My Administrator Offered Me A Confession With One Empty Line

Felicity Cross put a pen beside my coffee and told me the police would appreciate a simple story.

"You removed twenty-four accessible-learning tablets," she said. "We can discuss motive after you acknowledge the loss."

Through the glass wall, I could see my embosser standing quiet. We had been making a sixth-grade science book. Page eighty-three still hung over the catch tray.

"I packed them for the courier," I said. "You told me where they went."

She turned the pen so its point faced me.

"That response creates a second concern."

I was forty-four, a Japanese American man with straight black hair going gray above my ears, square glasses, and broad hands stained with blue transfer ink.

My name was Hiroshi Endo. I worked as a braille textbook embosser for Morrow Bend, a small school district with a production room on the south side of Columbus, Ohio. My job ran on a yearly contract. My union dues came out every other Friday.

People heard "contract" and thought I could be folded up and put away.

I had worked there eleven years.

Felicity was fifty-one, a white woman with a smooth blond bob, pale gray eyes, and cream jackets that never seemed to wrinkle.

She had become our administrator in August. By November, she had renamed the supply closet a resource control point and required a form for taking home a used cardboard box.

"This is an opportunity for corrective cooperation," she said.

The paper in front of me said VOLUNTARY EMPLOYEE STATEMENT.

Below that, someone had typed: I removed district equipment without permission.

Only the line for my signature was empty.

I studied that space.

In braille, a blank cell mattered. Without it, two good words could become one bad word. I proofread with my eyes closed, moving my fingers across the raised dots, because my eyes tried to forgive spacing errors.

My fingers did not.

"Where are the transport records?" I asked.

"The inventory system shows the devices missing."

"That wasn't my question."

She sat back.

On the other side of the glass, a custodian rolled past with a yellow bucket. He looked at me, then at the floor.

"Hiroshi, you're a skilled production worker. Don't turn this into something beyond your understanding."

The tablets had speech software, large print settings, and ports for refreshable braille displays. They had come to us while classroom cabinets were replaced. Each cost $1,275. Twenty-four meant $30,600.

I had counted them three times, in three loads of eight.

Felicity had stood in my doorway each time.

"Bay Six," she had said. "Same courier. Mark them for disposal review."

I had asked for her signature before closing each carton.

She had laughed the third time.

"You really do need everything spelled out."

I made books out of dots. I had let that pass.

Now she placed a second sheet on the table. It listed repayment choices. A payroll deduction of $425 a month appeared beside a small square.

"A voluntary agreement may prevent outside referral," she said.

"I want Winston Bellamy here."

Her mouth tightened.

"This is a preliminary conversation."

"Then we can pause it."

I took my hands off the table so she could not push the pen under them.

She called personnel. She described me as unwilling to assist. I listened while a truck backed toward our loading dock. Its warning beeps came through the wall in slow, even bursts.

Winston answered my call from a tire shop on Parsons Avenue.

"Did you sign anything?" he asked.

"No."

"Keep enjoying that choice. I'll be there."

He was fifty-nine, a Black man who had been our union representative longer than Felicity had worked for the district. His voice moved like a porch swing. I had heard him use that same easy voice while making a payroll director issue eleven corrected checks.

Felicity gathered the papers.

"You were instructed to clear obsolete shipping material last Friday," she said. "I trust you followed that direction."

There it was. She meant the courier forms.

I had cleared empty cartons. I had kept the records.

My contract had an annex about transport work. It required three years of nonstudent delivery records. The district allowed us to keep our duplicate copies with our home contract files.

Mine sat in a green accordion folder beside my utility bills. Three blue manifests. Three dates. Her signatures pressed hard enough to dent the sheets below.

"I followed the retention rule," I said.

She stopped stacking the papers.

Outside, the door buzzer sounded.

Winston had arrived, and Felicity was still holding the unsigned confession.