The Jig of the Union Loller

by Michael Burnham

  “Actually,” Elton said, “Scotty told me to tell you to go ahead without him. He said he’s eating lunch off property.”

  Frank met Claude at the office and told him Scotty wouldn’t be joining them. He stopped to tug his socks and fiddle with his shoes to give the rest of the department time to get ahead of them in the hallway, then bitched about the Giants, who a day earlier failed to cover the spread for the third week in a row.

  “Forget that,” Claude said in a low voice as they walked down the hall. “What’s going on? I feel like there’s some joke that nobody’s letting you and me in on.”

  “Nobody’s keeping nothing from us,” Frank said. “Just go about your business and forget about everyone else.”

  But as Claude entered the cafeteria, people laughed and pointed. “Hey Bugsy,” someone called, “can I borrow an aspirin? I’ve got a headache that’s just about flooring me.”

  Muted laughter came from all corners of the room. Claude and Frank purchased their lunches and sat down. Claude began to sweat. As Frank prattled aimlessly about football, Claude’s temples began to pound, a dull discomfort near his eyes turning within moments to a throbbing, full-blown pain along the entire right side of his skull.

  My god, a headache!

  But it was too soon. Claude hadn’t planned a headache for another week, at least, figuring nobody would believe another one so close to the first. He noticed people watching him. He closed his eyes and clutched his temples, but when he heard a roar of laughter he jerked his head in the direction of the outburst and jumped up, like a gunslinger daring someone to draw, only to see his coworkers bite their lips and turn away.

  “Frank,” he shouted in a whisper. “Frank! What’s going on? What the hell is going on?”

  Frank pulled Claude back to his seat. “Don’t look at nobody.”

  Claude stared Frank straight beneath the eyebrows and waited. Despite the urgency pulsating from Claude’s face, Frank took another bite of his pastrami sandwich and chewed in large, round chomps. Claude continued to stare. Frank swallowed. He swigged a glass of water and set the sandwich down.

  “I ain’t seen nothing,” Frank said, “no videotape, I mean. But I saw the whole scene when you hit the floor last week, from the spiders to the forklift to the floor. Everything.”

  “So?” Claude said.

  Frank laughed. “Think back to what you did. Think what it’d look like if you were watching you. Then think about those cameras Schulke installed when we was losing a roll of wire a week. I’m no genius, Bugsy, but I figure Shepard got his mitts on the security tape of you flipping Schulke off before you hit the cement.”

  “I never did no such thing!” Claude said.

  Frank put his hand on Claude’s forearm. “Don’t bluff,” he said. “Hey, I was rooting for you. I thought that ambulance ride was your ticket out of here, damn near clapped from the cockpit as they were hauling you out the door. You know I’m always on your side, Bugsy, but I gotta confess, this time I got no advice for you. I honest-to-shit don’t know what to say, so eat your sandwich, try not to look at anyone else, and talk to me about football.”

  Frank tore a big chunk of mustardy meat from the sandwich and chewed slowly. “Them frigging Giants are killing me with all the bunny field goals they missed lately. At some point those gotta start going through the uprights again—you can’t keep missing field goals at that level for that long, especially ones so easy. You’re a pro, you do what you’re supposed to do. You get it done.”

  Chapter 35

  Claude didn’t finish his lunch, just picked up his half-eaten food, dumped it in the trash, and bolted the cafeteria without a word, leaving Frank munching alone. Once outside, Claude lit a cigarette and paced. He sucked the lighted tobacco with the same rhythm he breathed, flaring the end with each heavy draw, disgorging the smoke along the shaft of the cigarette still held in contact with his lower lip, and flaring the end again.

  Jacketless in the unusually warm afternoon, he stood with his back to the stores building and watched Fernando from maintenance give the outside fence its pre-winter paint job. Fernando splashed paint on three tall spikes, walked ten steps without touching any of the spikes supporting the Schwartz Motors razor wire, and splashed paint on three more spikes. Claude lit another cigarette even as the still-going butt of the first one dangled from his mouth.

  “Claude! There you are.”

  Claude wheeled around, holding the unlit cigarette and just-to-be-struck match in front of the stub of the cigarette between his lips. It was Schulke.

  “What are you, trying to smoke a whole pack at once? Put that one away. Clarke wants to see us both in his office. Now.”

  Claude waited for Schulke to move toward the building, but Schulke waited for him with more force, so it was Claude who took the first steps for the back door. Schulke followed. As they walked beneath the nest, Claude flung the spent cigarette from his mouth to the floor. Schulke veered from his path to step on it, but said nothing. Claude still held the unlit cigarette between the middle and index fingers of his left hand.

  At the doorway to Clarke’s office, Claude paused when he saw Shepard, Clarke and Mickleson sitting up straight, awaiting his arrival. Schulke nudged him in the small of the back, guiding him into the office until he had enough room to close the door.

  “Where’s Scotty?” Claude said. “He’s my shop steward, and he has the right to be here.”

  “Scotty refused to come,” Shepard said. “Told me he was too disgusted to defend you like he should, so he was staying away. I tried to change his mind, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  Schulke stepped around Claude to sit down. Although Clarke motioned for Claude to take the chair in the middle, Claude continued to stand.

  “This is never easy, Claude,” Clarke said. “But it has to be done. Sit down.”

  Claude eased himself into the seat, settling neither on the edge nor against the backrest. He leaned forward to look at Clarke. When he realized he still held the unlit cigarette, he slipped it into his shirt pocket.

  Clarke shuffled some papers around his desk. “As I’m sure you already know, Claude,” he said, “your little attempt at a headache last week has made you something of a laughingstock among your peers. It seems everyone on the property is convinced you faked the whole thing, and although at first I discounted what I was hearing, when I actually saw the tape myself...well, the tape speaks for itself, doesn’t it?”

  “No!” Claude said as he lept to his feet. “That headache was not a lie!”

  Schulke and Clarke rose to their feet too, hands braced against attack. Mickleson recoiled in her chair. Shepard sat with his legs crossed, chin resting in his palm, a slight smile forming on his face.

  “Sit down,” Clarke said in a manufactured-calm voice. “It’s all right.”

  He waved slowly with both hands as if to levitate Claude back to his seat. “This is the hardest part of my job,” Clarke said. “No matter how many times I do this it never gets any easier, but if you just sit down, we’re all going to get through it ok. Trust me.”

  Claude returned to his chair.

  “Claude, I won’t mince words,” Clarke continued. “What I’ve seen is, in my view, indisputable evidence, so indisputable that everyone involved—the union included—agrees about the action that needs to be taken. Claude Amognes, effective today...”

  “No!” Claude screamed, leaping again to his feet. “Wait goddammit, wait. You don’t know what really happened. You don’t know what’s going on. I have a disability. I have a disability and I come to work with it every day and fight it, and most days I win, but some days I don’t and I have to cope with the consequences as best I can. I’m afraid of bugs! There, I said it, for you all to hear. Claude Amognes is afraid of bugs, deathly, horrifically terrified of bugs, so much so that when he sees one he might not sleep for days because of the nightmares, so much so that he can be taken advantage of by people like Warren Taylor, who would come over and squ
ash bugs for me so I could keep my job, so I could keep providing for my wife and family, so my wife and daughter could have food and clothes and a roof over their head, and all the time I never knew he was up to his ears in drugs, never knew he wasn’t helping me as a friend, or as a union brother, but as someone biding his time until he could use me for his own purposes. One day he pulls me aside, and what was I supposed to do? I realize now Warren needed as much help as I do, but at the time it all happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to think and I did the wrong thing. When it all blew up, what were my choices? I was ashamed of my disability, and didn’t want anyone to know about it. I’m sorry, I really am. I didn’t want anyone to know. But that headache, that headache was real, Mr. Clarke. I had spiders on me just before it hit, and when Darezzo and Scotty went to brush them off, Schulke charged in and made them stop. Ask them both. I’m not saying I shoulda blamed Schulke for my headache, but that headache was not a lie. It was real. I’m telling you on the soul of my father, that headache was real.”

  Claude flopped to the chair and let the backs of his hands drop to his thighs. The other four exchanged glances. As the silence lengthened, Claude rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers, shielding his eyes from Clarke and Mickleson. At last Shepard leaned until he was out of Claude’s field of vision, pointed toward Claude, and then pointed toward the door. When Clarke shook his head no, Shepard repeated the motion with such force that Clarke stood up.

  “All right,” Clarke said. “Okay, Claude, this statement of yours warrants a reconsideration of what we’re going to do here. I’m granting you the rest of the day off—Tom, put Claude in for personal time for the rest of the afternoon. Go home, Claude, and then come back tomorrow morning so we can talk about where we are.”

  “I can’t go home thinking I’m going to be terminated,” Claude said. “If you’re going to discuss termination, I want to stay.”

  Clarke’s hands balled into fists as he stared into Claude’s eyes. “Thirty seconds ago, you were about to be terminated. At this very moment, you are still employed. You have raised an issue that merits discussion, and you will not be part of that discussion. You will return here at nine o’clock tomorrow morning for our final answer, but I will make no guarantees about what that answer will be. If you do not report here tomorrow—if you call in sick or are kidnapped by the Diablos or are in an car accident that leaves you paralyzed and in a coma—I will terminate you. Is that understood? I don’t care what the reason is, if you don’t show up here tomorrow you’re fired. Good day.”

  Claude didn’t budge from his chair. Schulke walked to the office door and grasped the knob. Claude opened his mouth to speak, but Clarke cut him off.

  “I said good day.”

  Claude got up and left. Schulke closed the door behind him and returned to his seat. He rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger and stared at the floor. Clarke’s face remained flush. Mickleson sat with her arms folded, her face in a silent growl. A smile formed on Shepard’s face. The harder he tried to contain it the wider it grew, until he started choking back giggles, but at last he could hold it no longer and burst out laughing. At first, the others looked on in anger, then in bewilderment, and then in near hysteria as Shepard’s wave of laughter engulfed them too. They laughed for a good thirty seconds, and when the moment finally subsided, Clarke rubbed his eyes and pulled the knot of his necktie away from his throat.

  “Aw, Christ,” Clarke said. “What the hell just happened?”

  Mickleson tossed her pen on Clarke’s desk. “You were about to terminate him, he invoked the Americans with Disabilities Act, and now we’ve got a stinking mess on our hands. Isn’t that about right?”

  “Something like that,” Clarke said. “Jim, what’s your take on this?”

  “I don’t buy it for a second, Morris. That’s the biggest cockamamie story I ever heard, total bullshit. But you know what? I’ll give him credit. That’s a goddamned nice piece of stumbling he did there. A goddamned nice piece of stumbling.”

  “Brianna?” Clarke said.

  Mickleson adjusted herself in her chair, kicking off her shoes and pulling her right ankle up beneath her left thigh. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “My gut feeling is he’s got a good case if he wants to pursue it, and we all know if we terminate him he will. I think we should see what kind of accommodation we can make, tread lightly, and hope he accepts it.”

  Schulke folded his arms and his chair creaked as he leaned back to look at the ceiling. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” he said. “He doesn’t have any damn disability. He’s maxed out on performance warnings. He’s maxed out on attendance warnings and conduct warnings, and he has a DML for helping a cocaine addict cheat on a drug test. Now he fakes a freaking headache, disrupts our operation during a major storm, and we’re going to let him off the hook? Are you shitting me? He should be fucking terminated.”

  “Language, Tom, language,” Clarke said.

  “My apologies,” Schulke said, with a nod toward Mickleson. “But dammit, Mr. Clarke, if he had a disability, doesn’t he have to tell us? Can he wait until five seconds before he’s terminated, spout out a bogus disability claim, and walk free as though nothing had happened? He never said a word about a disability, not once, and if he didn’t, that means he’s responsible for what happens, not us. He’s a terrible worker, a complete joker who’s a cancer on this entire company, and he should be fired, right here, right now. Anything less is unacceptable.”

  Mickleson started to speak but Clarke waved her off. “I’ll determine what’s acceptable and what isn’t, Tom. I may have problems terminating a union employee who’s claimed a federally-protected disability, but I’ll have no problems terminating an insubordinate supervisor if I choose to do so. Are we clear on that point?”

  Schulke held his frown, but nodded.

  “There’s a lot here you don’t understand,” Clarke continued. “We don’t want an arbitration case that drags on forever followed by a lawsuit that goes on even longer. It’s a waste of the company’s resources, and it’s the type of public brouhaha in which nobody wins. Our standard is 80-20, Tom. If we feel we have an 80 percent chance of winning, we move forward. If not, we settle. It’s the smart way to proceed.”

  Clarke snatched a nineteen-cent pen from his desktop and stuck the end in his mouth. After chewing for a few seconds, he tossed it and its misshapen blue cap into the wastebasket.

  “Brianna, you started to say something a minute ago?” Clarke said.

  “There’s no way we can terminate him,” Mickleson said. “Just by claiming a disability, he forces us to do an investigation, and when we do an investigation, don’t forget, the agreement that put him in stores all those years ago mentions something about bugs. I’ll have to dig it up, but I’m certain it refers to the time he was attacked by fleas when he was a meter reader, and correct me if I’m wrong, Morris, but I even think you were new when it happened and your signature is actually on the agreement.”

  “I was, and it is,” Clarke said.

  Mickleson turned to Schulke and Shepard. “The law protects him if he actually has a disability, but it also protects him even if he’s perceived to have a disability. I know it sounds strange, but it’s true: if it’s commonly believed that Claude’s afraid of bugs, then he’s protected by the law whether he’s actually afraid of them or not. As I see it, that’s the real hurdle, that our own paperwork shows we believe he has an insect phobia. Plus, I’m sure he’ll have no difficulty getting his union brothers to testify in agreement, right Jim?”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Shepard said.

  “In any event,” Mickleson continued, “I recommend we send him to our company doctors, have them spell out what he can do and what he can’t do while he’s on the job, and ask him to sign something. We’ve got to get something in writing, something in which he acknowledges the accommodations we’re making and promises he won’t sue us as long as we make keep our end of the bargain and abide by t
he accommodations.”

  “One for termination, one for bringing him back,” Clarke said. “Jim, your thoughts?”

  For the first time all afternoon, Shepard’s jaw clenched. His eyes widened. He slammed an open palm on the coffee table next to his chair.

  “I can’t believe you,” he said. “I can’t believe the horseshit I have to put up with as president of Local 7917. It’s so damn ridiculous I should have it on film to show at our national convention.”

  Clarke flinched. He looked to Mickleson, then to Schulke, and saw they were as shocked as he.

  Shepard pulled his elbows to his sides and held out his palms. “Amognes says he has a disability, right? He says he’s afraid of bugs, right? The stockroom is loaded with insects, right?”

  Although Shepard expected the string of questions to place the answer in the three heads of the people staring at him, their expressions told him it hadn’t happened. As the silence lingered, Shepard thrust his arms straight out to the sides.

  “So duh,” he said, “put him out on disability. Give him a permanent medical restriction that prevents him from working. Pay him his sick time and his vacation time, and put him on 60 percent of his pay until he’s 65. It’s not a termination, so I’m happy because then I don’t have to deal with national over the stupid video. It gets him out of Tom’s department for good, so he’s happy. It acknowledges his claim of a disability, so it makes you happy. And it’s a goddamned sure bet it makes Bugsy happy —he’ll be doing cartwheels for a week when we offer him this.”

  Clarke looked to Mickleson, who smiled. Clarke smiled. Mickleson and Clarke turned to Schulke, who didn’t smile but whose expression showed he was not only on board, but relieved to be there too. Clarke started to chuckle.

  “Honestly, Morris,” Shepard said, “sometimes I wonder what you’d do without me. You should put half of what you earn each year straight into my checking account.”

  “I guess it’ll work,” Clarke said. “Brianna, what do you think?”