I’ll never forget the day my boss informed me that he was giving me a raise on one condition: That I never report him to Human Resources for sexual harassment. We were sitting at the table in his office with his boss who looked at the paper with my new salary and said. “That’s not enough. She needs at least 10k more.”

“Won’t that look suspicious? Sharon’s bound to . . .”

“F**k it.” El Supreme Leader Victor said. “Give her 20k more! Let Sharon think what she wants! I can handle her!”

I have to point out at this point that my boss, whose name was Ilan, was the last man in that building any woman would ever accuse of sexual harassment . . . despite his attendance at any march in the SF Bay Area where scantily dressed (or downright naked) folks pranced boldly through the streets proclaiming their sexual perversions. He would take thousands of pictures which he couldn’t wait to share come the next Monday morning.

“Jan, look at these pictures I took at the Pride March!”

(I’m not really a prude but some of the pictures he was the most proud of . . . oh my.)

“Look at your face!”

“Those costumes look so . . . unhygienic.”

“You don’t like leather jockstraps? How about this guy? He’s wearing an edible jockstrap!”

“I just saw a mouse run out of your office with one of your cookies in his mouth.”

“They like the vanilla wafers.”

“Maybe we should call the exterminator.”

“Never!” What a beast I was for suggesting such a thing! A regular Bitch of Buchenwald! As a teenager he had been sent to Israel by his Polish parents to escape such monsters and now here I was! Working for him!

Generally at this point, the homeless man who’d made permanent residence under the one window in his office would rise and stretch and then whip out his penis and pee against the side of the building. Sometimes he’d hit the window and Ilan would giggle. The window faced a narrow green space between two buildings and was a prime location for folks to sleep it off in peace. To turn Ilan’s homeless guy into the police was unthinkable! Never! Who was I? The Gestapo?

That was back in the Nineties . . . and Ilan is gone now. No doubt surrounded by all the mice in Heaven. He’s drinking his Mr. Piss and sharing a loaf of bread and chunk of cheese with them. I can see it all now.

After I published my first book one of my ex-bosses said she was afraid I’d written about her. I didn’t know how to tell her she just wasn’t that interesting. But Ilan . . . well, I haven’t finished the Flipka sequel.