Sparks the Matchmaker

CHAPTER 15

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier that I’d be working with Greg?” Ollie asked Sparks the next morning, quickly removing the Yankees hat as soon as Sparks arrived. “Why do you wait for me to figure these things out on my own? It would be a lot easier if you’d just tell me.”

“If I’d told you that before, you would have considered breaking the deal.”

“Maybe not. It’s crossed my mind lots of times, and I always stuck with it.”

“It’s true. You have, but you were much more scared of Greg than you ever were of Marie. You were only scared of Marie because you couldn’t figure out how to work with her. Greg made you wonder if you’d get out of the shift alive.”

“I suppose. He’s not so bad, though. I guess.”

“He would have been much more difficult if Joy wasn’t there. He wants to impress girls so much that he’s always an angel when they’re around. I’m not saying he’s going to pound you as soon as he gets you alone, but for a first shift, it was good to have her there with you.”

“I guess that’s something to look forward to. Maybe I should call Greg’s other staff worker, though. He’s been working with Greg for a few months now, and I bet he has some insights on how to deal with him. I saw in the log book that Greg hasn’t had a single incident with him for the last month.”

“Yeah, speaking of... That guy’s gonna need to be replaced, Bomber.”

“Don’t call me that,” Ollie said. “Why does he need to be replaced? Is he going to quit too?”

“No. He’s going to need to be fired.”

“I’m going to have to fire him? I haven’t even met the guy. I’m not even the manager yet.”

“I’ve probably told you too much already. Everything will be coming in loud and clear later today.”

“What am I supposed to do about finding another worker?”

“Don’t worry about it. I know the perfect person for the position.”

“You’re not going to answer me, are you? You’re just going to leave me hanging.”

“You’ll find out soon enough. This afternoon, in fact.”

“I hate when you do that. Why can’t you just tell me?”

“You’ll be finding out on your own today anyway. You don’t need me to tell you everything.”

“Fine. I don’t suppose you can tell me who the new guy should be. It can’t be Joy; I can’t hire a girl.”

“Exactly. I’m only telling you this because you wouldn’t have thought of him on your own. You would have gone through all the applications at the office and chosen someone there when you should—”

“Just tell me who.”

Sparks paused. “Alright, take off your pants.”

“What?!”

“Take ‘em off. I wanna see the tag on ‘em.” Sparks started reaching for Ollie’s waistband in the back.

“Ow! Stop it! What are you doing?”

Sparks stopped. “I was just looking for confirmation that you are indeed wearing your Bossy Pants today.”

Ollie sighed, exasperated. “Sparks, you’re a pest.” He straightened his pants. “Well?”

Sparks waited, knowing it was driving Ollie crazy with every second he didn’t have the answer he wanted. “Okay, it’s D. The new guy is going to be D.”

“You’re right. I would never have thought of hiring him. Why D? I don’t think he’s even looking for a job.”

“He’s been interested ever since you first came home talking about Ascend with the other guys. He was planning on just taking out a bunch of loans to pay for school, but ever since you got this job he’s been thinking about applying. Actually, he’s gonna end up applying for the manager position.”

“What? You’re not going to make me do it? I don’t have to be the manager?”

“Nobody ever said you did. Why did you think you had to?”

“Why? Because you never tell me anything. All I can do is assume.”

“You don’t have to assume, Ollie. But you do.”

***

D did make sense for the job. Not only did he have the right personality to work with someone like Greg, but he had the bulk. He wasn’t as big as Greg was, but he was pretty close. And of course being a psychology major, he was a great fit for manager.

“Morning, D,” Ollie said. D sat on the couch in the living room with his nose in a book. “How’d things go last night with the girls in Ivy House?”

“Good, good. Well, up and down.”

“Why up and down?”

“Depending on when Richie was talking or not,” D said.

“But whenever he opens his mouth he always makes you look smarter by comparison.”

“Too true. And how are things going with you and that new girl, the one with the curly hair?”

“Joy. Yeah, things are going great. We were supposed to go to the circus last night but plans kinda got messed up. We’re going to go today instead.”

“That sounds cool.”

“You should come with us. Seriously, unless you’re hanging out with the Ivy House girls again tonight.”

“Nah.”

“Nah, you don’t wanna go to the circus? Or nah, you don’t plan to hang out at Ivy House?”

“Ivy House. You sure I wouldn’t be in the way?”

“Positive. Actually, I was planning on tricking you into having fun with us tonight so I could convince you to work with Ascend.”

“Really? Sounds interesting. I’m in. If I do like the job, I’ll consider putting in my application.”

“Sounds like a plan. I start my shift at three, but I’m not picking Joy up for the circus until five. When do you want to go?”

“Three, if that’s all right.”

***

Once three o’clock rolled around and they drove to Greg’s, Ollie couldn’t help but wonder what he was going to find when he got there. He assumed that he’d find the morning staff worker there doing something he shouldn’t, something that just cried out for termination. He didn’t.

The guy who was supposed to be working wasn’t even there. The note Ollie had stuck in the door jamb was still exactly where he’d left it.

Ollie pulled the note out of the door, and then he and D slipped inside the apartment. He found Greg still sleeping in his bed, right where he’d left him seventeen hours earlier, now with his CPAP mask lying at his side rather than over his nose and mouth. The laundry pile was right where they’d left it, in the living room. Greg’s morning medications were still in his pill tray in the lock box.

“Hey, Greg?” Ollie called softly through the cracked door.

“Who are you?” Greg growled.

“Ollie,” he said. “Remember me?”

“No. Go away.”

“Let’s go over and talk to Lynn for a second,” Ollie said to D. “She’s Greg’s acting manager until a new manager can be put in place.”

After quickly introducing D, he and Ollie told Lynn everything from the note in the door to how Greg’s medications were still untouched in the pill tray. Lynn then brought Marie over to Greg’s place with them, pulled out the notebook that contained Greg’s information, flipped it to a page that contained the staff schedule and traced her finger to a name next to the Saturday morning shift. She then flipped to the phone numbers page, copied the number into her phone, and called the staff worker who was supposed to have come in for Greg that morning.

Ollie and D listened in on the half of the conversation they could hear, filling in the blanks with their imaginations. Lynn hung up.

“He said that he came in and Greg kicked him out,” she said. “He fed me some story about Greg not wanting to get up, about him refusing to take his pills.”

“What a liar,” D said.

Lynn was visibly surprised. “That’s bold.”

“Well, it’s obvious. I gotta wonder how often he’s been doing that.”

“Hm. True,” she said. “One thing’s for sure, though. I’ve noticed that Greg hasn’t been going to work all week and this guy is the same worker that’s supposed to have been working all his morning shifts.”

“All of his medications from every morning this week are still here in the tray,” Ollie said as he examined the morning pill tray. “And the notebook has everything logged in, saying that he’s been refusing his pills every morning.”

“Looks like he’s been coming in just enough to fill out some log forms to make it look like he’s been coming to work,” Lynn said. “I wonder why he thought he’d be able to get away with it.”

“Who’s gonna tell on him? Greg?” Ollie snickered. “Greg’s not going to remember when the worker came in or not, and if you leave him in bed he’d just sleep long enough until he’s close to dying from starvation.”

“I bet he didn’t even know that the last manager quit,” D said. “He was probably expecting him to be working the afternoon shift today. Kinda makes you assume the last manager was doing the same type of thing.”

“Probably,” Lynn said. “I did think it was weird that a manager had himself on a Saturday night shift. Usually, the managers get to plug themselves into the good shifts because they make the schedules.”

“What a bunch of losers,” D said. “This situation may take some time to straighten out with the staff and everything.”

“You’re sounding like you already want the job, D,” Ollie smiled.

“Yeah, well,” D said, “The more I think about it, the more I like the idea.”

“What’s the most appealing thing about it to you?” Lynn said. “Getting attacked from behind? The smell of urine? I’m assuming Ollie told you everything.”

“He did. It just sounds interesting to me. See, there was this one day when I was in high school,” D said, “when I left class to use the bathroom. I got there and there was this guy in the bathroom that was obviously, ya know, from one of the special ed classes. I’d seen him around before, but I’d never talked to him or anything.”

“And you just loved him from the start,” Lynn said.

“No. That’s the thing,” D said. “I didn’t know how to act around him. He kept trying to talk to me and introduce himself and stuff, and it made me really uncomfortable. I told him my name, but other than that I just did my business and got out of there. For some reason that really stuck with me. Everyone’s always saying how wonderful people with special needs are, but I’m ignorant to that part of society. Now that I’m a little more mature… ya know, it’s interesting.”

“Awesome. I’m glad,” Ollie said.

“Ollie, you sound pretty invested in Greg’s situation,” Lynn laughed. “Is there something you’re not telling me? Are you going to work with Marie, or move on over to Greg’s?”

“It’s not that I don’t like Marie, or that I like urine-soaked laundry. But yeah, I think I’ll make a switch over to Greg’s, assuming the office people are cool with that.”

“Fantastic,” Lynn said. “Just when I thought I got a male worker for Marie.”

“Sorry,” Ollie said. “I think she’s great, but I think I’m needed with Greg a little more.”

“I know. I know, that’s the thing,” Lynn said, smiling wistfully like always. “I was going to suggest it to you, even though I was hoping you’d shoot the idea down. But it’s true: Greg needs you more than Marie does right now. Judging by how bad it seems to have gotten with his workers, he needs you even more than I thought he did.”

“I think I’m gonna just work part time here,” Ollie said. “I’m still carrying a pretty big load of credits at school, so I think I’d rather work just two evening shifts each week or so.”

“Hear that, D?” Lynn said, holding out her hand to him. “Looks like we need you as soon as possible.”

“I suppose we should go wake Greg up, then,” D said. “He didn’t sound very happy to see us earlier.” They entered Greg’s apartment and eased open the bedroom door. “Hey, Greg. You wanna get up and take your pills?”

Greg rolled over, but continued hibernating.

Ollie stepped in and tried everything he could think of. He mentioned the circus, but that didn’t work. He told him that Joy was going to go with them when they went, but no dice. He tried bribing him with food, offering to help him with his chores. Nothing worked. He shook his head, stumped.

“What’s it say in his program book?” D asked.

“Nothing about how to get him out of bed,” Ollie said. There was only one thing he could think of trying, and that was to get him out of bed the same way he used to get his little sister up: “Pooky! Come on Pooky, rise and shiiiiiiiiine!”

Greg’s mouth curled into a grin at the corners, and he opened his eyes. “Pooky?” Greg laughed.

“Does Pooky want to come get his pills and have some lunch?” Ollie asked.

“Pooky does,” Greg laughed again, then turned over in bed and put his feet on the floor. But when Greg looked down at his toes, the first thing that caught his eye was that he had wet the bed again. He would need some privacy to change his clothes, so Ollie and D quickly ducked out of his room and shut the door.

“Pooky, huh?” D asked. “I didn’t see that one coming.”

“You think I saw it coming?” Ollie asked, laughing. “It just kind of came out. Nothing else was working.”

“It was genius,” D said. “I thought he was going to stay in bed until he got too hungry or desperate.”

“Genius, huh?” Ollie said. “Yeah, well now we’re probably stuck having to use it forever.”

“Whatever works,” D said. “It’s better than letting him stay there in that swimming pool of urine the whole afternoon.”

After Greg’s pills came a much needed shower, then lunch and chores. And whenever Greg got sidetracked Ollie would call him Pooky, and then Greg would laugh his way back to work.

***

When the time came they all drove over to Joy’s place, picked her up, and then headed to the circus. Ollie was hesitant at first, wondering if the bit of affection he’d received the night before was due largely to her need for sleep. Even before they made it to the freeway, though, Joy’s hand slid comfortably into Ollie’s, picking up right where they had left off the night before. Today is going to be a great day.

The arena was swarming with all kinds of people. They had plenty of time before the show was going to start and there was plenty to see, so they wandered around the outside and inside of the stadium to get a peek at it all.

“Staff guy?” Greg asked.

“Yeah,” Ollie answered, walking next to him.

“Oh,” Greg said. “I couldn’t remember who my staff guy was. Just making sure you’re with me.”

They walked toward the elephants, where a small crowd had started to gather. A man was washing them with a big brush on a pole while some spectators snapped photos.

“Staff guy?” Greg asked.

“Yeah,” Ollie answered. Again, he was right next to him.

“Just making sure you’re here,” Greg said. “I didn’t know if I was lost.”

“You’re not,” D said. “You’re with us.”

Ollie’s phone rang. It was Lynn, asking him their location. He told her, and moments later Marie and Lynn found them in the crowd.

“You were supposed to meet us by the north entrance,” Lynn said, punching Ollie in the arm.

“I don’t remember saying that,” Ollie said.

“You’ve been hanging around me too much,” Greg said. “You’re losing your memory.”

Ollie saw a grin flash across D’s face and realized how he must look. There he was standing between two beautiful girls, one hanging on his right arm, the other punching his left, and he was enjoying every bit of it. He flashed a smirk right back at D before they all turned to walk toward their seats.

“Staff guy?” Greg asked.

“Right here with you,” D said.

They found their seats just before the show started. Greg and Marie, wide eyed, were glued to the bright opening ceremonies. The lion tamers came out, then the contortionists and the clowns. Marie was thoroughly enjoying the show, but Greg’s eyes wandered over toward the popcorn stand.

“I’m hungry. Can I get some popcorn?” Greg asked.

“Sure. I’ll go with you,” Ollie said.

“Um, can I have five bucks?”

“Why do you need five bucks from me?” Ollie said. “You have your own money.”

“I didn’t think to bring any,” Greg said. “I left it all at home.”

“No you didn’t,” Ollie said. “Remember? I told you to bring some money and you went searching through all your dirty clothes until you found some in one of your pairs of pants.”

“Oh yeah,” Greg said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled up wad of dollar bills. “Look at that!”

Ollie and Greg made their way up the aisle toward the snack stand. Ollie stood in the doorway so he could keep one eye on Greg and one eye on the acrobats below. The lights, the music; everything was simply amazing. Ollie was distracted just enough that he forgot about Greg for a split second.

A split second was all Greg needed to disappear.

Ollie walked quickly down the hall. Greg either went right or left, so I’ve got a fifty percent chance of spotting him quickly. Won’t be hard to find a guy as big as a house, right? How hard could it be to catch up with a guy who moved so slowly?

But how dangerous will it be if I can’t find him right away? Ollie sped up. Nobody was in sight in either direction; everybody else was in their seats enjoying the show. What if he’s not wandering around the building? What if he’s wandered out one of the doors and is roaming the streets? Ollie was jogging now. After completing a lap of the entire inside of the building, he ran outside.

What’s Greg gonna do if he starts to panic? Why did I take my eyes off him? Stupid, stupid! And why didn’t I ask Sparks to come? He felt like he’d run a half marathon along all the main streets before the phone in his pocket sounded off. He recognized Joy’s number and answered quickly.

“I lost Greg! He took off when I wasn’t looking!”

“He—” was all Joy could say before being cut off.

“He’s not in the corridors!” Ollie panted. “I searched the whole building and can’t find him. I can’t find him in the parking lot. I—”

“I know, I know. Ollie,” Joy said. “The security guard came and—”

“Security guard? Oh no! What did Greg do? He didn’t hurt anyone, did he?”

“Relax,” Joy said. “He’s fine. Everyone’s fine. The security guard found him wandering around and asked him where his seat was. I think he just needed to go to the bathroom or something. Anyway, when he told the security guard that he didn’t know where his seat was, the guard asked to see his ticket, which he luckily still had in his pocket.”

“So he’s there with you?” Ollie asked.

“Yeah, he’s here. He’s fine,” Joy said.

“He’s not mad or anything?” Ollie asked.

“No. He’s just watching the show,” Joy said. “He’s probably already forgotten about getting lost.”

It was over. The whole ordeal was over. Greg hadn’t wandered too far. He hadn’t gotten himself killed, and he hadn’t killed anybody else. Crisis averted. Ollie’s heart was still pounding.

He kept a very close eye on Greg for the rest of the circus. He didn’t let him stray more than 5 feet from his side as they walked back to the car. He engaged the child locks for the back doors so that Greg couldn’t wander off at a stoplight. He stuck right behind him as they walked from the car back to Greg’s apartment, where at last, he was home safe and sound.

The evening finished in much the same way that the previous night had. Greg was snoring on the sofa next to them. The only real difference was that D was keeping them company this time. Joy’s arms were wound tightly around Ollie’s waist. And still, no kiss yet. The night’s still young.