Friday, December 20, 2002
Pre-Mediation Early morning: sky is
Pre-Mediation
Early morning: sky is black, a full moon hovers in the trees, the street still wet - nocturnal rain - and I am standing in a suit and tie, my whiskers newly trimmed, my overcoat enveloping a question that has twisted me… I’m waiting for a ride to Oakland, wishing that I had some coffee - someone’s dropping off a dog to sniff and piss on rainslick sidewalks - trots right past me, knows I have no food to offer. I am cold and tired and hungry, but look so serious and businesslike.
My ride arrives are we are off to mediate an MOU: four hundred fifty worker bees have chosen me and my eight colleagues, twenty times we’ve met so far and now the offer’s on the table: Nothing, plus ‘we’ll talk more later’ - one scant page of paid conclusions offered up to justify the revocation of a promise that we fought for hard last year… So now we got a mediator; now I wonder what she’ll bring us…
Up at 20,000 feet the plane has circled daybreak city; I can see the hills and spires, watch my block go gliding past; the bridges, parks, the foaming surf… until we leave it all behind and dawn rose-paints the pendent engines; clouds confined to rugged chasms…
None of us have any notion what we’re likely to accomplish, toting all our ammunition (Elkhorn Slough unfurls below me). Mediator like a bubbeh - granny with a riding crop - Don’t fool yourself she’s not yer buddy (snow has capped the coastal ranges).... We don’t know if they’ll present the evidence of empty coffers, risk predictions, actuarials, and if they don’t what happens next? It’s hard to work so long for nothing. I don’t want to have been lied to; but Better that than truth and empty hands and pockets.
That’s my hope for mediation: someone who can tell us plainly “take the box” or “take the curtain” - even though it’s not a game show (Morro Rock and Bay awaken down below my cozy elbow)... nothing left for now but to put best face forward, make our case and hope for progress. Now we’re starting to descend, sliding into hazy valleys, mediator waiting for us. Seems unlikely we’ll have much to say to her but maybe equities will be persuasive - we’re just mushrooms - wish me luck - we’re going down - to mediate
