboratory of Physical Sciences for a demonstration and Q&A and that took until lunch. When we broke, Carnie asked if Draco was going to get married. I was hoping he would sting her but he was completely serious. "I've been seeking the perfect woman and if I find her she will live like a queen."
"So what is the perfect woman like?"
"Sweet, but strong enough so that I know she can remain sweet through all the challenges of life. Intelligent, educated, accomplished. Well-bred of course; she must do a lot of entertaining. Dignified. Devout. Chaste and a virgin when we marry; there must be never a doubt that her children are mine. Are you a virgin, miss?"
"That is a question no gentleman asks and no lady has to answer," Carnie says.
Draco is rubbing his bracelet and says, "If a gentleman were talking to a lady he would never think of asking." Carnie turned red. He took his hand away from his bracelet and I could swear the dragon's eyes were lit up. He's into nanotechnology and microsensors. Is there something about women that he might have a nanocomputer to detect, that would tell him a woman isn't a virgin? Wow.
Carnie is done with him, I think.
August 14 2006
Gabe that loser is back. Draco just took over the company he worked at, and did a lot of head-chopping. Gabe says his girl says her boss was getting kickbacks from suppliers and another manager was skimming profits. She says Draco had all the evidence, showed it to them, and gave them the option of quitting without a bonus or going to jail. Then he riffed a bunch of people including Gabe. Gabe and I have been friends forever but even I know he's a screwup and he probably deserved it. I mean, he barely passed in accounting and he temped for five years before one of the companies he temped for would take him even on trial. And he got put on a second probation period instead of even getting off probation. I'll bet those bosses could do what they did because Gabe never even noticed how screwed up the numbers were.
I did a stupid thing last night, though. Got drunk with him. Told him about the babes first. Then somehow I told him about Draco.
So what does that idiot Gabe do but show up at the lab today with this big crucifix on to invite me to lunch. Comes right into the meeting room. I'm sitting next to Draco and Gabe leans over my shoulder on his side and the crucifix taps him on the shoulder. He turns around and gives him this look that would shrink steel, and Gabe jumps back. I said get out of here, I'll meet you in the reception room. We break and I go scorch him. It's not even a real crucifix, I said, it's just some wood. He says it's rose canes, it's not just the cross, it's the rose canes. I fall out laughing, you idiot of course he's not going to burn up when you touch him with a crucifix. He's Catholic, you big dummy, he wears a rosary.
Gabe says have you ever seen him in church? Have you ever seen him use holy water? Have you ever seen him take communion?
I said no, he's not planning to go to church here, he doesn't like American priests. Aha, Gabe says, have you ever even seen a crucifix on his rosary. Yes, I say. Gabe shuts up. I say if you get me fired, you are in even bigger trouble than you are now.
I apologized to Draco. "Gabe got the wrong idea from something I said when we were both drunk last night. I always knew what a jerk he was but I never thought he would do anything like this, sober or drunk or even hungover."
"What did you say?" Draco asked.
"You really want to know what a stupid drunk said?"
"Try me."
"I said a bunch of stuff about how much like Vlad Dracula you are. Gabe went the rest of the nine yards and decided you were a vampire."
The guy actually smiled. "You were right, you're not responsible for a stupid drunk, not even yourself." He might actually be a good guy to work for if you toe the line and keep your nose clean.
August 16 2006
Then some other stuff happened. Draco went to Virginia Tech for a couple days about other stuff for this project. Today he comes in and he is seriously pissed. He couldn't even concentrate on getting Pat and his staff down to brass tacks with the VT specialists he brought with him, he was on the cell the whole time. Alexandra dropped a poison pill on a corporation that tried to scoop his stock – what he and Alexandra don't own which is less than half but with such a big company, that's worth a lot.
Then he's talking about the price of stock being depressed and the only good thing about that is he won't have to cut into his personal reserves too much to buy the stock back.
Then he tells Mircea – she's in PR – to release the press story they've been holding out on. I went to my desk and Googled his company news. The other company has been polluting the groundwater in Moldavia, and he's saying it's responsible for birth defects. Then I find their stock on the Big Board and I pretend to be ordering supplies while I watch that stock tank. This guy does not play nice.
August 18, 2006
Today's big news story is that the company Draco dropped the poison pill on went bankrupt and let go all its employees. Draco has bought their stock at pennies – or is that pfennig? – on the dollar – never mind – and gave it to the employees to run. He was in a really good mood when he got here and when I asked him about it, he said, "Very good, young man. I had no idea you were so interested in the business world."
"I was just impressed with how you operate. I mean, it takes a real hardass to go up against you because nobody can be sure what you'll do except that you'll blow them up."
"Corporate officials who line their own pockets at the expense of their employees and stock holders deserve to be blown up. I am not what you call warm and cuddly" – that's an understatement! – "but no business can function without employees and no corporation can fund itself without shareholders. If the officials can't be trusted to work for the good of the company instead of for their own good, how can the employees be expected to behave differently."
"How did you know about the groundwater?" Pat asked.
"I saw the company's reports."
"Insiders, huh?"
Draco smiled a little bit.
August 20, 2006
I am never getting drunk with Gabe again. It was all so harmless. Then we got in his truck to go back to my place, and instead he drives us to Draco's hotel. I said what are you doing? He said what about those babes? Maybe they're all lonely in the bar. You think the two of us can handle the three of them?
Well I'm drunk of course otherwise it wouldn't have made any sense. There isn't a bar. The ladies aren't in the coffee room. Gabe says maybe they're upstairs. Let's pretend to be room service. Here's how stupid that is, Comfort Suites doesn't have room service but I'm drunk, remember. He goes back out to the truck and comes back with a box and we go up to their rooms. Don't ask me how he found out which ones. I'm not his babysitter and right now I'm drunk, remember?
So we get to this suite and we knock – Gabe does – and says room service and nobody answers. So he uses a door card and we go in. It's Draco's suite! There are suits in the closet, not dresses and I say Geeze Gabe what have you gotten me into now. He says shut up and put these under the pillows. It's like little crackers with crosses on them and I say I thought I told you he was Catholic. This is nuts. He says under the pillows and under the covers, stupid. He sprinkles something on top of the pillows. What's that? Holy water, he says. Geeze, you stole from a church? If he's a vampire, we have to stop him, he says. What would you say if some day Carnie turned up at work and tried to take a bite out of your neck?
Like that will ever happen, I say, he wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole, he thinks she's not a virgin.
Gabe looks at me and says how did you manage that?
What, I say.
Carnie?
I punched him and he started bleeding.. Let's get out of here, I say.
Wait a minute, I want to see if… He goes into the other rooms and when he comes back he says, Nope. I wonder what he does in the day, Gabe says.
What he does?
He needs a coffin with dirt from his homeland to sleep in. There's nothing here.
I keep telling you…
Wait, do you smell that?
What?
Something sweet.
I do smell it a little and I remember the sunscreen I bought Draco. This is what you're smelling, and I show him the bottles on the bureau.
How many bottles of that did you buy him?
More than this. He has a skin condition.
Then Gabe shivers. I felt a cold chill, he says. Let's go.
I've been trying to get you to do that for half an hour.
We get back in the truck and start driving to my place and I look down and there's this snake under the pedals. Geeze how'd that get there?
Don't know, Gabe says.
Look, pull over and we'll get it out of there. That's a cottonmouth, they're poisonous.
No it's not it's a water snake and they're not poisonous.
How do you know? I ask. Like I can hardly trust Gabe to know his own name at this point so how can I trust him to know one snake from another.
If it was a cottonmouth it would have bitten me already wouldn't it?
Maybe, maybe it's cold and not really awake.
Gabe keeps driving and I'm just praying the damn snake doesn't come over on my side. But it doesn't bite him and when we stop, he pulls the crucifix out of the back and uses it to lift the snake out of the truck. Then we go to bed to sleep it off.
August 22 2006
Draco is leaving so Pat had him over to his house for dinner. I wasn't too up for this because I came home last night and found Gabe dead on the sofa. I called the cops because I can't see what killed him and neither could they. They took him off to the coroner and this morning I get this call asking when Gabe came into contact with a cottonmouth. "Hello, hello?" I couldn't talk because I was so scared. I never saw the snake after we got it out of the truck. It could have bitten me after it got into the house. Carnie says my face was whiter than paper and I told her the whole thing.
Anyway the food was good but I couldn't eat much, I had to spend all afternoon calling Gabe's girl and his family and I just felt sick about it. I didn't pay much attention to what people were saying either. Draco might be a good guy to work for – the pay might be good and what not – but I probably blew any chance of him hiring me the way I behaved during dinner.
Pat's kids ran downstairs with their pajamas on inside-out and asked did he think they could do a putting off school dance the way they do a snow dance. He laughs and says try it. They're twins, Brian and Brianna, once Pat brought them to work and guess who hates kids but wound up having to babysit them? Anyway they start jumping around and Carnie and Pat start laughing. The babes smile a little bit. Then the kids look at Draco, scream, and run back upstairs. Kids. Anyway he said good night and tomorrow he's leaving.
August 23 2006
I apologized again to Draco for Gabe's stupidity and tell him the jerk is dead. He just goes Hm and we don't say anything else for the rest of the trip.
I got their stuff out of the SUV and gave it to the skycap and the girls walk into the terminal. Draco hangs around a moment and then says, "Weren't you and Gabe in my hotel suite the other night."
Now what do you say to that. Only I remember how much he hates lies so I said, "Yes. But we were really drunk again and that is never going to happen again."
Draco smiles that scary smile of his and says, "If you want to join industry, email me. Perhaps we can do business together. By the way, I am Vlad Dracula."
I know my jaw dropped because he reached out and closed my mouth. "Reincarnation is a fact. Vlad the Impaler was reincarnated as a woman who became a prostitute, the worst thing that could possibly have happened to him. In the 1500s, his soul entered a Rom, and has inhabited Roms every since. The twins saw the truth; they were born on a Saturday, otherwise they would never have known about me. This," and he touched his bracelet, "warns me about trace chemicals that could harm me, and it also allows me to turn into a snake. I was the snake in the truck, and I was the snake who killed Gabe. I can also slither into meetings and gain insider information.
"By the way, I can also protect people. I slithered into hotel security and wiped the tapes enough to remove your image. Otherwise by now the police would probably be waiting for you at your apartment.
"But people can't really hurt me; they don't know how. Gabe would have to have stuck me with a steel needle or a hawthorn toothpick. And the only time he was close enough to do that, he missed his chance. You're better off without him."
And that is so cold I can't even say anything. On the way home I bought a six-pack and I got drunk that night, but only after locking myself in. And obviously Draco didn't come after me because if he had, I wouldn't be writing this right now.
Damn. I forgot to ask if he was really a vampire or just poisonous.
11