Chapter 22
Of windmills, despair, and epiphanies
Back in his apartment, Nom sipped wine and turned the page to his favorite dialogue. Socrates was once again proving to another moron that they too knew nothing. Nom felt a buzzing in his pocket and extracted his phone. The caller ID showed the familiar face of one of the few friends Nom maintained in the world.
Tollen Craylov was an old war buddy from his days at MI DHS. For years Tollen had been gleefully playing the role of Don Quixote against management. Some windmill would be erected by management to taunt and torture the peasant workers. Strapping on his spurs, Tollen never hesitated to charge. On one or two occasions, he managed to land a blow on the giants while they were still there. The rest of the time he was knocked flat on his ass for his efforts. But Tollen was never the kind of man to give up. He would stand, dust himself off, and go back to his cube to polish his armor for the next challenge management sent his way.
Tollen was a great conversationalist and debater. He was a killer on the Wallyball court and a constant source for needed information. When Nom first began to buttheads with Mrs. Cobb, it had been Tollen who had fed him much needed information that scared her into submission.
It seemed that she had once been suspended for six months by the state. Her crime—falsifying official records. She claimed a food assistance applicant, one that had annoyed her, was abusing his daughter. He lost custody of her for a few weeks while CPS investigated. Mrs. Cobb got sued, but the immunity of a state employee is almost absolute. The case was tossed on that very grounds. Still, a formal disciplinary note lifted from her personnel file was a powerful tool, a perfect means for proving that she had lied once before. It was enough to challenge some of her claims, though it had failed to win his last three great arguments.
It was Tollen who told Nom when it was time to quit. Nom had been forced to call in to work for three consecutive days. He knew that if he went into the office without regaining control of his temper first, it would only mean that he would be leaving the building in hand cuffs. Mrs. Cobb would be leaving in a body bag.
On the third day Tollen called in sick for the afternoon, and went over to Nom's apartment to check on him. He found the man in a drunken haze, and muttering about evisceration. Tollen cut off the fire-water and waited with him until he was sober.
The fine details of his ordeal came out. The constant battle with stress. Mrs. Cobb threatening to fire him for not working while he was on vacation. The twenty some-odd UAW grievances that had gone nowhere. Mrs. Santiago's email informing him of her personal policy to never authorize transfers, unless physical safety was at risk. That one had come after the director had authorized his transfer to flee from Mrs. Cobb. Mrs. Santiago had refused to put the transfer through.
Nom's attaché case was full of case read sheets, all pending. Many were months old. Each was one case that Mrs. Cobb had refused to review. Each was attached to a file sheet, they noted just how many people were not eating, or getting medical care, or who had been evicted. All because they had the bad luck to be assigned to an eligibility specialist who could not push their cases past his boss. Nom had gone from a nonsmoker to a two and a half pack a day habit. His shrink had put him on Xanax. Yes, Xanax did go well with gin, what was this crap about not mixing pills and booze? On and on it went.
Tollen sat there and absorbed the information with a surprising calm. He had seen it all before. The office had an annual turnover rate of around forty -three percent. Most left for reasons similar to Nom's, but few people let it build to such an extent. Nom simply had no choice Tollen said; he had to quit. That, or he would probably kill himself, if the stress didn't do it first.
When Tollen left, Nom composed his resignation letter. It was a Friday evening, and it would not be received until Monday at the earliest. What Tollen did not see, was the cloud that had come over Nom's face when his defeat was revealed. The pure, clean liberal who wanted nothing more than to fight the good fight, had been slain.
The blows were countless: the election of the Republican dumb ass du jour, the political victory of his evil uncles, Brexit, the coming echoes of the "Me-Too" movement, etcetera. It all added up. The latter had him quaking in fear. All that would come of this new Me-Too McCarthyism was that every woman with a regret, or anger issue, would be empowered to destroy innocent lives. It was maddening. Now, he was no longer able to simply serve the state and care for people in need. Another evil had won.
Some describe such moments as "snapping." For Nom, it was more like being a white-hot piece of iron plunged into ice cold water. He shattered with the cold realization. He solidified the shards into rock hard steel so quickly he was left with a pile of razors. All that was left from the once idealistic socialist, was a diluted form of his family legacy, creating a sociopath.
Nom grinned when he saw Tollen's picture on his phone ID. Sliding the answer icon, he put the phone on speaker mode.
"Hey, I heard that you were back in town." Tollen said with an audible smile when Nom greeted him.
"Ya, I'm sorry I didn't get to see you at the office this morning." Nom replied
"No worries, I heard that you were busy meeting with Beelzebub and Medusa." Tollen sounded a bit nervous on the other side of the line. "Say… Do you still have any of those cigars we smuggled in?" Tollen asked.
"The Cubans we got over in Winsor? Sure. Feel like joining me for a smoke?"
"Yes, mind if I come over in an hour?"
"Bring some Tanqueray, and you got a deal." Nom said with a chuckle.
"See you then." Tollen said.