Since it was still early in the afternoon, and because no one had bothered to tell him what his compensation rate was (the building seemingly vacant as he left, even the ledger woman had abandoned her primum mobile), curiosity drew him towards one of the bigger banks downtown, all glass, marble, and natural light. After an awkward conversation with one of the tellers who wanted to be helpful, or at least seem helpful, the bank manager was called over.
Ralph repeated his account as it had been dictated to him and handed the card to the bank manager. When she looked at the card in her hand, she visibly paled. She instructed him to follow her and they passed several levels of security to a plain room at the center of the bank.
The room held a small number of safety deposit boxes, hardly enough to justify devoting an entire room to. The bank manager procured a black box from one of the safety deposit drawers, to which it remained tethered to by a bundle of cables that disappeared into the wall. This box was similar to the one that had created his card.
He was handed back his card and instructed to insert it into the box and place his thumb anywhere on the box's surface. He did so and was rewarded with a sharp pain as a hidden needle pricked his thumb, drawing a drop of blood. Instantly he pulled his thumb away with an embarrassing 'Eep!’ and simultaneously the door to one of the safety deposit bakes popped open.
He frowned at the machine as he sucked the blood from his thumb. The machine beeped at him once and spat his card out to clatter on the floor. As he stood from retrieving it, the bank manager retrieved the contents of the drawer, which turned out to be cash. She purposely counted it out in front of him before handing it over and instructing him to never go to the same bank twice in a row. He began to ask her why, but already an armed security guard had entered the room and was urging him out of the bank, firmly but not unkindly. As he was ushered out, the bank manager called after him.
"Thank you for your service, Mr. Beesal."
On the street, Ralph thought to himself that this was the easiest $150 he had ever earned. Nearly half a normal week's pay for a few measly hours helping some screwball scientists and their shiny-brass bosses. Ralph was never one to look a gifted horse in the mouth, but by the same token, he was never one to see the forest for the trees or see the writing on the wall as anything other than decorative wallpaper. Ralph was now, still unknowingly at this point, a military man.
An irony that was certainly lost on Ralph Beesal, was that Ralph's rank and role in the military revolved entirely around the axis of his perception and ability to perceive, though he himself was not very perceptive and highly unlikely to perceive that which lurked below the surface of the existence of plans within plans.
In a word, Ralph was gullible. This suited the military just fine. This lack of awareness did not hinder his ability to be successful in the military at all. If anything, it was an asset. At least for the perceivable future.
And so, for a few weeks, Ralph existed, almost Zen-like. He was the rock in the stream, unaware of the rushing current that existed around him.
But change is inevitable. Even the most Zen rock will eventually be affected by the stream. It is impossible to live in the world and expect to be unaffected by the world. And so, Ralph was shaped over time and conditioned through repetition, being a creature of habit. He showed up at 5117 Roanoke Ave every morning.
9 am became 0900. He unknowingly adopted the posture of the Military Man, entering his office at the end of three halls and standing in what was called "at ease," always responding to his superior officers in the same way.
"Mr. Beesal. Do you see anyone else in the room with you?"
The soldier, Ralph's coworker, was painted the same pale robin's-egg-blue as the room.
"Yes, sir."
“Mr. Beesal. Do you see anyone else in the room with you?"
The soldier had flat surfaces mimicking the wall strapped to his arms, legs, and torso, a flat mask over his face with eye-holes, through which the soldier stared back at Ralph.
"Yes, sir."
"Mr. Beesal. Do you see anyone else in the room with you?"
The soldier was covered with pieces of mirror that shrieked harshly against each other as the weight caused him to shift uncomfortably. The soldier stared at Ralph as Ralph stared at hundreds of reflections of himself.
"Yes, sir."
"Thank you for your service, Mr. Beesal."
Every time Ralph answered in the affirmative and every time this was followed by a flurry of furious scribbling on clipboards by the scientists, or the furious shouting by the scientists, silent to Ralph through the glass partition, as the generals frowned. Ralph began to judge these outbursts as unprofessional. Whatever these scientists were trying to accomplish, they were going about it in an undignified manner.
Ralph himself was making more money than he ever had before. And while he was not one for ostentatious materialism, he did enjoy cultivating his professional persona. He now owned one black three-piece suit, two grey three-piece suits, and two dark blue three-piece suits. He now had two pairs of black dress shoes and two pairs of brown dress shoes. He bought a wristwatch from a department store. He had started a collection of modest silk ties and was thinking of getting into pocket squares.
Ralph began to feel the joy of purpose. While there was not what could be described as a lively jaunt in his step, he was too professional for that now, it did bring him a certain amount of pleasurable appreciation to hear the click-clack of his hard soled dress shoes. The professional click-clacks echoed down the hallway that led to his modest apartment, which was surprising because his building was always loud due to the inertia of life, stuffed to the gills by a less than scrupulous landlord. He had often passive-aggressively daydreamed about moving out of the dimly lit din of his dingy building, but if this silence persisted, he might just stay. He could afford to move out whenever he liked now, another pleasurable appreciation.
Like many hapless, cherub-cheeked, wayward souls before him, Ralph became lost in the allure of the material world. The faerie lights of the competitive marketplace dazzled his vision, and so Ralph lost sight of the guidelines that kept him safely on the middle path. It was because of the distracting siren song of commerce that he was led astray and he (and here appears for an unsettling second time that unlucky word) inadvertently went to the same bank two days consecutively.
There is no way to know how far Ralph's military life would have gone if he hadn't inadvertently revisited First National Savings & Bonds on both a Thursday and the following Friday. Routine replaced intention and so Ralph relied too heavily on the system of checks and balances that the banks provided. The bank managers, always on edge whenever Ralph arrived, would always warn him to never go to the same bank twice in a row. But from Ralph's perspective he was simply cashing in his day's wage, already daydreaming of hounds' teeth, imported silks, and fine linens. The skittish intensity of the managers soon faded into background noise against such professional finery.
The bank manager of First National Savings & Bonds normally worked Tuesday through Friday, but had called in sick on this particular Friday, having been hit with the onset of a flu late Thursday. She was a rather anxious person who often worried herself into ill health, routinely exhausting her immune system on ever twisting nerves. The assistant bank manager normally worked weekends and Mondays and through sheer coincidence had never interacted with Ralph before and therefore had no idea he was inadvertently breaking the non-consecutive days rule. Ralph should have realized this, but despite his status as a military-grade professional perceiver, a fact that he was still unaware of, Ralph was, as previously established, not very observant.
As such, Ralph did not notice that he was followed out of First National Savings & Bonds by a large bell-shaped man in a full-length fur coat that was long enough to obscure his feet.
On top of the head of the large bell-shaped man in a full-length fur coat who had followed Ralph onto the bus, was a tall fur hunting cap.
The face of the large bell-shaped man in a full-length fur coat and tall fur hunting cap who stood outside Ralph's apartment building as Ralph walked in, was obscured by large, dark sunglasses over a prosthetic nose and fake-looking mustache.
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