TAKING NAMES

         As my wagon negotiated the bend on the final stretch up the hill to home, I became aware that headlights were directly behind me and very close. I could not see him in the rear view mirror because my large hairy navigator was blocking the view, but in my left-side mirror I caught a glimpse of what looked to be a gray Toyota Corolla circa 1990 in the gathering dusk. I was going the 45 mile-per-hour limit as I headed up the base of the hill, but this was not fast enough for Fireball. He was actually going to try to pass me.

         "I don't know what this world is coming to, David." That was Pamela tonight on the phone as I told her the story after hearing her out about the miseries of her job. I could tell her what the world is coming to; the bastards are back in control. There was this period, a year or two ago, where the world's equilibrium slipped. Twenty-five year olds became millionaires overnight and job seekers were naming their price. Workers could actually take the job and shove it, there was another one down the road. Did anyone really expect that to last?

         The final surrender came about ten days ago when it was reported that “Three USA Today employees were fired after they touched a sculpture of a big blue ball outside the corporate headquarters.” One of the three women had actually traced the phrase “Kilroy was here” in a dust that made up the surface of the sculpture. Caught on videotape by alert Gannett Security, the women were spared the firing squad, but were summarily dismissed, two after twenty plus years of service.

         I didn’t get a chance to tell Pam this tale. After hearing her exhausted voice tell me of how busy she is at work, and how she often leaves for home in tears, the thought hit me that maybe she should find HER company’s sculpture and deface it. She kept her job in November when her employer laid off the three other people in her department. Now guess who does all the work? “We sound like longshoremen, David,” she said to me as our bitching took on street argot we never use when together.

         Saturday was my day of whine and roses. Pam had to listen as I vented about learning that my health insurance would not pay the hospital for my visit to the emergency room because the ‘premium had not been paid’. Technically this was true, I ranted, but it was hard to pay a premium when the insurance company would not send a bill. After years of forking out amounts on my late wife equal to the budget of many small countries, it looked like this particular branch of the insurance family had decided to drop their loss leader.

         As I said to Pam, I should have never mentioned to them that I was going to have my gall bladder removed. ‘If the insurance refuses to pay, then I refuse to go. They’re setting themselves up for a big lawsuit from my estate.’ I was getting wound up and my poor friend had to listen. “I never heard you say that word before. It sounded so funny coming from you. I say it when I get mad, but you, David, you don’t. You must really be mad.”

         Pam was right. I was losing it. Take a deep breath, David. ‘Nil desporandum carborundum illigitimi.’

         When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. That’s what I did, spending the next morning in Sam’s big box in East Greenbush. While looking through a pile of sweatpants, an epiphany hit me square in the face. When all goes wrong and the world piles on you, there is only one thing to do:

TAKE NAMES AND KICK ASS

         US Army Basic Training had not failed me. The late Corporal Monteleone would always shout this phrase when he raised hell in our barracks. He wasn’t the biggest man in the world, so I was never sure which he was doing, but I think I picked up the idea.

         The next morning I called the insurance company and spoke to the same woman who was supposedly handling my matter. This time I made sure she knew I had her name: V-E-R-A P-L-A-Y-E-R. I started out very quietly and gradually modulated my voice to a deeper level as our discussion of the State Insurance Commission, lawyers, guns and money progressed from ‘how can I help you’ to seeing my fax disgorging a bill. A check was Federal Expressed to her and this afternoon, without kicking any ass, claim payments began to resume.

         Sometimes it is not that simple. There was that August day in 1992. A certain Number Two car rental company would not permit my wife to rent a car I had reserved because the credit card she had was not signed by me on the back. My wife was in Albany; I was in Philadelphia. She was burdened down with a cat carrier, her art portfolio and luggage. She needed to get home because of a death in my family.

         She found that US Air would allow her to charge a ticket with the same unsigned card. She called to give me her flight number. A few minutes later, the thought of the poor cat in the baggage compartment frightened me. I called the Albany Airport and asked to have her paged. The woman put down the phone and I heard the page. As I waited, I heard a man with an obvious New York City accent talking about the dumb woman with the unsigned credit card. He was having a good laugh.

         At last the woman came back on to tell me that my wife was not answering. I thanked her. I then told her to tell the car rental man that people like him were the reason total strangers walk into airports and open fire with machine guns. “If you say one more word like that I’ll have this call traced and the police called.” “That Bozo turned my poor wife and the cat away, but USAir will accept the same credit card.” “Oh, was that your wife? That stupid man.” She went and found the gate where my wife was waiting and brought her to the phone. I told her to cancel the flight; I would come and drive her home in the wagon we owned then.

         In the wagon I own now, I punched the gas pedal down. My friend in the Corolla pushed harder, trying to pass. Up the hill we went, past the driveway to my house. A car came over the top of the hill in the opposite direction two hundred yards on. I braked, shot Corolla-Man a single digit, blew my horn and watched him disappear into the night. A semi-expletive, more of Pam’s and my longshoremen language, came from my lips. I backed down the hill and turned into the driveway, turned off the engine and let the dog out to get a drink. As we walked into the house together, I could hear my spurs jingling.