by Tom Reilly
Things are looking up. I still may have a way out of this.
The door to Sister Mary Margaret’s office was open.
“Mr. O’Rourke, come in please,” Sister Mary Margaret said. Her tone sounded icier than he remembered from previous conversations. When he entered the office, he saw Monica Kleinschmidt, director of nursing, sitting there.
That’s odd. I didn’t think Monica worked weekends. He nodded to her.
“Good morning, Tim, please take a seat,” Monica said.
“Morning, Monica, Sister. If this is about my mother’s hospital bill, I was hoping to work out a payment schedule—”
Sister Mary Margaret cut him off. “I was sorry to hear about your mother. No, this is not about her hospital bill. The accounting department can talk to you about that on Monday if you like. I’ll get to the point. We know there’s an effort to organize our employees and encourage them to vote on representation by the Service Workers’ Union. The union has been vocal about their plans. We have seen them collecting signatures on the sidewalks outside of the hospital. It’s public property, so we cannot do anything about that. We also know they are planning a demonstration and rally during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Union members and workers will be protesting wages and hours.”
“Okay, what does this have to do with me?” Timothy said.
“One of our staff members saw you talking to a union representative in their picket line. It appeared you had taken some literature and wrote something on a clipboard.”
“Okay, so?” Timothy tried to hide his irritation.
“Tim, the hospital is opposed to any move that attempts to unionize our employees. It would deal a devastating blow to us financially. Besides, this is not who we are. We are not a chemical plant or automobile factory that must worry about workers’ safety issues. We are a hospital. We take care of people,” Monica said in a softer tone than Sister’s.
This must be the good-cop, bad-cop routine. “I still don’t see why I’m here.”
“Let me be direct, Mr. O’Rourke. Any employee found to be supporting this effort will be terminated immediately,” Sister Mary Margaret said with piercing eye contact.
“Sister, I have so many things running through my mind right now I don’t even know where to begin. First, do you honestly believe I’m a union organizer?”
“Mr. O’Rourke, we’re not sure what to believe,” Sister said.
“Sister, you give me more credit than I deserve. That came out wrong. Look, I’m a full-time student and part-time employee. The only thing I’m trying to organize is my week so I can work more hours and maximize my study time.”
Monica jumped in. “Tim, you must look at this from our position. We are trying to nip in the bud anything that would have a negative financial impact on our hospital. We are in the business of helping patients get better. It’s unseemly that a hospital should have to deal with this sort of thing.”
“I hear you, Monica. I don’t know how to respond.”
“Mr. O’Rourke, all you need to say is you have no intention of supporting this effort,” Sister Mary Margaret said.
“Sister, with all due respect, is this even legal?” Timothy’s blood began to boil. He spent the past few years fighting authoritarian powers and now he had to deal with this from a nun.
Sister smiled for the first time since he walked in the door. “We are a non-profit organization. We are exempt from many of the rules and regulations that define the limits of commerce in this country. We will be putting out communications to employees explaining our position. We want to be sure everyone understands the consequences of this unfortunate turn of events.”
“You mean you will fire anyone who supports this?”
“Tim, those who support this initiative will probably find Saint Elizabeth’s an uncomfortable place to work. Are we clear?” Monica smiled.
“Perfectly. No union,” Timothy said.
“No union. We are a charitable institution and want to keep it that way,” Sister Mary Margaret said.
Charitable? You’re shitting me, right? Timothy wanted to laugh at the nun’s words.
“One other thing, Tim. We are making some scheduling changes on hours. We will be moving you to nights on Tuesday and Thursday. We will only need you sixteen hours a week for a while,” Monica said. “It will begin on the next pay period.”
“What? You’re cutting my hours and putting me on nights because someone saw me talking to a union rep?”
“No, Mr. O’Rourke, we are changing your schedule because Doctor Faro complained you spend too much time counseling his patients,” Sister Mary Margaret said.
“Sister, I don’t counsel anyone. I listen. That’s all. They want to talk, and I give them a sympathetic ear. Isn’t that what we are supposed to do?”
“Mr. O’Rourke, you’re an orderly. You serve meals, change linens, empty bedpans, and escort patients if they need help. Am I being clear?” Sister Mary Margaret said.
“Crystal. That goes to show you have nothing to fear union-wise from such a low-level employee.”
“Okay, Tim, thanks for coming in to discuss this. It’s good to see you.” Monica continued to play the good cop, not good enough, though.
Timothy walked slowly to the elevator. Why would they care if a low-level employee talked to some union people on the street? What a difference a few minutes made. He went in there hoping to strike a deal for tuition and hospital bills and now felt lucky to get sixteen hours of work every week. There’s no future in this place. At least I have Dez’s offer. He climbed the stairs back to the unit and told Walter what happened.
Walter shook his head. “The man’s at it again.”
“Yeah, the man in a habit,” Timothy said.
Sunday’s shift dragged. Timothy wanted out of there fast, but the clock moved slowly. This happened when people felt unwanted somewhere. Timothy learned that time tortured the vulnerable. A hospital was supposed to be a place of hope, where people come to get well, not a place where dreams came to die. Hope was on life support that day.
Timothy finished his shift, changed clothes in the men’s locker room, and headed to the employee’s parking lot at the hospital. He saw a couple of union organizers hanging out but skirted around them, leaving plenty of daylight between him and them.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TIMOTHY PULLED UP to the Christmas tree lot thinking of it as an unlikely refuge from the hospital. Cars packed the lot, wedged in like books on a library shelf. I bet Dez loves this. He shut off the car’s engine, but it sputtered for twenty seconds as if clinging to life.
He looked around and saw Kenny and Hoffen but no Dez. Must be Ed’s naptime. Dez is in the shop.
Timothy walked through the lot, past Kenny, who was delivering a fabricated story about a tree to a customer. Timothy walked past Hoffen without saying a word and went directly to the shop to talk to Dez.
He opened the door and saw Dez and the register. “Hey, can we talk?”
“Sure, soldier boy. You’re early. Did your car decide to cooperate today?”
“Not today, Dez. I’ve had a pretty tough day.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“Is the deal to work here full time still on the table?”
“Sure. Why the change of heart?”
Timothy told Dez what happened at the hospital, and how he had planned to pay his mother’s hospital bills and get tuition reimbursement. He told him how the nun and administrator ganged up on him. He spilled everything. The union talk, the threats, and the cuts in hours. Timothy hadn’t noticed that Hoffen followed him into the shop. The old man stood at a distance but close enough to hear the conversation.
“What did I tell you about those nuns? You can’t trust nobody, ya schmo. Especially those birds. They’ll screw ya every time. What do they call themselves, Sisters of Charity? Ha! The only charity they care about is how they line their pockets. What a racket. Are you willing to listen to me now?” Dez was smili
ng. He won.
“That’s why I’m here. What did you say you would offer me full time?”
“After Christmas, you can start full time. I’ll work you sixty hours a week between here and the other place. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll raise your pay to two-fifty an hour and no taxes. That’s a hundred and fifty a week, cash money. That’s good money for a guy like you. It’ll help you start digging out of that pit you’re in,” Dez said.
“What about the other guys?”
“You mean the mole head and the old man?”
“Yeah.”
“The old man is gone anyway. He’s temporary. I’ll cut Kenny’s hours. He’s pretty much useless. Besides, he can’t drive out to the nursery, and that’s where I’m gonna need some help.”
“So you’re going to cut Kenny’s hours to work me full time?”
“Yeah, I told you. This place ain’t a home for the handicapped. Heck, him working part-time is charity for the most part anyway.”
“I don’t know. I have to think about this.”
“Don’t take too long. I’m gonna get someone else if you don’t take it.”
“All right, thanks, Dez. I’ll let you know.”
“Remember, I gotta make plans. Get out there, and help those morons sell some pine.”
Timothy didn’t notice Hoffen standing in the next aisle. He walked out with his head down, thinking about what he just heard. It disturbed him that Kenny would be cut back to part time. He believed this was the only place Kenny could work. He went directly to the fire barrel. The heat felt good on this cold afternoon. In the background, Kenny spun a yarn about a California tree. Timothy smiled for the first time since he left the hospital. He tried to laugh but didn’t have it in him. Hoffen followed him out to the lot.
“Hey, Tim, I see you made it in,” Hoffen said.
“Yeah, with time to spare. How’s that grab you?”
“Everything okay?”
“No, not really,” Timothy said.
“What’s wrong?”
For the next few minutes, Timothy spilled his guts to Hoffen. The furnace bill, hospital bill, taxes and insurance, tuition, a car on life support, the hospital’s threats of firing him, and reduced hours. He even disclosed his abandoned plans for Cheryl’s ring.
As he stared into the fire, he said to Hoffen, “See this smoke? These are my dreams. Here and gone in the same moment. I’m beginning to think dreams are the poor man’s religion.”
“You sound like a political science professor paraphrasing Karl Marx,” Hoffen joked.
“That’s a scary thought,” Timothy grinned.
“What are your plans?”
“Dez offered me a full-time job paying about a hundred and fifty a week. If I take it and work it through the end of summer, I will have enough to start back to school next fall.”
“It would be difficult to work sixty hours a week and go to school,” Hoffen said.
“The way I see it, a dream delayed is not necessarily a dream denied,” Timothy said.
“That’s poetic but not entirely true. What are the chances you won’t go back to school in the fall?” Hoffen said.
“Probably fifty-fifty,” Timothy said.
“So you’re saying it’s an even chance of abandoning your dreams and pursuing them?”
“Probably.”
“How can you change those odds?”
“I don’t know. Do you know what really hurts? Last night, before I even had to deal with the hospital, I told Cheryl about my money problems, and she offered me some of her savings. Can you believe that? Do you know how that makes me feel?”
“Loved?” Hoffen asked.
“No, embarrassed. I can’t afford to buy her a ring for Christmas, and she wants me to take her money? She can do a lot better than me.”
“She’s trying to help.”
“I don’t want that kind of help. It makes me feel small. I’m too embarrassed to go back to her house tonight and tell her what happened to me today. I’ll sleep at Leslie’s on the sofa,” Timothy said.
“So you think avoiding Cheryl is the best way to deal with this now?”
“For the time being.”
“Timothy, one of the great benefits of living a long life is people get smarter by studying life’s lessons. Right now, you’re feeling low. Things look dark, I understand that. The problem with staring into the darkness is that it stares back at you. Some people let that darkness enter their souls. Sooner or later, they forget what the light looks like,” Hoffen said.
“That sounds a lot like denial to me,” Timothy said.
Hoffen smiled. “The only denial going on here is your denying yourself the hope that things will get better. Hey, I’ve got a customer to help.”
Timothy finished his shift and called Cheryl to tell her he planned to spend the night at Leslie’s home because it was closer to Mom’s house and he had to be there early the next morning for the furnace repairmen. She bought the excuse, and he immediately regretted it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MONDAY MORNING ROLLED in and Timothy had a hankering for caffeine. Coffee from this old percolator tasted bitter. Not strong, just bitter. Timothy grew up on the smell and taste. He remembered his father making morning coffee with this pot when Timothy was in grade school. The only thing that changed in the past twenty years was that Mom bought bags of coffee versus cans. She said it was fresher. That didn’t matter, because the moment it hit that basket it tasted like the same old bitter syrup it had brewed for years.
He made a full pot of mud today in case the furnace guys wanted some. Timothy drank from a mug he purchased on his trip home from the war. It was heavy ceramic and wore the Ernest Hemingway quote, Courage is grace under pressure. He wondered how much grace he could show under the pressure he was feeling.
He liked drinking coffee at the dining room table. It reminded him of better days, family celebrations and big meals filled with adult chatter and cigarette smoke. They were good days—safe and innocent. While he was downing his first cup of the thick brown syrup, reminiscing, the doorbell rang.
“Morning, Tim.”
“Morning, Fred. You guys are here bright and early.”
“Like I said, we’ll take care of you.” Fred had the matter-of-fact conviction of a simple, working man.
“I’ve got some coffee in here if you guys want some.”
“Might take some later. I wanna get these guys working. I don’t pay ’em to drink coffee.”
“Good enough,” Timothy said. “Did you call that emergency line at the gas company?”
“Yeah, they said they would be here sometime this morning,” Fred said.
“I plan to be here all day. I’m taking a day off classes to study.”
“That sounds funny. Taking off school to study. Isn’t that what you do in school?”
“Yeah, I guess it does sound funny, but on some level, it makes sense,” Timothy said.
“Got it. You got the cash we talked about?”
“Yep. I will have it in hand tomorrow when you finish.”
“Good enough for me.” Fred turned to the crew. “C’mon, guys, let’s get started on this.”
“I’ll be in the dining room if you need me,” Timothy said.
“All right,” Fred said.
The dining room was the heart of the house. People had to pass through it to get from one room to another. It was a comfortable place for Timothy to study when Mom wasn’t around. He could spread out all of his books and materials on the table. Coffee, a comfortable chair, and a big table. As he sat he heard rolling thunder. It was the roar of Scoot’s Harley-Davidson, announcing his arrival from a block away. Timothy smiled and went to the front door.
“Hey, Pete,” Scoot hollered. Pete was short for Peter Pilot, the name given to all new helicopter pilots in Vietnam. Rank didn’t mean much in a chopper. The pilots, who were warrant officers, knew that the gunners and crew chiefs, who were enlisted, had their backs; that was all that matte
red. The crews joined in the good-natured hazing of new pilots. They were all Peter Pilots. New enlisted men were called FNGs, shorthand for fuckin’ new guys.
“Hey, Scoot, that thing is louder than 519.” That was the tail number of their chopper. Anyone who had ever heard the whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp of a UH-1H “Huey” helicopter would never forget it. It was as distinctive as the crack of an AK-47.
“I saw Fred at the doughnut shop this morning and he told me they were coming over here to replace your furnace,” Scoot said.
“Yeah.” Timothy filled in Scoot on the happenings of the past few days.
“Sorry to hear all this, man. How’s Mom doing?” Scoot called her Mom too.
“She’ll be okay. She’s at the hospital still. She’s going to Leslie’s tonight. I spent the night there last night.”
“I figured you didn’t sleep here last night. Hey, when is she gonna make her oatmeal raisins?”
“God, Scoot, you sound like Kenny.”
“Hey, don’t compare me to that genius.”
They laughed. This was the first time in a few days Timothy let loose.
“How do you know Fred?” Timothy said.
“I work on his bike. Good guy, Nam vet, Air Force. He was in maintenance or something. He told me he was giving you a cash discount.”
“That’s right.”
“You gotta know that’s a pretty big deal for him. He doesn’t cut his price for anyone. Says it insults his craftsmanship.”
“Really.”
“Yep, he gave you the vet’s discount. You know how it is, brother taking care of brother.”
Timothy nodded.
“Speaking of that, did you hear the latest on the POWs?” Scoot asked.
“No, what?”
“Good news and bad news. Good news is Laos is releasing some pilots. Bad news is Bobby ain’t on the list,” Scoot said.
Timothy stared off into space. For him, this conversation was a time machine transporting him back to the day he and Bobby were shot down.
“C’mon, man, we all lost something that day.”
