by Mat Johnson
I backed up. I could still make the door from here; she was too slow to stop me, a strong arm could knock her to the ground. Or I could reach both arms around her and pick her up by her panty’s waistband, throw her sumo-style. Find the stairs, keep running till I got underground to the trolley tracks. Go hide in the darkness between stations until I figured things out.
‘Look!’ Held by long, multicolored, cubic zirconia – embedded claws, the cup of urine came so close I could see my breath on it. Nurse Howard could feel it burning in her hand, I knew that. Hung before me, my juice looked like water from a fish tank after all the fish are dead and it’s been left to rot for months.
‘What’s wrong with you boy? Is it St. Patrick’s Day.’ Nurse Howard giggled, her mouth a display of gold fronts. ‘You trying to be slick, right?’
‘Huh?’ There was something familiar in her face, the way she popped her gum. I could see her getting on the bus at Wayne Avenue, dropping her token before her body walked on. I remembered a big girl, hanging against the wall, smoking, her eyes on me till the number 26 would come. Eyes still fixed on mine amid the chaos of the public school halls, a round baby face you didn’t have to look at to know it was focused on you. This was my chance.
‘I was thinking, it’s really good to see you,’ I said. Nurse Howard’s smile elongated, its tips rising up towards her ears. I could do this. ‘Yeah, it’s so good to see you. Like back in the day, right? So just seeing you, I was thinking, why don’t we make sure we don’t leave our next meeting up to chance. Maybe we could plan on getting together real soon.’ I was nodding my head and Nurse Howard was nodding with me, her pupils going from dimes to quarters.
‘Like maybe we could go over to Walnut Street and check out a movie, stop by one of those Indian places around the corner.’
‘I could deal with a little something like that.’ She was blushing. I enjoyed making her happy. I think she even forget she held my piss in her hand. Maybe I was a mack, I had just never applied myself before.
‘So afterwards, you could come over my place, we could have a drink, relax. I could get out the oil, give you a massage or something. Because, you know, I really got to pass this test, right? I really need this, to pass this test. I’ll do anything. You know what I mean?’
Nurse Howard knew exactly what I meant. I could tell because she had simply frozen. There was still that smile on her face, but it represented nothing but muscles in flex, the leftover remains of an earlier emotion. I was not the mack, I was an asshole. For a moment, there was nothing moving in that room. She used to wear high-top basketball sneakers with big fluffy socks, I remembered now, and a long blue Georgetown jacket she would hide her body in even when it was hot out. Now there was nothing moving but our chests: we were breathing together, me and her. After a minute, our gusts could have ruffled the papers tacked to the wall, our ribs contracting and expanding like mice caught in glue traps. The part of me outside myself, the part that was a better thing than the sum of my actions, cried out for her, and for itself, that it was related to such a bastard.
‘I’m sorry, really. Forget the test, I’ll get another job. This Sunday, maybe we could go down South Street for breakfast or something.’
‘Stop! Please.’ Her words barked over my own until mine ceased. That other part of me, it was wailing in self-pity.
‘I’ll sign that you passed, just go. Just get away from me.’ Nurse Howard turned from me and threw my sample to the sink. Who knew she could move like that, like Steve Carlton when the Phillies won the pennant. Upon impact, an emerald tsunami splashed over the sink, counter, her desk, the floor, and all the things each surface contained. Eager for redemption, I darted for the paper towel dispenser to repair the damage my juices had caused. I would have wiped my conscience clean, too, but that momentary disorientation, that brief loss of vision and facial numbness, that was Nurse Howard smacking me. That’s what that was.
‘Go!’ she demanded. I heeded the directive, holding my jaw as pain and blood began pouring. Doorknob in hand, I turned back to her. Nurse Howard was facing the mess, her head aimed down and her eyes closed to everything. ‘It’s me,’ I explained. Nurse Howard gave no response to this. ‘I’m fucked in the head. Really,’ I offered, but she wouldn’t look up at me. So I went and caught the trolley.
Training
Whatever delusions any of us had that this was a real job, a true beginning, were extinguished upon sight of the others who populated the room. Our thrift shop suits, our pleather shoes, our poorly chosen handbags, makeup, and colognes – all meant to conceal that same look of undeviating decline, of limitless promise for failure. Even among temps, we were exceptional. I felt so at peace sitting there, in my street-vendor tie, my face covered with twenty-cent-razor scars, because this was the job I always knew was waiting for me. Now I was here and the vacuum of this empty seat had been filled. All pretension of other fates was now over. I’d finally come to the place I belonged. With nothing left to fight for or against, I was a free man. This was a job you never had to worry about losing.
Our trainer, Rosalita, spoke with the hum of electric can openers. Sitting there, her gray suit shocked to be off the hanger, reading from a manual with the electric company logo. There was no syllable she judged worthy of emphasis, nothing to denote the individuality of a page, paragraph, or word. For Rosalita, the dots at the ends of the sentences were decoration. Her only pauses were when she ran out of air. The most exciting sound she made was the dry flutter of a page turning. When we heard it we all leaned forward in our chairs, trying to see how many more were left to go.
Apparently, we were going to assist poor people get government grants to pay their electric and heating bills. They would call, we’d pick up the phone, write their information down on the application, then send it to them to sign. Six of us, three in each row. Guys in front, women behind us. Me in the middle.
At my left, Reggie Sizemas stayed awake by picking his dandruff, wiping his glasses clean with his tie, waiting for his beeper to vibrate. When it did, Reggie took it in his little hands, squinting as he brought it closer to his gumball head. When he identified the number, Reggie whispered either ‘Business’ or ‘Pampers’, depending on the call. Nodding his head fiercely enough to make his frames dance down his nose, shaking flakes from his scalp like dull glitter. In between those moments, Reggie kicked his stunted legs out from his chair and tried to impress Rosalita, answering electric questions with the vigor of Tesla. Clive did it too, trying to get on Rosalita’s good side, but he did it by winking at her, complimenting her small, deep-fried hair, or the way her black lipstick made her skin look lighter. As Clive stared, he trimmed the wires of his mustache with tiny scissors or straightened his sideburns with a comb small enough for lice. Going ‘Uh huh’ every time Rosalita breathed in, nodding at her ass when she went to the blackboard and nudging my right arm going, ‘You’d hit that?’
At the top of every hour, Rosalita stopped to smoke. The three women in the back went with her, as if it were part of the job. Quick steps to the glass lobby, out the revolving doors, onto Market Street, light up. They stood and laughed with cigarettes snug in the corners of their mouths, their eyes nearly shut. Beneath them, thighs sloped into calves and then shoe-capped ankles. When the ash crept down to their filters, they reached into their handbags for gum. One person pulled out first and the rest shared. They rolled the empty wrappers into balls and dropped them on the sidewalk.
Coming back into class, they were still laughing, their clothes stinking with the burnt fiberglass smell of menthol. The biggest one, Cindy, came first. Her face a big egg, her body an even larger one. Strutting past our desks, holding her purse to her hip as if there was money inside. Yvonne followed, lint in her hair and smelling of project rot. Natalie trailed them, silent, bent over, her buckteeth guarding her bottom lip as if you might want to take it from her. They had all just gotten off public assistance and they were not happy about it. They stayed awake during the training by whi
spering DPA secrets. Lie about being on the pill and when he’s in the shower get his social security number so you can sue him later. Send your bills in without signing the check, keep your utilities on. Take your kids to the emergency room and claim they feel dizzy for a free checkup. Reggie called them the Welfare Bovines, but not loud enough to hurt or be hurt by them. Turning back, Clive tried to flirt by begging for a taste of whatever crinkly-bag goodie they hoarded, whatever oily, salted thing occupied their desk at that moment.
Training was as unceasingly tedious as high school. With remainders of my intelligence and will still intact, I could barely acknowledge its ramble. I stayed awake by thinking about Brixton. How the people would know what I had conquered when my train arrived in the station. How the trumpets would blare as the tube doors slid away. How the lord mayor would step forth with his speech prepared and I would accept his ceremonial key, then move on to the escalator that would carry me back to the life I should be living. Besides that, I thought about eating. Every day on lunch break, I walked across the bridge to 30th Street Station, got a fast food meal and hunted for a good seat on the wooden benches. I sat, staring up at the giant Greek columns that held a roof so high that pigeons spent lives flying under it, grabbing fists of fries while watching everybody who walked by. They were the best looking people in Philly because they were from someplace else, going someplace else. Every one of them lining up at the soft velvet ropes for the Metroliner. By the time I was back in the basement of the electric company, they would be in other states, this one a blur behind them. They would be sitting in soft chairs, eating food from the dining car. There was a special train car that just had food on it; that’s what kind of world they were living.
Yam-man was in the station, too. It was November; the cold had forced him in from the wild. He sat by the door at the southwest side, forcing the commuters to ignore him, ready to run when the transit cops arrived. He didn’t bother to approach me any more. Some days he seemed almost sane, tortured by his situation and exhausted by what his madness had done. Other days he stormed around the station growling, chest forward, furious, angry at no one. Too crazy even to beg, insanity popped off his head like carbonation off freshly poured soda. On the better days he stayed in the station until five, I knew, because then he walked over the bridge to stand outside the massive black skyscraper that housed my job, sticking his dirty hand out to employees who tried to elude him on their way to the trains.
I went back to work hungry, rechecking my bag for missed fries, sucking the salt from my fingernails as I walked. Reggie bought his food from the pizza place on 22nd, every day something red and greasy wrapped in white. He never opened it until lunch was over, when I had no food or money left to buy more. Waiting for Rosalita to reappear, Reggie read the Daily News, and took baby bites, only bothering to touch half his sandwich, leaving the other side to stare at me. The meat: shredded dark brown, blanketed in a thick membrane of white cheese, a chewy orange roll holding it all. On top, a thin layer of pizza sauce. At the bottom, seeping out, a pool of grease I knew would be hot if I took my tongue to it. Reading his paper, checking his beeper, Reggie ignored me and said things like ‘I think I’ll wrap up this second half for later,’ when he saw me looking too long.
After two weeks, Rosalita was gone and now we had our boss, Mrs Hutton, a tall white woman whose short brown hair streaked down her skull like snow on a mountain top. Her skin creased and tough, her teeth yellow and crushed upon one another so she could smile and still get you nervous. Clive winked at her. She asked if he had something in his eye.
For the rest of the year lunches would be exactly one half hour long, any time longer would be taken directly out of our checks. 8:00 A.M. meant 8:00 A.M., not 8:15. She would be monitoring our calls not to punish us, but to maintain quality control for the good of the entire office.
We got phones, large black boxes with lights to tell you how many people you had on line. They came with headsets that consisted of cushioned earphones and a clear tube that curved to the front of our mouths. They looked so professional. That morning I learned that if I cupped both hands in front of it and breathed through my teeth I could sound like an airplane pilot. Clive could talk to the ladies in the back and still pay proper attention to his grooming habits. Reggie figured out that if he aimed the end of the tube at the base of his throat he could moan like Prince’s guitar solo from ‘Purple Rain.’ But then Mrs Hutton turned the phones on.
Reggie was still eating his grease, so when the first call came through he told me to get it, hooking his headset in so he could listen.
‘Electric company,’ I said.
‘Hello?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Hello, is this where I call about getting the money for my bills?’
‘I think so.’
‘Well, I need to get me some of that.’
‘Okay.’ I was breathing heavy. I tried to start bringing up something on the computer but my fingers had gotten all thick.
‘Is this the right number?’
‘Oh yes, this is the right number I’m just going to help you through right now.’ Reggie started laughing. Choking on his food, but still laughing. I was hitting the computer keys, hoping something would come up, when I realized I could hear myself hyperventilating into the microphone. It sounded like someone was getting mugged on my end of the line.
‘Mister? Are you all right?’ I hit mute. Reggie was really choking now, his eyes dripping tears and the veins in his throat bulging out. Blank faced, Cindy leaned forward and slapped Reggie’s back hard enough to knock his glasses off. Throat clear, he grabbed me on the shoulder.
‘Cuz, you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, do you?’ Reggie asked.
‘Hey, I was taking care of it.’
‘Holmes, you didn’t listen to a word Rosalita said all last week. I saw you. You was just sleeping and doodling.’
‘Yo money, you need to step your midget ass back.’
‘Just let me take the call.’ Reggie switched our headsets so that he was talking and I had to listen. He got her name, pulled her account up on the computer, got her an application for the aid, then hung up the phone and laughed at me some more.
‘See, that’s how a real man does it.’ Reggie nodded till it was time to push his glasses back up. F real men. I returned to drawing circles in black ink on an empty aid application and planning what memory I would think about as I cried that night. Mrs Hutton came pounding out of her office.
‘Who was that on the line?’ When Reggie realized accolades were not to follow, he pointed at me. Apparently, I had the worst phone answering skills she’d ever listened in on.
‘What are you thinking? Don’t you know your job?’ Mrs Hutton was getting madder at me because I was smiling, thinking it better to reveal my ineptitude to a boss early rather than fail them in the end.
‘You keep working like this, okay? Watch the repocushions.’
Repo cushions meant that I was getting sent up to Outreach for the rest of the day along with Natalie and Cindy. Outreach was something new. Just from the way Mrs Hutton pronounced it, you could tell it was labor intensive. When could I come back? ‘When you get your phone manner down.’
Going up in the elevator, Cindy stared at the lit numbers above the door and said, ‘I don’t care. They ain’t breaking my ass.’ Natalie looked more scared than usual: her front teeth nearly covered her chin. She was creeping to the back corner of the elevator as if she didn’t plan on coming out.
The room they had us come to was almost as big as 30th Street Station, filled with cluttered desks and the people who sat behind them and stared at us. On the table before us were three large metal boxes with numbers, lights, and faded instruction stickers. Mrs Hall, the old white lady who was the supervisor, plugged me in first, putting earphones the size of turtles over my skull.
‘What’s gonna happen here is,’ Mrs Hall started, ‘I’m telling you’se because it’s your first time up here, what’s gonna
happen here is we’re going to turn on these machines and what they’re gonna do is start calling a list of numbers we put in there automatic. First you’re gonna hear some ringing and then you’ll have your customer, and then when that person hangs up the machine will have already called the next person on the list and told ’em to hold on for you, so all you got to do is start back up again.’ I raised my hand.
‘Yes?’
‘Can I go back downstairs?’
‘No.’
I looked at Cindy, waiting for her to go Denmark Vesey on the woman, but all she did was shove a few more onion rings in her mouth and mumble, ‘Hit me.’ Natalie’s earphones were almost as big as her head. They looked like they were trying to swallow her.
For the next three hours, the voices on the other end of the line kept coming. I couldn’t get them to stop. I wanted to hit one of the buttons on the box, but I was afraid I would break something or it would shock me, bulge my eyes out of my sockets and leave my body smoking. A chorus of the broke, phones ringing across the ghetto, me on the other line. I ain’t got no money to eat, I ain’t got no money for you. Screw you, turn off my lights, I’ll learn to see in the dark. Please don’t turn my heat off. During one call, after giving my lines, an old voice said, ‘I can’t feel my toes.’ I tried to wave to Mrs Hall across the room, but she yelled back, ‘You can go at lunch time,’ and the rest of the office stared at me from their cubicles. There was a click and then the call was gone, replaced by another confused voice on the line. ‘Hello, I’m Chris from the Philadelphia Electric Company, and I’m calling to give you money.’ Their poverty was a vacuum, devouring my voice before it even got down the line, their hunger so strong it could suck the flame from a candle.
Five o’clock came around just when I stopped believing it would. I walked home fast to kill the workday, but didn’t catch the trolley because my apartment was a closet of dishes, soiled clothes, and trash. People drove by me in their cars, their radios on, going places I wouldn’t know about. Close to home, I bought a forty, a gallon of milk, and a box of imitation Oreos. In the crib I washed out one coffee cup from my collection of crusty dishes, poured the milk to the very top, then sipped it. Under the milk, the cookies got soft except in the place my fingers were holding, and until it got dark I practiced dipping them correctly, getting every part equally mushy. I finished the whole box that way. I was tired of cookies two-thirds of the way through, but it seemed weak to quit without finishing the job. David would be so proud. See, I was a hard worker. Afterwards, the forty came out of the fridge and into my hand; my first time touching malt liquor since high school. When I got really drunk my apartment seemed smaller.