SUMMER... My day of infamy (Part 84b)

I guess all of it hit at once. I jumped out of the chair and was up against the desk and was screaming at him. I think I was yelling at him that he couldn’t do that. He finally got up and told me to shut up and to sit down. By then I was livid. I have no idea the order of what I yelled at him but I demanded to know how he could do this to me and why. He yelled some things back and I have no idea what he said. I vaguely remember his secretary, Gina, sticking her head in the door and Leo telling her to do something. When she appeared I stopped yelling. When she left Leo started in on me again and I remember him listing off a number of “violations” that I’d committed including being late to work and leaving early. Hearing that I went ballistic. I came around the desk and was in his face yelling at him as loud as I could telling him that he had some set of “balls“ to call me out on that since he seldom arrived for work until noon or later and that he was often gone soon after 4pm. But I didn’t stop there and in spite of him yelling at me to shut up and to get out of his office I kept going. I know I called him a cheat and a fraud for running his potato chip business out of the county offices. He was yelling something back at me and I honestly never heard him. But I did hear him yell that I was fired and to get out of his office but I kept on screaming at him and I never saw Irwin, The Chief Auditor, and a couple of other auditors come in the room. The thing I do remember was having two Policemen grab my arms and, more or less, carry me out.

The next thing I knew I was out in the main hall. The policemen told me that I had to leave the building. My jacket and some personal things were still in the data processing office. I wanted to tell Jay what had happened and to go get them but they insisted that I leave. So, they proceeded to take me out of the building by way of the main entrance. By then I’d calmed down and was incredibly embarrassed. Outside, they asked where my car was located and I led them to it. They told me I had to leave the parking lot but I couldn’t because my keys were in my jacket pocket up in the DP department. Plus, I wanted to talk with Jay to tell him what had happened. When I said I was going to wait for him they told me that if I didn’t leave they’d have to arrest me for trespassing. That set me off again. I remember telling them the parking lot was public properrty owned by the resident taxpayers of the County and as such I was entitled to be there. When I wouldn’t get in my car they grabbed me by the arms again and put me in a patrol car. Thankfully, there weren’t many people in the parking lot.

The cops took me to Town Hall and arraigned me. The Town Justice was there and I was led into his office. He was the Uncle of the brothers who owned the mobile home park and when the Judge saw my address at the park he had me sit down and explain just what had happened. Long story short... after hearing my side of it he asked me to wait outside the office while he made a phone call. About fifteen minutes later he appeared at the door and told me that I was free to go. Then he told me to call Mrs. K, the Director of the Civil Service Department, first thing on Monday.

The problem was that I was now downtown and my car was over a mile away. I was allowed to make a call to Elle and that was a very difficult call. It was while I was waiting for her that the reality of what had just happened started to hit me. Here I was with two kids, a wife and another child on the way and I no longer had a job. It seemed like forever for Elle to get there and she was a wreck when she did. Of course I hadn’t told her any details when I’d called and she’d conjured up a whole series of events in her mind. Her state of mind had the kids all wound up and I was in no mood to pay any attention to them so the trip home was rather tense.

To get my car we had to go home to get the other set of keys. When I told Elle I wanted to go get it she said we weren’t going anywhere until I explained. As you can imagine it wasn’t very pleasant scene. Over the years I’d seen her mad at me for any number of reasons but this was the maddest I’d ever seen her. She called me names that I had no idea she even knew. After that she headed for the bedroom and shut the door leaving me with the kids. They knew something was wrong and my having to focus on them for a while helped cool me down. It was dark when Elle finally reappeared. She didn’t say anything except to ask if I’d fed the kids. Then she made up a batch of scrambled eggs for each of us and headed back to the bedroom.

I slept on the couch. Having the night to think about the whole situation kept wondering why I was to call Mrs K at the Civil Service office on Monday. I was up at daybreak and at around 7am I saw Jim headed my way. I met him outside and he said he’d gotten permission to use the town wrecker to use to get my axle. He went on to say that Eric and Cal were coming as well. I hadn’t seen Andy since the night of the 4th and I wondered what was up with him and asked Jim. He just shook his head from side to side but didn’t answer. The surprise of going to retrieve the axle got my mind off the ”situation“ and I actually left without saying anything to Elle or even leaving her a note.

Having the wrecker more than made up for not having Andy to help. We got the axle out in no time and were back at the race car by 10am. Eric was really eager to get started. We pulled the car out from the lean-to and Eric, Cal and I started to remove the damaged axle while Jim returned the wrecker to the town work yard. I hadn’t had anything to eat for almost 24 hours except for the scrambled eggs so I told the others I’d be back in a short while. At least that’s what I thought.

To be continued...