Another ninety-two-degree day in the city.
Without even opening my eyes, I reach back and slap off the clock radio. Then I just lie there for a few seconds, the heat like a dog’s breath coming down on my face. Every morning you make a choice in life. You can get up and face the world, like most people do. Or, if you’re really brave, you can roll over and go back to sleep. I turn on my side. Going out into the world takes no guts realty. Because you know no matter what you do or how hard you try, the difference to everybody else is marginal. But to lie in bed, doing nothing. That takes a real man. Like flying without a net. Complete freedom from the dreary realm of responsibility. Or maybe you could end up like my cousin Jerry who sits around the house all day, listening to “I’m Henry VIII, I Am” over and over on the record player.
A long coughing fit forces my eyes open. I look around the apartment and consider whether I could spend a whole day here.
It’s hard to believe the rent is going up to $650 a month. What I have is one room, about twenty feet long and twenty feet wide, with a small kitchen off to the side and a bathroom down the hall. Pale blue walls, no air conditioner, and a single light bulb in the middle of the ceiling. My one window looks out on Avenue B and Tompkins Square Park; in the evening I can hear the pit bulls fighting and the skinheads setting off firecrackers. My stereo and speakers are set up near the head of the mattress on the floor so I can blast myself into unconsciousness on bad nights.
Lately I’ve begun to notice that the floor is a little lopsided, causing everything that falls to roll eastward. Including Barbara Russo’s tiny turquoise-colored earring. The earring is still lying under a chair in the corner, where it’s been since Barbara slept with me at some point during the Reagan administration. When I discovered it months later, I made a conscious decision to leave it there. Not out of sloppiness or bravado; it’s merely a reminder that romance is still possible.
This morning, though, it just depresses the hell out of me, so I figure I’m better off playing it safe and facing the malevolent world outside. Sticking around here is too risky. I roll out of bed, light a cigarette, and take the Sex Pistols record off the turntable. With a rumbling stomach and a hung-over head full of cotton, I put the cap on the half-empty Jack Daniel’s bottle and get ready to spend another day straightening out my clients’ lives.
Early in the afternoon I look up to see Jack Pirone, my old training instructor and current union rep, glowering down at me. Big Jack’s eyes are darting back and forth, like they’ve become frightened by the prospect of drowning in his grotesquely fleshy face. His jaw is working furiously, though he doesn’t appear to have anything in his mouth.
“Whaddya doing?” Jack says.
“Nothing. Just filling out reports.”
“Whaddya doing?!!” Jack says a little louder.
I go back to writing. “I just told you.”
“WHADDYA DOING?!!!!!!”
I slap my folder down on the desk and give him my undivided attention. “Is something the matter, Jack?”
“What’s all this bullshit about you going to field service?”
I start to ask how he knows already, but Jack has spies all over the office and good instincts besides. He eventually figures everything out. He stops chewing and glares at me.
“The membership is not going to be happy, Steven.”
“The membership is going to end up feeling whatever you tell them to feel,” I say, dropping my pen. “So why don’t you just tell me why you’re not happy?”
“Precedent,” Jack intones with the solemnity of a seminary student. He goes over to my blackboard and writes the word out.
“You’re young,” he says, “you been here two years, you’re not married, you don’t know. Your average probation officer makes—what?—twenty-three thousand a year? They’re fuckin’ fat slobs like me. They wanna sit in front of the tube and eat pasta fazule. They don’t wanna run around the streets, looking for some sick fuck who is too busy corn-holing eighty-nine-year-old females to keep an appointment. If your average P.O. wants excitement, he watches Knots Landing with the wife, and maybe gets a handjob if she’s in the mood.”
“So I’m not stopping him.”
Jack shakes his head and huffs loudly. “No good, Steven. No good. You’re setting a bad precedent for the rest of us. Office people shouldn’t have to risk being in the field. Just because the noble savage asks you to do something, you don’t have to jump through hoops …”
“The who?”
“The noble savage—Ms. Lang.”
“Ah, knock it off, Jack,” I say, frowning. He knows I hate shit like that. “It’s not her idea anyway.”
“Who then?” Jack asks.
“I think it was this guy Deputy Dawson …”
“He’s a fuckin’ budget manager! What the fuck does he know? I gotta ask around about this.” Jack stops and chews his nails pensively.
“That’s all I know.”
“So what’re you saying, you sold us out?” Jack grabs one of the empty wooden chairs, spins it around, and sits on it backward. Its legs give a sinister creak. “You can’t do this. They’re not giving us full insurance benefits for the field.”
“I get something,” I say a little uncertainly. “Don’t I?”
“You should get the same benefits as if you were a cop,” Jack says, starting to slip into one of his standard union speeches. “The field job is just as dangerous. More, in fact. Because all you’re dealing with is convicted felons. You should get full coverage—injury, auto collision, death. The whole shebang. God forbid one of these bastards should put a bullet in your neck, you should be taken care of. Not just half the cost.”
“I’m sure the union will get it straightened out,” I say, glancing over at my desk, where paperwork is beckoning to me. “You seem to be on top of everything else.”
Jack slowly turns his head to the right and snaps it back. It looks like an isometric exercise for people too fat to consider sit-ups. “How much are they paying you for this move?” he asks.
“None of your business.”
“How much are they paying you?!!”
“Never mind.”
“HOWMUCHARETHEYPAYINGYOU?!!!!!” Jack bellows.
“Not that much. Enough to cover my union dues if they go up.” Jack probably knows already. He’s just asking to intimidate me.
“Then why are you doing this foolish thing, my boy?” His loud honk of a voice drops to an avuncular timbre. “You know, this field unit is just another fuckin’ publicity ploy, so that people won’t catch on how fucked-up this agency really is. Probation is a joke. Why are you helping them perpetuate this bullshit?”
“I don’t know,” I say, cracking my knuckles. “I’m a little bored here. I want a chance to go out and do something. I mean, I talk to a lot of people here, but I don’t know if it does any good. Maybe it’d be good to see some action. You were the one who told me that the only time the public is even aware of probation officers is when a client goes out and kills somebody. And then it looks like we blew it.”
“Let me tell you something,” Jack says. He casts his eyes around the cubicle. “But first gimme a cigarette.”
I take a brand-new pack of Marlboros out of my pocket, unwrap it, and offer it to Jack. Before he takes one, he fishes the empty pack I’d thrown away out of the garbage can.
“You see this?” he says, holding up the pack. “You should keep this with you. That way, the next time some bum asks you for a smoke, you can show him the empty pack and say you haven’t got any more and keep the fresh pack for yourself.”
“What’s your point, Jack?”
Jack lights the cigarette, inhales deeply, and blows out a roomful of smoke. “Look, you’re a nice kid,” he begins. “Everybody likes you and you’ve got a very good reputation here already. You’re obviously very bright and you mean well. I don’t deny you any of that.”
“But?”
“But if you go out on the street,” Jack says s
lowly, “they are gonna fuckin’ eat you alive.”
I don’t say anything.
“And another thing while I’m at it,” Jack says, leaning forward against the top of the chair. “I heard you talking to your clients the other day. ‘I’m gonna violate you personally … I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna do that.’ Steven! Don’t make it so personal. You shouldn’t tell clients you’re the one who’s gonna send them back to jail and all that shit. Just tell ’em you’re only doing your job. Some of these guys are kind of sensitive, you know, and you might just get your fuckin’ head blown off.” The chair legs groan loudly again under Jack’s weight.
I start filling out my reports. “We’ll see,” I say.
“You oughta be a lawyer. That’s what you should do.” Jack grunts as he begins to get up. There’s a sudden squeak and a loud crash on the floor.
“Ah, fuck you, Jack,” I say. “Now I gotta get a new chair.”
The steady stream of clients keeps up until 3:30, when Maria Sanchez walks in. I call the reception desk and tell Roger, the guard, not to send anyone else back until I’m done with her.
Maria is a seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican girl living with her mother, two sisters, three brothers, uncle, aunt, and five cousins in a tenement on East 106th Street. She’s a smart girl and the only person in her family who speaks good English. She gets along with people in the neighborhood and did well in school before she got in trouble. She’s a little heavy, but she has a beautiful face with a cloud-parting smile.
She’s wearing a short denim skirt without stockings, gold hoop earrings, and a little less makeup than usual. I try to avoid looking into her wide brown eyes for too long. Otherwise, I know I’ll be lost.
“So did you go to that word-processing job the counselor sent you to?” I ask as she sits down and crosses her legs. I can’t help noticing the way her skirt rides up a little.
“Yes,” Maria says with a mild accent and a smile. “It seems like a nice place. Thank you for helping me set that up.”
“How much are they paying you?”
“Almost six dollars an hour.”
“And how fast can you type?”
“Only about fifty-five words a minute.” She looks down at the floor as though she feels ashamed.
“Only?” I say. “What’s the name of the place you’re working?”
She says the name of a prominent textbook publisher. I tell her that she should ask for at least seven dollars an hour.
“Please don’t make me do that, Mr. Baum,” she says in a slightly panicky tone. “I need this job. They won’t hire me if I ask for that kind of money.”
“If you can type fifty-five words a minute, that publisher can certainly pay you the seven.”
“No, but they won’t …”
“They will,” I insist. “Listen, if they don’t hire you because you ask for more money, then I will take personal responsibility for finding you another job within a week that pays at least six dollars an hour. Okay?”
“Okay…”
“You still don’t sound sure.” I put her file on my lap and feel something stirring under it. “Look, Maria, you’ve got to start having a little higher opinion of yourself. Don’t you think you’re worth it?”
“I dunno.”
“Well I do. You can’t allow yourself to be held hostage by your fears …”
I realize I’m gazing at her for too long again. She smiles back at me and doesn’t say anything for a minute. She’s beginning to see how attracted I am to her. I look away guiltily and squeeze the Silly Putty in my pocket. It just shows the sorry state of my own love life. Not only is it wrong to act this way around a client, but when I think about what Maria actually did, I get a little sick to my stomach.
It happened on a fall night. Her mother noticed Maria had been in the bathroom for a very long time. That’s the funny thing about Maria being bright—the rest of her family isn’t. The mother knocked on the door and called her a few times. Maria didn’t say anything. She just groaned. The mother went back to watching Wheel of Fortune. She didn’t understand what they were saying or spelling; she just liked looking at the prizes. During one of the last commercial breaks, Maria came running out of the bathroom, past her mother, and threw something out the window.
An hour later, a neighbor found the newly born baby girl dead in the alley five floors down.
They arrested Maria. The family claimed they never knew she was pregnant. She wouldn’t say who the father was. Her lawyer said she was suffering from postpartum depression and the district attorney charged her with manslaughter. The court gave her probation with psychiatric treatment.
Within her first few visits, I learned that her uncle had been sexually abusing her since she was eight and I began to suspect that he was the one who got her pregnant. Then I found out he beat her to make sure she wouldn’t tell anyone, but I figure the rest of the family must have known what he was up to and just didn’t do anything about it.
With all these confidences going back and forth, Maria and I have built up a good relationship. She always shows up for office visits and I get her appointments with Job Corps counselors. I’ve even gone with her to their offices a few times to make a good impression on interviewers. I convinced her to stay in school during days and work nights to make money. I also gave her my home phone number, which is what I’d do for any other client, of course.
The one thing I can’t get her to do is move out of the apartment where she still lives with her family. Every time I see her, I bring up the subject.
“No, no, no,” she always says. “It’s not so easy as you think.”
She’s afraid what her uncle might do if she left. He’s capable of coming after her with a gun—he’s on probation himself for assault with a deadly weapon. There is also a strong possibility that he might start fucking Maria’s eleven-year-old sister. My solution is to get Maria moved out of the house so she can get her life together and then help me start violation proceedings to put her uncle away.
But when I start talking about the plan again, Maria shudders and turns toward the wall. “It’s not so easy,” she says once more.
As usual, I write down my home number on a slip of paper and give it to her. “Call me,” I say.
After dealing with Maria, I go to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. Trying to take my mind off her. It’d be nice to go by the legal department and check up on that other girl I’m interested in, but there’s no time. So I go down to the other end of the hall to get a cup of coffee. I find Jack Pirone holding court around the coffee machine with two other probation officers listening with bemused expressions.
“Look,” Jack says. “It’s Judas Baum! How you doing, Judas? How’s the gold and silver exchange these days?”
“Leave me alone,” I say sullenly, picking up a Styrofoam cup.
“What’s the matter, Judas? You look depressed.”
“I’m all right. Just let me be, Jack.”
“Client getting you down?” asks one of the other probation officers, a tall guy named Lloyd Bell, who has no hips and ebony skin like an African statue.
“Something like that,” I say, pouring the remains from the tepid coffeepot into my cup.
“I was just telling him that he shouldn’t take this shit so personal,” Jack tells Lloyd. He turns back toward me, once again affecting a concerned look. “Steven, we see so much human misery and suffering coming in and out of here every day. When you’ve been around as long as I have, you find a way to deal with that pain.”
“What do you suggest?” I say, sipping the coffee and tasting the grounds.
Jack grows contemplative. “I remember a few years ago, the wife and I shared a house with some people on Fire Island. It was early in the summer. There were hardly any other people around, let alone lifeguards. Some of the other people we were with immediately went out into the water. But there was a strong undertow that day.” He becomes very still and his voice takes on a hushed tone. “One
of our housemates went out there. And he never came back. We hardly even knew him.”
Lloyd looks at Jack and shakes his head with a sigh. “Shit happens,” he says.
“I remember a number of us sat around the fire that night, talking about it.” Jack pauses, allowing for the impact of his sad story. “And we laughed like hell.”
Lloyd and the other guy start chuckling along with Jack. A stumpy, older woman with bright red hair scowls at them as she pushes by. I shake my head. “I don’t know, Jack,” I say. “I don’t find some of this shit too amusing.”
“Then you should lighten up.” Jack raps me on the arm with his knuckles. “Otherwise, you’ll end up like Tommy Markham.”
“What’s the matter with Tommy?”
“Nothing,” Jack says, wiping his hands on the front of his shirt. “He’s just an old sap, who don’t have nothing going for himself except the job. You know he’s retiring, right? We’re having a farewell party for him at Junior’s in Brooklyn tonight. You should come.”
For a couple of seconds I think about whether I could ask the girl from the legal department to come with me, but then I consider what these parties are usually like and decide I shouldn’t risk it. I crumple my coffee cup and throw it in the trash. “Does this mean I’m forgiven for going over to the Field Service Unit?” I ask Jack.
“No,” he says. “You’re still Judas, but you’re still my old student.”
“I’m still in the union too.” I start to go.
“Hey, Baum,” Lloyd Bell says loudly. “You got this Darryl King on your caseload?”
“Yeah. What about him?”
Lloyd strokes his goatee with two fingers. “Sounds like a pretty bad guy.”
I take two steps toward Lloyd. “Why do you ask about him?”
“I got his homeboy Bobby ‘House’ Kirk as my client.”
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