© 2012 Phylicia Joannis
Chuck blinked against the afternoon sun gleaming in his face. He turned his head towards the blonde whose elbows were pressing into his stomach and grunted.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Chuck only groaned in reply. He wasn’t sure what possessed him to push her out of the way. If she didn’t have enough sense to move with the earth cracking beneath her, she wasn’t worth saving. Chuck’s back screamed in protest at the solid concrete pushing it and he winced.
“Get off me!” Chuck blurted.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” The blonde realized his discomfort and quickly stood.
“I’m Penny, by the way,” she offered. Chuck only frowned. He shifted his gaze to the block-wide crater in the middle of the road and whistled.
“That’s a pretty big hole,” Chuck mused as he picked himself up from the ground.
Penny turned and looked at the street.
“Oh my God,” she gasped. They both took in the scope of the damage and shook their heads.
“This is horrible,” Penny bit her lip.
Chuck shrugged. “It’s not so bad. I hear the potholes in New York are worse.” He chuckled, but Penny didn’t join him.
“Okay, so maybe this is worse,” Chuck sighed. “I hope nobody got killed.”
Penny nodded. “That would be horrible too, of course.”
Chuck raised his eyebrows.
Penny looked at Chuck, near tears. “My coffee. I lost it. It’s down there.”
Penny pointed to the hole.
“Good coffee?” Chuck asked.
She nodded. “The best in the city. Better than Starbucks.”
Chuck scoffed. “No way it’s better than Starbucks.”
Penny shrugged. “Well, for the price, anyway.”
Chuck cocked his head to the side and examined Penny with a newfound respect. “Is this your neighborhood?”
Penny nodded.
“Well Penny, if you can direct me to the nearest Starbucks, I’ll buy you a cup. How’s that sound?”
“You’ve already saved my life, you don’t have to feed my coffee addiction, too.”
Chuck smiled. “After the day I’ve had, I could use a decent cup myself. I just came from the hospital, and the coffee there made me wonder why the nurses aren’t sick. Trust me, you’d be doing me a favor.”
Penny smiled. “Tell me your name and it’s a deal.”
Chuck smiled.
“Call me Charles.”
***
Perry Jones walked briskly down the hall towards the commissioner’s office. He brushed off the “good afternoons” offered by his coworkers as he passed by. They all hated him. If he were in their shoes, he’d hate him, too.
After working in the DOT commissioner’s office for a year and a half, he was promoted to junior assistant. A year later, after finding some unscrupulous pictures of the commissioner’s assistant with a streetwalker, Perry was recommended for the assistant’s job after a “family crisis” forced her to resign. Most of his coworkers had spent at least five years in the commissioner’s office before advancing.
But they didn’t have his connections.
Perry nodded curtly at the commissioner’s secretary before pushing through the cherry oak doors that led to his office.
Commissioner Wright was on the phone arguing.
“I don’t care how much it costs, I just want it done,” the Commissioner barked into the phone. “Ah, Percy, come over here, I need to talk to you.”
“Oh, it’s Perry, sir,” Perry tried to correct the Commissioner, but he’d already shifted his focus back to the phone.
“This city needs progress, not excuses, so get me those parts before next quarter’s budget meeting.” The Commissioner hung up the phone and glanced at Perry.
He snapped his finger and Perry stepped closer.
“Ah, listen, kid, I need you to do some research for me, okay? These reporters have Google and Wikipedia on their side and they’re spouting facts like flying salmon at me-”
The Commissioner began henpecking his computer keyboard.
“Now every time I do a press conference they try to make me look like a fool with all their useless trivia. These people have no respect, am I right, Percy?”
“Um, Perry, sir.”
“What?” the Commissioner stared at Perry.
Perry backed down.
“Never mind. Um, Commissioner, I have some bad news,” Perry began.
“That’s all I need is more bad news, Perty,” the Commissioner grimaced. “Tell you what, why don’t you talk to my assistant and let her know what’s going on, okay? She’ll help you out.”
“Um, I’m your assistant, sir,” Perry gave him a sideways glance.
The Commissioner stared long and hard at Perry. “Right. And you weren’t able to take care of the situation? Son, I’ve got a lot of work to do, and if I can’t trust you to do your job-“
“No, it’s not that, sir,” Perry spoke quickly. “I’ve already handled the situation, I just thought you’d like to be briefed in case you receive calls or there’s another press conference, sir.”
“Hmm,” the Commissioner stopped pecking the keyboard. “Okay, what’s the situation?”
“There was an incident involving the transit system, sir,” Perry began. “It would seem that um, one of the trains got off track and was trapped in an old tunnel-“
“You see!” the Commissioner slapped the table. “This is exactly what I need, Percival! As long as trains are run by people, mistakes like these are going to be made. Call a press conference and alert the media. I want every news station in the city at the train station where the car was stuck. They need to see me come down hard on the transit system and demand they convert to electronically run subway cars.”
“But, sir, I already instructed everyone to keep things quiet,” Perry cringed as he spoke. “All the passengers have already been rescued, and they signed NDAs in exchange for a settlement.”
“So everything’s all said and done already, then?” the Commissioner frowned, a hint of red painting his throat.
Perry nodded and readied himself for a nuclear assault.
The Commissioner opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by his secretary bursting through the doors.
“Commissioner Wright! Turn to channel 7! You’ve got to see this!”
Before the Commissioner or Perry could respond, his secretary grabbed a remote from his desk and turned on the television mounted on his wall.
“What’s happened?” the Commissioner furrowed his brow.
His secretary flipped through the channels and stopped when the screen showed a picture of a large hole in the middle of the street.”
“What is that?” Perry peered at the screen.
“A sinkhole,” the Commissioner answered quietly. He looked at his secretary. “Where is that?”
She looked back at him.
“Downtown.”
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