The proposal that was crushing us at the office is done, the pricing complete. It is a nice piece of work, and I am confident it is as good as we can get it.
 
It was a bitch to move forward, since there were a lot of moving parts to it, people, and facilities and communications, and some things I cannot control. But there it is: proofed, one copy in original, five in redacted, fully compliant and ready for delivery to the Contracting Office.
 
They say a proposal is never done. It is just due.
 
I sent the team home, once the editors had=2 0all the parts they needed to work with. The final binders were boxed and back in Arlington shortly after dinner time. I made a final scan of the e-mail around seven to see if anything had appeared to reveal the fate of the other offers we have submitted over the past week.
 
The Government is sitting on them, indecisive, which is a good sign. It means that all the tricks that the customer uses to try to steer the work to the incumbent have not worked the way they wanted, and the bean-counters and disinterested acquisition people are actually attempting to make the award as a free-and-open basis.
 
It is hard to unseat someone who is already doing the work. Even if the performance is not quite what was desired when they started, the job is getting done after a fashion. The security nonsense is out of the ay and the people have been trained. Catastrophic mission failure is not probable, and changing horses on the contract introduces risk.
 
The ultimate customer for our services is really risk-averse. Plus, they really doesn’t care about the price anyway, except in the most general of terms. It is not their money, after all, it is yours.
 
That is the trick to all this, getting the proposal through the gate-guards=2 0of the Federal Acquisition Regulations.
 
It is quite an ordeal for all concerned, and the profit margins are razor thin. But no one is worried about work, and considering what is happening out in the real world away from our Government hot-house, that is a comfort.
 
Cold comfort, perhaps. I was tired. I left the office dragging my butt to the Hubrismobile down in the bowels of the garage. I thought deliriously of the prospect of taking off my suit, clip-on bow tie and still-crisp Brooks Brothers shirt and just spreading out on the bed and not worry about dinner.
 
Just catch a cat-nap. It sounded delicious. There were two messages on the cell-phone I use for a land-line, and the handset was beeping plaintively as I slunk into the place.
 
It was a cardio night.
 
Jiggs and Sarah One are all over the fitness thing, and a good forty-five20minute session of vigorous action in the pool was just the answer to the cares of a busy day. I sighed and took the drier of the two swimsuits hanging on the back of the bathroom door back to the bedroom to change for the next activity.
 
I don’t think this has anything to do with the Olympics, or the lucky number Eight, which apparently is something special in China. It is about the realization that the summer is running away, and the coolness of the blue water is a finite resource.
 
When I got down to the deck, Jiggs was already fully immersed and wearing his businesslike swim goggles. He is a big guy, but still ha s the agility of an athlete. He started the verbal harassment immediately, caustically informing me of my tardiness and general lack of commitment to the program. I shrugged and told him that Sarah One had not yet arrived, and he could have all the extra credit he wanted.
 
I lit up a Lucky as I began to divest myself of phone, keys, glasses, shirt and flip-flops. I was nearly ready for the water when DJ appeared with another woman in tow.
 
She was fully dressed and did not appear to be coming in the pool for the cardio. She had not seen me since the proposal madness started weeks ago, and our overlap time is limited. I crave20the sun, and DJ has very fair skin. With the fantastic ink she has all over her torso, needs to watch the damaging effects of the sun. Maybe it has something to do with her trade, too, I don’t know. Her friend was a very nice woman with the same appropriate professional pallor.
 
She was introduced as Brenda, though it was obvious what her name really was- Death Three. She spends the day in black, working at the funeral home with DJ and Mardy One preparing the dead for their long journey. She giggled.
 
DJ had news, and we had not talked in a while.
 
“Chris cheated, and I had to throw him out of the apartment.” I clucked sympathetically and shook my head knowingly. This was not a surprise.
 
“He had an anger management problem,” I said. “That doesn’t get better with time. Trust me on that. You are better off. Unless of course you get back together again.”
 
She shook her head vigorously. “He has a room in Springfield,” said DJ, as if that was the same as crossing the River Styx. D-3 nodded in sympathy. Since she is one of the a coxswains on Charon’s long-boat, I think she has an inside track on things most of us do not know.
 
“That is too bad. I wanted to have him detail the Hubrismobile this weekend.”
 
Sarah One showed up around the time we were closi ng out the folly of men, and the sorrow of women who have to deal with them. She looked skeptically at the blue water as she peeled off her street clothes, revealing a one-piece bathing suit.
 
“This is cardio,” she announced. “No time for suit adjustments. All business.”
 
Jiggs was amazed. He had never seen her without the bikini, and said so. DJ fished in my pack of Luckies and lit one up with my lighter. She bought me a pack one time, so she views me as a sort of tobacco lending-library.
 
I don’t mind. I made the bold leap into the pool while Sarah took a more studied approach from the ladder to keep her hair dry.
 
 The sun was gone by then, and a stygian gloom was settling over the pool.
 
“Not that many pool days left,” I said, starting the measured stroke and kick.
 
“Twenty-five,” said Jiggs, “Not counting the two weekends in September.”
 
“You can’t count on anything after that,” said Sarah One. “Then it is back in our holes for the season, and we won’t know anything about what is going on.”
 
DJ finished smoking my cigarette and she and D-3 walked out in the darkness. The pool lights came on as we assumed a triangular formation in the deep end.
 
It is like the duck, which looks serene on the surface of the water, but with webbed feet moving fast below. Our heads were fairly stationary in the water, but the yellow illumination revealed there was a lot of frantic motion involved just in staying afloat.
 

Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com