The civil service, or how to stay out of the slammer, in one easy lesson

My apologies for being nearly invisible here for the past few weeks, but the best laid plans of mice and men aft times gang agley, as Robert Burns put it. Life has a nasty way of imposing its own demands on one’s writing schedule, whether you want it to or not, or even if you know what agley means or not; I know I don’t.  This morning my co-workers here at the egregious mold pit wherein I labor for my daily bread reminded me that I have been laboring here for my daily bread  for twenty-six years, yesterday being the anniversary of the inglorious day that I first wandered into this dump as an employee.  This, plus the fact that we have had a slew of recent retirements here, now means that I have been laboring here longer than anyone else has been laboring here, which in itself, apart from the actual number of years I’ve been doing this, is pretty damn depressing.  Combined with the actual chronology, it was enough to make me vaguely suicidal in an annoyed sort of way. I tamped down quickly on my immediate urge to sever an artery with my own teeth and went out for some pizza.  There’s not much that a nice hot slice of pizza can’t make better, and if can’t actually make it better, pizza makes the bad news seem less depressing.  I’m thinking of wangling the pizza concession on the Day of Judgment; I figure the saved will like a nice hot slice to celebrate and the damned will need something to lift their spirits before they become toast on a more or less eternal basis. 

In any case, I should point out that twenty-six years in the civil service has convinced of one great lesson: no matter how well you’ve covered your ass, you can always cover it better.  This leads inevitably to the scandals the Internal Revenue Service has gotten itself embroiled in.  If we listen to the big shots in Washington, the targeting of the Tea Party in particular and the American conservative movement in general was just something those crazy kids out in Cincinnati dreamt up all by their lonesomes without any sort of input from the head honchos, and especially without the input of anyone within breathing distance of the former junior Senator from Illinois.  Yes sirree, no one here in Washington was involved at all.  Cincinnati is out there in flyover country, Mr. Chairman, and flyover country is a nice place to visit, or so people have told me who’ve been there, but I’ve never been there myself and I’ve never talked to anyone who has.  They do strange things out there in the Ohio River valley and it may be the fault of the funguses.  I have to tell my rheumatologist if I ever want to go to the Ohio River Valley because there are funguses there that might interfere with my medication, so no, I couldn’t tell you why those people out there might want to do this sort of thing.  It’s Ohio, Mr. Chairman, and they do things differently out there.

The problem with blaming the frontline civil servants is this: it’s bullshit.  Sorry if that offends, but after twenty-six years here I can tell you that no one, but no one, at the frontline level of the civil service, even someone in as small a shop as my egregious mold pit, sticks their neck out like this without someone higher up in the food chain telling them to do so.  The only times I have ever gotten my ass chewed out big time here is when I cut people slack I shouldn’t have in direct violation of the policies spelled out in our staff manual.  It is inconceivable to me that long-time civil servants working at the Federal level in an agency like the IRS just did this because it seemed like a good idea at the time and because they didn’t like the political opinions of the applicants; their jobs do not include vetting groups on the basis of partisan politics; civil servants are not, or at least they shouldn’t be, in the business of helping one party or another win elections.  No, the only, and I mean the only, way the people in Cincinnati did this is because their politically appointed bosses in Washington wanted this to happen, and they only way those bosses gave them these orders is because they got the approval from the top.  There may not be a smoking gun in this case, but there is no possible way that people at the frontline, the middle management, and the top tiers all decided to break the law and suppress the constitutional rights of hundreds of thousands of Americans without our erstwhile Illinois Incitatus and his clique of Chicago political thugs giving them the go-ahead.  Civil servants do not think outside the box, folks, we are one with the box, we are in psychic unity with the box, we are the box. We don’t do things that can cost us our jobs, our pensions, and land our sorry asses in prison spontaneously. We just don’t, that’s all.

The tenacity of Democrats, or yogurting for fun and profit

 The following is part of a novel I started and abandoned years ago, but recent events brought the events described therein to mind, so here is a portion of my squandered youth:

Jack Murphy returned and asked, does anyone want their picture taken with Frank?  The Phoenix is doing a meet the candidate feature and their guy wants some pictures of the voters meeting Frank. 

            Jack, the man’s been the councilman for this ward for the past thirty years, Nunan said.  Who hasn’t met him already?

            A good point, Sean, but the guy still wants pictures of Frank meeting his constituents.

            I’m from the Seventh Ward, Nunan said.

            Ditto, Amy said. And I’m not going anywhere near that guy from the paper.

            How about you, Mickey, Murphy said.

            I’m not from the city, Mike said.

            What difference does it make, Murphy said.  They just need some pictures.

            Hang on there, Jack, the lad has a point, Nunan said.  I don’t think your man there will want a picture of himself soliciting the vote of someone who doesn’t live in the city in the newspaper, not after the stink the reform clubs made about Martin Meehan last year.  Reminding the public of your sins is not good politics.

            Yeah, I suppose you’re right, Murphy said, just thought I’d ask.  He turned and went back to the candidate, who was having his picture taken with Bridie.  Bill O’Hara stood off to one side with a drink in one hand, speaking to Tommy Raferty.

            Who’s Martin Meehan, Mike asked.

            Martin Meehan was the most loyal Democrat in municipal history, Michael, Nunan said, a Democrat so true blue that he kept voting for the party’s candidates for years after his death.

            When did he die, Mike asked. 

            1931, Nunan said, and apparently he’d voted in every election since then.  The reform Democrats became suspicious last year when their man lost the mayoral primary in the Third Ward by slightly more votes than there were people living in the ward, if you believe the Census Bureau.  The reform clubs looked into the matter and, lo and behold, not only were there more votes than people, but that a good number of the registered voters resided, if you can call it residing, in St. Jude’s Cemetery up on Keaton Avenue.  Mr. Martin Meehan was the most famous of these civic-minded citizens, a man with a perfect voting record even though the state sent him to the electric chair for murdering a grocer on Jackson Avenue during the Christmas holidays. Young Martin—he was only twenty-two at the time, and him with his father a lieutenant in the fire department and a brother a priest—killed the man for seventeen dollars and some change.  He ran out of the grocery after shooting the poor bastard in the head; at the trial he couldn’t explain why he’d shot the man at all—the grocer didn’t have a gun, so it must’ve been pure fright; and then, as his luck would have it, or wouldn’t have it in this case, he ran right into the cop on the beat, who’d heard the shot and came a-running with his pistol drawn.  Martin took a shot at the policeman and then the policeman took a shot at Martin.

 Well, Martin missed and the policeman didn’t; he hit Martin in the chest, I think.  Even with the bullet in him, Martin still tried to make his escape; he got halfway down the block before he collapsed from loss of blood.  The city sent him to the prison ward at County General to recover, and then, after a fair and very speedy trial, the outcome of which was never in doubt, the state shipped him up the river to Sargenton, where they plunked the poor boy down in the electric chair after a last meal of a buttered scone and a cup of tea and swiftly dispatched him into eternity. And then, having gone to meet his Maker, Martin Meehan entered politics, an altogether more lucrative and much safer form of crime.

            Stop being gruesome, Amy said.

            I’m just giving the lad the facts, Nunan said.

            No one asked you for the details, for Christ’s sake, Amy said, and what difference does it make how they died?  The dead vote in this city and the dead all vote the straight Democratic ticket.  That’s what’s important, not the particulars of how this one or that one passed away.

            The particulars are always important, Nunan said.  Isn’t that so, Michael?

            God is in the details, Mike said.

            Oh my, my, my, clichés served on silver platitudes, Amy said.  Whatever will I have for dessert?

UPDATE:  Just one more excerpt:

The doorbell rang. No one went to the door, and so a moment later the doorbell rang again.  Bridie Raferty came down the hall to the front door and said, who is it?  There was a muffled reply and then Bridie swung the door open.

     An old couple came in and Bridie kissed them both and then loudly called, Tommy, Tommy, come here, the Murphys here.

     …hey Jack, how’s it going…

     …happy St. Paddy’s, Jack…

     …how’s everything…

     …hi Katie, how’s the old sod treating you…

     The chorus of greetings was loud and general, and the man smiled as he took his coat off and gave it to Bridie and he gave the guests a small wave.  His wife just smiled and nodded.

     Amy shook her head and said, you know, I thought it was kind of strange that nobody’s gone home since we got here.  I wonder what they all want.

     Free food and a favor will bring the crowds out like nothing else will, Nunan said.

     Ain’t that the truth, Amy said.

     I’m sorry, I’m missing something here, Mike said.  Who are they?

     Jack Murphy is the chairman of the Democratic Party district committee for this ward, Amy said.

     Is that important, Mike asked.

     Is that important he asks, Nunan said.  Indeed it is, Michael, indeed it is. 

Mike, Jack Murphy is the man to go to when you have a problem, that’s who he is, Amy said.  You need your rent paid or your traffic tickets fixed or you need a city job if you can’t find work then he’s the man to see.  He’ll make any problem you have go away and go away quickly and quietly if only you’ll show up at the polls on Election Day and vote the way Jack wants you to.

     What if you don’t want to, Mike said.

     Don’t be thick, Michael, Nunan said.  Who else would you vote for?  The Republicans?  Do you know if there are there any left in the city, he asked Amy.

     I heard the dog catchers shot the last one in the men's room at the Macy's on Van Voorhis Avenue a few years ago and put him on display at the Museum of Natural History, Amy said, right next to the dodoes and the dinosaurs. They had to shoot him, poor thing, he was frothing at the mouth and everything. Terrible.

     There you have it, Nunan said.  And even if you should take it in your head to vote for someone else, the secret ballot is only secret between you and the fellow who’s making sure you’re voting the way Jack wants you to.      

     They watch you vote?  How can they do that, it’s illegal, Mike said.

     Says who, Mike?  The cops? The district attorney?  The judges?  The district attorney and the judges in this city owe their jobs to the county Democratic committee, Mike; like it or not, that’s the way things are done here, Amy said. The law in this burg is what the judges say the law is and the judges say what the county committee tells them to say the law is and anyone who starts getting funny ideas about justice and impartiality is going find themselves killing rats in the subway for a living pretty damn quick.  So, making sure people vote Democratic is not illegal, only vaguely unethical, and then only when the U.S. Attorney and his grand jury aren’t snooping around the neighborhood.

     What utterly appalling cynicism from someone so young, Nunan said.

     Oh, shut up, you, Amy said.

     I will, ma’am, Nunan said.  My apologies for disturbing you.

UPDATE: Well, maybe one more cut from the cow.

Councilman Duffy was ferocious in his denunciations of British rule in the north of Ireland and equally ferocious in his support for Sinn Fein and the political programs of the more militant Irish republicans.  He had little to say about the problems of the city or the Fifth Ward, except to say that he hoped the transit workers would not go out on strike.

            Do you think he believes anything he’s saying, Mike asked.

           Oh, I imagine he believes the parts about Northern Ireland well enough, Nunan said.  There are no Orangemen in this ward objecting to what he’s saying, and it is always easier to call other people bastards when there’s an ocean between you and them and you’re not asking them to vote for you.  Hoping that the transit workers don’t strike is not only a popular view, but damn near universally held, even amongst transit workers, and if the damn city would sign the contract their own negotiators agreed to then there won’t be any strike.  You’ll have noticed, Michael, that he’s said nothing about Paddy Dugan? 

            No, I didn’t notice, Mike said, but if you say so…

             I do say so, lad, Nunan said. Ah, the world’s in a terrible state of chassis, as the Peacock says, if Frank Duffy can’t find it in himself to say something good about the soon to be erstwhile chairman of the county Democratic committee in an election year.  And have you noticed one other thing?

            What’s that, Mike said.

            Frank’s the only man in this room who’s sweating, Nunan said.

            Mike looked at the fat man again.  Duffy’s face was wet with sweat, the trickles slowly running down his neck and staining his shirt collar dark blue.  Jesus, he’s sweating like a pig.

            Jesus has very little to do with it, lad, Nunan said.  Our Mr. Duffy is not used to running, either for office or anywhere else, for that matter.  What you’re looking at is long neglected political exercise.

            He must be scared out of his mind if he’s out campaigning this early in the year, Amy said.

            To be sure, it must be terrifying, Nunan said. After all, whatever will the poor man do for a living once he’s off the City Council; I don’t think he’s had a real job in his life and Paddy Dugan’s not around to pull his fat out of the fire this year. That’s why he’s running hard now, I think; the prospect of honest work concentrates the mind wonderfully.

            Yes, it does, Amy said.

            You’d think a political machine would have things better organized, Mike said.

            You’d think that Mr. Dugan, the leader of said political machine, would have the good sense to pay his income taxes, Nunan said, but you’d be wrong, Michael.  ‘Tis every man for himself at City Hall these days and that’s a fact.

            A shame, that, his being a lamb led to the slaughter, Mrs. Murphy said.  The poor man means no real harm to anyone, I think, and Jack tells me that he’s done some real good on the city council.

            You don’t follow politics, Mrs. Murphy, Mike asked.

            I do not.  I have no interest in the subject and very little interest in those who do, except Jack, of course.  Politicians are a pitiful sort of person, generally.  Oh, I know, there are the rare exceptions: John Kennedy was one, and Franklin Roosevelt was another as well, may they rest in peace, but the rest of them I wouldn’t let watch my grandchildren for an evening, much less run something important.  From what Jack tells me of them, I suppose we should be thankful the floors in City Hall aren’t paved with gold and that champagne doesn’t flow from the washroom taps. 
            You should keep those notions to yourself, Katie, Nunan said, before you give the county Democratic committee ideas.  Once you give them a taste for luxury there’s no telling what else they’ll think of. The imagination boggles at the possibilities, indeed it does.

Narrowing the way, or the shad run, whichever you think more important

The American shad is a pelagic fish, which I understand has nothing to do with the fourth century heresiarch Pelagius or his denial of the orthodox Christian doctrine of original sin, a belief that led St. Jerome to call Pelagius an ignorant liar stuffed with Irish porridge, amongst other negative things, and everything to do with the American shad’s preference for living in the open sea far from the sight of land, where calls from telemarketers, bill collectors, and mooching relatives need never trouble them.  Living in the open sea is a good thing; I’m sure the shad think so or they wouldn’t bother living there, given the property taxes out in that neck of the woods, but every year the American shad wearies of this near idyllic existence and gather together in great schools several hundred thousand strong and then head for the rivers and estuaries of North America’s eastern coast like so many Rotarians, Elks, Odd Fellows, or the fraternal organization of your choice going to their organization’s annual convention in Las Vegas.  The shad head for the East Coast of America for pretty much the same reason that our Rotarians et al go to Vegas—sex—although the shad make less of a song and dance about their reasons for heading for shore. The shad, after all, are not leaving the little lady behind to keep the home fires burning; nope, the old ball and chain is going with the guys and aims to have just as much fun whooping it up as they do.  There’ll be no sexual double standards here, thank you very much; this is a Democratic Party stronghold and don't you forget it, buster.

For those of us who live near a river on the eastern coast of the United States, and yes, this category includes me, the arrival of the shad is one of the great signs of spring, along with allergies, baseball season, gnats, and having to do your income taxes, and no sooner does the shad run commence than the highways and byways of our happy little burg become lined to the danger point with cars, vans, pickup trucks, SUVs, and such other conveyances that will hold truly prodigious amounts of fishing equipment.  This annual invasion of dedicated sportsmen is annoying in the extreme for those of us who live here, as our Izaak Walton wannabes seldom bother to look both ways when crossing the streets.  What’s worse, or at least I think so, is that these people apparently believe that carrying a fishing rod and a tackle box conveys upon them some form of immunity from the vehicle and traffic laws of the Vampire State as well as an exemption from the laws of physics.  So if any of you people, and you know who you are, are reading this, please be aware that waving your fishing rod at my thirteen year old Ford will not stop the car dead in its tracks; fishing rods are by no stretch of the imagination magic wands and this trick will no more work with my car than it will with a locomotive coming down the line.  Except, of course, if I run you down, you know the law says it’s my fault, no matter how stupid you were, whereas if the train hits you and smears your dumb carcass over a mile of railroad track scores of people, including me, will read your obituary and mock you for trying to stop a locomotive with a fishing rod, and we will be happy that you have chosen to remove yourself from the gene pool.  Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life to improve the species.  It’s a small victory, but they add up, you know, yes they do.

Arterialscerlosis is the order of the day on the Internet these days as well and I trust I didn’t hurt your neck with that segue to another subject, but I cannot help but notice the increasing narrowing of the information superhighway.  For example, whenever I go online I must face a plethora of ads that promise to teach men fifty years old and over, yet another category that includes me, unfortunately, Spanish, French, and/or Italian with one simple trick.  I know why this is happening; I have been going to my local public library and using the online French language program to teach myself a little bit of the language in preparation for a proposed expedition to the City of Light later this year.  I have not been studying the language assiduously—I do nothing assiduously, I fear, except whine about my fate to all and sundry—and I can categorically state that after two and a half hours of not very intensive study my French is somewhat less good than my Spanish, a language that I have not been studying assiduously since high school.  So I guess there’s hope for me yet. Also, I am not sure that this trip is even possible at this point, and to paraphrase Will Rogers, I am wasting no time on a prospect.

In any case, these cyberlinguistic Burma-Shave signs promising me deliverance from the drudgery of learning French irregular verb conjugations with one simple trick invariably come with a photo of an attractive young lady of uncertain national origin whose primary assets are her nice looks, her nice smile, and her overly impressive bosom, which I do not understand, since everything about this young lady is designed to make me forget the various conjugations of avoir (to have) faster than I learned them. I therefore suspect that she is not the one simple trick the advertisers promise I can use to unlock my inner Cyrano de Bergerac; if she were, then Hugh Hefner would, by definition, be able to speak all the living languages of the Earth and most of the dead ones, including Pictish and Akkadian, high school foreign language programs would require their students to read Playboy as homework from one end of this our Great Republic to the other, and Viagra would replace Ritalin and Prozac as the pedagogical drug of choice in the nation’s schools.  That Playboy is not required reading tells me that learning French and Spanish is more difficult than this one simple trick can handle and that the purpose of the young lady is to distract my attention while these jokers loot my checking account.  The thing, of course, is that I’m not fifteen anymore.  When I was fifteen this dodge would have worked in a New York minute; when most of your body weight is testosterone almost anything sounds sensible if presented in the right package; but a couple of generations have come and gone since high school, I fear, and most of my body weight is cholesterol now, a substance not nearly interesting as testosterone, as I am sure a good many people out there can verify.  Avoir, aurai, avais, ayant…I haven’t gotten the present tense yet, but I’m working on it.

nothing yet...

but there's something on the griddle, folks...

No, I am not dead yet... and other observations about stuff

...although I must admit that I am having increasingly hostile thoughts about my left leg.  I am not sure what I've ever done to it that the damn thing would go out of its way to cause me this much pain, and frankly, I don't care.  It's a leg, it's supposed to do leg stuff, assuming that leg stuff is a medical category. It is not supposed to make my life miserable, and I just want to say that I'm going to get even with the bastard if it's the last thing I ever do.  So, while I'm here, let me just say that I'm glad Mrs. Thatcher got the full state funeral; it gave her one last opportunity to be "divisive."  The usual knuckleheads were out protesting her, and it goes almost without saying that the usual knuckleheads are the people who think they are entitled to a free ride on other people's money, plus those whose bank on the free riders to keep them in beer and pretzels (i.e. liberal politicians.)  The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on. That the caravan moves on in a way that annoys the dogs even more is just an added bonus.  Not bad for a grocer's daughter, I think.

Some good news, or at least I think so...

...and on the good news front, two more New York State Assemblymen have been indicted for corruption, although the idea that indicting a politician for corruption in New York actually constitutes news of any sort is a little odd, now that I give the matter a little thought, I have enough money to go to Paris (I think), and all of us here in our happy little burg are looking forward to the arrival of the 17 year cicadas, vast squadrons of which will be bursting forth out of the ground in a sex-crazed  megaswarm any minute now. (God, they are ugly little bugs, aren't they?) And last, and certainly not least, the public approved our budget and we are now looking forward to a week of temperatures in the sixties, not that those two facts are in any way connected with one another.

My next trick, or further news from the health front, most of it lousy

Well, I suppose I could sit here on my aching rump and complain morning, noon, and night, but a young French person of my acquaintance (yes, I mean you, Audrey, and don’t start disputing my use of the word young; I have socks older than you are) states that it is important to maintain a positive attitude towards life, so that is what I am going to do, even if maintaining a positive attitude towards anything for very long really isn’t me.  There are people who see the metaphorical glass as half-full and others who see the glass as half-empty, and then there are those who see the glass as a sinister tool in a contemptible Communist plot to steal Merchandise 7X, the secret formula for Coca-Cola. I count myself as one of these sober-minded citizens, and as such wonder why more of America’s secrets aren’t in the same Atlanta bank vault as Merchandise 7X? From the record, they would appear safer there than some secure vault in the Pentagon.

In any case, I am going to do the positivity thing if it kills me, so here we go with positivity. I have yet to hear from the good folks at the insurance group that handles minor civil servants such as myself.  My doctor wants me to get an MRI, which as we all know, is a prohibitively expensive procedure, and so I am waiting to find out if my plan will actually pay for this. If not, then no MRI.  It’s not like I can’t afford it, if push comes to shove. I got a nice refund from the IRS this year and I suppose I could use that if I had to, but then I would have nothing to pay the school taxes with in September, and I don’t think the teachers’ union will accept my bad back excuse for not coughing up their dough, anymore than they’d accept my diabetes and arthritis excuses as reasons for not paying.  The bastards want their money up front and they want it up front now.  I suspect that most teachers’ unions supplement their income by working as enforcers for loan sharks, but more than one person has told me that it’s not wise to bring the subject up, so let’s just say that I didn’t, okay?

I am also getting a lot of advice on how to deal with the ice pick currently wedged in my back and hip. My brother the Navy man, which does not describe him well, given that three of my brothers have been in the Navy, but let’s just say that this one was in the Navy the longest, he says that I should stand at parade rest and walk in such a way that my legs do not protrude from beneath my shoulders.  I am not sure how this is possible, unless I try to walk like Frankenstein’s monster.  This method may work well in secret laboratories in Transylvania, but I fail to see the utility in modern America.  I should also hasten to point out that it may be possible for a veteran of twenty years of naval service to stand at parade rest for a prolonged period of time, but those of us without military experience might find the prospect more than a little daunting. In short, this is not going to work and I don’t give a damn how not positive this makes me sound.

So while all the bureaucratic wheels are turning, I am living on painkillers in a house where another brother and his wife are visiting.  Since marital discord is what keeps these two together; no, I can’t explain it, either; I must listen to them argue about money, cholesterol, clothes, his weight (she’s right—he could stand to lose another fifty or sixty pounds, but I’m keeping that to myself) from early in the morning to late in the evening. This is why I am on a computer at work whining about the pain I’m in, even though I am off this week, theoretically because I am in too much pain to go to work.  It really is more than a little pathetic, isn’t it?  Well, once I get some good news I will lift all of your spirits with no end of positivity.  Hey, baseball season has started, and that’s always good news! So there you go, good news already!