“Well, will just see about that.”
“Yeah, I think we probably will,” Bigger said as his mother shuffled her files into left arm and grabbed Gregg by the collar. With her one free arm, she spun him around and cracked him in the face, Quickly, she slapped the gun out of his hand. She kicked him and upper cut him in the face two times; then backed up to give him room to fall. When he had fallen to the cement, she put her foot on the back of his neck. “I don’t have time for this, Gregg.”
“How did you tip her off, Bigger?” Seuss mumbled.
“He didn’t. I did.” Jan said from the doorway. “You wiped off your shoes this morning, but you weren’t wearing any socks, so I know something was up with you and I knew you were looking for Bigger.”
Petty slid in behind Jan. “I’m glad you called me, Mrs. Steiffy. I don’t know what would drive one of my management team to hold a gun to someone.”
Ethel let Seuss get to his knees. “The future of the hospital relied on me swaying Ethel to our side. You gave me that task because it was vitally important.”
Petty gave a half smile. “Not really. It was just a thought. I have everything under control.” He snapped his fingers. “I had everything locked up a long time ago.”
“You are an evil man,” Ethel scolded him while grabbing Seuss by the neck.
“Yeah, I thought you would notice that so I wasn’t really relying on this plan. Still, if Seuss could have gotten you to my side, things would have been easier.” Petty strolled over to where Seuss knelt and looked down on him. “And I certainly didn’t ask him to pull a gun and attack people. What do you have to say for yourself, Mr. Seuss?”
“I knew this was on your radar, so I tried to think outside the box. Weren't we circling the wagons here? I was just trying to keep things as they should be; the employees knowing their place.” Ethel let go of him and he fell to the floor. “Jan, honey, help me up.”
“Phh,” Jan said.
Petty reached down and lifted him up. “Ethel, for a moment I want you to look past my being evil and all that and consider my next suggestion. I think it will be best for everyone. I don’t think Gregg would benefit from calling the cops. If you are agreeable, I would like to just have him check himself in to our psychiatric ward for a couple of months.”
“Well, that would save you from some bad publicity wouldn’t it?” Ethel glared at him.
“Let’s do that,” Bigger said. Everyone looked at him. “It was my attempted homicide; I think I should get to decide what should be done.” He looked at his mom and at Jan for agreement. “Right?”
“But why Bigger?” Jan said. She had picked up the gun and was contemplating pistol whipping Seuss.
Bigger took the gun. “Because then Mr. Seuss has a medical condition and not a criminal record, so Mr. Petty can’t fire him. Which means Petty is stuck with Seuss and Seuss, if they let him out, is stuck with me until I get out of this place. I don’t want to have to break in a new boss.”
“Well done my friend,” Petty said. “I don’t know how you can remain so level-headed after this. I for one am just blown away. I don’t know how I’ll function the rest of the day.”
Chapter 48
“I thought it would be appropriate to have a forum on the various identified concerns of this hospital of late,” William Petty began. He had a hand on the mike, yet was not adjusting it. In front of him was a solid dark oak podium. An American flag flanked his left and a Sisters of the Sorrowful Situation flag his right. To make the stage look large and regal, a thick red curtain covered the brick wall behind the stage. He stood on a platform and below him on either side were Dan, Susan, and the other union representatives.
Bigger and Joe strolled over to Tim, the security guard who stood outside the main doors to the auditorium. “Hey guys,” Tim called out. “Little late aren’t ya?”
Joe sucked his cheek. “Wanted to get a smoke break in between our boss trying to kill Bigger and this meeting. What the hell are you still doing here four hours after your shift?”
“I guess Petty is expecting trouble because he has all the security guards on duty.”
Bigger looked around. “So if a mob breaks loose, you are going to break it up when they come out the doors?”
“Oh, no. No-no-no. I am going to go hide in the doctors’ lounge. I think its going to be bad.” Tim grabbed the door for them and Bigger and Joe made their way into the crowded auditorium. Staff from every department sat in the cushioned theater seats and on the aisle steps. The maintenance guys stood against the back wall in their brown shirts and brown pants (available at any Fleet N Farm or Farm N Fleet). In front of them on the steps were the food service workers in their white blouses, white polyester pants and old lady shoes. Dykes and the rest of his department sat in the last row. The nurses and the CNA’s in their mauve or aqua-marine scrubs took up most of the seats. The surgical teams sat by the emergency exit doors and they all had on yellow scrubs and nylon booties over their shoes to keep them sterile in surgery. The physical therapists were hanging out by an entrance holding water bottles and looking like pogo sticks wrapped up in Christmas wrapping paper (very thin people in gaudy outfits). One of the male therapists had been treated for his eating disorder and actually looked almost as fit as the maintenance men, but he had a fresh haircut and did not have a tin of tobacco in his back pocket. Up in front was the staff from the psychiatric ward with some of their more heavily medicated patients including Mr. Seuss.
“I have had twelve forums in my short time here. I believe communication is the key to a successful hospital, but I must say that this is the biggest turnout.”
His employees cheered Petty’s approximation of self-deprecating humor. His forums had been one of the major insignificant changes he had made. He had encouraged those that could and wanted to get away from their duties to discuss the important issues of the hospital in “Forums.” Any one of the half dozen employees that attended could make statements for him to ignore and ask questions that he quickly sidestepped.
He stood in front of them now beaming with pride, yet humble. He rotated, giving the crowd a smile and throwing a cute wave to the few workers he could place as working for him. Dr. Swagger stood next to Crapper; Dykes sat next to Mary Eddy; the maintenance staff stood behind their team leader laughing at him; Mr. Annunzio stood next to Bigger; Mrs. Steiffy sat in front of Petty with the gun sitting on the files on her lap; Joe had stepped out for another smoke; and Dr. Daneeka stood with his hand on the shoulder of Irene. “I know,” Petty said, “that all of you will vote tonight on whether or not to have a union. I do not know the outcome. But friends, if the union does not pass, you do not need to be disappointed and I’ll tell you why.” Petty went on about the direction he was taking Saint Jude’s and the leadership the Board of Trustees had in Lansing. Telling them how humble he was, he crowed of his past successes at other hospitals. Then he outlined his version of how he and Betty, Susan, and Dan had worked to empower each team member of St. Jude’s. He described how the union, by working together with him, was actually giving them more collective bargaining than a union. “Because,” he said, “It’s like I am your representative and the board’s at the same time.”
“What a dick-head,” Irene confided in Daneeka as she swatted his hand off her shoulder. She was now more than ready for retirement, but Daneeka wouldn’t let her. Everyone else, though, was in great spirits and felt a kindred warmth for their fellow employees and for Petty. The energy of the crowd seemed to carry everyone along.
“But you are here to hear my announcement,” Petty said. “And it is good news indeed. I have been working very diligently to find a way to reward my staff for all your hard work.” They gave him applause, more energy. “Together, I with the union delegation have come to an agreement.” He opened his hands to the people on either side of him. “Yes. So, I am raising on-call pay by 3 percent. Tech’s will no longer be asked to work six twelve hour shifts in a week. I am increasing staff in the float
pools so that people will no longer be forced to work overtime more than one time per shift. I am authorizing an employee recognition system where people can be nominated by their peers for doing something and receive many prizes too numerous to mention.
“I am most proud, however, to announce that along with the other rewards, there will be a hospital-wide raise of five percent.” The staff cheered, shook hands, high-fived each other and directed positive energy toward their CEO.
Petty let them congratulate themselves and thank him for doing this. They not only clapped, but raised their clapping hands over their heads and directed them at Petty. Petty used hand gestures to tell the crowd to give the credit to the union members up on the stage beside him. Then as the crowd’s turning to the others in their cliques turned from “Can you believe what we are getting?” to just idle chit-chat, Petty folded them back to him. “Okay. Okay. Quiet please. Okay. I have further news. There will be a referendum with your paychecks tomorrow—I am going to empower you-- the team members of Saint Jude’s— by allowing you to decide which half of the departments will get their raise now and which departments will get it in two fiscal years. Congratulations people.” He backed away from the podium and flicked on an overhead projector. On the screen that had slowly descended from the ceiling was an example of the ballot for the referendum. There were two boxes that could be checked. The sentence by the first box read: The medical staff with pay grades D or higher should receive the immediate five percent with all the lower grades taking the second installment. The sentence that corresponded to the second box said: The non-medical staff with pay grades A to D should receive raises with the core staff taking the second installment. Petty was gone before the screen stopped moving.
There was the silence of lips moving as people read. Then people began yelling and the roar got louder as people finished reading, peaking as soon as the x-ray technicians finished. A guy from the receiving dock grabbed the mike from the podium and screeched out, “Give us our raises. You professionals make enough freakin’ money.”
A nurse who did not need amplification yelled back, “We earn our money. We actually have skills to be compensated for.”
Craig from maintenance pushed his way to the stage and the mike. “I got skills, too. The money should go to us.”
A large nurse wearing surgical scrubs and a lab coat (for the sole purpose of covering her expansive ass) raised her arms and addressed the crowd. “This just isn’t about the money for us; these are our careers.”
“Careers Smareers,” chanted the league of housekeepers, kitchen workers, lab aides, CNAs and maintenance men.
Everyone was up. Some stood on the seats. The large gangs of people with the same jobs now circled together and ebbed toward their enemies. Janice made her way through the crowd and jumped up onto a decorative post. She yelled, “We are professionals. We have specialized, studied skills and deserve to get paid the norm in the industry. Can’t you dirty little people see that? Not just anyone can do our jobs.”
“Yeah well, I am going to kick your candied ass,” Susan called out as she lurched off the stage and pulled her down.
After that, things got out of control. The housekeeping staff pulled the stage curtains down trying to hang Dr. Daneeka. Susan got tired of giving Janice a true migraine and dropped her. She grabbed a social worker as he stumbled by and bitch-slapped him. Then she threw him to the maintenance men who depanted him. Susan tore threw the crowd in a tirade, kicking the legs out from any professional person who had looked down on her. Where appropriate, she head butting them. She pushed the podium over on Dr. Daneeka as he tried to get up from the pile of curtain on the floor. She hadn’t kicked this much ass since her high school graduation party.
Margaret from the kitchen decided that maybe could stop faking strokes during work and took her can of soda from her hand and dumped it on the floor. With speed and agility, she lay down on the floor and began to scream. Joe lit a cigarette and jumped off the top of a seat into a pile of nurses. They promptly beat the hell out of him. Dan took the microphone and began swinging it by the cord to get people under control. But he couldn’t control the cord as it slithered further and further out and he hit several lights. He hit the ceiling several more times trying to get the swinging mike under control until he hit himself in the back of the head with it and knocked himself off the stage. People climbed over each other as the ceiling tiles and the lights he had hit showered down. Pictures were ripped from the walls and a statue of Saint Jude was used as a battering ram. People tripped over Margaret as she lay on the floor, now in real pain.
In the debris filled air and dim light, the unskilled workers stood victorious. “What have you won?” Mary Eddy asked them as she stood in the doorway. She had not hit anyone and no one had felt enough animosity toward her to attack her. “What do you gain?”
Susan looked around. Joe had been right. Things were worse for trying. And the joy of kicking people’s asses that had needed kicking was quickly fading with her adrenaline levels. What was even worse was that the ER staff was badly banged up, so that when the police arrived, the injured had to be ambulanced from Saint Jude’s to another hospital. That was a fifty-dollar co-pay under their HMO.
Everyone limped or was carted away except for Bigger. He stood in the middle of the auditorium. “How come nobody put a beat on me?” he wailed.
Chapter 49
Yolanda opened her eyes to find a man in all white with a pale face beside her bed. She made out 2:14 am on her clock. “Listen, someone picked up my food tray a long time ago.”
“That guy, he is an imposter,” the man said with a heavy Italian accent. He stood above her looking down warmly. Yolanda then noticed that this man was old, with a beard, and transparent.
“You Yolanda Carver?” he asked peering at her.
“Yeah. Who the hell are you?” She wanted to jump out of bed, but was weak. Her chest felt so heavy. “I don’t want my breakfast tray yet.”
“You will have to forgive me, Bella. I am new at dis. It’s a time.”
“Time for what? And I asked you who you were.”
The old man put his white hand to her head. “Ahh-forgive me, as I said, I am new at this. I was Gabriele Annunzio. You can call me Gabby. Yolanda, you know what time it is.”
Yolanda picked her head up and looked around the room. “What about a bright light and a tunnel? What about those?”
“I don’t know my sister. Didn’t I just tell you two times dat I was new at dis? Jeesh. All I know is I didn’t get dat either.”
“I’m not ready.”
Gabby smiled knowingly.
“But do you know?” she asked. “Was I a good person?”
“He told me to tell you, you did okay.” Gabby flashed her the okay sign. “He knew, of course, you’d ask. Taka my hand, Yolanda.”
“Wait, Gabby. Tell me.” She grabbed his arm. “Am I going to like it where I’m going? I don’t want to go to Hell, but I dread Heaven a little, too. I don’t think I could live in pure happiness for eternity. I get bored. Plus, my mother is in Heaven now and we didn’t get along.”
“Well, I tell you. My wife, she took her hand off the steering wheel of our car so that she could slap me for my changing the radio station and we hit a Lincoln Town car. Dat’s what killed me. But where we are going, I was able to forgive her for dat. Take-a my hand, sister.” With a song from Summer Magic in her head, long forgotten until last night, she got up out of bed and took his hand.
Chapter 50
Mr. Seuss shuffled along the corridor in his slippers, his only pair of jeans, and his suit jacket. He wore his slippers because they had taken the shoelaces out of his shoes and his jeans because they stayed up without a belt. He still hadn’t shaved because he did not to want to ask for a razor. It was early morning, but he had already gotten his meds and a milk out of the snack refrigerator.
His escort, the nurse with SATAN tattooed on her neck escorted him down the hall, talking about her plans
to build and live in a tree house. Finally, she opened the door for him and Mr. Seuss stepped into the boardroom with the rest of the directors.
“Here he is boss dude,” the nurse said to Mr. Petty.
“Come in, Gregg. Don’t be nervous about joining us. We have all had a harrowing night. The rest of you, don’t worry. Just because Mr. Seuss is insane doesn’t mean he doesn’t have something to contribute to our meeting.”
Mr. Seuss took his usual spot as everyone else stared at him. “What are we meeting about?” he asked.
“Ooh, I-I don’t k-know,” Mr. Crapper spat out. “P-probably the r-r-r-riot yesterday.”
“Oh, I though I hallucinated that.”
“No, Gregg. It was very real. The employees that are able are coming in to work, but they are morose and silent. It will be a long time before people get back on to speaking terms with each other. So really, everything’s going along swimmingly. The vote on the union did in fact fail, so we don’t have to worry about a union for a year.”
“What about punishment for the riot?” Dr. Daneeka said with two black eyes and his arm in a sling.
“I am going to have the auditorium remodeled and then sealed off. If they want to act like that, then I do not need to have any more forums.”
“But what about punishment?” Daneeka insisted. “Pun-ish-ment.”
“And if they don’t want to talk to me, then they don’t have to talk to anyone. As we speak, I have workmen sealing off the Butt Hutt. No more lighting up and conspiring against me under my roof.”
“What if they mill around the entrances to smoke?” Seuss ventured as all eyes turned to him.
“Prohibit it. It’s bad for our image. But if they do it, let them. It’s a free country.”
“Are you all right, Mr. Petty?” Liberace asked.
“I have a bottle full of smiles, my friend.”
The Tao of Apathy Page 16