Waiting

I texted Zully yesterday because I wasn't sure if maybe I had forgotten an appointment I had to meet with her. A third of the way through the semester, I'm beginning to feel my obligations becoming unwieldy, even though deadlines are still weeks or months away. Zully didn't text back, but she called me today. I will meet her Friday morning at St. Bernard's and accompany her to a client's appointment at a health clinic! When I offered to drive the client home afterward, since Zully has another appointment and the client was going to get a taxi, Zully said she has to check with Mary to see if that is allowed. Such bureaucracy! But then, what does one expect from the Catholic Church--the original too-big-to-fail corporation!

Zully

"I-38."

"Bingo!"

Some lucky senior just won a Bingo game and a round of applause from her companions. That is such a nice way to be serenaded as I walk down the hall of the Biruta Street offices for the second time. The lockers are still decked out in colorful paper and paint, but this time I do not need an escort to find the elevator or the Hall of Honor. The second-floor hallway is void of people when I emerge from the slowest elevator in Summit County. As I approach the little table and chairs in front of the wall of plaques, however, Mary Case comes out of a door marked Administrative Offices. She is buttoned into her long wool coat and carrying a paper shopping bag.

"Hello, Mary!"

"Hi, Sharon! Let me find Zully; I think she's in here..."

We shake hands, even though Mary seems distracted and rushed. As we walk into another office, she mumbles about having to go to a doctor's appointment this afternoon with her sister. She introduces me to a thin, pinched-looking woman named Chloe who is seated at the first desk we come to, and asks her if Zully is in just now. Chloe affirms that she is, rises to shake my hand, then stands there looking awkward. Mary and I start to walk around a small wall made up entirely of beige metal filing cabinets and are stopped by a petite woman in a giant, chunky, cream-colored sweater.

"There she is! Sharon, this is Zully!" Mary seems quite relieved to have found her target.

"Hi! Is it Zooey?" I ask, smiling, as I shake her tiny, cold hand.

"Hi! It's ZOO-lee," she replies, also smiling, without a hint of irritation at my mistake. Mary attempts to smooth things even more.

"Is that short for something?" she asks

"Yes; it's short for Zuleika," Zully replies. 

We bid good afternoon to Mary, who scoots to her appointment, then we continue around the filing cabinets to the little corner cubicle that is Zully's desk. Zully has smooth, caramel-colored skin and hazel eyes flecked with green. She speaks animatedly about her work with immigrants, her hands moving constantly, sometimes clutching her heart, sometimes working the air in front of her as she explains the varied and often unexpected situations she must deal with every day. She is from Puerto Rico, came to Akron to pursue a Masters in Social Work twelve years ago, is married, and has two small children. Occasionally, she corrects herself for verb agreement or for a more precise word, but her English is excellent. The soft ds and ts of her accent are soothing and liquid sounding.

"And that's a little bit about me. Would you like to tell me something about you?"

I give her the bare bones, with a few well-placed details: I am also a student at the University of Akron, studying creative writing; I've lived in Akron for twenty years, and am very interested in immigrants and immigration reform. I tell her that growing up in Stow, everyone looked just like me, and it wasn't until I moved to Akron that I started seeing people of all different colors and nationalities all around me. I also tell her about living briefly in France, and how that experience opened my mind and heart to the importance of service work, how we were poor growing up, and my parents didn't have time or money to volunteer, but that I'd like to do some giving back now. 

She listens intently, leaning forward. At regular intervals, she smiles easily and naturally, her eyes wrinkling a bit at the corners, conveying genuine kindness.

We get along easily right away, largely because Zully seems to be a generous and gregarious person. We discuss the fact that most of her clients are undocumented, so there is a need for creative solutions to "the fires I have to put out every day." I tell her, very honestly, about my feelings toward undocumented workers: that they are people who only want to live and raise their families and be happy, just like anyone else. I also tell her--again honestly--my opinion that, if it weren't for greedy corporations who only want to increase their profit margins, there wouldn't be such a need for undocumented workers, and jobs with a living wage and healthcare might be easier for everyone to find, including immigrants. Then she tells me something that really piques my interest.

"You would not believe some of the stories I hear from these people! Especially the women from Colombia! Aye! Such stories! Awful stories, but whatstories! I go home everyday and am just so grateful for everything I have. Even when my children misbehave, I am so thankful!"

Now, that is intriguing. I have to stop myself from asking her to recount one of these "awful" stories to me. I did not bring a notepad or pen, so I wouldn't be able to take notes. Never gonna let that happen again!

After about fifteen minutes, a rather frumpy middle-aged woman in a pretty violet blazer appears in the gap between the wall and those filing cabinets. She says hello to Zully while her eyes flit to me several times. I smile and wait to be introduced.

"Hello, Diana!" Zully has such enthusiasm when she speaks. "Diana, this is Sharon, the woman who wants to volunteer with me!"

Diana sets her Diet Coke on a bookshelf so she and I can shake hands. Her hands are ice cold. When she turns to go into her office, she is stopped short. The door is locked. Zully and I both exclaim, "Oh!" and cringe a bit. I hate it when things like that happen. Diane goes off to find someone with a key and Zully and I continue chatting. 

I tell her I am fluent in French but only beginning to learn Spanish, and this seems to delight her. When we exchange phone numbers in our respective smart phones, she says the numbers in Spanish. I understand them! And it feels like an accomplishment. More, I am able to tell her my number in Spanish as well. Now, it seems, we are friends.

When Diana returns, we all three go into her office, which is only slightly larger than Zully's cubicle, with the added bonus of two windows. Zully briefly brings Diana up to speed: I am the woman who wants to volunteer with the Spanish Outreach program.

"Has she signed the confidentiality agreement?" 

Diana's eyes once again flit to my face, even as she directs her question to Zully. Neither of us is sure if I signed such a document the last time I was here. Diana proceeds, undeterred, to recommend that I begin, as Mary had suggested, with clerical work. She prefaces her recommendation with the requisite litany about how the various Catholic services and organizations have merged over the last two years. As was the case with Mary, Diana seems to be recounting these changes more for her own ears than for mine. The apple cart must have really got upset for these ladies.

"So, we have to create a file for each of our clients, no matter what services they use, that is identical. Once we get that information organized, we can better serve their needs." 

She seems to truly believe this. Zully, who I can tell much prefers face-to-face client work to paperwork, as do I, handles this little bureaucratic stumbling block with aplomb.

"So, once I call Mary tomorrow, to make sure she has signed the form," here she mimics form-signing with her hands,"maybe we could meet again next week or the week after and Sharon could come with me to start getting to know some of the clients?"

She asks rather than states, even though she and I have already agreed that this is how we would like to proceed. 

"Perhaps, once the form is signed, Sharon could spend one day a week helping to get these files created," and here she looks me full in the face for the first time since we sat down. "This could utilize some of your skills, Sharon, as I know you spent some time working in a doctor's office..."

Yes, I affirm that I have, indeed, some office experience of that type. I don't want to make a big issue of working directly with people right now. Zully seems just a little cowed by this administrator. I can already feel that my allegiance is going to be with the tiny Puerto Rican woman who feels the pain of her clientele so deeply, and not with the overweight bureaucrat who is more concerned with files. But it's early in the game; I'll start with filing if I have to. These interpersonal tensions are to be expected. 

I smile and nod. Zully and I go back to her desk.

"So, let's see," Zully digs in her zebra-striped tote and pulls out a personal calendar, not much different from the one I use. I'm inexplicably happy that she keeps a hard-copy calendar, rather than a digital one in her phone. 

"Now, you can do mardis y viernas, yes?" 

She hits me with her 100-watt, green-eyed smile. I am overjoyed that I understand the words for Tuesdays and Fridays! I am already on my way to being trilingual!

"Si!"

We decide on a tentative meeting here this Friday to get started on the filing work, then a field visit to a client's doctor's appointment next Friday. And Zully makes herself a note to follow-up with Mary about the confidentiality agreement. This feels like a good balance for both of us. I refrain from verbalizing my slight resistance to the administrator, but I think Zully understands. It is the first of what I'm sure will be many tacit understandings between us.

Zully walks me down the hall to the elevator and we chat some more about our personal lives. She lives north of the city, not far from the border with Stow, where I grew up. She mentions that she loves the Spanish mass at St. Bernard's, but that her kids go to St. Joe's because it's closer.

"St. Joe's? In the Falls?" I ask. "My parents were parishioners there for years before my dad passed away three years ago!"

"Oh, yes! I just love that church! And Hayden adores the school. He just loves it!"

"My mom volunteers in the library there," I offer. I can tell that we both feel good about the relationship we are embarking on. We shake hands again as I get on the elevator.

Downstairs, a man in a leather cowboy hat sits in a wheelchair across from the double front doors. I smile as we make eye contact.

"Nice hat!" I say, then I run my hand across my forehead as if I were caressing the brim of a hat because I cannot tell if he has understood me. He looks Hispanic and younger than most of the seniors around here by at least twenty years. I smile again and turn to exit.

"Thank you!" I hear behind me as the glass doors close behind me.

De nada, I think to myself.

The Interview

 I know where a lot of things are in Akron, but I'd never heard of Biruta Street, so I made a trial run on Sunday. Turns out, it's only about ten minutes from my home! 

Heavy clouds threatened more snow as I pulled into the parking lot next to Catholic Charities Services, a former elementary school building on a quiet street not far from the expressway. A tiny car repair shop stood sentry at the far end of the street; a row of tidy wood-frame houses of one and two stories faced the building, their small yards and steep roofs blanketed in white. An arched red awning stretched from the double glass entryway doors to the sidewalk, orange plastic mesh lashed to both sides.

Inside the doors, a tiny gray-haired woman with a pleasant but guarded expression greeted me from behind a glassed-in reception desk. I told her my name and whom I was meeting as I wrote the same information on the sheet of paper attached to a clipboard. She handed me a blue and white name tag, imprinted with "Visitor" in large letters, on which she had written my first name in a lovely, slanted script, as she rattled off a litany of directions to someplace called The Hall of Honors. I caught something about a right and a left turn, smiled and turned to the second set of glass doors, determined to muddle my way up to the specified location. A young black girl in a maroon shirt and hair net holding the glass door open must have noticed the slight confusion on my face.

"Would you like me to guide you?"

"Oh, yes! Thank you" I replied and followed her down the hall to the right. The hall was lined with rows of tan high-school-type lockers, with long slim doors on the bottom and shorter square doors at the top, each decorated with construction paper name tags in puffy paint and glitter: Joan. Bradley. Dorothy. Cora. Not the names of children, despite the colorful presentation.

My guide pushed the button for the elevator and repeated the directions more slowly: On the second floor, turn right and the Hall of Honor is at the end of the hall. I thanked her again and ascended.

As I exited the elevator, strains of Rod Stewart's Maggie May emanated from a room across the hall dubbed the Sunshine Room. Several wing-back armchairs in mauve and green plastic upholstery flanked the door to the Sunshine Room, wherein a half dozen elderly men and women sitting at tables covered in plastic cloths slumped or hummed or turned to smile at me. Two or three young ladies in maroon shirts identical to the one worn by my guide moved about quickly and efficiently, chirping about "making Valentine's cards for Joe." An elderly woman in sweatpants emerged from an adjoining room limping and complaining of arm pain. The maroon-clad aid with her smiled at me as they passed and entered the now empty elevator.

I made my way down the hall, flanked by more lockers with cheery name tags (Doretta, Jeanne, Fran), then walls of faux white pine paneling, to another set of plastic upholstered chairs and a small Queen Anne table in front of a large plaque proclaiming this to be my destination. "CYO Hall of Honor: To those who gave guidance and leadership to the CYO in the early days." The plaque was surrounded by rows of 4x6 black and white photos of men, women, and couples, some reverends or monsignors, others just civilians, each with only a year under his or her name. I settled into one of the chairs and examined the gray indoor/outdoor carpeting until I heard my name called from not very far away.

Mary Kase, tall and thin in a graying pageboy haircut, cream blouse and print sweatervest, strode quickly toward me with her right hand extended. She apologized for making me wait, blaming the new director who was conducting the meeting she had just emerged from. I would hear more about this new director and the changes she was making, not all of which, I gathered, Mary was entirely on board with.

We entered an empty conference room just off the hallway before the lockers and settled across from each other at a cherry wood table. 

"Let me start by just explaining how our organization works. Not everyone understands it, especially with all the changes in the last two years," Mary began. 

She then spent no less than thirty minutes meticulously outlining, I think more for herself than for me, how Catholic Charities and CYO Community Services merged recently with the Cleveland Diocese, which organization used to do which service programs, who does what now, and who gets money from whom and for what. At least, I think that's it. Sort of. I took notes, but she spoke very quickly and threw around a lot of Pastor This-es and Father Thats and names of people and groups I've never heard of. I nodded periodically, smiled when it seemed appropriate. I hope there's not a test on this stuff, I thought.

"So, why don't you tell me why you want to volunteer, Sharon?"

I suddenly found myself tongue-tied. I had prepared for this moment. I didn't want to tell her that I'm looking for writing subjects; that would sound a little too self-serving. So I answered in a less narcissistic, though still true, way.

"My friends and I have talked for a long time about helping people, about getting more involved in the community, but we never really do it. Some of us give money sometimes, but I just want to actually do something. I decided that, since I have a little free time this semester, I would take the initiative."

She seemed satisfied with that. Then we got down to some nitty-gritty.

"Let me tell you about some of the areas where we need volunteers," she segued; "some of the opportunities we have, and you can see what interests you."

As Mary outlined the Adult Day Care services, hot lunch program, and camps for kids with disabilities, I tried not to get discouraged. I want to work with immigrants, I thought. What about the Hispanic Outreach program? She hit that one last, almost as an afterthought.

"And, of course, Zooey Ramos, who is bilingual, runs the Spanish Enrichment program downtown. She focuses on connecting clients to medical, legal, housing, and educational help. She's kind of a one-woman show down there." What might suit my skills, Mary suggested, would be grant writing, or perhaps some light clerical work. When I looked less than enthusiastic, she hedged, "I'm just suggesting some areas; you don't have to decide right now..."

Then we were on to more special-needs kids, summer camp, and fundraising events, like the Monte Carlo Night.

"That's coming up in March, and we really need volunteers who can get flyers out, make calls to people to purchase tickets, help with the set-up, and actually work the event." She paused a little here, obviously hopeful that I'd jump on this chance to expend my volunteer energies at a gambling night for wealthy donors. Not a chance.

"Well, I'm a little more interested in the Spanish program at St. Bernard's"

"Oh, yes, with your interest in other languages and all," she recovered quickly, something I believe she is used to doing. "You know, at The Visitation of Mary, what used to be St. Martha's on Tallmadge Avenue, Father Joe works with a group of, now I don't know if this is the right word for them, but I'm going to call them Asians, who need a little more outreach to get the services they need..."

This perks up my attention a bit. "I worked with Gary and Patricia Wyatt a little bit at the North Hill Community Center up there; I believe most of the Asians in that neighborhood or Karen, an ethnic minority from Burma."

Mary is surprised and quite delighted by my input. She takes notes, says she will contact Gary and Patricia, and she will find out if Father Joe needs any help. She will also talk to Zooey, to see if I can "help watch the children while she works with the mothers" at St. Bernard'S. That's not quite what I had in mind, but I'll let it go for now.

We move on to the background check. Across the hall, in a room marked "Administrative offices" that opens to another corridor lined with cubicles, we both sit at a small metal desk. Mary taps a password into the computer, gets it wrong and has to check it twice before getting it right on the third try. I read a paper she hands me, listing lots of nefarious criminal activity (everything from murder and forced prostitution to mail fraud) that I must attest to never having been convicted of. I attest to my non-criminal status. Then we need some fingerprints.

A small plastic box, about the size of a credit card machine, stands on the desk, blinking a green, phosphorous light. The top is clear plastic, with small outlines of characterless hands on it. Mary specifies that my fingers must be inside the red box on the computer screen, but not too high inside it, and that she must press on my fingers for the image to register. I get a green check-mark on my right fingers on the first try. This delights Mary. The left hand takes two tries; the thumbs are perfect right away. Inside,I hope this doesn't make it seem like I'm some kind of pro at getting finger-printed.

"Well, you win the prize today!" Mary exclaims. "Others have taken a half hour or more to get this right!" We both laugh.

Back out in the hallway, we shake hands and agree to speak again next week. In the meantime, Mary will investigate the two immigrant-related programs for me, and I will decide which program I would like to try first. 

Downstairs, I sign out on the clipboard at the glassed-in reception desk and bid a good-day to the kind gray-haired lady.

As I get into my car and start the engine, a man in a leather cowboy hat and thick gray mustache is wheeling a cart full of equipment from his van toward the entryway: long, flat rectangle of a keyboard case, small amplifier, folded black metal stand. Looks like the seniors are getting a musical afternoon!