OK, I said and left for my meeting.
When I returned an hour later, Bobby was working the front desk. He told me the guy with knife had wanted a bus token and got pissed off when the volunteer didn’t have one. So he threatened to slit the volunteer’s throat. Bobby chilled the dude and the volunteer quit. I wonder why, I said, and we both laughed. Bobby handled it, no one died, all good. Plenty more volunteers where that one came from. Another example of a positive outcome in a world of reduced expectations.
I don’t know how Bobby chilled people, but it’s a skill I appreciate more than I can say. He was someone I could depend on. So when I had a staff opening, I hired him. With his first paycheck he rented a room in the Higgins Hotel about a block away. I offered to put him in The Bridge but he said he didn’t want a program with staff looking at him cross-eyed, wondering if he was using. A place to lay his head free of any hassle. I’d see him come in to work with his hair wet and slicked to one side from a shower and I used to tease him about how he no longer washed in our bathroom. You’re costing me a hygiene stat, I told him. But I gave you a housing one, he said.
This is the holiday season, Tom, McGraw says. I shouldn’t have to tell you that Christmas is the time of year when we do our biggest fundraising. It doesn’t look good when you’re trying to raise money and one of your staff ODs and starts a fire. You think the commissioners won’t ask me about this?
He starts pacing. He picks at his fingers some more, bites his upper lip. I know what he’s thinking: The commissioners will want answers. They wouldn’t care about our contract. Why had we hired an imperfect homeless guy? They’d needle McGraw and they’d enjoy needling him. The press would likely pick up on it: A staff member of Fresh Start, a program of New Horizons, is among the dead. Drugs are suspected.
We need to take Bobby off the staff list, McGraw says.
The city gets the staff list every month with my services report. They have his name already.
Then tell us what to do, Tom. This isn’t just my problem.
I drag a hand over my head, my heart thumping. Jesus, whatever happens McGraw’s going to make it out to be my fault. I really wish I hadn’t cut Mary off last night. I don’t know what I want from her, but I sure feel alone right now. Like a little kid lost in a mall, that kind of alone. I try to think, break it down. How close, really, do the people at DSS review the information I send them? They get the same stack of forms from all the other agencies. If they read every piece of paper they’d never go home. So they probably don’t. Most likely. Therefore, we can fudge.
If anyone asks, we can say we paid Bobby when he filled in for somebody out sick. He worked as a sub. He wasn’t staff. Not like regular staff.
McGraw stops pacing. He turns his head toward me, a smile creeping across his face.
We always give volunteers a chance by hiring them as subs, he says.
They make mistakes.
We were giving Bobby a chance just like our other volunteers. Look at all the people we’ve helped.
We have that in the stats? McGraw asks. The numbers of people we helped get into drug programs and helped get jobs.
Of course, I say. I turn that in too, every month.
McGraw stares at me hard. After a moment, he throws his head back and laughs and we high five and I start laughing too. We’re like addicts ourselves, racing from one crisis to the next, thrilled when we avert disaster. I have no respect for the guy, but I’m hooked. Sorry, Bobby. I really am. I don’t want to think about him now. I will later when I’m home and drinking a beer. He might appreciate that.
I notice McGraw looking at me again. No smile. I’d never known that a second ago he was all kinds of relieved. Like he just puts the brakes on as if something unseen had snapped its fingers. He keeps staring at me for what feels like a long time.
There’s something else, he says finally. One of your staff, Harrison, I think?
Yeah. Frank Harrison. I fired him. What about him?
He came to my office yesterday. He says you drink on the job.
Bullshit.
That’s what he said.
And what did you say?
Do you drink at work, Tom?
I hold his stare.
You approved the termination.
This is not about his termination. It doesn’t look good when you got a staff member overdosing and starting fires and his program director is accused of drinking at work by a terminated employee.
McGraw drums his fingers on my desk.
He’s saying it because he was terminated.
I don’t know if the commissioners will see it that way.
If I told you Frank had said this about you, you’d laugh in my face.
He’s not saying it about me.
I try to stay calm. Fog pebbles the window with droplets. Car horns just below me on Leavenworth blare but sound far off. The pain in my temples is on overdrive. I hear the pounding in my head.
Check my evals, I say slowly to keep my voice from shaking. With anger, fear, both. You wrote them. Bumped my pay up after each one. I don’t remember you mentioning I had a drinking problem.
No one was saying anything about you then.
I’m out of words and feel exhausted. My heart beats in panic. I want to sit. I keep standing.
It doesn’t have to be a termination, Tom. I can call it a layoff. Blame it on a funding cut. I’ll give you references.
All because of a fired employee’s accusation?
I can offer you severance. A good package.
