Risk Management

Short fiction: a white-collar professional tries to help

The solicitor explained to the court how we experience life on three levels. The ‘practical’ level concerns time and space: the boiling of an egg in a pot on a stove in the afternoon. The ‘spiritual’ level concerns the meaning of life: are we floating atoms or agents of God? And the ‘narrative’ level is the story we tell ourselves: are we moving forward or falling behind, are we victim or villain?

These three levels are not separate like the strands of Earth’s crust. They work more like layers of soil on a creek bed. They can be stirred into a cloud with a single swipe, and without warning you find yourself in a road-rage incident or yelling at the florist on Valentine’s Day because tulips subconsciously remind you of your parents’ divorce. The root cause of all our actions, explained the solicitor, hides somewhere in the silt. ‘And no one can understand, let alone control, this stirred mess of life, Your Honour, my client included.’

The solicitor took her seat and patted the defendant’s arm. This was the first time the ‘natura vitae’ defence (the ‘nature of life’ defence), had been applied to a case of aggravated animal cruelty, so both were doubtful, though only one faced jail time.

The incident in question occurred at the New Beginnings Cafe in Glen Iris. The defendant, Wigham Bentley, sat at an outdoor table when the complainant, Mr Henderson, rounded the corner. Mr Henderson seemed preoccupied. He pushed a double-wide pram with one hand and held his dog’s leash with the other. One of his daughters was asleep in the pram, while the oldest he cradled with the same hand that gripped the dog’s leash. He was also taking a work call through his AirPods. ‘If this deal falls through, we’re going under,’ he was saying.

Two tables down, a woman waited for her takeaway coffee. She also had a dog, a powerful Belgian Malinois—the breed used by the Army to tear enemy throats.

The dog’s name was Glitter, and as Mr Henderson approached, Glitter and the other dog pulled towards each other like powerful magnets. Given the dogs, the narrowness of the path, and the wideness of the pram, Mr Henderson’s path was blocked.

‘Sorry John, this fucking woman,’ he said. ‘Just move—now.’

The woman leaned back like someone in a tug of war, but Glitter could smell the sweet scent of death and would not obey. Mr Henderson shrugged to signal to the woman that he had his hand full, and that forceful motion of his shoulders caused the girl in his arms to drop her hot chocolate.

In his seat, Wigham dodged every milky drop, then smiled up at the girl, whose eyes were beginning to well. ‘Don’t worry, Sweetheart,’ he said. ‘We will get you another.’

Turning then to her father, Wigham offered a different expression. It was a half-smile, half-frown, the comforting look one might offer a loved one in their time of need.

The man’s life was clearly too chaotic to manage, and in the chaos he was cracking. Any mere Level 2 risk manager could see it, and Wigham was a Level 5. He experienced the world as one vast likelihood/consequence risk matrix. In essence, he could forecast the future. He knew that, for example, the cute girl would likely end up a bridge-dwelling prostitute, one ruled by an anger and self-hatred she could not trace. Mr Henderson’s deals will all fall through, while his wife, aching for companionship and attention, will leave. She will remarry a jazz musician and incur financial hardship as a result. Her remaining years will be spent hopping from one bad-luck horse to another on the carousel of life. As for Mr Henderson, he will continue his spiral, and on the way down cause all manner of harm to others, like he already had with his rudeness to the poor woman wrestling her own life (and dog).

Now, when a man is choking on an aeroplane, the attendants ask for a doctor. When a house is burning, you call the fire brigade. Not many know, but the same is true for risk managers. Each manager swears an oath to manage risks, ‘both foreign and domestic.’ Wigham was thus duty-bound to aid this man, which he did.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, loud enough to be heard over the work call and dog barks.

Mr Henderson scrunched his nose like Wigham was smeared shit on his boot. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

Helpfully, Wigham said: ‘You should kill your dog.’

‘I should do what?’

‘No need to be alarmed. I’m a risk manager; this is what I do. A simple root-cause analysis of your mental state indicates there’s too much on your plate: children, wife, work, dog… You’re overburdened, and the consequences of your unmanageable portfolio of responsibilities will be severe. For instance, I forecast that the cute girl in your arms will become a vector of sexually transmitted disease. Now, I know you don’t want that, so something must change. Killing your dog will allow you to focus on higher priority tasks, such as fatherhood. Killing your dog is the only way.’

‘I will not kill my dog,’ said Mr Henderson. He glanced at the fluffy dog named Bob with raised eyebrows. ‘I love my dog,’ he said. ‘Bob’s my dog.’

From his back pocket, Wigham removed his wallet and showed Mr Henderson his Australian Risk Force badge. It shimmered with golden authority in the morning light. ‘I’m afraid I must insist,’ he said.

What followed was discussed in court. Mr Henderson tried to reverse, but of course Wigham anticipated that risk the moment Mr Henderson rounded the corner. (A Level 6 could have seen it days earlier.) Wigham then snatched the knife meant for his incoming meal and dived on the dog like a brave soldier might a grenade. The dog scrambled but it was tethered, so Wigham was able to trap it and drive the knife into its abdomen. There was a yelp, the coat stained red, and Wigham was kicked in the head by Mr Henderson until he fell unconscious. He awoke from a coma three days later, in cuffs. It was then—in agony and arrest—that the cops broke the bad news: the dog had lived.

‘So, you admit to attacking Mr Henderson’s dog?’ asked the prosecution’s representative, pacing the courtroom.

‘Trust a lawyer to view risk in a siloed fashion,’ said Wigham on the stand. ‘I don’t lecture you about the law so don’t presume to tell me about risk. I did this for his daughter, for society.’

‘You stabbed a girl’s beloved family pet for her own good. Not buying it, Mr Bentley.’

Wigham sprung to his feet. ‘Society is collapsing one Mr Henderson at a time,’ he said. His cries echoed off the courthouse walls, washing against the judge and jury with the passionate force of breaking waves. ‘We are too busy and stressed,’ he continued. ‘We take on more and more until we snap.’ He thrust his shaking arm at the complainant. ‘Can’t you see that some men have snapped?’

The prosecution’s representative, a handsome man—perfectly groomed—dusted the wooden beam of the jurors’ box and rested his elbow upon it. ‘Clearly,’ he said, drawing giggles from the female jurors.

Wigham could not believe it, the unprofessionalism. He vaulted the stand and lunged for the solicitor, only to be shirtfronted to the floor by an eager guard. His own representation did not object.

Wigham was sent to the Prison for Dog Murderers and Animal Abusers, where he quickly learned the value of keeping to himself. He tried venting to another inmate once about how his trial was a ‘kangaroo court,’ but it caused the crotch of the other inmate’s orange jumpsuit to bulge. ‘I love kangaroos,’ said the inmate. ‘Keep talking. Oh yeah—got that tail and shit, bouncing. Got hands and shit.’

‘Good God, de-bulge yourself,’ said Wigham. ‘If you like hands, humans have hands.’

How was Wigham to know ‘Hooks’ Johnson was eavesdropping? Hooks took obvious offence to the idea humans have hands and, in a rage, struck Wigham with his metallic lunch tray. Unfortunately for Hooks, he could not grip objects, so the tray rebounded off Wigham’s skull and into his own face, rupturing his left eye. After that he wore an eyepatch, went by the moniker ‘Pirate’ Johnson.

Wigham’s cellmate was the only man Wigham felt comfortable around. Ronnie Jeffries was his name. By his own admission he was a ‘dodgy’ horse trainer, found guilty of animal negligence after the amphetamines he gave the thoroughbred, Vacant Star Rising, caused its heart to explode on the Ararat home straight. ‘One more loss and they were gonna kill her, but I’m the criminal,’ he said in their cell. ‘I loved that mare. Two lengths up she was—never seen something so beautiful, so fleeting.’

Wigham was on the bottom bunk, reading. ‘Risky play that, Ronnie,’ he said.

‘Need I remind you: you ain’t a risk manager no more, Wigs.’

Wigham placed the open book on his chest and stared at the top bunk slats. They resembled prison bars. ‘Guess you’re right,’ he said, thumbing the slats.

The pair spent their mornings, meals, and metal fab sessions chatting away their sentences. They became close friends. Ronnie told Wigham about his family and Wigham did the same. ‘My parents worked to the bone for me and my sister,’ he said. ‘Paid a heavy price too: the drinking, the fighting, the messy divorce. My sis took it worse than me. You need a thick skin in this world, but she had a porous soul; the world just seeped in and drowned her. I was lucky to get through unscathed.’

‘Sorry about your sis, mate,’ said Ronnie. ‘What about kids? You got kids?’

‘Me—never. Parenting is insanity,’ said Wigham, ‘think of all that could go wrong.’

Ronnie slid the metal sheet into the press, pulled the lever. The press lowered like a self-inked stamp. ‘What about all that could go right?’ he said over the machine’s buzz. ‘You ever think about that?’

The press finished and automatically lifted. Where once was a flat metal sheet now sat a moulded lunch tray. Wigham slid the tray along the bench and stacked it on the pile. He offered no response.

The two did everything on the same schedule except showering. Ronnie showered alone in the afternoons because his mornings were spent in a drowsy stupor. Ronnie had a tiny frame—he would have made a fine jockey—but he had the opposite of the spritely, bouncing spirit one expects in a man that slight. He moved more like a sumo wrestler in the mornings, waddling side to side.

‘No need to rush,’ Wigham would say when Ronnie eventually threw the towel over his shoulder. ‘Wow—where’s the fire? Usain Bolt called; he wants his records back.’

Ronnie would peer back and say, ‘Fuck off, Wigs. I’ve got nowhere else to be, do I?’

Then came the day Ronnie was attacked in the showers by the blokes that run the prison. They jumped him while he was naked and alone. They beat him ‘til the water ran cold and left him on the tiles. The pink pool circling the drain nearly drowned him too—like it might an infant—because he was left unconscious. There were witnesses, but none lent a hand or said a word; each feared retribution. When he woke, Ronnie had to scream for his own salvation, and it was Wigham who came.

Wigham wrapped him in a towel, mostly to protect his modesty, then ran down the long corridor of cages to find a guard and get a doctor. In the showers, the doctor rolled Ronnie onto his back to fix a neck brace. Staff then lifted him onto a stretcher and wheeled him out. Wigham was soon left alone at the scene, staring at the remains of the attack: the bloody tiles and bandage wrappers. He decided then, without hesitation or conscious emotion, that the men who did this presented unacceptable risk. Something must be done, and by him: the risk manager.

The next day, Wigham was in the cafeteria fiddling with a bread roll. He tore the roll in half and half again until it divided like a virus across the whole tray. He was too busy to eat, his mind was focused on the task at hand: watching, listening, scheming.

The four men at the other table were tattoo-covered, bikie-types. On the outside they ran a dog-fighting ring, dumped the corpses at Woolies for a laugh. But as sadistic as they were outside and in here, no one spoke up on account of their underworld connections. The four men were involved in the drug trade, was the rumour, which explains why they were so willing to take the animal cruelty charge: a shorter stay in a softer cell, with softer men. Wigham knew straight away these men were to blame.

‘You tell Simmo,’ said one of the men, ‘that if that knob doesn’t pay up by Friday, we send someone around; you tell him, okay?’ ‘I know just who to send,’ said another, causing the group to laugh.

Wigham’s reconnaissance continued until Ronnie was out of the infirmary and recovering in their cell. Ronnie was able to eat and go to the bathroom unassisted by then. And in that time—just over a week—Wigham had learned that these vicious men were motivated by one thing above all else: money. In the breakroom one afternoon, he observed the largest of the four, Pat Loggins, hand an envelope of cash to a guard. The group’s conversations in the workshop, cafeteria, the toilets, always centred on money. Money was Wigham’s way in. To finalise his risk mitigation strategy that was all he needed, and now that Ronnie was out of the infirmary—no longer protected by locked doors and armed guards—it was time to act.

Wigham knew from his reconnaissance that the four men enjoyed solitude after breakfast to masturbate and call the outside world on contraband phones. He leaned against the corridor wall with his towel and toothbrush, waiting for Loggins’ cellmate to leave. To the other inmates, Wigham was just headed for the shower blocks. They had no idea he was executing a Level 5 risk mitigation strategy.

Once the cellmate left, Wigham crossed the corridor and knocked. From inside came the rumbling voice of Pat Loggins. ‘Who’s ‘at?’ he asked.

‘It’s Wigs, I need a favour.’ A long silence followed. ‘I’m willing to pay,’ he added.

The door flung open to reveal the giant frame of Pat Loggins like a tattooed bouncer. He was the largest inmate by some margin—in both height and weight—and Wigham never felt his size more than when he squeezed by the hulking man to enter the cell.

Once they were inside, Loggins slammed the door and said: ‘Tell me what you need, and I’ll tell you what it costs. But I tell you now, it will cost more than you want.’

Wigham raised his chin to meet Loggins’ gaze. ‘I already know what it costs,’ he said.

Before the confused Loggins could respond, Wigham drove his sharpened toothbrush into Loggins’ throat and used his towel like a matador’s cape to block the spouting blood. Loggins did not drop at once, so Wigham continued to stab the high-risk area of the throat until Loggins became more concerned with stopping the flowing blood than fighting back. And after that, it was a formality. Loggins fell into the cell wall and slid to his death, leaving a trail of his own fluid on the wall like a slug.

In the second man’s cell, events went the same. The two men even left identical blood trails on the same section of wall, which Wigham found most interesting.

In the third cell, however, his plan faltered. The inmate seized Wigham’s wrist and thrust his bald head into Wigham’s nose. Existence for Wigham turned black, timeless. He was not out for long though, because he came to with the man’s ropey hands around his throat. The pressure was immense. Wigham feared his temples and forehead might burst as he scanned the concrete floor with his hand, hoping to feel the toothbrush. And just before the world turned a permanent black, Wigham’s finger grazed something, and in one swift motion he grasped the toothbrush and drove it into the inmate’s neck. The inmate fell. He crushed Wigham like a fallen tree and coated him in blood that oozed warm from the fatal wound.

Wigham exited the cell to find the corridor busy with other inmates. Spurred on by their fearful eyes, and the sense that time was running short, he broke into a jog. When he passed his own cell, his cellmate Ronnie limped into the corridor.

‘Wigs, mate, what the fuck is going on?’ he asked.

‘Go back to the cell,’ said Wigham.

Reaching the final cell, he knocked on the door. ‘Hey mate, it’s Wigs. I need a favour. I’m willing to pay—money, cash.’

His delivery was more frantic than he had hoped, but it still worked. The man opened the door, saw the blood-soaked Wigham with the sharpened toothbrush at the ready, and retreated into his cell. Wigham followed. The man hid beneath his blanket, making it hard for Wigham to access his throat, so Wigham thumped the man with his fists. ‘Get out from under there, you rodent,’ he said. ‘Face me like a man.’ But this only caused the inmate to nestle further into the blanket, so to coax him out, Wigham stabbed the blanket mound like a plastic package of lunch ham.

Wigham thought he was alone in the cell, but Ronnie’s high-pitched voice rose above the inmate’s pleading and Wigham’s grunting. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

Wigham slapped the blanket mound, hard. ‘Managing risk, he said. ‘It’s what I do.’

Ronnie’s left arm was in a cast, but his right extended to Wigham. ‘Look at him, Wigs,’ said Ronnie in a slow, calm tone. ‘He’s no threat, not any more. Come on now.’

Wigham tapped the man under the blanket with the toothbrush, then pointed the toothbrush at Ronnie’s arm. ‘This man attacked you in the showers, Ronnie,’ he said. ‘He gave you that; he beat you, left you to die.’

Ronnie, the dodgy horse trainer, scrunched his haggard face towards a single point and tilted his head. A tear left his eye, navigated the complex run of wrinkles on his cheek, and fell to the cold floor. ‘But killing is wrong,’ he said. ‘Wigs. Jesus Christ, mate. Killing is wrong. Besides, this guy is no risk, not anymore. Look at him.’

The man on the bed pulled the blanket below his chin and pleaded with raised eyebrows not to be killed. Wigham knew Ronnie was right. From this day forth, the last remaining assailant would never hurt a soul; that risk had been retired, as risk managers say. Why, then, did Wigham’s fist tighten around the weapon? Why did his heart thump louder, his mind shout at him to finish the job?

As with many mysteries in life, a question well-stated is a question half-solved. It never occurred to Wigham, until that moment, to look backwards; risk is about the future, not the past. What then of the past, he thought for the first time, of the evils done rather than those to be done? How should they be treated? He tugged the blanket to reveal the frightened man’s neck, and he wondered: absolution, forgiveness, repentance… A week earlier the man was an eager pack animal but was now remorseful, wise. A forecast of his behaviour will give one answer, an audit, another.

As Wigham searched for an answer, from somewhere in the stirred silt of his mind came an image of his sister, then his mother, then his father. These images of his loved ones were, by necessity, memories—relics of the past. It occurred to him then, with a piercing clarity, that his obsession with risk was only ever a proxy: he did not fear how this world might go wrong; he hated that it already had. And armed with that knowledge, and a sharpened toothbrush, he asked his friend to leave the cell.

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Short stories, fiction. Original absurd, satire and humour writing. Influences include Pynchon, DeLillo, Vonnegut, Adams, and Norm Macdonald (all lovers of SEO).