Little Boxes
The stout metal FedEx Express Drop box was just 10 feet away. Harvey Jacobson hadn’t been able to see it from the glass windows or revolving door of the office building, but he could see it now. The goal at the far end of a bank of elevators. A quick, must-do errand before returning to the familiar two-avenue walk east to the office where he would pass the three coffee shops, two dry cleaners, a New York Sports Club, and a Chinese food restaurant that didn’t have a native American spell-check the sign. It read: Flesh & Yummy Chinese Food.
This FedEx Drop Box was ideal. It was for express, expensive, VIP packages only, none of the ground shit, and it didn’t require much of a detour. It was just above the subway stop that he emerged from five days a week. When he looked online yesterday before bed, he learned that a true, full-fledged FedEx location was located one avenue to the west, but that was one avenue the wrong way and would add about 6 minutes of walking to his ultimate destination, a gray cube at an accounting firm.
Jacobson bee-lined across the lobby to the stout drop box. All he had to do was bend over, pull the branded express envelope out of the 8-year-old, soft, leather extension of his right hand, open the metal box, drop it in, close it, open it again to make sure it had disappeared from public view, and walk out, a 45-second operation. This was the last step of a long operation. He had already saved up two months worth of pay, gotten a cashier’s check, signed a handful of forms, found a notary public to stamp the contract, stole a Fedex Express Envelope from his office’s mail room, looked online for the most convenient drop box and made it 10 feet from it.
A marine, a front-liner, a young man with sharp jaw line, square chin, defined cheekbones and a buzz cut stopped him mid-stride.
“Sir, do you have ID?”
“Yes,” Jacobson said startled, sidelined. “Of course.” Who doesn’t carry around their ID? Do I look like an illegal? A Mexican? The Taliban? He knew he looked like a regular, old Joe. One with grey hair, a black, slightly faded suit, beige polo shirt and shoes in desperate need of a shining. He’d passed in front of this building every day on the way to work, which added up to at least 9,000 times. He marched this route when the piss ant security guard was still breastfeeding. He tried to keep moving past the desk.
“Sir, may I please see your ID?” the Marine interrupted.
Jacobson hadn’t planned on this distraction. His wallet was far from any pickpocket’s reach, at the crusty, dusty bottom of his satchel, beneath about 300 pages of spreadsheets and newsletters. He let go of his case, dropped it to the floor and bent over. His knees poked forward because his old man hamstrings weren’t flexible enough for a waist-only bend. His backend strained the aged thread of his slacks. He dug deep.
A line of office workers formed behind him. A brunette woman holding a coffee in one hand, purse in the other. A young man wearing a teal striped shirt, wallet held out in his hand. The marine recognized them as building tenants. So he started to evaluate Jacobson from above, trying to assess how long it would be before the ID would emerge. The marine’s job was to protect the people who worked there, and they needed to get to work. Jacobson was in the way.
What Jacobson didn’t know is on the side of the security desk, directly above his straining spine tendons, glowed a small red light. When a tenant would swipe their up-to-date office ID in front of it, the light would turn green for go. Then the office worker would then be on his or her way to his or her 8-hour shift.
But Jacobson was still digging. The thread of his pants barely holding against the tension. His time was up. This bumbling, wrinkled, faded, stiff stranger must move aside, the marine thought.
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