Also passing through the Chart Room was Pepe, Dali facial hair and so forth, the little Venezuelan who manned the coffee wagon, taking a break and a short cut between shifts. Our building was in a skyscraper with a daytime population large enough for a free and fair mayoral election, but he was too clever for that. If nominated he would not run, if elected he would not serve. He was not New York born, he was a naturalized New Yorker, as confirmed by the toyesque license on his wagon, but he was only a politician in the figurative sense.
When two professionals were debating a thorny topic, they would often seek the wisdom of Pepe, for him to cast the deciding vote, to toss the deciding truth bomb. Which had the most correct interpretation of the capital asset pricing model, for example, or which is the best common household product for de-staining grout? Or when two friendly warring parties were competing for the position of divisional head and they couldn’t reach agreement on which of the two should self-nominate himself, Pepe would align his hands in prayer position and move them marginally in one direction via divine insight and inspiration.
The traditional practice of blind-buying flowers for the secretary, and the purchaser of the larger bouquet being declared the winner did not prove effective, because the smaller bouquet was in the end more expensive, which the red-faced candidate informed everyone about in a New York minute, in no uncertain terms. This is how Ellocol was elevated to the throne, by the way. The presumptive finalists punched each other out, more literally than white collar workers would admit on the Wednesday morning at question, and had to take themselves out of the running. FYI, Ellocol had back surgery two months after our CEO, an identical procedure apparently. Turned out to be a good career move.
Like the Supreme Court, though, Pepe would not take merely any case that was presented to him, and would send some disputes back to a lower court of jurisdiction, in further instances understatedly shaking his head and rendering the conflict frozen. However, he was the coffee wagon owner/manager and corporate magistrate, rather than in-house school mistress, and could opt out of mulling verdicts on cases that bored him. In any case, he was busy that evening, because his girlfriend had bought The Plot Against Richard Pryor for him as a Valentine’s Day present, on Betamax. Because just like Pryor, everything before Pepe was obsolete, and everyone after was influenced by him.