Karma - Kindness of Acquaintances

As I've gotten older, I've realized that in my extended family, there have been 2 wives from hell and 1 husband from hell. These individuals were some distance away in time or location. In all three cases, the 'sane' spouse was part of or later joined my extended family. If there was a spouse from hell today, my responses would be very different. The gloves would come off to protect the defenseless.

The other thing I can say is that I do get involved when I see things that are not right. I've called in drunk and high drivers, taken away car keys, called spouses...anything to stop a very possible tragedy. I've have two acquaintances that won't ever talk to me again. But I can sleep at night because somebody didn't get killed that day. If they want to be self-destructive, I let them. If somebody else will get hurt...fuck 'em.

There's other thing that I've noticed in life. If an individual is sleazy in their attitude toward others, they also tend (but not always) are sleazy toward things like laws, unsafe driving, drugs and alcohol, finances, responsibility in many forms in life...

Once again, I have fun writing BTBs. I also enjoy writing stories that don't depend upon mega bucks, 8 inch cocks, ninja's, high tech super-secret, squirting (which is the modern day equivalent of the equally implausible Victorian gallons of semen) ... You get my drift. Writing about people that we all know and live with is the challenge. This feels real. If an author brings in tons of money, professional help, jetting off to a private island in the Carribbean... whatever, I tend to pass on that story. I feel that those stories are so much easier to write because with enough time and money, anything is possible.

This is MY OWN PERSONAL TASTE. Readers get to make their own decisions on what thy like or don't like in life. Read what you like. You don't have to like what I like or feel important. The same for you to me.

Escapism is important in life and I don't knock it. I try to incorporate the things I see, have heard or would like to see.

1) On Break, Robin and Dorothy

"Any real gems this morning Dorothy?" We were on our morning coffee break. When you work customer service help lines, taking a break is critical. The work gets to you because the job is all about LISTENING TO PEOPLE COMPLAIN.

Dorothy and I are two women in our mid 50's with a grandchild each. Each of us also have child that's in a marriage that's in trouble. My son lives on the West coast with his wife and their 2 year old son while Dorothy's daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter live in Chicago's trendy Wrigleyville neighborhood, very close to 'da Cubbies' and those bars. Both of our children married young and are well on the road to professional success. Unfortunately, each has a spouse that is not maturing with parenthood. When we were married decades ago, we could be adolescents till the time we would have graduated from college and had to earn a living. It's not the same now.

Now I see blue collar and even white collar types of people - people on the other side of 30 - still acting like adolescents, college frat boys or party girls. That's true for the people our kids married. Neither is at the divorce stage yet, but it is a real possibility. That's what we talk about when on break and away from the phones.

The call center that we work at is ok money, but it gets hard sometimes to listen to people complain. When things are really wrong, we both understand and really try to help the callers. Missing a flight to a parent's funeral or a daughter's wedding, or going to a final visit of a friend dying from a sudden illness are not unusual problems. We both do all that we can and actually even got in trouble a couple of times. But really helping people is what makes the job worth it.

There were times when the caller complains about something trivial. We both had to bite our tongues to not tell them that they were damn lucky and that they should stop feeling so entitled. "STOP THE WHINING" was frequently thought, but it was never said. We are professionals at work. We would only vent to each other. However, today was the day for whiners. Not all the whiners were callers.

Sitting in the corner of the outside patio behind the potted plants, we heard one of our 'favorite' co-workers sit down with her back to us. Marcia was an immature spoiled 'piece of work' that felt the world owed her a living. She had a tendency to 'accidentally hang up' while having a difficult caller. The caller would come back and her coworkers have to fix that damage as well as the original problem. Marcia was not popular at work.

Because breaks are scheduled and we're in the same break group, we get to hear more from Marcia than we care to. This week we overheard that Marcia's husband walked in on her screwing her lover Jason. Then the bitch kicked the husband out till he asks HER to be forgiven. From what we've overheard over the last year or two, it'll be a cold day in hell before that happens.

We got to hear about how she was going to see a lawyer, get child support and alimony and with her mother live in his house rent free. She was planning on cutting down on her hours at work. Some of what she said could be true, some of it was pure self-delusional bullshit. Either way, we knew it was going to be hell for the husband. Hell for the next two decades.

She sat down this time with her bitch-in-training. She was actually giving lessons to Carissa on how to get what you want by lying and manipulating. We both knew from before that Marcia purposefully damaged the condom to get herself pregnant. All we could do today was to grit our teeth and wait for break to be over.

"Carissa, it's Thursday and I haven't been out all week. That asshole husband of mine hasn't asked to be forgiven yet, so I stared moving in Jason's stuff yesterday. I tossed all of Rich's junk in the basement and only kept the good shit he had." She exhaled a long drag of her smoke. "Jason's got lots of real nice stuff. He's got one of the biggest fucking curved screen TV's I've ever seen. He had a smaller one at his apartment, but this one is one big fucking TV.

"I asked him how he can afford it all. I know that he works construction as a laborer and that's good, but not that good money. He tells me that in certain neighborhoods, you can buy good stuff ten cents on the dollar. It's just a little used that's all." They both laughed.

"The other thing," she turned to Carissa and spoke in a slightly softer voice. She was always so loud that she was still clear as a bell. "He's been getting some good stuff lately. Fucking good stuff...well good stuff to fuck with." They both started laughing again. "A great buzz, let me tell you, a great buzz." She pretended to put something on her crooked finger and snort it. They laughed again. We just got more disgusted.

For the next 5 minutes, Dorothy and I got to hear all about Marcia's sexcapades with her lover. Break time was almost over and not a minute too soon.

"Carissa, my bitch of a mother told me that since I fucked up, I was gonna have to stay home with the kid tomorrow night while she went out." She extinguished her cigarette on her paper plate. "Fuck that shit. I'm gonna stay home long enough to feed the kid and slip a little something in her formula. Put her to bed and let her sleep it off." Carissa gasped, but Marcia laughed, "I've done it a couple of time before. I'm leaving her in the crib and going out. No problem for the kid and that is that." She flicked her cigarette well short of the ashtray as she and Carissa continued laughing.

Putting the child at risk? That struck a nerve. Drugging an infant and leaving an infant alone at home? Dorothy was about to get up and give Marcia a 'what for' when I pulled her back down and whispered into her ear. "Say nothing now. We can fix her clock on this one. Trust me." I motioned her to follow me.

We quietly walked to the bathroom. After checking to see if anyone was in any of the stalls or outside the door, Dorothy whispered, "Robin what gives? How? We know why."

"Remember Dorothy, my late brother-in-law was a Chicago cop. I heard plenty of stories like this. If you just call Children and Family Services to make a report, it takes them a while to get to it sometimes. Get a cop to the scene because there's been a crime and they find an infant home alone?" She grinned and continued, "Maybe a broken picture window or two? Somebody tossing an M-80 into the house? Some 4th of July smoke bombs that they sell in Indiana along I-90/94? Even if that smoke bomb was placed just outside the house, just outside the window, it would bring the Police and the Fire department. They have to investigate. They'd have to go inside.

"We've been hearing Marcia bitch about the neighbors. They haven't liked Marcia, her mother and now Jason. Will one of the neighbors tell the cops about everything they know or think that they know?"

We both smiled. "Look, it's worth a try. With all that stolen stuff in the house, there'd have to be 'some 'splaining to do Lucy' ". They both laughed at the old Ricky Ricardo "I Love Lucy" line.

"We both know where she lives. One of my nephews from the south side blew out a neighbor's window which is why I thought about it. He got into a heck of lot of trouble from his mother from that. She made him work that neighbor's yard for a solid year, all for free. It included snow shoveling and leaf raking, weeding, planting, whatever... He also had to pay for the new window. In the end, those two became friends and still are. He's in college now and..." Dorothy looked at me with impatience.

"Oh, I'm sorry about the story. Now back to the dirty deed. My nephew proudly told me that he took a lit cigarette and inserted a fire cracker fuse into the other end. Then he wrapped the bottom of the firecracker fuse around the M-80 fuse. Takes a couple of minutes for the cigarette to slowly burn down on its own to the firecracker fuse, then that one flashes and ignites the last one. It goes boom and we be far away when it would go off."

"Robin, that sounds as if it would work, but I'd like see it work first. OK?" I nodded yes while Dorothy continued, "I worry about possibly harming the infant."

"Dorothy, we do know that the infant sleeps on the second floor in the back. Remember how she complained about being able to hear the Ravenswood trains from the second floor?" Dorothy nodded yes. "We'll ring the doorbell first to see if anybody is home. Look in the picture window into the living room from the front porch to be sure that she's not there.

"Marcia said last month that her husband was taking classes on Tuesdays and Fridays at Loyola. Friday was her fuck night. I know that there is another two weeks of classes till night school finals...so he'll be in the clear.

"Besides, I'll get my Jehovah's Witnesses books and costume out. I did that for last Halloween. Scared the heck out of my neighborhood. They didn't know me in the wig and the disguise holding out the bible and pamphlets. We need two people 'cause they don't travel alone'." I paused and looked at my possible partner in crime.

"Are you in on this?" Dorothy nodded again. She had an evil smile on her face this time. Never mess with a grandmother, even if it's not her grandchild.

"Dorothy, if the commotion is loud enough, the kid will cry and the neighbors will be ringing the doorbell. If it isn't, it's standard procedure for police and fire to check all the rooms. When the infant does not readily wake up, it's off to the hospital and lab tests. Children and Family Services will have an emergency placement, and the mother will have to start answering to somebody. My husband Dan has a couple of M-80s and firecrackers from the 4th that he didn't use.

"I want to burn that bitch for putting her infant in danger and the husband through hell." They both nodded. "Maybe it'll do something good for the poor husband too."

"You know Robin, I don't know what it'll do for him, but as the other parent and that she hasn't filed anything yet, Family services may want to place the kid with him. That'll be great for his divorce."

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2) At Job Site - Andre, Brian and Al

"Do you think he'll be ok? Al? Do you think he'll be OK? How bad do you think Andre is hurt?" Brian asked me.

Andre, Brian and I work as electricians in the trades for the past 35 years. We've been buddies and started together straight out of Senn high school on 'da great nor' side-a Chi-cah-ga'. We made a real team, Andre's African American, Brian's Irish and Mexican and I'm Sicilian, Polish and half German. My line was that one of us had to be cultured, so it was me. With our background, we're able to work in any neighborhood.

We've been a team and have always had each other's back. If we worked around other electricians, we'd look over their shoulders to see what they were doing and how they were doing it. We all knew the proper way to do things, the little short cuts for efficiency and we paid close attention to any recklessness. The electrical service Andre and I replaced yesterday in that box blew up and hurt him. He's on his way to the hospital with the paramedics.

I was 100 yards away when it exploded. Andre was a car length away and caught some debris. I yelled to the kid Jason to call 911 and grabbed the safety equipment as I killed the power.

It scared the fuckin' shit out of me. Andre was hanging in there. He was bleeding from his right arm but had a vacant look in his eyes. My first aide training automatically kicked in and Brian ran over when he heard the explosion and started helping me. It was only 10 minutes before the ambulance arrived and stabilized Andre. The foreman joined him in the ambulance to the Hospital while Brian and I sat there in shock.

We all know the trades are dangerous. The three of us saw a bad accident when we were young and we've never forgotten it. That man survived and came back to work a couple of months later, doing paperwork only. It took over a year for him to get back to his real job. Management came down on us all hard, and we couldn't blame them. Cutting corners did no one any good if the owner was going to have to make a phone call to a wife telling her that she was now a widow.

"Al, do you think he'll be OK? He's got to be, doesn't he?"

Brian was beside himself. As the three electrical musketeers, we've never had a reportable accident. There have been cuts and bruises, things that fell near us, but we always dodged the worse ones. There never was an electrical accident when we worked together. If there were more electricians on the job, we always looked over their shoulders.

"I don't know Brian. I don't know. We saw that he was with it with the paramedics and ...". My words faded away to fear.

The thing about Brian is that he can make good decisions in bad times. As I looked at him, he physically shook himself and stood up straight. I could see that he was pulling himself out of the feeling of hopelessness. When he finally opened his eyes he said "Al, let's go look at that panel before the OSHA or the state inspectors come. Pull out our camera phones to document it. Maybe somebody made a mistake." Andre and I were the ones that installed that equipment yesterday afternoon. He walked toward the wreck of a box with me following.

The box was a mess. It looked like pieces of shrapnel hit it. But the design of the box was certified to real heavy duty industrial code. A flimsy box for home use would have killed him immediately.

"Hey Al, look at this," shinning his flashlight into a gaping hole. "Somebody replaced the new control panel with the old control panel. You and Andre installed the new one yesterday. I even reviewed it for you two." I suddenly realized that I had been holding my breath when I exhaled.

"Fuck you're right." That's when we both stared at each other. Stealing equipment to make a buck and somebody could have gotten killed? "Look, it was wired wrong, that's why it blew. Who would have done some shit like this?"

Brian looked at the ground and picked up some cigarette butts. It was a 30 minutes job to do it right if you're a master electrician. What we saw was somebody who just slapped it together, let alone wiring it wrong. The job as done would have taken an inexperienced man about 45 minutes to an hour. It looks a smoker did the job. The location is far away from all other break and work areas.

There are only a couple of smokers in the current crew, and these butts were Camels. Holding up one of the cigarette butts to Brian, "Only two people smoke camels, Ted and Jason." Ted was an HVAC guy and he been spending his time on the roof the last two weeks installing three compressors, heat exchangers and duct work. He was nowhere near needing electricity and wouldn't have a reason to be around the box. He also was not hurting for money. We knew that Jason spent money like mad and tended to be short before payday. Payday was in another week.

"Al, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I nodded yes.

Jason was the prime suspect. This kid, if you call this man in his mid 20's a kid was always cut corners and disobeyed the safety rules. He even came to work after he'd been drinking. Getting to work at 6 in the morning with beer for breakfast happened just once on this job site. Somebody took pity on him and he was read the riot act. We officially have a zero tolerance policy, but it was bent for this youth. It didn't happen again. I swear that I've smelled weed on him first thing in the morning a couple of times.

We never had to work directly with him. He was the gopher, the lowest man around. He did the mindless jobs that didn't need much skill. We all have been through that. We all made sure we'd never stay there.

"Al, Jason would be running around like crazy one day and slow as molasses the next. He never takes off his sun glasses so we can't see if his eyes are glazed."

"You got it Brian, Jason doesn't talk much about real stuff but he boasts like hell to make himself appear to be big, rich or powerful." I chuckled. "Of course, he never gets into the details or answers any questions.

"But thinking about it, minor things started to vanish on the job a week after he was on site." I paused a bit, lost in thought. "Brian?" He looked back at me, "We are all going to be off of work now. The planned overtime tomorrow and Sunday is screwed. Just ain't gonna happen'. The Feds or the State will automatically close down this work site until they conduct their preliminary investigation." We both were lost in thought.

I looked at Brian and smiled. "Wanna lay a trap for somebody? Think about it. Site closed, single easy gate to enter or leave, no guards and nobody working here for a couple of days. Equipment and building materials all around... And the investigators will be here tomorrow at the earliest. Now would be the time for a little 5 fingered discount? What do you think?"

"Al, I do believe that we need to lay out some bait and jiggle it in front of the prey. What do you think would work best?"

Just then word came around that the work site was officially being closed down and we were done until further notice. Each of the trades was taking care of their areas. Brian and I talked while assembling and organizing our tools and materials. In about the 15 minutes we were working, we came up with a couple of possibilities.

It turns out that we didn't need to set the bait. As we were talking, Brian noticed Jason walking around the job site looking closely at the materials of the other trades that had already departed. He stopped at the HVAC area and was real interested their equipment and supplies. There were boxes of couplings, mounting hardware, connectors, dampers, electronic controls and other generic supplies that had no serial numbers. It was off the shelf stuff that wasn't custom in any way.