At the end of the first week, I conducted a series of interviews for the night watchman position I had once filled.
The job title was Auxiliary Security Person. Each of the four people I talked to seemed competent to fill the post and, which was always my problem, I couldn’t choose among them, which was always my problem. They all seemed honest enough. After the interviews were concluded, I shuffled through the resumes looking for the clearly best possibility, but each had something to recommend him. One of the candidates was an older man with frightened eyes who looked like he needed the job more than the others. He seemed to have gone from one hapless job to another, doing anything that required no experience that would pay the bills. In the interview there was a kind of desperation in his voice. He said, repeatedly so, that he was prepared to do whatever the situation required. He reminded me of myself, an older frailer version of me and I leaned toward choosing him. Still, a younger, stronger-looking man might be more of what was needed. One of the candidates had been a bouncer for ten years and looked big enough to handle anything that got in his way. On the downside, he didn’t seem very bright, but maybe a dullard was best for that job.
I went home without making a decision, though Margaret came in and seemed eager to hear my choice. I said I would give her my choice tomorrow morning and she consented, though I could tell she wanted me to choose on the spot.
When I got home, I worried over the choice and I had one of my lineup dreams. In my dream were the four job candidates each wearing a grey smock that looked like a prison uniform and in the fifth spot my old red couch, looking worse than ever. I was there in a police uniform giving orders, instructing the candidates in turn to do a dance step as if someone were shooting at their feet. And then I began shooting at their feet to help them along. The older man lost his balance and fell to his knees while the others jumped up and down, dodging my bullets. I called out: “Will somebody please pick up that man that fell to his knees? Everyone ought to be standing.” And then I woke. I had to choose the older man, whether he was the best for the job or not. His falling in the dream was the sign.
I went in to Margaret’s office and when I told her who I wanted for the job she seemed surprised. but shrugged and said, “It’s your call, Mel. I’ll inform him that he starts tonight. I’m curious: what about this man made you pick him over the others?”
I had no good reason to offer. “Instinct,” I said.
“Well, we’ll see how he works out,” she said.
I could tell by the way she said what she did that if the old guy messed up in some way, it would be a black mark on my record.
That I didn’t hear anything for a week seemed a good omen. I left the office from time to time to look around, to check that everything was all right. Isn’t that what security does, check on things.
There were more interviews for jobs but not competitions as before. I approved everyone that came before me. There was never any reason not to.
I asked Eva on one of our walks what the perception was about me. She said she didn’t know but that she had heard no complaints. How did I feel it was going? “I have no idea,” I said. “Sometimes I think I’m swimming in space.”
“Whatever that means,” she said.
“It means,” I said, “that I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m making up the job as I go along.”
“No one will know that unless you tell them.” She said.
“I’m thinking of giving it up,” I said. “I promised you one more week. It’s been three more weeks.”
“You can’t keep quitting jobs,” she said.
“Why not?” I said.
“You’ll get a reputation for being irresponsible,” she said.
“Would my reputation be better if they fired me?”
“No one is going to fire you,” she said. “If they were dissatisfied, Margaret would have said something to me.”
So I continued on in my gray suit, pretending to know what I was doing. I began to think maybe that’s what most people do. Pretend to be living the life they’ve been assigned.
I asked Klotzman if he ever felt he was a fraud and he gave me this insulted look. “Is that what you think of me?” he asked.
“I was thinking about myself,” I said. “I know I’m a fraud.”
“Mel, you tend to think you’re faking it even when you’re not,” he said. “Isn’t that so?”
“Whatever. In any event, I’m faking this job.”
“So you’ve said. Maybe what you’re doing or not doing is the nature of the job.”
“I’ve thought about that,” I’ve said.
“And?”
“It could be true, but that doesn’t make me any less of a fraud.”
“If they’re satisfied with the job you’re doing, don’t let it bother you. No one has complained or said anything, have they?”
“They could be humoring me as a favor to Eva,” I said. I had just thought of that.
“I suppose that’s a remote possibility,” he said, “but it isn’t very likely in my opinion.”
We went around in circles, neither convincing the other.
“Did I tell you,” I said. “I sleep with Eva these days on a regular basis.”
“You hadn’t,” he said. “You only mentioned that there was this one time. That seems like progress.”
“Eva and I sleep together every Thursday,” I said.
“Every Thursday,” he repeated, as if fastening on to the idea. “That seems somewhat rigid. Never on Wednesday or Sunday?”
“You know,” I said, “I like things to be set in a certain way. It lowers the anxiety threshold.”
“How long has this been going on?” he asked.
“Two weeks now,” I said.
“That’s not quite long enough to seem an established routine.”
“We take walks together on Thursdays,” I explained, “and when we come back, we go into her apartment and have sex.”
He seemed to want to say something but censored himself. “Fine,” he said, “if that suits you both.”
“I know it suits me,” I said. “I thought you’d see it as a kind of breakthrough.”
“Uh huh,” he said. “What does she do the rest of the week?”
“I don’t ask and she doesn’t tell.” I said.
“Is what’s his name, Ronnie, still on the scene?” he asked. “Your safety valve.”
“I haven’t seen him around, but that doesn’t mean anything. The job keeps me away from the apartment. It’s Ron, not Ronnie.”
“You’ve made some strides,” he said to me. “Are you pleased with yourself?”
That was a hard question for me to answer. “I’m never really pleased with myself,” I said, “but the answer to your question is yes. As I said, I’m still trying to figure out this job. I don’t like feeling like a fraud.”
“You seem genuine enough to me,” he said.
“Well,” I said, “it’s your job to make me feel better about myself.”
I still played with the idea of doing something mildly outrageous at work to see how they would respond. I thought of putting my gray suit back in the closet and coming in to work in jeans. Dressing down might bring me a dressing down, might even get me fired. It would probably be easier just to give them my notice, though I had promised Eva I would hang in.
I played the possibilities against one another. Would it be better to disgrace myself or break a promise to Eva. Trapped in the dilemma, I did neither, did nothing for a while.
I kept finding more things for me to do on the job, anything to feel less fraudulent. I took it on myself to do an inventory on what we kept in the cabinets. I learned how to run lie detector tests in case the occasion came for me to administer one.