Sid : the Devil's secretary

1. Working stiff

1. Working stiff

Birmingham, Alabama: 1952

On a night pouring with rain, amid the ominous glow of streetlights beyond the oak trees, a black car was speeding through the emptied streets of the city. All the young couples and families had vacated back to their roosts for the night, but there were still creatures out to play, including the driver of this black car. Under the cover of the droplet lashed windscreen was a tall bespectacled man at the wheel. He wore long black bottoms, a white shirt, gray suspenders and a small red bowtie. 

His hair was slightly matted as if out of madness, and his eyes stared out onto the night scene in front with a gaze of steel rooted in unknown intentions. Across town beside the redbrick courthouse lay the law firm Grayson and Dean, the city's finest since 1873. The driver was a certain employee of this firm, as he had been for the past five years, but now the job had stretched him too thinly. The driver, by the name of Sid Adelaide, was a lifelong native of the glorious state of Alabama. 

At thirty years of age, Sid hailed from south of the deep south, and all his life, he had only known how he was the only one to come to his own rescue. He never knew his real parents as he was found on the steps of a church in a woven basket, the first fifteen years of his life were spent under the guiding care of the clerics. Staking out for himself, Sid then roamed across the state like a wild mustang, keeping out of the Second World War unlike other young men his age. He bounced from city to city, paycheck to paycheck, from paperboy to journalist to restaurant waiter. 

He had finally found his calling in Birmingham after heading to college and receiving a law degree in 1947, or so he thought. Long days, little pay, and broken promises had all taken their toll on poor Sid, so now he thought the time was right to do something about it before he was consigned to the pages of history as a nobody of no worth. The rain continued its relentless torrent as Sid jumped out of the car after parking outside the limestone pillars and small steps of the law firm. he saw the lights were still on in the main office of misters Grayson and Dean, just the people he wanted to see. Rushing into the tiled foyer of the building away from the rain, Sid brushed himself off and wiped his glasses on his shirt, making himself look slightly presentable.

"good evening, Sid" said a maroon dressed doorman.

"hey Gordy" Sid walked briskly passed to the stairs across the main ground hall leading up to the office of his bosses. Despite being a southerner through and through, Sid was more reserved and lacked the characteristic twang of more boisterous locals his age. preferring to stick to himself for the most part, he had realized from an early age how if he ever wanted anything in this life, he had to get it himself.

"thought you went home for the night" Gordy called back to Sid, bewildered by his sudden return to the workplace.

"I just left something at the office. Are the bosses still here?" Sid turned back to Gordy after pressing one foot on the solid staircase.

"sure, up there as always" Gordy smiled.

"thanks" Sid gave a small smile before scaling the stairs and heading for the main office. Through the hedgerows of identical desks Sid found his way to a shuttered large room, with small specks of light reaching out from the curtains. Sid gave two knocks on the door then proceeded to enter. Many a day he had spent in the main office. Well furnished with Persian rugs, stuffed and mounted trophy heads on the left wall above the fireplace, and two long desks side by side, where two graying men in suits were laughing, smoking cigars and drinking whisky while throwing small rubber banded wads of dollar bills at each other, each time creating a flurry of currency. Mr Grayson sat to the left, Mr Dean to the left. Both men looked nearly inseparable from one another, except for the color of their ties, Grayson red and Dean yellow.

"ah, Sid. Working hard or hardly working?" Mr Dean chuckled with smoke emanating from the other side of his mouth.

"yes, yes, the intern" Mr Grayson sat up to his desk, wafting dollar bills off his desk to the floor.

"actually, sir you hired me-" Sid raised a finger to answer.

"doesn't matter. What brings you back here, spreading the word of the good lord, promise of a quick buck maybe?" Mr Grayson interrupted, paying no attention to the slight bulge in Sid's left trouser pocket. The three men in the room laughed almost in unison before Sid slowly reached down to his pocket and pulled out a silver M1911 pistol, holding it up in front of the two others, who nearly leaped from their seats.

"Sid, what the hell is that?" Mr Grayson held up his hands, looking at his seemingly deranged employee.

"shut up!!" Sid narrowed his eyes and snarled.

"Sidney, we can-" Mr Dean lowered his hands slightly in an attempt to reason.

"I said shut the fuck up!!!" Sid abruptly turned the gun to Dean.

"okay, okay, let's not get irrational here son. Just put the gun down and we can talk about this" Mr Grayson

"Jesus Christ, Dean!!!" Mr Grayson leapt from his seat as Sid shot Mr Dean clear in the head, only leaving a lifeless corpse in the right seat. Mr Grayson was left horrified by the recent events that had now left his business partner dead. The gunshot should have alerted multiple people inside and out of the building, but the only one nearby was the doorman Gordy, who immediately rushed over to a telephone on a nearby table and called the police frantically.

"why'd you do that?!, he had a family!" Mr Grayson cradled Mr Dean's head and tearfully demanded an explanation.

"you want to know why. I've had it up to here with both of you, and your collective bullshit. I just wanted a good job that pays well, a nice life I can be proud of. After everything I've done for you, after all the times I managed to bail your asses out paying bills, misdirecting police, covering for you. not a single thank you. I just wanted a little appreciation sir. Is that so much to ask?" Sid traced the room, light sweat splatters on his shirt and waving his gun around like a lunatic.

"Sid, listen to yourself!. I appreciate what you have done here, but right now we have to do the right thing" Mr Grayson put out his hands out and slowly paced around the opposite side of the room from the loon in the room.

"I've been trying to do the right thing all my life, and it's never gotten me anywhere" Sid kept the gun aimed at Mr Grayson, who had set his eyes on the front door of the office.

"oh no, I ain't done with you yet!" Sid fired a warning shot between Mr Grayson and the door, forcing his boss back before he twisted the lock on the door to keep his hostage contained.

"Sid, what are you doing man?" Gordy ran towards the main office from the staircase to find the younger man wielding a gun through a curtain hole in the main office. Sid took a chair and wedged it under the wooden door handle to prevent entry. Gordy was in complete shock at what was going on while banging on the door to be let in. Soon after, the sirens of three police cars could be heard getting closer and closer to the law firm. Several black clad men carrying revolvers swarmed from the cars outside into the building. Sid ripped off a curtain to see the outer office area. He would see Gordy cowering behind a desk as the cops crouched behind other desks near the main office in clear view of Sid and his rampage.

"police, put the gun down on the ground now" a trooper shouted from across the room.

"fine, fine. See, I'm putting it down" Sid edged down as if to comply with the police, but then unexpectedly swerved back up and shot Mr Grayson once in the head. Sid then ducked down from the ensuing hail of bullets that engulfed the main office. The bullet shower stopped before the police attempted to barge their way into the office, with Sid crawling to Mr Grayson's seat and placing it halfway between the two desks. The police shot the door lock and the outer hinges while a quick maelstrom of thoughts surged through Sid's head as he sat in his boss' seat looking back on what he had done. It was then that he figured out his next move. As the police kicked down the door, Sid placed the muzzle under his chin and pulled the trigger.

"Sid no!!!" Gordy yelled from behind the desk before scrambling into the main office to find Sid and the bosses dead in state. It was on that fateful night in 1952 that the life of Sid Adelaide came to an end.