All right, McGraw says. Write this all up and fire Raymond. Lay him off I mean. I’ll have the fiscal department draft a statement for him to sign agreeing to turn over his check to the client. Anything else?
No, everything else is fine.
We have to be careful who we hire, McGraw says. I’m sure Raymond had good intentions, but we want people who know when to leave their good intentions at the door. We don’t have expectations. We’re not trying to save lives. Just trying to make them a little better.
Right, I say.
He turns back to his computer. I leave his office and am out in the hall when McGraw calls me back.
Put out a memo for me, he says. Tell the program directors we’re under budget. Tell them to think of some things they need and how they’d like to spend the money. Bus tokens. Anything we can blow it on and get away with. And we got some people coming by next week from the Bank of America Foundation. Let me know who you’ll set me up with, who our success stories are this month.
Outside the admin building, I rest my hands on my knees and take a deep breath. My body feels strange to me, as if it’s no longer mine. I look around with a feeling of total detachment as though I’m seeing the TL for the first time, hovering between the street and the sky in a low-flying plane.
I think about what I’ll tell Raymond. I smell the stink where people have pissed on the sidewalk, cover my nose, and head to the shelter. McGraw was much easier than I expected. Too easy. I mean, really, I was nervous at first but then it was nothing not to tell him about the twenty-one grand. To say that Raymond’s check would cover everything.
What bullshit, but it’s what McGraw wanted to hear. Like the Bank of America types coming next week, these people who give money to Fresh Start. Sometimes they call and ask to see the shelter and drop-in, especially around Christmas. The day before they show up, I run around and get the staff to mop and clean the place. Then I go to thrift stores to buy clothes for the people we want to pass off as success stories. The guys who have some sort of job history, who don’t get hammered every damn day and who are pretty reliable volunteers. Guys who have all their teeth and their fingers aren’t stained with tobacco tar. Guys who look pretty much like anyone else.
I give McGraw their names and he introduces them to the funders like they’re his personal friends. Here’s Richard or Terry or Mick. He’s in our jobs program. And as Richard or Terry or Mick works with our jobs counselor, he also volunteers in our maintenance department to develop skills he can put on a résumé. We believe in self-help, McGraw will say.
Richard or Terry or Mick is a good homeless person. Soon he will rejoin the nuclear family. The funders smile and leave satisfied. They are good people too for helping out a place like Fresh Start. They’ll come by again next year and get their ticket to heaven punched once more.
After they leave, I’ll give Richard or Terry or Mick a few bucks so they can buy some booze or score some dope and calm their nerves after talking to suits for an hour. Just be here again next week, I’ll tell them. We got some more people coming by.
As Raymond would say: He who chases fantasies lacks judgment. I mean, really. After a while, it gets so way past sickening that I no longer feel disgust. I don’t. I just keep telling everybody what they want to hear.
Just before I go into the shelter, I get this uneasy feeling. Laird won’t shut up with Raymond gone. He’ll keep talking shit and saying how I knew from jump street what was going on with Martin’s money until something else comes along that he can bitch about. But when will that be? He knows we owe Martin a shitload of money. I stop walking. He knows. He’ll ask Martin if we paid him back. He’ll ask how much we’ve given him. Martin will tell him. Laird will ask more questions. He’ll figure it out. That we haven’t even come close to paying Martin twenty-one K.
Raymond is sitting at his desk reading his Bible. He looks up at me and says, In my trouble I cried to the Lord, and He answered me.
What’s that from?
Psalms. Chapter 120, verse 1.
Close the Bible, Raymond.
He leans forward, leaves the Bible open.
I know, he says.
I’m sorry, I say. I tried.
Thank you.
McGraw wants you to sign your check over to Martin. To make up for some of the money you lost. Fiscal’s going to write something up and then you sign it and then Fresh Start will cut your last check to Martin.
I’ll do that, Raymond says without looking up. What about you?
What about me?
What did McGraw do to you?
I’ve been suspended without pay for a few days.
I’m sorry.
It’s nothing compared to you.
Raymond looks down. I don’t know if he’s reading the Bible again or just staring at the floor praying. I’m talking to him like I rehearsed the words from a script. The secret to lying is that you have to believe what you’re saying so you don’t even know you’re lying. You become someone else. This isn’t me talking. I’m reciting someone else’s lines.
What about the rest of it?
The rest of what?
Martin’s money?
McGraw says we’ll cover that, I say.
Raymond looks up. I hold his stare.
You should go by the end of the day, Raymond. I’ll tell the staff. McGraw’s calling this a layoff. You’ll be eligible for unemployment. We’ll give you a reference. He’s giving you a break. He doesn’t want an honest mistake to dog you.
Raymond nods, closes the Bible. He puts it in a small leather case and zips it shut. He takes down his university degree from the wall. He looks around his desk as if he should have more things to take with him, but there’s nothing else other than sign-in sheets, referrals, and a box of bus tokens.
I’m going to keep up with Martin, Raymond says. He needs someone to help him. I’ll set up another bank account for him. I’ll manage it this time.
But Raymond, I begin.
He holds up a finger, silences me.
