I booked the one-way plane ticket to Milwaukee, then began to compose an email to my supervisor. The subject line was A DEATH IN THE FAMILY (NOT THE BOOK). I wrote to him that there had been a death in my adoptive family. My adoptive family was reduced to ashes. Supervisor, you can’t see me now, I typed, but I’m crying. It’s like a sibling Hiroshima. One minute he was there, the next he’s a shadow.
My leaving would be frowned upon, I knew. A few months ago, I was astonished to learn I was the subject of an internal investigation, which I snorted at with laughter because I was the most ethical person in the history of the organization, I let it be known regularly how upright my behavior was especially in contrast to my own supervisor, some kind of Adolf Eichmann type. He doesn’t do anything except what he’s told, I told anyone who would listen, he carries out his orders without thinking about the conditions of the troubled young people.
It’s all about the bottom line with him, I said to anyone with ears, it’s all about living on less and less. Less than gossamer and floss! I once said, only to realize I had been shouting.
Everyone needs toilet paper and tissues, I would say calmly as I put in my weekly orders, everyone needs paper towels and moist towelettes.
He could respond only with numbers and financial feasibility and so-called facts.
What are they supposed to do? I screamed at him a week ago. Wipe the shit off with the back of their hands? Then the shit gets spread all around and everything they touch has shit-traces!
There were a few exceptions to this tense relationality. Some of my troubled young people saw me as I really was, and eventually I went on to befriend them even after they left my supervision. I gave them my personal telephone number and home address in case they wanted to reach me outside of the facility, in case they wanted to grab lunch or go see a movie. And how was it that I was the only one who listened to the troubled people and treated them as peers instead of minions? And what would my troubled young people do while I was away in Milwaukee attending to my adoptive parents? I wondered. They would face hardship after hardship, certainly, especially without their cigarettes or their candy. Some of them would go through withdrawal and cravings. Absolutely they would suffer during my time away. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time, I said to myself as I printed out a plane ticket on my roommate Julie’s printer. In fact it’s audacious to leave at a time like this, especially when my work is under such intense scrutiny, but my adoptive family has left me with no choice. When faced with a crisis one is compelled to act in an ethical manner. And it cannot be ignored that this would be an excellent time to showcase my talents.
I’m the only one left, I typed to my supervisor, I’m buying a one-way ticket and I’m not sure when I will return. Sincerely, Sister Reliability, I signed it, because even though my supervisor did not call me Sister Reliability, even though he refused to call me Sister Reliability, the troubled young people certainly did, and it was mostly for their sake I was writing at all.
3
After I proofread my email for spelling and grammatical errors, I pressed send. Everyone loves to press send, I thought as I pictured the email swooping into my supervisor’s inbox. Then I imagined myself swooping confidently into the Midwest as fierce as a swan to assist my adoptive parents. Time passed quickly or maybe it dissolved. Perhaps it shattered! I finished packing my canvas suitcase. I called a car. When tragedies occur, time slows down or speeds up. I could put forth theories about time to entertain myself, most of them superficial. That’s the truth. I only knew time existed because as the years went on, my flesh slackened and my muscles ached. It was as if my bones were wearing some kind of flesh muumuu. Time itself is nothing but a construction to organize and measure flesh decay.