 | Four or five times a week, people filed in the same way they'd file out six hours later: dying. I was one of them, a graveyard shift box loader and unloader at UPS. And unhappy about it, knowing there was nothing really that Brown could do for me. This was when zombie movies reminded me of me.
One night, I found a naked woman in my bed. Of course, I knew her and of course, I'd asked her to be naked when I came home. Nothing was going to happen because I was too spent and I think that's why she complied. She, my girlfriend and lover still unwilling to depart dreams long enough to pretend to make babies. It was a courtesy none the less. I wanted warm, soft flesh -- to find humanity and sleep with it existing somewhere. As a courtesy, I washed off the sweat and cardboard dust that managed to invade everything.
Like everyone else, I went back and back and back and back. Our feet barely left the ground going in, couldn't rise above the ground leaving. It was a terrible job, quite possibly the worst I've had. So bad, in fact, that the dread of being there couldn't be escaped even when the work was done for the night. I never closed a shift there skipping and dancing with joy that I was going somewhere else. Even when there was a naked woman in my bed. It wasn't a prison, and if it were, I wasn't free. It was work-release -- two words that never belong together.
One night, it was time to leave the apartment and I didn't. I had one more chance to go -- to be late, yes, but to save my job. I drank a beer instead and sat smoking cigarettes on the balcony with my roommate, Jeremy. The smile on his face, that approval. It's been branded on my brain so much that when he smiles now, I think he's still smiling because I didn't go to UPS that night. He might be. Sometimes when I smile, that's why.
Since then, I've had about 18 or so jobs. I've quit almost all of them. I learned something dangerous that night: that I say when I've had enough. Unfortunately, my standards have dipped to new lows so that it's gotten easier to quit. For an underachieving college dropout, this is bad news.
That's what's kept me at (place what pays me now). A nagging motherly voice asking where else I'll find such gainful employment. After all, I've had some stupid painful lessons on the local job market. Last year, after an extended income drought, I left for Detroit -- mostly to get out of town (i.e. - own head) -- it was a luxury made possible because I had a job waiting. This year, I spent just over three months waiting tables at Applebee's. Then nothing.
When I started writing that godawful thing for the 11th Hour, I started meeting people I didn't already know who seemed to like me fine. And as getting to know you's go, there were plenty of questions like, "What do you do?" Sometimes, I cracked wise. I said, "Eat, shit, drink, sleep. Sometimes I drive." Other times -- usually when I wanted to impress the inquisitive mind -- I offered partial truths, "I do some freelance graphic art and carpentry." That'd accidentally solicit jobs for odds and ends like I was kid walking the neighborhood asking old ladies if they needed their grass cut.
I have a lot of ego but little pride and even so, I have enough to want to avoid that kind of living again. So it's (employer) until I find financial independance or unexpected post-secondary success. This is exactly why people play the lottery: they have no other way out of their jobs. This is exactly why I play the lottery. Fuck the effect on poor people, it's better than capitalism. If you have any doubt which is harder on poor people, you need an ass-whooping.
This isn't to say I hate my job yet. It only means I've been thinking about being happy and realizing it has little to do with who pays me. Over the past few years as I experimented with types of employment, I figured out that it doesn't matter what I'm doing because I'm not cut out for occupational monogomy. I will cheat. I will find other ways to get cash and eventually, I will quit. When seems to be the only question. See: being me is the only career track I'm on. If I don't hurry up and find something to be noble about, my biography will make a really strange read.
In the meantime, I have the love of a good woman and a love of cheap whiskey. Between the two, there's a heap of interesting friends and faithful family. There isn't much else to want. I won't find contentment in any job so it's easier going back to the one I have.
For now. |
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