Government Men Read online

CHAPTER 3

  CORONATION

  Enlarge the opportunity and the person will expand to fill it.

  - Eli Ginzberg

  Before doing more work on his new office, Bates took a few minutes to clean most of the trash from his car. He even uncovered a couple of cans of air freshener, which he emptied by spraying the inside of the Nitro. Not for the first time he vowed that from now on he wouldn't let trash take over his car. This time he meant it. After all, with great power came great responsibility. Now that he was a VIP, he would regrettably have to curb some of his bad habits, he supposed, though exactly what was a 'good' habit as opposed to a 'bad' one wasn't yet altogether clear. Life was becoming more complicated, but hopefully an increase in his paycheck would make up for such complications.

  In the Head Office, Bates was soon unpacking boxes of technical journals and stuffing them into the drawers of his massive new desk. As he unpacked them, he tossed anything over five years old onto the floor for later disposal. After all, as Head of DOD, he didn't want to make any important decisions based on old information.

  At 12:50 PM insistent knocking interrupted Bates, and his new office door opened. Dr. Barns had arrived slightly early for their 1:00 PM meeting. Bates could see immediately that the older man still exuded the strange, new, transformed Barns persona of that morning, as he was still wearing the lunatic grin and the frog-laden fishing hat, confirming Bates' recent conclusions with regard to the man's probable lack of sanity.

  Thankfully, there was no sign of his Little Cuddles. Bates didn't think that he could stand the sight of those two mooning about again; he was already feeling a little nauseated from a lack of lunch. The sight of just Barns was depressing enough; if it wasn't for the years of crap that the Base personnel had gotten from him, Bates probably would have actually felt pity for the man. It was simply amazing how fast and far the mighty could fall. World renowned scientist and ex-Senator one minute; running off wearing a frog hat to honeymoon with The Crab the next! Bates felt certain that there was a valuable lesson in life exposed there somewhere.

  "Well Bates," began Barns, "making yourself at home, I see. Excellent!” He bounced in and sat down on one of the chairs that Bates had just moved into the office.

  This startled Bates for a moment, until, based on the success of the results, he satisfied himself that since it hadn’t collapsed, the chair that Barns sat in was not one of the damaged chairs that he had been meaning to fix someday.

  Bates was a born pack rat, and this natural human tendency had of course been greatly reinforced during his years as a U.S. Civil Servant. Historically, one got furniture in the Civil Service either through persistent individual effort or completely by chance; need or planning seemed to have little effect. Fortunately, from a furniture standpoint, personnel cuts had resulted in plenty of leftover office furniture for all of the few remaining DOD employees. On the other hand, there had been very little newly acquired furniture in the last 20 years. As a result, decent furniture was as rare as hens' teeth, and often had to be creatively assembled using parts from several units of various designs.

  As a natural consequence there was a sort of Base 'black market' in office equipment, which for the last several years had been dominated by a consortium of shrewd chemists on the third floor. The chemists, who happened to be in the 'coatings' R&D field, offered a variety of paint colors, textures, and other features with their 'reconditioned' furniture, including trendy florescent and advanced stealth coating options. Of course there wasn't much practical value to having a desk that glowed in the dark or was invisible to radar, but it was pretty nifty to have such furniture none the less.

  Many other employees had more limited collections however, and Bates was quite proud of his own. Of course he had to bring his furniture collection with him, or his coworkers would have descended on it like a horde of ravenous locusts. Unfortunately, about half of his current motley collection of 17 chairs had dangerously serious defects. Fortunately, Barns happened to sit down in a chair with a complete set of functioning legs.

  "Let’s get to it, shall we?" said Barns, as he passed a stack of completed forms to Bates. "This is completed paperwork making you Head of DOD, effective immediately. So congratulations!” He reached across the desk to give Bates a hearty handshake. "I suppose that I'll give you a copy of this at the ceremony this afternoon of course, but that's just going to be public ritual."

  Of course, thought Bates. The real power moves happened behind closed doors like these, not in public. He'd have to get used to that sort of thing, he supposed. Bates sat looking at the papers in his hands. They looked official enough, regardless of any question of Barns' sanity. They actually established him as Head of the DOD!

  Barns continued. "I've COMed the White House to tell them too, though I wasn't able to get through to the President or her Chief of Staff.” His smile disappeared briefly, to be replaced by a forlorn look. "I don't think the White House cares much about us anymore.”

  Hell, thought Bates, they probably don't realize that DOD still exists anymore! It's a good thing that Barns hadn't gotten through!

  "Anyway," continued Barns, "here are some thoughts I decided that I'd leave you with. Hopefully they'll help you in the years ahead.” With that Barns stood up and started pacing around the room and lecturing on his philosophy of management, the importance of the position, etc., while dodging around Bates' motley collection office effects that now swamped most of the room.

  The place was just starting to look comfortable to Bates; it was amazing that he had been able to move so much wonderful junk into his new office in so short a period of time. It had been hard work, though. Tomorrow his pudgy, out of shape, middle-aged body would probably ache from head to toe. It was strange though, thought Bates; neatness fanatic that Barns was, he should have totally freaked out at the disorder of his transformed office, but he hadn't even mentioned it. It was still very puzzling how much Barns had changed.

  While thinking of Barns’ mental condition, Bates managed to blank out most of the actual lecture, which was a confusing jumble of management hogwash about 'empowerment' of 'total quality teams' that would ‘transform’ them into ‘high powered organizations’ and so forth, whatever the hells that was. Bates cocked his head, twitched his eyebrows and nodded his head frequently though, making out like he was both awake and paying close attention. It was a valuable skill, learned early in his Civil Service career.

  Still, a few things that Barns said did catch his notice. At one point Bates completely lost sight of Barns when he stepped behind some empty file cabinets. The cabinets were part of Narb's current line of office furniture. Like several of the chairs they were spray painted in full spectral glory as part of his new 'rainbow' furniture line. "Bates!” Barns said loudly, interrupting his lecture, "is this the MX-84?” A green frog laden head peered out at Bates from around the cabinets.

  "Yeah," replied Bates, "she's a beauty isn't she?”

  "Yes, she certainly is," said Barns wistfully. "It reminds me of some of my lab work in the old days. Well, I hope you still find time to use it, but you may need to boost power and cooling for this office. It wasn't designed to be a lab you know!”

  Good practical advice at last, thought Bates. On a piece of scrap paper he wrote a note to himself about power and cooling, as Barns resumed his lecture. Bates was always writing little notes to himself, though subsequently he usually either lost the notes or couldn't read or properly interpret them. Still, taking notes had always usefully supported his comforting self-delusion that he understood things and was somehow nominally in control of his life.

  At another point in the lecture, Barns beckoned to Bates from behind a row of pink bookshelves, and pointed out to him several Top Secret security safes that Bates would now be responsible for. Barns told him lock combinations for him to memorize, which were fortunately identical for three of the safes: left to 1, right to 2, left to 3, and right to 4. This was a relief to Bates, who had a terrible mem
ory for numbers, but reasoned that he should be able to remember 1-2-3-4. Still, to be on the safe side, he wrote the numbers on the corner torn from an old technical journal and slipped the scrap of paper into his wallet, which was of course a security violation, but what the hell. Classified material made him nervous, so he was relieved to be told that these three safes were completely empty anyway, since Barns only had them in his office to provide the proper 'atmosphere' for an R&D organization. Bates was surprised at this 'artsy' side to Barns.

  The final and most massive grey steel safe had one of Twig's 'For Annex 3' tags on it, indicating that it was to be soon moved to The Crab's new office by Renson. "Bates, I ahhhhhh," Barns said, staring at the safe, then struggling with a strange blank look in his eyes and sound to his voice, as if he was just now trying to remember something. "I, ah, for the life of me I can't remember why this safe is here or what's in it!” Suddenly distressed, he sat down heavily on a box of journals. "There was something about it that I should tell someone about, I think. I think that's why I came here early! But why can't I remember?"

  His eyes re-focused on Bates with a wild look. "But why the hell would I be telling YOU anything?” He looked around as if he were seeing the office for the first time, and then sprang up to demand of Bates caustically: "What the hell are you and all this junk doing here in MY office?” Though confused, Barns seemed for the moment to once again be the familiar old raving shit-head that Bates had caught unfortunate glimpses of over the years.

  At that awkward moment The Crab appeared. Bates could have sworn that before transforming to the smiling 'Cuddles' persona, Twig momentarily wore an expression of intense hate and anger. "Lamby Pie! There you are!" she gushed. Pushing past Bates, she wrapped her scrawny arms about Barns, stopping him cold. She seemed to fish something out of her purse, but Bates couldn't see what it was.

  Barns didn't seem terribly pleased to see his new bride. "What the hell is this?" he exclaimed, as he tried to push Twig away. However, strangely enough, though he must have outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds, he seemed to be totally helpless in the grasp of this scrawny, diminutive woman!

  He suddenly jumped up and let out a loud squawk! Bates watched in amazement as the expression on Barns' face, now resting on The Crab's bony shoulder, changed from shock and anger to glazed incomprehension. Bates thought that he saw Twig slip a needle-pointed syringe back into her purse, but he couldn't be certain.

  "Now, now, Lamby Pie, let's leave Dr. Bates to his unpacking," cooed Cuddles, as with amazing speed and impossible strength and ease, the skinny little woman rapidly half carried, half led a dazed Barns out of the room, pushing the office door shut as she went out. "Goodbye Dr. Bates, see you at 2 PM," she said as the door slammed shut.

  All of it had surreally happened in seconds. What the hell was going on, thought Bates? What was happening to Barns before Twig showed up? Why had he suddenly reverted to the old Barns persona? Did he actually just witness a kidnapping? Did Little Cuddles just drug Lamby Pie and carry him off?

  Getting over the shock enough to move his legs again, he rushed out into the hallway. It and the adjacent lobby were already empty, which seemed physically impossible. Where were Barns and Twig? Then he noticed an emergency fire exit in the lobby. The door was ajar and apparently led directly outside to the parking lot. Opening the door fully, he was just in time to see The Crab's black Mercedes rapidly pulling out of its space and zooming towards the Base gate. Only The Crab's bony little head and shoulders were visible; presumably poor Barns was slumped down in the front or laid out horizontally in the back seat or trunk.

  Bates ran stiff-legged out into the parking lot, shivering in his shirt sleeves, as it was only ten or so degrees above freezing. What should he do? He looked around in a panic, desperately hoping that someone else had witnessed the abduction; someone besides himself that could take responsibility and actually do something useful. No such luck though; the parking lot was deserted; the Base staff was still out to lunch, probably, or hidden somewhere deep in the building.

  This did not bode well for the kidnapped Barns, thought Bates; Narbando Bates would be one of the last clodhoppers anyone would want to have to depend on in an emergency! Then he noticed that Hank was in his guard shack. Bates ran towards him, yelling and waving his arms to get his attention.

  In response Hank/Santa came out of his shack waving an assault rifle. That factor, and the fact that this was Bates' first 100 yard dash in 20 years, slowed and quieted Bates down considerably by the time he reached Hank.

  "OK, Bates, so what the deuce is all this commotion," asked a grumpy Hank, who lowered his assault weapon when he recognized the physicist. There was a clean white napkin tucked in his collar, which was apparently well protected by the Santa beard, in which several gobs of catsup and a few curly French-fries were visible. Bates had interrupted Hank's lunch.

  "She's got Barns!" managed a gasping Bates.

  "Barns?" asked Hank.

  "Dr. Barns!" gasped Bates.

  "Our boss, THE Dr. Barns?" asked Hank, as he raised his rifle again, pushed his bifocals down further on his nose to facilitate better distance vision, and scanned the area for Fuming-Right jihadist terrorists.

  This gave Bates a few seconds to catch his breath before replying. "Yes, him! Well, our ex-boss, anyway.” He started walking back towards the offices, waving Hank to follow.

  Hank's eyes got even bigger. "Ex-boss? You mean he's been done in?”

  "No," replied Bates. "I mean, well, I'm the boss now, and Barns is probably still alive, but he's been kidnapped by The Crab!”

  Long frozen moments later, a look of comprehension came to Hank's wide eyes at last, and with a sigh, he lowered his rifle, stopped scanning for terrorists, and turned his full attention to Bates. "So, let's see now, a great big crab run off with Doc Barns, and so now you're the new boss, are yeah? Instead of being laid off?” Hank was clearly having trouble maintaining a straight face.

  "Yes, ah, no, well, not exactly," replied a by now exasperated Bates. "It was THE Crab that took him, the man's wife, not a big crustacean!”

  Hank put a hand on Barn's shoulder and led him further towards the Head Office. "Now let’s just take it easy now Dr. Bates, and we'll get this all straightened out. Now I happen to know that Barns ain't married, but let's go ask'um anyways. And if you see any more of them big crabs that marry fellas and run off with-um, let me know, and me and old Betsy here'll take care of um.” As he gave his assault rifle a nod, Hank couldn't keep from laughing out-loud. His pillow enhanced Santa belly shook appropriately, and he tragically lost a curly fry or two from the beard.

  The man is daft, thought Bates; they simply couldn't waste time this way! The Crab and poor Barns must be miles away by now! ”Hank, they're getting away, you've got to call the police! Twig is dangerous, I tell you! There's no telling what she's doing to Barns.”

  Hank stopped laughing and looked Bates in the eye. "Now what's Twig got to do with this, Bates?”

  Bates was near the end of his rope. "EVERYTHING!" he shouted. "That's what I've been trying to tell you! Look, Twig married Barns this morning. She's got him acting really weird. And a few minutes ago I think I saw her drug and drag Barns into her car and drive him out of here!”

  "Oh," said Hank, with a thoughtful expression on his Santa-face. "OK, so far. I've had my own suspicions of ole Twig for quite a time. But what's big crabs got to do with it?” Hank asked.

  "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!” responded Bates, in exasperation. "The Crab is just a nick-name for Twig."

  "Oooooooh," Hank said, as he paused to reconsider the story. "Good nick-name for that twisted little harpy, but your story still sounds just a touch far-fetched," he concluded.

  "I admit that it does, but that's what happened. So the question is Hank, what are you going to do about it?”

  But Hank was looking over Bates' shoulder at something. Bates heard car doors slamming shut. He turned around to see that Dr. Barns and
Twig had gotten out of her car, which she had apparently just parked in her VIP space! The big, quiet running car must have driven through the gate and past both him and Hank without even being noticed! Barns numbly walked towards them, with Twig close behind. Even at a distance Bates could see that they were once again affable Lamby Pie and Cuddles, with big goofy grins on their faces.

  Bates, followed by Hank, walked to meet them. "Dr. Barns," said Bates, "are you feeling OK?"

  "Of course I am, Bates," replied Barns. "Why wouldn't I? Are you ready to go? It's nearly time for the ceremony."

  "Ah, sure!" stammered Bates.

  Barns turned to Hank. "Is everything all right here, Hank?”

  "Yes sir," replied Hank. "Seems-like. Guess I'll just get back to my post now.” He looked at Bates, shaking his head sadly, and turned to walk back towards the main gate guard shack.

  "Come on now, Bates," said grinning Dr. Barns as he patted him on the back. "You don't want to be late for your own coronation, do you?” Bates was beyond speech again at the moment.

  As Barns and Twig led Bates into the building and to the Base auditorium, he was still trying to reconstruct and rationalize the last ten minutes. Hadn't he seen Barns forcibly abducted? Or perhaps it was simply some sort of medical condition that his wife somehow treated, after removing him from view to avoid embarrassment? What had really happened?

  They entered the auditorium and such questions were for the time being forgotten. It was a full house. That is, it appeared to Bates that practically all of the Base's remaining 150 employees were there, though they occupied barely half of the old, rarely used auditorium. Most of the audience was made up of balding, gray haired men past middle age.

  In the back rows most of the science and technology junkies sat with their attention glued to paper tech-memos, VISICOM networked computer screens, or virtual reality visors, or talking with each other or to themselves about this or that new theory, experiment, technological breakthrough, or sexy new lab equipment.

  In the middle rows were people aimlessly looking around, talking in small groups, reading newspapers, or dozing-off. These more laid-back people generally lacked the status or interest to sit in the front rows, and were also not so addicted to their work that they minded taking a break. Until today, Bates had belonged to this rather large, lackluster group.

  In the front first few rows sat the Base power brokers and pretenders. This included thin stern Melberg, the assistant Head of DOD. Bates was still looking forward to Melberg's reaction to his being promoted above him. Like Barns and Twig, Frank Melberg was not known to have a good disposition to begin with. This would freak him out, Bates was certain, and should lead to some amusing theatre.

  Also in front were Henderson and Smith, the powerful furniture barons from Chemistry. They were probably concerned about how Bates' office furniture collection, assuming it would soon be up for grabs, would affect the marketability of their own furniture. Also sitting in front was Joe Wigims, the man who single handedly maintained the building and controlled heating and cooling. Nobody outranked Joe. Also sitting near the front were several of the Base's most prominent scientists and engineers, including Mel, Oscar, and Norma.

  Oscar grabbed Bates by the arm as he walked by. "Narb! Have you signed any release forms?” Bates shook his head. "Well then, Kruger here thinks you may have legal grounds for at least delaying this, but you have to say something publicly before you sign or publicly acknowledge any agreement to leave.” He nodded towards Sandra Kruger, the thin, sharp featured, petite, bespectacled, middle-aged woman who stood dwarfed beside Oscomb's massive frame. She was known to be the Base expert on DOD employee regulations. Actually, she was an aeronautical engineer, but in recent years she spent much of her time on personnel matters, particularly after the last of the personnel department staff quit. It was easy enough for personnel office staff to find new jobs in the private sector, since unlike scientists they had valuable office skills.

  Sandra handed Bates a piece of paper. "Just read this in front of witnesses, Bates," she told him, "before you sign any release papers.”

  Bates glanced briefly at the paper, which was in inscrutable legalese, smiled at the three of them, and returned the paper to Sandra. "Listen, thanks you guys, but believe me, I really don't need this.” He hurried to catch up with Twig and Barns, leaving Mel, Oscar, and Sandra stunned and talking frantically among themselves.

  "He's still delusional," Oscar's loud voice could be heard saying.

  Most of the staff stopped talking as the odd trio mounted the stage. Bates was smiling! He still was very confused about the many things that had happened that day, to be sure, but this was going to be the public announcement that he, Narbando T. Bates, was in fact now the new Head of DOD!

  Bates wished that his parents were alive to see this. Margaret was there in a middle row, though he wished that the one real love of his life, Janet, the woman who dumped him back in graduate school, could also see this. His dog Milo would also probably appreciate it as much as anyone; Milo loved to be with people, even stuffy old scientists. Too bad Milo wasn't here. However, despite such shortcomings, this was certainly going to be the high point of Bates' professional life to date.

  It was probably the low point for Barns, as he was suffering through retirement and marriage to the Crab both in one day! But there Barns was, smiling that goofy smile again. The stunned audience had never seen Barns smile like that. In addition, even The Crab was smiling, and to the audience her smiling was totally unprecedented. In the third row, Dr. Filbert, one of the scientists in on the bet with regard to Twig's teeth or lack thereof, jumped up from her seat, and, hoping to at last solve the teeth mystery, moved to the front row and pointed a mini-VISICOM recorder with zoom lens at Twig, though Twig still kept her lips sealed tight.

  Barns moved to the microphone. The Base personnel had seen this next part dozens of times. Typically Barns gave a one minute good-bye speech and then he and Twig unceremoniously whisked the unfortunate RIF victim out the door and then through the main gate.

  Well, that wasn't going the happen with Narbando if his friends could help it! Just as Barns was about to speak, Oscar popped up from his seat to address the auditorium in his booming voice. "Excuse me everyone, before Dr. Barns begins, the good friends of the wonderful man who is about to leave us have something to tell him.” With that, Oscar and Mel rushed up onto the stage. Barns, still grinning, seemed to be taking this interruption in stride. If anything, he was grinning even wider!

  As Oscar started talking about how much everyone would miss their retiring friend, Mel, pulling Bates aside, whispered to him frantically. "Narb, you have to trust us. After Oscar is done, you simply have to read Sandra's legal statement into the microphone before witnesses!” Mel shoved the paper into Bates' hand and pushed it up in front of his eyes.

  Bates skimmed the note. At first glance it appeared to be English but it was all mucked up with legal mumbo-jumbo. It might have had something to do with sufficient notice, union representation, and appeal rights, but those notions were all confused by language about this party and that party and this and that federal regulation. He handed the convoluted statement back to Mel, who handed it back to Bates.

  In the meantime, Oscar was pulling something out of a big plastic garbage bag. He held up a huge plaque for the audience to admire. It was certainly impressive; it consisted of a large bronze plaque mounted onto a heavy, well varnished wood frame. The plaque was totally blank. "There was no time to engrave anything on this," Oscar explained to the crowd. "We'll have to do that later. But we do now want to present it to our dear departing friend with our blessings and best wishes and let him make a statement.” At that point Oscar held out the plaque towards Bates.

  As Bates wasn't departing, he stood immobile, but the grinning Barns stepped forward, snatched the plaque from the startled biologist, and stepped back up to the microphone. "Thank you all, my friends. This is a total surprise! In our retire
ment years my wife Cuddles and I will certainly honor this plaque.” Then he reached out and pulled Twig close beside him, placing one arm warmly around her scrawny shoulders.

  A hundred and fifty jaws gaped open gasping, and three hundred eyes blinked in disbelief. Newspapers, coffee cups, Cokes, and VISICOMs dropped to the floor from limp hands.

  Reaching into a bag that Twig had given him, Barns pulled out the fishing hat, complete with goggle eyed frogs, and put it on his head. This brought more gasps and more than a few chuckles from the crowd. "Now," continued Barns, "it's time for Cuddles and I to hit the honeymoon trail for some fishing and, ahh, other things.” He winked and gave Cuddles another affectionate squeeze, bringing still more gasps, moans and groans, 'yuks' and other assorted mutterings from the crowd. "And of course," he continued, "it's time for me to officially present to you the new Head of the DOD, Dr. Narbando T. Bates!"

  Stunned silence reigned, as a smiling Bates stepped past his shocked friends Mel and Oscar to join Barns at the microphone. Barns shook Bates' hand as he handed him a copy of the paperwork that promoted him to Department Head.

  "Thank you Dr. Barns and Mrs. Barns," said Bates. Disgruntled mutterings were heard from a dozen management personnel, whom, until that moment, had ranked several grade levels above Bates. Bates was disappointed however, to see Melberg actually smiling! Both he and Twig seemed to be greatly entertained by the proceedings.

  "I'm deeply honored to accept the position of Head of DOD," continued Bates. "But we'll certainly miss you, Dr. Barns. The Head office just won't be the same without you two, and we all wish you two love-birds the best of luck.” He paused when he saw Hank entering the back of the room. "And," he continued, "I hope that you can stay for the festivities."

  "Hey Bates!” shouted Hank. "There's some guys out here looking for you with 'bout fifty pizzas and a mess of beer. Should I send-um in?”

  "Sure thing, Hank, this is the place! My friends!” Bates shouted into the microphone; "LET'S