A buck and a bottle

I walked through the office this morning - Sunday, yes, since Mr. Chisholm doesn't seem to have a concept of time or what day of week it is. He was dozing in his chair, a copy of the latest Harry Potter book lying open over his face.

I still don't fully understand his background - when he's tired drunk, he talks in a lazy, southeastern US drawl, when angry, he talks in the most peculiar and destinctive London posh, and when on a support call he's back to the generic middle American and sometimes Canadian proper. He knows several languages, but how many I have yet to find out. On one international support call, I thought I actually heard clicks come from his mouth, indicating some kind of African bush language, but I may have just been imaginging things.

But I digress.

"Ahem, sir?" I decided to sneak up on him today. He jumped out of his chair directly into his distinctive, defensive Chisholm karate stance.

"Um, it's just me sir. I thought I might talk to you about a pressing matter," I decided polite was the best way to start out with him, and then I could blend into progressively rude.

"Thirsty," he grumbled, as he sunk back into his chair, fishing on the ground for his fallen children's novel. "Right," I retorted, pulled a bottle of a lovely Aussie Grenache and two glasses, pulled up a chair and began to pour them both out. I've learned to be ready for anything.

"What'zis?" He looked at the two glasses and immediately took one and emptied it. I filled it again, then took my own and raised a toast to clink. He missed.

"It's about my salary, sir. It's much too low. I've been covering most of your expenses on my own -" "So expense it and leave me alone," he grumbled in his meanest West End way, as he sipped the wine as gently as a sommelier, swishing it around in the glass, checking its legs, and then taking a full taste on the tongue.

"I need your permission for that, there are auditors, you see -" "Yes, yes. Permission. Got it. Pour." He downed the glass he was coddling so carefully, and I filled it up again.

His Blackberry rang, and his middle American politeness took me aback. "Yes, madam, of course. We handle all your needs. Thank you for calling," he then threw the gadget across the room, where it smashed into 50 pieces, and grumbled back in his English sting with a little foriegn - maybe French - accent mixed in: "Fucking people. Why do they continue to bother me. All I want is to be left alone."

He grabbed the bottle from my hand, and downed the rest. I clinked my glass against the inverted Granache, and finished my glass gently. Until tomorrow, boss. I'm going for a nap, and I'll try again tomorrow to get his signature. I hate having to do this every month.

Damn. Hotline's ringing....

A vision of stark naked power

Whomever invented Noilly Prat should be flogged in the history books as a dirty, evil whore. Sorry, sorry. It was a tough night. Forgive me.

I got the call around 11. Mr. Chisholm was sitting behind his desk - really - he was tangled in the wires behind his circa 1990 fattie sparc clone. He told me once the wires give him some sort of high, and help him think. I doubt Socrates could have written a book hopped up on meth sucking on a serial cable, but that's just me.

Someone was in trouble. Something about attempted rape - a young girl in the village. I got my trusty scissors out and cut my boss out of his web, and sat him in his rolling desk chair. When I managed to catch him from rolling through the open window at the end of the row, I gave him the news. He grabbed his utility pack, flask, and darted out the door without a word.

Fuck. He forgot his car keys. I assumed he'd take the subway.

When I got to the area, waiting in the traffic for 15 minutes because a homeless dude decided to set up camp in the middle of 6th Ave at 10th, Chisholm had jumped his way up a fire escape ladder and ejected the offender through the window before he could finish the evil deed.

The landlady, who had called our hotline, told me later that in the midst of bashing the dumbass perpetrator's head against the young woman's AV center, he received a call on his Blackberry for a Windows support question. While he swigged his last few drops of Absinthe from his silver coated pocket flagon, Chisolm gave an old woman assistance in retrieving a password she forgot due the onset of Alzheimer's.

After the ambulance collected the pieces of blood and flesh and took the pile of scumbag away, and I cleaned the scene of Chisolm's fingerprints, I found him in the nearest liquor shop arguing with an old Pakistani man behind the counter over the price of what I believe is the cheapest whiskey produced today.

I removed him from the situation, as he typed furiously on his mini gadget keyboard restarting some server or other, and placed him in his bed in his hidden apartment (sorry, no can say where) and shoved his favorite bedtime remedy under his pillow as he cursed me and all the earth "I hate people. I wish there were no humans. Humans suck".

Not a thank you for collecting him, or thanks for shelling out the cash to get his stupid Romanian whiskey, or hiding his identity yet again from the inquisitive police detectives. I am starting to get a bit fed up with his demeanor, and may end up going it alone someday. Or, maybe I'll just ask for a raise.

That's it.

The Life of a Sidekick

And I don't mean a Suzuki.

It's yet another day and he's drunk as a s---. I'd prefer a skunk in my pants compared to his current demeanor. Sorry, you're new here. I'm talking about my boss - super ass, or as the people of this city call him: That guy, the hero. I call him Mr Chisholm, though I think his mother called him Tom. Details of his early life are sketchy.

For 5 years I've been his sidekick - I mean, assistant - at a tech company called D7. I run all the systems, and he helps fix problems. He always helps fix the problems. I have always wondered why he does this, because he hates helping people, hates his systems admin job, and generally hates people. Drunk at all times, always a flask or bottle of wine in hand, he grumbles and argues and is generally discontented at all times.

But then a call comes in on the secret line. I answer, and someone is in trouble. Somehow he finds the clarity to run out, gather his super suit, and get there in the nick of time. Somehow. That somehow includes me sacrificing my salary, time and energy getting him to the damn place, finding the facts, and getting to the bottom of the mystery.

In short, I'm a disgruntled sidekick with an a$$ as a superhero boss. I just need to vent somehow, somewhere.

Oh crap - I smell him coming. It's a vermouth day. Damn. More later.