HINJFCA Part Eight

Okay, so where was I? 

Oh yeah, wrapping up events that have led me to my present circumstances at the Salvation Army.  Well, you already know that I've been assigned to the kitchens.  This is in conjunction with a culinary program they sponsor with the State of Nevada and a local college.  You have to gain some experience in food service before they'll interview you for entrance into the culinary program.  It's evidently a big deal, as SA will pay all costs (tuition, books, uniforms, tools, etc) associated with the program while also providing transportation to and from the college.  Here's the kicker:  once you sign your name to the dotted line, there's no turning back.  That means if you accept the offer and later change your mind, you're on the hook for the full cost of the culinary program; in addition, you get booted out of Salvation Army as well.

So it's obviously an important decision, one you can't make lightly.  I'm scheduled to go in this Tuesday for a formal interview with the people who run the program.  Lord knows how that will go.  But some other kitchen workers who have enrolled say acceptance is pretty much a given since they're desperate to meet a quota:  They need at least 15 people to enroll in order to have the program at all.  So far they apparently have 6-7.  I'll really have to give this some thought because I'll tell you straight out that I don't especially enjoy the work associated with the kitchen.  One thing I didn't count on was the sheer weight of the items I've encountered in this work.  It's not uncommon for food pans and drink coolers (filled) to weigh 50 pounds.  While that weight is negligible for some of the guys who spent their days pumping iron in prison, it's a bit much for your humble narrator to bear.  And you know that saying about too many cooks?  Trust me, it's based on fact.

While giving you some updates on current events, let me tell you that it's been 30 days since my acceptance into the vocational program.  That's an important mark because many of the clients don't make it that far -- no kidding.  It's not uncommon to new new faces pop up every few days, only to have them disappear soon after.  Make no mistake that while SA is a charitable organization, to are strict in their rules and swift to act when any of those rules are broken.  Many clients get busted for the big infractions:  Caught with drugs in their possession or failing a random drug test; also known as 'pissing dirty' or 'dropping a dirty', this is likely the most common reason clients are dismissed.  Of course sheer stupidity on the part of a client is common as well:  One woman decided it was a great idea to drink a 40-ouncer right in front of a video monitor.  Obviously not ready for her close-up. 

Once an offense is confirmed SA wastes no time in getting the offender off the premises.  Even smaller offenses like failing a random room inspection can result in trouble.  The other day I and my roommates were subject to such an inspection.  One of the guys got a citation for leaving his bed messy (it was) and was given a citation.  As a first offense, likely nothing will happen.  But SA takes even the smaller details seriously, and those small infractions, if continued, can result in dismissal.  I suppose SA has the right, since they're footing the bill for all this.  Also, I think clients forget the fact that they stay and work with/for SA at the behest of the organization.  Perhaps it's human nature but I've found that many clients and homeless people get awfully picky about the things they are given (most often free of charge).  Beggars can't be choosers doesn't apply to many of these guys.  There's no law that says SA (or anyone) has to provide the services they do. 

On a much smaller scale, there was an incident with the flat screen TV in the common area.  That being, clients fighting over the remote control in order to decide which program to watch.  The shouting got so loud that it was heard by the Big Man (that being the SA Director of Operations), who later decreed a much stricter schedule for watching TV.  It doesn't affect me so much because there's rarely anything on that I want to watch (aside from football).  Besides, I didn't join the program to watch TV.  But the Big Man right pointed out that watching TV in the common room is a privilege, not a right.  Too many clients seem to forget that.

30 days is also important within the SA program because that's when the client receives their first review.  Your humble narrator is proud to announce that he aced his caseworker's review by scoring 100%.  No infractions, no write-ups, no conflicts, etc.  While I thought that was par for the course, I was told many guys can't make it that far without some sort of confrontation.  Anyway, yours truly has been a good, boring lad and so made the cut, which includes a bump-up in gratuity as well.  I'm proud to tell you that based upon a 40-hour work week I'm now making app. .33-cents/hour.  Take that, Bill Gates!  My other review was for my job performance as rated by my kitchen boss.  A bit misleading since I've only been in the kitchen two weeks or so, but 30 days is 30 days I guess. Anyway, I scored a 98 out of 100.  My drawbacks were speed in preparing food and taking initiative in finding stuff to do ... or asking what to do.  I'm not really sure.  Listening might be a drawback, now that I think of it.  Anyway, I was a good enough review.  I signed off and was feeling pretty good  about myself.  Two good reviews in the same day.  And then ... tragedy.

Well, that's a strong word.  More like 'unnecessary annoyance set in'.  I'll be detailing these co-workers in upcoming installments but for now let me say I like the kitchen boss.  He's one of the loudest individuals I've ever met, but he's a good guy overall and really knows the food service industry.  Because he oversees the entire kitchen he's not always around to train me, so that duty falls to his second in command.  This is a hulking Hawaiian dude who, no surprise, is an ex-con.  His backstory of dealing drugs and fighting with various gang bosses in Los Angeles sounds like a Miami Vice episode; Michael Mann would love this stuff, very crime noir.  That aside, this Hawaiian dude is a good guy, but a bad supervisor.  He knows his stuff in terms of food preparation, but his people skills are about as delicate as a boulder rolling downhill.  In short, he has a tendency to tell me 3-4 things to do, then walk off without showing me how to do any of the tasks(!).  Or he lets his emotions come to the fore and show his anger by giving off looks and vibes like he wants to run a knife through my throat.

My guess is that that kind of approach worked well in prison.  But in the 'real world', I have the feeling he'd get a lot of employee complaints about his manner and approach.  Then again, maybe it's me.  I'm the first to admit I have a lot to learn about the culinary trade.  Maybe it's just not my thing.  Yet it seems my inexperience might be taken into consideration, at least to a degree.  From what I can tell, most of the guys there have at least some small previous experience in the food industry.  I'm supposed to know everything in two weeks time?  I will say, though, that I kind of like serving food along 'the line.'  That is, taking orders, putting the food together, serving the customers.  I think I like it because it's fairly nonstop and I get a chance to talk with people; time seems to go by quicker when I'm in that position.  Could be it's the only thing close to performing the SA kitchen provides.  I actually think my sense of humor might be one of the things that keeps my situation as bearable as it is.

Anyway, the Hawaiian hulk dude and I have a few words.  No strong, no shouting or anything like that.  But it's the closest I've come to having an actual 'confrontation' as such. Basically he said I was too slow.  He was upset because another area of the kitchen I'd been working in -- along with 3 others -- was left unmopped.  My 'punishment' was to mop the whole area myself, so that it would 'never happen again'.  Yeesh.  There are times when I like to make smartass, offhand comments when confronted by such self-important, petty blather.  I didn't this time because A) I didn't want to get squashed like a bug; and 2) I actually wanted to hear what he had to say; which as it turned out was nothing memorable.  I inwardly rolled my eyes. 

He said something to the effect of "You may think I'm harsh, but I'm a good guy."  I said, "I do think you're a good guy.  You're just not a good supervisor."  Since I'm here writing these words, I didn't get squashed.  More interesting, he didn't reply even though I know he heard me.  Maybe his reply was in not speaking to me the rest of the day.  And do you want to know something ironic?  I later checked with the people I was working with and found that they had already mopped the floor hours earlier(!).  It made me wonder if Mr. Hawaiian Punch wasn't making the matter personal.  Funny, isn't it.  A few weeks ago I was writing about trying to keep a roof over my head and stay off the streets.  Now I'm writing about petty confrontations with co-workers.  I wonder if I'm taking too much of my SA experience for granted?  It seems to easy -- too easy -- to slip back into familiar patterns of human behavior, regardless of how serious our circumstances.

Hmm.  This session is coming to a close, and I still haven't managed to wrap up some loose ends of my tale.  Hang loose, my brethren.  We'll certainly tie up those threads in the next installment, or my name isn't Bullwinkle J. Moose!  It isn't, but so what?

HINJFCA IV

So I'm back to blog two days in a row, a personal best.  Note I've shortened the title of this thread down to an acronym, followed by the Roman numeral 'IV' for the 4th installment.  Why use an acronym and Roman numeral?  Easy. I'm getting too lazy to type out the whole title every time I sit down, and for some reason I felt particularly pretentious enough to use IV.  And yeah I know I could just cut-and-paste the title, but that's not how the M-O-double R-I-S rolls.

So last time I used the third personal to describe some of my experiences in North Las Vegas.  Your humble narrator thought it was interesting enough to continue the stylization, so let's get to it forthwith:

Hours crept by as Jim stood in the shadows of the Social Services building located on the Catholic Charities campus.  He literally had nowhere to go and nothing to do until 5pm, when beds would (hopefully) become available.  With the late-October temperatures in the mid-80s, he stayed in the shade and watched a line of mostly black and Hispanic men and women, most with kids, stand in a line that wound out of the building to the sidewalk. 

As he listened to various snippets of conversation, he learned that man y of these people had started lining up at 5:30 that morning; that was now going on eight hours standing in a line hoping for assistance on rent, utilities and food from the organization.  Many of them would be turned down, as evidenced by several people screaming and escorted off the premises by security guards.

He was still numb from the experiences of the past two days.  He still couldn't believe he was here in a rough part of the city, surrounded by vagrants, poor people, and who knows what riff-raff blown here by the vicissitudes of fate or personal choice.

And Jim wondered:  What brought me here to this moment in my life?  Was it a conspiracy of the Fates, weaving threads that would lead to his overall destruction?  Was it the actions of a vengeful God who wanted to punish him for his lack of faith and belief?  Or was it actually his own personal choices that brought him slowly to ruin?  Did he actually want this sort of scenario to play out so that he could be the victim?  So that he wouldn't have to take responsibility for his actions? 

Every step, every choice had brought him to this moment, standing in the shadows of a building with a pull-along luggage cart containing most of his worldly possessions.  Had taken him from a comfortable lifestyle where his biggest concern was which movie to watch; to here, where his biggest concern was if he might sleep on the street that night.  Suddenly, those movies and video games that seemed so essentially seemed extravagant and pointless.  Maybe he should have realized it all the time.  Instead of indulging in leisure activities, maybe he should have contributed his time to helping those more fortunate.  Maybe ...

(There's more material along these lines but since this blog doesn't come with violins or a box of hankies, I'll fast forward the narrative -- JM)

Was it Fate, personal choice, or the vagaries of chance that brought him here?  Hell, for all Jim knew, maybe it was just bad mojo.  At any rate, there was no use crying about it now.  It was done, son, and he was in the shit.  He walked around the block again just to keep moving and not arouse the interest of the security guards. 

As he strolled, Jim noticed that one vital function still operated as well as ever:  His appreciation for the opposite sex.  He noticed a few homeless women who were actually attractive in a dirty grimy sort of way.  Some were dressed in rags, others had soulless eyes, but some were genuinely attractive; no doubt a high percentage of them were hookers. 

One of the women had beautiful toned legs shown off by a microscopic black skirt.  A nice little nothing she was wearing, as James Bond might say.  She bent over and it was plainly evident she wore no underwear.  Must get drafty up there, thought Jim.  He wondered if there were any ex-models or actresses who had been suffered a fall from financial and professional grace wandering about the area. 

He also wondered, to his shame (well, almost), what it would be like to take of those women and have sex with her in some rank back alley.  Could he even get it up under those circumstances?  Probably not, considering these women likely had STDs that could vaporize even the strongest condom.  You'd need a condom made out of Kevlar for these girls, he thought.  And so the erection that had been stirring in his pants was put down by images of his genitalia rotting, turning grayish-green, and falling off his body like an overripe banana from a tree.  (I'm actually proud of this imagery -- JM)

Jim was stopped by a casually dressed guy wearing Ray-Bans. He didn't look homeless or destitute.  The man wanted to know if Jim had a legal ID

"Why?" he asked.

In rapid, heavily-accented English, the man said:  My friend, if you have legal ID I take you to man who take you to casino where he use your ID for (unintelligible) and then he take it to cashier for after the (unintelligible) so you get the fifty dollar.  Is good, yes.  So you have ID my friend?"

Jim could only blink.  The man spoke so rapidly and his accent was so thick that it sounded like:  "Myfriendifyouhave legal ID ItakeyoutomanwhotakeyoutocasinowhereheuseyourIDfor (unintelligible)andthenhetakeittocashierforafterthe (unintelligible) soyougetthefiftydollarIsgood,yes. SoyouhaveIDmyfriend?"

Sensing a scam, Jim said he didn't have a valid ID.  The man shook his head and made a noise of disgust as if to say,"Bald-headed asshole,why do you waste my time?"  As Jim walked on, a thought nagged at him:  That guy looked and sounded like someone.  Then it came to him.  The ID scammer looked and sounded just like a pint-size Javier Bardem.  (He really did, honest to God! -- JM)

Across the street was an elderly black woman screaming in fron t of the Shade Tree building.  She screamed on and on as if arguing with some non-existent companion.  People seemed to take no notice of her; apparently she was a regular fixture there.  Pigeons gathered about her ratty area, nearly surrounding her at one point.  She made a wild gesticulation and the birds scattered.  The sharp flapping noise of their wings might have sounded like applause for the woman's profanity-laden monologue.

There was a white man at the opposite street corner also screaming.  He sat back against a brick wall of a pawn shop and screamed words made nonsensical my his raspy voice.  It sound like he might have blown out his vocal cords from all the screaming.  Near him were a collection of shopping carts filled with assorted junk and possessions that belonged to other homeless people; a kind of temporary commune thrown up haphazardly and without regard for sanitation.

The hours dragged but time did pass.  Around quarter to five Jim decided to head back to the Salvation Army.  Before going, he couldn't resist a peek at the line of men queueing up for beds at Catholic Charities.  The sidewalk on Foremaster was now thick with homeless guys, some standing, some sitting, a few pissing against whatever wall they could find.  Jim estimated if there weren't 200 guys waiting, there soon would be.  It looked like a gathering of hobos and their debris; all that was missing was a a guy with a stick with a bag of possessions tied at one end.

Back up Owens he went, the street's incline seeming more difficult now.  He saw the plain facade of the Salvation Army buildings   It was about five until 5pm. The courtyard was slightly emptier from the last time he was here, but the haze of smoke remained stubbornly strong.  Many of the same people were still there in the same position, talking about the same things.  Apparently they stayed there all day.  Jim re-entered the DRC office and went back to the office window.  He didn't see anyone else lining up there.

Around ten past five a black woman with too much makeup shoved open the window, not looking at him.  Jim leaned in and asked if they had any beds available for the evening.  She said to hold on, she was updating the rosters and lists.  Not wanting to lose his place, Jim waited another ten minutes when the woman sighed and said, Yes, they did have beds available for the evening. Jim let out a breath and felt like celebrating with an ice-cold soda.  But he'd settle for flopping into a bed and crashing.

(Actually, I was getting more and more pissed off waiting for that woman to tell me whether a bed was available.  I was worried I might have to sleep on the street or field since I'd bypassed my chance at Catholic Charities.  The thought that kept running through my head was along the lines of "Goddammit, will you hurry up, you fucking idiot?" Needless to day, I didn't let on -- JM)

(I didn't really need to write, "Needless to say, I didn't let on." It's kinda self-evident. -- JM)

Your humble narrator here: I'll bring Part IV to a close at this point in the saga.  What did you think of telling the story in the third person, along with my editorial comments?  It's the writer acting as on-the-fly editor of his own story.  Pretty clever, eh?  Well hells, man I'm always ready to thrown down with the literary stylistic change-up.  As the kids say, you know how I do.  I probably should mention there's a lot of ex-cons and jailbirds where I'm staying these days. I say that so you don't think I'm trying to be all, you know, badass with my mad words and shiznit. You know how I do's it.

Don't be surprised if if the next installment is written in a combination of Esperanto and Pig Latin.  Ater-Lay.