The Gift
“I expect you’ll be heading down to the seawall this morning,” Joe 59 commented as the espresso machine spat a stream of concentrated brown liquid topped with frothy crema into a stainless steel cup. Joe 59 knew that Mr. Kilmer was the city’s official seismic engineer, whose top priority was to monitor conditions that might threaten the Elliott Bay Seawall—a three-mile-long reinforced concrete structure that protected Seattle’s waterfront from rising sea levels and catastrophic storm surges.
“Mmm,” said Mr. Kilmer. He was a tough nut to crack, seldom responsive and never loquacious.
According to Java Joe’s corporate rules, it was perfectly acceptable to discuss a customer’s business in general terms, as well as current events, daily news, sports, music, entertainment, trends, fads, history, scientific advances, hobbies, geography and weather. In addition to his daily “catching up with the world” updates, Joe 59 ran frequent multipath Net searches during the night on all his regular customers so that he would always have plenty of relevant subjects to discuss with them, and recently he had uncovered an interesting fact about Mr. Kilmer that, although family-related, could also be classified as historical in nature, and bravely he decided to push on.
“I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as coffee,” Joe 59 rhymed.
Mr. Kilmer blinked up from his com pad and squinted at him.
“What? Did you say something?”
Joe 59 smiled. “I take a heartfelt interest in all my customers, Mr. Kilmer. And my research indicates that you are a descendent of the celebrated American poet, Joyce Kilmer, who was killed at the Second Battle of Marne but is best remembered for his poem entitled Trees.”
“Oh, God. Not again. Can I just get my coffee?”
“My interest is a genuine reflection of goodwill on behalf of all the friendly people and mechanical shop managers at Java Joe’s,” Joe 59 continued, pouring two ounces of fat free milk into a stainless steel cup and whooshing it around under the steaming wand.
“Did you know that your great, great, great, grandfather invented baby powder?”
“Don’t you have some sort of off switch?”
Joe 59 laughed, undaunted. He often didn’t elicit a single word from Mr. Kilmer. But to be safe, he decided to change the subject again.
“At the current rate that global sea levels are rising, I have calculated that the bay will spill over the seawall in just 23.42 years. Is that an accurate assessment, Mr. Kilmer?”
“Nothing manmade is inevitable,” groused Mr. Kilmer. Joe 59 was both surprised and delighted that his customer had taken an interest in the topic. “The only thing inevitable is that there will be an earthquake—a big one since this whole region is built on a subduction zone—and the only thing we can do about it is to keep listening and hope we get the chance to run for the hills. At least, that’s all that anyone is willing to do. If we were smart we would reengineer the entire city, tear down all the old, weak structures and rebuild everything with flexible, smart systems designed to withstand massive quakes. But nobody wants to hear that. It’s too expensive. It’s alarmist. I’m considered a whacko at city hall, you know. And the thing that really kills me is that when the big one has come and gone they’ll be after my ass, screaming that I didn’t do enough to warn them of the real danger.”
