Tilman's Failing

"We gon haf ta git dat man t'chuch, Mister Mike!" Mr. Tilman confided to me, speaking of our boss, Greg. We were waiting outside his office door to have a meeting. Invariably, it was about money. Tilman knew he ran the Austin route quicker and better than any of our other drivers, and, in his eyes, it gave him some negotiating leverage.

In my cynical mind, however, it was a superstitious comment. Guys like Tilman don't have a deep faith--they like to talk about it when it's convenient, thinking it makes a good impression with some people, and I suppose it does. But let something go wrong and these are the same people who rip out a string of profanities, dark words rolling off their tongue like a native language. But, like my Sunday school teacher once said: "Point a finger at someone else, you have four pointing back at you." This was the same Sunday School teacher who used racial slurs so offensive I can't bring myself to repeat them, even as a direct quote. I was aware that I could be projecting a little of my own hypocrisy on my judgement of other people.

In my eyes, though, Tilman was no different--he always seemed to be working an angle. On the road he was productive and quick. He startled me one time when I was riding down to Austin with another driver. He drove up behind us with 70,000 pounds of truck, trailer, and mail, and blasted the air horn loudly, waving as he rocketed past us on the right at 75 mph, making me feel as though we were standing still. In the warehouse, he was gossipy and often acted like a primma donna--complaining about every little deficiency in equipment that came along, and threatening to delay a delivery until things were put just right. Although he only worked for us a short time, his age gave him natural respect among the other drivers, which he openly enjoyed.

We had come to the conclusion that he was completely illiterate. His application had his name spelled "Tilman", but his driver's license read "Tillmon". When we asked him about the correct spelling for payroll purposes, he responsed "It don't matter--whichever one you want." And when all his paperwork came back in different handwriting, we learned that he was sweet-talking the receiving clerks into filling it out for him--I didn't object to it, and in fact marvelled that he had been able to get by his entire life. Compensating for this problem must have been one of the things that contributed to his overall amiability.

We had somehow all come to call him "Mr. Tilman". I think the person that started it was the manager who ran the training class. Tilman ran a long-haul load for us, so, unlike local drivers who were in and out of the office all day, we would just see Tilman once in a while. By the time Greg started calling him "Mr.Tilman", he had been working for us for a month, and the show of respect stuck during his short tenure with us. In racially-charged Texas, there was also another interpretation possible: In the old days of slavery, and even for a long time afterward, blacks were made to call the bosses "Mister", and never by their first name. Given his race and extremely poor economic state, some of the managers intended the name to be an ironic mockery. Greg would alternate between using the name as a sign of respect and mockery, depending on who was around.

When we came in, Greg greeted him "Hello Mister Tilman, come on in here."

Tilman was clearly uncomfortable sitting in the boss's office. Papers lined the desk, and, even though it was winter, the air conditioning was going full blast. It must have been forty degrees in there, but Tilman was sweating.

"I don want to bother you very long, Mister Greg, but I need to talk to you 'bout Austin."

"How are things going on that route?"

"They goin' great...now, anyways"

Greg smiled. Tilman's taking over the 200-mile route had stabilized our delivery schedule. Prior to his hiring, we had run four or five men on that route, but none of them had worked out. Tilman knew the history.

"Way I see it, these last three months nobody had to worry 'bout nothin' on dat route. I figgered is 'bout time you jus' put me in charge permanent; maybe give me a little mo jus' to handle the whole thing myself!"

"Mister Tilman, we're already paying you a flat rate for handling those deliveries. It's a fair amount, especially since you don't have to do any lifting or work outside. You drive our newest truck--it seems like we've done everything to treat you right."

"Well, like you say 'It's a fair amount', but wouldn't it jus' be right to pay a real good amount for somebody doin' a good job, instead of just a 'fair' amount."

I had to stifle a laugh and wonder if Tilman had misunderstood Greg or was skillfully turning his own words against him. I wasn't sure if I was ready to give him credit for being that quick. But Greg wasn't amused--he didn't like being confronted, especially about money.

"Listen here, Mr. Tilman, how many places you gonna go work that are go around calling you 'Mister'? Now, I think that's great, and I wonder if you appreciate what you've got here. Sure, you do a good job, but there are a lot of guys standing in line to do the same thing. If you want to make more money, maybe we could put you on a route that generates more--like hand-unloading in the summer heat!"

I could read on Tilman's face that he realized that he wasn't going to get anywhere with Greg today, and that he had fully expected to get an increase. I was also privy to the fact that we had closed a very lucrative contract extension on the Austin route, and that there was room for a little more salary--even a few dollars a week would make a difference to Tilman. Looking from him to Greg, I had to wonder what the effects of giving him a little more money would be--Tilman would inevitably brag to the other drivers, and we would have a line outside the door of guys demanding raises. It was difficult to know what to do.

When Tilman left, I heard him mutter "Les jus' see him drive da goddam truck and see how he likes it on da road every day!"

And I remembered how, just minutes earlier, he had been concerned for the boss's eternal soul and was imploring me to drag him to church.

People of faith can look at this story and see a sincere person who is frustrated and has a momentary failing. Cynics see a hypocrite exposed once his convenient mask isn't helpful to his cause. Sometimes it seems like anyone who tries to live by religious convictions is just set up to fail, because inevitably they will, to the knowing nods of some who use such examples to justify their own position of agnosticism. Seeing cases like this in myself and others keeps me very humble about my faith.