HAITI MOVED OUT

"Let him stay at your place," the supervisor made a half turn and faced the employee opening the door for patients returning from day-long workshops. "Let me get your workers in and I'll get back with you two in a bit," The woman at the door spoke back over her shoulder straining to look further out along the walkway where a string of people were leaving a central building at the other side of facility grounds. "There's your last two just coming out of the universal building now." It would take a few minutes, five at most, for them to walk over to the residence hall where they lived with six other persons. As she closed the heavy metal door behind the returning four tenants, Janell turned back to face the supervisor and the new employee. Janell was filling in for a short staff load and had been for several days now. "What was that you were saying?" The supervisor spoke again, "This is our new worker... new hire employee. He's in need of someplace to stay for a little while and I can't afford to lose an employee if he moves away to his sister's place in Chicago. She and her husband... their household may not get him here on schedule when he's supposed to be at work. We are short-staffed." The emphasis put on "are" told Janell that this request was something to be considered to be imperative. The supervisor tilted her head forward a bit and locked eyes with Janell staring then whencing before announcing, "Your house has a balanced load of staff workers. I'm going to have you work here through the coming wee while he gets in tune with the routine. You know the run of a day's work at the facility... the all-purpose building... workshop schedules, fitness schedules, and the medication carousel routines for nurse visits or shortages. You work this house for now. Pat will learn the routine and meanwhile, I have time to find at least two new hires for this unit to work here with him." Janell nodded her head, "Fine, what was that other bit you said?" her forehead furrowed, "You want him.. who... at my place?" She screwed her face up and frowned more deeply. It was obvious that she was about to argue against such a lurid suggestion. The supervisor spoke up, "Well, he doesn't have a place to stay. No place to live. Let him stay at your house or," her face drew a frown and pursed lips as well, "...or I'll have to cut corners." Janell straightened her face but tilted her head in question of the new order. "Stay with me?" her voice cracked, "I can't let this guy stay at my home, Lucy. I'm married, I have a teenage daughter and a son. There is no room for a guest... and I am married." Then, "Who is he?... I don't know this guy.. don't know him. Would you move a strange man in on your daughter? What's going to happen when I'm suddenly pulled to work an emergency shift or put on night shift... and he's at my house with my kids alone?" The supervisor snapped back, "Later!... talk about this later. You can work this house until I get the rest of the needed workers... staff, for my house here." She paused to catch a breath. Her mouth went into a straight line across her face, then she added, "I've got to get back to the office to check in over there before next shift." Lucy stepped out of the front door leaving the two co-workers to talk. As Lucy stepped out of the five-bedroom case house she managed, she waived at the last two returning patients and reminded them to prep for dinner. There was a new worker and the visiting staff person pulled from one of the other unit houses to watch over them for the rest of the shift. She sauntered off toward the unit office where she worked. As they entered the door marked 510, Lucy stepped into the main unit building greeting the unit nurse and other office staff.

Janell returned to the kitchen to check on the food being wrmed and finish prepped for the eight tenants of house 510. Looking back out of the room at Pat, she asks, "Where are you from?" He did not respond, but appeared to muddle in his mind the reason and response she needed to fill the supervisor's quota of putting him in her household. She asked again, stirring a pot of ravioli sent out by general stores as the day's meal. "Where did you last work PJ?" then stressing his name to get his full attention, "Pat... where you from? A different unit? new hire? different facility?" When he didn't answer, she reached into the wall cabinet for plates and drinkware; then turned to PJ once again, "Can you set the table for your patient's meal?" Then added, "I'm taking a break after supper is done." PJ spoke up then, "They come into the kitchen for their meal... get their own plate after you fix it. They take their plate to the table. I can pour them a drink." He took a pitcher of punch from the refrigerator and headed towards the four grand round tables where the tenants were beginning to gather. Janell spoke up, "Take their plates to them. Taking the food to them assures they each get their appropriate diet plan assigned by the nutritionist. The drinks can be poured at the table. That's a common blend at this house, but not in all houses... these can all have the same blend, no special diets." She dishes food onto witing plates set on the counter, and continues "One constant routine guarantees you won't fumble your job role. Keeping this job... once you're certified past the six month probation is easy breezy. Just keep up with individual needs and make chart entries. Unless you're working night shift, it's laundry. Laundry, night rounds, floors and prepping for morning shift arrival. She dropped her conversation to allow him to digest the issues coming at him. PJ was fairly new hire... still labeled Tech Trainee assigned to this "high level" functioning house where tenants handled most of their own personal hygeine needs, made their own beds, attended workshop outside the facility properties and went home on some holidays with family members. Some had close family members who were professionals... attorneys, physicians, and white collar workers. It was all new mention to Janell some decades back when she was "new hire" and had never seen or heard of disabled, handicapped or the mentally ill. It was a job necessary in the general scope of social ethic, and someone was sure to work at every level it provided through placement into the public sector... normalization in the general population... a government plan. PJ lucked into the easiest house at the facility... one of the easier sites to work at in the state. All he needed to do was pass probation and show up at work. The supervisor, Lucy, seemed determined to take him on as a personal pet. He was single... just separated from his wife, in his mid twenties and looking for a place to stay. The supervisor hand picked him from applicants and he'd come recommended from a friend of her's. He was from Haiti... Port Au Prince, with a heavy throated french accent. He had come into the country to visit his grandmother who prided herself in their traditional island hoodoo skills... stayed there briefly, alternating stayovers at the home of his sister and stepbrother further north in Chicago. His grandmother kept his neice and nephew at her home in the suburbs near Janell's cousin's home. His sister was friendly but everything was generally "private talk" when conversation altered from the weather, shows coming in or near town and shopping. They liked Janell enough to want to teach her the island skills.M

Months later, after clearing probation, PJ was promoted to Technician 1. The supervisor had established one additional worker for day shift and one employee mandatory to work night shift on 510. PJ was living with Janell and her children in the basement as a subleased area in her townhouse apartment. She was drawing heat from her landlord for having made the deal. Heat to the point of virtually losing her rental if she did not clear the individual from her home. Janell's teenage daughter had begun behavior problems and Janell was being moved to night shift on a different facility house... a low level eight tenant house where toilet training was the mandate for the upper aged tenants. Teaching a regular scheduled bowel and bladder evacuation program to patients between age thirty nine and eighty. Her assignment to night shift required monitoring sleep hours, waking and toileting patients, changing linen in the event of a mis hap and prepping breakfast after laundry was completed. PJ had mentioned the requirement that he move out of her home... and Janell was relocated to the low incidence workplace on nights. Over the time building to his close of probation he'd established a sexual relationship with Janell, taunted her daughter and "fresh girl" classmates, manipulated the mail and ventured into her special credentials. Janelle was caught between trying to keep him off her daughter and the classmates... friends of her daughter. With Janell's son away at boarding school for a good portion of the year, only the daughter was home when Janell was away at work. Keeping her job and home and children was pushing her nerves to the limit. Enjoyable moments were the visits from her attorney-landlord. Enjoyable moments were visitation to her ex-stepmother's home with the children. Enjoyable moments were military enlisted weekend warrior assignments with the children left at her mom's house. Haiti re-established on the order of the property owner with the help of his new co-worker who agreed to let him move in with him. He took his newly purchased Honda Accord... the latest model, his new suits and expensive toiletries and the furniture purchased while at her apartment. Haiti was gone. Janelle spent the following months recovering from financial damages, a hysterical and belligerent teenage daughter and trying to get her used vehicle repaired well enough to travel thirty miles twice a day to work and back home. He had failed to pay rent beyond one and one half months of the eight months of his stay. Her husband had stopped by in his "girlfriend's" car but she could not adjust to reuniting their relationship. A new problem was evolving... one orienting lesbianism on facility grounds. You had to co operate to keep your job. After stopping into personnel to actuate her 401k retirement and deferred income accounts, she packed up her kids and left the area. Douyan and the forced issue was history.