Treatment
Outside on a very cold winter evening—the sky is a midnight blue and there are stratus cloud trails in the sky. A bunch of abandoned and dim-lit buildings are silhouetted in the background. Noises of hustling men and women, actions with hands and feet, can be heard during an efficient loading operation that is barely visible in the murk. Something is being shifted from an unlit building to a darkened truck. An occasional cigarette burns red; wispy blue-white smoke lazily drifts up, while during the whole event, vaporous breath can be seen as well, drifting up to the sky. Then they are done with their task, there are sounds of high fives all around and a quick dispersal, with a large-shadowed figure getting into the truck, starting it up, and slowly driving it away. A few giggles and laughing coughs and snorts can be heard in the distance as well.
* * * * *
SANTEX, a barely middle aged, mostly fit, dark haired, and marginally hip looking man, has had a bad dream and awakens to a safe bed in the relative balminess of Southern California. He looks at a stuffed albatross doll on his bookcase in the dim early morning light, gets up out of bed, goes to the front door, picks up the NY Times, turns on a cozy light, starts the coffee going in the kitchen and sits down at the comfy table, looking over at the bedroom door, where CLAIRE, a vivacious, red-headed, young French woman, can be heard snoring, softly. He looks at his newspaper and looks up at the doll again, then looks out the window in a reverie—and shudders, a connection to his dream.
A decade earlier, a much younger Santex is sitting in a LOWER EAST SIDE tenement apartment, busily arguing with Claire about whether the American economy is better than the French. He says that in America, anyone can find a job, and even though he is not totally fed up with his chef career, after quitting his last sous chef job in a pique, he is getting disillusioned with the long, difficult conditions and hours, and for what its worth, he could easily get another job, in a totally different field, unlike in France where you are enslaved to a particular career from the time you take your “Bac” exams at 16, until you are collecting your pension.
For instance, he says, looking at the NY Times Want Ads (February 17, 1982), look at this: he peruses the “Restaurant” jobs, and then sees a job “Research” which he reads aloud: Research Assistant wanted, must be able to conduct survey research including data analysis for contract job in South Bronx. Clerical work required. I could easily do that, he exclaims to Claire—I’m going to see about getting that job today! Claire laughs, with her Cartesian snort: I bet it’s not what you think it is, she says, but go on, who can argue with you silly Americans anyway.
Santex starts his job at ALBATROSS CENTER, a center for troubled juveniles, located in a converted 1950s style public school, that has seen better days, maybe 25 years ago. He is all gung-ho about the work and begins to feel that he will make a real contribution to change. He works with SUZANNE, his first boss, a nice but dowdy 30sh psychology doctoral student from CCNY: you see happy scenes of administering surveys to the South Bronx teenagers and then avid work on analyzing and typing up many varieties of reports (Santex does this). You also see a couple of earnest group sessions that emphasize self-esteem, one with counselors and then one with the teenage students/clients. Santex and Suzanne brainstorm new ideas at a white board, and then they actively implement role-playing scenarios, telephone circles, and a blindfold trust exercise with the counseling staff. A fun session of blind-fold trusting (supporting kids in the air) is held, and a later session of a role-playing young mother and father to be is conducted with maudlin, but amusing results. At a staff training session, TERRY, barely 20 year old counselor, abruptly confesses, in a tearful way, to feeling unsure of her love life, and wants to know what to do about all the pressures of her young world, only recently coming off crack and welfare, and not yet being able to manage to have a steady boy friend, let alone her dream family. Everyone commiserates, and Frances, her mentor, offers her fond hugs and gentle advice to persevere.
Santex and Suzanne are actively involved in the school programs, working with teachers and aides, and are also involved with a number of counselors and administrators at the program, particularly some new Privacy Initiative Groups (PIG), job-training programs. Everything seems to be very effective and very positive, but to the up-beat Santex, they are all “real” people with tough, school-of-hard-knocks demeanors—a refreshing change from the cynical and jaded world of downtown Bohemians and Bourgeois decadent (bugedec) life-styles of restaurant work people.
Santex loves the job: the food at the bodegas and ribs joints are great and different; the commute on the Harlem bus along 25th Street is very different from that of his artsy friends; his new colleagues seem genuine and wise; and the sexy and youthful atmosphere of the Bronx sub-culture of rap, break-dancing and graffiti writing is oh so electric!
After a year, and following Suzanne’s departure to write her dissertation (with a nice big party at JUANS, to which Claire comes), Santex, who has helped with the writing, is surprised to be promoted to Program Designer. He is then issued into the inner sanctum of Albatross administrative business, but mostly becomes the primary confidante and aide-de-camp to LAURENCE PORTE, Executive Director.
Laurence (a woman of about 60, proper and just newly content with her blue-gray hair look is an elegant Liberal Manhattan-society matron—well coifed and well heeled, but not too well) announces three things at her mandatory Monday morning Executive Staff Meeting: there will a Department of Social Services (DSS) audit next week; Mr. LAPIERRE’s Optimism in Action team, for which Santex and Suzanne owe their salaries and program financial support, will visit on Monday; and a large shipment of Department of Agriculture (DOA) surplus cheddar cheese will need to be stored Thursday, and delivered to the needy community, early in the following week.
Laurence and Santex stay after the meeting for some further strategizing: he is asked to manage the LaPierre visit and report directly to Laurence about progress in preparations for the DSS audit and cheese distribution. He is also asked to begin preparing the agenda for the semi-annual Board of Directors meeting with Mister Shrympskyn and Mister Cummings. Leaving the meeting, Santex is a bit dismayed at the sudden increase in responsibilities, but only looks dismayed for a minute—and then quietly, but firmly and with gusto, recites his personal Optimism in Action mantra three time (under his breath) “I’m ready and raring to go—I’m optimism in action!”
“I guess this stuff works?” he smiles, and nods in the affirmative.
Santex, FRANCES (the main counselor) and three others; JOEBOB, MARY MARTINI, AND LARRY LOFTON have a lunch gripe-a-thon at THE CHINESE PLACE.
That afternoon Santex runs an Optimism in Action training session for counselors that is less than enthusiastically received, and then visits a client session (teenagers) where he flirts with DEBBIE (a counselor) and with two Hispanic girls—NIEVES and DOLORES). He also tries to act cool, although he is actually visibly a bit fearful of the potential explosive acting out of street-smart kids. His coolness affectation is not a great success.
During the week, staff work seems to get done in preparation the upcoming events. On Wednesday, there is an exciting Staff Confrontation Group, led by Laurence with some drivel about operating from the source of anger and reaction: The Reptilian Brain. Not too much happens in the session except that there is a lot of noise: some yelling, a bit of crying, and some hot words—also mostly a lot of stonewalling, broken occasionally by the obligatory trotting out of a mini-confession to some obscure and meager sin. What there is not is ANY voluntary activity—except among the three white staff members, who seem to wallow in this stuff. Santex even screams that AUBREY is probably using crack. People are dismayed at this outburst and accusation and come to Aubrey’s defense and hush-hush it all. Mostly though, everyone else is wisely guarded—this is there jobs after-all.
On Thursday, there is an in absentia “tribunal” when the weekly Administrative Council meets regarding Terry’s behavior. In this meeting it is revealed that as a DSS Counselor, she somehow forgotten to write her client notes for over the last half-year—or else the notes may have somehow dematerialized. Sheepishly, she claims the later, and then confesses to being too upset about life to do her notes. A “swat” team is organized to “straighten out” Terry’s files, in short do some forgery. They are also encouraged to get to the bottom of her lack of professionalism, and Laurence, maternally suggests that Terry start to take group sessions a little more seriously—like by working on her issues. Everyone looks away and smirks, each enjoying this pathetic joke, knowing that they will all be doing the work!
After this meeting, Santex has a strategy lunch with Laurence at Ma Johnson’s, a fabulous ribs place on 170th Avenue, to discuss the many meeting preparations. She suggests reading Fritz Perls and limbic brain theory, as well as gives some advice about grant writing and how to work with the Board Members. At this meeting, Laurence chokes following mention of HERB, her husband, and a story about being journalists together in post-War Mexico City. Santex saves her life with the Heimlich maneuver, and with a dramatic rib crunch, she expectorates a carrot, or perhaps it is a piece of cheese, and following some water, thanks Santex profusely. He leaves feeling great.
Santex goes to a staff development meeting, a kind of ‘rap session’ conducted by the visiting psychologist MAUREEN TWEETS, a cognitive therapist. He later discretely hangs out in a side room smoking cigarettes and drinking Chock-Full-O’Nuts coffee with the guys—four counselors—all Vietnam Vets (presumed former junkies and all ex-cons) who swap some horrific stories. [EMILIO and Navy Seals, CHARLIE and the Cab stealing, AMADOR and the disarming of crack-head kid SNUFFY SMITH, LARRY and driving a 24’ U-Haul on the BQE while dealing with the DT shakes, and some funny road visions].
Laurence, meanwhile, calls her husband and arranges a cocktail party for Mr. LaPierre (a self-made, octogenarian financier and lunatic—who in appearance is a cross between Colonel Sanders and Mr. Peanut), and, with no pause in the conversation, nods in phone agreement about a real estate project in which her husband, the NY Buildings Commission Chairman is involved. She makes a few notes and then calls someone else, this time ordering a change in the proposed schedule for next week. Then she sighs, sits back, pulls out a yellow pad and a fresh pencil, takes a little nip from a concealed hip flask in her desk drawer, and humming Vivaldi, closes the door, and gets down to some serious grant writing business.
That afternoon a daydreaming Santex, while also doing some “grant writing” observes the efficient dismantling of a car for parts in an adjacent rubble-strewn lot. He is busily signing DSS notes, and making slight amendments here and there, while whistling a Blondie tune. He calls Claire and let’s her know about the special visit of Mr. LaPierre, and also the upcoming kid’s special TGIF party, to which she is invited as his guest. He then gets down to five minutes of business, designing an Optimism in Action poster. Then smiling contentedly, he kicks his feet up on the big, oak table that is his desk, and leisurely reads the NY Times, and glances at the cover of a big book on history—PLAGUES AND PEOPLE. He gulps down another cup of coffee.
Late that same day, before going home, Santex watches from the Albatross front entrance, as STAFF MEMBERS, with no hesitation graciously change Laurence’s flat tire, and then all decline her offers for a lift to the subway, head off on their various ways home. Santex leaves and walks to the Manhattan-Bound IRT 5, where once on a very crowded rush-hour train, he challenges a deranged and raving TOUGH GUY to “shut up and sit down” on the crowded, stuffy and airless subway. People look away in disgust. Two lunatics going at it.
At home in his Lower East Side tenement walkup, Claire is waiting, dressed up for a night out. They go out, meeting his Bohemian buddies IVAN and JAY and their GIRLFRIENDS at the YNOT2, a late-night bar. There is a typically Bacchanalian night of coke, smoking, drinking, dancing and much later, back home, sex.
Santex arrives at work the next day looking terrible. Frances, taking him aside and hiding him in her office, helps him by mixing him some kind of voodoo-style post-hangover concoction. He slugs it down, and it works. Nieves comes in to let him know that Laurence has just called a special meeting in her office ASAP.
Laurence announces to the staff: Mr. LaPierre is coming on Monday, the cheese is arriving Friday (not Thursday) and the DSS audit will be in the middle of next week. Everyone is very tense.
On Friday, a staff fire brigade cheerily moves an immense shipment of thirty-pound cheese boxes into a storage room. HAMILTON, the Janitor, firmly seals the lock. Everyone high fives it, coca cola bottles are passed all around, and everyone feels relieved.
Santex looking weary, after admiringly observing, and doing a little participating in some teen-centered dancing, and carousing at a Friday afternoon kid’s party, says goodbye for the weekend to his fellow workers, and smiling, arm-in-arm with Claire (who has come to join in the party) leaves at TGIF time.
On Monday morning at the staff meeting there is a humdrum nature to the reporting: the standard “we’re ready for the DSS audit” report from TONY; a “I think Mr. LaPierre will be very happy” from Santex; the three new pregnancies, two new incarcerations and one new job found reports from an array of counselors. Laurence is interrupted with a whispered message from Hamilton. In shock, she announces: “The cheese is missing!”
Pandemonium breaks out.
Two days of Administrative Council investigation show trials ensue: staff members are arraigned before the Council, and queried one by one: nothing new, nothing revealed, everyone stonewalls it. Tony says there were two keys. Hamilton says, yes, he had one and Laurence had the other. Everyone looks at them. Laurence shakes her head—it can’t be them, this can’t be happening to my agency. Frances reports that a couple of outsider kids had wandered into the Albatross on Friday, but she had shooed them away. During the meeting, two serious POLICEMEN show up, ask some questions, state that they will file a report, and leave smirking, but not without first flirting with Nieves, while they wonder out loud if they might not have seen her on stage at the Arthur Avenue Hooters a couple weekends ago. Three NEIGHBORHOOD PEOPLE come in to express their concerns, and all leave, gravely shaking their heads, carefully avoiding any eye contact with administrators and staff members, having heard nothing about any missing cheese, and only that they wish they had some at home.
[Throughout the remainder of the story, cheese shows up all over the neighborhood]
Mr. LaPierre arrives for his “Potemkin Village” visit: the agency looks great throughout his “tour” due to the constant machinations of staff members setting the way, and tearing it down as he departs each area—including an Optimism in Action Day auditorium session. Of course it is all a charade, and concerns are really elsewhere, with DSS file restitution and most significantly with the mystery of the cheese and the pillorying of the staff members. They are served a special catered lunch from Ma Johnson’s North Carolina style ribs, with greens and macaroni with heaping quantities of cheese sauce.
After one week, there is another Monday meeting: Laurence reports that Mr. LaPierre loved the tour but due to other Optimism in Action priorities, particularly his new Tribeca/Financial Center Insurance Building, he will temporarily post-pone the South Bronx funding; in terms of the cheese incident (as it is now called) the police have no scent to follow, there have been no “confessions”, and it was actually 900 pounds of cheese, not 400. Still no word from the DSS, although Terry, who went AWOL since the last meeting, has been found and claims to be suffering from severe rubbing of the breasts, and a certain sense of disequilibria. It is wryly observed by Frances that there seems to be a lot of cheese all over the Bronx, and Tony, following up on this line asks if anyone would like lunch at Juan’s with their cheese omelet special?
Santex, in a caffeine-induced, rambling speech, declares that Albatross administrators cannot fairly conduct this type of inquiry, with no due process, that it is a sign of mismanagement, management being a misnomer. He offers his resignation in protest over cheese persecution of the staff, and the knowledge that his Optimism in Action salary will no longer exist. He also sadly confesses to his own sense of ineptitude, in particular decrying the Optimism in Action Day charade and the farcical pseudo-“legality” of signing so many DSS case notes. He concludes with a rousing: Who cares about a bunch of Reagan cheese anyway! Everyone is a bit subdued, not sure what to think about this outburst. Frances pats him on the back.
Laurence, blinking, stonily says, “let’s talk about all of this later” but in an aside, smiles knowingly to herself. She cavalierly reports that DSS has indefinitely postponed the audit and that maybe we’ll be able to persuade Mr. LaPierre to continue our programs some other way—like by charming Mr. JACK MARDI, Mr. LaPierre’s Publicity Officer into coming out from South Carolina for a visit of his own, and talking up the Southern-hospitality style of the Bronx.
Later, following heated discussion with Laurence between closed doors, Santex, still firm in his desire to leave Albatross behind, and seeing that his salaried days are numbered, arranges a final week of work before departing. In a confession to Frances, he cynically regrets the legendary Heimlich maneuver, but shrugs it off with a light c’est la vie, c’est l’amour, c’est la guerre.
At a “goodbye” lunch at the Chinese Place, Santex looks around and earnestly asks if anyone really knows what happened to the cheese. No one claims to know what actually happened with the cheese, yet it seems that everyone knows a little something—but there are no talkers here. Frances is demoralized but reports that basically the staff is taking it all in stride and persevering, as they always seem to do; Tony thinks that Laurence is loosing it with her new reptilian brain theory, and her concerns about Herb’s recent heart attack. There is also no doubt among the staff, particularly Larry and Emilio, that Mr. LaPierre is a master manipulator, but also a true American success story, a boot-straps guy, like they want to be, yet most everyone wonders how Mr. LaPierre did it all while clearly not working with a full deck, mentally at least.
On the last day of work, Santex tearfully closes up shop—and with a pile of Albatross memorabilia, and Claire there to help haul things home, says goodbye to everyone, and hails a gypsy cab.
A Rastafarian CAB DRIVER, attempts to rob him at gun point before they drive off, but the Viet Vet counselors, seeing what is happening, and with patrol-like efficiency, stop the cab, disarm the cabbie, haul him out of the cab, and in an alleyway, beat the crap out of him with a brick of cheese, taken out of the back seat of the cab.
Santex, gets out of the cab, looking on in a mix of horror and admiration, and in a distracted manner, takes a 1 pound cheese loaf, that has come loose from the cheese cudgel, and wraps it in a couple pages of paper that are falling confetti-like from the air after being released from an alley garbage can in the ruckus, another memento from his Albatross days. He looks at the papers, subconsciously seeing the signature: Terry Winters, DSS, and realizes that they might be the real thing, he smiles, and puts the cheese in one of his goody bags, and walks with Claire to the IRT station. From the platform deck he looks back down to the Bronx, whistles and waves goodbye to his guardian angels. His buddies toss a couple of big cheese bricks out of the cab and into a rusting shopping cart and pushing it in front of them, wave goodbye as well.