Chancey reminded me several times on Wednesday that he would not be able to make our regularly scheduled lunch at Bucky’s next week. He didn’t say why, at first, but I soon enough learned the reason.
Chancey is not like one of those people with buttons and levers all over them; where you can easily push or pull one to get them to say what they’re thinking. He is more like an Abrams Tank, impenetrable on the outside. But when he wants to say something from the inside, watch out, it’ll sometimes make your ears bleed.
Or, at least make you pause and ponder it for a bit.
“I’m going to visit a girl I used to work with…up in Idaho.” Chancy blurted.
I didn’t know much about Idaho so I just nodded and gave an approving ‘humph’.
On the surface Chancey seems to have the look of fitting naturally into the rural landscapes here in Parrot County, but he really doesn’t belong here. There are very few people who get things as consistently right as Chancey Bottles does.
I don’t get to big cities much anymore. I guess I prefer the scale of rural architecture and folks that populate therein. While I know my way around most cities, that doesn’t really mean anything anymore- knowing the whereabouts of good restaurants in Manhattan or San Francisco ten years ago don’t account to much nowadays-they are most likely all gone, replaced by some new dining trend in another part of town.
Such are the ways of large metropolitan cities. But the architecture is a more indelible statement of a city’s personality than the individual establishments within. I never give much of a thought to any city without being reminded that Chancey left his mark on most of them.
Chancey was a structural engineer. He solved problems from the inside out. His job was to make sure that the architectural edifices that become icons went up proper during construction, and sure to stay up proper after. He told me once that his firm bid on the World Trade Center but they didn’t get it. He never said anything more on that matter.
Said he used the same structural engineering approach with people, telling me that if you’re going to trust something of importance to another person you need to find out if they can handle the load.
“People are very much like buildings. They are complex…a lot goes on inside that is hard to see from just looking at the surface. But sometimes you need to understand what is going on inside. So you have to test them to reveal strengths and weaknesses.”
Chancey told me about some of the tools he used to solve problems. Two of them were variations of Crazy Ivan and the famous Kobayashi Maru. Of course everybody knows the terms from the films, Hunt for Red October andStar Trek-The Wrath of Kahn. Both were tests designed to expose things otherwise hidden; good and bad. In the case of Crazy Ivan, it meant to suddenly change course of a submarine to reveal whether the enemy was hidden in your wake. The Kobayashi Maru was a test of how a potential leader reacts to a no-win scenario.
Evidently, the girl he was going to visit in Idaho had something to do about revealing a person’s hidden character.
“I was always amazed at what Heather could do with that one good arm of hers,” he offered. It sounded like he wanted to tell me more. “She was bright, pretty, a very hard worker and most of all, she was witty enough to understand my ironic humor. At the Firm, after a meeting everyone would go up to Heather and ask her what I meant by something…Was he serious? Often she was the only one clever enough to get the subtext of something said in a meeting.”
I almost lost her the first year she started… boy, I can’t imagine those next ten years working without her.”
She came to me one day and told me she wanted to quit…she was crying and all-a real mess. It took a while before I could find out what had happened. Some girl in the office unloaded a torrid of hatefulness about her handicap.”
“I can’t do this job.” She sobbed without looking up. I let her talk.
“You need someone else…someone who can keep up…”
Chancey told me that sometimes in a conversation, when someone is diving deep into their emotions, you just need to shut-up and let them reach the bottom before you speak.
“...because of my little issue.”
Because I know Chancey well enough it didn’t surprise me what he said next,
“She wasn’t going to get any sympathy out of me, she probably knew that. What she needed was to get her own perspective around the matter, perhaps even purge some old demons in the process.”
“You have an issue?” he said he asked her sarcastically.
“This!” she held up her crumpled left hand.
“I don’t think I understand what you mean…are you trying to make me think that is a problem? Heck, you have it easy. You don’t know how lucky you are.”
He had pulled a Crazy Ivan on her with a twist of Kobayashi Maru and she never saw it coming; says he can still remember the look on her face. She was so perplexed she stared at him as if he was the one who needed help.
“You have to be more understanding of Kari,” He then told her, “because of her handicap.”
“A handicap,” Heather screamed. Chancey described well the rage in her eyes, “Are you crazy…she’s PERFECT!”
He said he didn’t blink, and just sat there coolly, “If you are going to be successful in this business, you need to know how to be a better judge of character. Don’t be deceived by the surface…you need to know what’s going on within.”
Like I said before, when Chancey fires a shot you need to work hard at keeping up.
“I had her attention.” Chancey bragged about that day.
“Kari doesn’t have your advantage,” he told her. “She has no easy way to test what’s a person really like on the inside. You however have this great gift. It’s easy for you…your issue is the perfect device to instantly determine if a person is secure with themselves. In just a matter of a few seconds you can find out if a person is a jerk or not. For many people a lifetime isn’t long enough to figure such things out.”
For Kari, she has to always find out the hard way. Every time she falls, she falls hard and then feels like a fool. Then she comes into work and takes it out on someone. This time it was your turn. She’ll get over it and probably be in the same situation soon enough, and we’ll all have to help her land softly again when she falls. It is like she has an immune deficiency-she’s defenseless. She wants to believe that people love her on the inside, but is always attracted to guys who love her on the outside.”
He then said he gave her a wink and asked her, “Don’t you have any real work to do today?”
Heather worked for him for another ten years-the Golden Years-until she fell in love with some guy who was good on the inside, and had the brains enough to see the same in her. She was sure because she understood how to test a person’s soul. Whether she used a Crazy Ivan, Kobayashi Maru or one of her own test Chancey never knew. She was smart enough to know how to tell what’s important about a person. She also had her own special, easy way to easily find out.
They moved to somewhere in Idaho, bought a ranch and a Bed and Breakfast.
“Her youngest son is getting married,” He told me as if it was a big secret. “I promised her I’d be there… I have to go to a dang wedding.” I pretended that he had just imparted some valuable covert information; enough to keep quiet about.
“Chancey,” he said wistfully.
“What?” I asked as if I had not heard him clearly.
“She named her son Chancey, after me…poor kid. Imagine naming a boy Chancey. Well… at least he has a good way to find out who his true friends are.”
