A Mundane Moment Before a Conversation.

I drove to Michael's. I hadn't been there before and only vaguely knew the address. I was keeping an eye out for him on the stoop of one of the houses on the street I thought I was supposed to be on. I was keeping my fingers crossed.

Chapel Avenue. Home to a generous amount of equestrian art galleries, a hospital, and the Piss Lab. I drove slow, holding up traffic. Halfway into town, just far enough to begin to think I had missed it, I saw Michael. A skeletal stoop kid man-boy dressed in a Hollywood cowboys shirt, and cutoff brown shorts. He stood up as he saw my car approaching.

I waved and pulled up.

He pointed to an empty spot on the other side of the road where I should park, despite the fact that I was already comfortably (but apparently illegally) stopped in front of his apartment.

"Okay, okay," I said.

He gave me a thumbs up and walked back to his stoop. I imagined some old maid staring out of her window, ankle deep in cats and lost years, seeing Michael and myself and thinking, "Damn kids." But, she would be wrong. Michael was twenty-four. I was twenty-seven. Damn adults? No, we weren't that. Damn twenty-somethings? Maybe. That was closer. Damn idiots was probably the most accurate.

I parked, got out, opened the back door and grabbed my bag. I closed the doors and locked up.

"Hello sir," I said, waving.

He nodded, and waved back. "Hello."

His building was nice. All brick. Victorian. Wonderful shape. It looked like it may have been a duplex, but probably a four-way split. Two up, two down. I walked across the road, up onto the sidewalk, and to the stoop where Michael appeared nearly royal on his concrete throne of steps.

"It's much nicer than I imagined," I said.

He looked behind himself and smiled a little. "Yeah, I really lucked out."

"You have roommates?"

"Yeah, four. Steven, he makes this really weird folk music. My friend Emily, her boyfriend Mark, who's kind of a, I don't know, a dick, and Lenny. He's all right."

I looked up at the windows. If there were five people in there, hopefully it was a duplex.

"You want to go in? Check it out?" Michael asked.

"Sure."

He stood up, brushed some invisible dust off of his pants, and opened the door. Inside was a large staircase, with two doors at the bottom, and two on top. We walked upstairs and he opened the door on the right. It had a great old wood smell and a century and a half of secrets that swept around you, filling your lungs and hinting of something beautiful and long forgotten.

Michael motioned to the first door (all of the doors were on the right). "Lenny."

I nodded though Michael didn't see.

He motioned for the second door. It was open and there was a fairly attractive girl sitting on the floor. I involuntarily smiled my crooked smile and nodded. She returned it, and as she did, another head peered around the door. A guy.

"This is my friend James," Michael said to them. "James, Emily and Mark."

"Nice to meet you," I said.

"You too," she said.

We moved on. The next door was closed and Michael opened it. "This is me." He walked in and sat in a computer chair across the room. I went in and looked around.

The room was small. Barely larger than the average walk in closet, but it was a room I would be comfortable in. Bed without a frame. Computer set up for recording music. Books fucking everywhere. Nothing else.

"It isn't much," Michael said.

"All you need."

"Yeah, that's true."

I looked over his book shelf. Standard fare. Bukowski, LaVey, a novelization of a mildly successful television show from the early 90's.

"That book's terrible," he said.

"Which?"

"The Twin Peaks book. I just sort of had to have it, you know?"

"Yeah."

A tall heavy guy came into the room. "Hey guys," he said.

"Hey, James, this is my other roommate, Steven."

I shook his hand. He looked familiar. "I think we've met before."

"We did, you're right. It was a few months ago. You just played a show. I'm surprised you remember at all," he said.

I laughed. "Well sir, booze. I'll try harder to remember this time."

He held out a small plastic bag. "You guys want some honey roasted cracker sticks?"

"Sure," I said, and took a few. I ate the first hesitantly, and then the rest quicker. "They taste like all the best parts of peanuts."

"Yeah," Steven said, "without all that stupid peanut shit."

I laughed.

"So what are you guys up to?" he asked.

"No idea, really," Michael said. "I think we might go get a drink or something later."

"Nice," Steven said.

The three of us were silent for a moment.

"Well, let's go then," I said.

"You coming Steven?" Michael asked.

"Oh, no thanks. I had to be at work a few hours ago."

"Okay, I'll see you later then."

"Okay. James it was nice to meet you again."

"You too sir."

Steven left.

"Let me just get some shit together," Michael said, getting out of the chair. He dug around in his closet, pulled out a bag, looked into, and put it over his shoulder. "Okay."

We walked out onto the street.

"Wine?" I asked.

"Did you want to do that instead of going to a bar?"

The sun was hot and the sidewalk was littered with sand. We moved through it at a fair pace, but the heat was bordering oppressive. Our bags bounced at our backs and I hoped no one passing mistook it for a fashion statement. Men with large bags.

"Yeah," I said. "I don't really have much money. Where is there a wine store?"

"Right down town. Near my work," he said. "Hey, that reminds me. This job thing that you interviewed for, what was it?"

"Installing cable. Driving around. That sort of thing."

"Do you want to do that?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, if you had a choice."

"I do have a choice. I mean, I could work there or not."

"I mean, fuck. Listen, one of the guys where I work sucks, and it looks like he might get fired. Would you be interested in taking his place, if and when the spot opens up?"

"Where do you work?"

"Seasons," Michael said.

"Seasons? What is that?"

"It's a health food store slash restaurant thing. I cook."

"What would I be doing?"

"Prep work and shit. Basically we'd be working together."

"What's the pay?"

"About ten bucks an hour. What do you get paid at the cable place?"

"Same," I said."

"So...?"

"Yeah, I don't see what it would hurt."

"Cool," Michael said. "We should swing by and fill out an application today. You know basically everyone that works there. You are pretty much a shoe-in."

"Cool. Let's do that then. What do you want to do about this wine?"

"I don't know."

"I have my trusted water bottle. Is there somewhere we can go enjoy it?"

"I guess we can go to the park."

So that became the plan. I was going to go apply for a job at a health food store and get drunk in a public park. The job intrigued me. I was feeling less and less like I wanted anything even resembling a career, and more and more like it didn't matter what I do, so long as I could pay my bills and make Marie happy. Installing cable was a big deal, with a lot of responsibilities and a 401k and a million benefits. I wasn't sure I wanted that. I wanted to write. I wanted to paint. To drink wine, and fuck. I wanted to be young and happy. I wanted to grow old and be free of worries about my mortgage or middle-management advancement. My entire life I have never cared for or about money, but something about this summer, quitting my job, spending all of my time on the beach, thinking, thinking, thinking, the more I realized, I didn't need it at all. I was young, and I was going to take advantage of it. I was going to be eighty-five years old, broke, and living on government assistance (if in a country that offered it), and say to myself, "wow, I had a really good time. I created a lot of things. I smiled a lot." That was my goal, and the more I thought about the job at Seasons, the more appropriate it seemed. A pointless, dead end job, surrounded by friends and people of my ilk. Even if for only a brief moment in time, it was what I wanted.

We walked down Chapel Avenue and hit the main strip of Springer. People everywhere. Springer, if I haven't told you, is a major horse racing town. In the summer it becomes choked with upper class assholes in white linen and their families. Dead-eyed cunt wives. Date-raping sons. And their daughters. They, in their skirts, were forgivable.

Main Street in Springer is nothing less than a canyon, with walls made of brick and stucco, shooting five, six, seven stories into the sky. Windows and yuppie shop doors everywhere. A coffee shop every fourteen paces, and fucking horse statues every twenty. It sickened me, but there was life here. There was activity. Much more than in Spier Falls. I could walk outside in Springer at three in the morning on a Tuesday and be greeted by a thousand people having a great time. Idiots or not, it was life, and it was beautiful. Mostly at three in the morning. In the afternoon, it almost seemed grating.

We walked on.

"It'd be cool to work together," Michael said. "We could set up our schedules for rehearsals and shows. It would work out great."

"Yeah, that's true." He would, as we drifted among the upper class, bring it up. I could only think about wine, and how much I didn't want to install cable for a living. It seemed like such a life move. A solid job (perhaps still not a career though). One of those jobs that eventually becomes your life. You never see your family. Your only friends are from work. You don't know what to do on your occasional days off. It seemed like a step backward, but I would need a paycheck soon. We turned down onto Philo Street.

Philo was home to a softer variety of shops than what was on the main strip. A used book store, a comic store, a magic shop, and Seasons, the health food store.

"Okay, when we go in, you know, smile," Michael said, "and look for Mary. I'll point her out to you. Just, you know, don't act like an asshole. And take your sunglasses off."

"I know how to get a job."

"Okay."

We got to Seasons, and went inside. It was crowded with shelves and air conditioned. The smell of wheat and self-importance flooded the air. The temperature difference made me feel a little light headed.

"Hey guys." I turned and our mutual friend Dominic was standing next to us, stocking a shelf.

"Hey man," Michael said. "Have you seen Mary?"

"She's somewhere in the back. Why? Are you quitting?"

"No, I'm trying to get James a job here."

Dominic smiled. "Excellent. Yeah, She's back there. Good luck."

"Thanks," I said. "Give me a good reference, because I am going to put your name down."

"All right man, of course." He went back to stocking shelves.

We passed the counter and a cute semi-Asian girl was ringing out a small line of customers.

"Hey Anna," Michael said.

She nodded back to him, and went about her business. When we were out of earshot, Michael whispered to me; "I want to fuck her so bad."

"So fuck her."

"No, her boyfriend could kill me. He's huge, and a dick."

"Fair enough."

"There's Mary. Stay here."

I stayed there and looked over some shit on the shelves. Prices of dried something or other. I shuffled my weight on my feet. Tried to look like a customer. I would be a terrible mystery shopper.

"Mary, this is James," I heard Michael say.

I turned around, and they were standing next to me. "Hello," I said, extending my hand.

"Hello James," She said, and shook my hand. "So, you want a job?"

"Actually, yes. I always liked this place, I know a few of the people here, and I have a fair amount of restaurant experience. I think I would be good here."

She nodded, smiling. "Well, let's get you an application. follow me."

She walked up to the counter. Anna looked, like she might have been doing something she wasn't supposed to have been. Mary reached under the counter and took out an application. "Take this to the restaurant, and fill it out, then when you're done, just leave it here with Anna, and with any luck, you'll be back there working in no time."

"Thank you very much. I hope so." I took the application. "It was nice meeting you."

"You too James." Mary walked off.

"Where's the restaurant?" I asked Michael.

"Follow me."

We walked around the counter, toward the front, and then took a sharp left past a few shelves of god knows what and Dominic, and down a small flight of stairs. The air got colder, and soon, we were in a dining area. One of the walls was all windows, looking out onto the busy summer sidewalk. Beautiful women and undeserving men walked all along, enjoying the heat and life. I sat at a table.

"Do you have a pen?" I asked Michael.

"Yeah, I'll get you one. Hold on." He went into the back, and came out again, and handed me a pen. "Let me know when you are all set, so we can get out of here."

"Okay."

The application was basic. Name, job history. References. Nothing out of the ordinary. I wrote in (as references) all of the people I knew that worked there. Six, in total. A girl walked by the window in tight white booty shorts and high heels. I took a short break from the application, and then returned to it. I signed my name, clicked the pen closed, and got up. I made my way upstairs, and set the application on the counter. Anna looked at me.

"Could you just see that Mary gets this?" I asked her.

"Sure," she said, smiling.

"Thanks." I walked back down stairs to retrieve Michael. He was standing in front of the windows, watching.

"Ready?" I asked.

He turned around. "You finished?"

"Yes."

"Let's go then."

We left Seasons and the air conditioning and the windows and Anna, and headed out into the heat, and the crowd, and the light, and the life. I liked the idea of working at Seasons. I dreaded cable even more now.