The Institute for Arizona’s Common Good
Quinn rolled the windows down and let the smell of the orange blossoms enter his car, blooming well ahead of when Arizonans would pull citrus from their trees in the winter. He let satellite radio pick a tune for him.
He drove the usual 15-minute route to work from his central Phoenix condo located in an established neighborhood near the Arizona Canal, a quiet pocket with grass and trees and views of the city’s tallest peak yet close to the best restaurants and shops. He had the luxury of using the wide surface streets and not the freeways to go practically anywhere.
He parked in his usual spot on the third level of the parking garage, and walked into a Class-A office building in downtown Phoenix. The rent was high, and there were a lot of windows with great views and an average deli on the first floor. But his work was done from a cubicle without any of the views from the 21st floor, which required him to take the elevator. Quinn hated elevators, but there was no way around it.
He liked the weekly staff meetings that were held in a conference room. He always took the seat that looked northeast, at the other high-rise buildings and off to Piestewa Peak and Camelback Mountain in the distance. He liked the setup of the meeting. Everyone sat still, and there was no movement. There was nothing to set off his vertigo. And he could stare out into the sunshine.
Quinn held a fine job for a well-respected organization. He wasn’t particularly important, just one of those mid-range employees that did a hodge-podge of duties for the 40-person organization. The Institute for Arizona’s Common Good was a privately funded think tank with a stellar reputation for its thorough policy reports. The positions its leaders advocated always made sense to those who occupied the political middle, which, despite what the local party leaders thought, was the overwhelming majority of Arizonans.
Quinn kept to himself at work when it came to his private life. His girlfriend, Lana, had come to a work happy hour once, but she only had talked to a couple of people. He dressed more stylishly than most men but could still go unnoticed for days.
Only one of Quinn’s co-workers knew he suffered from what is commonly known as peripheral vertigo. Quinn never let on about the problems he encountered when looking down at paper, then up to the computer screen, and back down again, causing the vertigo to act up. He knew of a private room one floor below where he could use the Ace of Spades when things got too bad. Vestibular exercises, they were called. He guessed that people just assumed he went to the lobby for a coffee or to the restroom.
At the end of the day, he drove north from downtown and then east on Indian School Road. He passed the entrance to a major city park, the veterans hospital that had been in the news, pawn shops, a blues club and multiple tire repair garages before going underneath the freeway and entering a stretch that was still an eclectic mix of businesses but a slightly nicer one. He smiled at the Marilyn Monroe mural on the side of a building. A thousand times before, he had passed Shady’s on the south side of the road but never thought to go in. Fine ales and cocktails, the sign said, in front of what appeared to be an old house. The temperature outside warmed a little more than expected. He decided to park and go inside.
Three Leaf Publishing House 