Gately becomes Ennet House live-in Staff; the iron rule never to run

pivotal · YDAU

• When: after graduating his nine-month treatment; "on live-in Staff here four months now" as of ~Nov YDAU
• What: After graduating treatment Gately took the live-in Staffer's job at Ennet House, sleeping in the Staff cellar bedroom ("oubliette") by the pay phone and tonic machine. Duties: Dream Duty (all-night front-office shifts), head-counts and the Daily Log, dispensing meds, Chore-patrol/Restrictions, Intake/Orientation of new residents, monitoring the psych-fragile (Kate Gompert), keeping order, and fielding informal resident "interface moments" — arrangements that are "all for Insurance Reasons, the Staff sheet on which Gately doesn't understand all the language of, and fears" (n251 pp. 1045-1046; of a piece with the n091 vocabulary limits). His intimidating size was "one of the major factors" in a male alumnus getting the live-in job; he's respected and well-liked by nearly all residents, which the House Manager flags as a concern. He has made it "an iron point never again ever to run, once he got straight." Watching the catatonic woman from Unit #5 touch the silver maple, he feels "an odd chilled empathy he tries not to associate with watching his mother pass out."