Richard Cage Was Someone

We didn’t really know the man. He was just one of our customers and that was good enough for us.

Every afternoon he’d come toddling in and the wait staff would fall in behind him as wound his way through the bar and headed to the patio where we offered draft beer for a buck a glass.  WE called it our really, really happy hour.  The first brew would land nearly simultaneous with his arrival at ‘his’ table.  He would smile a broken smile and settle in, shoulders slouched, ankles crossed, and adopt the thousand yard stare of a man who has been too many places but no place to go.

We became friends of sorts. I’m not good at having ‘buddies,’ especially when I have a restaurant to run.  He loved to start a conversation knowing it would lead to prolonged discussion.  Sometimes I could feel the day growing longer, passing in slow motion, but for him, I think the conversations made days going slowly nowhere feel a little more life-like.

He was a smart man.  He talked about encounters with great thinkers whose names I knew and books I had read but never dreamed of meeting.  And to be really truthful,   my little judgmental voice oftenwhispered that he hadn’t met such people either.

We sold the restaurant and I gave no thought about what would fill his long afternoons.

Within a month a flat, letter-size envelope arrived looking for all the world like it had been carried in a back pocket for a week.  The return address, written in dull-pointed pencil, read “Richard Cage” in block print letters that looked not much better than mine.

I thought, “Who the hell is Richard Cage?” and turned envelope every which way in a futile attempt to divine the answer.

Buns had just finished with her pile of mail and with the eagle-eye of a BINGO player poked her finger at the slab of Manila and pronounced, “You know Richard. He’s the buck-a-beer guy!”

Sliding the contents the envelope onto the table revealed a letter. Nine pages. Little did I imagine that this scene was to be repeated every month or so. Each envelope followed by as surprisingly artful rendition of an armadillo?

There were letters, all of them long, on a wide range of topics.  We discussed, via old fashioned post, aerodynamics, hydraulics, basic physics, management, history, and more. His final letter was on philosophy and his big point was, “You can’t punish or embarrass someone into doing something.”

Our hometown weekly paper includes a column by a local radio personality and, in this particular issue he told the tale of a local builder attempting to file a request for an inspection.  Being close to City Hall the builder entered the appropriate department and stated his business only to be told by the clerk that all inspection requests must be phoned in. (The system allows requests to be logged and performance measures to be reported.  In the vacuum of an office it makes pretty good sense.)

Not thinking, the busy clerk said she could not accept his request in person. And without further thought or explanation told the gentleman to just use his cell and an inspection would be scheduled right away.

Now there is some debate as to whether or not he was denied use of the department phone or whether or not it was suggested that he leave the building to place his call.

Even if you don’t believe the entire story there is still plenty of reason to shake your head and think, “Your tax dollars at work.”

If you think about it, someone who cares about the city might have called for a supervisor. But if your goal is not to solve the problem but to rub a face in an innocent mistake, you take the story to the media. Where it grows with each retelling.

Perhaps the intent was to make things better by “punishing or embarrassing someone into something.”

“Oh, golly!” said the poof of silvery hair that sits across the table from me at breakfast.  “Richard Cage died.”  I thought instantly of the pile of letters I had received and the pile that would go unwritten.

At the funeral there was a small clutch of Masons and, other than ourselves, only one couple who we guessed managed the small apartment complex where Richard had spent his final days.

When the preacher spoke we were surprised to learn that Richard had been CIA and Special Forces, an expert in the martial arts.  That he held numerous degrees from elite universities explained the long and thoughtful letters he shared with me.  He was someone. But I knew that.

And so I suspect that the clerk who just for a moment got a little stupid is also someone. Maybe she is a good mom, a loving daughter, and who knows, a budding musician or a community volunteer.  I’ve got a feeling that had Richard Cage been the one applying for the permit the situation would have turned out differently.  He would have recognized that this clerk was ’someone’ and that you can’t punish or embarrass anyone into something.

(Richard, I owe you another seven pages.)

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