“You learn to deal with it,” I said.
***
Obama:
“'The choice is clear. Most of all we can choose between hope and fear. It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy. We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?'"
***
"I was looking for a puppy."
"For yourself."
“Yes….or no, I’m moving out, or I’m moving in with my uncle.”
“We still need to do a home inspection.”
"But what about like a mutt one. You have to do a home inspection for a mutt puppy?"
"We have mixed puppy breeds, and we still have to do a home inspection for them.”
"Good. Yes one like that that is good with old people."
“So you don’t own the residence?”
“No, my uncle does.”
"Sir, he's going to have to come in."
"But it's not for him, it’s for me, or it’s for both of us.”
"It doesn't matter. You can purchase the puppy, but your uncle will have to come in and sign the paperwork and agree to the home inspection and all that jazz."
"What jazz? I don't hear any jazz."
***
"It's okay, I don't think I need a puppy," Uncle Ander said.
"Aren't you lonely?" I said.
"No, I have you and your brother and your mom," he said.
"Don't you get tired of us?"
"Nope."
“Let’s go, let’s go get one.”
Uncle Ander looked at me. He leaned back. His recliner went far back, almost to the ground.
“Okay,” he said and the chair came forward and he popped out of it.
XXIV
Court’s red cap and a yellow cartoon bomb shirt winding and knotting and sweating, his face strained, nerves popped in his neck like solid curtain rods, then a side to side stomp, like Samson about to rip the columns, then a violent yank at the black cord on the amp, its plug the force of a bullet, the cord whipping around Nathan’s own neck him ignoring it, the shove of the guitar into the bass drum did nothing to disrupt the loops, but he left it there. I saw it, scared or in awe like a scorpion in the desert, symbol of possible harm to come, harm unrealized, though harm done.
My hands caused the next collapse, that stand of folding tables and plastic crates crumbling with barely a pushed finger, the loop still huzzing its fall inconsequential really, already setting in motion the actions that needed to be realized, to be seen, to be done and my gray Nikes hit the black floor, the path of bodies sliding and avoiding, no contact wanted no congratulations offered, looking back for only a minute, the eyes of Court closed on the drumset, him busting into a complex and crazy drum solo, some type of jazz breakdown number from college or his last recital or the last time he was in his house, his eyes closed, like in meditation, a worship at the altar of the great music healer, we had all sinned and cursed the institutions, we would come back one day maybe though that was not in the next hour or maybe not in the next day, there just had to be --
-- moving towards the hall, and Nathan stands next to a kid, a small handheld recorder playing noise and sounds that are familiar –
The bathroom the only logical and possible solace, on the stall was a sticker that said “STUPID SHINY VOLVO OWNER” and I punched the door it was open, the white porcelain lid now in my hands slamming it against marked up sheetrock, “call this number” now visible between one split a poorly drawn set of Sharpie boobs under another split, these two engravings lasting longer than any silly, stupid, clever band, this club had seen its share of toilets shattered, musicians thinking they only had these problems, that “no one else felt this way” that we were all f****ing artists changing the world, but just providing more change in this nightlife hustle that we all took a part in, that we all agreed in, that we tried to imbue with local scene value, but it’s only left the Crowbar with a broken toilet.
I pried off the toilet seat and hung it on the wall and kicked the stall door again, I wanted to see water, water on the floor, dirty crap spread over the floor, but there was none, only small water bubbles hovering and I could never take in the smell of my own urine, it made me sick, it made me sick, acid up my throat now a discharge, like carbon monoxide destroying the ozone layer.
Mohawk-guy a misplaced token identity stared at me as a I left the bathroom, pins and needles clipped on his denim jacket, he was old school and I was confused, was his moral compass really already formed, these punk ideas so ingrained, so assured he would come to a synth electronic show, a girl probably involved, I was over the moment but his staring at me, not with anger but with wonderment, a deer on the side of the road, a witness to the driving disaster that had just happened, not knowing whether to approach or stare, no hard cap just soft malleable punk hearts, maybe he had come in here to offer me solace, a word of encouragement -- “that was so chill,” he said. “just got a wave of chill.” In our solid mutual agreement I offered -- “beating stuff up is always chill.”
“Yes.” he said.
XXV
At the cemetery, grass overgrown, the iron bar fence corroded in some places, rust attaching itself as everything must decay. The latch was stuck, I pulled it, I kicked it, Nathan tried to pick it in the starlight, moonlight -- we only came after 11 pm, first every night, then once a week, now somewhere between every two weeks. This darkness like a childhood blanket that was worn in places, those weeks when we couldn’t get enough of it, every night the sticks cracking, swooping owls us make believe-faux scared then actually scared at his grave, and we knew we could tell the days and the weeks growing fainter, the grass creeping over fresh dirt that hardened, and new mind junk grew over the memories, they were less fresh, in decay, in decay, in decay.
Right, right, left, left, straight, left to Uncle Ander's condo. The sign outside the glass shop reads:
"Barack to the future!"
***
"Mr. Jorgeson?"
"Yes."
"Hi, this is Cherise at Target. We reviewed your application and..."
"And..."
"We'd like you to come in for an interview."
"Oh, okay."
"What day would be good for you? Tomorrow? Thursday?"
XXVI
In the parking lot, there was a man wearing sunglasses. He carried a Target bag. He saw me get out of my car.
"You're wet," he said.
I looked at him.
"You shedn’t go into a store all wet," he said. He wore a gray polo shirt. The polo shirt had an emblem that said "Plantation Golf."
"Okay."
We walked towards the store.
The carts were red, the shirts were red, everyone was red, but none of the red matched. different styles of red in polo shirts, Tshirts, maybe some were magenta, someone wore red Keds. I was in the foyer of target. doors were opening automatically, some only opened when a customer pushed them. The carpet was rough industrial berber carpet as if someone found a way to make sandpaper into carpet. If you fell and scraped your knee, it would bleed. More than if you would fall on the white tile floor of the store.
I rubbed my head and sand fell out.
I brushed sand off my calf. I stood at the customer service counter.
"I have an interview."
My shirt was wet, halfway wet, where it may or may not have touched my wet bathing suit.
"Oh," said the woman. She was wearing a red Tshirt, Hanes maybe. "Your name?"
"Wallace Jorgeson."
"Sir you'll need a receipt." It was another woman behind the customer service counter, with too long of blonde hair for her age.
"Like I awl-ready sed I don't have one," said the man from the parking lot. He still wore the sunglasses on his head. He
held a long box with three picture frames inside.
"Then we can't take it back."
"It's ben 4 days, yall policy say 30."
"It doesn't matter, sir, you don't have a receipt."
"What about this?" The man threw the box of picture frames over the woman's head. The woman ducked. The man looked at me.
"You'se still here?" he said.
"To return something, you need a receipt," I said.
"Security…" said the woman. She said it into a headset.
The man left.
Another woman came out from a side door and around the desk.
"Vicky what was that all about?"
"He didn't want the picture frames, we didn't give him his money back, now we just have a broken frame," the woman with too long of blonde hair said.
"Oh," said the new woman. She turned to me.
"You must be Wallace."
"Yes."
"I'm Cherise. We spoke on the phone."
"Hi Cherise,” I said.
"What have you been doing today?"
"Not much."
My corduroy shorts were wet. I didn't towel off after Madeira Beach.
"Well, we looked at your application, you were in advertising?"
"Yes."
"What did you do there?"
"I wrote advertising copy to promote products."
"Oh, so you've been in the retail business?"
"Um, kind of, I don't know..."
"Do you have experience running a register?"
Their patent leather seat was wet.
XXVII
I opened the front door. I heard a bark. There was a dog. Uncle Ander was in the living room. He was sitting in his recliner. “That’s Boris,” he said. He was watching Matlock.
Boris was brown and white. The fur on Boris was matted.
“So you passed the inspection?”
“They said this would be a great house for a dog,” he said. His back was to me, all I could see was his gray hair over the top of the orange recliner.
I bent down to pet Boris. He snarled, but then stopped. I rubbed his head.
“I’m gonna need you to go to the store,” Uncle Ander said. “For Boris. We need dog food and crap like that.”
***
Aunt Sue-Sue from Philly and moved to Detroit, no one knows for sure why, her brother played football at Michigan and she went with, looking for secretary school or trade school or beauty school but found Ander, a possible up and comer, a teammate of her brother’s, a possible up and comer, his father an accountant from the outskirts of Detroit, if everything would be bright and beautiful, he could not pass a math class for his life, but understood how machines and machinations worked, except UM is not that technical and his father was not either, so he used his football time and his four years on civics and physics when not repairing radiators and fanbelts on the side for his the rest of the team, after not graduating with a 2.0 he found the assembly lines and their salaries to be more amenable than opening his own shop, it was the life of stability he promised his dad with the occasional stint of hard liquor involved.
We laughed at Who's The Boss? We thought Tony's bipolar masculinity was confusing. We wondered if Judith Light was bulimic like Tracy Gold in Growing Pains. We wondered who forced all these eating disorders onto the set of ABC television shows.
***
"Don't you need a job?" Mom said.
"I had an interview today," I said.
"Where at?"
"Target."
"Target? You used to work in an office."
"I know how to sell things. I know about retail," I said.
"Did you get the job?" she asked.
"I haven't heard back."
"You don't interview well."
"I'm okay."
"What are you living on?" she said.
"Mom, you know the motto -- ramen, Doritos, and a Discover Card for comfort."
"I've never heard that saying."
"So."
***
The strip center had a large statue in front of it. Except it was mostly on the ground. And it was a cornucopia. There was fake fruit in it, like it might be at an old person's house. Except this fruit was about four feet tall and three feet wide each. It was a large cornucopia. I parked in the strip center parking lot. I wore a red polo shirt and khakis. I wore brown hybrid work-mountain hiking shoes.
"Those are not sport, those are not play, those are business-cas," Laurie told me once.
I walked in my work-mountain hybrid shoes towards the strip center. I walked towards a sign, hanging on the outside that said, "Personnel Express."
I opened the door to Personnel Express. I looked for a patent leather chair. I found one and sat down.
XXVIII
On the beach and the incoming tide break into sections that remain. The sections do water-type things, like ripple, like move, like flow. They are full of water now, its sand succumbing to the water. It is a beach, nebulous boundaries, different ends, different beginnings.
A blonde woman folds up a lawn chair, it is deep enough in the twilight that I can't tell if she is fresh and new or stretched like hide leather, her Florida skin allows her to be either way for the twilight moment.
A flat wooden chair, "For Rent" is spray-painted on a middle panel, I sit down. It is now the time where shapes and not faces are only recognizable; but the teenager continues throwing those stringed balls around a PVC-piped stand, precariously tittering. He tosses and throws and misses mostly, his determination is admirable, it reminds me of when I was determined, if that time ever existed.
I stand up and walk across the beach, under an awning and tap my Tevas on the sign that says “For registered guests only.” If they are registered, I don’t think they're a guest.
XXIX
“Dave, good news, we found a position for you!" The lady from Personnel Express.
"Doing what?"
"It's in a medium-sized firm doing document management. You'll be working out of their Largo office! Close to home!"
***
Office park on the side of the road, with parking in the front. A glass door, a logo printed on it, a facade to act like an office, but really a warehouse. 12-foot loading bays in the back. Places for loading and unloading documents.
I opened the tinted glass door.
"Good morning." It was a woman with glasses, her hair not curly, but wavy. White hair. In her 60s probably, many other jobs such as this in legal aid or prosthetics or accounts payable, accounts receivable, accounting, security alarm systems, she cared about them all at one time for stints from one month to three years, now focused on document management.
"I'm here to see Perry."
"You must be the temp."
"I am."
"Perry'll be glad to have ya, busy hands make short days!" she said. She probably had had some days that were not so cheerful. But this was one of her cheerful days.
"Thanks.” Drinking vodka right now would be nice.
"I'll be seeing ya." Her not drinking coffee right now would be nice.
I sat down in the waiting room. She could still see me. I could still see her. I could see her coffee mug. There was a cat on the coffee mug.
The phone rang. The woman answered it.
"Lenox Document Services, this is Bev. How can we be of service?"
"...pick up? Well sure."
"...today? Well sure."
"....be over soon, bye!"
The woman hung up. She looked at me. "Busy, busy." I could see her at home in a rocking lounge chair, wearing a sweatshirt with a cat on it. The cat might be playing with a ball of yarn. Not sure if she has her own cat, only memories and memorabilia of cats.
My phone beeps. A text from Nathan. "Mad hittin streams, 47 today on Bandcamp."
The door to the back area opened. Out stepped a man in a gray suit, a red tie, black shoes and a black belt.
"Hiya you must be Wallace, gl
ad to see ya. Aint gotta lot of time.”
"Everyone is busy,” I said.
“I’m Perry,” he said.
“Good to meet you,” I said. I wondered if Perry liked cats. I wondered if Perry and Bev hung out socially, or if Perry and Bev and others from the office thought it was a good idea to go out to a bar after work, only to find it awkward and the conversation forced. Bev talked about cats even in social settings, probably.
“Yes, and you'll be too. This way. We’ll see you later, Bev,“ he said. We walked through the entryway that in which he came.
There are photographs on the walls by Ansel Adams. Prints by Ansel Adams. These used to be at McDonald’s, I’m sure.
Perry opened another door for me.
A row of 12 men, some in half-loosed neckties on shirts that weren't made to hold neck ties, some with faces in various parts of shaving, some with tussled hair, all somewhat bleary and hunched. A folding chair for each of them a small trash can in front of them, silver bullet thermoses of coffee beside them.
"This is your part of the document management," Perry said. He pointed to a folding chair and small trash can, presumably to be mine.
"We'll bring the documents to you and you do this little magic."
Perry picked up a document off a stack and stuck it in the machine.
"There you go and you empty the waste over here, in our safety-secured receptacle, that ensures our customers the highest in satisfaction."
A dumpster in the corner, brought from the outside to the inside.
Perry looked at me. "And that's the world of document management, or your part of it anyway...any questions?"
I had no questions, except if I would be forced to talk with Bev at bars or if I could go on my own and talk to other non-work people, or if I could just sit there and think about life over a glass of $4.50 beer. Or if Perry ever paid for the beers of his employees.
XXX
I don’t remember how many days I had been there when the paper shredder jammed. I had put in a stack of brokerage reports from some type of bank or investment firm or maybe from a millionaire's back cabin. The papers were dated 1985.
"The shredder is broken,” I said.
"The shredder is not broken. It is stalled." Kevin said. Kevin wore v-neck sweaters over collared shirts and with Payless ShoeSource Shoes. His face had a scowl like a pinched nerve was in his face.