Mat Johnson - Drop

Apparently, we were going to assist poor people get government grants to pay their electric and heating bills. They would call, we’d pick up the phone, write their information down on the application, then send it to them to sign. Six of us, three in each row. Guys in front, women behind us. Me in the middle.

At my left, Reggie Sizemas stayed awake by picking his dandruff, wiping his glasses clean with his tie, waiting for his beeper to vibrate. When it did, Reggie took it in his little hands, squinting as he brought it closer to his gumball head. When he identified the number, Reggie whispered either ‘Business’ or ‘Pampers’, depending on the call. Nodding his head fiercely enough to make his frames dance down his nose, shaking flakes from his scalp like dull glitter. In between those moments, Reggie kicked his stunted legs out from his chair and tried to impress Rosalita, answering electric questions with the vigor of Tesla. Clive did it too, trying to get on Rosalita’s good side, but he did it by winking at her, complimenting her small, deep-fried hair, or the way her black lipstick made her skin look lighter. As Clive stared, he trimmed the wires of his mustache with tiny scissors or straightened his sideburns with a comb small enough for lice. Going ‘Uh huh’ every time Rosalita breathed in, nodding at her ass when she went to the blackboard and nudging my right arm going, ‘You’d hit that?’

At the top of every hour, Rosalita stopped to smoke. The three women in the back went with her, as if it were part of the job. Quick steps to the glass lobby, out the revolving doors, onto Market Street, light up. They stood and laughed with cigarettes snug in the corners of their mouths, their eyes nearly shut. Beneath them, thighs sloped into calves and then shoe-capped ankles. When the ash crept down to their filters, they reached into their handbags for gum. One person pulled out first and the rest shared. They rolled the empty wrappers into balls and dropped them on the sidewalk.

Coming back into class, they were still laughing, their clothes stinking with the burnt fiberglass smell of menthol. The biggest one, Cindy, came first. Her face a big egg, her body an even larger one. Strutting past our desks, holding her purse to her hip as if there was money inside. Yvonne followed, lint in her hair and smelling of project rot. Natalie trailed them, silent, bent over, her buckteeth guarding her bottom lip as if you might want to take it from her. They had all just gotten off public assistance and they were not happy about it. They stayed awake during the training by whispering DPA secrets. Lie about being on the pill and when he’s in the shower get his social security number so you can sue him later. Send your bills in without signing the check, keep your utilities on. Take your kids to the emergency room and claim they feel dizzy for a free checkup . Reggie called them the Welfare Bovines, but not loud enough to hurt or be hurt by them. Turning back, Clive tried to flirt by begging for a taste of whatever crinkly-bag goodie they hoarded, whatever oily, salted thing occupied their desk at that moment.

Training was as unceasingly tedious as high school. With remainders of my intelligence and will still intact, I could barely acknowledge its ramble. I stayed awake by thinking about Brixton. How the people would know what I had conquered when my train arrived in the station. How the trumpets would blare as the tube doors slid away. How the lord mayor would step forth with his speech prepared and I would accept his ceremonial key, then move on to the escalator that would carry me back to the life I should be living. Besides that, I thought about eating. Every day on lunch break, I walked across the bridge to 30th Street Station, got a fast food meal and hunted for a good seat on the wooden benches. I sat, staring up at the giant Greek columns that held a roof so high that pigeons spent lives flying under it, grabbing fists of fries while watching everybody who walked by. They were the best looking people in Philly because they were from someplace else, going someplace else. Every one of them lining up at the soft velvet ropes for the Metroliner. By the time I was back in the basement of the electric company, they would be in other states, this one a blur behind them. They would be sitting in soft chairs, eating food from the dining car. There was a special train car that just had food on it; that’s what kind of world they were living.

Yam-man was in the station, too. It was November; the cold had forced him in from the wild. He sat by the door at the southwest side, forcing the commuters to ignore him, ready to run when the transit cops arrived. He didn’t bother to approach me any more. Some days he seemed almost sane, tortured by his situation and exhausted by what his madness had done. Other days he stormed around the station growling, chest forward, furious, angry at no one. Too crazy even to beg, insanity popped off his head like carbonation off freshly poured soda. On the better days he stayed in the station until five, I knew, because then he walked over the bridge to stand outside the massive black skyscraper that housed my job, sticking his dirty hand out to employees who tried to elude him on their way to the trains.

I went back to work hungry, rechecking my bag for missed fries, sucking the salt from my fingernails as I walked. Reggie bought his food from the pizza place on 22nd, every day something red and greasy wrapped in white. He never opened it until lunch was over, when I had no food or money left to buy more. Waiting for Rosalita to reappear, Reggie read the Daily News , and took baby bites, only bothering to touch half his sandwich, leaving the other side to stare at me. The meat: shredded dark brown, blanketed in a thick membrane of white cheese, a chewy orange roll holding it all. On top, a thin layer of pizza sauce. At the bottom, seeping out, a pool of grease I knew would be hot if I took my tongue to it. Reading his paper, checking his beeper, Reggie ignored me and said things like ‘I think I’ll wrap up this second half for later,’ when he saw me looking too long.

After two weeks, Rosalita was gone and now we had our boss, Mrs Hutton, a tall white woman whose short brown hair streaked down her skull like snow on a mountain top. Her skin creased and tough, her teeth yellow and crushed upon one another so she could smile and still get you nervous. Clive winked at her. She asked if he had something in his eye.

For the rest of the year lunches would be exactly one half hour long, any time longer would be taken directly out of our checks. 8:00 A.M. meant 8:00 A.M., not 8:15. She would be monitoring our calls not to punish us, but to maintain quality control for the good of the entire office.

We got phones, large black boxes with lights to tell you how many people you had on line. They came with headsets that consisted of cushioned earphones and a clear tube that curved to the front of our mouths. They looked so professional. That morning I learned that if I cupped both hands in front of it and breathed through my teeth I could sound like an airplane pilot. Clive could talk to the ladies in the back and still pay proper attention to his grooming habits. Reggie figured out that if he aimed the end of the tube at the base of his throat he could moan like Prince’s guitar solo from ‘Purple Rain.’ But then Mrs Hutton turned the phones on.

Reggie was still eating his grease, so when the first call came through he told me to get it, hooking his headset in so he could listen.

‘Electric company,’ I said.

‘Hello?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Hello, is this where I call about getting the money for my bills?’

‘I think so.’

‘Well, I need to get me some of that.’

‘Okay.’ I was breathing heavy. I tried to start bringing up something on the computer but my fingers had gotten all thick.