Solutions: A Dog's Dilemma by James Gerard (book suggestions .TXT) 📕

He realized that he would just move his sleeping spot as he had done on occasions in the past.   As far as coffee he figured he had no choice but to walk a few blocks away to another store where the coffee was twice the price yet twice as good.  In other words, he thought, just a temporary inconvenience.  At least one thing stayed the same for Rick, and that was the daily routine of hunting and searching for the cash he needed to occupy the space and time of nothingness.

 A motorcycle screamed by.  The whining acceleration nudged Rick awake.   His legs and arms stretched far out, his back arched, and a yawn as big as the early morning dawn announced the presence to the awaken state of nothingness.

It was cold.  The thought of removing his body from the warm confines of the sleeping bag made his thoughts shudder.  But the cold day waited.  He thought about saying nothing, just leave the matter alone, but the thought to do something was just too overwhelming not to do something.  Maybe just a note, he thought, thrown in the mail slot?  Maybe just shout out a thank you to the first person I see coming in or out of the warehouse?  But the more and more he reasoned with himself not to confront an actual person face to face, the more and more he knew he had to.  The day could only get warmer, he thought, just get going.

Sitting up, he noticed a car parked in front of that warehouse.  Should I, he wondered.  Come on now.  At least a thank you?  Maybe come in and do a little cleaning?  Maybe a job?  “Naw,” he laughed aloud, “just a thank you.”

A whiff of the musky odor rising from the soiled clothes he had worn for the last three days caught his attention.  All sorts of putrid waste from the canning activity, sweat leaking out of pores within the winter jacket, produced the normal stenches of rotting food and beverages and body fluids that managed to escape from within and attach to his clothing from without. He rummaged through his back pack seeing if there was a hidden set of clean clothes but all were dirty.  He knew he needed a shower, thought about running down to the mission, but knew it would be a few hours or so before he could get back and the car might be gone.

Confusion set in as usual.  Clear decisions and directions were muddled with the lifestyle he had come to accept.  He desperately wanted a shower and change clothes before appearing before whoever was in the warehouse, but then again, he thought, did they actually care?  He figured they must all know of him and his lifestyle by now.  They must know.  Then, figured Rick, it’s no big deal just to go in there and say thank you and get out.

He looked to the warehouse but his mind craved a cup of coffee and a cigarette  The previous day’s canning had produced enough wealth to afford the real coffee a couple of blocks away as well as a pack of tailor made smokes.  He shook his head remembering the bridge was burned to Henry’s store and figured an apology to him so soon after would fall on deaf ears.  He had no choice to accept the fact that Henry’s was now off limits for awhile.

He looked again to the silent warehouse.  The opportunity was at hand.  Rick decided that the need for action was now.  It was the time to do it.

The sleeping gear was left behind as he strolled across the street to the front entrance of the warehouse.  Eyeing the SUV parked in front, he opened the door and found himself unexpectedly facing a lit office window down the long stretch of an empty corridor.  He could hear a voice, then a few muffled coughs as he approached the closed door. 

The attempt to eavesdrop failed as an ear had trouble fitting flush against the window pane.   He wanted to find out if a man or woman was behind the closed door, but the voice was indistinguishable and too muffled to ascertain the identity.  He held his breath for a moment hoping that in the complete silence he would be able to hear and be able to distinguish between a man’s or woman’s voice, but that too failed.

The door became an obstacle and produced impending fear.  Thoughts screamed to flee but the body was frozen in position.  He heard a voice telling him over and over again not to do this, you cannot do this, who are you to do this?  But finally he found the strength to form a fist, to raise the arm, and got the knuckles to knock on the door.

He could hear shuffling.  The door flew open.  “Who are you?  How did you get in here?”

“The door was open,” responded Rick, “I mean it wasn’t locked or anything.”

“Who are you?”

“Oh,” he said as he pulled out the card, “someone left this for me with some money.  I just wanted to come in and say thank you to whoever left if behind.”

The man grabbed the card from Rick’s hand and then sneezed.  “Excuse me,” he said, “I got a case of the flu.”  The man looked at the card.  “It’s one of ours, but no one here left you this.  No one’s been here for the past month.”

“But...."

“Look,” said the man, “I don’t know what you think this place is, but it is not a shelter nor do we hand out any food or money to the homeless.”  The man started to turn away but suddenly wheeled back around, “And by the way, did you see anyone come in here in the past month?” he asked holding up a letter in his hand.  “Did you drop this off?”

“No,” answered Rick.  “I haven’t seen anybody around at all.  I’m….”

A phone rang.  The man shuffled over to a desk.

“Yes sir, I did confirm the situation,” Rick heard.  “Well, we need to ship out to Australia in four days but we haven’t gotten to it yet because we have a major outbreak of the flu going on here with us.”

There was silence.  Rick wondered what sort of shipment did they need to get out, but he knew it was none of his business.

“Yeah, we could use all the resources available down there already.  I just need to coordinate everything…yes, we could get it done in a day but I ask that you give us just a few days to try to get over this.   Yes sir, fifteen minutes.”

The man sneezed again and coughed.  “My name is Jack,” he said as he extended his hand to Rick.  “I am sorry for being so rude, but as you probably heard I got a lot to do and everyone is just so sick right now.”

Rick looked the man in the eyes, “I’m sorry, I just wanted to say thanks.  I’ll go ahead and go.”

“Wait,” said Jack.  “I’m sorry.  I’m just not thinking clearly.  Maybe you can do something for me. Come with me.”

Rick followed him to a set of double doors. The doors opened.  The darkness vanished with a flick of a finger.  The space was revealed with a flood of lights from atop.  He had only seen the warehouse from the outside and could not believe the amount of space inside.  There were pallets stacked neatly everywhere.  In the center of the warehouse were a variable sea of tables.  Large amounts of empty space consumed the perimeters.

“You want to earn that five dollars, then you can do this for me.”  Jack walked him over to pallets of cardboard.  “In four days we have to get out a shipment of emergency provisions but we are just too sick right now to get started.  Have you ever worked in a warehouse?”

Rick nodded yes.

“You can get us started by putting the boxes together.  You know how to do that?”

“Yeah.”

Jack led him to the tables.

“Here is a box cutter, there is the tape, and those are the boxes.  Just put ‘em together and fit as many as you can on each table.  I have some more things to do but it only should take me an hour.  Can you do that?”

Rick smiled, “No problem.”

“Good.  When I’m finished with business I’ll come get you.”

“You got it.”

Rick looked around, grabbed the box cutter, placed the tape dispenser on a table, then cut off the plastic sheathe from one of the pallets.  He grabbed as much cardboard as he could handle and went to work.

Rick found the rhythm.  Body and mind became one.  Thoughts focused not on the work at hand but the work to be completed.  Hands and arms and legs and back became a choreographed dance of precision, unmindful of thought, independent of intelligence.

One after another the boxes filled the table ready for whatever contents were going in them.  He looked at the warehouse clock and still had a little bit of time to go.  He gathered more cardboard and began the next table, then the next table, and another table after that.  Finally, he wondered where Jack was.  He opened the double doors and yelled out his name, but there was no response.  The office was now dark.

“Jack, are you there?  Jack?”

Only quiet and the serenity within the building answered back in volumes.  He looked down the corridor to the entry door, then back at the double doors.  What should I do?  Maybe he just went out for a while, Rick reasoned, and returned to the warehouse.  Boredom spoke out loudly and prompted the energy lying idle to charge up.  He figured it was just a matter of time and Jack would return, so he made the decision to act accordingly.

Rick looked around for any instructions or a list of items that were to go in the boxes.  “There they are,” he whispered.  A set of complete instructions with a line by line description of the items and the number of boxes needed for the shipment.  With a smile staring down at the list, the numerous pallets crowding the massive warehouse all became apparent.  It couldn’t hurt, he reasoned.  The course of action was plotted out. 

One pallet for every item on the checklist was identified.  The list of items for each box included an emergency supply of water, emergency first aid kit; food staples such as rice and corn and beans and nuts and dried fruit; salt; utensils and dishes; water purification tablets; hygiene products and an assortment of other minor yet meaningful items.

The onset of the task began.  Rick, one pallet at a time, retrieved two boxes of each item and brought them to the table.  In his mind he thought of how to position each item as to maximize space and ease of shipment.  He looked at the number of boxes needing assembly, looked around for extra pallets, rolls of plastic sheathing, boxes of tape, packets of razors, forklift.  It was just him versus the boxes.  He smiled in