Bartleby & Shelbye

A Story by Abishai100

A somber law-office worker in NY is moved to construct an adventure by a female co-worker who insists that they need to reinvent what is a 'normal' life of sanity.

I had to offer up a funny vignette about a Melville charcter who is drawn away from a bureaucratic prison from a rather moved female co-worker. There's simply too much serious writing I've done on Writer's Cafe!!

Thanks so much (signing off),

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Bartleby worked in his office all the time by himself. He was a diligent worker, but those around him, in his NY law-office, thought he was a bit strange, a bit too focused on working, which made him something of a cliched workaholic. Bartleby quietly arrived everyday at work, precisely at 8 a.m. and worked quietly at his corner-cubical with desk and computer until 6 p.m. He brought a lunch-box everyday which contained the same lunch everyday, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and a box of Parmalat milk. One day a female co-worker named Shelbye commented cutely on his neat little daily lunch activity, seeing if he'd be interested to go out for a romantic dinner somewhere on a Friday night, but all Bartleby did in response was kindly offer her half his peanut-butter-and-and-jelly sandwich.

Finally, one Halloween season at the NY law-office, Shelbye presented Bartleby with a Spider-Man mask and told him to wear it festively for Halloween while she wore a matching Spider-Woman mask. Bartleby politely took the mask as a gift but simply and plainly told her he'd promise he'd wear it on Halloween Day at the office. This basically made Shelbye snap. You see, Bartleby was extremely handsome, but he was so darn shy, that it drove Shelbye, who was very very attractive, somewhat mad. She wanted to entreat him to romance, since they were both getting older (they were both 29), and they were both single. This final cold blunt polite response from a male co-worker she wanted to romance was just too much for her. She demanded he be more valiant and romantic towards her, since she was obviously making loving advances with respect and courtesy.

SHELBYE: Bartleby, you and I are doing to do something fun on Halloween Day together!

BARTLEBY: What do you propose we do, young lady?

SHELBYE: We're going to put on our Halloween Spider-masks and rob that Jewish jewelry store across the street!

BARTLEBY: Isaacs Jewelry Store?

SHELBYE: That's right, Bartleby; you've refused me so much, and I'm putting my foot down.

BARTLEBY: Shelbye, I think my natural shyness has driven you a tad mad!

SHELBYE: You can't refuse me this time.

BARTLEBY: Let's just wait and see and hope your mad disposition changes by Halloween Day.

SHELBYE: It won't Bartleby, so I'll expect you to accompany me on this escapist robbery!

Shelbye stormed into the office on Halloween Day with her Spider-Woman mask on and brought a new Spider-Man mask for Bartleby, in case he threw away the one she gave him earlier that month. When the lunch-hour came, Shelbye grabbed Bartleby's arm and told him to accompany her to Isaacs Jewelry Store. Bartleby felt helpless at this point and simply had to accompany his female co-worker, whom he actually secretly adored but never had the basic human courage to disclose. The two unlikely law-office workers in modern-day New York walked across the street with their Spider-masks on at lunch-hour and stormed into Isaacs Jewelry Store. Shelbye whipped out a toy replica black hand-gun, quite realistic-looking, and another one which she placed in Bartleby's hand.

SHELBYE: "If anyone in this store so much as makes a peep, we'll blast every jewelry glass display box and shelf in the store and make a huge mess! All we want is for the manager to have the basic wisdom today not to push the alarm-button and simply place about $4 million worth of diamonds and jewelry in this fold-out duffel-bag we've brought with us, and no one will get ruffled in the least! This can be a simple experience on this Halloween, or it can be a crazy fiasco. All the customers need do, and me and my associate note that there are only 4 customers here in the store today, is stand in the aisles while the manager places the desired amount of valuables in my duffel-bag. That is all...cut and dry. God bless you all on Halloween."

The Isaacs Jewelry Store manager had no choice but to simply comply to Shelbye's commandeering demands and placed $4 million worth of diamonds and jewelry in Shelbye's duffel-bag. The store was indeed owned by a very wealthy Jewish New York family, quite old in generations, and had the resources to bring in very expensive diamonds and gems and stones and jewelry, and Shelbye knew all that, since she'd done her homework prior to this Halloween robbery. The unlikely pair of New York jewelry-thieves, Shelbye and Bartleby, both wearing Spider-Man and Spider-Woman masks, walked out of the Isaacs Jewelry Store that Halloween Day lunch-hour with $4 million worth of diamonds and jewelry. The manager reported the heist to the Isaacs family who decided to destroy the video-recording of the robbery to save face and keep discrete the Halloween robbery fiasco, since, of course, they could simply afford to replace the stolen valuables in a relatively short amount of time.

Shelbye and Bartleby took their stolen jewelry, pawned it in the New York black market that Halloween Eve, and boarded an American Airlines flight from JFK Airport and flew to the Virgin Islands. When they got there, they got married and used the $3 million cash they brought from the heist-trading and purchased an idyllic villa on the Virgin Islands. Shelbye told her friends in New York that she'd met a 'royal heir' in New York, Bartleby, who whisked her away to an undisclosed island villa. Shelbye could do this of course, since Bartleby had never really shared his personal background story with anyone at all. Bartleby was actually descended from a rather aristocratic Irish-American family in Virginia who hailed from a more royal family in Dublin, but all these details were moot now, since Shelbye had miraculously managed to somehow carry out the frigid and stolid law-office worker Bartleby and moved him to make him her beau in a 'constructed' paradise life. The two became very passionate and planned to have a wonderful married life together. This was a tale of rather 'dreamy' proportions, and it was only possible in America.

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"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5)