That Was Then
Nelson Cabot was an obscure man, living an obscure life, in an obscure section of Northeast Atlanta. He arose each morning at precisely five a.m., took care of necessities, shaved, showered, and dressed before preparing the same breakfast of toast, poached eggs, ham, and coffee, observing the military regularity he’d practiced since his stint in the Navy in his twenties. Then he headed off for his day at the office.
Nelson wasn’t a star within his company. Hardly anyone in the vast, global monolith that was Bickering Plummet even knew his name. He worked in the Winder satellite office, halfway between Athens and Lawrenceville, with one co-worker, Alice Whitlow, minding the servers that allowed offices in the region to communicate with one another and with corporate in Atlanta out to the rest of the world. Day in and out, he sat, staring carefully at the screen, as mail and messages streamed past, making sure there were no error reports, no server problems, and no malicious person trying to get in, taking swift action if something wasn’t right.
For the past few years, Nelson had been hosting his namesake nephew — called Nelms among the homefolk — who was attending school in Atlanta. The oldest son of Nelson’s brother, Jameson, Nelms had been identified by his teachers before college as bright but unmotivated and, at the university, showed no inclination to choosing a career for him-self. He had already earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature and was working on a Master’s in speech and drama but was evasive whenever Nelson quizzed him about his goals.
“Life’s much easier with a plan, Nelms.”
“Sure, but you miss out on all the adventure. I appreciate unscripted spontaneity. Yes, and.”
“And what?”
Nelms shook his head. “Never mind.”
Nelms seemed to have an active social life, participating in a local improvisation group, writing plays and scripts, occasionally acting in shows, as well as working behind the scenes in productions. None of these paid much money.
Despite Nelms’s lack of motivation, Nelson didn’t mind having him around. He was often still asleep when Nelson awoke in the morning and gone by the time Nelson came home at night and didn’t take up much space other than the room he occupied in the basement. Nelson liked having someone else in the house, and Nelms seemed much like the type of son Nelson might have had. Other than a small number of work acquaintances, Nelms was the only person with whom Nelson associated on a regular basis.
The office Nelson shared with Alice occupied a little less than a thousand square feet of wall-to-wall servers. Alice worked in the tiny closet that was the communications hub, which stayed at a constant temperature of seventy-eight degrees, while Nelson worked in the server room, which was super cooled to keep the units from overheating. The pair spent nine hours a day, five days a week in the office (with rotating weekends), and at eighteen hundred hours were replaced by the night crew.
This had been Nelson’s routine for most of the fifteen years he had been with Bickering Plummet. He always held vital, but largely unseen positions within the company, being one of the technicians who ensured that the machinery that kept the multinational corporation grinding along never failed. In all the time he’d been there, not a single incident occurred that he had not handled with speed and accuracy. In all his work evaluations, his supervisors included similar variations on a theme: “Nelson is a studious, careful, and efficient worker.”
It was their regular lunchtime habit that brought Alice into the server room before noon one day to let Nelson know she was going to get a bite to eat at their favorite deli a few streets over. While one of them was required to always remain on the premises, they frequently brought one another lunch. Alice had been having a quiet, uneventful day.
As usual, she found Nelson steadfastly seated in his chair, watching the numbers go by.
“I’m going to grab some lunch, Nelson. Can I bring you anything?”
Nelson did not reply, but this was common. The fans typically drowned out the soft-spoken Alice when she tried to communicate with her co-worker who was highly focused, so it often took a few tries to get his attention. Alice stepped a little closer and raised her voice.
“Nelson, I’m going to lunch. Can I bring you anything?”
Once again, she received no response, neither did he move from his position. Alice stepped over to his chair, and found him focused on the computer screen, his mouth partially open, eyes staring blankly ahead of him.
“Nelson?”
Alice touched his shoulder, and Nelson responded by slumping sideways in his chair.
“Oh my god!” Alice hurried back to her office “Oh my god, oh my god.”
The EMTs who arrived within ten minutes of Alice’s call speculated that Nelson had been dead for at least an hour before Alice found him and might have gone unnoticed until the next shift arrived, if Alice hadn’t thought to bring him lunch.
“I should have done something. I was right here the whole time. Why didn’t I do something. Anything.”
The female paramedic reassured her. “Ma’am your coworker most likely passed quickly, without any warning. Unless you’d been with him when it happened, there’s not much you could have done. Given your work arrangement, it’s not surprising you weren’t aware of it.”
Alice placed two calls, the first to 911 summoning help, the second to her supervisor at corporate, who advised her to “stand by” while someone was dispatched to “assess the situation” and take control of the scene. Her supervisor advised Alice not to contact anyone else, and if the police arrived, she was to wait until the company representative got there before speaking to them.
A short while later, an individual identifying himself as Clark Randolph from HR, showed up while one of the paramedics was still examining Nelson. He quickly shepherded Alice away from the EMT comforting her, and into her office for a debriefing.
By the time the police arrived, summoned by the paramedics, Randolph was in full control of the situation, limiting access to Alice, as well as any portion of the building not immediately relevant to the investigation.
“Please refer all inquiries to Bickering’s in-house counsel. They can let you know when you’ll be able to interview Ms. Whitlow.”