Step Right Up, Ladies And Gents, And Meet A Lout

Payday came and Tor Mason didn’t get a check. The wolves were howling at his door.

Spokane, however, is not an uncaring place.

County workers, led by Commissioner Steve Hasson, rushed to unplug the sluggish bureaucracy and get the Interstate Fair ticket-taker paid.

And that should have been that.

This was going to be a happy, feel-good column with a warm, fuzzy ending.

It’s not, because Mason turned out to be one of those self-centered ingrates who proves that some people aren’t worth helping.

Mason, 35, gobbled up everyone’s good will. Then he spit it right back in our faces.

He got his delinquent paycheck. He also took off with $250 that his boss at the fairgrounds loaned him earlier out of pity.

When I reached Mason by telephone, he admitted he owed the money. He vowed to pay it back the very next day. He even called his boss and made an appointment.

Mason never showed. That was a couple of weeks ago. He no longer returns my telephone calls.

“Looks like I’m the big loser in this one,” says Jim Cotter glumly.

Cotter is the fairgrounds manager. Hearing Mason’s hard luck tale, he stuck his neck out about a yard.

He loaned the man $110 out of petty cash - something he probably shouldn’t have done - and another $140 out of his own pocket.

Mason took tickets during the September fair. He didn’t get his paycheck because of an accidental oversight.

The man understandably went off like a stinger missile. It was a matter, he let everyone within earshot know, of “life and death.”

Lucky me. I was one of the sympathetic listeners.

Over the telephone, Mason told me about all the bills crashing in on him: Rent. A hefty traffic fine. Food. …

The county added insult, telling him he would have to wait until his paycheck meandered slowly through the normal paperwork process.

After confirming the man had a legitimate gripe, I asked Hasson why the bureaucrats couldn’t snap to it.

Hasson agreed. Within hours, he and other caring officials got the system in gear. Many people went out of their way to make it happen.

Cotter met Mason at the courthouse the afternoon his $650 paycheck came in. The two men agreed on a simple plan:

Cotter would keep the check and drive Mason to a bank. After the check was cashed, Cotter would pay himself and the county. Mason would pocket his $400. Everybody would leave happy.

Walking outside, Mason said he needed the check to examine his deductions. Cotter forgot Mason had declared himself tax-exempt. He didn’t have any deductions.

“I don’t know why I gave it to him,” says Cotter. “I’m usually not that dumb.”

Before you can say, “See ya, suck-ah!” Mason slipped inside a 10-year-old Buick in need of a paint job. One of his pals was at the wheel.

“Meet you at the bank,” said Mason.

Cotter watched the car roll away and began to get a queasy feeling in the pit of his gut. He drove to the bank and waited. And waited….

Guess who didn’t make an appearance.

It’s no mystery why Hasson, Cotter and others are fried. They want to swear out a theft warrant on this deadbeat.

“The guy’s an absolute jerk,” says Fran Boxer, who oversees the fairgrounds. “I really, honestly felt sorry for him. Now I say, ‘Book-em, Dan-o.”’

It’s unlikely a warrant will be issued. Welching on a loan, no matter how slimy the circumstances, usually is settled in a civil, not criminal courtroom.

So good luck collecting.

If this weasel is as barren of funds as he is of common decency, Cotter is in for a long, long wait.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Doug Clark The Spokesman-Review