My dad was an early perspicacious observer of the evolution of too much government, particularly of the administrative kind, at among its earliest iterations, back in the 1960s. Not merely was it of "too much government" but government claiming conscience and having none.
Where are we today? Lots of money has been thrown at helping the communities purportedly served, like education. Has education gotten better in the last over 50 years in any big city? Much has been thrown at homelessness and now homelessness is out of control. Where did the money go? What is it always about? The feudal fiefdoms of too many professing concern for the citizenry but in truth and in fact shoring up their wealth while taxing the rest of us. That's what lots of us think.
Dad's subject, his story revealed in a few fictional diary entries, is a neophyte New York City manager in the early halcyon days of the superagencies that now populate multiple cities in which death and destruction and poverty reign. This particular man might not exist, but he could be any one of the leaders of a certain age, who dismiss the populace with their multi versions of truth. Dad has been dead over 12 years. Even he could not imagine how bad things could become and how bad they are, except that he knew something was coming.
The short short story is called "Diary". Dad wrote it over 25 years ago.
You must not ask who he is or how I came to have access to his diary. You see, he is currently among us, very active in his chosen profession of politics. In fact, he occupies a seat in the current Congress--much older, though still unregenerate, opportunistic, a mountebank and a scoundrel.
I have decide to share with you some pages from his almost daily recollections, assiduously and unreservedly recorded. The copy I have is a part of a set, though it covers a period in which we were both employed in the first years of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society"--in fact at one of the first social agencies to be funded to distribute aid to the poor, circa late 1965, to begin with.
There is probably no story here. Some of the entries are banal, perhaps even uninteresting. I selected them probably because the settings and the incidents are largely within the ambience of the times and places and the ritualistic universality of the activities described.
December ---, 1965
I finally got my interview today. Deputy Commissioner Long said, "Read your application with great interest. We need men like you in these revolutionary times." I smiled modestly and thanked him. Privately, I felt it was the extra 100.00 I had to pass on to the "Man" in City Hall. Thankfully, it was the last of several expensive paving stones.
I don't recall that he told me what my job would be, but the salary arrangements were as promised. Anyway, the "manna" came in the nick of time. My last year was the seventh of those scriptural lean ones. Now, I have a job, an office and am the head of a Department.
January ---, 1966
It has been a pleasant holiday season. There isn't much direction or organization. I have a Secretary, named "Deelores", an unusual spelling of a familiar name. I call her "Dee". She has a maximum output of perhaps two letters a day, or three memos, with never less than three misspellings per sentence. I am constrained by the proprieties of the time to accept this minor impediment. If the matter is important enough I retype it myself. Dee does have a placard on her desk that announces her name, and her title, Executive Secretary. It seems to fulfill her aspirations at the moment.
October---, 1966
The Agency is growing. We now occupy several floors of a city-block skyscraper. My windows look down ten floors to a very busy Church Street. I can see the turn of the century watering hole, Bar, to the uninformed, where I generally stop for a quickie, before the long subway ride back to Queens, and the walk up I share with the mother of my children.
It never ends up just one, as I am usually joined by Kevin Rauch from Public Relations and Sam Starns whose function is locating new Federal Grants. Sam is tolerable, though his drinks magically appear on my monthly tab. I don't like Kevin, though, till today, I had no tangible reason for my dislike.
There's always a story to tell. Today it was my turn. I relate my adventures rarely. But after two martinis I become very voluble.
"It was right there on the top of a very full in-box. A check for seven million dollars from Washington, no note, no explanation, nothing indicated on the check, except "Office of the Mayor" and an address. I spent the day going from Commissioner to Commissioner trying to get someone to take responsibility for the item. It's kind of revelatory--and a little discouraging. One of those New York Post reporters that eavesdrop on our dialogue--see--there's a hot shot reporter from the Daily News. Boy would he like to get a whiff of how the Agency administers government money. Don't look now, but if he leans any more toward us, he'll fall off the bar stool."
Kevin asked if I had solved the problem. I said I hadn't, and the check was still in my box. He said, "Bring it over to my office". I knew immediately why I didn't like him. Arrogance? Some advantage of angle? I'll have to watch this bum.
December --, 1968
There won't be a Christmas Tree in the East side home of my Boss, Commissioner Rawlings. At our first conference together, I had the feeling he should never have come East for this job. First of all, most appointees don't know anything about the jobs they inhabit. Rawlings knew less than most. What he khew least about is the insidious virus originated by the serpent in that famous garden.
Her name was Sheba, as apt a name as is possible to describe her. I can imagine the throes old Solomon might have suffered at her blandishments. The original Sheba, I mean, of the Book.
It was not an affair. Sheba did not believe in long term associations. From what she told me, it was a series of intermittent meetings for appropriate consideration, from which Rawlings ultimately tired.
Whether she was invited to the party he threw for his staff last month, or not, she was there. She came, wearing a satiny white garment that clung to her body like natural skin. It was sheer enough--I suppose not sufficiently woven by a modest Arachne to obscure the triangular shape of her very black underpants.
Rawlings resigned today.
I do not know if he will rejoin his family whose transport West I arranged last week.
January --, 1969
Replacing a Commissioner is no problem. They are lined up like ticket seekers at the Roxy for any available spot. Rawlings' replacement was on board before the fizz left the champagne of last week's party. He came with an entourage. How to describe him? Anti-civil service type might be appropriate. His Administrative Assistant is an exemplary specimen. Rose. She is married to an author, who has just published a paper back called "Street Corner Pimp". She is proud of her literary spouse and has distributed many copies of the book. Her assigned office has achieved notoriety as a result of the banner that occupies the wall behind her desk wth its pithy challenge to the Patriarchy, "F---- housework!"
I met my new boss and his acolytes at a party in Soho, which is nothing more than "South of Houston Street". This once industrial center of New York and its empty warehouses now house the avant-garde who convert the expanses into bizarre living quarters.
It is in one of these apartments that Seymour Barber, my new boss, introduced me to his dependants--one of whom he announced would be my deputy.
He said I would find her interesting. "Very cooperative and forthcoming", as I recall, were the exact words.
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