Eric Rosenblatt

The Bureaucrat of Last Resort Eric Rosenblatt

Richard Gillies is a brilliant technocrat in a Lower East Side Welfare office, manipulating a broken bureaucracy and crude computer system to keep at least a few sad and hurting claimants going. But Richard is coming to the breaking point himself, helplessly pining for warm, zaftig co-worker Marilyn. One night, to his shame, Richard approaches an oddly alluring and shy street-prostitute, only to recognize a lovely but deeply disturbed woman he had been unable to help at the office. The woman is more upset at the encounter than Richard, and experiences a seizure. In his efforts to find help, he confronts the charismatic "General," who commands a homeless community in an abandoned subway station. But the General turns the tables on Richard. He had been to Richard's office and seen his command of that terrain. He insists Richard must now decide what he thinks is more important, Christina's life or a bunch of empty bureaucratic rules he is surely clever enough to break. Pity defeats fear and Richard tricks the system into helping Christina. It's the first thing that has felt good in a long while. Even Marilyn notices the difference in him. Now, can he stop playing Robin Hood?