Genie was another unusual person I met along the way. I first met her when I worked for a large corporation in Kansas City. She was one of those blue collar people you didn’t think much about, maybe because she was a janitor - diminutive, soft spoken, unpretentious, and possessing those big puppy eyes you see so frequently in greeting cards. Her second shift work assignment was tidying up break areas around the plant. It was a comfortable job nearing union wages, plus, she received the 10% night differential. I didn’t know it at the time, but Genie was also a risk taker.
I remember her being unusually religious and infatuated with Reverend Ike whose admonitions always kept his flock bountifully supplied with red prayer cloths. One night she revealed her new and improved model which was larger, of course, than the one she always wore next to her bosom. She told me with childlike faith that Reverend Ike promised that the bigger the prayer cloth the more certain her prayers would be answered. As time went on I sometimes wondered what she prayed for. With Genie you never knew where she was coming from.
One night as I entered a corporate (everything seemed to be named corporate) break area, Genie stood in front of me with an unusually big grin on her face looking up at me with those big puppy eyes of hers. Not only was she standing on broken glass, but she was doing it barefoot. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she was up to. Shortly, someone connected the dots and told management about the strange event that revealed her darker side. It should have been apparent long before that because on another occasion, as she fiddled with her keys in her purse, the gun she always carried went off blowing a hole through the top of the passenger elevator. She was forgiven for that small infraction, but dodging the bullet on a probable disability lawsuit prompted management to Affirmative Action her out of janitorial services.
With a predictability like that of the rising sun Genie got a new job, this time in security. (We all got a big laugh out of that.) I saw her again about a year later on her way to work in downtown Kansas City and I asked her, “What’s up?” She said she was doing fine in her new job, but right now she was on her way to catch a bus in order to fall off and break her leg. Yes, it was the same unassuming and incorrigible old Genie who always worked two jobs: the first being merely to mark time and the second one scamming the big boys for real bucks.
I never found out how much she took the Area Transportation Authority for. Perhaps she was just kidding, but with her, like I said, you never knew. The only thing I remember is that Genie always came out on top and I never met a criminal so honest about what she did or scammed to do. Perhaps it was her religious training. Reverend Ike would be proud.
