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June 28, 2005
I Know, Too Much Fake Stuff
The job was shitty, anyway. It was always hot. No one can imagine how hot and greasy it is standing over that stove cooking other people's food until they've done it. Something I don't recommend because it didn't pay well. I only hadn't quit earlier because together with an occasional infusion of cash from my wayward father I had enough to get by and that always seemed like enough. I mean, I didn't have any kids or anything. All I really had was knack for coming into work a little late and a lot hung-over and I kind of liked having a job that I could fit into that sort of lifestyle. Plus I sort of liked taking money from my dad.
My dad walked out on my mom, brother, sister and me when I was about 6. I don't remember exactly when it was, I just remember my mom crying a lot and hearing her say "fuck" for the first time ever. Actually, "That fucking bastard wants to go camping instead of living with you" was more like it. I never really wanted to ask my mom about the details, because it seemed to upset her a pretty good deal, but over the years I put together this rough picture: My dad, as part of a mini mid-life crisis, decided to take night school art class. That led the more routine mid-life crisis thing; he had an affair with one of his classmates. She had pretty much already dropped out of school, just holding on through night classes, but dropped out completely when my dad left my mom for his young mistress. Then the two of them decided to "get back to nature" and rough it in the mountains of Wyoming. That was in the late seventies, and from what I understand, in the spirit of the times.
Their spirit must have changed significantly over the years. In the late eighties they got into real estate, developing luxury condos and huge tracts of pavement on their once reveared camp ground in Jackson Hole. Still a bit niave about the big time real estate business my dad talked his new wife into buying up acreage in some flatter land to the east. "The view of the mountains was magnificent" he told me when I finally tracked him down toward the end of college. But nobody wanted to live in the Wyoming prairie and he almost went broke. Luckily for us all he found out he was sitting atop a huge natural gas reserve.
I say lucky for me because it meant he had money to give me every time I called. $1000 each time. Still I tried to do it as little as possible. Not because I felt bad about taking his money -- I was glad to take everything I could from him -- but because I hated making smalltalk with him and feigning interst in his life.So I always put off calling until absolutely necessary. He would bitch and complain every time, telling me all about the wife and kids he had to support, but every time I'd get a check in the mail within a week.
Losing my job sort of threw me off schedule. I wasn't counting on not getting a paycheck and I waited a little too long to call my dad for an infusion. My phone was turned off for non-payment and I didn't know how to get a hold of him besides the redial button. I had the number in redial, so never thought I'd need to remember it, and I never bothered writing down his address. I always threw away the envelopes he sent the checks in, so I was totally broke.
I sold my car in order to pay my rent. It was my mom's old car, one she gave to me when thought it outlived its life and it didn't get me much more than one month's rent. Without a car I had to sell my matress to get money to buy a bike to get to and from work. Well, interviews anyway. If I had a job I would have been able to sleep on a matress instead of a sleeping bag and a couple old blankets.
I thought a bike was a pretty safe investment. It would get me where I needed to go without insurance and gas hassles. Plus it would score me points with the non-profits where I was applying. I never counted on it being stolen.
While I was interviewing for a job I never got at the Center for Reduction of American Poverty someone walked off with my most valuable possession. Leaving me with little more than the clothes on my back and a 5 mile walk to the apartment I could only call mine for a little over a week.
Posted by calculatoronfire at June 28, 2005 05:49 PM
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