He Got Hungry and Forgot His Manners

by Jimmy Breslin

  “One night my daughter was at her grandmother’s house and she called me up at nine o’clock and said she felt sick.

  I said to her, ‘Child, it’s just a tummyache. You go to sleep and if you don’t feel well after a while, you just call me. I called up my office and said I had a sick daughter. Turned on the television and got to watchin’. My daughter woke up in the middle of the night with all cramps and she called her mommy at work instead of where I was, at home. The supervisor made a great big thing. I said, ‘Well, let me just do this exactly like the white people do. I’ll just stop work for a while and take out unemployment.’ I went to work when I was seventeen. I deserved a rest. Had me a vacation. I got up at eleven, had coffee with the blanket wrapped around me, and watched ‘Love Boat.’ I watch all the people carryin’ on out on the ocean. I drew unemployment for six months.

  “When it ended, I said, ‘Woman, you better go out and get something to make the landlord sing.’ All I could get was temp work. All I needed from welfare was a hundred eighty dollars a month to help my rent. But to get my rent check I had to come here every fourteen days. That’s the rule. They make out a two-party check, your name and the landlord’s name. You got to come here and get the check right away and take the check right to the landlord at the hotel. You can be late for dinner, but you can’t be late payin’ the landlord. Temp work only give me an hour at lunch. You come here every two weeks, you be standin’ on line three, four hours, you miss work. I confided in my supervisor. She said, ‘We both do our best.’ But with me missin’ afternoons every other week, she couldn’t save my job. So I got evicted. From then on it was about stayin’ in the Flatbush Arms. No more temp work. Nobody hires you if you’re stayin’ in a welfare hotel. Hire a prisoner from jail before somebody from a welfare hotel. Oh! Look at this!”

  She stamped her foot. The curtain was pulled across the window and a woman with her chin out, her body stuffed into a bright purple dress, appeared from a door.

  “She’s goin’ for coffee right in my face!”

  “Goin’ for coffee in my face!” somebody else said.

  On another line, Disco Girl, holding a blue slurpy to her lips, said, “Goin’ for coffee in my face!”

  The large woman in the purple dress, chin out, a chin as strong as a radiator, sauntered out of the waiting room.

  Then the fly girl flounced off the line and headed for the door with her boyfriend right after her. “She goin’ for coffee, I’m goin’ to the G Building,” the fly girl called out.

  “You gamblin’ girl,” Disco Girl called out.

  “I be foolin’ them at the G Building while you be standin’ on your feet so long they disintegrate.” With a wave of disdain, the fly girl walked out.

  When Cosgrove asked what the G Building was, Elise Mabrey and Disco Girl clapped their hands. “That’s where some crazy doctors are. The G Building is at Kings County Hospital. They got another one on the eleventh floor, Brookdale Hospital. If you go there and act crazy enough, one of them signs you up for checks right there just to get rid of you.”

  “Why doesn’t everybody just go there?” Cosgrove said.

  “Because if you overact, you get too crazy, they got another one throws you in a padded cell. Sometimes you go there to get a check, you don’t come back for thirty days.”

  “I’ll have to think about that,” Cosgrove said. Which he did. It was one bloody act to pull, for he had lost a mother to a mental institution. Quisquis agit, agit propter finem. The doctrine of extreme measures in extreme times. He would have to think about this more. But then he decided that he would merely wait, like everyone else. Certainly he could afford the time. He was definitely certain that he had left Great Big in reasonable comfort. If Cosgrove had had a mere suspicion, the least inkling, the smallest worry, that Great Big would be unhappy, he never would have left Great Big alone with Mr. Frankie Five Hundred. The rectory, while cold, was palatial compared to Africa.

  The welfare worker with the powerful chin returned, the curtain was thrown back, and the line moved painfully slowly. From her line, Disco Girl hollered to Cosgrove, “You step ahead now. Baby Rock’s here. He be bringin’ you your papers.” Cosgrove saw Baby Rock burrow into a line. “Get out from my front!” an old woman squawked as Baby Rock scooted ahead of her. It took him only fifteen minutes and he returned with two New York State Department of Special Services applications for: public assistance, medical assistance, food stamps, services. Cosgrove left his line and stood alongside Disco Girl and Baby Rock. Baby Rock had Hostess cream cakes, orange soda, and Wise 22 percent more potato chips.

  Cosgrove took out his reading glasses and looked at the applications. He had seen papers such as these when he had gone over his final university honors-level tests. On the welfare application, in two places, in large letters, there was the warning “Do Not Write in Shaded Areas.” But at the same time in the shaded area, there were forty-eight boxes to be filled in and there were blue shaded lines all over the page. In the first white area there were so many blanks to fill in that Cosgrove ran a hand over his brow. Upon turning the page, he was dazzled by a centerfold of both blue and white and of so many blanks to fill in that he quickly shut the booklet.

  Seeing this, Disco Girl screamed, “You no better than we are. I be afraid every time I open that thing. It’s just like a Burger King application, you fill in the blanks.” She waved her pen and made a couple of quick strokes on her paper.

  “Is that what you say?” the woman behind her on the line said. “You say it’s the same as Burger King? Just like signing up for hamburgers? That’s what you say.”

  “That’s exactly what I be sayin’.”

  “Then why did you write here!” The woman snatched the application and held it up triumphantly. Immediately over the sign that said, “Do Not Write in Shaded Areas” was Disco Girl’s writing, right through the shading.

  “She signed in the shaded area,” Elise Mabrey, standing on line, said.

  “That gets you no food,” a woman on line said.

  “She signed in the shaded area,” Elise Mabrey, standing on line, said. Her gray eyes were amused.

  “That gets you no food,” a woman on line said.

  “They pay the rent to the wrong place. The place where you don’t live.”

  Disco Girl, mortified, had a hand clapped to her mouth. Then she began laughing. “When I got my job in Burger King they had me sign in the shade. I kept thinkin’ I was writin’ down for Burger King.”

  Cosgrove looked at his form. There was a blue box saying, “Check which programs you are applying for.” The boxes were for (a) cash assistance, (b) medical assistance, (c) food stamps, (d) services, (e) expedited food stamps. Disco Girl told Cosgrove to check each. There was a sixth box, with no name to it, sitting in blue shading. Disco Girl held the pen directly over the box. The woman on line laughed. “Don’t you touch that, child!”

  Disco Girl held the pen directly over the box. “This be double or nothin’. Come on. We go for everything. We either gets nothin’ or we gets a house.”

  Baby Rock clapped his hands. “We go for a house!”

  “Indulging in nonsense,” Cosgrove said.

  “My girlfriend Braithwaite won herself a house last year. She be checkin’ the all-or-nothin’ box sixteen straight times. She be gettin’ nothin’ sixteen straight months. She be hurtin’ and hungry. Then they have the drawing and she be winnin’ a new house. The house be so low to the ground that it didn’t even have a fire exit! When she move in, her stomach sure was growlin’. But she be movin’ into a new house.”

  Happily, Disco Girl checked the all-or-nothing box. Whereupon Baby Rock raced across the room and banged on a door marked SPECIAL SUPERVISOR. It was opened by a small man with curly hair and full, surly lips. His face was mostly covered by large thick eyeglasses. He wore a wrinkled white shirt that was several sizes too large for him. A plastic identification card was pinned over the breast pocket. Cosgrove saw that the name was Harold Feinberg
. Sticking out of the pocket was an eyeglass case and several pencils and pens.

  “This is for the housing lottery only. Otherwise, you must wait out there on line.”

  “We be goin’ for the house,” Baby Rock said.

  “Goin’ for the house,” Disco Girl said, waving the paper.

  Feinberg’s hand whipped the paper from Disco Girl. “Why, this is only your application! Before you even receive your first check, you will be thrown off the computer because you are in the lottery.”

  “We lucky,” Baby Rock said.

  Feinberg’s mouth tightened in skepticism. “This could break your heart.”

  “How it do that?” Disco Girl said.

  “By just the losing.”

  “My heart don’t know any feelin’ but losin’,” Disco Girl said.

  “And winning guarantees nothing. Look at the woman who won in November. This perfectly ignorant woman moved straight into the house at night and we didn’t even see all her papers and she isn’t in the house a half hour and her boyfriend stabs her to death.”

  “The difference between me and her is that I be dead long before I be winnin’,” Disco Girl said. “But I be a gamblin’ girl. Put me down for the all-or-nothin’.”

  Feinberg ripped along a perforated line and took the house lottery coupon from the application form. He held it over a drum that stood beside him. “You’re sure you know exactly the risk you are taking?”

  “Sure do,” Disco Girl said.

  “And you?” Feinberg said to Baby Rock. “You’re on this application as a dependent.”

  “Double or nothin’ for Baby Rock.”

  “Excuse me,” Cosgrove said, “but why do these people have to risk all their benefits on the chance that they could get a house?”

  “I told you, it’s a lottery.”

  “But why must impoverished people lose all their benefits because they dare hope?” Cosgrove asked. “Why cannot they receive their benefits and still be a part of the lottery?”

  “Because what if they won the house before the computer knew it and we still sent the rent check each month?” Feinberg said. “We need that rent check for someone else. We want to be sure. We cut off their rent the moment they enter the lottery. Make good and sure we have no severe mistakes. Nobody wins a house from the city still gets a rent check while I’m here.”

  “But then what happens when you lose a lottery?” Cosgrove said.

  “You lose the meat,” Disco Girl said.

  “Lose the meat,” Baby Rock said.

  Feinberg became impatient. “Sometimes after a drawing it is true that many names of entrants get lost in the computer and it takes some time to get them back on the computer. We do lose whole blocks for a time.”

  “You lose the meat file, too,” Disco Girl said.

  “Oh, sometimes the restaurant allotment for welfare hotel residents gets lost in the computer, but we find it after a couple of months or so. But this is not a severe mistake. A severe mistake would mean we kept the winner on the rent rolls. But that won’t happen with me. I have won awards for cutting the number of checks issued by this entire center. One month, we issued 1311 fewer checks than at any time in the past three years. We had the special mother-and-daughter house for the lottery prize and we had double the number of poor souls trying for it. So we did lose double the usual number of files in the computer. But it certainly looked great on the books. I was given two municipal service awards. However, Reverend, I assure you, we do correct the computer. And in the meantime, your charge here can dream.”

  “We be goin’ hungry while they fixin’ their computer,” Disco Girl said.

  “Then why enter this infernal trial?” Cosgrove said.

  “Because it’s the only thing they got that I can enter,” Disco Girl said.

  Feinberg made a note of Disco Girl’s application number and said to Cosgrove, “I’ll try to take special care that her file doesn’t get lost in the computer. By the way, you’re new, aren’t you? How long have you been with Catholic Charities?”

  “Oh, I’m not there,” Cosgrove said.

  Feinberg’s eyes boiled. “You’re not in Brooklyn Catholic Charities?”

  “I just said no.”

  “You’re just a common priest?”

  “I am proud to say yes.”

  “Who do you know in the Brooklyn Democratic organization?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Of course you do. That’s the only reason I’m talking to you. You didn’t just walk in here. You’re connected to somebody. Who is your district leader?”

  Cosgrove said nothing.

  Feinberg became excited. “You’re a thief.”

  “Of course I’m not,” Cosgrove said.

  “Yes, you are. You’re not even a priest. You’re a thief. You’re here to steal. Give it back, you filthy thief.”

  On one of the lines, Elise Mabrey leaped happily as she heard her name. A caseworker, a small woman with half-glasses and wearing no makeup, appeared with an application form. She told Elise Mabrey that she must have proof that she was ineligible for Social Security Income, for all possible sources of income must be exhausted before the state and city social services can give relief. Elise Mabrey showed that she already had filled in that she was ineligible for Social Security because she was not sixty-five and not disabled. The caseworker said that only the Social Security people could say that. “But I am saying the truth right here,” Elise Mabrey said. The caseworker made a face. “You must go to the Social Security people.”

  “What floor is that?”

  The caseworker smiled. “Oh, they are not in this building. Here is the address.” She gave Elise Mabrey a slip of paper.

  “That’s a whole hour from here!” Elise Mabrey said. The caseworker didn’t answer. “Take me two hours there and back. Make me wait there, who knows how long? All day probably. What if it’s too late for me to get there by four o’clock?”

  “Then you must come back tomorrow.”

  “But what happens to me on the computer at four o’clock?”

  “Whatever the computer does at four o’clock is what happens to you,” the caseworker said.

  Two lines over, James Woods jumped up and down as if playing basketball. “Goin’ to lunch in my face!” The windows were curtained and caseworkers walked brazenly out of the waiting room.

  “Goin’ to lunch right in my face!” James Woods screamed.

  Throughout the large room, seeing caseworkers going to lunch, women jumped up and down. Two security guards, positioned to quell disorders, rushed up to James Woods because he obviously was at the vortex. The first security guard held a club in both hands and swung it like a baseball bat at James Woods. Who skipped out of the way as the security guard missed by so much that he spun in a circle.

  James Woods now skipped back with a really nice right-hand punch, particularly for a person who didn’t do this for a living. The security guard went down on his face and a woman grabbed the club and proceeded to give him the beating of his life. When the security guard folded his arms over his head, the woman beat his fingers back. The other security guard ran for the exit sign.

  Cosgrove felt it was his duty to assist the security guard, and he was in the middle of the crowd, frantically pushing women away from the fallen security guard, who rolled like a barrel out of the crowd just as police rushed in from the street and the first club hit Cosgrove, who was thrown out of the crowd like a rag. The cops had James Woods against the wall, and a woman in a business suit, who seemed to be in charge, spoke to James Woods and led him down a hallway.

  The people had to wait for several hours until the police felt the atmosphere was calm enough for business to resume. The frilly curtains flew back and the crowds rushed forward. Cosgrove was buffeted about and wound up standing through the afternoon until his legs wobbled and at ten minutes to four, a woman got up from her chair and ran out to the center of the room with her hand swinging back and she hit her baby a tremendous
whack on the backside. On the line next to Cosgrove a woman holding a child who was fretting hit the infant atop the head. One baby darted for the front doors. Quickly others followed. Mothers ran after them, hands flying. Babies screamed.

  At 4:00 P.M., the computer terminals in the building, as did all other computer terminals in every welfare office in the city, sent swiftly back to the main computer center all names, payments, dispositions. And, as in all of life where the sins of omission are the worst, the names the computer did not send back were the ones in trouble. The machine was programmed for a notice to be sent to a person, and if that person did not appear within fourteen days, the machine, at 4:00 P.M. on the fourteenth day, rubbed out the name as it shot information to the center in Manhattan. The person could be standing on line in the waiting room, and it would be of no avail; he or she would be off the computer, and thus penniless, for all the months that it took to get back on.

  In the moaning and squalling of babies being hit, a wall phone rang with an emergency cadence and security guards raced upstairs. As quickly as it had erupted, the vast first-floor waiting room became quiet. At 4:01, mothers picked up their sobbing children.

  “They done,” Disco Girl said.

  “Sure is,” the other woman said. “They either sent me in or sent me out. Four o’clock make me nervous.”

  “If they make a mistake on you, you got yourself a new name,” Disco Girl said. “You be Official Mistake.’”

  A window on the other side of the room opened and Baby Rock jumped to it, put his hands against the wall, and pushed back hard to make room for Disco Girl, who shouted into the window, “Carfare home, me and my little brother.”