He was so preoccupied with standing up for his wounded dignity that the demands of being a supervisor had, I think, become just one more humiliation. Whatever he felt didn’t matter. I got what I’d wanted all along. Johnny was now in charge. No one asked me about filling Billy’s position and I didn’t offer.
About two weeks later, McGraw called me into his office. He sat at a long table strewn with files and spreadsheets, glasses perched at the tip of noise. A computer glowed behind him and a shelf behind his head held books about time management. I knocked on his open door. He looked at me, dragged a hand through his mop of blond hair and laughed a here-we-are-in-the-shitstorm laugh that I knew couldn’t be good. He pointed to a chair. I sat down. Then he got to it. Another budget cut. This time the state had decided not to renew a homeless adult programs grant that, among other things, covered some of my staff’s salaries. I’d have to cut some positions and combine others.
Start at the top, McGraw said. Higher the salary the better.
I knew what that meant. In the pecking order of high salaries I was first, Johnny second. Well, I knew I wasn’t going to lay myself off. McGraw looked at me over his glasses, gave that laugh again, and went straight to the nut cutting.
I saw Johnny this morning. He smelled like a brewery. You have to draw some lines.
If I draw lines, I’ll fire everybody.
Johnny came to work drunk. There’s your line.
Now that I’d drawn it, Johnny had nothing to lose going off on me in La Taqueria. I watch him take another unsteady step toward my table. I look at the guy behind the register. He’s adding up receipts and doesn’t notice a thing. Whatever’s going to happen, I guess, will happen. I push back in my chair but remain seated. If I stand, Johnny might think I’m gearing up for a fight. Don’t be the aggressor. De-escalate. Where’d I learn that? Some staff development. Strange what goes through your head when you think a burrito is about to wallpaper your face.
I don’t want it, Johnny, I say again.
He sways and grabs the back of a chair. He drops the burrito on a table and sits sloppily in the chair. Stares at the floor, chin against his chest, arms loose at his sides as if something essential had left him. Saliva hangs off his mouth in a thin line, and he closes his eyes until I assume he’s nodded out.
Johnny, I say. Johnny.
I smell it before I notice Johnny pissing himself, a slow, wet stain unfurling across his crotch.
Johnny, Jesus, wake up!
I get up and shake his shoulder. He opens his eyes slowly, looks lost, confused. He closes them again and I keep shaking him.
Johnny.
He turns his head and stares bleary-eyed, sagging deeper in his chair.
What? he says, his voice burdened by the effort to speak, rising out of his throat in a cracked whisper.
Before I can say anything, he presses a hand against the table and rises seemingly half asleep. He reels over the table like a bop bag, turns slowly, and walks out stiff-legged, arms out for balance, angling through the open door to the street. Through the fogged windows, I see the outline of his body pass in staggering steps. The odor of piss rises off his chair. I was sure I’d take a burrito to the face. I hadn’t expected it to end this way. In the words of my contract, a positive outcome. Staring out the door, I remind myself that Johnny was just another layoff, nothing personal. He brought it on himself. I covered for him until I no longer could but as much as I want to, I can’t rationalize away the guilt I feel wrapped tight and tucked away deep inside me and out of reach most days. I stand beside his chair a moment longer, then reach for the burrito and drop it into my coat pocket. Someone in the shelter will eat it.
Walter
I’m in the driveway of Oliver House in my sweats balancing my right foot against the security gate stretching for a four-block jog that’s really like a fast walk I do every night. I keep my leg straight and try to touch my forehead to my knee.
A man pushes three shopping carts heaped with crushed cans and empty bottles up Masonic Avenue toward the center. The carts are tied together, clanking loudly, and form a train like miniature freight cars. Three bloated trash bags filled with more cans and bottles hang from each cart. The man leans into his load, head down, arms outstretched and locked at the elbows. I raise my chin and he nods. Looks like he’s heading into the Haight. Likely will crash in Golden Gate Park. I’ve slept there more than a few times my own self. Man, just thinking about sleep makes me tired. Yawning, I look at my watch.
Five o’clock, but it’s December and already dark. A full pock-marked moon throws a silvery blue light over the street. Stars snap in and out of the sky like fireflies. My body must get fooled somehow by the early night, because although it’s early I’m beat and want to crash. Curfew starts at nine, but I’ll crawl into the sack by seven and sleep until morning. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I’ll heat some milk.
A warm glass of milk helps you sleep, my counselor told me when I first got here.
My bunkmate says anything white should go in your arm. I’m hip, I tell him, and we laugh. Our counselors warned us both against that kind of stinkin’ thinkin’, even as a joke.
Last week, my counselor suggested I take up running.
Exercise’ll give you energy, he said. You spend too much time in your room.
It’s been two weeks since some guy died here and my name came up on the waiting list. The guy had a seizure. Fell out of his chair in an AA meeting, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. At least that’s what I was told when I was in detox at Fresh Start. So I got his bed.
This is your last chance, Walter, Katie told me. I had to do major arm twisting to get you in. Don’t screw up this time.
The man pushing the carts stops at the house next door. He takes off his sweatshirt and ties it around his waist, wiping his face with his undershirt. I can see his breath. Two brown shopping bags piled in a blue recycling tub near a station wagon rattle with bottles as he picks them up and hefts them into the rear cart. The right rear wheel of the station wagon straddles the curb. Faded bumper stickers pasted on the back read take it easy and one day at a time.
Say! Say! Get away from there! Get away from my car! a man shouts from an open door at the house next door.
Cart Man freezes for an instant, cocks his head trying to see who’s shouting at him. Then he quickly sorts through the remaining cans and bottles in the tub.
Get away! the man next door shouts again, switching on the porch light. Someone broke into my car, goddamn it, now get the hell away! It was you or some other street son of a bitch, wasn’t it? You bastard. I should have you arrested. Now get away from my car.
The man steps out onto the porch holding a steaming mug in one hand, the other hand cupped over his eyes. He’s got on a suit with a tie draped around his neck. His clothes look like he slept in them.
It was probably one of you bastards, he says, giving me a look. You and your halfway house. Goddamn drunks all of you. I know.
He sets the mug down on a patio chair. I look away and start stretching my left leg, glancing at him when I think he won’t notice.
I see you out here running, the man says. It was probably you. A no-good drunk busting into people’s cars. I know. I said this would happen when they built your goddamn center.
I stare at the ground and try to touch my toes. The moon lights up everything. Brick houses and trim lawns, telephone poles and power lines, fence posts and empty lots. Wet leaves lie scattered over the street curled in puddles.
The man next door walks stiffly to the station wagon stopping at the driver’s side. He bends over, peers in. The man with the carts follows him, nods at me to come over. I go to the passenger side.
The radio’s missing, see? the man from next door says.
None of the windows are broken. The radio is gone but the interior isn’t damaged. A wallet lies on top of a coat on the passenger seat. I think I should say something, but I don’t need this guy in my face any more than he already is. My heart gets to racing. I become angry fast. My counselor says it’s because alcohol has fried all my nerves.
