Lonely Minx.

In the morning, I went to work.

We had to be there at six to get our uniforms and meet our new "On The Job" trainers. The guys who'd be taking us in the field and showing us all of the bad habits we'd eventually be bitched at for. I was exhausted. Marie and I had finally had the energy to have sex the night before, and for whatever reason, I can never sleep after sex. I'll just lay there, making up stupid puns or insane conspiracy theories until my brain shuts down on it's own volition. So, three hours later, and I was standing in the parking lot with my fellow retards, waiting to be assigned.

Shawn read down a list of names, ours then our trainers, and assigned us.

"Benson, you're with Haverford." Benson walked over to Haverford.

"DiMarco, you're with Austin." DiMarco went to Austin.

It went on like this. They all shook hands, laughed about jokes I couldn't quite make out, and then climbed into their trainers vans and disappeared for their first day in the field. I waited.

"Fallinger... Harrison... O'Toole..."

"I think you forgot me.," I said.

Shawn looked up. "What was your last name?"

"Martin."

He looked back down at his clipboard, running his pen down the side of it. "Martin. Martin... Martin... Well looks like I forgot to assign you."

"Great. Can I leave?" The other guys laughed. I wasn't looking for laughs.

"No can do, bro. Time to get out there. You're with...Wilson. Wilson, you here?" He shook his shaggy empty head around, searching.

A short man came out from behind one of the vans. He had a do-it-yourself haircut and reminded me vaguely of a potato. "I'm here."

"Great," Shawn said. "You got Martin."

I walked over and shook his hand. "Call me Justin," he said.

"Nice to meet you Justin. James. Let's get the fuck out of here."

He smiled a little. "No problem."

We walked across the parking lot, got in his van and left. His van was nearly immaculate. Everything was not only organized, but zip-tied down, so as to prevent any "shelf-wear" type of eventual disorganization. To take something and move it, you really had to want to. It was fucking cold inside the van. The A.C. was blasting. I didn't say anything. It was his van. I sat back in the seat, and kept my mouth shut.

We left town, and got on the interstate, heading south toward Albany.

"All of our work's in Albany today," Justin said.

"Cool."

"Yeah, especially since I've been in Massachusetts the last four days. That sucks."

I was trying to figure him out. I kept looking around the van for clues. Personal trinkets he might have left around. A picture of a girlfriend or a kid maybe. His radio was on, but inaudible, and I looked to see what station it was, but the display only showed the time. I had nothing to work with besides talking. I was fucked.

The drive to the first job went easy enough. I don't think either of us were really comfortable, and preferred the awkward silence to asking about the weather or whatever sports teams guys like him were into.

We pulled up in front of a white two-story house just south of Albany, but close enough to still be in the moat of shitty neighborhoods surrounding it.

"Well, you ready?" Justin asked as he pulled a clipboard from the clipboard space he had designated between the visor and the ceiling.

"I guess so."

"Good."

He got out and I followed. Immediately I felt completely ignorant. I knew I was supposed to be watching his every move, but I felt like I should know a little more about the process before the company burdens an innocent man with me. Trudging me around. I could only hinder his speed. His paycheck.

"How long have you been doing this?" I asked him as we approached the door.

"Six months."

I stopped. "Jesus Christ. Six months? And you're training me?"

"I guess so. I'm kind of a veteran."

"At six months? How long are people usually doing this? A fucking week?"

"About a month or so," he said.

"Damn."

"Yeah."

We walked up to the front door. Justin knocked and I realized I was now the guy that everyone waited on for hours. That no one really wanted around. That was a ghost, only invading your privacy.

"Housewives ever try to fuck you?" I asked.

"What? No. Watch the swearing."

Maybe he was one of the uptight fuckers. The by the book-ers. So much for my self-loathing drunken genius. I was stuck with Justin, the future assistant manager.

I decided to try again.

"Just asking. Some little lonely minx never came strolling up on you out of a dark bedroom. Oh, I've got you sports package right here Mr. Cable Man. Mmmm, run that cable."

He set his clipboard down on a railing and turned to me. He looked me in the eye, like I was stealing his farm and giving it to the railroad company for westward expansion.

"Enough," he said.

"Wow. Fucking relax. I was just asking."

He turned back to the door and didn't talk to me again that day. He did each job, and I watched silently. I should have kept my mouth shut. I had fucked myself. Only five weeks and six days left.

Pale Yellow Light

There is something breathtaking about my adolescence. It isn't getting kicked out of high school. It isn't the teen pregnancies. It isn't the drug issues, violence, or vandalism. It's the pale yellow light spread out across a parking lot, in the depth of summer reflected off the pine trees. It is a scene repeated in thousands of small towns all across the country, world, and who knows where else. For anyone who has lived it, and has the intelligence to see it, it is the single most beautiful thing conceivable. For tourists, townies, and lucky passer-by's, it is the reason to step outside at night.

The dim glow of serenity.

The warmth of summer camps, communities, girls that smoke, and mischief.

The realization that the world is unending, ever-changing, dangerous, and beautiful. That I am no longer a child, I am a person. I want to explore places unknown. Lose my virginity to the girl next door. I want to smoke like the cool kids. Grow up fast, and never grow up. I want it to always be night, always be mysterious, always be new.

I want to never realize what I know now.

But it ends. It ends much sooner than it should. Suddenly, adulthood.

Here is where I wonder. These years. These few, beautiful, short years. Are they worth the price we all pay with age? Do we look back on them fondly? Do we look back on them and remember their beauty, even as we drown in debt, and failure, and life? Do we think to ourselves of the days when we were free and say "for just one more of those days, I would spend another lifetime as an adult"?

Would I? Absolutely.

That pale yellow light flat against the concrete. Those thick walls of pine, and the mysteries beyond them. Sexy, tempting, and devilish. Yes. Oh, yes I would.

Garbage Christ Strikes Again.

Did you ever want something so fucking bad you briefly consider killing yourself because you are certain you'll never have it? I think of myself as fairly non-consumerist. I don't want much. I don't need much. I appreciate the things I have (sometimes perhaps much more than they deserve), but I'd be a liar if I said I didn't occasionally desire. Maybe I never actually consider suicide over shit like that, but once in a while I'll think of something.

The Quiet Earth on Blu-Ray.

A high-rise loft over looking the Mediterranean (and all the booze, free time and everything else it includes...).

The complete run of "The Maxx" (first editions, of course).

These aren't big deals. None of these things really matter. None of their absences will have any bearing on my life whatsoever. None of them would truly change my life (if I had the loft, it would have already been changed). Yet, I want them so fucking badly. I lust after them. I can't have them and it drives me crazy.

I have a habit of looking down on people that want. New cars. New houses in the suburbs. Brand names. It's not a great habit, and it makes me feel shitty when I realize, I'm no different. I might fight it a little better, but I still WANT. I don't want those things, but I want. I want experiences. I want a cliff-side blowjob from a squad of Argentinian cheerleaders. I want to stay for months on my own private hut in Tahiti. I want to find total enlightenment and physical gratification (opposing forces by most schools of thought, I know), I want a body that gods would desire. A personality so magnetic, my presence cause others to kill themselves with desire and jealousy. Tell me that isn't as bad as wanting a shiny new car.

So, who the fuck am I to go on saying "consumerism is evil". It's the same fucking lust fulfillment I crave, with different products. Argentinian cheerleaders don't blow broke homeless drifters. A private hut in Tahiti isn't free. Books, teachers, and travel all cost money. Gym memberships, health food. The list goes on. It doesn't matter what it is that we all want, the thing to remember, for me anyway, is that we all want. No matter how many times I defend people, that I think of as lesser, as my equals ("the poor are my people"), the fact remains that I initially see them as needing defending. As if I am some Blue Collar (or no-collar) Messiah. Some garbage-Christ. I am as self-obsessed and lusting as anyone else. I want. I desire. I need. Nothing will ever truly be good enough.

The important part is that I recognize it.

I am human. No better, no worse.

Blowies, Brownies, and Rejections.

"I want a blowjob."

"Really?" Marie asked. "You think that's going to work?"

"I had a long day. I'm tired. I don't have much energy left," I said.

"So?"

"So, I figured I would just ask. What would it hurt?"

"Your chances of getting a blowjob, for one."

I put my feet up on the coffee table and leaned back into the couch. "Everything sucks."

"Awe, poor baby," Marie said. "You actually have to go back to work. It must be so hard on you after a month vacation." She was speaking to me like I was a toddler. She sat next to me. "Besides, you don't get blowie's for going to work two days in a row."

"Three?"

"No."

The television was off, but I looked at it all the same. I wondered if it was some sort of instinct now. In living room. Stare at T.V.. Who knows?

"I'll cook you dinner though if you want," she said.

"No thanks. My back hurts though. Could use a rub."

"Why? I thought you just went to class today?"

"Ladder safety training. Fucking things are heavy."

She gave me a half grimace. "Maybe tonight I'll rub your shoulders." That meant no. If it didn't happen immediately, it wasn't happening.

Oh well, I thought.

Marie got up and went into the kitchen and began to make something. I laid back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. I had submitted a few short stories to some magazines when I got home from work. My rejection letter folder was getting thicker. I used to frame them as inspiration, but before long they became debilitating, and the last thing I needed was to be a few bottles of wine into a story look up at the framed rejections, and have some terrible epiphany about my abilities as a writer.

Some magazines would send you a formal letter in the mail.

"Dear Mr. Martin,

We regret to inform you..."

Others would shoot you an email,


"Dear Mr. Martin,

While we enjoyed 'A Mad Man, His Dick, and Four Balloons', we regret to inform you..."

They were all the same. Stamped with the impersonal copy/pasted signature of some assistant editor, sealed with the indifference of a man stuck in his own dissatisfaction somewhere, addressed to me. But, I kept sending the fucking things out. Maybe someday...

"So what's tomorrow?" Marie asked from the kitchen.

"Wednesday."

"No, I mean, what are you doing tomorrow at work?"

"Oh. First day in the field. I meet my trainer tomorrow."

"Cool. Hope it's someone you like."

"Yeah, me too," I said. "I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some drunken curmudgeon. Hates his job, but is absolutely brilliant at it. Some lost blue-collar genius."

"I don't think that will happen."

"Let me dream."

She came back into the living room with a large mixing bowl and handed it to me. "You have to use your finger. I kept the spoon."

Inside the bowl was chocolate something or other. "Brownies?" I asked.

"Yep. Figured you'd prefer it over a blowjob." I questioned her logic.

"I think we may have to have a talk about that," I said.

"If you don't want the brownies I can throw them out."

"Oh, no," I said. "I want them."

"Then don't complain."

She walked back into the kitchen and I swirled my finger around the bowl. A large clump of brownie mix rested on my finger, and I ate it. It was no blowjob.

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome."

A good woman might not suck your dick on command, but she'll make you brownies just because. It evened out somewhere in there, and I was a lucky man.

I tried not to think about work.

Blue, Endless, Serene.

I was eating less. It meant nothing. It was probably just because it was so fucking hot out. I drank okay, but that was it.

I was laying in the City Park of Lake Henry, staring at large billowing clouds however many miles up, and the great valley of water below them. Marie was working, and I had gotten bored at the house. I hadn't worked in a couple of weeks, and I was out of money, so, I was out of wine. I just laid in the grass, dreaming.

I could hear people and their pets and families scattered around me, enjoying the summer. I could hear motor boats on the water. Cars driving by, and a radio somewhere behind me. A man going on and on about God, donations, and republicans. I wondered if someone was actually listening to it, or if in a moment of clarity, someone had decided to hurl the fucking poison out of a moving car. I couldn't bear to look and find someone sitting intently next to it, nodding along.

I had my book with me, but I wasn't reading. It was a pillow. Somewhere, someone was looking up at these clouds, someone with the perfect life. Someone who was exactly where they wanted to be. Someone in peace. It wasn't me. It's funny how everything can be fine. People leave you alone, you don't have to clock in or out. No one is counting on you at the moment, and you can still feel panicked. It was the awful argument against all I wanted to believe, that life could be lived only in the moment.

I knew it was a stupid point of view. A short lived ideal. An immature, unsustainable lifestyle. But goddamn if I didn't want to believe it.

The sky was perfect. Blue, endless, and serene. Beyond it, darkness, stars, and mysteries that rendered everything below it immeasurably meaningless.

There I laid. Avoiding trying.

Ladder Safety Training.

The next day came.

The alarm went off at six. I hit the snooze button eight times, got up, and showered. I was running behind. The morning seemed to be both dragging behind me like a corpse and pulling me harder than my shoulders could bear. It was a total state of displacement. Once dressed, I found my way to the car, then to the gas station, to the coffee, to the interstate, and somewhere along there I began to wake up.

Michael had sent me a message the night before about a show coming up. He wanted to rehearse. I had no reason not to, besides already feeling drained. I loved rehearsing, playing, the whole bit. I loved being in a band, and I loved our band. I just didn't want to drive an hour home to drive a half hour back in the same direction, to play until two in the morning, to get up at six. I felt like an adult, in the crawling, miserable sense, after only one day of classroom training. I began to wonder if I was miserable, or a pussy. Funny, the thoughts thought so early in the day.

By the time I got to work, I was nearly fully awake. The caffeine had kicked in a few minutes prior, and I felt a little rejuvenated. Maybe I just wasn't a morning person. Maybe every morning I would be miserable and hate my job, and an hour later, I'd feel better. I tried to focus on that. I'm fine, I thought. This is for the best. It will solve our money issues. It will make Marie happy. I focused on that, and felt a little better.

I was on time. It surprised me. In my daze, I must have sped a little. Made up twenty minutes on an hour drive...

I went into the building, past Tits and the Awful Face and down the hall toward the classroom. The door was open, but the light was off. I sat down at my spot and waited in the dark.

The world is better in the dark, I thought. How has some wandering Lestat not found me by now? He better get a move on, I'll be old and fat before long. I haven't been to the gym in month. I don't eat anything. Does it even out? Why have I been slacking? I haven't written anything in a week. I haven't recorded any new music. Why am I such a layabout? I need fresh air. Excitement. I need a massive change for the good. I need to wake up excited to see what the day holds. I need to not work here. This is a death sentence. I can feel it in my bones. In my lungs, I am drowning already. I am drowning drowning drowning...

I am blinded as the lights burst on and Shawn lumbers through the door.

"Just hangin' out in the dark, huh bro?"

I pretended like I had been sleeping. I yawned a fake yawn. Stretched a fake stretch. "Just trying to catch a few extra minutes before the day."

"Just make sure you wake up soon. Ladder safety training today."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah bro. Climbin' the forty-footers outside onto the roof. Gotta be awake for that. Fuckers bend the higher you go. Right around thirty-five feet you're basically climbing straight up. Bro, it's a trip."

"Wonderful." I opened my book and pretended to read.

A few of the guys trickled in, and at the last minute, the rest came.

The class started out with us filling out our tax forms, our direct deposit, all of that. For the first time in my life I signed up for direct deposit. It was the first time I had had a job and a bank account simultaneously. It was a little exciting.

After that, we went outside in a shuffling awkward group. The hallway beyond the classroom was a meandering tunnel walled by plywood, fake wood paneling, sheet rock, and sheets of plastic, winding through two offices, the warehouse, and eventually a bathroom, where we had to wait until it was empty before we could pass through it. I held my breath. With muffled commentary, the others validated that.

The sky was grey outside. The air muggy. Some of the veterans of the job were outside standing around and smoking. I wondered why they weren't out on runs. Everyone told us we'd be constantly busy. From black morning sky to black night sky. I decided I didn't care, and shifted my attention to Shawn, standing in front of a beaten work van.

"Everyone here?" He asked.

We looked around at each other, not saying anything.

"Good. Now, behind me is one of the vans you guys are going to end up getting. On the roof, you'll see two ladders. A twenty-eight footer, and a forty footer. Nine times out of ten, you'll be using the twenty eight. But, once in a while, you'll have to get the forty out. So, this morning, we're going to learn how to properly remove the forty footers, set them up, climb them,and replace them. We assume if you can take care of the forty footers, you can take care of the twenty eights. But," he said, smiling, "we have had some fucking idiots in the past that tried to use the forty's for every job because we haven't shown them how to use the twenty-eights."

Some of the guys laughed at that. I thought it was a dick thing to say and that I was surrounded by dicks. I was bored.

"Okay, so, who wants to go first?"

We all stood around looking at each other.

"Come on guys. You are all going to have to do it."

We were ready to challenge that.

"Fine. I'll pick somebody. James. Front and center."

Of fucking course it was me. I inhaled and walked forward through the group. I wanted to fight the shaggy haired fuck. I got up to the van and stood there.

"Take the ladder down," Shawn said.

I looked up at it. it had a locking mechanism on one end that looked to just be a simple pull of a lever. The other end had a chain with a lock on it.

"Are you going to take the lock off of it?" I asked.

Shawn looked behind him and saw the lock. "Oh, shit. Fucking guys. I told them to take that off. Hold on, I have to go get the keys." He disappeared through the group and back inside. I doubted he told anyone anything.

Standing there in front of the van, in front of the group, I suddenly found myself wondering what the hell to do with my hands, how to stand nonchalantly, and where to focus my attention. I walked over to the smokers picnic table and sat down. Shawn came back out as soon as I did with a set of keys in his hand. He walked past me, and patted my shoulder somewhere between a slap and a come-on. I wondered how many hammer blows he could sustain.

I followed him over to the van and watched him unlock the chained end of the ladder.

"Will we get keys for the chains?" someone asked.

"Yes. They'll be on the keyring," Shawn said.

I wondered if they turned anyone down for this job. Then I realized I might be a total asshole.

"All right," Shawn said. "She's all yours James."

I pulled the lever down, and it stuck. Shawn looked at me and offered no help besides a raised eyebrow. "Well?" I asked.

"Well what?"

"It's stuck. Is there a trick? Do I have to wish the damned thing open?"

He walked over, yanked a little harder on it, and it popped open. "Put some effort into it."

I was ready to leave. There was a good chance that I'd be arrested before lunch. I finished the unlocking, and lifted the ass of the ladder up over the brace, and slowly pushed and slid it down the side of the truck. It was fucking heavy and three vans high. After some grunts and shoving, I got it upright against the van. A sweat had broken on my forehead. Where was my beach? It seemed a lifetime ago.

"All right," Shawn said, "Now, grab the rung by your hip, and lift it onto your shoulder."

I grabbed the rung, and lifted. Before I knew it, the weight of the bastard had shifted and I was toppling backward. I tried to catch my balance and swung the fucking ladder god knows where.

"Jesus fuck!" Someone yelled.

"James! Drop it!" Shawn said.

Without looking, I let it go. It crashed onto the pavement, thundering and screaming.

"What an idiot."

"Christ, fucking kill someone..."

They all talked. Looked at me. The argument to flee or fight sprang to life in my chest. Someone was going to get fucking hit, or I was going home.

"What?" I asked one of the guys. Not small, but not one of the brutish fucks either.

People quieted.

"What?" He asked, looking startled.

"What did you say?" I walked up to him.

"Okay guys, enough. You're at work," Shawn said.

"I didn't say anything man," the guy said to me.

"I think you fucking did."

"Enough. One more word, and you're both done here," Shawn said.

I stood staring at the guy.

"James. Enough."

I walked over and sat at the picnic table. No one spoke, but they were all saying something. I felt a little better.

Shawn picked up the ladder. "Why don't we have someone else give it a shot?"

Someone else went, and I watched. They all went, struggling with the massive orange cunt, and no one spoke to me. Shawn didn't ask me too go again.

The rest of the day went smoother. We went inside. Pizza was delivered to us. I ate it, and read while all of the other cavemen beat their chests and talked sports. It's not that I thought I was better than any of them, just that I was a different type of person. They were cut out for this work. I heavily doubted I was. I was both threatened, and a little jealous. I had something to prove in this group. Reading in the corner wasn't going to do it. Doodling caricatures in my book wasn't. I wanted to be the fucking best of them. I wanted to make them all feel threatened by me. Jealous of me. I didn't think I was better than them. I fucking knew I was, and I was going to prove it.

Guacamole

This summer, I began to try new foods. Well, not new foods, but foods I "didn't like" that I'm pretty sure I never even tried. Onions. Guacamole. Black Olives. The list goes on. Turns out, I enjoyed a number of them (guacamole in particular). I don't know what it was. Maybe it was spending two years on repeat. Maybe it was a quarter-life crisis. Maybe I was just bored, but at some point, right around the beginning of July, I got up and said; "I'm going to be better."

A better person.

A better eater.

A better writer.

A better everything I fucking could. In the six months leading up to it, I had lost forty-five pounds, and I think I realized that the me I was, wasn't all I had to be.

I didn't actually do much. I sat on the beach. I drank wine, and I have been writing about it ever since. I thought. A lot. I examined every bit of my life. What I wanted to keep, what I didn't, and came out of it with what is, and should be, actually important to me. My wife. My kids. My smile. Without those three things, I can't breathe. Everything else is just decorative.

Most people understand the first two. The wife and kids. It's obvious. Where they fail is the smile. You want to sustain a wife and kids so you work your ass off, miserably, 40, 60, 80 hours a week. You man the fuck up, and do it. But, the issue is, then I can't smile. My world becomes grey. Now, I know what you think. Isn't it selfish of me to worry about myself above my family?

Well, I'm not.

I am just worrying about me as well.

"So," I thought to myself, in the sun, belly full of wine, "how do I balance the three?"

I couldn't find the answer (besides writing a book, and becoming an extremely successful and lucky writer). It wasn't until July had finally ended that my friend Jon, a rafting guide, inadvertently solved the issue. I was so worried about finding a full time career that other possibilities had never even occurred to me. I said to Jon one day while rafting along with him; "This must be a great job. Out on the water all day, doing what you love. How are the hours?"

"Eh, okay. I work another part time job also. Pays the bills, keeps me happy."

And there it was. I didn't need a full time career. I could work multiple part time jobs. Maybe bring in a little cash writing on the side. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so bogged down. I began looking for part time work (while preparing for a full time job I had recently been hired for). I checked the papers. The internet. Watched for Help Wanted signs while driving around. I was determined. This was it. I had it figured out. But, no one was hiring.

I went to work at the full time position. Fifteen hours a day, six days a week.

C'est la vie.

In the end, I didn't figure out the meaning of life, or the key to happiness, or any other great mystery, but I found out I like guacamole.

Let Jeff Tweedy Lull Me.

I found a Taco Bell and ate. A girl behind the counter kept glancing at me. I finished my meal and left. It had started raining while I was inside. With nothing else to do in a town I wasn't all too familiar with, I just drove back to the building and sat in the car reading Bukowski and picking wet clumps of soft taco shells out of my teeth with my tongue. The rain spattered against the windshield, a gentle tapping scoring the scenes of fist fights, boils, and lusting. I always enjoyed reading in the rain.

Soon, my time was up, and I went back to the makeshift classroom. Shawn and a couple of the guys were watching some sports news show. I never cared much about sports, and kept reading while the clock burned up the last couple of minutes. The guys came back in a pack. A cigarette pack. Stinking and laughing and feeling better than I had all fucking day. I sometimes thought that quitting smoking was one of the stupidest things I have ever done.

Shawn got back to droning, and I got back to day dreaming about sand and wine and Marie and skin. I doodled faces in my book with thought bubbles filled with nonsense truisms like 'I wish things were better' and 'Someday, I'll die'). My phone vibrated. I slipped it out of my pocket.

It was Marie. "Sorry. Couldn't find my phone. You have to buy more shit?"

I texted back. "Yeah."

"Christ, this job is costing us a fortune."

She was right. The boots and work pants cost almost a hundred dollars, and as far as I knew (though I am no expert), tools weren't fucking cheap. I sighed.

I went back to phasing in and out of listening to Shawn and his bro-shit. He was going over cable television, it's origins, modern uses, and future. I had been a television salesmen for a few years when I was younger, and later almost finished a degree in broadcasting. All of this was old hat to me, and goddamned boring. I tried not to nod off.

"Anyone here know what kind of cable we use in our system?" Shawn asked.

"Television?" Some fucking moron said across the room.

"Television cable? No. I mean the type of cable."

I looked around. I knew the answer. Even without my background I would have known it. Everyone should in this day and age. I didn't answer. I didn't want to be that guy. Shawn must have seen me looking though, because he locked eyes onto me.

"James?"

I looked at him, the fucker. "Coaxial."

"Right. It's coaxial. James, do you know what grade we use?"

"I don't know." I did know. Probably RG-6. Maybe RG-59. Different gauges, same function. I just wanted to sit in the back and absorb new information, if there was ever going to be any.

"We use RG-6, mostly..." He went on about the benefits of RG-6 cable and something about never using staples and I drew a picture of him saying "I don't matter at all, bro." The clock ground away, second...into...second, I wondered if its batteries were failing.

Marie and I texted back and forth. I tried to get her to send me nudes, but she wouldn't.

"Our system has proven to be..." Shawn went on.

I fell asleep and was awoken some time later by the guy sitting next to me.

"Hey wake up man. Time to go."

I looked around. He seemed to be the only one who had noticed I was out. Everyone was closing their books, mumbling to each other about how fucking excited they were to have such a great job. What an opportunity it was.

I got up, closed my book, and walked out. The building was empty, and I checked my phone to see what time it was. It was a quarter after six. I also had three new messages, all from Marie.

"Hey, when are you coming home?"

"It's five. Where are you?"

"James? Are you okay? Please call me."

She worried too much. I texted back. "Sorry. Fell asleep. We just got done. Be home soon."

I left the building, went out to the parking lot, and got into the car. It smelled like coffee. I turned it over, backed out, and left. I never wanted to come back. Six weeks of training? It seemed ungodly. Maybe the in-the-field days would be better.

I turned the CD player on and let Jeff Tweedy lull me as I faded in and out of consciousness down the interstate.

Down in Front.

I sat in the car. It was seven in the morning, and it was already hot. I didn't want to go. The weekend had gone by much too fast, and I had spent most of it dreading this moment. I had my work pants, my steel toed boots, a pen and a notebook. My hair was wet and pulled back, my beard a little rougher than it probably should have been on the first day of a new job. I didn't care about that. Secretly, I hoped they fired me over it.

I started the car, took a deep breath, and backed out of my driveway. The whole world seemed to be covered in dew. Glistening and beckoning "Don't go, James, we love you, don't go."

Well, fuck you world.

I drove slowly, not in any rush at all, across town toward the interstate, first stopping at my preferred gas station for a coffee.

"Good morning," the woman behind the counter said.

"Morning."

I got my coffee (black), paid, and got back in the car. I like my coffee only slightly warmer than warm, so I took the lid off, and set it in the cup holder to cool. I never understood why coffee needs to be so fucking hot. I backed out of the parking space.

A loud thud on my trunk. I slammed the brakes, sending my fucking coffee all over the goddamned car and burning the shit out of me through my shirt. "Hey asshole!" Someone said from behind me. I looked in the mirror. I almost hit a guy. He was coming around to my door. My heart pounded, and instinct kicked in. He was walking, so he must have been fine. When he was on my side of the car, I backed up quickly, and got the fuck out of there while he screamed some shit about the cops. Fuck him, I was going to work.

I spent most of the ride down the interstate thinking about all of the witty cowboy shit I would have said to that guy, followed immediately by I am covered in fucking coffee. I was running a little behind as it was and didn't have time to go home and change. I would have to tough through it. The sun had come up in full pink and orange force, blasting across my wet shirt and face. It was heating up in the car, the air conditioner didn't work, and despite the inevitable disaster it would create of my hair, I rolled down the window. The cool air swam around me, calming me, filling me. I hoped this morning wasn't some sort of omen.

Twenty minutes after dowsing myself in coffee and nearly killing a man, I pulled into the gravel parking lot, and park. I was ten minutes early, and the only car in the lot. I wondered if it had been rescheduled, and they didn't tell me. I realized I could have gone home and changed. I sat in the lot for another five minutes, and decided to go in. I got out, locked up, and walked to the front door.

My reflection was more than a little similar to the average bridge dweller. My shirt was destroyed, my hair was everywhere, my beard was untamed. I ran my fingers through it, and decided it was too late for everything else. I went in. They had already hired me.

No one was behind the desk in front. The lights were dim. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was nearly eight. Someone should be here, I thought. There were two chairs. I sat down, keeping my notebook and pen in my lap, and stared at the two regional accolades from 1998 and 1999 posted on the wall. Apparently, this company had decent sales reps over a decade ago.

A young guy, maybe only a little younger than me came through the door. He was ugly. Large forehead. A gut. His shirt was ripped along the seam. At least I didn't look like him.

"Orientation?" He asked.

"Yeah. no one is here yet though."

"Just us?"

"Yeah."

He sat in the chair next to me and joined in admiring the achievements of years long gone. One by one, more guys came through the door, some looking to be fresh out of high school, others nearing retirement. I thought about how odd it was that these men had gone all different paths of life, some barely starting, some with half a century behind them, and yet, here we all were, in an empty lobby, waiting to see if we can make the cut for a ten dollar an hour job. It only reaffirmed my belief that it didn't matter what you did in life. Your career, your choices. You could still end up here, with the rest of the trash and idiots. If life wanted to fuck you, it was going to. It would yank away your pension, your house, your wife, and your kids. It would steal your life's effort, stare you down and whisper "tough shit." On the other hand. These younger guys, maybe this was the first step to a long, rewarding career. Maybe this is a day they would look back on and think "it all started here, my beautiful house, wife, kids, life, all there." I didn't relate to them. No job has ever given me satisfaction, reward, or peace and I found it hard to be enthusiastic about anything involving a paycheck. If someone was giving you money, they were looking for a way to give you less. Always, they were trying to fuck you.

 I just wanted to write. I opened my notebook and began jotting down notes of the morning. The coffee. The asshole in the parking lot. The desperation. Marie's incredible body pressed against mine as I had to force myself out of bed. Life was all backwards.

A woman came out from somewhere and went behind the front desk. She had blonde curly hair, and a face like a large tree mushroom, but the rest of her made up for it. "Are you all here for orientation?"

Everyone said nothing. It was all tits and eyeballs in there. It got boring fast.

"Yes," I said.

"Follow me," she said. She came around the desk and she was wearing tight grey suit pants with black pinstripes. Dangerous. She rolled through the group of pounding hearts and sweaty palms and down a hallway to our right. I stood up, and we began to follow. There were twelve of us, by my quick count, and seven of them were blocking my view.

"Down in front!" Someone behind me said.

I laughed.

We turned a corner, and followed her into a large room. There were three plastic tables set up on either side, each with three steel chairs. A whiteboard was at the front of the room, and there were various tools zip-tied to boards on the wall. We shuffled in and took seats. I grabbed the one closest to the door. I hated having to get up in front of a room of people I didn't know.

We all looked straight ahead as she leaned against the whiteboard, saying nothing, and forcing us to revert to memories of fifth grade math teachers, rulers, and Van Halen videos.

"Are you teaching us?" Someone on the other side of the room, a large pot bellied bald man probably in his mid forties, asked.

"No," she said. "That would be Shawn. He should be here momentarily." Then, without a reason, she strut between the tables, and out of the room. I still have no idea why she lingered against the whiteboard in the first place.

"Man," the guy next to me said, "her face is like dogshit, but I would fuck that bitch for fucking days with that body. Fuck!"

A few of the guys nodded and smiled. Some did nothing. I didn't like knowing the guy next to me probably had a dick as hard as the table at that moment.

Another guy came in, wearing company colors. "Hey guys," he said. "I'm Shawn. Sorry to keep you waiting." I immediately pictured him playing hacky-sack at a Dave Matthews concert, over-using (well, just using) "bro" and wearing Birkenstocks year round. Eventually, it turned out that I wasn't too far off.

We went around the room, giving short introductions about ourselves. Names, what we did before this, why we joined the company and other lies. I was last.

"My names is James. I used to work with the disabled. I needed a job."

"Well, you're honest," said Shawn. "What do you like to do in your free time?"

No one else had gotten the extra question. I wasn't prepared. "Drink."

He and a few others laughed. "Aw, bro, I brew my own beer. It's fucking fantastic. You ever brew?"

"No."

"Oh. You a beer man?"

"If it's around."

"What do you like to drink?"

"Alcohol."

"Oh, easy to please, I guess, right?" Shawn said.

I said nothing. He looked at me, and then spoke to the class. It was going to be a six week training program. Two days in the class, three in the field. We would get assigned field trainers and ride along with them in their vans. We would make ten dollars an hour. We would get some tools, but we would need to buy a whole lot more. I texted Marie.

"I am going to need to buy tools."

Shawn handed out large plastic binders and a plastic-wrapped bundle of papers. We assembled our "books", and opened to the first page. There were three thousand, that we would have to cover in twelve days.

"How many pages are we covering a day?" I asked.

"Depends. Why?"

"Just wondering when we'll be done today."

"Oh, man. You should probably try not to think like that in this job. You're done when you're done."

"Estimate?"

He laughed. "Bro, I don't know. Like, four, maybe?"

I nodded. I didn't like Shawn.

I texted Marie again. "Should be home around 430 I think."

The morning dragged on. We read page after page, watched training videos with smug assholes, and listened to Shawn drag on and on about who the fuck knows what. Eventually, around noon, he said, "All right guys, lunch. See you in an hour. Don't be late."

I was out of the room before he could finish the sentence. My back ached. My legs had fallen asleep, and the endless bro-droning was giving me a fucking blood clot. I needed tacos.