Moving Up, Part Five

In fictional Milwaukee, yesterday was a big day for Avery - he had to make his first personnel decisions, letting go of half his staff (with some ugliness to go along with it), and thus leaving himself with several positions to fill. Kate, meanwhile, found out that her grant proposal for her dissertation had been accepted, and so she and Avery decided to go out for a night on the town to celebrate.

*****

The next afternoon, Avery found himself walking down Wells St. from the Main Library to City Hall. He ran the idea of the Students-to-Work program by McGee, who liked the plan - "Sounds like your wife's the one with brains, hey?" were his exact words - and told him to talk to the Library Commissioner. At first, Avery figured he'd just call, but Tony convinced him that a face-to-face visit would probably be more effective. Though he hated to leave the department short-staffed, he figured that if he headed over right after lunch, he could be back before the late afternoon rush.

Arriving at City Hall, he negotiated his way around the construction work and scaffolding surrounding the exterior of the building and headed inside and up four flights of stairs to the Office of the Library Commissioner, Lionel Tate.

Inside of the Commissioner's office, Avery noticed several people seated in a small waiting area, including some he recognized as local newscasters. Others, judging from their notebooks and cell phones, he guessed were reporters from various newspapers. Trying hard to be inconspicuous, Avery walked up to the reception desk.

"Excuse me?"

"Yes?" the receptionist answered, a little to loud.

"I'm here to see Commissioner Tate."

"And which newspaper are you from?" she asked brusquely.

"I, um," Avery lowered his voice, "I'm not a reporter. I work at the Main Library, in the Restocking Department." His voice had reduced to a whisper by the end.

"Young man, you're going to have to speak up."

Avery turned to glance at the reporters. At least a couple of them had taken notice of him. "I'm the manager of the Restocking Department at the Main Branch," he said loud enough to be audible to everyone in the small waiting room.

"Oh, I see. You'll have to wait a moment. Mr. Tate will see you next."

Avery turned to sit down, but realized there were no seats. Instead, he found an unclaimed spot of wall to lean against. The man standing next to him eyed him suspiciously.

"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

"I, um ... I don't really think I have time now." Avery chided himself silently for not thinking of a better excuse. Time, of course, was something he had plenty of at the moment. And so for the next few minutes he stood next to the reporter, silently - too busy to speak.

"Young man!" the receptionist yelled. "Mr. Tate will see you now."

Avery headed into Tate's office as a reporter and cameraman from Channel 58 were heading out.

"Afternoon, Mr. ... um ..."

"Key."

"Key. Right. Of course." Tate shuffled some papers around on his desk. "McGee didn't mention that you were stopping by."

"He didn't?"

"No. We were just talking and he didn't mention it. I prefer to conduct most business over the phone, after all," Tate explained as he took a seat behind his desk.

Avery felt himself getting red in the face, embarrassed that he had disturbed Tate with a face-to-face meeting.

"Oh, of course. Um ... so I can't believe that there are still so many reporters covering the whole, uh, scandal." Avery winced a little at the sound of that last word.

"Yes, well ... CNN somehow picked up on the story and it's become national news. You'd think that with the election, this would have been forgotten."

"You'd think, wouldn't you?" Avery echoed.

Tate started looking at some papers impatiently. "Is there something I can do for you, Key?"

"Um, yes sir."

"And ... what would that be?"

"Well, my department, due to the recent incident, is severely short-staffed, and the idea occurred to me of using kids from the Students-to-Work program to help fill the gap. I think their youth and enthusiasm would be ..."

"Yeah, that sounds good. Do it."

"Um, excuse me?"

"I said it sounds like a good idea. Do it."

"Oh, I just figured that you'd want to hear more about ..."

"Boy, you really don't know much about me, do you? Where did McGee find you, anyway?"
Tate asked. Avery wasn't sure if it was a rhetorical question. "Look, kid - I agree that your idea is worth a shot. Try it out, and if it doesn't work, we'll switch to something else."

Chapter 3

"Do you ever get the sensation that you're living the same day over and over and over again?" Tony asked Avery.

"What?"

"Y'know, you wake up every morning to the same thing on the radio, the same weather, the same everything. And you just wanna get out of that loop so badly."

"Tony, what are you talking about? Are you saying things at work are boring?"

"Oh, Jeez, Ave! It's Groundhog Day!" Avery just stared at Tony. "Y'know, the movie? Groundhog Day? Bill Murray? Please tell me you get what I'm talking about."

"What? I don't ... oh! Oh, I get it!" Avery chucked. "That's, uh, that's funny."

"Jokes are a lot better if you don't have to explain them," Tony said, shaking his head.

"Look, sorry! That's a old movie. I didn't remember."

"Morning, gentlemen!" Harriet announced as she arrived. "Looks like another six weeks of winter!"

"Oh, bummer," Tony said. "Ave, if this keeps up, we're going to need to get more snow shovels to keep the dock clear."

"Well, I like the snow, personally," Harriet said. "It's so beautiful and peaceful."

"Yeah, well, then next time you can help us shovel all the beauty and peace," Tony joked.

Avery had now been the manager of the department for two and a half months, and things were beginning to get back into a good working order. The new barcode scanners were working very well, and Avery had invested some of the budget into much needed repairs and upgrades to the vans. There were still some funds remaining, and so he had Annabel looking into other potential technology upgrades. And Tony was taking automotive repair courses at the Milwaukee Area Technical College (a/k/a MATC) so that the department would have someone on hand to handle minor repairs on the van, rather than having to have the work done by outside companies.

As for personnel, Avery had so far hired four students from the Mayor's program - since they could each only work part-time, he was able to get them for the price of two regular full-time employees. So far, he didn't have any complaints. All four of the students were hard working and excited about the experience. The only downside was that two of them had already been excepted to colleges out-of-state, so Avery was already having to think about how to replace them. In addition, Avery had hired two full-time employees, Sebastian and Helen. Sebastian was an acquaintance of Avery's, who had coincidentally applied for the job. He was a refugee from Haiti, where he had worked as a clerk in a government ministry until the overthrow of President Aristide. He eventually ended up in Milwaukee in the mid-1990s, settling in Riverwest. Avery knew him from seeing each other at various events in the neighborhood. He fit right in at the library - he was very organized, and he was trilingual in French, English, and Spanish, which meant that he was able to participate in a lot of community outreach work in the Latino community.

Sebastian had suggested that Avery talk to a man named Henry Ferdinand, who was the editor of the Riverwest Beat, a free weekly community newspaper covering Riverwest and the Eastside. Sebastian had worked at the paper for a time, and thought that a partnership between the paper and the library would be beneficial for both. McGee liked the idea and told Avery to look into it, so this afternoon Avery and Sebastian were headed over to the Beat's office on Holton St. to talk to Ferdinand.

*****

"Great to see you Sebastian!" Ferdinand intoned enthusiastically, taking Sebastian's hand.

"Bonjour, mon ami!"

"And you must be Mr. Key."

"Indeed I am, but you can call me Avery. Good you meet you, Mr. Ferdinand." Avery reached out and shook Ferdinand's hand.

"Henry, please. This is an informal place of business, after all." Henry waved his hand around, gesturing at the hundreds of newspaper clippings posted in his office, which nearly composed newsprint wallpaper. Stacks of papers, some appearing to be rather old, sat around the room, and Henry's desk was a mess of post-its, pens, and discarded chewing gum wrappers. On the corner of the desk sat a dictaphone.

"No computer?" Avery asked.

"Naw, I'm a card-carrying Luddite. I type everything on Emilia here," Henry answered, pointing to a typewriter on a rickety stand in the corner. "Or I just dictate it and hand it off to one of the kids in the office."

"That was me when I first came to Milwaukee," Sebastian explained. Avery looked a little surprised. "Ninety words a minute," Sebastian said, smiling.

"So, to what do I owe the honor of your visit?" Henry asked.

"Well," Avery started, "as you're probably aware of, the Main Library's periodicals department keeps a number of small local papers in the collection. While we've been carrying the Beat regularly for about four years now, our back-issue collection is pretty spotty."

"You two boys came out here just to ask me about some back issues?"

"Well, my wife is a graduate student at UWM, so I've developed an appreciation for primary source materials, and I think it's important that we have as many issues of your paper as possible."

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I don't really have much of a back issue collection here - mostly just random issues now and again where we had extra copies at the end of the week."

"Oh, that's too bad. Hmm."

"But you're welcome to take whatever I do have lying around. As you've probably noticed, my archiving skills are a bit lacking."

"Some things never change, non?" Sebastian added.

Avery surveyed the piles of papers. "Well, if you don't mind, we certainly have room in the van for these papers - we could take them today."

"Sure, sure. Help yourself."

Avery walked over to one of the nearest piles. The issue on top was dated August 4th, 1990. The lead story read HOLTON STREET FEST A SUCCESS, and featured a large photo of a jubilant crowd lining Holton, watching a parade of floats. "In Milwaukee, the city of festivals, even a neighborhood block party is a massive undertaking," the article began.

"Boy, I don't even remember there being a Holton Street Festival."

"That's probably because there hasn't been one in, oh, 7 or 8 years now," Henry explained.

"Really? That's a shame."

"Well, with Summerfest and State Fair and all the Ethnic festivals, there really wasn't much call after a while for another neighborhood festival. Plus, several of the shops on Holton that had played a big part in the celebration closed."

"Like which?"

"Oh, Houlihan's used to run the beer tent. And the sporting goods store provided equipment for the Father-and-Son softball game."

"And don't forget Ma Cherie!" Sebastian added. "They had the best French pastries. To die for."

"Yeah, but Ma Cherie eventually went out of business, and Ken Houlihan retired to Florida. People just sorta lost interest," Henry continued.

"What do you think it would take to get something like that up and running again?" Avery asked.

"Sponsors, for one. And vendors, for another," Henry answered. "Why, do you have an idea?"

"Well, not really." Avery was thinking. "Well ... well maybe." Avery turned his attention back to the pile of newspapers. "We really should be getting these back to the library, so that we can start sorting through them."

"Excellent. Just get in touch with me if you have any ideas about the festival."

"Sure thing."

Avery and Sebastian each grabbed a large stack of papers and headed out to the van.

*****

"Kate?"

"I'm in the bathroom!" she answered, her voice muffled. Avery walked into the kitchen and dropped his keys on the counter as Kate emerged dressed in a bathrobe. Her hair was still wet from her shower.

"How was your day?"

"Ugh, not so good," Kate grunted.

"Sounds like it."

"I was working all morning and afternoon trying to reconcile deployment figured from different sources, and they just weren't adding up. Finally, I realized that it was a quarter past five and I hadn't even gotten dressed or showered yet."

"You feel better now?"

"Yeah, a nice hot shower can be so refreshing."

Avery leaned forward and kissed her. "Hey, you know that free local paper?"

"Yeah, the Riverwest Beat, right?"

"Right. I met the editor today - Henry Ferdinand. He's a real friendly guy."

"How'd you meet him?"

"Oh, we had to go by their offices to get some back issues for the library's collection."

"Oh, excellent. Those are great research materials."

Avery smiled. "Oh, I know you so well."

"What?" Kate asked, half-defensively.

"Nothing." Avery was still smiling. "Anyway, we got to talking about the now-defunct Holton Street Festival."

"I didn't even know that existed."

"Yeah, it was apparently big for a while. Anyway, I'm thinking that we could restart it."

"Excuse me?"

"I think we could get it restarted. With a couple sponsors and some vendors, the whole thing could be a success, I think. I mean, it doesn't have to be a huge deal - just something for folks in the neighborhood."

"Okay, but who do you expect to pony up cash for something like that?"

"Well, I was thinking - that attorney you got to help Harriet, he works at one of the big firms, hey?"

"Yeah - Carver, Briggs & Henderson."

"Well, I'm sure the firm gives money to local groups, right?"

"Yeah, probably."

"Well, maybe you can see if he could help out."

"Okay, but don't you need permits and stuff for a street fair?"

"Well, sure. But I've got plenty of contacts in City Hall - I'm sure I could get something like this approved."

"I suppose." Kate paused.

"What?"

"Well ... I don't know. You really think this could work?"

"Sure it could! I mean, if we start canvassing the neighborhood, talking to some of the business people and such, I'm sure we could get this thing off the ground. And Henry would certainly promote it, I'd think."

"Hmm ... look at you. From bookmobile driver to festival promoter in just three short months."

Avery laughed.