2. Christmas in the Drunk Tank #2
Then came the Sixties and early Seventies crew, who looked like they’d wandered in from a folk music festival.
The Fifties bunch were all sharp angles and Don Draper haircuts, while the 1920s portraits showed a fascinating mix of old and new—men in starched collars and women in bobbed hair, all of them gathered around massive ledger books with the same reverent expressions Jasper himself wore when handling original documents.
The faces kept marching backward through time, clothes evolving in reverse like a fashion documentary being rewound, until photography gave way to paintings and sketches.
The oldest portrait of them all hung at the bottom of the stairs: a hand-drawn portrait from the turn of the eighteenth century, showing a woman with sharp eyes and an expression that suggested she’d brook no nonsense when it came to proper procedures.
Sometimes, alone in the archives, Jasper would pause beneath her portrait and imagine her approving nod or, on bad days, her stern disappointment.
She must have been extraordinary, he thought, to have claimed that role in an age when even a basic education for women wasn’t guaranteed.
Jasper’s domain had mercifully escaped the modernization plague that infected the floors above.
Oh, various committees had tried—for example, a line of atrocious fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling.
But Jasper never used them. Instead, he relied on the original wall sconces and a collection of carefully placed desk lamps, creating pools of warm light between the towering shelves.
The effect was rather like a Victorian gentleman’s study.
The air itself felt different down here: cooler, quieter, thick with the musty perfume of aging paper and leather bindings.
His desk was placed in a strategic corner position, allowing him to monitor both the main aisle and the research table where the rare visitor would work.
The desk itself was a monument to controlled chaos: seven different projects spread out in precise arrays, each one marked with color-coded tabs.
A lineup of German mechanical pencils stood at attention in a wooden holder.
A place for everything , as his grandmother always said, and everything in its place.
Which is why the messy pile of papers dumped in his inbox looked like meatballs dropped on a white tablecloth.
“Savages.” His colleagues treated the archives division like some sort of paper-eating monster’s lair. Just toss the documents down the stairs and run away, leaving Jasper to maintain order on their behalf.
Jasper hung up his coat, put away his case, and took a restorative swig on his still-warm tea.
Rolling up his sleeves, he attacked the pile with the precision of a surgeon, sorting each document into its proper category.
A property deed for the new subdivision in Litchfield.
No fewer than three divorce decrees (apparently Jasper wasn’t the only person immune to Christmas cheer).
A stack of business licenses for a parade of food trucks and home-based crafting enterprises.
And then, at the bottom of the pile, something strange: a liquor license for a business he’d never heard of: J when someone picked up, Jasper momentarily hoped that maybe he was getting somewhere.
But then the very drunk voice of the lieutenant mayor’s third assistant slurred, “Helllloooooo, North Pole... hahaha, I said pole , do you get it?”
Jasper slammed down the heavy old phone.
He held the license up to the light. The paper was real. The signatures seemed legit. But the address had to be fiction. May as well be a building permit for a summer home in Narnia.
He drummed his fingers on the desk, the mystery vexing him.
Like that feeling of having something stuck in his teeth that he couldn’t remove.
He glanced at his watch, then at the license, then back at his watch.
He had questions. But everyone who might have answers was busy playing Secret Santa.
Maybe tomorrow he could interrogate his hungover colleagues about this.
For now, the mysterious J&J, Incorporated had to wait.
Or did it?
Jasper reached for his coat. He was already halfway up the stairs when he realized what he was doing. The lobby was empty—everyone else was upstairs singing butchered versions of classic songs and scarfing down Anita’s rum balls. No one would miss him. No one would even know he’d gone.
The northwest corner wasn’t that far. If there was a new business with a brand-new liquor license, surely it wouldn’t be hard to find. And really, what else am I to do? Go eat rum balls with Anita? He shuddered and reached for his key fob. At least he had a legitimate excuse to avoid the mistletoe.