.................................
the zen block of the broom
.................................

the owner of the mexican restaurant
on the ground floor beneath our new office space
opens his sidewalk for business,
rearranging his curbside tables and chairs,
straightening the sign
for his breakfast specials:
huevos chorizos.

beside him, rob sweeps
the red brick sidewalk
with long strokes of a push broom
and we talk about
the humility of small tasks
and how they're the stakes
anchoring the blue nylon tent
of our greater dreams.

and behind us,
the empty building.


.................................
day one: we take the building
.................................

a crew of cutoffs,
torn t-shirts,
and backwards baseball caps
armed with cable crimpers
and spools of wire
running the tin cans and string
we'll whisper over at night.

the proud poppa, fred,
took snapshots
with a disposable camera
as we hauled up a table,
some chairs,
and hung the white boards
written with unwashed petroglyphs -
the green marker ghosts
of the last failed company
who'd watched their furniture
slip away from them,
desk by desk.

we couldn't order out for pizza
so i went for a cell phone
where they tried to sell me
a nokia
and i said. dude
it's gonna be dropped. whacked.
and stepped on with big wide feet.
i'll take the motorola.

kevin popped by
full of demands -
today he was vp of engineering
working on the wrinkles
between his eyes.
surely it was expected.

and every time
he stamped his feet
we tossed him another beer
from the bucket of ice
in the corner
and were finally forced
to give him a wedgie

he's 29
and needs to learn
to lighten up


.................................
guess what, the product's not done
.................................

life moves clockwise
while i try to explain -
the tools are on order
and somewhere in transit
on the back of a UPS turtle.
that without the claw hammer
and skill saw
of compilers and linkers,
no software is built.

that handcrafting machine code
one. one. zero. one. zero
is for monks in stone towers
who have generations
of silence,

but tom is anxious.
a small investor
writing small checks
to cover the rent
and the wiring,
he wants to be noticed
by deep pockets susan,
our venture capitalist,
so he bosses me around.

i've become the equivalent
of a perfumed handkerchief
waved in the afternoon breeze -
a title too long to fit
on a business card.


.................................
kevin walked in
.................................

by friday
the stars were all aligned.
the 7 digit check nestled
in the soft silk of the escrow account.
the lawyers doing a last minute
fluffing of fees
with 50 page amended & modified
incorporation documents triple signed
and faxed to the 4 atlas
holding up the 4 corners of the globe
and kevin walked in
and said no. just no.
i'm not gonna do it.

and 8 hours. 10 beers
and 2 investors later
he finally admitted why.

you see
he'd already demanded
more money
more stock
the title of VP
a month ago and gotten it
and now he was demanding
a seat on the board.
in fact, he had to have
the seat currently held
by the chief financial officer
or we were screwed
we'd have to start this deal
from scratch
because his retired half-senile
father-in-law had sneered at him
over lemon pie dessert
and told him his daughter
had married a fool.

so kevin got to be a director.
in fact, made us wait overnight
before agreeing to what he'd demanded
but that's the trick to being 29
he doesn't understand
how long the rest of us
remember.

.................................
LeeAnn Heringer
.................................

 
Copyright © LeeAnn Heringer
April 1997

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Copyright © 1996 A Small Garlic Press. All rights reserved.
Created 1996/5/4. Updated last on 2000/7/17.