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Chaos Clause
by Sarah Szabo “Pronounced cloh,” said Sean Clos, grasping the hand of his new employer in a sloppy show of greeting, wishing his grip were more firm, his palm less moist. “Like the wine,” he added. He could sense Neal Clash squinting, perplexed, behind his sunglasses. “What?” “Just a—term. French.” Clos tried a smile; bit his lip. Clash grunted, unaffected, and ran his right hand briskly up and down the fabric of his trousers. “Well. Welcome. Good to meet you! Great to meet you.” They walked up to the dark glass doors of the Platt County Aquiline Savings and Loan, Clos trailing behind respectfully, though he did skip ahead slightly on the modest stairsteps in an effort to get the door for the senior manager, not realizing until he had made a fool of himself that the doors were, of course, still locked. Clash did him the courtesy of not commenting, which quickly became its own form of mild torture when they entered the cold cloister of the workplace lobby, silent save for the urgent squeaking of Clos’ leather shoes. They were wet from a slick coating of the front lawn’s morning dew, and they cried like something dying with every step toward Clash’s office on the far side of the glistening, black tile floor. A tense pause while Clash worked with his keyring; Clos made an effort to stop biting his lip. The lights came on at the motion of the opening door. “Have a seat, Clos,” Clash said, gesturing towards a large pink armchair on one side of his desk as he set down his briefcase on top of the other. “I understand Ms. Evans was unable to set you up with your office here over the weekend.” “That’s right, sir, no, she wasn’t.” Clos, whose instructions to this point, he was positive, had yet to move beyond you start Monday, had never met Ms. Evans. He shivered with a nervous chill. “Well, that doesn’t bother me,” Clash granted, in a tone that suggested the mix-up was Clos’ fault—not that he should be worried about it. “It gives us more time to get to know each other in person. We corresponded—am I right? Over email? A couple of times?” No… Clos knew, but he still said, “I believe so.” Clash, now seated, had yet to remove his sunglasses. There was a long, penetrating silence, during which Clos settled into his seat. The armchair sank deeper than expected, and gave Clos the impression of being swallowed. Clash smiled widely, showing small, bright, perfectly identical teeth. “We should go over your contract.” Clos’ armpits exploded with sweat. “My contract? Ah… I was under the impression that, ah, all of my contract issues had been sorted out. I mean, not that there were any issues, but, ah, but. I was under the impression that there was no ambiguity to this. Done deal. Ink dry on the… dotted line.” Clos felt a grim certainty that he had lost his job within minutes. A personal worst. He licked his lips meekly. “Was there some issue?” Clash was shuffling through papers inside a thick manila folder, searching for something specific, on the cusp of finding it. “No, no, none at all. I just like to personally review parts of the contract with new hires,” he said. “For clarity.” When he found the documents he was looking for, he peeled off two copies—one for himself, one for Clos. He also removed his sunglasses, revealing gray eyes. Clos’ mind associated with weapons at the look of them. Gunmetal gray. The document was easily recognizable as a copy of Clos’ contract, all quite standard. None of its eleven double-sided pages, to Clos’ knowledge, stood out as pertaining specifically to him. “Did you read it?” Clash asked, paging through his copy. “Did you examine it closely?” For once, Clos felt a flash of confidence. “Absolutely, sir. Very closely. Every page.” “Good—let’s turn to page 14.” He ran his finger down the lines. “Dadadadada… there. Article Seventeen, Conditions and Terms of Client Responsibility, Clause IX.” Clos skimmed, caught himself up, and felt a twang of recognition. “Oh yes—this one. I did have some—” “Read it to me.” When Clos looked up, Clash was standing behind his desk chair, arms folded over the back of it. Staring down at him. Expectant. “Oh,” Clos began. “OK.” He cleared his throat. “In the event of CHAOS, resultant of or precipitatory to natural disasters, war, government usurpations, financial collapse, pandemic disease or general panic, the contents of this contract are to be considered by the contractee to be NULL and VOID, and all procedures therein are to be considered provisional and expendable, for the sake of COMPANY survival. All other forms of “chaos” are to be left up to the interpretation of the shift manager or, if management should be somehow incapacitated, the judgment of the individual contractee. If the shift manager is unavailable in the event of global collapse or national financial ruin, the contractee shall not attempt to contact assistance, internal or external, and should instead resort immediately to doing WHATEVER THEY CAN, with SURVIVAL as the utmost goal.” A droplet of Clos’ perspiration fell from his brow, punctuating the paragraph’s end. He felt dehydrated. “A drink, Clos?” Clos said yes reflexively, thinking yes to water, yes to coffee, not anticipating that Clash’s next move would be to withdraw from his desk a blue-boxed bottle of unopened, clearly expensive scotch whisky—and two glasses. Clos stammered, smiled, took the drink. He swallowed as much of Clash’s heavy pour as he could manage. It was among the most delicious things that Clos had ever tasted. He wanted, more than anything, to vomit it right back up. “Wonderful, isn’t it?” probed Clash, before clarifying, “The clause, I mean. What do you think of it?” Clos cracked the joints in his toes, very audibly. His stomach rumbled. His face, he needed to believe, was still reasonably well-composed. “Well, it could mean a number of things,” he whispered. “I suppose it’s very much an... I know it when I see it kind of situation.” “Like pornography. Expand on that.” “The chaos,” Clos said. “I will know it… when... I see it.” “Right. Right!” Clash slapped the top of his desk and stretched his entire body over it to refill Clos’ glass, despite Clos’ efforts to refuse. “That’s absolutely right. It’s like a car crash, Clos—or a bomb going off. Have you ever heard a bomb go off?” Clos shook his head. His eyes darted warily around the windowless office. “Not in person.” “But you’d know damn well there was one… if you heard one. Why, it’d be—” Clash smiled, raised the glass to his nose, inhaled. “—chaos.” “I do think it's an interesting clause to have. Very pragmatic.” “Well, it is there for a reason. Do you recall the Great Depression, Clos?” “Yes. Vividly.” Clos noticed that an immense pain had been steadily emanating from his left hand, and realized he was squeezing the armrest with all the strength of his grip; the skin of his knuckles was cracking. Finger-by-finger, he forced himself to stop. “Consider this, Clos—the implied promise of financial security. This is why people bank with us—it is why they bank with you.” Clash rounded his desk, stopped behind the pink armchair, and set his hands, gently, on the top of Clos’ head. “If disaster strikes,” he continued, “our clients sleep better, believing that their money avoided the blast radius. You see, Clos, they think that we're their friends.” It was a question in disguise, left hanging. “Oh no,” said Clos. He had become very uncomfortable in the armchair, very uncomfortable in his own sweat-soaked clothes. He was shifting his weight left, right, back, and forth, cracking every knuckle. “Oh no.” Clash nodded appreciatively, squeezed Clos’ head, and stepped to Clos’ left. He retrieved his glass from the desktop, took a delicate sip. Savored it. “This job is about so much more than banking, Clos,” he mused. “Banking is what props the walls up, but what keeps the bastards out? Pattern recognition. Open eyes. A dutiful understanding of the migratory patterns of sea monsters. Do you see what I’m saying?” “Yes sir.” “Do you enjoy the works of Ayn Rand?” “Yes,” Clos said immediately. He took a drink and coughed over it. Choked. Clash knelt to the floor, set his drink down between his feet, and started to untie his shoes. “I hate Ayn Rand,” he muttered, toward the floor. Clash abandoned his shoes, left his drink on the ground, and stepped back toward his side of the desk while Clos watched, silently attempting to loosen his tie. He caught his thumbnail inside the knot and bent it halfway back, after which he also failed to effectively suppress a brief, meek, fretful squeal. Two words flashed in his mind, like a lightbulb flickering--Suffocate. And CHAOS. Clash sat down and stared at Clos. Clos aimed his eyes everywhere else. Each uniform leaf of a potted plastic palm tree. Every golden capital on Neal Clash’s beveled black glass nameplate. The single peridot embedded in the bottom of his drinking glass. An entire minute elapsed. “Clos?” Clos opened his eyes with a start and kicked violently, fooled for a split-second into thinking he was falling from a great height. “Breathe, Clos.” “I’m trying.” “First-day jitters?” Clos blinked, and felt his back teeth sever a small part of his inner cheek meat with a sudden, wet crunch. “That’s OK, Clos. It’s why we’re talking. Here.” Clash moved some papers on his desk aside and replaced them with a rectangular smooth steel lockbox, which he had evidently been resting on his lap. It was a modest container, very discount-office-supply, and was slim enough to fit comfortably in Clos’ hands—but still he trembled. Anything could be inside of it, he felt. A ransom note. A snake. A human hand. Clash spoke ominously. “Open it.” Clos undid the lockbox clasp, and quickly raised the lid. Inside of it was a derringer gun, small and curious, with an engraved chocolate grip. It laid in a bed of velvet, contoured to size. “They call it the Snake Slayer,” said Clash, his eyes widening as his tongue stretched out the name. Clos swallowed, tasting blood. Clash cleared his throat, and leaned forward with his head bowed low in a casually conspiratory way. “Clos, you know this is all contingency plan,” he said. “I’ve reviewed your record closely; you’re an intelligent man, on paper. But suppose it actually happens, Clos. Global financial collapse. General devastation. A meteor strikes Washington. Half of the country shatters into outer orbit. You’re here at work—it all happens so fast. One of your clients crawls in through the double doors on his hands and knees. Covered in blood. Missing a limb. He catches your attention with a gesture you can’t read—a cross between a reach for help and an accusatory finger. He hasn’t said a word to you yet, but you can see the story in his eyes--help me. And it’s just going to be you and him, Clos. He’s in your office, and everyone else is in it just as deep as you are. There’s no time to find help, nor anybody you can turn to for it. It’s just you and him in the office, Clos. He’s bleeding. He’s dying. Clos, I want you to be honest with me.” “Yes sir, I’ve never been more terrified.” “What?” “Nothing.” “Clos, I want you to be honest with me. Let’s say it’s just you and him in the office—and he’s bleeding. He’s dying. Tell me, Clos. What are you going to do?” Clos traced his fingers down the smooth surface of the short gunbarrel, thinking about his last visit to the doctor, when his resting heart rate had been measured at a PR-breaking 205. The terrified look on the nurse’s pale face. The sirens. The chaos. And then he abruptly clenched his fist. “I’ll kill him,” he growled, the words unbidden. “I’ll shoot him. With this gun, in his face. I’ll blow him away.” Clash raised an eyebrow, reached over, and tapped his finger twice atop the weapon’s firing pin. “With this?” Clos stared hard and deeply into Clash’s face, his body tensed enough to make his vision vibrate, and he felt himself go crosseyed. “Yes,” he said, feeling bold. “Right between the eyes.” Clash grunted, leaned back, wagged a finger before a sour expression. “Not with this gun,” he said. “No—this one’s for you, Clos. This is your safety net.” Clash mimed a gun shape with his hand, jabbed his finger underneath his chin, and dropped his thumb, mouthing “pow”. Clos fixed the derringer with a lengthy stare, as though this new information would cause it to spontaneously change its appearance. It shimmered slightly. Clash continued casually, idly spinning an egg-shaped paperweight on his desktop which Clos was only just now noticing to be, very definitely, a live grenade. “No. For your own purposes, I recommend a Springfield XDm 9 millimeter. Nineteen rounds in the magazine, you know. The trigger pull is so light, a four-year-old could fire it. Perfect for panicked moments—and soft hands. No, only two shots in the derringer, Clos. There’s ah, a gift certificate underneath—25% off your first purchase at a local outlet.” Clos checked beneath the velvet, found a cutout paper coupon which matched Clash’s description. “And a soda,” he read, approvingly. With a squint of his eyes and a curl of his lip, Clos’ expression betrayed a somewhat quizzical sentiment. Realizing this, he winced. Clash passed him a shimmering white handkerchief. “Your eye is bleeding.” Composing himself, Clos dabbed at the corners of his eyeballs; the cloth came back streaked with slashes of red in visceral shades. “Interesting.” Clash balled up the handkerchief, tossed it in the garbage, and interlocked his fingers. Smiled warmly. "No worries, Clos—you’re going to be just fine. Have a great first day. Welcome to Aquiline Savings and Loan." |
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