Chapter 22 "My Name is Joe"

I'm bristling in my chair in front of Gerard's desk. This is starting to look like an inquisition; my mind is reeling to figure out why I could be in trouble. I glance over at Franny, and mumble, "What's this all about?" She shrugs and leans over to me like a lawyer would and mumbles back into my ear.

"Your guess is as good as mine right now. I'm assuming they'll want to revisit your report. Obviously this has something to do with Dade."

I scoffed, "Well, no shit, Franny." She nodded gravely and elbowed me.

"I got your back, kid."

Franny. Jaime’s boss. Has my back. The thought was comical. In any situation other than this, Franny, as mousy, rotund, and short as she was, could have anyone's back. Still, in this contrived workplace, interrogation, her words comforted me a little. I imagined Franny as some kind of superhero by night, the Ninja Beach ball. She would bounce around smashing her pendulous body into criminals and using numchucks to bash evil-doers over the head.

My eyes narrowed as I regarded Gerard. He was still reading my reports. I decided there was no reason in the world this situation should intimidate me, yet I was feeling very surrounded. I was reminded of the dream I had about the enemies that wouldn't die or injure. Everyone in the room was surely getting ready to pounce.

Gerard finally looked up at me and said, "This really is just a formality." I only nodded a reply. "What we need to do, is ask you a few questions so that we have a bigger picture of what happened to Dade yesterday. This is one of the larger incidents to happen at King Soopers. The district guys need some answers because, you know, Dade will probably lawyer up."

Now that makes sense. I let out a bit of a sigh through my nose and said, "What do you need to know?"

Gerard took a small tape recorder out of his desk and held up a tiny tape and looked at me. "We're going to attach this to your original report, ok?" I looked at Franny. She nodded. I shrugged at Gerard. "Is that a yes?" he barked. I nodded. "Red, you're going to have to be a little more vocal for this to work." He slapped the tape into the recorder, turned it on and set it lightly on his desk. "May 28th 2005. 4:11 PM. This is an audio addendum for transcription regarding the incident on May 27th 2005 with Dade Simpson. Report number 658947. Dean Worley, Gerard Jackson, Francine Ferrel, union rep. Everyone say their names for the record."

We all said our full names and Gerard continued, "Let's start when you left work on May 26th."

"Okey doke."

"What time did you leave work?"

"About 8 or so. Late shift."

"Were you in a hurry?" Franny nudged me ever so slightly. It was obvious to me, but imperceptible to everyone else in the room. I began to really understand why Franny has about 6 children and a very loving husband. She was very even-tempered and subtle. I had suspected this about her, and imagined that being quite sexy to the right man.

"Not particularly," I replied. Acting nebulous and evasive was my demeanor at this point.

Gerard shifted some papers on his desk and said, "It is the testimony of Dean Worely in incident report numbered 658945 that your slicer was not cleaned and that there was a few unwashed pieces in the sink."

I snorted and peered at Dean who avoided my eye contact and I decided to be a bit indignant, "So what?"

"Just answer to that," Gerard said monotonously.

"Darrell from meats used the slicer that night after I had left," I said, indicating Franny, who must have known about that. She nodded and I continued, "And the dishes...well, maybe I left those, but that's the way stuff works normally, Mona usually..."

Dean blurted, "Isn't that part of your closing responsibilities?"

Gerard cut his hand through the air to silence Dean and said, "Is there a possibility that you didn't close properly because you were in a hurry for some reason?"

"No."

"Did you take out the trash?"

"Of course."

"Do you remember locking the dumpster?"

Ah ha! This was it. This was how they were gonna do it. Protocol says that we are to lock the dumpsters after we use them, but nobody ever does. As a matter of fact, no one but management has a key for the lock, and for the past 2 months, the lock has been missing. This is going to be my fault that a Rottweiler crawled into the dumpster to meet Dade later. I decided I was running into every little piece of bad luck I could find lately.

My lip curled. Dean folded his hands over his stomach and looked at me rather satisfyingly. I turned my head over to Franny who shook her head in disgust and then arched an eyebrow at me. Her eyes said that whatever my reply that she'd back me.

After a long silence, I said, "Yep."

Gerard smirked at me over his half glasses as Dean scoffed, "Well, that's a bold face lie."

I just laughed, "Why, Dean!? Why, you fat fuck? Because I don't even have that key? Because you haven't made me a key in two years?! Me and Mona have to ask you for everything!"

"So it is your testimony that you can't lock and in fact, didn't lock the dumpster?" said Gerard.

I sighed and then laughed again. "This is a fucking witch hunt."

Gerard smirked at me again. "Would you rather amend your previous testimony? You didn't lock the dumpster, did you?"

"You fuckers." Franny bashed me in the ribs with her elbow. This time, it was very obvious.

Gerard said, "Can I see your dumpster key?"

I was caught. I couldn't produce that key, because I did not have it. I never have had it. Dean does, but that fuck face always leaves at 3:30 or 4 every day so there was no possibility that I locked the dumpster with his key as I should have. It didn't really matter because there wasn't even a lock. I surmised that if this was the thrust of their case against me, I had an out or two.

"Do you have a dumpster key?" I asked Fran. She turned and looked at me and nodded. She saw where I was going with this. She leaned over the desk to speak into the tape recorder and said extra loud...

"NO! I HAVE NEVER HAD A KEY TO THE DUMPSTER!"

"Fuckin-A! Franny has worked here longer than I have!"

Dean piped up, "As Franny's supervisor, Franny works nearly the same hours that I do, and not only does she not have to lock the dumpster because of her shift, I have done it for years for her if it has been required, she has not been issued a key."

"That's the thing, though, isn't it Dean!?” Gerard cut his hand through the air again, but I cut him off, "No Gerry! No fuckin’ way! Dean is the worst of the worst! I need stuff from him all of the time, but he never..."

"QUIET, RED!" Gerard's voice exploded through the office like a bomb. "DID YOU LOCK THE DUMPSTER?!"

I was quiet for almost a minute, "No."

Franny sighed and got up from her chair. "Gerry. We're gonna..."

Gerard reached down and clicked off the tape recorder and said, "Do what you do, Franny. Alright you two, get out." He was indicating both Dean and Franny and they scurried out, and Gerard slammed his office door behind them.

"Sign this." Gerard tossed a paper he was holding across the desk at me. It was a document that said that I was ok with the audio addendum that he had recorded thus far.

"If you think I'm signing that, you're crazy."

He sneered at me, "I'm crazy, huh?"

"Yep. No fuckin’ way, Gerry."

"What's your problem, Red?" He said as he rolled up one of his sleeves past his sinuous old-man forearm.

"Don't you already have what you need, Gerry?"

"It's not like that, Red. You're on suspension, until further investigation."

"NO, IT REALLY IS LIKE THAT, GERRY! I think you're covering your own ass, old man." As I said this, I wasn't expecting what happened next. Gerard grabbed me by the shirt collar with both hands and pulled me close to his face over his shitty working man's desk.

I had an inclination to head butt him, or spit in his face, but I had respected the man for a few years and was somewhat dumbfounded about how things had turned out between him and I. Oddly enough, he was still dominating me at this point. He was surprisingly strong, and intense. I started to melt a bit. He started in on me.

"You little punk!" Hilarious, since I was at least 6 inches taller and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. I actually laughed a bit and grabbed his wrists, squeezed, and began to pull his hands off of me. He pulled me closer and my feet scrambled under his desk for a moment.

"Listen to me. You will be fired from here if you don't cooperate. What do you think? That you are God's great gift here? Do you think that you have made enough money for this company to offset what you have cost this company? It's simple numbers, buck-o."

"Really?! As if you think that Dade's lawsuit is a done deal?! You just need a fall-guy for your shitty underling, Dean!" I started to press my knees against his desk for leverage.

"No. You know what? You're a slacker. You're exactly what I DON'T need here. I don't need to impress the union, because you know what? I can make this decision, whether the union likes it or not. You wanna know why I can make that decision? I make those decisions on a daily basis. I can do what ever I want. This is my store. I AM YOUR BOSS! You need to play ball or all of this...it's over.”

I wrenched my hands up, using my knees against his desk as leverage. The thin sheet of cheap, pressed steel made a 'poink' sound as I pulled and pressed. My shirt collar ripped, but I continued my upward thrust and then slammed his fists down onto his desk and pulled him closer to me. "Fuck you, Gerry. Fuck your little world."

I spun around and ripped his office door open; it slammed against the other wall and rebounded with a shudder. I strode into the break room and faced the lockers. My original thought was to open my locker and clean out the things that resided there. They were items that I could care less about, like the small stick of horrific Speed Stick and pieces of King Soopers uniform. Out of some strange rage I grabbed onto the locker bank that contained mine , with my fingertips. Two of the young teenagers that ran the registers were sitting at one of the break room tables, chewing their gum, and looked at me with blank expressions.

I leaned and pulled and shoved my feet into the lockers in front of me, hanging like a monkey by my fingertips. I shook my body and the bank of lockers started to give way. They came out of the wall anchors from the flimsy drywall and wrenched with a squeaky sound and the whole bay of lockers toppled over. The two teenagers barely moved or reacted and chewed their gum. It all came crashing to floor in a very satisfying clatter.

Gerry called after me as I rebounded and crouched, stood up and headed for the door. "That's not gonna help your cause, Red."

I stopped in my tracks and turned around to face him. "Fuck you, Gerry. My name is Joe." I turned around and walked out.