The Cheese Chronicles II

So, where were we?

Cheese and Cheeto headed out to Auto Zone. Cheese bought a couple of simple tools. One can be found in every tool box and one is useful for auto body repair. Then they drove across town to the address of the car's owner.

Cheese spent about 20 seconds getting the car started and another minute getting inside the locked car. He drove it to the car lot.

Cheeto's boss came out front, amazed that they were back so soon. In fact, he was so thrilled that he told Cheese he'd pay him $150 for every car he could repossess for them.

I asked Cheese where he'd acquired these special skills.

He said he paid attention in auto shop. It was evidently part of the curriculum. He told me the really simple way to use his two tools to start a car. I am dying to try it! But I'm also pretty sure I'd really mess something up. So, no life of crime for me just yet.

A couple of days later, Cheeto called again. This time he was supposed to repo a car from a lady who lives in a totally disreputable neighborhood. He really didn't want to try to take the car off the street in front of her house.

Cheese met his brother at the car lot and asked to see the owner's paperwork. He noted the name and address of her employer and told Cheese to drive him there.

As they drove by the business, Cheeto started whining that the car wasn't there.

"You gonna have to drive through the parking lot, not around it, fool!" Cheese told him. "You're in the dealership's car - they ain't gonna know who you are!"

They found the car sandwiched between two huge trucks in a back corner of the lot. They had to look close to see it. It was a tight fit. They got out to inspect the vehicle.

"Can you do it, Cheese?"
"Hell yeah, fool. But you gonna have to drive it."
"Why?"
"Cause that door is only gonna open a few inches and I can't fit inside!"

In another 15 minutes they were back at the car lot. The boss was ecstatic. He told Cheese he wanted him full-time. Cheese told him that was cool, but he didn't want to do grunt work, he wanted to sell cars.

The boss was fine with that, but explained that everyone started at the bottom. He could start out washing cars for $5.15 an hour plus a $30 bonus for every repo. Cheese laughed.

"You offered me $150 to do repos. Now you wanna pay me minimum? I don't think so!"

The boss looked Cheese over. Cheese is about 5"10 and weighs probably 320 pounds. He wears sagging shorts that reach to the tops of his socks and his expensive tennis shoes. He usually has on a huge silky sports jersey that matches whatever shorts he's got on. It generally covers his massive girth and reaches down to his knees. He wears bling in both ears and around his neck. "How are you gonna sell cars looking like that Cheese? You don't look like you could sell anything except drugs. You can't dress like a gangster. My salesmen have to wear khakis and polo shirts."

"I got those clothes. Those are my church clothes, man. I can look nice if I gotta."
"You go to church?"
"Hell yeah I got to church! I'm livin' straight man!"
"Well, I don't know. You have to do something about the way you talk. And can you read?"
"Can I read? Can I read?! Of course I can read! And I can speak right, too!"

Cheese and the boss are still negotiating. I'm betting Cheese will end up with whatever he asks for.

He was most offended that the boss questioned whether or not he could read. Cheese told me he never liked it before, but now he reads everything he can get his hands on. He actually likes it. Cheese said "I learned how to speak from reading. When you talk, people hear you. But when you speak, people listen."

Edited to add: Its been a week now and I haven't heard anything from Cheese, so I don't know if he got the job. But I do know that no matter what happens, Cheese is gonna make it.

And if I cross-stitched, I would so be hanging a read=speak=hear "sampler" on my wall right now.

And I swear by all that is even remotely holy, if blogger doesn't fix this stupid line break problem that makes my paragraphs run together, I'm gonna hurt someone or something.

The Cheese Chronicles

One sad day, Cheese is going to get off probation. I may be hard up for material at that point. Sometimes Cheese believes his own hype, and sometimes he thinks he's worthless. Just when you think you've figured him out, he surprises the hell out of you.

Cheese was going to quit the Sonic a couple of months ago. You may remember the story? He ended up staying because his new job was only for 3 or 4 hours a week. I don't know why restaurant managers think its even worth doing the paperwork to hire someone for such a pitiable amount of time, but it happens. Cheese kept both jobs stringing along, but he's gotten tired of it.

Cheese has a younger brother. His name is Cheeto, remember? Cheeto got a job at a used car lot. Its a shark pit. Cheeto started out washing cars. Now he's a salesman. Sort of.

He's been bugging Cheese to come down and buy a car from him. Everyday he comes home from work in a different car that he wants Cheese to look at and buy. Every day Cheese makes Cheeto show him the car, tell him the features, drive him around and negotiate financing. Every day Cheese tells him "Hell, no, fool! I ain't buyin' yo car."

Cheeto keeps trying.

Last week their mother's van broke down. Their dad has a car to get back and forth to work, but mom's got no wheels - she's afoot. Cheeto dragged her down to the car lot to look at their selection. He showed her several cars and made lots of promises. In the end she shook her head and said, "No, Cheeto. I'm not buying your car."

Cheese finally asked Cheeto "How many cars have you sold, fool?"

"What, this month?"

"This month or ever, fool!"

"Well, none," Cheeto admitted. But he had plans. He had cars. He was going to make it big at any moment.

Cheese started hanging out at the car lot, watching his brother. He gave Cheeto tips on how to talk to people. "Don't talk with your hands so much - people don't trust you when you wave your hands like that." "Don't start pushing cars at people the minute they get here. Let them walk around, see what you have before you start selling." "And shut the f*** up! You never stop talking - give people some room, fool!"

Cheeto still wasn't getting it. After all, he'd failed to sell a car to his own pedestrianized mother.

One day when Cheese stopped by the car lot, Cheeto came running to him for help. He had a customer who needed a car badly and she'd just gotten her tax refund. She was ready to buy. Cheeto was ready to screw it up. Cheese said he would make the sale, but he wasn't doing it for free. They quickly agreed that Cheese would get 10% of the commission. Cheese feed him the lines, a la Cyrano de Bergerac, and Cheeto made the sale. Cheeto was ecstatic. Cheese made some cash. He told Cheeto that each time he helped him, his commission would increase by 10%.

A couple of days later, Cheeto called Cheese at home. "Come meet me at work," he said. When Cheese got there he learned that Cheeto's boss told him to go repossess a car. He had no idea what to do or how to do it, but he knew he could call Cheese. Cheese told him "Get in the car, fool. We're going to Auto Zone."

To be continued...

Judge Thurgood

I went to a funeral last week.

Judge Thurgood was one of the district judges when I was hired. We have two district judges and they are resposible for administering their juvenile and adult probation departments. At that time the two judges split those duties and Judge Thurgood was "our judge".

I was in awe of Judge Thurgood. He was like the Perry Mason of Judges. He was brilliant, tough and had frighteningly powerful eyes. Have you ever watched any of Billy Graham's early crusades? Judge Thurgood had eyes like Graham's. If you got caught in the Judge's gaze and he told you to drink the kool-aid, you'd do it and ask for more. We could pretty well predict the future of whatever schmuck was before the court by gaging the waggling of his eyebrows. If they rose on the outside and gnarled together in the middle, it was time to kiss your momma goodbye.

Judge Thurgood was a fair man. He was a man with high expectations of anyone he came into contact with, whether defendant, attorney or other court officers. He hated unneccessary delay. We grumbled about this frequently when we worked late into the evening dealing with people he was sending to us from his court. He worked until the job was done. Hopefully that happened by 5:00, but if not, so be it.

One day I waited on a court hearing in a hallway teeming with lawyers. You hear lots of interesting stuff in those situations. A couple of lawyers from Big Flat City were gossiping next to me.

"Did you hear about the Saturday court?"
"Yeah, I got my letter from Judge 'God' Thurgood!"

When the Judge couldn't get attorneys to bring their cases to court in what he felt was a timely manner, he would hold court on Saturday. This way none of the attorney's could claim other court duties as a reason to request a continuance.

The Judge was a powerful presence on the bench. Never before or since have I known anyone who could gnaw on a person like he could. If you were convicted of a crime in his court, he made sure you knew how society felt about your particular misdeed. My favorite of his speeches was the Lonesome Dove speech. It started with him pointing out a window and asking the defendant "Do you see that tree out there?"

Oddly enough, one thing I will always remember about Judge Thurgood is his handwrighting. He had the most gorgeous penmanship I have ever seen. His handwritten notes looked like the Declaration of Independence. ChevyPickup and I spent hours learning how to mimic his incredible signature. After all, forgery is the sincerest form of flattery.

Judge Thurgood was a survivor. He'd had hodgskin's disease 25 years ago. One day, several years ago, he left the bench following a court hearing, saying he didn't feel well. Within moments he'd suffered a major heart attack. He recovered from the heart attack, but not from the heart surgery. The cancer treatment he underwent years before had ravaged his body and he could not heal. Eventually he had to step down from office.

I didn't see him for several years after that. He became a sought-after visiting Judge all over this half of the state. He eventually retired from that and went into private practice in Big Flat City.

I hated it when he represented one of my people. Truthfully, I'm still in awe of him and being on the opposite side of the table from him could be pretty stressful. Despite his stooped, white-headed body and the ever present oxygen bottle, he still had those powerful eyes. Everytime I ran into him, he would smile, his eyes would sparkle and he'd say "We sure had a good thing going back then, didn't we?"

We sure did, Judge.

Whalloped by a Trollop

"There are girls who manage to sell themselves whom no one would take as gifts" - Nicholas de Chamfort

I had to make a quick stop at Wally World on my way to work this morning. I was out of hair product. (This had nothing to do with the sparking nun, by the way.) As I was rushing down the aisles I almost tripped over an old whore.

It was Georgia Amore. She looks to be about 70, but she's probably not a day over 69. Georgia and I spent a couple of years together in the early 90's when she was on my caseload. She was on probation for a DWI. She was a grouchy old crone, even then, and she gave me fits!

Georgia was riding in one of those Wally-Carts and had someone with her who looked like a paid care-giver. I'm not sure whether or not she recognized me. I certainly recognized her, even though her normally coal black hair was in a flaming red beehive.

We used to make the raids on the local night clubs, looking for probationers. Since Fake Cow County is dry, only private clubs are allowed to sell alcohol. To become a member of a club, all you had to do was sign a list normally kept in a spiral notebook by the door. Georgia Amore was the only one of my people who would sign in using her real name. I always stopped by the door to read the list when we went into a club.

We would invariably find Georgia ensconsed in a corner table in some dark dive. She always wore heavy-duty blue eye-shadow and spangly, curiously twisted shirts with silky gold pants. She also always had her gimpy leg propped up on a chair next to her. Every time we caught her she was pretty toasted and never really quite sure who we were and what we wanted.

I could never understand why anyone would want to purchase her services - a limping, wrinkled old lady with really od fashion sense.

Stupid me.

I'd watched too much television. The 80's cop shows painted much to elegant a picture of your average prostitute. My first real eye-opener was the time I talked with a girl who, like most, was prostituting for drugs. If real life had been like Hunter, she would have been using the money to feed her baby and keep her elderly aunt out of a crummy nursing home. And maybe even putting a few dollars in the bank so they couldn't forclose on the family farm and turn it into a parking lot.

Not so in real life. This girl's main income came from working a back room at crack parties. There would be a house full of people drinking and smoking crack and pot. She would be in a back room somewhere, doing blowjobs for $2.00.

Two dollars.

She'd earn enough to buy a couple of rocks, which she would use that day and be back "at work" when the high wore off. This wasn't the Stephen J. Cannel version of the oldest profession.

I never questioned Georgia about the particulars of her professional life. There are some things I just don't have to know. I wonder what Georgia's up to these days. She probably didn't have much of a retirement plan. But she's still got her fashion sense and evidently no shortage of blue eye-shadow.

It was Monday.

I had to testify in court yesterday. One of our most contentious attorneys was asserting that his client could not possibly be as bad as I said he was. Before the hearing the lawyer and I had totally agreed on what we thought was best for this guy. In the end the judge agreed too and sent the guy to a year-long lock-up for drug treatment and to have his head examined.

But that didn't stop Mr. Contrary from fighting about it and belaboring every. single. point. It is always a 'trial' to have to be in a court room with him. I guess that's why the DA was a little distracted when he called me to testify. When he tried to call me to the stand, he announced to the court that his first witness would be Rachel Ward.

Yeah. I can see where he would've made a mistake like that.

Can't you?

White Joe will miss him too.

Today was Sonic gossip day. You remember my Sonic guys, right? Trinny reported first and he was bummed. He's losing Cheese. Cheese has defected to the new I-HOP as a cook.

Cheese came in right before lunch. He has indeed traded in the burger grill for the breakfast grill. Did you know there are four grills at I-HOP? One for meat, one for eggs and pancakes, one for other stuff and he doesn't know what the fourth one is for. There has been much weeping and gnashing of teeth at the Sonic since Cheese has announced he is leaving.

Cheese did do the stand-up thing and told the manager, Ray-Ray, that he will stay a couple more weeks and train his replacement to "f*** this grill-shit up tight" just like him. (Cheese and I have had conversations about the need for him to develop a more formal verbal register for daily business and professional interaction.) Ray-Ray has evidently just returned from some sort of Managerial Jeezus Camp. He called Cheese into his office a few days after Cheese announced he was leaving.

"I want you to read this book, Cheese."
"What is it?"
"Its called 'Choices' and it will help you with your Sonic Future."
"I don't have a damn 'sonic future', Ray-Ray! I'm goin' to I-HOP!"

Cheese actually read the book. I asked what it was about. He explained it thusly:

"It was about some runner dude. He was always runnin' all the time - every day. Like he was gonna get in the f***in' Olympics or somethin'. He was always in races but he never won shit. I don't know why he kept doin' it - he was messed up about it, I guess. Then there was some really long race or some shit and he won it because it went on and on and that's all he did."

I'm not really sure what motivational lesson Cheese took from that.

In addition to moving up the corporate ladder, Cheese is going back to school. He's attending classes in the mornings, learning how to flip pancakes in the afternoon and working at Sonic at night. I told him I was impressed. He's attending classes at the alternative education school, which is where his younger brother attends. The younger brother really looks up to Cheese. He wears the same kind of clothes, has the same goatee and now he's doing the same work to get a diploma. They're hoping to graduate together.

I asked Cheese what his brother's name is.


Cheeto.

What I Learned at Work This Week:

I learned from Mindy that you can now get glow-in-the dark ink in your tatoo. Who knew? At first I thought that's gotta be way all unhealthy. But then I decided its not as if you are getting the finest in soy-based, eco-friendly dyes in your average tatoo anyway. (Or are you?)

Mindy learned about this innovation in body decoration from the girl she met with right after lunch. The girl jumped out of the chair and dropped her drawers to show Mindy the smiley-face tatoo on her butt. (This happens more often than you would think. We're pretty quick at intercepting people before they can whip out the surgery scars, new tatoos or orafices emiting drippy stuff, but sometimes they are just too fast.)

Anyway, the glow-in-the-dark thing opens up a whole new realm of new tatoo possibilities - maybe something helpful? Along the lines of "Inset Tab A Into Slot B"?