{"id":954,"date":"2015-09-11T00:08:26","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T06:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/?p=954"},"modified":"2015-09-11T00:38:52","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T06:38:52","slug":"exchange-rate-1-jeff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/?p=954","title":{"rendered":"Exchange Rate: 1-Jeff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exchange Rate: 1-Jeff<\/a>
\nExchange Rate: 2-Allyson<\/a>
\nExchange Rate: 3-Jeff<\/a>
\nExchange Rate: 4-Allyson<\/a>
\nExchange Rate: 5-Jeff
\n<\/a>Exchange Rate: 6-Jeff<\/a><\/h2>\n
\n

1 \u2013 Jeff<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Maser, Franklin, Waters, & Charles. Jefferson Taylor Charles loved the sound of it. He said it out loud a few more times, each with a different accent or enunciation. He\u2019d finally made full partner, and only seven years after joining the law offices of Maser, Franklin, & Waters. Karina was going to erupt with glee when he told her. Jeff thought about calling her from the car, but he wanted to surprise her.<\/p>\n

He watched the glare of lights from the Snake Flats Oasis & Rest grow from a dim glow to the equivalent of a NASA launch pad in less than a minute as he drove south along SR50. \u201cThe Rest\u201d was what the locals called it. Karina called it \u201cthe eternal eyesore,\u201d since the lights never turned off, never dimmed, and typically had what seemed like a thousand other lights from cars and trucks orbiting it at all hours. Jeff was inclined to agree with Karina\u2019s assessment, but it was incredibly convenient at times to have it anchoring I-84\u2019s eastbound off-ramp. Not to mention he passed by it every night on his way to their new home on the south rim of the Snake River Canyon.<\/p>\n

How many times had Karina called after he\u2019d left the office in Borah and needed milk, eggs, even Diet Pepsi? Jeff Charles was a wise man, and a wise man didn\u2019t deny the love of his life a one-liter, ice cold plastic bottle of her favorite soda when she asked for it. Besides, he might be an attorney, but he fancied himself an amateur sociologist, psychologist, and human geographer. The sheer amount of different types of human beings he had ended up in line with at The Rest was infinitely interesting considering that it was located on the Snake River Plain in rural southern Idaho. About as far from real civilization as one could get, according to Karina.<\/p>\n

Jeff\u2019s BMW pulled into an empty parking space in front of the convenience store section of The Rest. The party his new partners had thrown for him had left him full of shock, happiness, and triumph. It had also lasted until almost midnight. Karina had been slightly miffed at first because it would be another dinner Jeff wouldn\u2019t get to share with her or Jessica, their nine year old daughter. His little girl was growing up and seeing less and less of her father.<\/p>\n

One of the welcoming bits of news from his partners had been that once he worked through his current caseload, he\u2019d be out from under the yoke of staying until after nine or ten P.M. As a partner, he would be assigned a senior attorney, a junior attorney, and two paralegals, as well as his own secretary. They\u2019d do all of the heavy lifting for him. He\u2019d still have to work hard, his new partners had assured him, but as a partner himself, his check-out time from the office would almost always be before six. Most of his day would now be signing papers, negotiating with other lawyers, and making an appearance in court to settle or ask for a continuance.<\/p>\n

He might even get to try a case in front of a jury, though there wasn\u2019t much chance of that happening in southern Idaho. Family planning, wills, and estates wasn\u2019t the kind of high-profile legal work that all of the television attorneys dramatized. They were all criminal and personal injury types. Very rarely Jeff would end up with a client that wouldn\u2019t settle out of court, and the case would end up in front of a judge. As a partner, he\u2019d finally be the lead. He\u2019d get all the glory (along with the extra perks and benefits), Jeff\u2019s partners assured him, now that his name would grace the letterheads (and soon, the sign above the door to the building).<\/p>\n

Jeff turned the purring sedan off and grabbed his phone. He watched the travelers wander in and out of the convenience store as he waited for Karina to answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cJeff? Where the hell are you? It\u2019s almost midnight,\u201d she scolded without even saying hello.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry honey. I told you the partners wanted me to stay after to talk to me. I didn\u2019t think we\u2019d be this long either,\u201d he answered.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you boys have a stripper and a cake or something?\u201d she joked, her voice feigning anger.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, but almost as good,\u201d Jeff said, afraid his grin was so wide that she might see it from the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you going to tell me why they had you there this late?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I get home, hon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t want to waste minutes boring me to death over the phone about tax codes or estate laws?<\/p>\n

He laughed. \u201cOur phone bill would be astronomical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karina would pretend to snore within twenty seconds of him explaining some loophole or statute that he was working on. Jeff understood. The real work attorneys did was much more mundane than the exciting, often explosive Law & Order plots that she loved. She\u2019d been thoroughly disappointed after learning that Jeff\u2019s area of expertise was as exciting and explosive as watching paint peel.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d become even more annoyed when he\u2019d begun criticizing the show while they watched it, explaining how all the motions, procedures, everything about the show other than the fact that the second half of each episode featured lawyers and courtrooms, was overly dramatic, mostly unrealistic, and made a mockery of the real work those of his craft did. Karina had banned him from watching Law & Order with her by the second episode.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m at the eyesore,\u201d he said into the phone. \u201cYou want a DP?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love it when you talk dirty to me,\u201d she cooed.<\/p>\n

Neither could remember when they\u2019d started calling Diet Pepsi \u201cDP,\u201d but thanks to the prevalence of internet pornography, his friend Chad had informed them what else \u201cDP\u201d meant. Karina had turned red, and Jeff had laughed at both the connotation as well as Karina\u2019s reaction.<\/p>\n

The joke had stuck since then, though they made sure to keep from calling it that around Jessica. While other nine year olds might not know what else those two letters meant, neither of them wanted to have to sit down with her principal and her teacher to explain that when Jessica told everyone, \u201cMy dad always gives my mom a DP,\u201d it actually meant her father was giving Mom a bottle of soda. Jeff didn\u2019t think he or his wife could even come close to explaining it without dying of embarrassment.<\/p>\n

\u201cLove you, \u201c he said. \u201cSee you soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLove you too. Hurry up. I\u2019m tired. And curious, though I know it will bore me to tears.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pressed the End button on the phone, and exited the car. The Rest wasn\u2019t exactly the place to find fine wines, but at midnight, it was the only place open for fifteen miles. As he was reaching for the door to the convenience store area, a girl caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. An African-American teenager leaned up against the far corner of the massive, one-roof complex, smoking a cigarette.<\/p>\n

A teenage girl smoking at a truck stop wasn\u2019t abnormal, but a black girl dressed in all black clothes with half of her head shaved, the other half a color that started out pink and turned to red by the ends\u2026 that was unusual. A black face of any kind was a rarity in southern Idaho other than Twin Falls, the only decently large city in the entire region. Even in Twin Falls most of the faces were white, with a scattering of brown, mostly from the large Hispanic demographic.<\/p>\n

Jeff had roomed with an African-American at Penn State before he went off to law school, and about half of his group of friends at Harvard were black, as well as a good number of many other skin colors, nationalities, and cultures. It was one of the reasons he loved people-watching so much. Growing up, he had led a sheltered life where whites were the overwhelming majority, and Mexicans and other Hispanics were just the people who worked on the farms or cleaned motel rooms.<\/p>\n

His parents weren\u2019t racists at all. At least, Jeff had never heard them say anything racially insensitive that he could remember. They\u2019d had the unfortunate luck, or maybe it was desire, to live in Fairfield, Idaho. Fairfield butted up against the southern edge of the Sawtooth National Forest, and was the last bastion of civilization before heading up to Soldier Mountain, one of the most popular ski resorts in the state. Since it was the only incorporated city in Camas County, and with a population of maybe four hundred (during the growing season), there hadn\u2019t been a lot of racial (or cultural) diversity.<\/p>\n

He had the overwhelming urge to run over to the girl and ask her a ton of questions. Where was she from? What was she doing in this part of Idaho? How much of a culture shock was it for her? Why did she shave half of her head and dye the other half instead of doing what most African-American females did with their hair? The thing that stopped him was the knowledge that he would be seen as some crazy white guy running at her shouting questions. Even if she were white, the whole \u201ccrazy white guy running and shouting questions\u201d would more than likely end up with a sheriff\u2019s deputy questioning him instead.<\/p>\n

Jeff stood at the door watching her, letting other customers go ahead of him. She stubbed out her smoke, looked around, then began walking toward the road. He figured she was going to walk down to the bridge that crossed the canyon. Almost everyone that stopped at The Rest ended up walking the quarter mile to the bridge to see what standing four hundred feet above a narrow gouge in the earth looked like. There was a pull-out on the other side of the canyon, but since the only reason to exit the freeway in the middle of nowhere was to get gas, some grub, maybe some smokes, those just passing through enjoyed the walk to get the blood flowing through their legs again.<\/p>\n

When she passed out of sight, he went inside and hunted down a bottle of wine. Jeff wasn\u2019t sure what twelve dollar wine should taste like, or if it really tasted any different than three dollar wine (or three hundred dollar wine). He didn\u2019t feel like celebrating making full partner with a twelve-pack of beer. He snatched up a couple of cold DP\u2019s and waited in line. A beautiful woman that looked to be of Middle Eastern descent waited ahead of Jeff, and a long-haul trucker with a thick, white mustache stepped into line behind him.<\/p>\n

One thing that he had noticed as a self-proclaimed amateur sociologist was that humans had a compulsion that couldn\u2019t be stopped when it came to glancing back to see who had fallen into line behind them. He\u2019d tried it himself on many occasions, and the curiosity always won out. It was the same for everyone he\u2019d ever stood in line behind as well. When the woman ahead of him realized someone was behind her, she looked back. Jeff greeted her with a smile and a nod. Her dark eyes bore into him for a moment, then she smiled back at him before turning around to step forward.<\/p>\n

He wondered if she was surprised that he\u2019d smiled at her. 9\/11 had been brutal to anyone who looked Arab or Persian, even Hispanic. Jeff and Karina both would rage to each other about the ignorance of Americans when it came to nonsense like \u201cevery Muslim is a terrorist,\u201d along with their nescience when it came to the differences between Arabs (most of the Middle East) and Persians (Iranians). Too many of the idiots he\u2019d met or read comments on the internet from couldn\u2019t even tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese, and Korean persons, and most seemed to take pride in labeling anyone of Hispanic descent a \u201cMexican.\u201d<\/p>\n

The instant the trucker stepped into line behind him, Jeff looked back, unable to stop himself. He gave the trucker a smile and a nod. The trucker smiled back, but nodded toward the woman ahead of Jeff, the smile morphing into a leer and a wink. Jeff decided to be thankful that at least it wasn\u2019t a frown and an automatic condemnation that she probably had a bomb strapped to her chest underneath her clothing. The woman definitely was beautiful, but to Jeff, she was no match for Karina. It also put another mark in his mental notebook of how stereotypes propagate. The long-hauler might not have been a racist or a religious bigot, but like most men Jeff had observed, he sexually objectified women. The trucker verified it as his gaze locked on to the woman\u2019s backside and followed her all the way out the door, his eyes slightly glazed the whole time.<\/p>\n

Jeff shook his head, stepped forward to the counter, and paid for his twelve dollar wine, a couple of sodas, and a pack of Marlboros. He always felt guilty about his closet smoking habit, but sometimes he needed the nicotine to calm down, to soothe his mind, and to relax. As Jessica had grown older, they\u2019d given up their habit of smoking marijuana, but he hadn\u2019t been able to cut the cigarettes completely out. That he\u2019d cut down to maybe one or two per day seemed like a good compromise. His first would be during his morning cup of coffee before jumping into the shower, and if he had a second, it would be after Jessie was asleep. Karina always shriveled her nose at the stink, but she didn\u2019t nag him about the habit. It was another reason he loved her more than anything in the world.<\/p>\n

Jeff got back in the car, buckled his seat belt, then pulled out of the parking lot and back on to SR50. One of his favorite songs from Led Zepplin was on the radio. He kicked on the high beams, then thumbed the volume control on the steering wheel until Robert and Jimmy drowned out the world as he started down the gentle descent to the canyon and the bridge that crossed it.<\/p>\n

Exchange Rate: 2-Allyson<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exchange Rate: 1-Jeff Exchange Rate: 2-Allyson Exchange Rate: 3-Jeff Exchange Rate: 4-Allyson Exchange Rate: 5-Jeff Exchange Rate: 6-Jeff 1 \u2013 Jeff Maser, Franklin, Waters, & Charles. Jefferson Taylor Charles loved the sound of it. He said it out loud a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,6,5],"tags":[584,528,26,112,582,74,39,581,75,73,93,69,580,583,68,38,135],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=954"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":975,"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions\/975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angrygames.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}