It was a lovely start to another shit sandwich of a day. It was time for the second Quality Assurance Committee meeting. As I made my way into the boardroom, I saw Sheila talking to Gabbibb, and I think I heard her mention something about Botox. Gabbibb was wearing an authentic Derek Jeter Yankees jersey with dress slacks and polished Bostonian shoes. He was heading to the Stadium after the meeting to catch his beloved Bronx Bombers.
Bowerman led off the meeting with an announcement.
“Before we get started, I wanted to let you all know something. As you all know, we’re very excited about our new halfway house and though it’s far from being refurbished, we would like to invite everyone out to see the new facility.” Bowerman had her hands folded neatly in front of her. She was doing her best to be ultra-professional. “We’d also like to present an overview of the type of program we’d like to run, once we get approval from the state and all the construction is done,” she said.
There was an effort to unite the various Jewish agencies to coordinate services. For people like Claudia and Bowerman, this was threatening because it meant the possibility that their little empires might be compromised. It was Hymie’s idea, and on paper it was a good one. Unfortunately, the inane power struggles that dominate the lives of people who rise to the positions of leadership in these organizations would find a way to sabotage whatever good could come of a partnership.
Besides this committee and a couple of others, the big joint project was the halfway house that Espidera was funding. Anyone in social services will tell you that there’s an absolute dearth of residential facilities for women with children. It is probably the biggest single obstacle for women to get help for addiction, prostitution, and physically abusive relationships. There were halfway houses and safe houses, but none where you could bring your kids for longer than a few weeks. It was going to be a great thing, despite the fact that Espidera made it possible so he could get a tax break. I guess sometimes the ends do justify the means.
“I’m just so excited,” Espidera said, beaming at the attention he was getting. “The possibilities this new program will offer the women and children of this area are tremendous.”
Bowerman and Claudia figured a date for all of us to take a ride out to Kingsville to see the new facility and to discuss some program planning. It wasn’t hard enough that I had to get caught up with all this paperwork, I also had to somehow get it done on days when we weren’t even in the office. These little field trips to pat board members on the back and stroke the egos of people like Bowerman made me crazy.
I had just gotten back to the cubicle when Trina stopped by. I liked Trina and, even though she was the Michelin Woman’s secretary, she seemed to be on my side. I also liked her because she was twenty-four years old, with shoulder-length brown hair and legs that reached all the way to the ground. Being twenty-four, she gravitated to the hipper fashions, which was fine by me. Having her pass by the cubicle in some of her tight-fitting pants or significantly above-the-knee skirts had a way of breaking up the day.
Trina was my women’s focus group of one. I ran relationship issues past her, got date ideas, and dissected rejections with her. She was eager to help me navigate the minefield that was the fairer sex, and I could tell she genuinely liked me. She smelled nice and was a pleasure to be near. She also had been seeing a guy named Lou for two years and I could sense she wasn’t always pleased with him.
“Hey Duff,” Trina almost whispered.
“What’s up?”
“I’m not supposed to tell you this, but she’s going to audit ten of your charts in the morning.”
“Shit. Do you know which ones?”
“She usually has me, you know, randomly select them.”
“Ugh.”
“Duff, suppose you, like, happened to let me know which ten of your files are in the best shape. Maybe I could, like, randomly select them for you.”
“Trina, you don’t have to do that.”
“Let me know by the end of the day,” she looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching. “It’s, like, so not a big deal.”
She smiled at me and let her eyes linger on mine a little after we stopped talking. It made me wonder. I didn’t feel comfortable having her stick her neck out for me, but I am also not a fool.
The problem was I didn’t have ten good files. I could give Trina a list and try to get ten files into some sort of shape. It would mean close to an all-nighter, but it would buy me some time. I came up with ten and discreetly slipped the list onto Trina’s desk on my way to get some coffee. She smiled at me and tucked the list away.
Before I started on the files I wanted to see how Mikey and Eli were doing. I got Rudy on the first ring.
“Rudy,” he said.
“Geez, you ever think of doing any of those Dale Carnegie courses?” I said.
“Fuck you.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no,’” I said. “Hey, how are the guys doing?”
“Actually, real well. They’re in some pain, but they’re healing, and best of all, neither of them seem to be having bad effects from the radiation,” Rudy said.
“That’s good, right?”
“Yeah, as long as the stuff gets after the cancer. If it leaves the rest of the body alone-that’s the best,” Rudy took a bite out of something and chewed into the mouthpiece. “The cops doing anything?”
“Kelley told me in subtle terms that they’re doing about the minimum. Eli and Mikey were hit randomly, so it’s a very hard investigation to nail down. It also doesn’t help that neither one of them are pillars of the community,” I said.
“Maybe the community would care if they knew that treating them was going to cost about two hundred large.”
“Are you serious?”
“That’s conservative, Duff.” Rudy took another bite of whatever he was inhaling. “They’ll be in here for a month, they’ll wind up with several surgeries each, and then there’s Gabbibb’s bill.”
“The oncology costs a ton, I bet.”
“It’s not just that. He gets a cut on all of it because his practice has orthopedic guys, trauma guys-you name it. Ol’ ‘DAT, DAT’ will make a killing,” he said.
“Shitty choice of words, Rude,” I said. “Hey, what happened to making these guys get out of the hospital in a hurry?”
“Turns out their Medicaid was the right kind, especially with the cancer. They can be here forever.”
I signed off with Rudy and went to the file cabinet to get my charts. It was going to be a long night.
14
D: Patient reports eating twenty-two Krispy Kreme donuts and then having sex with the cashier at the donut shop.
A: Patient appears to struggle with self-control and moderation.
P: Patient to make a list of positive and negative consequences of her impulsive episode.
It was heading toward midnight and I was trying to get the ten charts I identified up to snuff. I was putting the finishing touches on Martha Stewart’s.
Martha goes nuts over Krispy Kremes. She spent an entire session talking about how good they are. I still remember it clearly.
“They come down that big conveyer belt from the oven and they’re still so warm,” her eyes were as glazed over as a glazed cruller. “They’re awesome and they feel so good going down.”
“Martha, it’s probably not a good idea to obsess like th-”
“… and they have this coating. It’s white and it’s both crispy and sweet. It’s like, uh… like…”
“Liquefied sugar?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Martha made six trips to the donut shop that day, eating a few warm ones from each batch. She was so overcome with warmth from the deep-fried carbo that she hung around after closing to have a go with Vassily, the Ukrainian guy who works the counter. Martha explained that she became uncontrollably attracted to Vassily and just had to have him. I think my correspondence course in Intro to Psych said that was projection. No, maybe it was displacement. Anyway, I was moving on to the Jewish couple when I heard someone coming up the stairs. I stepped out of the cubicle to see what was going on. It was Trina.