Michael Fowler

Everything is Not Permitted

by Michael Fowler

As the night closed in, Mike entered the small building by the woods. He walked over to the sign-in sheet on the front desk and wrote his name, saying aloud, “Where is everyone?” He went into Dan’s office, open and vacant ten feet behind the desk, pulled out a desk drawer and rummaged through it. “What the hell?” He kept looking inside, moving papers around. Casey came in the front door and went to the sign-in sheet.

“Hey,” said Mike, able to see Casey from where he sat. “You’re early tonight.”

“Yeah,” said Casey, writing. “I need to stop doing that.” He put down the pen at the sign-in sheet and sat nonchalantly in one of the three chairs arranged near the desk.

Mike closed Dan’s drawer and came up to him, sitting in one of the chairs. “So, what do you think of our new truck out there? Hard to believe this place can afford a vehicle like that.”

“I’ve got my eye on it,” said Casey.

“Your eye’s out there, is it?” said Mike. “Did it happen to spot our paychecks? Mine’s not in Dan’s drawer as usual. Did you get yours? I didn’t see yours or Ed’s, either.”

“Really? Sure mine’s not there?”

“I Looked. Dan didn’t mention some new arrangement, did he?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Aren’t you worried about your check?”

“I’ll look for it. What’s Ed still doing here?”

“Not sure. I get here and see Ed’s car still here, your car here early, and now no paychecks. At least mine isn’t there. Have we landed in hell?”

“Sure, this place is hell, you don’t know that already? Ed’s supposed to get me on at the golf course where he’s a starter on weekends, but still hasn’t come through. Maybe he’s got some news for me.”

“His news is you can caddy for some snooty elites and make more in tips than you do in a homeless shelter.”

“Sounds about right.”

“And if you don’t leave soon, you’ll be working for Ed and chewing his toenails for a living right here. You know he’s putting in for Dan’s job when he retires next month. Lord and master of all us widgets. That’s what Dan calls us, widgets. He’s right, of course. I once heard him say on the phone we were all mentally deficient. I don’t know if that part’s right. The jury’s still out.”

Ed came in the front door and confronted Mike and Casey.

“Evening, gentlemen. Been quite an evening. One fistfight, and five minutes before my shift ends, the laundry catches fire.”

“I don’t see any fire trucks out there,” said Mike. “You must have put it out yourself. Look good on your resume.”

“Just our brand-new truck sitting out there,” said Casey. “It’s too nice to fight fires in. Or haul these losers around.”

“I did put the fire out,” said Ed, continuing to stare at the others from the doorway. “It was Tim setting his shirts on fire with a cigarette. At least the idiot had sense enough to come and get me.”

He moved to the chair by the wall behind the desk and took down the shift log pegged there. “Anybody seen our paychecks?” he asked as he sat. “Mine is missing. So’s my wallet I left here.”

“My check’s missing too,” said Mike. “Someone’s got some ’splaining to do.” He looked at Casey, but not harshly.

“Is Bill in his dorm? Casey said to Ed. “That new guy with the tattoos?”

“I believe he is,” said Ed, continuing to fill out his shift notes. “But before we discuss Bill and his skin art, which one of you two jokers has my check and wallet?”

“Yeah, who could it be?” said Mike. He again looked at Casey, more expectantly this time.

“Why’d you leave your wallet in here?” said Casey.

“I took it out to put my check in it, then got notified of the fire. I know I locked up behind me, it wasn’t any of these loons.”

“The office was open when I got here, but you two were here already, though not in the office,” said Mike.

“So did you go off and leave the door unlocked, young Casey?” said Ed. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“I was only gone a minute, and I kept my eye on the place,” said Casey. “No one got in.”

“That you know of,” said Ed.

Casey stood up and started to leave. “Where are you going, partner?” said Mike. “It gets lonely up here.”

“I need to talk to Bill about something. I’ll be back.” He left, looking preoccupied.

“This is getting stranger and stranger,” said Ed.

“Not really,” said Mike.

“OK, you’ve played tricks on me before,” said Ed, holding his pen aloft. “How about handing over my wallet and check so I can get out of here? My shift ended twenty minutes ago.”

“Ed, there’s no one I like to play tricks on more than you, who told Dan my first day here that I was incompetent, and has tried to push me around ever since. But my check’s missing too, and I think we need to talk to Dan about some new safeguards. Leaving our checks in his unlocked desk drawer overnight isn’t working anymore.”

“And why is that, do you suppose?”

“Have you asked yourself, Ed, what business Casey has going on with Bill? Do you conduct business with homeless guys? Think about that.”

“I think it’s suspicious you’re trying to point the finger at Casey. Sure he’s a bit chuckleheaded and immature, but he’s not the type to steal our paychecks or wallets.”

“Is that a fact?” said Mike.

“He’s asked me to get him on at the golf course, and I’ve put in a word for him.”

“You hire the chuckleheaded and immature there, do you, Ed? Good to know the kind of place it is if I ever want to dust off my clubs.”

Ed turned in his chair and pointed the pen at a hiring notice tacked on the bulletin board behind him. “Tell you something else. If you put in for Dan’s job, I won’t stand in your way.” He tapped the paper with the pen and looked hard at Mike. “Given it any thought?”

“I have,” said Mike. “But you’re not fooling me, Ed. I know your style. There’re only two reasons you’d tell me you won’t stand in my way. One, you think I’m no competition for you, and that's likely true. You have seniority on me, and ambition too, and I suppose your military experience counts for something, whereas I have no ambition at all, at least not here. And two, you want me to think you’re a fine and magnanimous guy, willing to give up a promotion to help a coworker get ahead. What nonsense. No one does that, least of all a self-promoter like you. You actually think you can mess with my mind, don’t you?”

“I know this,” said Ed, giving the notice a dismissive wave. “You’re the type to hold onto our paychecks and wallets and make it look like a theft. You’d do it as a joke. You’ve never been serious about this job.” He went back to writing.

Minutes later Casey came back in the front door looking like he’d resolved a problem, and ignoring the two men, disappeared into the tiny rest room adjoining Dan’s office. After a brief time, he emerged and ducked into Dan’s office. The two others couldn’t see what he was doing back there, but figured he was sitting at Dan’s desk. Casey quickly came out and sat beside them.

“Your check was on the floor,” he said to Ed, handing over the item. “Yours is back there too,” he said to Mike. He looked calmly at the others while they stared back at him.

“What about yours?” Mike asked Casey. “Did you find yours?”

“Yeah, it was back there. I had it earlier. Picked it up after I got here.”

“No sign of my wallet?” asked Ed.

“Nope,” said Casey.

“That’s not what you told me before,” Mike said to Casey. “You said you’d have to look for your check.”

“No, I had it,” said Casey. “I don’t know what you heard me say.”

“But mine’s back there now, huh. Well that’s dandy. Thanks for letting me know. You could have brought it out here with Ed’s.”

Casey shrugged.

“I’m going to take one more look in Dan’s office for my wallet and then get out of here,” said Ed, replacing the shift log on the wall. “I’ve got to be on the tee tomorrow at eight in the morning. I think I’ll hold off on writing a report of stolen property until I talk to Dan on Monday about how certain people here can’t be trusted.”

Casey stood up casually and walked to the door. “Night, Ed,” he said. “I’d be at the course myself in the morning if I didn’t have the nightshift to tire me out.” He started out.

“Where are you going now?” Mike called to him.

“I told Bill I’d check on his bed neighbor. Bill says the guy hasn’t showered in two weeks and stinks like a sewer, and he may have a knife stashed in his locker.” He left.

“It looks more and more like somebody took off without locking the door, allowing some scum to get in here,” said Ed. “What do you know about this Bill person?” He headed to Dan’s office without waiting for an answer.

“Do me a favor while you’re back there,” called Mike. “See if the shelter gas card is in its usual spot in Dan’s desk.”

Ed was back in a minute, looking unhappy.

“Let me guess,” said Mike. “No wallet and no gas card. Do you begin to see?”

“No wallet,” said Ed, “but the card’s there. I think you’re getting desperate.”

“A desperado, that’s me,” said Mike. “But when you talk to Dan about the criminal element here, be sure you can make your accusations stick.”

“If it was you and not one of these hobos, watch out,” said Ed. “And it’s never too late to return the wallet.”

“Let me give you a hint about what’s really going on before you take off for some well-deserved sleep, Ed. Accuse me of anything you like, but are you aware that Casey drives off with our gas card and uses it to fill his own tank? Ever notice that, Ed?”

“No,” said Ed, poised in the doorway. “He doesn’t do it on my shift, anyway. The more I listen to you, the more I doubt what I’m hearing. Sounds to me like you’re scapegoating.” He was gone.

Mike sniffed and stretched his neck. Usually at this time he tuned in a late-night talk show on the old TV on the stand beside the desk, to help pass the hours, but he wasn’t in the mood for a comedian. He had his book, but needed to settle down more before he could relax into reading. His insides felt jumpy.

Casey returned, strode in his trademark sweeping way back to the men’s, flushed the commode and then detoured into Dan’s office. He didn’t speak until he was on his way out the door again.

“I’m leaving for a while,” he said. “I need at least a six-pack to get through one of these nights. Want anything?”

"No, I’m good,” said Mike. “I’ll put a pot of coffee on, do the ten o’clock walk-through. Why don’t you take the new truck for a test spin?”

“If I ever get behind the wheel of that thing, me and it aren’t coming back. But Dan would notice the mileage.”

“He would? Where you going, California?”

“Someday, maybe,” said Casey, “but not tonight.” He gave Mike a searching look. “Hey, you and me are cool, right?”

“Yeah, we’re cool.”

Casey left. Through the side window, Mike watched him walk through the night under the outdoor office lights to his little red beater parked nearby, start up and drive off. He’d seen this before, and knew his coworker wouldn’t be back for an hour or two. He never asked Casey where he went, not caring. The thing was to get through the night. Get paid for it. Go home by morning. But the little punk had handled his check, considered stealing it. Would have stolen it if he could cash it.

He got up and walked back to Dan’s office, opened the top desk drawer and took out his paycheck. At least the kid had returned it. After Dan stashed it in his wallet, he opened the lower drawer. The gas card was missing, as he knew it would be.

He went back up front and put on some coffee. In twenty minutes he’d do the walk-through, make sure the men were snug in their beds or at least not drinking and fighting. Maybe get a good look at Bill, refresh his memory of the loser’s inked hide. He wondered what Casey had bought from Bill with Ed’s money, but had a pretty good idea. Lately Casey seemed to have a live monkey on his back. Planned to steal a truck and bragged about it. The upstart lacked the nerve, but needed to wise up.

Mike sat at the desk and opened his book. A dense, foreign one where a character called Ivan says, “Everything is permitted.” Sure, everything is permitted in a novel, but in a homeless shelter? On Monday he’d confront Dan with what he knew and take it from there.

END

Institution Inspector No. 23

by Michael Fowler

Sam Zed here, government institution inspector no. 23. I pose as a resident in certain federally funded nursing homes, treatment centers, and halfway houses to verify service for accreditation and continuation of funds. Due to my age, mid-50s, and ability to appear non compos mentis, severely drug withdrawn, chemically poisoned and shellshocked, or any of these stress-outs in any combo, I am a plausible plant in most facilities from VA to homeless shelters with my concentration being the three types I mentioned. I record my notes on a secret device that if need be, I can stick in my mouth or shove up my ass.

One recent evening I installed as a resident in Asbestos Manor Care Center, a skilled-level facility mainly Medicaid-funded with a bad rep for resident mistreatment by bullying, undereducated staff and medicos from the bottom fifths of their outsourced classes. I was wheeled into admission with my bad hair waving every which-way and a two-day’s beard by Agent B, a stunner from my department with long legs. B posed as my legal rep and signed over my alleged retirement stipend from a job hosing bottles at a soft drink company for thirty years. B told the facility brass that my mind was tabula rasa from years of Benzedrine inhalation but I was complacent as a stuffed toy. She added that I only had a single suitcase since my apartment on the river was recently flooded and the former landlord, who had changed my diapers and played simplified chess endgames with me, had drowned. All the bases were covered down to my fake ID.

I did the Diogenes (crooked a little finger in parting) to Agent B after she and a nurse parked me in my single room on the third floor where I dwelt with other incorrigible veggies and halfwits. I made a few moronic noises and then was abandoned by everyone. I stood in the hall outside in my underwear and crapped to see how long it took before someone cleaned me up, a critical experiment. I made a point of sticking my bulging, oozing rump out so you couldn’t miss it if you cared to see it, but the elderly nurse aide who strolled by on her way somewhere didn’t bend an eyebrow. But from what I saw the other denizens were in just as bad shape and maybe she was tending to one such loser, so who was I to demand her sole attention? I might add that although I styled myself a whistleblower, I wasn’t out to get down on anyone unfairly and considered myself a straight shooter.

With my nasty britches on and nothing else, I strode behind the aide until I saw what she was about. A new old man was moving in down the corridor from me, who as soon as he was left alone hobbled to his dresser and tried to change into pajamas. With the old aide gone, I slipped in, leaving the door wide open, and still in my poo pants knocked him cold with my favorite wrestling moves, the Coco-bop and the Sleeper, lifting his nifty cufflinks and shoe trees for good measure. I couldn’t help but wonder where was anyone to prevent my gross mistreatment of this unfortunate senior? Would no one stop my vile depredations? Still, I bore the staff no grudge. There were some twenty rooms on this floor alone, all of them occupied I understood, and an inadequate staff with barely a high school education and stuck in a dead-end job with lousy pay could hardly be expected to curb every errant miscreant. I didn’t even report the intrusion on my device, though I’d been known to report my own wrongdoings if it seemed helpful.

I went the first night with my finger on the emergency light. No one ever came in to check on me. Oh well, par for the course. I slept the untroubled sleep of an infant.

The next morning a mountain of flesh in an aide’s outfit strapped me into a highchair and abandoned me until my oatmeal was like ice. Then she returned, sat beside me, and spooned a few cold curds into my mouth. As I dribbled it out onto my hospital gown and made repulsive sputtering sounds, she painted her nails. Not everyone on the floor required hand-feeding, but those of us who did, did not get royal treatment. One scrawny oldster who flung her tray on the floor, dousing the aide trying to feed her with orange juice, got a wicked slap to the puss. Well I didn’t blame the aide in the least. That kind of behavior was inexcusable and anyway the cartilaginous old citizen absorbed the slap like a pro.

When my meds came after the meal–1,000 mg of powerful tranq instead of the 25 mg I was supposed to get–I put it down to a simple clerical error that I didn’t bother to report. I was amused when before I could palm the pills in my expert way, an aide had swiped them for her personal use or perhaps their street value.

After breakfast I stood nude in the corridor outside my room, wondering who was going to shave and shower me. A number of prissy female residents on the far side of senile clubbed together in a nearby atrium and pretended to be at a posh resort in fine company instead of a dump to finish decomposing and die. They muttered to each other that something needed to be done “about that disgraceful man” who was an unpleasant reminder of their true surroundings, but no one said a word to me. I felt quite free to pee also, and did so, careful not to become aroused while exposing myself since this might indicate a suspicious level of sentience.

Finally a hip-hopping orderly in headphones came by, one of the few males I’d seen on staff, and stopped at the sight of me. He pulled a blade out of his pocket and held it to my throat, careful to avoid my stream. It was all I could do to keep from running dry.

“Where yo pants, motherfucker?” he said. “I’ll carve yo nasty face to the bone if I see you like this again.” And then he left. My heart went out to him, since he certainly had one awful job to do. Frankly I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d slit my throat.

At the night shift starting at eleven, everyone went home and there clocked in a single lean, lanky nurse who remained at the nurses’s station with a radio tuned low and read her novel without moving. I studied her at a distance, then moved closer, but not close enough to make her look up at me. I saw a morose woman of indeterminate age, deliberate and maybe wise, her hair pinned back severely. Perhaps she resented being stuck in a prole career by a bigoted society when she had as much brains as any nursing home director, and had grown sour.

Then I made a mistake. I played a little air guitar to the music she had on, and looking up just then she caught me. I saw in her deep eyes and firm chin that she drew a conclusion. But she did nothing. I too did nothing, only shuffled off toward my room. There I typed my report on my testicle-sized device before turning in. The sardonic night nurse did not bother to check on me once, though as a new admission I might have qualified for at least a peek. But maybe she did so as I slept. I gave her a high mark for diligence in my report.

The next morning passed as usual, and before noon some staff announced a “picnic” for the residents. These staff showed very little pleasure in the plan, about as much as did the near-comatose dozen men and women residents affected, of whom I was one. We gaunt, ragged souls were shunted onto the freight elevator and taken out back to a shady grotto. There a huge frowning aide stripped us of our gowns and allowed us to disport ourselves freely in nature as created by the Man with the Plan. It was a perfect day and we oldsters made an impression, I’m sure, of Adamites a-frolic in the Garden of Eden, except at one point the rapping attendant came out for a breath of air and darted about punching a few of us in the stomach. Oh, not hard, not hard, and I gave him points for forbearance in my write-up. He did not even slam all of us, but only those who, like myself, had in his mind given him a hard time.

The purpose of the “picnic” soon became clear when the rotund aide grabbed a garden hose and began spraying us residents down with the cold water on full. I personally found it refreshing, the day being warm, and didn’t mind the water pressure in my ears and eyes and on my flapping genitalia as some did who screamed as if fire were shooting from the nozzle instead of cold water. This, I surmised, was my bath, though I still required a shave, or rather I had already taken it in my head to grow a beard. So I noticed had the other males, beards being popular and even de rigueur here in the land of no shaves. We wandered around in the sun until dry, then re-gowned and stumbled back on the elevator to upstairs. All in all a pleasant outing, and I said so in my write-up.

That night and the next one I retired to my room precisely at eleven, but not at the same minute each night to avoid arousing suspicion. There I slept or pretended to. In that way I avoided a confrontation with the night nurse, whose name I learned was Carmela. But one morning, as the day staff arrived and she prepared to go, Carmela took me by surprise. Five minutes after she should have departed, she entered my chamber as I sat naked in my chair, where I managed to deposit myself each morning before breakfast and meds, and stood beside me. A chair next to mine was unoccupied, but she knew better than to sit in a resident’s got-to-be filthy seat. I did the Schiavo (gazed ahead blankly) as the dark eyes behind her glasses watched me and her grin challenged.

“I know you faking, darling,” she said. “What you up to?” She threw a towel into my lap. “I don’t want to see your stuff hanging out, neither, if you ain’t got Alzheimer’s.”

It was a good bluff. I had given myself away only a few times in my career, and had been forced to cover with elaborate performances designed to indicate flickering mentality in an otherwise incoherent persona. Caught making a phone call once, I wandered about a ward picking up receivers and dialing numbers at random and chattering nonsense for the better part of a week, perhaps never convincingly. But I had another method that I thought to try.

“This is the house that Jack built…this is the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built,” I began to recite that long, dull ditty that my grandfather Walter, b. 1898 d.1970, told me as a child and which I had recited to my own daughter until she no longer allowed it, probably around age six. “This is the cat that ate the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built,” I droned. Carmela chuckled in a mirthless way after I paused to feign memory loss.

“That’s fine,” she said. “Tonight I’m going to come and see you for the rest of that poem, and you can also tell me what a man who don’t have to be here is doing here. Who you think you fooling, dear?”

When I made no response, and even looked away from her, she gave another low chuckle and then left. I sent a text message to Agent B to come pick me up, and soon, no later than that afternoon. She was to use the angle that a sister of mine in Mississippi had agreed to care for me. My cover may have been blown, but my job here was done.

I packed my single bag and dressed myself, leaving the staff to wonder which of them clothed me. Before I went, I managed to wander over to the nurses’ station during a smoke break to see if Carmela had recorded anything about me in the night. My chart was blank for that time. She was a player for sure. I considered pegging her for verbal abuse in my final report, but didn’t want to spoil the Manor’s perfect record. What a terrific place, like a vacation resort, and I gave Carmela the highest marks of anyone. Already my thoughts turned to my next assignment where anthrax and microwaves had rendered me soft-spoken and modest and every previous assignment had been mentally erased.

END