The West Parking Lot

For certain, when it first occurred —

That not altogether innocuous intermittent car alarm

Emanating from the parking lot just west of our office —

None of us counselors in the firm gave it much thought.

Nobody even stirred in his/her ergonomic leather chair,

Showed more than unconscious concern,

So ensconced were we in our jurisprudential busywork,

Preparing our depositions, briefs, statements, arguments, suits,

Reading up on abstruse and esoteric precedents,

In hope of finding some obscure way

Of reinforcing otherwise seemingly insupportable cases,

To extract additional remuneration from clients.

But when it became apparent that the car's owner

Had entered the building and buried him-/herself, in his/her work,

Oblivious to the fact that the alarm had been tripped,

Our entire office began, to the man/woman,

To grow noticeably worried, nervous, agitated, vocal,

In some cases expletively outspoken, apoplectic, violent.

But that turned out to be the least of the iceberg's tip.

Within minutes, a second car activated its shrill alarm,

Almost as if responding to the initial auto's call.

By this time, all sixty-odd of us lawyers and our support staffs

Were up out of our ergonomic chairs, up in arms, literally,

Pacing our cages, like tigers sensing feeding time.

Indeed, each of us was beginning to suspect, believe,

That the parking-lot rataplan would be interminable,

A ceaseless torture, curse, on our profession.

Five neighboring police and fire departments were called,

But by the time engines and squad cars could arrive,

The west parking lot was in a deafening uprising, rebellion, coup.

To the first two alarms had been joined three more, then a sixth,

Then seven more; then scores chimed in to the raucous din,

As if out of sheer vindictiveness — piling it on, you might say.

A half-hour into that cacophonous New Orleans brass-band recital,

That rain-forest canopy cluttered with chattering monkeys,

Screeching parrots, macaws, exotic primeval avian species,

The founder of our highly prestigious and venerable law firm

Called all of us together, in the dining room,

Hoping to avert a mass intellectual and emotional meltdown,

Trying his most articulately persuasive best to reassure us

That this inexplicable anomaly would soon be mitigated, abated,

And that we'd be back to our crucial tasks, posthaste.

Yet such was not to be the immediate remediating outcome,

Leaving us not a second's peace for another three hours,

When those car alarms — seventy-five or eighty, assumably —

A few at a time, in a cascading effect, stopped,

Finally rendering the west parking lot quiet as the deceased,

But not until they'd ruined the entire lunch hour.

At six, when our building disgorged all of us —

All seventy-five-to-eighty of us,

From the founder to the five partners, down to the mail guy —

We were mortified, upon encountering our cars.

The hoods of our vehicles looked like crushed beer cans.

The firemen had hacked them open, to disengage the alarms.

The lawyers among us read the implication on the wall:

We, not the responding municipalities, were liable for damages.

Our only viable chance for restitution: sue the cars.

12/04/08 - (1)