Chapter 8: In the State Department

ADRIENNE WOULD HAVE LAUGHED at me. I was wearing the same black suit I’d worn on my first visit to LA. The one from Goodwill. I was dressy compared to most of the guys in line. They didn’t exactly look seedy, but you wouldn’t think they were out of place in a soup kitchen line, either.

There were other black suits around, too, hurrying up the street to or from Union Station, late getting back from lunch, just off for a clandestine meeting with a mistress. Who knew what men in dark suits did in Chicago.

Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them;

Unfortunately, that was all that came to mind from the Carl Sandburg poem we read in my Urban Images class.

I stopped at a coffee vendor on the corner across from the line and bought a cup of hot, black, and strong Chicago mud. This guy knew where to set up shop. It looked like a bunch of the guys were holding his paper cups. A little kid was walking up and down the line with a bag to collect the empties.

I glanced around, squared my shoulders, and started across the street.

“You fucking nigger-lover!” a voice shouted, coming at me fast. “I’ll get you this time!”

Twenty feet away, Clyde Warren was charging toward me, pulling a gun out of his jacket, and swinging it toward me.

Four guys in black suits were faster and shot before he got it aimed. Clyde Warren hit the pavement in the middle of Van Buren Street. It was the second time I’d seen cops kill a man. This time he really did have a gun. This time it was Feds and not Chicago’s finest.

I just stood there in the middle of the street shuddering. Unmarked police cars with flashing lights blocked the street from both ends. The guys in line for induction shrank back against the wall. More suits poured out of the office and showed ID as they kept the inductees in order. The line started moving faster, getting through the double doors at the corner of the building.

An arm wrapped around me from the side.

“You’re okay,” Agent Smith said. “You’re okay, buddy.”

“I’m okay,” I whispered.

Another black suit came out of the doors from the induction center and crossed to meet me.

“Are you all right, Nate?” he shouted.

“I’m okay,” I nodded.

“You don’t need to go into the induction center. I’ve got your paperwork taken care of. Let’s walk back toward the train station and replace your spilled coffee with a decent cup. The walk will do you good,” Mr. Martin said. “You no longer need him, do you, Agent?”

“He’s free to go,” Smith said. “Thanks for your help, Mr. Hart. We told you we wouldn’t let you get hurt.”

“Thank you, Agent Smith. Is my family safe now?”

“I don’t think there are any other dangers out here for you.”

I turned with Mr. Martin and sort of stumbled away with his arm still around my shoulders. The kid with a bag of used cups ran out to where I’d dropped mine and collected it.

“Welcome to the State Department, Nate. May the rest of your service with us be boring,” Martin said.

I was ready to accept that as a promise.

“You’re safe!” Ronda yelled when I walked into the office with Mr. Martin. She threw herself at me and hugged like she’d break my ribs.

“It’s over, honey. It’s over.”

“Don’t ever let them talk you into something like that again! I’ve been worried senseless since you got out of the car this morning.”

“They killed him. I never expected them to kill him. Why did they have to kill him?” I asked.

“He was going to kill you! He already killed the couple in the apartment fire. He arranged to get Tony drafted and sent to Vietnam. He deserved to die!”

“Maybe. I don’t think any of those guys were appointed to be the judge of that. There must have been another way.”

Mr. Martin led us to a conference room and we sat at a table waiting for things to happen. He gave us an official welcome speech and then left us in the hands of a human resources person. She explained our healthcare package and what a GS8 pay scale was. $200 per week. I figured I’d make as much from my summer in Stratford as I would from a year working in the Department.

“These jobs are rated GS8, so you’ll stay in that level for the duration of your work in that job,” she said. “There are increase levels within the General Schedule, though, so you don’t need to worry about having the same pay rate forever. There is an annual review and typically raises are given out at that point. In order to advance, you need to keep an eye on the job postings that appeal to you. You can apply for a new position after successfully completing two years of service.”

“I’m only here for one job,” I said.

“Oh, but once you become familiar with the government’s retirement package, you’ll change that tune. When you attach yourself to the government, you have security for life.”

Once we were fully indoctrinated, we were led to our office. It was nice that the two of us would share a space. The door was labeled, “Consulate Passport Technicians R. May and N. Hart.” Wow! Our names were already on the door. The HR woman told us where the office supplies were kept and who was on our support team. The phones on the desks had their direct extension displayed, but only the switchboard number. Ronda’s desk had a typewriter on it. Mine was bare. Well, I didn’t need an office for my job. I supposed something would come along that would necessitate it.

“This is Josie Wallis,” The HR person said. “She’ll go over office procedures and how to use her support.” Ms. HR left us in the hands of a middle-aged lady with glasses and hair tied up in a bun. She wore a gray suit. Ronda and I were both in black suits and I decided this would be standard dress for the office. When we walked through, I noticed all the men were in shirts and ties—most with jackets. The women wore knee-length or longer skirts and jackets. They had splashes of color in their blouses.

“Welcome to the State Department,” Josie said. She shoved the door closed after HR left. “Were you really in a gun battle on the way to work today?” she whispered.

“Um ... Not exactly,” I said. “I was bait in a trap. Not something I will ever repeat.”

“Oh, it must have been exciting. The whole steno pool is talking about it. I’m so lucky to get assigned to you.”

“Uh ... Miss Wallis, you have some information for us on how to do our jobs?” Ronda asked.

Josie turned as if just noticing she was in the room. She sighed a little.

“Yes, Miss May. Basically, anything you need, just pick up the phone and dial 413. That’s my extension. Now that I’ve met you, I’ll take care of supplying your office with the necessities. They just connected the phones and did the door this morning. Here’s the standard office setup. If you have other things you think you’ll need, just tell me. And I’ll get that typewriter removed. It seems they just assume that if a woman has a desk it needs a typewriter,” Josie said.

“Don’t rush that,” Ronda said. “It might be easier for me to type out schedules and flight plans than to try to write them legibly on a legal pad.”

Josie looked uncertain, as if she’d just been told she wasn’t needed. Ronda picked up on that right away.

“Of course, I’ll still need you to type up the final version and make sure the tickets are delivered and shipments are on track. We won’t be in the office most of the time, so you will be our lifeline here,” Ronda assured her. Josie seemed to relax.

“You’ll be traveling together?” she asked

“Most of the time,” I said. “We were hired as a team. As soon as we know the initial order of installations, we’ll be out of the office. Is there anything we need to know before we come in on Tuesday?”

Josie glanced at her watch.

“Yes, sir. We’re ruled by clocks. Even though this is a holiday weekend, no one leaves the office until 4:30. We arrive by 8:00 and have a half-hour lunch break, usually rotating so we aren’t all gone at once. You have to be a GS 12 before you can set your own hours. Since we have half an hour yet today, why don’t I show you where important things are, like the restroom and the coffee break room?”

We finally got a good tour of the office—at least on our floor. We didn’t really know what anyone in any of the offices did, but it looked like they were on the phone a lot. Some desks were cluttered and some looked unused. That’s what I expected mine to be, except I intended to bring in some camera equipment and do maintenance on it.

Finally, the clock touched 4:30 and we were nearly crushed in the rush of people getting out of the building—including Josie. Ronda and I went out the front door and Deke immediately opened a car door for us. I figured Tuesday we’d try riding in on the train. The El ran a few blocks from Jordan’s house and we’d get off just three blocks from the office.

As soon as I was settled in the car, I pulled my tie off.

“I didn’t plan on this. We should probably schedule a shopping trip for clothes sometime soon.”

“That will put me in a better mood,” Ronda said, giving my arm a squeeze. “I don’t suppose we’ll be able to do it before work on Tuesday. But Patricia is going to need some new maternity clothes, too. It will be fun.”

I personally didn’t think of shopping for clothes as being a particularly fun activity.

“Reckless endangerment is what I call it!” Jordan stormed when we came into the house. He grabbed my shoulders to look at me as if I’d been beaten by police again. Then he hugged Ronda. “They were supposed to apprehend him as soon as he was spotted. It was all supposed to be peaceful. Instead, they’re playing it off as a last-second rescue.”

“I thought it would be a peaceful arrest,” I sighed. “I sure didn’t expect him to come charging across the street waving his gun.”

“It was supposed to be a peaceful arrest.” Jordan poured three glasses of whiskey and handed Ronda and me each a glass. We toasted to our health and I savored the burn in my throat as I let the alcohol wash some of the tension away. I could feel tears that I’d bottled up all afternoon threating to burst from my eyes.

“They wouldn’t let me anyplace close,” Ronda said. “I didn’t know what had gone down until Nate and Mr. Martin walked into the lobby. It turns out the whole secretarial pool had scanners tuned in to listen to the takedown.”

“You know this means the whole civil suit is moot,” Jordan continued to fume. “The judge dismissed the board from the suit. Only Warren was still defending. Now there is no defendant. It wouldn’t have yielded much in the way of money, but at least the people of Hunter County would have gotten some closure. I’m willing to bet they set it up to kill him so he wouldn’t defend himself by claiming others were in cahoots with him.”

“Damn! That’s disgusting. Make sure there is no one left to be accountable.”

“Exactly.”

We sat to enjoy our drinks—or to drink away our upset. My stomach growled.

“I didn’t think you’d want to go out this evening. Nadia and Adele have been in the kitchen all afternoon. With luck, something edible will come of it,” Jordan snorted. “You need to make a statement to the press.”

“I can’t,” I said.

“What?”

“I’m employed by the United States Government. I cannot make statements to the press or anyone else, for that matter. If my boss got permission from his boss, we could feasibly draft a statement that would be reviewed by and softened by every person in the chain of command up to the president. If there was anything left in the statement, I’d sign it and send it to the press office. They would release it. I’m not a private citizen anymore.”

Jordan chuckled and then started laughing out loud.

“You got to hand it to those bastards. They covered everything quite nicely. All tied up with a little bow. And it will only cost you two years of your life.”

Nadia called us to the dinner table.

Dinner was good. It was the kind of simple food that we’d have at home, with a meatloaf, potatoes, and green beans. Totally unpretentious. I remembered the first time I came to the Marshes’ house for dinner with Beth and we had Cornish game hens. What a difference.

“Have some more, Nate,” Adele said pleasantly. “Nadia claims this is an old family recipe and it’s always been one of my favorites. She wouldn’t even let me watch her prepare it. I had to peel potatoes!”

“Well, the potatoes are quite good, too,” I said. Adele actually blushed.

“Nadia, the meatloaf is great,” Ronda said. “Don’t let Nate ignore your cooking to flatter Adele.”

“Thank you, Ronda. You know life is changing. There was a time when we wouldn’t have considered cooking for guests ourselves, but I don’t believe the availability of good and affordable domestic help can be sustained as inflation runs rampant. A household our size could afford a cook, a maid, and a driver in the fifties—as we had then. Now, we have a couple of girls who come in to clean twice a week and they cost more than the full-time help we had back then.”

“Everyone has to make a living,” I said. “I think the wage I’m getting at the State Department is higher than either of my parents have ever earned. And they’re expected to still maintain a healthy and happy home.”

“I don’t begrudge any of them a living wage,” Nadia said. “It’s just that we can’t afford it any longer. Jordan has put me on a budget. With two of us to support, even he has to watch his pennies.”

“Adele does a good job of contributing to the family maintenance,” Jordan said, reaching over to pat Adele’s hand. “We aren’t in the poorhouse. We’re just being a little more reserved in our habits. Probably should have tightened our belts ten years ago, but that wasn’t likely to happen with two teenage daughters.”

“Just wait until you have more children,” Nadia said. “You’ll discover the high wage you earn at the State Department won’t go as far when there’s another baby or two in your family.”

I almost choked and Ronda dipped her head to keep from looking at anyone.

“Oh, my God! You’re pregnant!” Adele exclaimed. “Congratulations, Ronda!”

“No! No, not at all. Not ... um ... me. I knew we should have had Anna and Patricia come back at the same time we did,” she sighed.

“Stop,” Jordan held up a hand to his women. “No guessing. No prying. When the family is all together, we will hear it from them. Whenever they are ready to tell us. Not until.”

“Yes, dear,” both Adele and Nadia said.

Of course, that would wait. Ronda and I drove up to our new house Saturday afternoon and waited for Anna, Patricia, and Toni to get there. Jordan had closed on the property Friday and it remained only for the papers to be drawn up among us to claim this house as our own. Jordan had already given us the key.

“It’s kind of funky outside,” Anna said. “I mean, not much of a looker from the curb.”

“Wait until you walk around the back,” I said, taking her hand.

“Water!” Toni screamed when we passed between the garage and the house to get to the back.

She took off almost as fast as we expected and Ronda was right with her to stop her before she got to the dock. We turned and looked at the house from the water side and it was a completely different experience than from the street. The green grass and huge deck with double doors opening into the living room just screamed that this was really the front door.

We didn’t bother going back to the street side to enter the house. It didn’t take long after getting inside to have Anna and Patricia completely sold on it. Yes, we might eventually want to update the appliances, but I don’t think they were ten years old yet. In fact, the house wasn’t ten years old yet. We could live here for a long time and not do anything. In addition to the open front plan of the living room, kitchen, and dining area, there were two bedrooms and a bath on the main floor. Upstairs there were two bedrooms and a bath as well. We’d have to figure out how the bedrooms would be allocated, but Toni had already claimed one of the upstairs bedrooms with windows overlooking the channel.

Anna and Patricia started talking immediately about what colors to paint the various rooms and what we would need to move in. I couldn’t help but think of our little quadrangle as two husbands and two wives. Ronda and I would need to go to work first thing Tuesday morning, leaving Anna and Patricia to make our home livable. I hoped we wouldn’t have to stay at the Marshes’ too long before we could move in.

It was a pretty straight two-and-a-half-hour drive to Tenbrook from our new home. One thing about this location was that we didn’t need to contend with most of the city traffic to get west. We even skirted around the north side of Rockford, missing all the traffic there. We pulled up with both vehicles in front of the Bergs’ house at six o’clock.

They were waiting with dinner for us and we’d no more than sat down at the table when Elise looked directly at Patricia and said, “When are you due?”

“I knew she’d know as soon as we walked in,” Patricia laughed. “The end of February. That’s why we all came out here this weekend instead of spending the weekend getting our new house ready to move into.”

That started multiple conversations at the same time with Elise wanting the details about Patricia’s progress and whether she had a doctor and had set up regular prenatal visits. Tor wanted all the details about our new house and volunteered to take a week and come out to help us get it ready to move into. Or at least to take a couple of days. It would be a wonder if we didn’t have all our parents descending on us at once.

After dinner, Toni stayed with her grandparents while the rest of us went to the hotel. It had gone through some further upgrades since the last time we’d stayed here, as there had been a lot of movie people in residence this summer.

Sunday, we picked up Toni in time to drive down to Sage for Mom’s Labor Day sermon.

We settled into a pew next to Dad and Toni immediately crawled into his lap. There were the usual announcements, prayers, and songs, then Mom called all the children to the front. Toni was a big girl now and it was her gamma inviting the kids to the front steps for a story, so she ran up the aisle and straight into Mom’s lap. From there on, things went sideways.

“Do any of you know what holiday we celebrate this weekend?” Mom asked the few kids. The church was rather sparsely attended on the holiday weekend.

“Labor Day,” one of the older kids said.

“That’s right,” Mom continued. “Labor Day. And what makes this day so special?”

“Mommy!” Toni exclaimed. “Mommy has baby sister in her tummy!”

One of Reverend Mother Superior’s favorite expressions of surprise was “I nearly dropped my teeth!” I could almost see it happening. Her mouth came open and she snapped it shut as the congregation started laughing.

“I’ll just bet that wasn’t how Mommy and Daddy planned to tell us,” she finally laughed. “That’s definitely something to celebrate.”

Somehow, she managed to get the topic back to Labor Day and even tied it into the scripture that “the worker deserves his wages.”

After the children’s story, Toni ran back to us and was good as gold through the rest of the service.

“That wasn’t the way we intended to tell you,” I said after church. There was a little restaurant in Sage and we all went there for Sunday dinner. Dad hadn’t felt up to making a big holiday dinner.

“It was a surprise in the moment,” Mom said, “but not a great surprise overall. Congratulations.”