Monica and I couldn’t even talk openly at work because it was against the policy of NEOTAP that NEOTAP employees speak to residents or each other outside of NEOTAP. Unless your conversation with another employee was about fantasy football, you were likely to get called into Heidelberg’s office. I woke up five days a week at six in the morning completely dreading going to NEOTAP. I would wake up and just hate my life. I would take a shower, put my clothes on, and drive the forty minutes to work. I would get to work and live in a constant state of fear that I was doing something wrong, then go home and do nothing at all. Sometimes I would lie on the couch for two hours alternately staring and taking naps to get NEOTAP out of my system. Then I would eat and eventually go to sleep. I didn’t even bother calling my friends. All I could think about was NEOTAP and how I needed to behave properly at work for $11.30 an hour.
One day Imad came over to me and said, “Let’s do mail.”
I went over to the stack of envelopes and put them in little boxes. Every resident had their own box. After I completed putting the mail in the boxes, residents would come over and ask me for their mail, and I would hand it to them. But Imad was there.
Charlie Palmer came over and said, “May I have my mail.”
I got up to get it and Imad said, “No.”
I stood there looking at Imad.
Imad said, “Go sit down, Charlie.”
I stood there for a second and then sat down.
Imad had a shit-eating grin on his face.
Charlie Palmer stood wearing a battered San Diego Chargers hoodie and a ripped pair of blue jeans, looking dejected.
There was no reason to not give Charlie Palmer his mail.
I was sitting next to a computer and looked up Charlie Palmer’s profile:
Age: 47
Crimes: Charlie Palmer has four DUIs. He has been to court-mandated rehabilitation programs for drinking and refuses to stop drinking.
Education: Graduated high school.
Beliefs: Charlie Palmer doesn’t believe in working. He has lived at his mother’s house all his life. He has never married or had children. He has not held a job since 1998. Since then he has been living strictly off his mother. He is emotionally immature and confused by grownup activities. He confesses to drinking beer every day of his life.
Special Things: If he is yelled at, he will start crying.
I looked at Charlie Palmer. He was a sad piece of shit. When my father was forty-seven he had a wife, two kids, a house and a career. Charlie Palmer had nothing. Charlie Palmer had spent his life living off of his mother, but of course his mother may have trained him to be like that. His mother might have been the queen of enablers. She might have enabled all of his lazy behavior because she didn’t want to be alone. But the question that kept occurring to me was this: did Charlie Palmer really deserve not to get his mail, to be power-tripped by Imad because of DUIs? Did he deserve to be put in a treatment facility for six months where everything he did was watched and monitored? He was an alcoholic, not a violent criminal. I looked at Imad. Several more people came up and asked for their mail and he said no. He didn’t care. He thought it was all funny. Charlie Palmer was a sad sack of a human being. There were a lot of rich people who lived off their parents’ money and everyone thought they were awesome. There was a show on called Keeping up with the Kardashians, which was about rich kids who spend money all day. They made some of their own money, but they would have never made it without their rich parents helping them with their money and social connections. No one considered them bad people. I couldn’t figure out the truth. The contradictions were making my brain grow tense and overworked. I wanted to leave, go home and sleep. But then I thought about getting health insurance and I just sat there.
Some people came over and asked for their mail and Imad gave it to them. Charlie Palmer tried again. He said, “I want my mail please.”
“What did you say?” Imad said.
“I would like my mail please.”
Imad handed him an envelope. Charlie Palmer opened it up in front of Imad. Inside there were two pictures of his sister’s kids. Imad looked at the pictures and said, “Are these pictures on your property sheet?”
A property sheet was a piece of paper that listed all the property a resident could get for the week. If they didn’t write the item on it, then they couldn’t have that item.
Charlie Palmer said, “No, I didn’t know I was getting any pictures so I didn’t write them on my property sheet.”
Imad took the pictures. “These are going in the storage closet. When you write down on the property sheet that you have two pictures, then I will give them to you.”
“That won’t be for a week.”
“Are you arguing?”
“They’re just pictures, Imad,” Charlie Palmer said.
“No, they are property. You can’t just get any piece of property you want whenever you want it. There are rules at NEOTAP.”
“This is stupid.”
Imad stood there, looking furious. “Stay there, Charlie.”
Imad walked over to the phone and called Heidelberg.
Then Heidelberg came upstairs and said to Charlie Palmer, “To my office. Now.”
They went to her office. I knew it was bad. Imad stood there with a shit-eating grin.
Charlie Palmer came out of Heidelberg’s office crying.
The other guys looked at him but they didn’t say anything. They knew if they said anything Imad would send them to Heidelberg’s office, and they would also be crying.
Protest 2.0 Meeting
Monica and I decided to attend a meeting about Protest 2.0 at a local coffee shop. The Protest 2.0 protest had been going on for a month and my city had decided to start protesting the local banks. I had visited the coffee shop many times and just thought it would be interesting to hear a few speeches.
When Monica and I arrived, people were sitting around talking about politics and their college classes.
Local lawyers discussed protest laws and a political science professor spoke to us about tax law. After the question and answer period was over, a young woman went onstage. She was in her mid-twenties and had a pleasant face.
The young woman stood before the microphone holding pieces of paper and said, “Hi, I’m Ashley. I have a poem to read about our current situation. It’s a poem by Sherwood Burke.”
Monica and I looked at each other.
“Sherwood Burke? What the fuck?” I said.
“You think she knows where he is?”
“I don’t know.”
Onstage, Ashley continued. “Sherwood Burke sent me this poem to read here tonight. It’s called ‘You Really Killed the Buffalos for This?’”
She took a drink of coffee and said in a loud voice:
“I only have two justifications
for the death of capitalism
where did the Korean tiger and Buffalo go
I don’t know
into capitalism’s mouth and out
its fuckin’ ass
I don’t care
how good dental care is
and how much fun you have learning Bach on the violin
discussing Plato’s Republic in an
air-conditioned building
because capitalism makes my dick hurt”
After the organized part of the meeting, Monica and I approached Ashley. She was sitting at a table talking to a few people. We introduced ourselves and I said, “I know Sherwood Burke. He was at NEOTAP, but he disappeared recently.”
“I know,” she said.
“You know what?”
“Sherwood and I were in the military together. We dated for a while. He sent me this poem in an email but he didn’t say where he was. He just said to read the poem at local rallies for Protest 2.0. He didn’t say anything else. I asked him why he wasn’t in NEOTAP anymore but he didn’t reply. I think he has a plan.”
“A plan to do what?”
“I don’t know,” she said.