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Briefly Noted
The Last Mile
By Martin Schultz
I know tax season has arrived when my
biological clock sounds the alarm.
Perspiring palms, swollen nose, drooping
eyelids. Yes, of course these symptoms
have much in common with a hangover.
They spring from the same source: fear
of insecurity.
It starts on a morning in early
February. Any morning. Doesn’t matter
which. Cloaked in despair, I grope my way
from the bedroom to the bathroom, and
thence the kitchen. Yet today’s steaming
cup of strong tea isn’t enough to ward off
the evil spirits.
Ascend the stairs to my home office
like the condemned felon climbing up to
the gallows. Very similar, really. My
jaundiced eye sweeps the room and rests
on The Pile. This is the collected records
of a year’s worth of enslavement. These
are the contemptible residue of the
economic rack on which I have been
chained this past 12 months. W2s,
business receipts, mileage records, check
stubs (very few of these). It is a very small
bundle of records with which to approach
the dreaded meeting.
Driving away from home – all that
I love and cherish – I move into the
commuting stream for The Last Mile. Sky
is overcast. Cold day. I barely notice the
wintry aspect of my surroundings. Parking
the car, I grasp the wretched bundle and
head towards the door that seems to speak
the somber tones: “All Ye Who Enter
Here Are Doomed!”
As in years past, I am ushered into
the Office, where I sit quietly, tightly
grasping my hands to stop the mad
trembling. Soon, the inner door opens
and She Sits Down. Once again I am in
the presence of my … Accountant.
The ritual is observed. An opening smile,
a few pleasantries exchanged. Then
the deepening silence as I hand over
the Bundle.
If any of you have ever seen the
George C. Scott version of the Christmas
Carol, you will remember the scene in
the worst section of London, where the
ghouls are picking over the bed sheets
and blankets of what seems to be dead
Scrooge’s property. I feel the same as my
accountant rifle’s through my Package of
tax papers. For long moments there is
complete silence, interspersed with tuts
and tots, and crinkling paper. Then the
keys of her adding machine start to clack.
More tuts. More crinkling and crackling of
paper. This is the process I imagine I will
go through on Judgement Day.
Like the condemned prisoner
awaiting sentencing I summon up what
pride I have left and look her straight
in the eye. I can face this. I will accept
my fate. She returns my stare. I know
she is conjuring up a summary of the
charges. “It looks like you again will
show the Government how generous
you are.”
So, the same sentence every year. Pay
up. Pay up. I go through the motions of
thanking her for minimizing what would
have been even worse. Could it truly have
been worse? Everything to be ripped away
from me…take the children I whine (any
children, none of them is mine). Take the
prized pet (this is one case when the
neighbors can come in really handy). Take
my wife’s jewelry, it never looked that
good on me, anyway.
I slink away from the accursed
office, condemned to another year of
impoverishment, living on scraps of
food even wild animals would ignore
(a reference from Shakespeare’s Anthony
and Cleopatra for those of you with
yearnings to be literary snobs).
No resolving to do things differently
will help. I’ve tried earning less, stealing
other patrons’ restaurant receipts, investing
in dubious tax havens, pretending to give
generously to charities of my wife’s choice.
None of it works.
I will keep whining and begging
(surveys show that people place journalists
below used car dealers and politicians
among those they trust least). And waiting
for my biological clock to sound the alarm
next year.
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