A Day in the Life -- flash fiction

from blackcatrescue.wordpress.com

She was an Intake Worker for the Welfare Department. There were no average days. All her days could be classified as more eventful or less eventful and she thought the less eventful, the better.

She had her own office. Not a cubicle, but an enclosed five by seven foot room – one door and no windows. She sat behind a gray, metal, government-issue desk across the room from the door. To reach that door she had to squeeze around the east end of the desk and pass behind the two seats for clients.

The Welfare Department shared a one-story brick building with a local dentist and it was not unusual for her to hear drilling noises and sometimes screaming children through the wall at her back. That day, the dental office was quiet, for which she was grateful.

That morning she’d had two young women with their mothers. Girls really, one fourteen and the other sixteen. They’d arrived within hours of each other. The girls were quiet, obviously frightened. And not so obviously pregnant. One mother wanted help paying for prenatal care and delivery.

“She made her bed and now she’ll have to lie in it,” the mother said.

The worker counselled the woman and her daughter that this was something that would affect the rest of the girl’s life. The girl should have some say. She pointed out that using a child to punish a child was not fair nor helpful to either.

The girl said nothing. And the worker completed the application forms.

The other mother wanted the name and address of a clinic where she could get her daughter an abortion. And information about getting the procedure paid for. “She’s too young, and I’m not going to take care of any more babies,” this mother said.

She counselled them that the daughter would have to live with this the rest of her life and she should have some say in this very important decision. She suggested adoption or financial help for the family if they decided to keep the baby. The girl said nothing. And the worker wrote down the telephone numbers for three clinics. She explained that the state had no program to pay for abortions.

In between the two pregnant girls, a man came in seeking some place to stay. He’d just been convicted of burglary. The sheriff’s department had put him out while the court completed a pre-sentencing evaluation. While spending six months in jail awaiting trial, he’d lost his job and his apartment. His landlady locked up his belongings in lieu of back rent. The worker called the sheriff’s office, but they said they couldn’t let him stay there. The same from the city jail. She advised the man to contact two church groups that sometimes found housing for people who needed it.

“Thank you,” the man said, but he did not seem hopeful.

After lunch, another pregnant teen and her mother came in. The worker explained all the options and this time neither said anything. They were both too confused and sad to say one way or the other.

She was beginning to believe that all the people with the saddest problems were meeting down at the corner and deciding it was a good day to come see her.

Mixed in with these clients there had been food stamp applications and daycare provider questions and reports of men living with women receiving assistance and complaints about lost checks.

Then near the end of the day a man came in. At first he said nothing. Then he explained that he’d been out of a mental hospital for a while and that he thought he might have to go back. He said his wife was afraid of him and had taken their child and gone to her family in another state.

He held his left hand cradled in his right. He explained that he’d injured it by slamming it through the dashboard of his car on his way to the welfare office.

“Could you just call my wife and tell her to come home?” he asked.

She explained that she couldn’t do that, but she could help him see a doctor, someone who could help him.

He stood up, but there was no room for him to pace. He turned in a circle then smashed his uninjured hand on her desk. The noise and the action and his position standing over her seemed to inflame him. He shouted. “There is nothing wrong with me. I just want my family home.”

Following her one cardinal rule, don’t say or do anything crazy to a crazy person, she spoke quietly to him and asked him to sit down. He did. She was surprised that he did, but wasted no time. “Excuse me for a moment,” she said. “I need to get some information and then we’ll see what we can do for you.”

She edged around her desk and went behind him being careful not to touch him as she passed. She went out her door and walked to the office of the largest man working there.

“Will you come and stand by my door? I have a man who’s winding himself up. If it gets too loud, just come through the door making as much noise as you can. That should break his frenzy enough to let me get past him and out of my office,” she said.

She returned to her office and spoke to the man as calmly as she could. She found out the name of the man’s doctor and that the doctor had helped him the last time he felt like this. She called the doctor and made arrangements for the man to go there.

Her last call of the day was from the city police. The man who was out of jail awaiting his pre-sentencing report had just broken into his old apartment and would be jailed pending this new breaking and entering charge.

She smiled.

She would go home to her beautiful, healthy, six-year-old son. They would have dinner and play a little. Then she would read to him and put him safely to bed with his little black kitten. She would take a shower and read herself to sleep. And be thankful for her own problems.