Rivethead - Ben Hamper [41]
After your card has been checked at the front desk, you will be instructed to fall in line. Being a shoprat, the most popular of jobless hacks, I always had my choice of lines 6 through 12. Without fail I always managed to select the wrong one. My method of choosing a line hardly bordered on the scientific. I would simply give a deep glance into the eyes of the assorted claims people and somehow try to determine which one felt like drivin’ herd. Sometimes I'd try the stiff old man. Sometimes the pretty young woman. Sometimes the evil lady who looked like Agnes Moorehead ripped from the grave. The strategy, if one could call it that, never worked. I always ended up in a linoleum tar pit.
A friend of mine always insisted that the MESC had made a widespread effort to stock its ranks full of people with fetishes for dominance. He may have been right. So many of their employees seemed to delight in having you grovel, squirm and plead total ignorance to their cascade of bureaucratic muddle. They acted as if you had laid yourself off, that you had no intention of ever lifting another finger, that you were in a frantic rush to get back poolside to your bevy of naked stewardesses, that you hated this country and wanted to use their money to buy explosives to lob at the governor's motorcade.
Wading through their standard, hypnotic probes, I was always tempted to liven things up:
MESC: “Have you received any income during the past two weeks?”
Answer: “Yes, I was paid $10,000 to carry out a hit on a United States senator.”
MESC: “Are you receiving any other benefits from any other state?”
Answer: “Yes, I am currently on a retainer fee from the State of Maryland as a procurer of young male prostitutes.”
MESC: “Have you been able and available for work the past two weeks?”
Answer: “No, I've been too busy selling PCP to third graders up at the corner arcade.”
Occasionally, you'd see people get really irked over a development with their claim. On one memorable visit I recall the desk people dropping this big, ugly bombshell stating that due to some new hitch in the law, the extended benefits program was being cut and that many of these jobless folks had run the old money meter dry. Believe me, this message was not received with much jubilation, as proven by one enraged castoff who—being of sound strength, if not entirely sound mind—saw fit to retreat to the MESC Personnel parking lot and play Zorro on the office workers’ radials with his switchblade. He was eventually captured and thrown in jail where I guess he pretty much accomplished his objective—the State was still gonna be footin’ his meal ticket.
Above all, the thing you wanted to avoid when visiting the unemployment office was to be detained in the section of seats over by the side wall. This is where they would send you if you developed a complication with your claim, if you needed to file for a new claim, if you acted unappreciative or if you had gone to the bathroom in your pants. If you were instructed to have a seat in this dreadful limbo it was advisable that you have your mail delivery halted and prepare to wait, wait, wait. I was very fortunate, having been able to avoid this section. What they did with these people was not apparent. Sporadically, some figurehead would poke his head out from beyond the partition and summon one of the waiting multitudes to follow him.
Never, but never, did I ever witness people reappear once they'd been ushered into the back chambers of the MESC. At first I thought these folks were merely ducking out a side exit, but casual research into this possibility showed me that THERE WAS NO SIDE EXIT.
I assumed that this was how it must end. A silent trudge down a narrow hall, led by a cranky claims executioner with cold eyes and blue lips. Finally having your benefits exhausted, you were a total nonentity. No one missed you. No one could see you. You disappeared