On the Way to the Edge

Back in the days before news took more serious turns, we had a lot of fun writing about Welfare Cheats.

These were people who, through various clever ploys, managed to screw the government out of extra bucks in order to survive without working, which was then and continues to be the essence of the American Dream.

One woman, for instance, listed her eight birds as human child dependents, as children were known then, and collected money for their support and well-being.

She said she did it because both she and the birds were hungry. I recall the cop who arrested her saying, “She should have eaten the birds.” Indeed.

I mention this today because I have personal information regarding a new type of potential felon, a leech on the public dole. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I bring you the Disability Cheat.

You’re looking at him.

Well, I’m not a cheat exactly but I began feeling like one when I received a letter from the Disability Insurance Office of the State Employment Development Department on Form DE 1447D Rev. 3 (5-87).

To refresh your memory, I have been dealing with the state due to heart surgery, which put me on disability for six weeks. Because of confusion on everyone’s part, it took forever to get my money. But when I did, I thought that was the end. Then I got Form DE 1447D Rev. 3 (5-87).

I knew it was serious because it was addressed to ALFRED MARTINEZ, which is my official name. Hardly anyone calls me ALFRED, especially in caps. When I was ordered to active duty in the Marine Corps, the notice was addressed to PVT. ALFRED (NONE) MARTINEZ, because I have no middle name.

It sent me off to war.

The state letter on Form DE 1447D Rev. 3 (5-87) was equally chilling. NOTICE OF POTENTIAL OVERPAYMENT, it said across the top. I scanned it and one segment said: “fraud, misrepresentation and willful non-disclosure.”

Gulp.

“The Department has the following information: YOU INCORRECTLY REPORTED THE LAST DAY OF WORK PRIOR TO YOUR DISABILITY.”

The letter said I was paid $144 to which I was not entitled because I declared my last day of work two days early.

WHAT THE HELL KIND OF DOG-SCUM WOULD DO THAT?

It was up to me to prove I had not committed fraud, had not misrepresented my length of disability and had not willfully hidden information from the STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

I hadn’t felt so intimidated since the days of ALFRED (NONE) MARTINEZ. Life can become hell for those terminally entangled in bureaucratic red tape.

Over the years I have written about people who made errors in OFFICIAL FORMS and were hounded for years until they cracked. One man committed suicide. It was on Cinco de Mayo. He strung himself up like a pinata.

A woman I know is fighting a hospital bureaucracy. Her father died recently of a stroke. They billed her for his speech therapy on the afternoon he died. She is refusing to pay that portion of the bill on the grounds that his time of death preceded his time of therapy.

“What the hell do they do there,” she demanded, “give speech therapy to the dead?”

Logic doesn’t matter when one is trapped in a system. THE SYSTEM ALWAYS WINS. And now the system is after me.

“This could lead to prison,” I said to my wife, Cinelli. “Me and Charles Keating.”

“He got away with millions,” she said. “You only got $144. You’ll have to work on that.”

My usual tendency is to let things go, but I recently saw “Cape Fear.” I have visions of a tattooed Robert De Niro coming after me in a cell, drooling.

But then, thank God, I found the forms and letters I had filed for state disability. I had not violated Section 2101 of the CALIFORNIA UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE CODE. In fact, I hadn’t even made an error. My cardiologist had.

He had simply assumed I took off work when he told me I needed bypass surgery. He had not realized I would continue laboring for two more days like a piano player in a whorehouse.

I telephoned the state, I mean THE STATE. A lady punched up my case number on her computer. “ALFRED MARTINEZ?” she said. She was speaking in capital letters.

I explained the whole thing, expecting the worse. “It’s no big deal,” she finally said, softening to lower case. “Just send us back the $144.”

That’s it? No administrative hearing, no jail time?

“Just send back the money and have a happy new year.”

I mailed the $144 with a letter explaining the situation again. I am hoping for the best. But I’ll never go to prison. I’d rather go back into the Marines. There’s always a place for old ALFRED (NONE) MARTINEZ in the Corps.