Monday, January 18, 2016
MYSTERY DEATH OF WHEELCHAIR
The Federal Government outsourced most of its
work to the Dresden-Solliday Corporation, but I
didn't see any change, at least in my unfolding
experience that day.
Runaround then, runaround now.
After the fifth office, a round man, silky gray,
coiffed, manicured, DS-USA badge containing
tiny depictions of American flags.
"Are you the person looking for Bellsome Narraway?"
Said I was.
“May I ask the nature of your inquiry?”
“Personal.”
“Well this is a Dresden-Solliday US Government
Installation. It is therefore a workplace. According
to USDS regulations...!”
I told him Mr Narraway was homeless. And I
had evidence that he lived and worked there.
“That's impossible! Oh I'm so horribly horribly busy!
But...I'm authorized to make an exception. Tomorrow.
You're to stay at DSUS Hilton tonight as our guest.
It's quite lovely.”
He evidently held memories of its restaurant meals.
No complaints. And the next mid morning a very
luxurious bus appeared. The driver was strapped in
with his wheelchair and was quite jolly.
Appearing. He never spoke.
Mozart's The Abduction From the Seraglio played,
with interweaving patriotic songs.
We spend an hour negotiating the potholes of a rusty
old refinery.
I’m the only passenger, though iPads fall down at
every seat.
Mine says. Welcome to the Dresden-Solliday USA
Corporation. Please help us evaluate our service.
Only one question: Driver was a) Unfailingly
Helpful...all the other responses are ghosted out,
so I naturally check a.
When I do, the iPads, including mine, suck back
into the ceiling.
And the bus stops, the driver rolling off, an immense
submarine sandwich in his lap.
At the parking lot, and my car.
So I leave.
Unfortunately, the driver, searching for a decent
spot to eat his monster sandwich, gets lost in the lot’s
furthest reaches.
Waylaid then by a quartet of starving juveniles, who
incorporate him in their play.
All the while inhaling the ripped-apart sandwich, they
knock over the wheelchair several times, stealing its battery.
Abandon him, and chair, pre-natal in a muddy area of soda
cans, some glinting from scrub bushes.
Couldn't possibly crawl out of such terrain.
A cell left to him, but they have taken its battery also.
I become the number one suspect in MYSTERY DEATH
OF WHEELCHAIR–-the news-sites omit the victim's name,
but no one had taken mine either. The Hilton registered
me as Teddy Roosevelt, their little joke.
Law Enforcement finds me anyway, and a bureaucratic
nightmare...does not begin.
They take my statement in my kitchen, and assure me
that’s the end of it.
Though one political party later wants me to testify
anonymously of the vicious incompetence of the other.
I refuse. Not partial to the newly-favored Bag On the
Head look. Even the Ralph Lauren’s.
Labels: bureaucracy, Capitalism, government, juvenile delinquent, outsourcing, Ralph Lauren, wheelchair
