July 22, 1999 --- An Interesting Day
Sitting in his office, Dutch had his feet up on his desk and was alternatively reading the San Jose Mercury News and munching on a corned beef sandwich. His eyes read one of the day's headlines:
"Hewlett Packard boss, Carly Fiorina has encountered a rough road to new ground internally. Fiorina has had difficulty winning over many of HP's 93,000 employees, some of whom accuse her of destroying the company's entrepreneurial, engineering culture in favor of a top-down style that emphasizes customers."
Another San Jose Mercury News article said that in some Silicon Valley circles the most popular parlor game is predicting how long Fiorina will last as HP CEO.
'I hope not,' Dutch thought and took a sip of his soda, 'she's one of the first women to hold a top level job with a major corporation. Her failing will block that many more women from climbing the corporate ladder. From where I stand we could use feminine leadership to help clear the air from all the old school farts running this country.'
His thoughts were interrupted by the phone, which he reached for automatically. In his line of work crises were considered the norm. "Hello, Perry," he said tersely.
"Dutch?" A female voice asked.
"Yes? Who's speaking please?"
"It's me, Molly," her tones made her sound small and defenseless.
"What's wrong, Molly?"
"Everything . . ." And she began to cry.
He swung his feet off the desk and hunched over the phone. "So start at the beginning. You went job hunting . . ." He said leading her on.
Sniffling, she tried to overcome her tears but couldn't manage to and renewed her wailing.
"Get a grip on yourself," he said sternly, trying to reach her and put a halt to her crying. But she had lost control and was hopelessly wailing away.
"Where are you, right now?"
Molly managed to tell him and he told her he'd be there in twenty minutes. Dutch cleared the rest of his afternoon with the head nurse and hurt his big toe kicking his Volvo in frustration instead of with the usual mischievous rancor he normally used.
She was waiting for him, standing by the side of her RV, which was parked in a huge mall parking lot.
Without any formality, he said, "Let's just get inside."
Wiping a tear from her eye, Molly clambered aboard and closed the door after Dutch had entered
"Now please tell me what the problem is and try to do it without soaking us both in your tears."
"O . . . okay," Molly began. "I followed the instructions . . ."
"You mean advice?""
"Yeah," she sniffled, "the advice you and Rosa gave me. I mean . . . I applied at seven places for a job. The first and third places told me to get lost, 'cause I didn't have a college degree. All the others said they weren't hiring at the moment. I filled out the paperwork and left it with them."
"That's not unusual. So what caused the tears?"
"The . . . The last place . . . he was tearing up my application before I even left the place."
"That son of a bitch!" Dutch muttered through clenched teeth. "Don't worry, Rosa and I will find you a job."
"A . . . And that's not all."
He sighed and asked, "What else?"
"My lousy husband called."
"You answered the phone?" Dutch asked and sounded exasperated.
"No, no, no. You guys said not to and I didn't. But he left a message. 'Course I was standing there listening to him."
"What did he say?"
"He said he was filing charges against me. That I was a thief and a whore and he'd see to it that I went to jail."
"That bastard! Well you only took what was rightfully yours. Your name was on the bank and checking accounts. That makes you a joint-owner and capable of taking any monies out of those accounts that you want to. As for the second thing, that calling you a whore, well you're not. You're a kind, lady who has been fucked over by a miserable son of a bitch and if I run into him I'm going to kick his sorry ass all over the place."
Molly's eyes went wide. "You will?"
"Sure I will. He's just a shitty, low life bully without any backbone. If we meet I bet he'll take off running in the opposite direction.
No one had ever defended Molly before and she found herself growing extremely excited at the very notion a man would stand up and defend her.
"Dutch . . ."
"Yeah?"
"Would you kiss me? I mean Rosa isn't here so I don't know if it's all right."
"She'd understand," he said and felt himself grow hard. He pulled Molly close and enjoyed the pressure of her breasts pressing against his chest as he leaned in and kissed her. Her mouth opened and accepted his serpentine tongue as it slithered over her teeth and gums only to engage her tongue in a flickering duel.