Untitled Story

Flora had the intelligence of a normal, thirty-eight year-old, fourth-grade drop-out. She could read, write, and occasionally divide two-digit numbers. But when it came to story problems or anything abstract, forget it. Her tragedy was that more than anything she wanted to get her GED. She wanted to do something, even if it was only one thing, better than her little brother who had stuck it out through junior high.

Because once I complimented Flora on her cursive writing, she assumed I was her special tutor, the very individual the Divine had sent to get her through her GED. I was flattered, and even tried to get her to improve, but even before I checked her IQ and prior placement tests throughout her fifteen-year stay at Sugar Loaf, it was obvious she would never be able to pass the GED or its elementary school equivalent. But in her mind, she

needed the GED, therefore she would.

To please and encourage her, I devised what I thought was an ingenious plan. It turned out nearly to get me fired, nearly taken to court, and committed to boot. But in time, it proved the very thing that advanced me from broom pusher to Program Manager and even higher.

In those days, a Program Manager didn't have to sweep floors and unclog toilets. He administered the Residents in daily activities from arts and crafts to games, in class work such as blackboard-work to reading stories aloud, and --- bless all Program Managers everywhere --- took Residents on Outings. My plan was to fake Flora's way through the GED. That is, give her a mock certificate, one that looked just like the officially sanctioned one, but with a portrait of Bob Dylan and a Pillsbury ribbon and, of course, gloriously finished with John Hancock's famous signature.

The trouble began before the first individual session. It turned out that because I was a janitor, I had no place to conduct tutoring sessions lest it be her private room. I knew better than do anything but sweep the floor and unclog the toilet in a Resident's room, but now I was forced to. Now, Flora's roommate had been sexually abused repeatedly by an uncle when she was young. The man had been a janitor. So when I sat on the edge of Flora's bed with my mop propped nonchalantly, Bette flipped out and yelled rape. My Med Aide friends knew I'd done nothing. I felt lucky as they calmed the situation with the ever-present cure, the hypodermic. At any rate, I finally awarded Flora with an official LOOKING certificate which she promptly sent to her brother and, after the Sugar Loaf smoke had risen and Administrator dust settled, I advanced to Program Manager instead of going to jail.

My first job as a Program Manager was to take the Residents on an Outing. Outings could be innocuous picnics at state parks during the work

week when there was little chance of scaring the citizens. Or the opposite, to go shopping in the middle of the day at Walmart. I was lucky. My first trip was to chaperone a dance in the back room at the VFW Hall. Harmless as this seemed, it did entail riding with the Residents on the special bus. Complete with epileptic Flora.

It was forty-four years ago that fateful evening, yet I remember it as if it was this very moment. The Sugar Loaf policy specifically stated two things concerning chaperoning dances, both aimed at safety and protection: a new Program Manager must never work a dance by himself and should always work with a veteran. But because the fifteen-year veteran, Selma, had to be by her husband's hospital bed after he was in an automobile accident, I was the only PM available, so they waived both rules. The Administration rationalized that since I'd worked on Staff for several years I really wasn't NEW, so I should be able to take care of any contingency.

Contingency is a fascinating word. It means dependence on chance or uncertain conditions, possibility, or accident. Its synonym is emergency. No one guessed that dear, sweet Flora would accidentally drop her medication in the toilet before the Outing so that on this one evening there was a high chance of a contingency.

As it turned out, the worst scenario materialized. Flora didn't have a seizure. She didn't have two seizures. She broke a word's record and experienced three bona fide, medically diagnosed, rip-snorting epileptic thingie-thingies right there on the bus going TO the dance on my first Outing and all alone to boot.

Flora seems to have been my vehicle for advancement at Sugar Loaf. She presented me with opportunity after opportunity. First it was with the GED which I responded by creating a certificate, and then meeting the

challenge of the Outing. All I know is that spontaneously I commandeered the bus-full of Residents to act as if they were watching TV. It saved the day for those who weren't staring out the window, at their belly buttons, or picking the snapped boogers off the passengers in front of them.