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Arlee stopped by one day, died the next - Fate Fairies - book version
This entry was posted on 12/19/2011 1:45 AM and is filed under Fate Fairies:Fate Fairies - book version.
Seems like I told this story in my writings at some point; but, a search comes up blank. Maybe it has haunted my mind for so long I just believe I have actually written it down somewhere. I have told it to myself a thousand times. When I worked for the City of Dallas as a Park and Recreation supervisor one of my colleagues was a guy named, (let's call him Arlee) Arlee. Arlee worked downtown as a low level supervisor managing the schizophrenic nuances of the City Hall grounds and the many park properties that loomed in the general vicinity of downtown Dallas - Dealy Plaza for one - home of the infamous assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Arlee was about my age, maybe a year or two older. At some point I learned he had been in the Navy during 'Nam and the Cold War, as a cook on a ship in the South China Sea. I had been a dump truck and scoop loader driver for the Army on the border of then Czechoslovakia. Welcome to our world - everyone can't be a Green Beret.
For years we worked in parallel universes, Arlee in downtown, me in the Fair Park area by the infamous Cotton Bowl complex. I knew Arlee was a drinker. He did not hide it. He was a train wreck. But, somewhere at 29 years old I mustered up the ability to be non-judgemental. You readers try to deal with the kooks and perps that occupy a major metropolitan area and see if you can refrain from demons for too long. Then too, there is that pesky specter of the 'Nam era that haunted us both to boot. So, I cut him the benefit of the doubt.
After several years of working in similar formats but never really getting to know each other, Arlee all of a sudden started to self destruct (as alcoholics might just do). He missed a bunch of work time. Everyone thought he quit, or disappeared, or...what ever. One day he reappeared. Our mutual boss must have dragged Arlee out of the abyss.
In out-of-character fashion, our mutual and upwardly focused, over-ambitious Yuppie boss came in to my humble (and cluttered) office one morning. He never came into any of our offices. We front-line supervisors were the keepers of the rabble. We were the "Head..., Driv'n Niggers" ( a black supervisor friend of mine tipped me off to the slave era verbiage) that drove the Mexican, White Cracker, and African American workers. We were the lower class bosses that drove the lower class employees
"Talk to Arlee," Boss-man said as he stuck his head in my door. His crispy white shirt and perfect tie and cuff links painted a stark contrast to my faded, hole filled jeans, and worn out flannel shirt. He startled me as I prepared my work schedule for the morning. In those days, I only had Army first aid training. I had little concept of humans that were about to self destruct.
Arlee came in my office and sat on the one extra chair I had. He just sat and looked at the wall with his yellow hepatic eyes. He lit up a cigarette under the "No Smoking" sign.
"Arlee, my guys got to repair a swing-set some drunk fool ran over with a '72 Buick...you know that cluster fuck of a Buckner Park...the Mexicans, Brothers, and drunk white boys beat that park to death...we spend half of our time putting that war zone back together," I remember saying, trying to talk supervisor shop talk. Arlee just smiled and took a long drag on his cigarette. After about 15 minutes of silence between us, he just got up and left.
Hell, I did not know shit about a self destructing person. In retrospect, supervisor shop talk about work and the inner-city hell we worked in, was one reason he was probably drinking himself to death. I had basically said, "Hi dude," and mentioned the wrecked swing-set and then just kept working on my worker assignments for the day.
"Did you chat with Arlee?" Boss-man said a little while later.
"More than we have chatted in five years," I said. That was not a stretch considering we had never talked at all in the years we worked together.
Arlee did not come to work the next day and disappeared again. Apparently any significant-other was long gone for Arlee. He lived alone. A co-worker found Arlee in his small one-room apartment..., dead. Word had it, he was sitting in his easy chair in front of the television with an empty bottle of Jack Daniels in his lap and a burned down cigarette butt between his fingers.
Fuck!
Note: This blog "Fate Fairies" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Fate Fairies Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
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