January 1971: Back at the office, I settled into my new job.
Having told by boss Jim about finding a typo in a published report, he made me
proofreader. My fellow shipmates would have found that a hoot if any of them
knew what a proofreader did.
Anyway, I was minding my own business one day, a week or so
into the job, when the head of the drafting room walked over to my desk, plopped
a dollar-bill down and said, “Run down to the Post Office and get a dollar’s
worth of postage stamps.” I think they were eight cents apiece at the time, so that
would buy a lot.
But, “Run down to the Post Office?” What was I, a marathoner?
I had stopped a two-pack a day habit only a year earlier, and had gained 30 pounds
as a result. Run down to the Post Office? What was I, a summer high-school
student running errands, or a house-servant “fetching for Massa?” I felt, as
they say these days, disrespected.
I looked at the other drafter. She cocked a smile like a cat
watching a mouse. Hunger gleamed in her eyes.
I took the money and left. I didn’t run, though. In fact, I
walked very slowly up Capitol Avenue toward the Post Office. Run down to the Post
Office? Hell, I once drove the official “barge” of a two-star admiral in the United
States Navy. Christ, once they entrusted me with an M-60 machine gun and told me
I could fire on anything in front of me that moved. Hell, I could tie a fifteen-strand
“Turk’s Head” knot.
But, “run down to the Post Office?” Intercourse that. I
spent the walk there and back computing just how long I would have to keep a job
running errands so that it would look good on a resume once I reached
California. They could take their “run down to the Post Office” and stick it up
their hawser-pipe.
I arrived back at the Hall Building and said to the old girl,
“Just stick with me for six months and I’ll be the hell out of here.
Upstairs, I laid the stamps and change on the layout table
and didn’t say a word. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway for both drafters were bent
so hard at work that their noses almost touched their boards. I settled down and
started making notes of potential employers that might be waiting for me in the
Golden State once I finished my incarceration in Little Rock.
I looked up to seen Jim Vines standing in the hall motioning
for me. I stood and followed him into his office. He closed the door, motioned for me to sit,
then sat himself. He placed his fingertips together and said in a voice that could
have eulogized a dead saint. “I’m afraid that we have made a mistake.”
Oh hell. It was coming. I wasn’t even going to make the six
months. If the worst came to worst, though, the Navy would take me back in and
send me to Officer Candidate School. They had already contacted me and told me so.
I stared back at Jim with what I was sure could not be misinterpreted as anything
but defiance. “Do not go gently …”
He continued. “We didn’t bring you into the firm to run
errands. Furthermore, we didn’t bring you here to work for anyone but Tom and
me.” (He actually said “Tom and I,” but I’ll clean up his grammar out of a
long-standing respect.) “The staff knows that now and there will be no repeat of
today’s incident. Now, would you like to ride up to Harrison with me tomorrow
to their planning commission meeting?”
I allowed as how I would, without commenting on the other
part of the conversation. Walking back into the drafting room, thoughts of OCS began
to fade. They were replaced by the smell of a roaring fire of resentment
flowing from across the room. As for myself, I imagined that I probably gave off
a faint smell of sulfur.
Sitting down, I mentally fastened my seat belt.
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| Was I headed for a rocky ride? |
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