THE MYTH OF THE RONIN

So Jim was gone. Allen was gone too, but that was nothing in the way of a loss. Countless temps, secretaries, personal assistants, executive assistants, and draftsmen were gone, many without my ever learning their names. Still, architecture went on. Architects come and go, but architecture goes on.

It was a cold day in February, which in itself was odd it its way. The weather in Charlotte is always odd, in its way, but we�d had a full, solid week of sunshine and temperatures in the high fifties, and then all of a sudden here was this gray, cold, rainy day, and I found myself looking at the final plans for a prototype bank branch, six months in the making, due to become a dozen bank branches over the course of the next seven years, assuming that the bank�s expansion predictions jibed with the projections of economic growth and residential expansion over the same period. And I thought: to hell with it.

Not that I hadn�t thought to hell with it before. Many times. But this time I thought to hell with it in a deeply philosophical way. Not that I have anything against banks or projections or growth or residential expansion. Not that I had anything against the prototype itself. As banks go, these would be welcoming places, rather warm and genteel as such things go, with rather a homey feel, despite the granite floor pavers and translucent corner guards. Not that the clients hadn�t been pleasant to work with, flexible and pliant and enthusiastic, welcoming our small role in their grand plan of growing opulence and plenitude. Not at all.

I�d love to tell you that it was that I couldn�t see Jim or Allen or any one of the faceless multitudes that passed through our offices passing through the doors of the bank, but that still wasn�t it at all. It was that I didn�t see myself passing through these brass-edged glass doors, standing at the platformed teller stand, drawing out my passport with a smile, and asking for a withdrawal from my savings account. I didn�t see the building being built, with my inestimable help through the land-planning and site-orientation stages, so crucial to gaining zoning approval and the blessings of the local authorities. It simply wasn�t there.

Why? Because I wasn�t destined to be there. Okay; I wouldn�t buy that either. I didn�t want to be destined to be there. I didn�t want to see myself there, not six weeks or six months or seven years from that moment. Not because I had any deep philosophical objection to it. I just didn�t want to see myself there. Call me selfish, but I had had it. I was done. It was over between the firm and myself, plain and simple.

They just didn�t know it yet.

I sat down hard on my desk chair, and rested there for a few minutes before moving to the drafting table. I stared at the prototypes for a few minutes more, gazing at the lovely elevations the way one might gaze at a picture of an absent friend, thinking, in a very removed and abstract way, that there was something sad about the thing I was about to do. I thought about what anyone about to leave a position might think of: do I know where the bodies are buried? Which bodies, and who would be accountable were they found? Do I know whom to count on and whom to fear? Can I pull off a power play, and if so, what, really, do I want out of it?

Tromping into the office of the last principal, the son of the third man to join the firm back in the late seventies, I gave him the frown of a lifetime and said �That�s it. I'm done.�

�Done with what,� he asked, both taken aback and sure that he had the perfect answer tucked inside the left breast pocket of his perfectly tailored suit coat.

�Done,� I said, fixing him with a grin, both amused and cruel, to replace the frown.

�Done with what?� He asked this with a genuine sense of peril now, beginning to understand that I was more serious than he was prepared to deal with.

�Done.� I let it hang in the air for a moment, and then announced �I am Ronin.�

He worked on that for a few moments, squirming in his chair just casually enough to make me think he might have the slightest idea what in the hell I was talking about, and then said �Ronin. Ronin. Isn�t that that Robert DiNiro movie?�

I let that trail off into some serious silence before yanking out a chair and planting my foot in it. It was one of those executive visiting chairs, largely a relic of long-past days, designed to put the visitor just an inch or two below the gaze of the executive; it was wheeled and hinged and padded, so that I wobbled a bit and pivoted a bit, but it still had the desired effect: it told him that I knew his game, and that I wasn�t playing by his rules. �You saw that movie, did you?�

He squirmed some more, just enough now to betray his discomfort. �I. I. I don�t recall whether I did or not, but I may have caught it on cable one night��

�In the movie,� I began portentiously, �it is explained that a Samuri who falls out of grace with his master is considered Ronin. That is to say, he is without a master. Follow?�

The principal nodded unsurely.

�It is further explained,� I continued, menacingly, �that a Samuri whose master is killed or unseated is also Ronin, that is to say, without master. The Ronin who has fallen out of grace is as dangerous as the Ronin whose master has been felled. Neither has anything to lose, so either one is as capable of anything. So: these are men to be feared.�

The principal nodded obliquely, looking at the far left corner of his desk, at nothing in particular, and anything but me.

I wiped my upper lip with my shirtsleeve. I was beginning to sweat with sheer adrenaline. �Jim is gone. He cannot protect me now, if even he ever could. There isn�t a project manager or account exec I would waste piss on to put him out were he on fire. There�s not a soul in this office that I could count on in a true pinch. But I�m still a damned good architect, and I have a damned good relationship with the clients I�ve served.� I left out, for the moment, the matter of the Pineville United Methodist Church, who still hadn't paid us. �So I consider myself Ronin. I am without a master. That makes me dangerous to you.�

He played with a paperclip for a moment, then tossed it at the trough of his desk organizer. �So you figure you know where the bodies are buried?�

I chilled my grin to a homicidal leer. �And if I don�t, I can find out.�

�And what do you want from the firm?�

�Nothing much. A promise that there will be no reprisals. Maybe a promise that I can work with any former clients of the firm without interference or litigation. Oh, and most of the drafting equipment in my office is stuff I brought with me or bought with my own money. I�d like to take everything but the PC and the scanner and that CAD thing that never worked.�

The principal tossed another paperclip at the desk set, this time missing. �Done. Severance?�

�Whatever you think is fair.� I was quitting. I didn�t actually have claim to any severance. This was going better than I had planned.

He toyed with his tie and pulled at his coat collar, and finally said �Fine. I expect six months ought to be plenty. You can either serve thirty days notice, or,� he looked me in the eye, �have your office cleaned out by noon.�

I stared back at him, dead-eyed in resolve: �Noon it is.�

I gave him a hard, cold nod and made my way to the door, slipping only slightly on the visitor�s chair as I went. As I passed the door jamb, I heard him say �That�s less than an hour from now.�

It was tight job, but I made it. I wheeled the drafting table out last, having trundled most of the books and papers and files and drawings that I figured were more or less mine out the service door on the bottom floor mostly out of sight of all but the few drafts-drones and worker bees. The last box I perched on the table after I flattened it�s surface to horizontal, and I wheeled it out with a Sphinx�s grin on my face, ignoring the entreaties of my puzzled co-workers and greeting the knowing smiles of those who had heard the tale with a comrade�s firm nod.

I�d love to tell you that�s what happened. But it�s not.

I called my wife at the school. It was a teacher work day, so I was able to locate her in the main office where she was busily Xeroxing lesson plans. After the few hi�s and hello�s necessary to begin normal conversation, I said �I wanna quit.�

There was a pause on the other end. Not the pause you hear when you�ve informed someone that a beloved relative is dead, but akin to it. After a moment I said �You�re disappointed aren�t you?�

�No,� she said �No, no, but, just, um, give� give me a couple of seconds. I mean, this is pretty sudden.�

I waited a few seconds, and then she said �No, it�s not sudden at all. You�ve been miserable there for a long time, haven�t you?�

I didn�t say anything. I couldn�t. For years, literally years, I went on putting a glad face on things, through every prick and kick and sling and arrow, but yeah, I had been miserable. Sick miserable. And I suppose everyone else was, too, but was that any reason to go on like this? And worse, what I couldn�t say, was my wife was working in an atmosphere twice as bad, dealing with the kind of morons that end up in schools administration (those who can, do; those who can�t, teach; those who can�t do or teach, administrate), and if anything it made more sense for her to quit and live on my salary until she found something better.

She spoke: �Yes. Yes. Yes honey, quit, quit those bastards. We can make it along easily for another six months, longer if we have to. You can hang out a shingle and design houses, or you can sign on with a free-lance design outfit, or whatever. If you�re not making money after six months, we can sell the house and move into something smaller, I mean, we really don�t even use half the house as it is��

�Whoa, whoa, whoa,� I said, �it�s not that big.� I meant the situation, but she could have assumed I meant the house. Either way, we didn�t address it. �If I leave here I can line up new work as an independent, and then I can maybe hire a kid outta school after a couple of years� Wait a minute. What in the hell am I talking about? I just wanted to make sure it was okay with you.�

My wife sighed and said �We should probably consider this. We should probably think about this for a few days, or a few weeks. We should probably talk it all out. We should probably talk to a lawyer.�

Moments passed, moments that hung around my neck like marble albatrosses. I finally realized I was holding my breath. I let it out and said �So?�

I heard my wife make her decision with that aspirant pause of hers, that moment of breathing where she neither breathes in nor breaths out, but seems to absorb oxygen as if by osmosis. �Screw it,� she said, finally, �Quit the bastards.�

I looked around. I had better serve some notice. It would take two weeks to sort through all the stuff, figure out what I could take and what I had to leave. "You can call Chip up,� my wife had said towards the end of our talk. �He could maybe throw some work your way.� Chip. Great. But, if I was going to go it alone, I suppose I�d have to deal with all kinds of wretched souls. At least Chip was� well, not a friend, but I knew him from high school, anyways. Maybe Bryan could point me towards some of the right people. I did some quick math in my head and came up with a strangely arbitrary figure: six years. I had worked for the firm for six years. Long enough to establish my credentials. Not long enough to be indebted to the principals or the major clientele. I was approaching middle age, or at least I was closer to it than I�d ever been. But none of that really made any difference.

I had had it. I was quitting. Selah. I would set up my home office to do some serious drafting, I would dangle a note to a few one-man engineering firms, I would contract with a good CAD man for piece work, and with any luck I�d be drawing for someone before March. I stood up from the drafting table, opened my office door (I didn�t remember having shut it), made a left down the corridor, and wound my way to the first principle�s office I came to. I knocked softly yet firmly, opened the door, and said �Hi, John, you got a minute?�

John twirled in his chair with a grin and said �Yeah! I was just gonna call you down. We got approval on the first three sites for the bank, so we�re looking at about two and a half months' due diligence before we can start coming out of the ground! Ba boom, buddy! We�re building banks!�