October 26
Made it.
Completely out of the blue – there had been zero rumors that a decision was imminent – here is your new supervisorial lineup for MCSD. Our title is Supervisor and our radio handle will be Six-Six:
– Jeremy
– Dan
– moi
The news came today, though it took over 12 hours for me to get all the details. When I woke up this afternoon I had a message from 77Eric asking me to call him before 3pm, which I didn’t do because I didn’t wake up until after five. When I got the message I suspected I was either fired or promoted because there really was no reason for Eric to call me and I called 77Charles to see if he could shed some light on the matter and he said no, no one ever tells him anything.
So I entered the briefing room and was at my locker when he summoned me; I approached the office, and, even though the door was open, knocked anyway.
“What’s up Charles?”
“I found out what Eric wanted,” he said. “You start training Friday night under 88Dick…”
For a couple of seconds, I actually thought what for? Then it hit me:
Holy crap! I made it!
“…so you got to go get fitted for a blazer, and all that.”
I appeared to be the last one to know because everybody on swing shift seemed to know, as did the guys on day shift. Guys being guys, there were as many condolences as congratulations.
As it turned out – and it’s funny how life works out if you let it – I got one last night in the hotel, because Dougie Fresh called off.
Here was your Henry lineup for last night:
Henry 1 – X-Ray
Henry 2 – moi
Henry 3 – Code Four Carlin
I would like to report that X-Ray and I celebrated our last night working the hotel together like we spent our first – breaking up bachelorette hot tub parties and running into naked chicks in the stairwell – but life doesn’t work out that well despite the fact we were completely open to that possibility, and it was a very slow night.
X-Ray and I did respond to one call – our last call as International Henry Units, a poignant moment I know has all of you in tears – a routine noise complaint that was gone by the time we got there.
After the call, we retired to the plumber’s office on 17 to kill some time before his 482. I told him the good news and he said I deserved it and we both knew this was it. As a supervisor, I forfeit my International Henry Unit membership, though I remain a founding member, of course, and a member of the Steering Committee.
History will record my last call in the hotel as a routine welfare check with Code Four Carlin. We knocked and were greeted by a man in his 60’s wearing only skimpy blue briefs and who had white hair all over his body. He smiled and said he was all right and thanked us for our concern for him having missed his wake-up call.
I got the particulars on the promotion from 77Rick. At 0630 I was sitting in the 12th-floor maid’s room with my feet up waiting for Code Four Carlin to join me for debriefing when he got on the horn.
– Seven-seven, Henry 2.
My stomach froze briefly. I knew.
– Henry 2, sir.
– 10-19.
I headed to the elevators and headed to the office. When I got to the office Rick told me I start Friday night, training with 88Dick. It’s a 90-day training/probationary period and we will spend a month on all three shifts. My new weekend starts Wednesday morning and ends Friday night.
You’ve met Jeremy here before, but not Dan because he is not one to do OT. Dan is mid-20’s or so, rather funny, and, like Jeremy and I, rather low key. He was actually my FTO for a couple of days back when I was training and FTO Terry was busy with other trainees.
Rich stopped me in the briefing room after work, and, typically, had a funny line. He said the downside to not promoting Guy, who had been rumored to be in the running, was now we’ll never know if Guy would have been able to kiss his own ass.
It took a couple of months – a lifetime, really, because this is the first job I haven’t completely sucked at – but I finally went to wardrobe and got fitted for a suit.
THE END
For those of you who made this journey from beginning to end, thank you. Your companionship was as felt as it was unseen. – gk