MEANWHILE THE REALITIES "I Don't Walk Around with Jobs in My Pocket"
Toynbee, Polly
MEANWHILE THE REALITIES “I don’t walk around with jobs in my pocket” by Polly Toynbee We use the term “Meanwhile the Realities” to describe a certain type of article, one focusing on what is...
...You’ll just walk out...
...I might say Waxler tried to persuade him to go something I don’t want to say,” and away to Job Corps, but James Wasn’t they both laughed again...
...Waxler was referring to the fact that all federal agencies are required to employ one youth for every 40 employees during the nine weeks of the summer vacation...
...He’s lost...
...No, I just came from an institution, and I don’t want to go in another,” Maurice said, pulling at the red check scarf around his neck...
...For what...
...Lewis...
...Where did he get the money for all this dreaming...
...We can have you speak with Mayor Washington, too, if you want,” Raymond said...
...They won’t give you a real job, but they’ll make a job for you, filing, and you’ll feel great and tell your ‘friends you’re working in an office for the government...
...I got one but there .ain’t nothing in it...
...There was one guy reading the newspaper all the time, couldn’t stop himself laughing...
...There was something remarkable about him, a surprising smattering of knowledge...
...Yeah, I know that...
...Maurice nodded and left...
...Then someone came and called him away for a moment...
...I wouldn’t send kids into the Service in war time, in case they got hurt, but it’s a good opening in peace,” Waxler said...
...Then how am I gonna get in...
...I want people to have a mission in life-something they want to do for its own sake-not because of status, or money...
...When he gets older your mother is not going to be able to handle it...
...No one’s starving, I mean really going without food...
...He “I tell the others I ain’t got nothcouldn’t read what he’d written...
...She This is James Stewart calling...
...You got any idea?’’ “Nope...
...Could I speak with Mr...
...You going to be “No, I’m going to be Mamma...
...I’m running the Mafia in this city,” Raymond said...
...The girl lifted her head and moved her chair to make room for me...
...We know him...
...They cook nice chili beans, nice dessert...
...He kept saying that he’d have to go home, but as more and more clients dropped by to see him he didn’t manage to get away...
...Nothing...
...NO, I ain’t imagining nothing.’’ “Shall I call Mr...
...When “No...
...Uh uh...
...You smoke cigars...
...You still hiring dish- “How about her...
...I know I do that, grinning all the time for nothing, I know that...
...I was going to school in England not long ago...
...L-L-Lewis...
...No, we took the Greyhound bus...
...MEANWHILE THE REALITIES “I don’t walk around with jobs in my pocket” by Polly Toynbee We use the term “Meanwhile the Realities” to describe a certain type of article, one focusing on what is really happening down at the grass-roots level, below the 18 administrative layers of federal agencies, down where people pick up their food stamps and pay their taxes...
...Do you understand what a job involves...
...And he’s going to give you hell, because you count for just nothing in his book...
...You know that...
...Your mother, and you’re 19...
...He’s 17 and just come from Cedar Knoll, the reformatory...
...You can’t call people fags...
...more about my girl...
...He’s nowhere...
...Why not say James F. making her stay in school...
...Raymond then began to lick it all over, from top to bottom...
...Let’s add that middle initial...
...Zelda suddenly giggled and couldn’t stop...
...You believe that...
...2nd I don’t see the point in getting these kids jobs just so they can earn some money...
...Why are you asleep, Zelda?’’ “I ain’t asleep...
...Two bammers with a pair of guns...
...We’re friends of Mr...
...Nope...
...We took some time out to go upstairs to the canteen for a quick coffee...
...Maybe 1’11 dig ditches all day and do some kind of volunteer psychiatric counseling at night,” he said more than once...
...But looking at him, tired and pale, I couldn’t quite see Waxler out there stripped to the waist in the sun under a hard hat...
...Then I’ll see if I can swing the portering...
...I don’t walk around with pocketfuls of them...
...We should have him out by’ 1976...
...I’ve told you that, Zelda...
...Scrubbing toilets “Nope, I don’t want to scrub no “You just contradicted yourself...
...They just weren ’t workitig that well...
...I think you think you aren’t even living if someone isn’t yelling at you, If you need your mother to throw bottles at your head, they aren’t about to do that for you in that place...
...Can you handle it when someone calls, ‘Hey, Boy’?’’ “Yeah, sure I can handle it, you call me Boy...
...Brooklyn, Bronx, Long Island, Manhattan, I had business in all them places...
...Do you still want a iob...
...They let you in here, too, do they...
...Zelda came back humming and shuffling...
...He became extremely polite and restrained, and at the same time managed to convey an understanding and reasonably intimate tone...
...Be sure to come, though...
...The dudes say she’s evil...
...No...
...You’ve got to face your problems, get organized so you can care for that child:” “I guess I ain’t woman enough to face my problems...
...gotta be messing with someone...
...He was off into his world of fantasy...
...Since she was nine...
...Last time you were really down...
...It’s your decision, and a job washing dishes isn’t going to help you...
...That way, nobody suspects you...
...Wrong,” Waxler said triumphantly, and probably with some relief...
...The others in the of place...
...I’m here...
...Like this: ‘Mr...
...There was, in the beginning, a whole range of openings and opportunities, and now there is nothing...
...An M-16, eh...
...There are two kinds o,f people worlcing in this field, ’’ he says...
...You have to cope with all these problems when you have the mentality of a IO-year-old...
...She shook her head...
...I don’t know, They all think they want to be something, They all dream of working behind a desk...
...You don’t know anything about my job...
...You gonna get me in there...
...We have our business, you know, don’t we...
...I t doesn’t do anyone any good...
...We got to see Joseph Yeldell when he gets , back from lunch...
...Are they mostly white or black people...
...What did you carry them in, a brown paper bag...
...Now go on, tell me...
...Bad boys’ll beat me up on the way home...
...I want a job...
...Do you think it’s funny...
...Waxler shook his head and looked even more exasperated...
...Do you think this conversation is a waste of time...
...What a load of crazy talk you got...
...Listen...
...They make McDonald’s rich, they fill the pockets of the shoe companies...
...Cedar Knoll,” Waxler said, “that’s just a place that keeps you asleep all day long, total lethargy...
...I wouldn’t just do away with the programs...
...He doesn’t have a reason to exist...
...Start again...
...Baker at Cedar Knoll...
...David asked, stretching out his legs...
...Look, what is this talk...
...You have such a tight schedule you just couldn’t fit it in...
...I’d want to restructure everything altogether...
...What do they do with it...
...Zelda, this bullshitting around has got to end...
...His voice changed remarkably...
...Maurice was not angry, or afraid...
...They don’t stop and think what they want to do...
...She was beginning to droop again, and her head was back on the desk...
...drop by again, soon...
...Do I look happy...
...You got to have identity...
...No it didn’t...
...This astounded both of us...
...Because they wouldn’t let me be manager...
...Waxler sighed loudly and shook his head...
...I’m tired, tired,” he said...
...We went bur- education and get fast as they could...
...What’s that place for...
...I mean it...
...There was a long pause...
...Waxler asked, a slight note of anxiousness in his voice, as if he had been saving up the cigar specially...
...eyes...
...He is an odd, disconcerting, and eccentric man, but for all that he is sane, self-aware and perceptive...
...But Maurice was adamant...
...Now, do you still want a job...
...So you want her to get a good “You’re the one who’s always talk- education so she can support you, is ing so much about your fabulous love life-that makes me wonder...
...Have you got one girl or 101 girls...
...I can change my hours around...
...Lewis...
...Waxler picked up the phoneagain, and this time got through...
...They are interested in jobs...
...At 17, I guess he’s typical of his age...
...Guns...
...But what do you want to do...
...She used to run around the place yelling and shouting, sitting on the floor, throwing papers aroundyou couldn’t talk with her...
...The girl, after giving me one long look, rested her head in her hand and seemed about to fall asleep...
...We want a job, and don’t ask questions why...
...But now, I just don’t see the point of trying to find these kids lousy jobs...
...able to read what he had written...
...Raymond was still looking through the files, “Just want to see if there’s anyone else here I know...
...I’m going to school, and I want a job now...
...ing for them, that 1 just got one girl...
...The disparity between government and those it affects is perpetuated in the way we learn about government and compounded when the products of this type of education become bureaucrats or politicians and ignore in practice what they were taught to ignore in theory...
...In some ways his views have come full circle until he is almost in line with Nixon...
...He said if I don’t get a job he’s gonna put me back in Cedar Knoll...
...You’ve met the people there...
...No, I mean it...
...They’ll take you as long as they think you won’t drift back home after a couple of days...
...That’s a good time to talk with employers...
...Baker...
...No deal,” Waxler yawned and stretched...
...How many children will you “Two boys and two girls...
...Well, white people are more trustworthy...
...Tired of living...
...They don’t even employ people from the community if they can help it...
...No,” Maurice mumbled...
...Maurice could think of nothing and shrugged...
...You do that too, you know, sometimes...
...He said she came in to see him whenever she felt like it, sometimes every day, sometimes not for a couple of weeks...
...He took a cigarette...
...Looking up from below (for example, from a coal miner’s position rather than that of a GS-18 in the Bureau of Mines) is not a very comfortable posture, but it is a necessary one for scholars and officials...
...Restructuring society’s values is all very well, but it is hard to feel that it might be more productive and fairer to start with those who already have too much and might be willing to exchange money for mission...
...No, Zelda, that’s not true...
...If you ‘adjust’ to those institutions like they say you should, you won’t ever adjust to the outside world...
...Baker said to me...
...In some ways it might come as a relie5 He would be forced to make some important decisions about himself, his work, and his life...
...Wait...
...Myer and James both this...
...Carry some identity, and a book with phone numbers...
...You come back Monday...
...It’s a whole different picture...
...A great deal of it was repetition, Waxler hammering at her from one tack, and then from another...
...what are they going to do...
...There was a long silence, then Waxler stared straight at me and said disconcertingly, “What have you been doing all weekend...
...You’re going to have to sort that out...
...I want her to have what I were you last here...
...How long have I known you now, Zelda...
...Kids hate the jobs they are given under the program, mostly because they aren’t real jobs, and they are kept in all day, hanging around with nothing much to do, treated like school children, not employees...
...This world wasn’t made for me...
...You go to sleep whenever someone isn’t shouting at you...
...Or no, you won’t even dare shout back...
...I really mean I haven’t enjoyed rapping with anyone for a long time...
...She was spitting into the trash can...
...1 speak to Mr...
...Waxler...
...I’ll do anything, but no toilets...
...Waxler said...
...I’m near 19...
...Help me solve my problems...
...No, it was because they wouldn’t let me take a week’s vacation when I had to go to New York...
...They know better how to handle situations...
...She’s really improved...
...You seem a whole lot happier than you were last time you were here...
...We’ll be over at 2:30,” and hung up...
...He is supposed to be a job hot, open-plan office, Myer Waxler, a placement officer, fitting each kid shambling man in his late thirties, sits into a slot, filling out forms, trying to hunched in his chair, sleepy-looking, make the employment figures for the like the other occupants of the room...
...You guys really entertain me...
...I’m knows I’m here, and I know she’s ,wondering if you stiil have an opening there...
...So, you don’t want to learn a “I know why that is- There’d be a trade where you get your hands dirty...
...You don’t want a job, do you...
...Let’s wait ’til the bullets and knives start flying...
...He had a severe sinus headache, and one eye was red and closed up...
...He had been battering at the boy with scarcely time to draw breath, a spate of machine gun bullets...
...YOU know something...
...flown ideologies, theories for solving every problem, fitting everyone into a suitable box...
...We were raised in institutions and we know all the big men in this city...
...Tell me what you want to do, what you’d really like to do...
...It’s all frozen out.’’ He leaned forward and picked up the telephone, and at this Maurice relaxed a little...
...All they left behind was the smell of cigar smoke drifting slowly through the still-hot, unchanging air of the Student Services Division...
...Yeah, I still want a job...
...yourself when you call that number...
...Baker isn’t going to be enough motivation for you to hold down any job...
...So, Waxler thinks his days there are numbered...
...You know what I’m saying...
...As Waxler made the pitch for him, Maurice leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the ceiling, tension showing as he chewed his lower lip...
...She’s a writer, and she’s going to put you in the magazines, on TV, in“ the movies, and she’s going to make you a star...
...You’ve been there once for a meal, right...
...keen...
...Her mother was psychotic, alcoholic, and violent...
...What was it you got locked up for “That dishwashing job...
...More programs have been cut away...
...What about work on a construction site, out in the open air...
...We put them in power...
...I didn’t realize it was that stale,” he said coolly, with an air of sour grapes...
...I , “Are you still hiring people...
...I don’t think there is a community in the ghetto any more...
...You know that...
...Waxler waved him to a chair...
...You’ve got to get your mental health case worker to sign papers and arrange with the guy at Kalorama House...
...It’s 110 use doing anything just to satisfy the authorities and stay out of that institution...
...They talk in terms of a ‘career.’ What does that mean...
...room avoid interviewing the kids...
...Maybe in the Park Service...
...We had our guns...
...You gotta get up at seven in the morning, and that’s even if you were out at a party ’til two...
...You’ve got to stay out of Cedar Knoll for your own reasons...
...Now, you feel real bad at seven in the morning and your mother is screaming at you for running too much water...
...I want a job...
...Waxler rubbed the painful side of his face...
...You can get jobs on your own...
...She keeps my papers, my welfare card, Medicaid, and all that...
...Wouldn’t that be more fun than pushing papers all day...
...if he was, he didn’t show it...
...Like Mother Theresa of Calcutta-she decided there was something she must do, and she did it...
...She says Yeldcll will be back at 2:30...
...I know you, Zelda...
...Long as you stay there, long as you and your mother have each other, you’re both going to stay sick...
...The conversation had lasted much longer than recorded here, about an hour and a half, and had probably started a long time before I arrived...
...He seemed to turn on some switch that set in action a tremendous performance the moment a client‘appeaved...
...laughed...
...You believe that’s what he just said to me...
...Yeah, helping people to get jobs...
...My, that’s a big family...
...Maurice smiled...
...Government will never be improved by rearranging its brain cells while the newe endings remain numb...
...You want to be Mayor...
...He doesn’t see the point of welfare...
...He was wearing a tight-fitting The function of the office is to velvet jacket, exquisitely cut, matchfind jobs for young people under 18...
...Sometimes she locked Zelda and the baby in a room for 12 or 14 hours while she had a man in the house, so that Zelda couldn’t even go to the bathroom...
...What, then...
...Your My name is James Stewart...
...She saysso...
...District look a little better...
...Oh, we have our resources...
...You really think Yeldell is going to talk with you...
...Raymond handed the telephone over to David...
...know how you mumble...
...You notice that when I start talking softly, you act up and try to make me shout at you...
...Next time you get him on the phone, please let me speak with him...
...What about your baby...
...For this reason he doesn’t greatly mourn the imminent passing of Neighborhood Youth Corps, the program that provides summer jobs and a few part-time jobs for school kids...
...That’s why...
...Baker and tell him...
...I won’t do that,” Maurice said, smiling again...
...You tell all your friends a thing or two about that, right...
...He usually deals with these matters for me...
...Costs around $300, don’t it...
...The stores are owned by great outside corporations...
...This crazy talk or something...
...What...
...You know where England is...
...If someone tries to kill me that ain’t no weak dream stuff...
...A black girl with tangly, unbrushed hair had rested her head on his desk so I couldn’t see her face...
...He said he thought he should tell me that due to your impossible discipline troubles it was highly unlikely that you would get your release...
...You guys have fun, don’t you...
...You gonna get us jobs then...
...I want a career...
...What job do you want?’’ “I dunno, anything...
...Why do you laugh whenever we talk about your relationship with your mother...
...Without the kids, Waxler was a different man...
...Yeah, I want a job...
...Not right now...
...You call Mr...
...We gotta go pretty soon...
...You had a job recently...
...Originally Zelda had come to Waxler looking for a summer job...
...Everyone laughed...
...Now you really know how to handle white women, don’t you...
...I don’t notice these things...
...I worked in Ramada Inn out in Bethesda, as a cook...
...But I do it in a totally different...
...The first four Of those had been good, he that it??’ ain’t got...
...I don’t know...
...tell them there’s only one thing I can “Still hiring people...
...Yours...
...You can help in the kitchens, and all you got to do is keep the place clean...
...Oh, we drink with Yeldell...
...They got TV and a record player...
...do for them and they seem to accept Waxier said...
...It’ll have to be changed to nights...
...Did you have a band to welcome you when you got there...
...Now wait a minute, what is this...
...The study of government almost exclusively concerns itself with how people have given or lent their power to their elected representatives and how those chosen few have dealt, shuffled, and redealt that power among themselves...
...He is not in the least worried by this thought...
...Why did you quit Ramada Inn...
...Without saying a word to me, or each other, but looking particularly delighted with the cigar, they sauntered out of the office and down the corridor towards the elevator...
...There are no part-time jobs around...
...You going to get me in there...
...Listen, for the summer I can get you a job in the government...
...I can rap with these people...
...She used to be worse when she first came to me...
...Raymond was pulling at the outer leaves and it seemed to be falling apart...
...On Monday morning Waxler was in a bad way...
...ing his dark brushed-cotton trousers, In fact, a good many of the clients are not a mark or a seam or a crease out well over that age...
...Waxler said with a sneer in Polly Toynbee is an editor of The Washington Monthly...
...They’re bad enough, Mr...
...Is it a part of “Nope...
...I had my ticket and everything...
...He said for you to call him...
...Baker...
...He is now a training salesman with nothing left to sell, except Jobs Corps, which is a non-starter...
...My mother got my pocketbook...
...This is a lot of fun...
...The telephone conversa- “How did this conversation start, tion had been forgotten...
...Now he is left disillusioned and depressed...
...Do you know anything about-my job...
...You take a summer job with the Park Service, and don’t bother with a dishwashing job...
...Can’t you see that...
...What do you want to see him for...
...Go on, then, pick up the phone and arrange for yourself to go to Kalorama House...
...Baker...
...Mr...
...A blue suitcase, a .38 and a machine gun,” David said...
...But he is a On the third floor of the District of maverick, a freak in the system, and Columbia Manpower Administration he is pretty sure that the higher is the room marked Student Services authorities have no idea what he really Division, a place with no character does...
...Not if your mother raises him...
...They don’t need all these TVs and everything...
...I want a job,” said Raymond, who did most of the talking...
...Go on, give me a job...
...David was still on the phone to Yeldell’s office...
...She was picking at the papers on the desk...
...No, I don’t think so...
...I was going to Maidstone, you know that place...
...Then, when you get to work, your boss has just been hit on the head by his wife, and who do you think he’s going to take that out on...
...Mostlv white...
...Yeah, I really want a job...
...This conversation had clearly been going on a long, long time and was going around in circles...
...But the line was busy and he couldn’t get through...
...She’s gonna tell you to go out and buy your own...
...Baker, Mr...
...But I’m “No...
...I’ve been away from home one year and that’s enough...
...Maurice was anxiously eyeing the telephone, thinking perhaps Waxler had forgotten about Mr...
...out she knows I’ll beat her up and -Come on, you fag...
...Zelda, if you really want to go, then go...
...None of us needs all this junk...
...No sir!,This stuff is strictly undercover, confidential...
...Every time he had arranged for Zelda to get away from her mother, within a few days she had always gone back, seeming to need the violence...
...He shouts, and then you shout back...
...Will I still be at home 10 years from now...
...He wasn’t going to reveal his fantasies in the face of sarcasm...
...You didn’t ask me do I like it, is there any future, do I like my boss, is it exciting sitting here all day...
...Now, what do you know about this Kalorama House...
...And I want you to call Mr...
...Well, maybe...
...I don’t want to wash no dishes...
...It’s nothing to do with me...
...They were not particularly remarkable looking, not as well dressed as some of the others...
...Who am I speaking with...
...In the background David was being fobbed off by a secretary...
...Come on, stop all this weak dream stuff,” Waxler said, getting bored...
...You gotten uglier since then...
...That might be a bad experience...
...And, for the hundredth time, why won’t you carry a pocketbook...
...I'm very rough on these kids, not...
...I guess that’s why I won’t be in this job too long,” he said...
...and no windows where there are many As Waxler and I were talking, a desks, no privacy, an air of boredom, tall, dapper black youth came in and nail filing, and paper shuffling...
...Now listen, do you really want a job...
...David nodded in agreement, smiling all the time...
...When Waxler put the phone down he explained her story...
...I think you think white people are better . ” “No...
...said Raymond...
...Someone pulled a gun on me once when I showed one of those...
...Your mother...
...I ain’t gonna get you in nowhere...
...Trouble is, they don’t wear those pins no more...
...Waxler sat back in his chair, blew out his cheeks, and sighed...
...the time, but Myer Waxler is always “Well, what are you doing here...
...Until the summer, and after then, all I can offer is dishwashing, toilet cleaning, or, if you’re really lucky and I can swing it, maybe portering...
...What is this...
...You always known me, Myer Waxler,” she said...
...Your new boss is a white woman...
...You know absolutely nothing about my job and yet you want it...
...Gentle, liberal dogooding is all they are there for, and if they start trying to reform society, they find themselves in a squeeze, and the people they are supposed to be assisting tend to get a hard rap across the knuckles instead of a helping hand...
...I was talking about ‘‘Robbery...
...I’ve been both of those...
...These frustrated women, with hands like that...
...I ain’t going to night school...
...One can see sometimes why he gets in so close to adolescents, why he is able to take adolescent confusions and identity crises as seriously as the kids take themselves...
...Keep Kleenex in it, then you wouldn’t do that in the trash...
...Isn’t it all too much hassle...
...Do you want a job...
...But Maurice and I will work on it together and we’ll be in touch with you...
...No one has talked to them about things in those terms, ” Surprisingly, Waxler uses the word mission...
...He gave David a puff...
...The last year she’s really made progress...
...One of those cards...
...He has to find his own motivation...
...Are you sure you can handle it without that?’’ “Yep,” Maurice replied with a slight nod and half a smile...
...Raymond said...
...He expects free cigars where he goes because he’s an executive type person,’’ Waxler said, watching his cigar getting very wet...
...We both got each other...
...You can shine my shoes, if you’re good,” Raymond said...
...Perhaps they’d both been asleep for a while before I came...
...Lies, all lies...
...I don’t want you to work in an office...
...How do you know Yeldell...
...Yeldell is the head of Washington’s Department of Human Resources, a key man in the city...
...Now we’re going to come to how your second job experience will be...
...idea how many people he sees in a “Couldn’t make it, huh...
...You turn them down ever...
...What kind of people are in there...
...I don’t have jobs, just like that...
...Yn the beginning I thought it was great...
...We all laughed...
...Yeldell’s,” he was saying...
...You from England...
...He guess,” he said, his finger still picking keeps few work files and hasn’t much at the rim of his hat...
...Oh, they’re bad enough...
...Her mother yelled at social workers, psychiatrists, anyone who came to the door...
...By the way, how about the Services...
...We’re working on the President, too...
...Yt ’s the same story with most of the programs...
...I know how people feel, I’m one of them...
...They weren’t real files, just a pile of job application forms...
...Why do you need a job...
...How can you want a job if you’re in school...
...Your mother ain’t gonna give you no lunch box...
...I don’t think things have gotten bad enough for you yet at home...
...Then tell me what you’re willing to do and we’ll see...
...I’ve been everything, and I’ve made every mistake there is...
...He thinks itS futile, debilitating, and not about to change society or redistribute wealth...
...What do you see yourself doing 10 years from now...
...I had to go to New York, to conduct business...
...Social workers in this sort of situation can only act as agents for society as it is...
...So, you just want me to get that man off your back...
...You really have a good conversation...
...Could say...
...All of a sudden, seeing that no one was around, they decided to take off...
...She’s three years younger than me...
...You’re operating on a IO-year-old level...
...Yeah, one...
...You just won’t go back there next day...
...The complete Pollyannas who are so guilt-ridden when confronting these kids that they aren’t any use to anyone, and then there are the real authoritarians...
...He had been out “in the field,” by which he meant that he worked most of the time in the pre-release part of a reform school, trying to gear the kids to the outside world, to make them employable...
...Waxler,” she said...
...she asked, a slight whine in her voice...
...Waxler slowly lit the cigarette and then said, “This young lady is from England...
...Waxler’s work cannot be evaluated and quantified...
...washers...
...Maurice laughed and shook his head...
...And that is why we are beginning “Meanwhile the Realities” as a regular feature...
...Waxler would rather subsidize them to go to school all summer...
...Or janitor, or empty the trash, any thing,” Waxler said...
...You want a lunch box...
...his voice, reaching for a cigarette but not offering one to the youth, who was eyeing the packet...
...Maurice was shifting about in his seat and interrupted, “I just want you to call Mr...
...Now is he really putting the pressure on you, or do you think you might be imagining it...
...He took a pack of cough drops out of his shirt pocket...
...Raymond begins to discuss the possibility of breaking open Waxler’s locks with a bobby pin...
...Baker, then, and get him to take the pressure off you...
...girl likes to share you, does she...
...Job Corps is a training pro,gram that takes people out of their environment to another part of the country and trains them for six months or a year-the last remaining federally financed vocational training program, and an unpopular one...
...You have a business or you want a job...
...Then she drifted out of the room altogether...
...otherwise, as always, he looked very pale, as if he’d scarcely seen the light of day...
...His manner was perfectly polished...
...This is Zelda,” he said...
...If she drops Stewart...
...Raymond didn’t ask to use the phone, but leaned across the desk and began dialing . “This is Raymond Fogg speaking,” he said...
...Also, he says that they never save the money for the following school year, but spend it all at once on things that don’t help them at all...
...Are you going to manage in that place with no one shouting at you all day...
...From The Washington Post of March 25, 1973: A nationwide survey of 38,200 high school students has found a still flourishing faith in the free enterprise system-50 per cent of the students felt they could become millionaires if they tried...
...At the end of the day, after another session with Zelda, two tall, black youths came in together...
...No...
...the age of eight...
...Waxler let out a sigh of exasperation...
...But probably you’ll never get near an office again and I don’t want you to get a taste for it...
...whole big, nervous breakdown among Let’s look at those beautiful hands...
...Waxler .asked David, the other boy, who laughed...
...Waxler had once spoken with her on the telephone and been shouted at...
...He saw that she had no chance of holding one down, and their meetings now have nothing to do with employment...
...The two boys stood up as soon as he was gone...
...Every lady has a pocketbook...
...You like to get us all occupied with your problems, all of us fixing this and that, and when we’ve got everything fixed up, Zelda isn’t there, she’s slipped away from the middle, leaving us looking silly...
...you got a James laughed and left, saying he’d lot of women...
...I was on the defensive, like his clients...
...So when are you going to get me into-the Kalorama House...
...I couldn’t run “Then don’t you make me talk no I “I got a lot, but I got one special “How long you known her...
...The kids seemed to like it, and Waxler seemed to like it too...
...Kalorama is a half-way house for people with mental problems...
...Do you have a mother for your kids in mind...
...Forget Mr...
...Where did you go in New York...
...sitting in his corner, looking decep- Waxler asked angrily...
...Now tell me, how is a baby going to survive between you and your mother...
...We used to break safes, but now, in our business, we have people do it for us...
...I was with the big boys, you going to Job Corps, to finish your with these big dudes...
...His qualifications are confusing and the Department of Labor doesn’t want to tangle with people...
...Now, what’s the name of this machine gun of yours...
...I’ll tell you what, Zelda...
...Hey, hey...
...You gonna call Mr...
...But it’s a nice place, Mr...
...Then I decided to go to Edinburgh instead...
...It’s a common fantasy, the only fantasy of all these kids...
...To study law at the Holt School...
...He has no idea where he is going or whether his work has any point at all...
...What we need is a mission in life...
...With one finger tively bored, until galvanized into a the boy pulled at the bright-white, sudden bout of energy by the appear- woolly hat that came down to his ance of a client...
...Is it in this country...
...Maurice asked me for a cigarette, but Waxler didn’t ease up noticeably...
...Raymond had been rummaging through Waxler’s drawer, and with a small gasp of pleasure he came upon a cigar wrapped in cellophane...
...I’ve known you for two years...
...Do you know how I feel about it...
...Maybe I could get you into Job Corps...
...1’11 give you a job introduction card,” Waxler was saying, when Raymond overheard...
...I’ll have a job, a family .” “A family...
...I’ve heard you doing it before and I “She have children...
...Baker and tell him I’m trying to get you a job but I can’t find one, and that’ll get him off your back...
...Baker, we’re having terrible difficulties here finding a job for Maurice, although he’s very eager to work...
...It does not...
...How am I gonna get in there...
...How many bullets does it fire...
...Hullo Mr...
...You have a lot of catching up to do if you want to be fully grown at 2 1 .” He paused...
...training...
...He said you were outstanding and exceptional, and he said he was glad we two had gotten together and that as long as we kept in contact, he’d report to the Team that he was satisfied...
...Maurice was looking down at the floor...
...It’s not as if you could say that the money from welfare and these jobs goes into the poor community...
...Raymond had lit the cigar and was puffing on it in an unprofessional manner...
...My mother’s going to raise him...
...the females in this town if you Went you got to go to beautician school away, right...
...They came and sat down...
...gling in people’s houses...
...I’ve explained over and over, you’re going to have to go through a lot of hassle...
...down the street...
...Waxler managed to talk with David, to persuade him to take a job in a body shop where he already had some experience...
...I don’t want to clean no toilets...
...We got a few senators on our payroll, too...
...All he has is a remarkable skill for getting through to the kids, a rapport, up to a point, a reasonable set of expectations for them, an uncynical eye that has come to terms with what they are and what they need...
...All along he had been a little confused, not knowing whether Waxler was kidding him along...
...In our book, Inside the System, we gave this introduction to a section entitled “Meanwhile the Realities...
...Job placement isn’t what they need...
...This is Maurice...
...Anything...
...I want to get out...
...A hundred,” David said...
...Zelda up and down, old and young, intelligent and stupid in turns...
...How old is he, four months...
...That when you come out, a breath of fresh, cold air is going to blow you awake?’’ Maurice smiled and shook his head, and Waxler went on...
...It’s an M-16...
...But he was called back to the office, his program canceled, and he was put, much to his disgust, behind a desk, Since then, he has been quietly .forgotten...
...He said you were really terrible in that place...
...He thinks and talks a great deal about himse‘lf and his problems...
...Maybe you’ll fall apart without that pressure...
...At first Waxler was an enthusiastic young social worker, full of high...
...Do you know what -1 do...
...He came to our going-away party from Junior Village...
...Go on-what are you going to “Is that the Hickory House...
...Waiting for more clients, Myer Waxler explained how he had been in D. C. Manpower for eight years...
...Myer Waxler is deeply disillusioned with his job and doesn’t think he’ll be staying there much longer...
...And what do the kids want all that junk for anyway...
...Leave me out of it...
...What is it that they think down there...
...We got connections in this place...
...If we ain’t together she knows I for a dishwasher.’ Now try again...
...It was an exhausting business...
...Now look, Zelda, there are things you have to get straight about the baby...
...There’s one dude, he’s the c-hef, though...
...What school is it...
...Yeah, I’d really like that,” Waxler answered...
...Hey, you guys, why don’t you try and hustle me a job...
...I’ll put a contract on you...
...The line was still busy...
...We’ve been frozen out of our NYC [Neighborhood Youth Corps] jobs now...
...It may sound just like another institution, but it isn’t...
...As I came in he was slouched further down in his chair than usualeven his good eye was closed...
...She looked as though she could hardly keep her eyes open...
...Well, at least you know that...
...Must be,” and she began singing again, got to her feet and picked up some papers...
...I want a career...
...You just make the others uptight every time you mention my name...
...What am I going to do...
...Many of the therapists who had dealt with Zelda didn’t believe her stories about her mother...
...That’s what I want to tell the kids...
...Some leaned across Waxler’s desk, but didn’t of the desks are empty a good deal of say anything...
...He had some faith in Waxler’s good intentions, or else he was simply behaving well in order to get what he wantedthe phone call to Mr...
...You see really crazy people...
...quick as a flash...
...Waxler let up the interrogation to light another cigarette...
...You want to know what your Mr...
...That baby is going to get sick...
...It’s a bad time, awfully tight...
...I felt like a client of his and said, “Nothing much...
...I said first you should have an abortion, then I said you should have it adopted...
...He meant digging ditches literally, getting away from office work...
...I want to be like you, sitting there behind your desk...
...I’ll tell you-you can’t...
...Lewis...
...Maurice had been given “extended home leave” on condition that he report regularly to his probation officer and get a job-a tall order for a 17-year-old black in the District...
...What sort of a mess is that one thing...
...1s that what you really want...
...You want me to get the pressure off YOU...
...Goodall, her caseworker, and finally, Zelda went...
...How do I look...
...The other dude who worked in the kitchen was on vacation so they said they couldn’t let me go too...
...Not now, not ever...
...It’s the Urban League Prep School...
...Do I look good...
...I have people in Africa, Saudi Arabia, everywhere in the world...
...Waxler put the receiver down with a slow, deliberate gesture and shook his head solemnly at Maurice...
...And she ain’t gonna give you no bus money neither...
...The funding for that program has been cut drastically and may end altogether in the District in June...
...He’s really going to cooperate and that’s all we can ask, isn’t it...
...It’s a no-win situation,” he said, lifting the phone again...
...Baker.’’ “Mr...
...Baker, but clearly he was not anxious to provoke Waxler’s wrath by mentioning it again...
...I never heard this one before...
...I .would like to speak with Miss Moore, !if I could...
...way...
...You gotta make your own decision to get out of home...
...With the decline of the training programs he thinks his job might soon be eased out...
...Waxler said, by way of welcome...
...No, you’re right...
...In one corner of a big, airlessly- year...
...I couldn’t make it Wednesday, I Waxler avoids doing anything else...
...I don’t know what you want, do I? I don’t know if it fits in with your school schedule...
...Why do you guys need jobs from me...
...Go to themand stop doing that...
...How did you go there, you have a chauffeur drive you round...
...As I came up to the desk Waxler said “hi” and waved me toward a chair...
...I’ll call him, but do you understand what I’m trying to say...
...Not in the future...
...We’ll go round to him then...
...But I didn’t said, He felt he was really doing something worthwhile...
...This is a situation where some training would be good, but there just isn’t any...
...do you remember...
...They went back to Waxler's desk, James having carefully copied down mess with her physically at that what Waxler had indicated, but not time...
...It wasn’t clear whether he saw it or not...
...Why won’t you try and act like a lady...
...The purpose of “Meanwhile the Realities” lies not only in its subject matter, but in its point of view as well...
...I waited ’til she was 14...
...Superfly...
...Raymond said, suddenly turning on me...
...That’s up to you...
...The phone rang, and while Waxler was talking Zelda got up and began drifting about the room, looking at things on people’s desks, saying “hi” to everyone, singing to herself, and dancing and shuffling...
...Have you really thought it out...
...Well, an M-16 is not “Yeah, it has a clip...
...I’m going to tell you something...
...Oh, you waited ’til she was 10, “How are you going to introduce did you...
...How old are you now, Zelda...
...The taller of the two, the one who took the lead, had enormous eyes with long, curling lashes...
...I can call Mr...
...If you really want to get in, you go get yourself in...
...Waxler told her to go right away to the mental health department and see Mr...
...Nope,” said the boy, shaking his head slowly as he looked at me...
...But in the department, his style is not appreciated...
...Baker, is that all you can think about...
...That’s what I want,” Maurice responded, showing a spark of life, perhaps of malice, for the first time...
...How were his views different from NixonS...
...I’ve still got the same life, the same problems I always had...
...Now which is it...
...Why did you leave...
...Waxler tried to pull himself together and get the conversation going again...
Vol. 5 • May 1973 • No. 3
