The Case of the Secret Handshake

COLD OPEN

CONNIE (V.O.)I never once dialed a wrong number.

Six weeks of that, and I still can't tell you who I was talking to.

— music sting —

ANNOUNCERWelcome to Adverse Events. Transcribed stories from the case files of Dr. Tracy Grant, who writes the protocol, and Connie Chase, who makes it all happen.

ANNOUNCERThe story you are about to hear is fiction. Any resemblance to your last study is purely coincidental and entirely predictable.

ANNOUNCERThe Case of the Secret Handshake.

SCENE ONE — THE CALL SHEET

a handset dropped into its cradle · a pencil · a page turned in a ring binder

CONNIE (V.O.)The FULCRUM trial. Seventy-two men and women across four worksites, twelve weeks, and a lifting program that was supposed to keep them off the restricted-duty list.

My part is Tuesdays. Four questions, six minutes, one at a time, seventy-two times. How's the back. How many days did you sit out. Are you doing the exercises. Anything new since last week.

the binder again

Six weeks in and I have not missed a soul. That's not bragging, that's the job. You want to know what I'm good at, that's it. I get people on the phone.

Halfway is when we do the mid-study review, which means halfway is when I sit down with every sheet I have got and square the whole thing against the schedule. It's Wednesday work and nobody has ever once thanked me for it.

a pencil set down

Ray works out at the Kirkwood plant. Week of the fifteenth, Ray had his appendix out. He told me so himself the Tuesday before, and I wrote it on the sheet, because that's the kind of thing you write down.

a page

Here it is. Week of the fifteenth.

Ray gave me four answers in six minutes?

Ray told me his back was fine, on the telephone, while he was under the knife in Belleville?

— music bridge, four bars, then under —

SCENE TWO — THE THINGS YOU CHECK FIRST

a drawer · hanging folders · one file out and open

CONNIE (V.O.)Now, I've been doing this nineteen years and the first thing you do is assume it's you.

So I pulled my own sheet. Week of the fifteenth, my handwriting, four answers, six minutes. I was on that telephone. And I do not remember one single thing about it, which is a feeling I don't care to have again.

a page

Then I figured he called from the hospital. People do that. People call me from worse places than that.

But question two is how many days did you sit out.

And the answer on my sheet is none.

the folder closed

A man four days off an appendix does not say none. A man four days off an appendix wants to tell you about it.

a handset lifted · a number dialed · ring, click

RECORDED VOICEYou have reached the Health Sciences telephone directory. Departments are listed alphabetically. Departments that have been renamed are listed alphabetically under the name they had before. This has been brought to our attention. It continues to be brought to our attention.

the handset down

CONNIE (V.O.)So I quit being clever and went and got the consent forms.

a box · a lid · paper

Kirkwood plant. Three men enrolled, because three men signed up the day we came out there with the folding table.

Walter. Dennis. Ray.

three pages, one after another

Three names. Three signatures. Three dates.

One phone number.

— music bridge, two bars —

SCENE THREE — THE OFFICE, LATE

a door · a chair dragged over · a cup set down

CONNIEThey're doing a picture of the whole department for the brochure. Thursday, ten o'clock, on the steps.

TRACYI'm aware.

CONNIEThey want us to look like we're discovering something.

CONNIEI told them I'd stand in the back. I've learned. After the Halloran business they ran my name under a man from Facilities and printed six thousand of 'em.

TRACYOkay. What do you need.

CONNIEKirkwood. Three men on one telephone, and one of 'em answered four questions from a hospital bed forty miles away.

TRACYHe didn't.

CONNIEHe did not. That's my point.

a cup set down

TRACYThen you have an underreporting problem, and it's a worse one than you think.

CONNIEGo on.

TRACYIt's a worksite, Connie. If a man says his back hurts where his supervisor can hear him, he goes on light duty, and light duty is less money. So he doesn't say it. Occupational self-report is the softest data in the field and it is soft in exactly one direction.

CONNIESo they've been shading it.

TRACYEvery week of it so far, most likely. Which means your effect is real and your numbers are flat, and I would rather have almost any other problem.

a beat

CONNIESelf-report. That's assuming the self shows up.

TRACYI'm sorry?

CONNIEWhen a man's on that phone. Who else is standing there.

a chair back · a door

TRACYThat is not the point I was making.

CONNIE (V.O.)No. It was better than the point she was making.

— music bridge, two bars —

SCENE FOUR — THE SHOP OFFICE

a press coming down, and coming down again · a handset lifted off a wall bracket

FOREMANShop.

CONNIEAfternoon. I'm calling for a Mr. Mee.

FOREMANYou're calling for you.

CONNIEFor Mee.

FOREMANThat's what I said.

CONNIEM, double E. It's his name.

FOREMANOh. Mee. He's not on the floor.

CONNIEThen who is?

FOREMANYew.

CONNIEMe.

FOREMANYew.

CONNIESir, I'm in an office three miles from here.

FOREMANY, E, W. Like the tree.

CONNIEThen let me talk to Yew.

FOREMANYou're talking to me.

CONNIENot you. Yew!

FOREMANThat's what I said.

the press again

CONNIELet's try first names. I have a Walter and a Dennis.

FOREMANWe call 'em both Junior.

CONNIEBoth of them.

CONNIEWhat about Raymond Auer.

FOREMANAuer's on his break.

CONNIEHow long's he got?

FOREMANAn hour.

CONNIEAuer?

FOREMANThat's what I said.

CONNIESir. Is there another number here. A line that reaches one man.

FOREMANThere's this one.

CONNIEFine. I'll leave word.

FOREMANWhat's it regarding?

CONNIEI'm not able to say.

FOREMANThen what do I tell him.

CONNIEThat Connie called.

FOREMANWhich one am I telling?

CONNIEAll three.

FOREMANTell all three of 'em a woman called and wouldn't say why.

CONNIEYes.

FOREMANThey'll be thrilled.

CONNIEAnd when Mee comes back—

FOREMANWhen you come back where?

CONNIEWhen Walter comes back!

FOREMANJunior.

CONNIEWhen Junior comes back!

FOREMANWhich Junior.

CONNIEThe one that isn't Yew!

FOREMANThen you want Mee.

CONNIEI don't want me! I want—

I don't even know what I'm talking about.

a long beat, and the press

CONNIESir. Put on whoever is standing closest to you.

FOREMANSure.

a hand over the mouthpiece · a shout across the floor · boots, coming

CONNIEBefore he gets here. One thing.

CONNIETuesday afternoon, around four. Somebody on this phone answered four questions for me.

FOREMANOkay.

CONNIEWhich one of them was it?

the press, and nothing else

FOREMANWhoever picked up.

the boots arriving · the handset changing hands

MANHello?

CONNIESir, who am I speaking with?

MANJunior.

— music bridge, two bars —

SCENE FIVE — THE FOLDING TABLE

a car door · gravel · a plant whistle a long way off

CONNIE (V.O.)Nineteen years I have done this job on a telephone. Only time I ever needed to be in the room was to get a signature.

Thursday morning I got in the car.

a folding table set down on concrete · a shift whistle, close

Same table we signed 'em up on, out by the loading door. I laid the sheets in front of me and I started going week by week.

boots on concrete · a chair taking weight

WALTERYou're the one that calls.

CONNIEI'm the one that calls.

WALTERYou're here about the fifteenth.

CONNIEWhy the fifteenth?

WALTERRained all day. Ray was laid up in Belleville, and that phone rang and rang.

CONNIESo you picked it up.

WALTERSomebody had to. Was that wrong?

CONNIENo, sir. It wasn't wrong.

It just wasn't Ray.

a pen

CONNIE (V.O.)That's the whole method. Men remember Tuesdays.

I sat out there till the four o'clock whistle and I got every one of 'em.

paper squared up on the table

Eighteen Tuesdays have come out of Kirkwood so far. Three men, six weeks apiece.

Five of 'em had gone home under the wrong name. Not thrown out. Not made up. Just filed under a fella who wasn't there.

Now, I can't give Ray back the week they took his appendix. That week is gone and it is going to stay gone.

What I can do is say so. Five rows that looked like answers, and now five rows that say nobody was home, in my handwriting, with the reason beside it.

a folding table going down · a car door · the whistle, further off

Then I sat in that lot with the engine off and did the arithmetic I'd been putting off all week.

It wasn't just any five.

A man gets his week answered for him when he isn't at his station. And a man isn't at his station when his back has gone out on him.

Which means those five holes in my sheet are five weeks the study was asking about.

— music bridge, two bars —

SCENE SIX — THE WORD

a ring binder opened flat

CONNIE (V.O.)Here's what we do now, and it took me about four minutes to come up with, and I'm not going to stand here and pretend otherwise.

A person picks a word. Any word they like. Kirkwood picked theirs at that folding table before I put it back in the trunk, and it took me the rest of that week in the car to get the other three sites, and I would do it again tomorrow. From here on out nobody signs a form in front of me and gets up out of the chair without one.

I write it on the sheet, and there is exactly one sheet, and it lives in my drawer.

And the first thing I say on a Tuesday isn't how's the back. It's give me your word.

They don't give me a name. Anybody can give you a name.

a page

Ray picked Belleville, on account of that's where they took his appendix, and he thinks that is the funniest thing anybody has ever done. Walter picked Buttercup and will not tell me why.

a page turned

Week seven. Kirkwood.

a handset lifted · a number dialed · ring, click

a press coming down, somewhere behind it

FOREMANShop.

CONNIEAfternoon. Whoever's closest is fine.

FOREMANAll right.

a hand over the mouthpiece · a shout · boots, coming · the handset changing hands

MANHello?

CONNIEGive me your word.

MANButtercup.

CONNIEHello, Walter.

a pencil

CONNIE (V.O.)Seventy-two people signed that form and I have got seventy-two words, and I have never once had to look one up.

A consent form is a handshake with a person.

For six weeks I'd been shaking hands with a wall.

But now I've got six more weeks to get it right.

— music —

ANNOUNCERThis has been The Case of the Secret Handshake.

SIGN-OFF

— music up —

ANNOUNCERDr. —— appeared as the Voice of the Health Sciences Telephone Directory.

ANNOUNCERWith thanks to Abbott and Costello, whose radio and television shows ran from 1942 to 1954.

ANNOUNCERAdverse Events is brought to you by Software for Research. For those who love discovery more than data entry.

ANNOUNCERAnd even though the human subjects office cannot confirm it is actually us whenever they hear us say it: this is Adverse Events.

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