Bill the Bureaucrat

if you looked up "State Worker" his picture would be there

"Hi Ya, Bill", I called coming through the side door of Smitty’s.

"How ya doin, Vic?" he replied. "This day is driving me crazy."

"Well, we all know that isn't a long drive for you and that’s on a good day."

"It's no use trying to sweet talk me, I’m not buying you lunch,” I said smiling sweetly.

"When has anyone tight as you ever bought anyone lunch?"

"I prefer to think of myself as thrifty, not tight."

"I bet you do."

Bill was a long term fixture at Smitty’s. Short, stocky and sporting a crooked smile, he held forth on the same stool for
as long as the place had existed. He, to the dismay of many an unwitting stranger, also had a rapier wit that could
skewer you like a rotisserie chicken in the blink of an eye.

He always sat at the lunch counter, never at a table, for the hours he spent at Smitty’s. I never knew him to miss a day in the ten years I came there. Smitty’s was truly his second home.

To the other regulars, Bill was the duly appointed representative of the state government. The common talk was that a state serial number was tattooed on his bottom at birth. When there was any talk about state services or workers, he was the final authority.

He ran the supply department for a large state-run facility for the mentally ill and as such was valuable beyond all measure to all the people that worked there - especially the top administrators. He was depended upon and even feared because he alone could ensure the uninterrupted supplies needed for everyday life. He was the one who granted access to the paper required to keep the bureaucratic mills running. If you fell out of his favor all the essentials could become lost forever or for long enough to feel like forever. Even though few of the high and mighty knew his name, Bill was a powerful person.

I asked Bill how he could spend so much time at Smitty’s during work hours. He explained that he used personal time.

"How much personal time could you have? You’re here hours every day. Don’t you run out?" I asked.

"I never run out. I don’t tell them when I use it. It's personal."

I guess when you’re essential no one asks questions as long as they get what they need. Bill was a man who had mastered his job and after many years only needed to do it a few hours a day

"So what’s new at the hospital?” I asked.

"You know Dr. Woo, the shrink at the state hospital?"

"The Shrink with the poor grasp of English?" I asked.

"That’s the one. Some time I’d like you to explain to me how she does therapy when the patients can’t understand her."

"I can’t, but I bet that her therapy comes out of a pill bottle. She doesn’t talk she writes-my guess."

"That sounds right. The other day, she called me on the phone mad as hell. It seems from what I could understand that she was upset saying that the “hi- riners” I sent her were no good."

"When I rues dem, I cannot leed after." said Bill imitating her.

"You never ordered high-lighters," he said, "You ordered markers. If you try to use markers to high light anything it will block it out."

"Then I cannot leed." Said Bill, mimicking her again.

"I told her - Never mind, I’ll send you some hi-liners and everything will be OK. Just don’t use the markers anymore."

At this point, I was laughing so hard my eyes were tearing up, seeing the picture in my mind of Dr. Woo wiping out line after line of reports getting madder and madder when she couldn’t read them anymore. I wondered how long it took her to figure out that it wasn’t working. And then she tried to blame the problem on Bill.

"I swear, just talking with her is an adventure.", said Bill

"Think of her patients", I said.

"Lucky for them they’re all crazy. I bet they think she is making sense and it is just because they are crazy that they don’t understand her.", Bill hypothesized. "Have you ever dealt with her?”

"No, but with my luck, I will," I responded.

"She’s not so bad and if you don’t take her too seriously, she's kind of funny."

Bill had strong feelings about almost everything. If there was a discussion or, even better, an argument going on he would slip in sharp little one-liners at opportune times and then wait to see the result. Sometimes he would change sides in the middle of an argument and if confronted about it would just shrug his shoulders and say, he was persuaded.

He could disappear while you were watching him and you would never see him move – I think it was some kind of state ninja thing.

I never caught him in a lie, well not exactly; he could bend the truth like a prism bends light without ever really breaking it. Bill was the quintessential Bureaucrat and like a ghost ship where ever he went, he left no wake.

I hear, all these years later, he has gone to that big institution in the sky but they say that he still sits in his office at the state hospital smiling that crooked grin.