Miami Heat Preview: "New York Office"

In an effort to gear up for the NBA season, we will view the upcoming season through the eyes of Edward Hopper. Feel free to add your thoughts on the 2010 Heat in our comments section.Ms. Haslem thumbs through the rolodex of the firm's contacts. The sound of cards fluttering under her hands sounds like a bird trapped inside of a bag, or the confines of a chimney. The wings beat against the frustration of limited space. Stop. And flap again, unable to find an opening. An exit. A chance to fly.

Her boss Mr. Wade has given her a limited time period in which to find a suitable candidate to aid him in resurrecting the struggling law firm, which is plagued by a dwindling list of clients and a downtown rent he can no longer afford. His instructions have been very specific: "Ms. Haslem, while I appreciate your previous recommendations, they have been found to be somewhat wanting. We need someone of strong character. We need someone who knows their role. We need someone who is healthy, and we need someone of sound thought and mind." In each trait listed, Mr. Wade implicitly reminds Ms. Haslem that all of her previous recommendations have failed to meet his criteria in some way.

The three most notable disappointments were Mr. Marion, who used his stylish brief case and designer threads to lure female clients into compromising positions on his desk; (the second) Mr. O'Neal, who often showed up to work incapacitated; and Mr. Beasley, who, blessed by obvious potential, chose to write his legal documents as sonnets, dedicated to the tragic nature of Van Gogh. Each of these man's failures to relieve the mounting pressures on Mr. Wade have brought him closer and closer to the truth that he may have to go from employer to employed; a truth he finds as deep and dark as a faultline.

Three and a half years ago Mr. Wade and (the first) Mr. O'Neal moved the firm into its downtown office, which at the time was freshly renovated and smelled of clean carpet and new paint. When Ms. Haslem hung the"Open" sign on the door, she felt the sign suggested as much about the future as it did about the firm's hours of operation. In a pink dress with her hands on her hips and a smile on her face, she stood on the sidewalk, proud as a flamingo, and addressed the door as if she were a bride about to be carried over the threshold, "This is exactly as it should be."

The only complaint Ms. Haslem had about her new place of employment, in that first year, was that the windows were painted shut. No matter how hard she pushed the windows would not budge. She even used a butter knife to chisel away at the paint between the window and the window sill, but all she managed to do was bang her funny bone against the glass in a manner that sent needles up and down her arm. The window was shut, and the fresh air of that first day at work soon grew heavy and stale, like a fart, incubating inside of a parked car, on a summer day. At first, Ms. Haslem thought, "how depressing?" but her spirit was not broken. She showed up the next day with oscillating fans and three potted flowers. If the breeze could not find its way into the room, then she would just create her own breeze to blow across an ocean of carpet.

Of course, that was during Ms. Haslem's first year at Wade and O'Neal Associates. Then the waves of paper work began to lap at her desk, and her ship began to break asunder, as she noticed Mr. O'Neal was embezzling money from the firm. She kept telling herself the numbers must be lying, but the numbers kept failing to add up. The decreases in hours logged by Mr. O'Neal did not account for his increases in pay. While Mr. O'Neal appeared more often on the golf course, Mr. Wade stayed later and later, as more and more of Mr. O'Neal's clients found Mr. Wade working their cases. Ms. Haslem watched the scenario like a weatherman studying a tropical depression that transformed into a tropical storm, and then became a hurricane.

The door of Mr. Wade's office swung open, and a gust of wind tore through the room. "You can leave, Mr. O'Neal. Leave now. Leave your clients. Leave your brief case. Leave your belongings on the desk. Use your two legs and walk to Phoenix for all I care, but your time in this office is done."

"Are you kicking me out after all I've done for you?!?" bellowed Mr. O'Neal. "Do you even know how we came by this office? That it's my representation and covering up of that slumlord Riley that is the only reason we came as far as we did--"

"I said you can leave."

Ms. Haslem watched as Mr. O'Neal exited his partner's office for the last time, tossing the waiting chairs at the foot of her desk, causing potted flowers to fall from their resting spots and spill onto the carpet, like broken shingles ripped from a roof top. Then Mr. O'Neal snatched a letter opener from Ms. Haslem's desk and slashed gashes in the sea of carpet, causing it to ripple all the way to the walls like distant islands. As Mr. O'Neal blew through the office's front door, Ms. Haslem couldn't help but notice, that from inside the office, the sign on the door read "Closed." Then she turned and took in the results of the tsunami, whispering to herself, but loud enough for Mr. Wade to hear, "At least nobody got hurt."

Since that day, Ms. Haslem has watched the reconstruction of the firm wear on Mr. Wade. His shoulders slump like an old man's under the weight of a heavy beam, and in the mornings he no longer enters the office like a rising sun, but as a worm that crawls out of the earth whenever it rains, slinking his way through the waiting area and into his office, where he takes out an index card and writes: "Mr. Knickerbocker, I'm ready to hear your offer."

He signs the card, and slides it into an envelop, knowing that if he sends the letter, he's giving up the dream of flying on his own, to become the pussy cat that licks its chops at the sight of a caged bird.