As always, Monday morning hit me like a shock wave, rudely interrupting whatever dreams I was having. The dreams rarely left me with detailed memories, only a few faint glimpses of somewhere I had never been and people I hardly knew. Even these were eclipsed, though, by the nausea I felt in anticipation of my impending week at work this Monday morning in May.

And work meant the welfare office in Roslindale Square—a small room buried in the basement of a two-story municipal building, with four desks adjacent to one another and one large desk in the corner where the supervisor sat. The office was dank and poorly ventilated. Since the half-windows were at street level and let in very little light, a row of glaring neon lights illuminated the office, one of which flickered off and on, exacerbating the hangovers that permeated the room. A calendar and an honest-to-goodness picture of Ronald Reagan hung from the wall behind the supervisor’s desk to remind us of who was really in charge.

When I entered the office, my co-workers said nothing except for Charlie, who sat next to me. Unlike the rest of the office, Charlie was as suave and as insouciant as he could be given our circumstances. His hair was always neatly combed, and his clothes were never expensive but always stylish and perfectly coordinated. He wore a light blue buttoned-down shirt, dark brown slacks, and a dark blue spotted tie. With exaggerated terror, Charlie pointed at the pile of cases on his desk and said, “The horror, the horror!” It was a quote from the film Apocalypse Now, which had just been released.

“The horror,” I replied, already exasperated as I stared at the stack of cases in front of me. Each one represented a family stuck in the breakdown lane, mostly good people debilitated by some crippling illness, old age, or the downside of supply and demand. A short note written in perfect cursive script from his supervisor was attached to each case, requiring “more verification,” “do it over,” or just “unacceptable!” It reminded me of corrected papers I had turned in when I was in school—the only difference being that it could spell the end of subsistence for a family instead of a failed grade. I was supposed to finish at least sixty redeterminations of eligibility each month but had only completed fifteen, and the month was up in ten days.

 Since Monday was my “Duty Day,” I knew a line of clients in the front office was waiting to see me. Duty Day was the one day every week when one of the workers was assigned to handle any clients who came into the office without an appointment. It was by far the most dreaded day of the week.

My first client on this day was an elderly woman who looked confused and fragile and whose hands shook uncontrollably. She sat in one of the four cubicles in the reception room. Each cubicle had two chairs and a small table surrounded by a pale green plastic partition.

I took a seat across from her and asked, “How can I help you?”

“Is there anything you can do about the electric bill?” she said haltingly. “It’s getting to be... too much. I don’t think... I’ll be able to pay it... this month.”

"I'll see what I can do about Emergency Assistance. I think you might qualify."

 She thanked me, and I told her to call me if she needed anything else. She gave me a quick smile and thanked me again.

When I returned to my desk, I could feel my supervisor standing behind me. She was in her mid-fifties, had dyed brown hair cut pageboy style, wore the same gray pantsuit every day, and blithered constantly—not quite ready to explode but definitely on the brink. She was an ex-coastguard officer who chewed imaginary gum and always hesitated before speaking, as if she could not say what she wanted but would try anyway. At the same time, her hands fidgeted nervously with whatever she was holding. I knew I was about to be lectured.

“You know, the whole point is not to be so nice to them,” she said as if this were some irrefutable law known to any two-year-old. “Just so you know!” The philosophy was simple: if you made their lives miserable, they might think twice about applying for welfare.

“Right,” I said with a tone of indifference.

“Yeah, right!” she snapped.

A few years before, a riot had occurred at The Grove Hall Welfare Office in Roxbury. Several of the workers and some of the clients had been injured. They called it a race riot since most of the clients at the office were Black, but it could have happened at any office in the city, given the enlightened attitude of the Welfare Department. Nonetheless, an occasion of hell had come to Boston, and a chain reaction of hate spread through the city like a virus. So, it was decided by the administration that all clients were to be treated with equal contempt.

 

A woman, holding an infant, and her husband sat in the interview booth. The husband stared at the floor as if he were about to be executed. He was around my age, wore a work shirt and jeans, and hadn’t shaved in at least a week. His wife, though, looked calm and confident and spoke up immediately, handing me most of the necessary information I asked for, except for one crucial item.

“He’s going to have to get a letter from his former employer,” I said, trying to sound compassionate but instead sounding like any one of the other bureaucrats in the office.

“He won’t do it,” the man’s wife said as her husband stared at the floor like it was about to be sucked into some kind of horrible vortex. “He won’t go back there. He won’t face them. He’d be humiliated.”

“Would it help if I contacted them?” I offered.

“Maybe,” she said, asking her husband, “would it?” But he just continued to stare at the floor without answering.

“What do you say we give it a try?” I asked.

“Please, if you could,” she said, picking up the baby and cradling her. I looked at her husband, and all I could think was, Jesus, that could be me!

My supervisor approached me when the woman and her husband left the office.

“He’s supposed to get it himself!” she said, spitting the words at me as if she had just swallowed an expectorant.

“I thought I could help him.”

"Bullshoot!" she said with the stern discipline of an ex-coastguard officer incapable of uttering a curse. Just as she was about to lecture me, the receptionist called and told me that a man at her desk looked “pretty angry” and that he better get up here “right away.”

When I entered the reception room, a solidly built man about my age was yelling at one of the intake workers. His head was bald, both arms were muscular and tattooed, and his face was contorted in barely controlled rage.

“You give it to them,” he yelled, pointing at two Black women who sat across from the receptionist. He said “them” as if it were a curse and added, “But you won’t give it to me, and I just got out of the Army!”

The intake worker, looking terrified, backed away. Then, in a fit of nervousness, she did the worst thing she could possibly do, she  started to laugh at him. He went into a Karate stance, threw his hands out, and was about to strike when another social worker, who happened to be an ex-cop, positioned himself between the man and the intake worker.

“Take it easy, pal,” my co-worker said. With absolute composure, the six-foot-three ex-cop looked at the man like he was looking at his son and said, "Why don't we just go home and come back tomorrow morning, and we'll see what we can do then? OK?"

The man relaxed his arms, looked up, and said, "What the hell!" But as he was about to leave the office, he went over to one of the Black women having a cup of coffee, knocked the cup out of her hand, and stormed out.

The supervisor was waiting for me when I returned to my desk and sneered at me.

“You could have acted quicker, you know!”

I didn’t reply and returned to work on one of the files.

“You saved the day again!” Charlie announced.

“It was just an assist.” But just as I said this, my phone rang again, and the receptionist told him another client was waiting in the front office.

A woman and her two kids, a little boy and a girl, sat in one of the booths waiting for me. Both kids sat patiently and watched while she took a stack of papers out of her purse, placed it on the desk in front of me, and picked out a rent receipt. It was a little hard to read, but I knew she could always get another if she had to. She was a relatively easy client and would always produce the verification he requested.

The woman’s little girl started tugging at her mother’s leg again while her older brother, who wore a Batman T-shirt, looked around the office wide-eyed as if he were spending an afternoon at the zoo.

“Looks like I’ll have to take her to the bathroom. Could you keep an eye on him?” the woman asked. She took her daughter by the hand and walked into the restroom, leaving her five-year-old son to ask me about everything.

“Do you like to work here?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you make a lot of money?”­

“No.”

“So why do you like to work here?”

“So, I can get to meet cool people like you.”

 The boy laughed, looked up at me like he had a huge secret, and couldn’t wait to tell me. And then, with huge supernova eyes, he said, “You know, I had a dream about aliens last night.”

“You mean aliens from outer space?”

“Yes.”

“Were they good aliens, or were they bad aliens?” I asked dramatically.

“Well, if you’re nice to them, they’re nice to you,” he declared.

I stared at him as if he had just solved a complex riddle that no one had ever been able to solve.

“Is that right?”

“That’s right!” he said, sounding absolutely certain.

“He’ll talk your ear off," the boy's mother said as she returned from the restroom. “He’s always saying things like that.” Her daughter, obviously in awe of her older brother, looked up at him as if he were some kind of demigod.

“Really, he's very smart," I said.

I finished the woman’s case record, thanked her for coming by, and then thanked God, that the day was done. As they were about to leave, the kid looked at me and said, “You should make more money, you know!”

“I agree,” I said.

When I returned to my office, I placed the case record on his supervisor's desk. She promptly put it at the bottom of a stack of files without looking up at me.

As I was about to leave for the day, Charlie turned to me and gave me a cheerful, “See you bright and early.”

“The horror, the horror!” I replied.

 

My supervisor stood next to my desk the following day, waiting for me.

 “What is this?” she asked, holding the case record he’d passed in the previous afternoon and biting her upper lip as if she were about to endure some excruciating pain. She glared at me like she’d caught me in the middle of some indecent act and said, “The rent receipt is faked!”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said, sure the rent receipt was genuine.

“It’s faked.” I know a phony rent receipt when I see one. I’m giving it to the Fraud Squad.” Then she turned and walked away.

“Right,” I mumbled without looking up at her.

When I returned to his desk, Charlie gave me a look.

“Guess who’s in town?”

“The Fraud Squad!” I said, seeing them filing into the office with their leather briefcases and officious expressions. “And they’re loaded for bear!”

The “Fraud Squad,” as it was called by the workers, consisted of a supervisor and two assistants, all eager to investigate any clients who were foolish enough to falsify a welfare application to receive an extra fifteen dollars a week in benefits. The Fraud Squad supervisor was in his late fifties. He was immaculately groomed with thinning gray hair and wore an expensive three-piece suit, Cordovan Oxford shoes, and a Rolex. The Squad huddled in a room adjacent to my office, and every time they found something suspicious, I could hear the supervisor say, “Bingo!” Then Charlie would say, “Another bingo. They’re on a roll!”

I could feel it coming; some kind of reckoning was in the offing. I knew I was about to be called before The Inquisition. And sure enough, my supervisor announced that “they would like to speak to you,” pointing to the empty office next door that the Fraud Squad used as an investigation room.

The Fraud Squad supervisor sat back in his seat, arms folded across his chest, and said, “One of your clients faked a rent receipt. Do you know anything about it?”

I thought for a minute. I knew the receipt was authentic, but I also knew that the Fraud Squad leader would not back down and that the woman and her family would surely lose their benefits. It was also possible that the Fraud Squad might prosecute her, and God only knows where that could lead. So, I decided to do the only thing I could.

"She didn't do it," I said matter-of-factly.

“Well, your supervisor knows fraud when she sees it, and so do I.”

“She didn’t do it.”

“How do you know?” he asked.

“I faked it myself.”

“You did what?”

“I faked it.”

"You're in trouble, you know," he said, rapidly tapping his finger on the table. He gave the rest of The Squad a smug, knowing look and glared at me as if I were some kind of reptilian creature that had crawled out from under a rock. “You’re a disgrace to the Welfare Department and to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. You know this is a criminal offense, don’t you? As far as I’m concerned, you’re nothing but a common criminal!”

I had never been called a criminal before and did not know anyone who had been a disgrace to The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and wondered if this meant an enormous “D” would be painted on my forehead. After some reflection, I sensed that The Fraud Squad was getting a little carried away.

“Are we finished here for today?” I asked.

"Get out of my sight. I'm sick of looking at you," the Fraud Squad supervisor said while the rest of the Squad nodded their heads in disgust.

When I returned to my desk, I noticed my supervisor was on the phone and looked angry. She slammed the phone down and walked over to my desk in a huff. Her face was beet red, and her hands shook. She looked like she was about to hit me, but she just scowled and said, “You’re lucky you weren’t fired this time. Do it again, and you will be.” She was about to walk away but turned as if she’d forgotten something and said, “I should fire you, you know, but I’m not going to because I believe in second chances.”

And because you don’t want to have to train a new worker, I thought.

 

After work, I crossed into the park in Roslindale Square and sat on a park bench. I was about to light up a cigarette, sit back, and relax when I noticed the kid with the Batman shirt and his mother having a conversation while his younger sister sat in her carriage, blissfully enjoying the candy she was holding with both hands. His mother pointed in my direction, and her son immediately looked up and ran across the park toward me.

 "My mom said I should say thank you."

"Oh, that's OK," I said.

"I told my mom we should do something nice for you sometime."

"No, you don't have to do that."

He smiled and said, "Yes, we do. After all, one good turn deserves another!"

I had to laugh. "Did the aliens tell you that?"

He just shrugged and gave an impish smile.

 "No, I don't think so."

Then his mother called for him; he grinned and high-fived me.

"See you later, alligator!"

"Hey, I'm not an alligator!" I replied, trying hard to look offended and not to laugh.

"Could have fooled me!" he said, folding his arms across his chest and giving me a knowing grin.

I tried to think of a clever response, but he turned and ran back across the park to his mother before I could say anything. All I could do was sit there, dumbfounded, once again astonished at what he had just said.