My kids were in junior high (middle school); RK had decided to ship out once more (he had seaman’s papers as well as a being a longshoreman), so was on a ship sailing along South America’s west coast, due home in a month or so. We now lived in a Victorian up the hill from my sons’ middle school, in Noe Valley, which the owners had tried to modernize with asbestos siding, fake ceilings, and a partially finished rear deck overlooking the garden. It seemed like it rained constantly that year.
 |
| The imposing Bank of America building. |
At eight o’clock one morning, on my way to an
underwriting interview for the Los Angeles Mutual Insurance company, I found
myself on the 23rd floor of the three-year-old Bank America building. Walking
down a labyrinth of deserted, urine-yellow, carpeted halls, I felt as though I
were trapped inside a Kafka novel, or worse, Witold Gombrowitz. The dark wood doors bore no company names, not
even gender distinctions to indicate bathrooms.
I knocked on a door- no answer. I
opened it; angry office-workers glared at me from their IBM Selectrics.
“Is this Los Angeles Mutual-"
“-No!”
On I walked.
I reached a right angle in the hall and ended up in front of yet another
unmarked door. I knocked. A high-pitched voice said, “Come in!” I let myself in and crossed a wide expanse of
an unfurnished beige-carpeted room and approached a glassed-in, corner office. A curly-haired blond man about 30 sat behind
an old metal desk with his back to the awe-inspiring view of the west
side of the City. He wore a blue,
windowpane plaid suit with wide lapels and a floral tie. In his lap was a white toy poodle.
I had to be in the wrong place. “Is this Los Angeles Mutual Insurance
Company?” I heard myself ask tentatively.
“Yes, it is, honey.
I’m Teddy.” Teddy stood up and
shook my hand, holding his wriggling poodle to his stomach. “Are you here for the interview for
underwriter?”
“Yes,” I said, glancing around. He gestured me to a chair. I gave him my resume, and we talked. Or rather I sat there while he was on the
phone making arrangements with kennels to board his poodle when he is in San
Francisco, getting the branch office off the ground. After he hung up, he went on to tell me that
they had an office in San Jose, but were closing it once this branch opened. Some of the people down there would come
to SF to work, he explained. I heard
footsteps behind me. I turned to see a tall,
willowy, sandy-haired man wearing aviator glasses and a lime-green
stretch-knit, bell-bottom, zip up front leisure suit, leaning against the door
frame.
“Oh, dear, meet Jim, my partner,” Teddy said, then
added, “Actually, he’s the president, I’m the vice.” He giggled.
“Well,” he went on, “from what you’ve told me and looking at your
resume, we need look no further, do we, Jim? For our property-casualty
underwriter?”
“If you say so, I’ll take your word for it. I’m still new at this,” Jim said, extending a
hand; Teddy introduced us. “Hello dear,”
Jim drawled.
“So, just show up tomorrow and your boss Werner
Gross will be here,” Teddy explained. “He’s
driving up from San Jose. Oh, and Candy,
the secretary, too. Jim and I have to
skedaddle back to LA. First, let me
explain about this dreadful furniture:
It’s rented.”
“My wife and I just got back from Mexico,” Jim put
in. “I have some wonderful ideas for the
décor. Our office will be the envy of
everyone on the street in no time! My hot,
little tamale of a secretary, Angie, will help.
She’s has a degree in interior decorating. So, honey, report to Werner tomorrow and
we’ll see you in about a week with brand new office furniture.”
“And bric-a-brac accents!” Teddy added. “ ‘Bye, dear, I’m sure you’ll love it here.”
My rented, metal desk was in place the next
morning, along with one for Werner Gross’s office which was next to Teddy’s and
Jim’s. Werner had a high-backed, black Naugahyde,
executive chair. Across from me was
the secretary’s desk. To my
left, and her right, was the file/utility room. Its shear-curtained glass wall
and door faced us. When I got there, a gum-cracking
Candy and a sweaty Werner were in this room already unloading boxes and boxes
of files and sliding them onto metal shelves the length of the room.
“Get in here, honey, and give us a hand,” Werner
growled, leaning over a box. From where
I stood, I could see his huge behind straining the seams of his cheap, polyester
brown slacks. He straightened up and
mopped his sweaty, red face, and bald head with a white hanky.
Candy kept on shelving files while snapping her gum. She was petite with short blond hair and wore
very short shorts, a tank top, and sandals.
She was gone within a week.
Couldn’t handle the commute or the weather. The non-identical twins, Jim and Teddy, hired
Patsy, a friend of Jim’s mother’s daughter, just out of typing school-not
secretarial school, but typing school. She
was a baby-faced, plump eighteen who wore ‘50s style full-skirted cotton
dresses and cat’s eye
glasses with translucent pink rims. Her face seemed always red from
embarrassment. It
took her forever to type one letter, sighing and swearing under her breath as
she back-spaced to utilize the “correct-tape” function. Huge sweat stains grew under her armpits.
Before Candy left, Werner called us into his office
. He was standing at his window looking West
and motioned us to his side. He put his arms around our shoulders, and
said, “Look out there, gals. From here,
we can see way past those islands almost to Hawaii. We’re going to write every piece of property
down there. Los Angeles Mutual will take
'Frisco by storm!”View looking North. Transamerica Pyramid in foreground.
Insurance agents came by with files of risks they wanted Werner and me to look at, approve, and write insurance policies for. They’d walk around, inspecting everything, commenting on the gorgeous view. I assured them that we were getting new furniture in keeping with occupying a huge corner space on the 23rd floor.
A week later, Teddy and Jim dropped in with
Angie. She was a petite, feisty Latina
who reminded me of Rita Moreno. She wore
a low-cut, sheer white blouse tucked into a pencil-thin black skirt, and glasses with heavy black frames. Her thick black hair was piled on her
head. She swept around the main room, the offices, and file room on Jim’s arm, leaving holes in the carpet
from her three inch spike heels, talking so fast in heavily accented English, I
could hardly understand her. Jim, Teddy, and Werner smiled and
nodded, “Yes, doll,” and “You’re absolutely right, doll.”
“Jes, jes, the furniture we order," Angie said, turning
to Patsy and me, "eess goink to look
beyoootiful in here with these jello carpets, hah?”
“Yes, girls, Werner,” Jim agreed, “It’s being
delivered tomorrow and they’ll take these awful metal contraptions and chairs
away. Poof! Never see them again.”
As promised, our new desks, chairs, side tables, and
utility table for the entry way, were delivered the next day. Teddy,
Jim, Angie and Werner oversaw its installation.
The desks were of cheap pine stained dark and designed to look like
Mexican refectory furniture.Our typing chairs were upholstered with gold, crushed velvet. A huge, black leather, executive recliner replaced Werner’s rental chair. The rectangular utility table for the entry way was of the same construction and design, as were the occasional tables, and credenza and hutch which would serve as a liquor cabinet. How on earth could Angie, a Latina with a degree in interior decorating (if Jim was to be believed), be proud of having selected this furniture meant for an office? She had to be kidding, right? I couldn’t tell. She swanned around, cooing, running her hands over everything. Jim placed a cardboard box on the refectory table, opened it and pulled out ceramic sculptures of Mexican village churches, and stereotype peons- sombreros, cacti, donkeys, and wrought- iron sconces.
He and Angie placed them on the tables and
hung the sconces on the walls. Then they
stood in the middle of the floor and beamed. Werner opened the door of the credenza, and
pulled out a bottle of Bristol Irish Cream, poured it in paper
cups, and handed them to us Patsy and I, following their lead,
raised our cups in a toast. Everything about the place felt wrong. Next up: Chapter 10, Part Two: Desks fall apart; open House; Werner talks about his girlfriend: TMI! I refuse an archaic forms processing method.
