Three Scoops is a Blast! (7 page)

From Santa’s perspective, Jimmy was a young and joyful pleasure with never an accusing look. Santa had a wealth of stories he enjoyed sharing and Jimmy was an eager and attentive audience. Mrs. Claus and Heather were also appreciative that the “men” in their lives were in better frames of mind.

Santa, the former high priest of gift-giving, started to think a great deal more about the nature of worth and value. He understood that the fancier the gift, the greater the potential for dismissal. He had seen too many expensive presents taken for granted. What was most desirable? He and Jimmy already knew. Theirs was a quixotic relationship formed despite difficult circumstances.

Better means must be found to bring people together. He realized his thoughts were heading in the right direction. Attention-paid and time spent are the most important things in life. Reaching out and touching another human being on a personal level is where spirituality begins.

Therefore, with some of their funding restored, Santa and Mrs.Claus have launched their Red-Suit Mistletoe Initiative, of which this story is the kick-off editorial. It is their firm belief each of us needs to connect with family, friends and those in distress in a more meaningful and supportive way. They have no doubt that through good faith and firmer commitment the answer to the true meaning of Christmas can take on a deeper and more sustainable significance.

Pedro Martinez’ Incredible String of Good Luck

December 15, 2009

Pedro Martinez had entered the United States illegally. There was no denying that fact. He was part of a group of 20 individuals brought over in the false back of an 18-wheeler from Mexico in early spring two years ago. To pay for the privilege, he made a cash contribution to his wife’s distant cousin, José Ortega, who was running a human smuggling operation on the American side of the border. Plus he was committed to handing over to José a certain proportion of his meager wages from his new job every week. This was acceptable to Pedro.

He was hired to do strenuous manual labor in the shipping department of a north-eastern industrial concern. Pittsburgh Printing & Publishing Inc. (PPP) was happy with his work and Pedro was content enough with his lot in life, sending remittances home to Ciudad Juarez on a regular basis. Nevertheless, he had just been told to report to human resources in the executive suite. That’s where he was sitting now, alone and worried, but he was hopeful José would be able to help him, through his connections with the company. After all, José had always come through before.

But there was a problem. The authorities were increasingly cracking down on firms that used workers of dubious origin. It was a matter of the electorate becoming fed up with paying for the health care and other social welfare benefits of individuals who may or may not be forwarding taxes. Plus there was the popular rallying cry of saving American jobs for American workers. Never mind that those jobs were of the kind few American workers would ever consider as acceptable anymore. José knew his whole operation was in jeopardy. However, he was confident his benefactor within the company, Samuel Strongarm, would be able to protect him.

But there was a problem. Sam Strongarm was head salesman and VP of operations of PPP. He also had a significant influence over hiring decisions. Recently, Sam had been risking his good fortune. He’d been accepting “gifts” from clients in order to secure advantageous printing deals for them. The largesse included front-row seats at Pirates, Penguins and Steelers games. He’d also been placing orders and accepting commissions for sales by supposed purchasers who wouldn’t acknowledge they’d made any such commitments. Accounts receivable had begun to take notice. Sam had an ace up his sleeve. Not so coincidentally, the President of PPP, Fred Redink, was his brother-in-law. Sam was confident Fred would be able to cover up his indiscretions.

But there was a problem. That very day, the auditors of PPP had been questioning Fred about his company’s office cleaning contract. Compared with other such deals in the Pittsburgh area, PPP was paying way too much. This led to an examination of other outside supply agreements. A familiar pattern was emerging. The suspicion would not go away that there was a systematic awarding of work on a kickback basis. The auditors were refusing to sign off on the books. This was going to leave Fred in a very awkward position with shareholders. But he was hopeful his lawyer, Kyle Lawless, would be able to pull a few strings and get him off the hook.

But there was a problem. Kyle had gotten in over his head in a real estate transaction. He used money under his control through power of attorney authorization in a couple of fiduciary trust situations to make a down payment on a commercial property. He was speculating that he would be able to quickly flip the building and piece of land for a profit and return the money. Then the market unexpectedly turned sour. Kyle was left with a shortfall of resources and his clients were stripped of their cash assets. They had been quite vocal in their denunciations of both him and his practice. The law society was coming after Kyle with a vengeance. The best he could hope for was disbarment. Jail time wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. His best hope was to call in a favor from his politically-connected former colleague, Congressman Lee Wrongturn.

But there was problem. Lee Wrongturn won his seat based on a campaign promise of restoring integrity to public office. He had pledged to clean up corruption. Unfortunately for him, however, FBI surveillance cameras proved to be immune to rhetoric. He was filmed as part of a sting operation in a downtown hotel accepting a cash bribe in return for guaranteeing a building contract. Now his career appeared to be in ruins. But, against all odds, politicians had been known to make comebacks from worse catastrophes. If only Lee could get the Governor, Elijah Doright, on his side, the situation might be saved. Elijah was known as an upright and religious man. If he stood behind you, that was a good enough endorsement for most people’s taste.

But there was a problem. The week before, several neighbours of Mr. and Mrs. Doright, in one of the ritziest residential enclaves in the city, witnessed quite the spectacle on the couple’s front lawn. In the wee small hours of the morning, Mrs. Doright chased Mr. Doright in and out amongst the bushes in a wildly erratic pattern while swinging a baseball bat. All the while, she was screaming about his infidelities and womanizing ways. The tabloids got hold of the story and the feeding frenzy began. Pictures emerged of Elijah in the company of a notorious madam. He wasn’t giving her religious instruction. He’d been caught with his pants down. From being the poster boy for clean living, he’d fallen hard and fast. He needed to take steps to rehabilitate his image. Elijah decided to step outside the political arena and turn to the culture of celebrity. He was, after all, a mentor to point guard “Hands” Henderson of the Philadelphia 76ers.

But there was a problem. “Hands” had recently come under the microscope with respect to gambling on basketball games. He was a superstar athlete and earned an annual stipend which would have choked a python. But he’d gotten into financial trouble through his dealings with investment banker Myron Egypt. “Hands” had been turning over all of his money to Myron for several years and at first the payback was astonishing. A select group of clients raved about what Myron was earning them. This kept bringing in new investors. Financial watchdogs took a look. It became clear old investors were being paid with the money raised from new investors. The whole pyramid scheme came crashing down. To make back some of his lost fortune, “Hands” fell easy prey to a point-shaving scheme hatched by organized crime.

All of these remarkable circumstances combined to leave Pedro alone in the executive offices of PPP. He was now pretty much in charge of the company, with a few production line workers to lend him assistance. That didn’t bother Pedro. He was prepared for such a circumstance. He had what he was sure were some innovative and inspired ideas to drive the business. As a first step, he was going to the nearest variety store to buy a lottery ticket to raise investment funding.

The Freeze Dried Monster on the Skyway

December 22, 2009

Gerry Westerfield was the kind of 25- to 30-year-old who disappeared into the background. He grew his mat-black hair long, cultivated a beard and was perpetually attired in denim. He’d studied computer science at Sir Wilfred Laurier University but hadn’t quite earned his degree. Just the same, there was no question he was a savant when it came to computer languages and programming. It was just that attendance in class was never as interesting as time spent in the coffee shop with friends. He was also kind to old ladies, polite to strangers and a lover of music.

When presented with the opportunity of working on rock concerts at the Air Canada centre in Toronto, he jumped at the chance. No, he wasn’t a backup singer or dancer or anything like that. He was hired as a stage hand to fill the void created when one of his friends left “roadie” employment under orders from his new wife. There were a couple of ways in which Gerry was uniquely qualified for the job and they would play roles in re-shaping the rest of his life. For one thing, a childhood ear infection had left him impervious to decibels of sound that would have stunned almost anyone else.

It was late in the year 2010. The Christmas season was upon the land. The cold was keeping more and more people indoors and cell phone and Internet traffic was multiplying in leaps and bounds, both to keep friends and family in touch with each other and to accomplish year-end business chores before the traditional break for the holiday season. However, in retrospect, most professional analysts place the blame for what happened next on school concerts.

Toronto is a city of some six million souls. Dispersed among the throng are a great number of children. In public schools and high schools throughout the metropolis, the merrymaking gets seriously underway in early December. Anyone who has ever attended a seasonal performance will confirm the frenzy of photo shooting and video recording that takes place. The rushing backwards and forwards by parents to get the best shots is wondrous and scary. The general level of chaos usually crescendoes when the choir sings “The 12 Days of Christmas”, particularly during the drawn-out passage that lingers over “five golden rings.”

Then there is the uploading and distribution that takes place after the event. The cacophony is not unexpected. But this year, something different happened. The sound volume never diminished. It started as a low hum in the background, a “white noise” as it were, that grew progressively louder. Trying to drown it out with the radio or TV or i-Pod or game system or some other computer interface only seemed to make it worse. The City became wrapped in surround sound.

People gathered in the streets to check out what was happening. A filmy chalk-coloured crackling in the air could be seen among the skyscrapers in the city core. It wasn’t lightning or St. Elmo’s Fire or any natural phenomenon. Nobody was sure what it was. But it kept getting worse. And more substantial. In fact, the sheer speculation over what was taking place, leading to increased digital messaging, microwave transmitting and every other form of cyberspace communication, clearly caused the electrically-charged wave anomaly to become more active.

Within the coalescing cloud, a sentient entity was forming. It was comprised of all the computer emissions that were being generated in and around it. The sheer size of Toronto combined with the proclivity of its citizens and enterprises to employ high-tech devices were key ingredients in the metaphysical amalgam that was taking place. The extremely cold weather overnight in late December proved to be the final element needed to complete the birthing process. Noise, as he/she came to be called, was the result. How much danger was the city in from this wayward infant? Not much, as it turned out, because Noise had other things in mind.

Like any child, Noise was easily distracted by shiny baubles. Off in the distance, southwest across the lake, Noise sensed a particularly interesting diversion. Pretty colours could barely be made out in the distant night sky. Unbeknownst to Noise, it was the Winter Festival of Lights in Niagara Falls. Noise was drawn to it a like a fish to a lure. Thirty feet in the air, it followed cell phone traffic along the Queen Elizabeth Way. It wended its way along the shoreline, skipping through Oakville and Mississauga, past the Ford plant and on into Burlington.

In the near distance stood the towering outline of the Burlington Skyway. This glorious structure needed to be traversed and Noise embraced the task. That was its big mistake. It rolled up the incline to cross the entrance to Hamilton harbor, only to become stuck at the bridge’s peak. It was probably due to the conductivity of the structural steel supports. They acted on Noise in the same way tongue-licking a frozen pole will ensnare a foolish toddler. So there Noise stood, trapped and upset, and events entered the next stage of this drama.

On the first day Noise filled the Skyway, everyone was frightened. The din was prodigious and no-one would go near the creature. In any other country, the inclination might have been to attack Noise with missiles and fighter aircraft. The government of Ontario, however, chose to address the problem by handing out earplugs to all individuals in the affected area.

On the second day, curiosity started to get the better of most people. Canadians often turn out to be more adaptable than they think they are and that certainly proved to be true in this case. By the third day, most people were beginning to lose interest. In fact, their chief reaction was annoyance over the disruption to traffic that was underway. Re-directing vehicular flows around the Skyway was causing huge bottlenecks. Something needed to be done. If only someone could simply communicate with the beast and explain the situation. Gerry Westerfield was the man.