I need to voyeur more. I reread a pair of character sketches I finished a few months ago, and I realized that while I tried to throw down some notes on Esther and Fred, I didn’t draw enough detail to make the story interesting. Of course, I’m talking about this now because my story writing has stalled yet again. I have many hours and many cups of caffeine to keep me going today, so I have little excuse for what is happening.

While I’m wasting words with this commentary, I figured a bit of a break would be nice. I’m sitting in a bucks of stars around E. 44th and third avenue, typing away. The snow hit New York as predicted, and while it’s falling steadily, it’s not a blizzard yet. This might change as night falls. A few inches cover the ground, and it’s not supposed to stop until tomorrow. The weather has ruined my planned family outings. I’m still hoping the weather stops early enough tomorrow to head to my sister’s, but it’s mostly empty hoping. My hopes also revolve around a clearing tomorrow long enough for Doolies and me to fly back to our respective homes. If not Sunday, there’s always Monday (or Tuesday).

I’d like to pretend that my energy level is high enough to write more, but I know the truth. There’s nothing left in the tank: nothing that a tall mocha and a shot of espresso can salvage. I was very excited before about writing, and I did manage to edit and pound out a few paragraphs of additional material for the Lamb story. But all of that has since died away. I think it’s the time. It’s around 2pm Seattle time, and my body has decided that it’s time to shut down. I’ve talked about IT before (that’s inspiration time for those not keeping up with David’s acronyms), and I’m squarely outside it. My stuck-ness at the point in the story is also not helping. I don’t know what it is about this story, but I keep coming up against walls that take forever for me to break through. Perhaps it’s the subject matter: I mean, really, how can I make work, insurance work no less, exciting? I’ve set myself a difficult task. I won’t give up. Partly because I know there’s a story there, and I can’t keep from turning SL from what was an awful attempt to a more decent story. It’s character building (that’s my character that’s being built. As you will see, Esther, Fred, Jerry, and Leonard are not building in any (cliché alert!) way, shape, or form).

To show progress, here’s the (slowly, very slowly) continuing saga of:

Sacrificial Lamb

Fred Sanders, an account manager on the third floor of Jenkins Inc., finishes his third cup of coffee. He studies the door for the fifth time in the last minute. It remains closed. He stands up, pushing the wooden chair behind him, and walks around the desk, taking a long drag from his cigarette. He faces the door, unsure whether to will it open to get it over with, or will it to remain shut. What he is sure is that his meeting with Mr. Jenkins will not go well.

Fred has been waiting for Mr. Jenkins’s meeting since early afternoon. Covering the table are empty coffee cups and paper piles. On a normal day, Fred would have cleared his desk by this time, his work finished for the day. This is not a normal day. He pushes one of the piles closer to the edge, trying to find the right balance between busy and organized. Fred walks around his desk, scattering paperclips around the piles, but has second thoughts and begins picking them up.

Two hours earlier in a different office on the third floor of Jenkins Inc., Esther Lamb, an account manager and one-time lover of Fred Sanders, waits in her office for Mr. Jenkins. Her desk is devoid of all papers. She hasn’t been able to work since Mr. Jenkins called her thirty minutes before. She was afraid he knew. This has been a regular fear since starting her affair with Fred. The affair ended three weeks before, but her fear reignites each time she sees Mr. Jenkins.

Mr. Jenkins sounds strange on the phone. Esther has known Mr. Jenkins since she married Leonard twelve years before. Mr. Jenkins was Leonard’s godfather, and after the death of Leonard’s father when Leonard was eight, Mr. Jenkins became a surrogate father in everything but name to Leonard. Ten years ago, after the great 1992 downsizing of the insurance industry, Mr. Jenkins gave Esther a job at Jenkins Inc. He had been good to her over the years, and she genuinely enjoys her job.

Fred drops the paperclips as the handle turns and the door opens. Mr. Jenkins stands there. He is a tall man and he makes the doorframe seem undersized. He walks as he talks, with measured steps, mechanically placing his heel then foot then toe on the floor. His three-piece suit is creaseless as if the day fears to ruffle him as much as the employees of Jenkins Inc. He wears glasses and hunches forward like he’s about to tell you a secret.

“Did I catch you at a bad time, Fred?” Mr. Jenkins asks. He doesn’t wait for an answer and closes the door. He walks past Fred and takes the chair behind the desk. He gestures toward the visitor chair. Fred feels an empty canyon forming in his stomach.

Fred sits in the visitor’s chair. “Please sit down,” Fred tells Mr. Jenkins, losing his voice toward the end. Fred has always had a good-natured relationship with Mr. Jenkins. He is the best account manager at Jenkins Inc. and Mr. Jenkins gives Fred leeway in how he conducts business. Mr. Jenkins leans back in Fred’s chair and leers.

“I’m here about Mrs. Lamb, Fred. I know all about it.” Jerry Jenkins is a direct man. He is sixty-eight years old and inherited Jenkins Inc. from his father, who inherited from his father, also a Jerry Jenkins, and a pioneer behind the reinsurance business. Fred had expected this, but he’s still surprised when he hears Mr. Jenkins say it.

Fred and Esther never expected to develop a relationship. Fred joined Jenkins Inc. sometime, somewhere, and for some reason. Make it stop, please!