Chapter Two
Allison Little answered on the second ring. “Hello, Chase.”
“Hey,” I said. Idling in line at Tim Horton’s, I fished out my wallet without unfastening my seat belt. With the windows down, the cigarette smoke mostly escaped in slow billowing plumes. “I’m getting coffee. You didn’t answer. You need anything?”
“Hot tea?”
“Three sugars. No cream.”
“See you at work?”
“Be there in a few.”
“I just walked in. People are ordered.” She sighed. “Four. Four people ordered.”
When someone called in sick, people working on the ending shift were forced to stay. They called it Getting Ordered. It was time and a half, but no one was ever happy about it. A sixteen-hour shift sucked. Though no one admitted it, there had to be liability issues. I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut and cause as few waves as possible, fly as low under the radar as I can, and whatever other clichés fit the situation. “Probably be more orders in the morning, too.”
Unfortunately, calling in sick was sometimes the only way to get time off. No one wanted to see other employees ordered, but mental health days were essential at times. The good thing, once ordered, you moved to the bottom of the list. If you were lucky, you might get ordered four to six times a year. If you were lucky, that is.
“I’m going to stop at the drugstore after work,” she said. I heard the hesitant tone of her voice. She knew I’d not received a shot, and maybe she thought I’d be upset that she planned to. I didn’t give a fuck.
“The shot?”
“I can’t afford to get the flu,” she said, “you know that.”
“That’s cool,” I said, because, really, what else was there to say? I knew she was asking without asking, if I wanted to go. I didn’t. Not interested. “I’ll see you soon.” I ended the call, eased up my car up to the box, stopped, and ordered.
# # #
Headed south on Lake Avenue, I shook my head. It was just after 3 P.M. The streets seemed excessively crowded, not with cars, but people. It was usually on my way home at midnight that I had to be extra cautious. City residents crossed the streets without looking. They walked on the roads as if they owned them. Dressed in dark clothing, they often times looked like the pavement. Blended. It annoyed me. I never slowed. Screw them. Eventually, they hurried across. They’d flip me off, but that didn’t concern me. I’d flip them off right back.
Today, groups seemed to linger, almost mingling in the middle of the road. They moved at a sluggish pace. Dragging their feet, literally. Honking my horn did little to hurry them along. Gritting my teeth, I was forced to serpentine through the growing mass. Veering left and right, as if on a crazy course where orange pylons were replaced with humans.
As I crossed Driving Park, I checked my rear-view mirror to see how cars behind me fared. One car had stopped. Bad idea. The crowd that meandered, converged. Not a good sign. Stopping is like asking for trouble, as if you had thrown down a challenge. Unless the guy driving is illegally packing, he might be in for some shit he never expected.
I looked forward, watched where I was going. Someone would call work, 9-1-1. Someone always did. Not me. It wasn’t my business, and as far as I was concerned, the person in the stopped car brought any trouble received on himself.
When I got to work, I’d type in the inner section, Lake and Driving, and see if a job was put in, check out what ended up happening, if anything. Figure by the time police are dispatched, the group will have dispersed anyway. They smelled the police. Knew when to scatter. Knew there would never be a witness. Not one who would talk, help the police out.
Every generation comes to a point where they claim the end of the world has got to be just around the corner. I was in my mid-thirties, certain and confident it was just a matter of time. Things were coming to a head: rising gas prices, increased backward leaps in racism, segregation, political angst, infringement on nearly every point of the Constitution by the president, and just an overall sense of angry people. It was hard not to read the graffiti on the walls around us. If you couldn’t see it, if you didn’t sense it, then I guess you were just a blind motherfucker living under some rock.
Aside from the amblers in the street, traffic itself seemed light. I zipped down Lake Ave to West and turned up the volume on the radio. Bass thumped. Singer screamed. Guitars like sirens blared. I nearly closed my eyes, soothed by the frantic chaos of rhythm exploding from my speakers.
I lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply. As smoke filled my lungs, damaged arteries, messed up what was left of the muscle that was my beating heart, I smiled and exhaled slowly. A calm enveloping my senses. It wouldn’t last. The calm. One puff at a time. There really wasn’t any other way to continue, was there?
Once I pulled into the parking lot at work, I felt it. The tightness in my chest. It did not come from smoking. It came from stress. I didn’t want to be here. I’m not sure I’d want to be at work at any job, but here? Completely unique kind of I-don’t-want-to-be-here sense of overbearing dread. Trust me.
Political bullshit reigned. Backstabbing, lunch stealing, whining teenage-like drama, cliques, bullies (both peer-related, and supervisor enforced), hostile, harassing, sexual charged atmosphere. 9-1-1 was like a high school, with less mature employees. If they couldn’t find something to bitch about, they manufactured things. But who respected upper management?
The place reminded me of that scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, where Wonka handed out the ever-desired Everlasting Gobstopper to the Golden Ticket toting winners. One for each kid. Of course, Slugworth had bribed each child with untold riches prior to the factory tour if they would part with their single piece of candy. Veruca Salt, stingy bastard that she was, tried to get two. Why? So she could keep one, and sell one. Bitch.
Of course, I’m referring to the original. With Gene Wilder. Not the lame re-make with Depp. I like Depp. Don’t get me wrong. However, that rendition was totally spoiled by the single Umpa-Lumpa multiplied by however many in computer graphics. Awful.
I shut the engine, and finally took a few seconds just to close my eyes.
A futile attempt to obtain one last moment of solitude. It’s what I needed. Then, exhaling like a quick-deflating zeppelin, I headed in.
Chapter Three
My shift started at four. I checked out the schedule thumbtacked to the cork. I’m normally a dispatcher, sending fire trucks and ambulances to emergency calls. Police dispatchers worked the opposite side of the room. Between the two sets of dispatchers, sat telecommunications. The call takers. The 9-1-1 Operators. These are the unsung heroes of the place. The hub of the operation. They take call after call after belligerent call. I don’t know how they do it. Night after night. God bless them.
Tonight, I had phones. It’s a blessing and a curse. As a dispatcher, I am required to answer phones once every five to six days. I’d rather answer phone calls tonight, in the middle of the week, than on a weekend. Luckily, this year, I had Halloween off. Phones on a holiday, any holiday, were the definition of a nightmare. Families spending time together never ended well. Families hated each other, I’ve learned. However, tradition forced them to break bread umpteen times a year.
The curse, anyway, being that regardless of when, I sucked on phones. You never know what’s waiting on the other end of each ring. We’re trained to be ready. Graded on it, and disciplined from it.
I rounded the corner. Allison Little. She sat at one of the four round tables in the break room. Flat screen TV was on, volume low.