No.
Why?
The paid staff need to hear from me, because I’m the one who told them there would be no bonus this year. You get the volunteers. They weren’t expecting anything, not even a card.
I picked out one showing Santa Claus scrambling down a chimney, a huge stuffed sack thrown over one shoulder. Smiling reindeer stood with him on the snow-covered rooftop. Don stood up and went into the kitchen. He opened a cabinet and took out a glass and filled it with Pepsi. He drank by the kitchen sink without offering me anything. I opened the card and wrote Dear Don. It was all so petty, really, when I think about it. Except Don has something over me. Or he may believe he does.
I have a habit of stopping by the Comeback Club for a beer on my way home. One afternoon, Don came in. The door was open to the sidewalk and he walked inside through a stream of sunlight. He gave the bartender two dollars and got change. Maybe he needed it for the bus. I was at a table, waiting to order a beer and a sandwich. Don did a double take when he saw me. I avoided his gaze but watched him without looking at him directly. He left without a word. I wondered why he was there. He could get change anywhere. Maybe he’d been chipping all this time and I never knew. Maybe he was planning to buy a drink before he saw me. He thought quickly, changed course, got change. Smooth. With his diagnosis, he has good reason to drink. Just saying. If he’s slipping and chipping I got another reason to let him go. Not that I need one but it would make it easier if he doesn’t get the AIDS Foundation gig. It’s all about the numbers. Friendship can have no place in my thinking.
Jay’s phone rings.
For you, Tom, Jay shouts, and transfers the call.
A Salvation Army counselor asks me if we have spare bus tokens. I tell her I’m tapped out. Don and I agreed a long time ago to give out just five tokens a day. Otherwise we’d go through them too fast. And still we have none left.
Ginger, one of my floor supervisors, pokes her head into my office.
Nothing, I say when I hang up. It wasn’t them.
She sighs and asks for the key to the printer to photocopy her stats. I give it to her. I don’t often let staff use the copy machine. Our clients need to make copies of their birth certificates, Social Security cards, and IDs for various benefits applications, I get it, but I tell them to go elsewhere so we can save money on paper.
What do you think? Ginger asks.
That I won’t know until I get the call.
Two years ago, Ginger was on the street. We helped her with shelter. When one of my staff noticed her talking to herself we sent her to San Francisco General for a mental health eval. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia. We helped her get on disability so she could get the medication she needs. She stopped hearing voices and a social worker at General helped enroll her in a job-training program that allowed her to remain eligible for disability for one year from her hire date if the job didn’t work out. The program covered her salary and I hired her. Tomorrow will mark her one-year anniversary. She knows I know that she can get back on disability if I cut her.
The reception desk phone rings. Jay sends it through.
Fresh Start, may I help you?
An Episcopal Sanctuary volunteer asks me if I have bus tokens. One of his clients needs a ride to Walgreens to fill a prescription.
Sorry, I say, I don’t.
Ginger looks through the door.
It wasn’t them, I tell her.
She makes a face, turns away from me. I hear her mutter something to herself and then cover her mouth. She looks at the floor. Her cheeks twitch and she hurries back to her office. Last year she organized a staff Christmas party at her apartment. I went and I’ll never forget the raw, acidic stink rising out of her bathtub when I used her bathroom. Parting the shower curtain, I saw kitty litter and cat shit. I pulled the shower curtain closed.
It looks like the cat has been using your tub, I told Ginger. I just thought you should know.
She stared at me with a reproachful look.
Why were you in my bathroom? she snapped. You should have asked.
I’m sorry, I told her.
She hurried away and shut the bathroom door and stood in front of it with her arms crossed over her chest, glaring. Even when Ginger had it together, cracks showed. I never did see a cat.
Jay’s phone rings. He points a finger at me like a conductor singling out a member of the orchestra. I pick up.
Fresh Start, may I help you?
Another request for a bus token. Somebody trying to get to a detox outside the city. They’ll sell the token and buy a drink, I’m sure. But I’m tired of saying no. I shout to Ginger, tell her to leave a token at the front desk.
I go over my staff list again and put a question mark by her name. Then I cross it out and draw a line through her name. We’ll get cut. I don’t know how much yet but we’ll get cut. I have to make choices.
So sad, Don says watching me. So sad.
I ignore him, glance outside. A closed sign hangs in the window of the restaurant across the street. The owner makes killer hamburgers. Because we’re across the street, he allows my guys credit. When they don’t pay, he complains to me. I have told him time and time again not to do that. I say, you’re dealing with people who haven’t worked in a long time. They’re not used to handling money. They don’t make much. My guys probably have racked up over a hundred bucks charging food. He didn’t listen. Now, he expects me to pay. Maybe I should cut the staff who owe him, stop this before it gets further out of hand.
Don rolls his cell phone in his hand. I hear him tap, tap, tap it against the desk.
Well, he says, speaking as if he’s in the middle of a thought, I’ll miss you.
Where’re you going?
I mean if I get the job at the AIDS Foundation. Or if you lay me off.
I won’t lay you off, I tell him and instantly regret saying it. I will if I have to. He knows it too. Maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know.
Don gets up and tells Jay to take a break. Jay pushes out of his chair, hesitates, and then sits down again. He leans back, chair tipped against the wall.
Go on, Don says.
Where should I go? Jay says.
