He had let things slip a bit and so found himself working in a large hospital at nights doing perhaps the lowliest work conceivable in the infamous work world. It was a great infringement on his sense of being a man and he would enter each late afternoon on his shift with a big smile and umbrella in his hand which he shook out towards people he wanted to get a rise from. They would act grim and wave him off with a hand as if he were cracked-brained. And then he would take his seat at his desk and dawdle awhile until the middle-aged supervisor mentioned something and he would begin his work.

On one side of him was a young Greek girl who spoke the native tongue over the telephone when speaking to her grandmother. She wore bright colored clothes and did not think well of the young man who came to work with the umbrella. She noted to herself that perhaps he was gay or worse. And yet, when the opportunity came she would ask him questions about life and marriage since he had been married once or so he said. He would tell her more than once that he had perpetuated crimes and was now beginning to live life over 'at the bottom.' This didn't have an effect on her at all. In fact, she would tell him without blinking an eye that her ex-boyfriend had been a member of the Mafia and that he once promised to take her to London every month if she would marry him. The young man seemed impressed by this. And then they wouldn't speak to each other the rest of the day.

The other women in the office reminded him of his ex-wife a bit or how his ex-wife wanted to be or how she was going to be in the future. There were two shifts in the office; day and night. They day shift was a small political lesson and the night shift was free. No supervisor wanted the hours of that shift so there were none to be around after 6pm. The only authority in the office at those late hours was the controller who sat in a glass room over his computer calculator and blue-lined charts. He scowled most of the time and seemed uncomfortable walking around the clerks who worked at night. So usually the night was quiet, interrupted only by dinner in the cafeteria or a late night telephone call from the ex-wife or friend.

He worked at a desk by himself while all the other clerks worked on the other side of a vast business office; they were divided by the corner of a wall and long hallway between rows of desks and file cabinets. He worked assiduously ignoring the temptation of slacking off and enjoying a book he usually brought along with him.

One night it happened that the controller did not work late and went home with the day shift. There had been a party during the day, celebrating the pregnancy of one of the clerks. Cake, napkins, plastic forks, juice and cups were strewn about. At any excuse there was a party at the hospital and the celebration usually spilled over to the night that inspired great laughter and a kind of stupid restlessness so the clerks moved from one end to the other and before long he had seven women clustered around his desk talking to each other like geese in a bag.

Later Rene came back to his desk.

"You're not so bad," she said. "To listen to all this." And she laughed. "It's like this old woman I listen to in my head whenever I have to make a decision of some kind or something pressin' hard on me, why this old lady appears to me in vision and straightens things out but quick. Oh yeah, but quick."

"Do you listen?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes I listen to my devil side. Like this scam I've concocted to rip off credit card companies. I am just getting even with them you know."

And then Rene spelled out the intricate plan and when she finished he asked her what the 'old woman' thought about this.

"Oh, she against. Oh Lord, oh Lord, she straight out against it."

In particular there was Tonya, half black, half Filipino who studied nursing out in the country college, in the valley so far removed from the streets of Oakland. They talked about everything and other women came around as night fell to look at him with eyes that said, "don't go messing around with a sister now." That was the furthest thing from his mind. It was at the beginning but then as the months passed Tonya told sad tales of how unhappy she was. Mother of two small kids and a husband that demanded she work while he played in a jazz band. Big-boned, high breasted, wonderful Tonya. She was a 7th Day Adventist and warned him about non-belief. He had laughed. "I'll talk my way out of Hell and into Heaven." She scoffed and that ended the conversation.

The Minister would come by his desk and talk about the powers Christ had given him. "Speed reading, telepathy, seein' things." "Why are you here if you are a minister?"

"There's no money in doing the Lord's work. At least, I'm not there yet. You have to get humble before you get the reward. The Lord doesn't want you to get the gold for its own sake."

Once in awhile they'd throw a party for someone getting married or leaving and it would be festive enough. He would go off into the corner eating cake with his plastic spoon and wonder about the people. He knew them. He had seen them many times before. He was trying to escape them. He was part of them and escape would be impossible. No, he didn't want to escape them or anything else. He just wanted to pursue his goals without interference.

David Eide
January 24, 2014