Nana stood by the picture window, staring out into the thickening fog…

“The day I was born,” she said.  ”I’m sure I sighed in despair…I’m certain I did…”

I heard a door close behind me…It was my mother, lying in bed without an expression…

The wind started to pick up… So did the rain…

Nana said she was going out to visit Papa, who was buried in the back yard underneath the old oak tree.

“But it’s storming out,” I said.

 She shrugged, “It doesn’t matter.”

She picked up her bible and walked outside, without a raincoat or an umbrella…

I decided to join her…

As we stood under that oak tree, (I noticed the caterpillars had just begun to feed on the newly emerging leaves), she read from the Book of Job… And when she got to the part where God let Job know He was only testing him and that he was going to reward Job with twice the wealth and more children, Nana just shook her head and said, “I can’t figure out why this ending pisses me off so much!”

We went back inside.

In the corner of the living room, she lit some birthday candles… “I don’t have any yortsayt candles…”

I bowed my head.

She recited a blessing in Hebrew… then a proverb in English… “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.”

Meanwhile, my mother awoke from a nightmare, came into the living room, rubbing her eyes…

She looked at Nana, yawned, belched, lit a Pall Mall, and said, “Mom, that was a great speech…”

That’s when the power went out…

We stood by the light of those birthday candles, in dead silence, sizing up the dark and shying away from pushing ourselves to the limit…

For the last several years I have worked for an organization that attempts to train individuals (mostly single black mothers) facing “barriers to employment” for entry-level positions within the banking and call center industries…

Some have been referred to us by vocational and private rehabilitation services as well as the department of social services…

Some are self-referrals to the program because they’re tired of working their dead-end shack jobs and think the money’s going be thicker and greener if they can only get a job as a bank teller or an administrative assistant or a customer service call center rep…

Some come into the program with felonies and misdemeanors…(simple assaults, child abuse, larceny, possession of drugs, possession of drugs with intent to sell, welfare fraud, worthless check charges)…

Some are victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse…

Some are dependent on drugs and alcohol…

Some pay their rent by prostituting themselves or selling drugs…

Some are only there because a social worker has told them their WorkFirst benefits are about to expire and unless they get serious about breaking the cycle of being dependent on public assistance, they’re going to be back on the streets hooking or dealing crack for a living… (a few will disregard this warning and choose to return to the streets because they can make more money there)…

Some are there because they were hurt on the job and are awaiting a ruling on their workman’s compensation claim against an employer that sent them to a doctor who determined they were able to return to active service and be retrained for another position…

It is my team’s responsibility as trainers/caseworkers, to ensure that these individuals are fully-equipped with the tools necessary for them to be able to achieve competitive employment…

That’s our goal…

My team’s placement rate for the year is hovering somewhere around 32.65%… it should be over 80%, according to our manager…

But how are we supposed to place individuals into competetive employment when so many of them don’t even want to be there in the first place?… or shouldn’t be there?… or don’t know how to be there because poverty and negativity is all they’ve ever known… ?

How do we train individuals for a job with a company that will not hire them because they’re convicted felons…?

How do we get a recruiter interested in a candidate who’s held fourteen jobs within the span of a year and a half…?

Many of these individuals are so beaten down and psychologically disabled that they’ll never even get past the first interview because of their poor attitude or inability to communicate effectively…

Yet they keep enrolling in the program…and we keep trying to train them…and the Leadership Team’s panties remain in a perpetual bunch because, in their view, our placement rate is so completely unfathomable…

Well, Leadership Team, how about populating the classroom with individuals who want to go to work?  Who actually want to show up to class?  Who can speak in coherant sentences?  Who don’t dress like they’re going out to the club?  Who are only there so they can continue to receive their welfare benefits?

How about that, Leadership Team?

How about giving your instructors the resources necessary for them to be able to perform their jobs effectively, instead of expecting them to build a house with some cardboard, a few sheets of tin, and a fistful of thumb tacks…?

Pretty novel idea, right…?

Or maybe the program was never designed to be successful…? Maybe it’s just there in order to show the community and its civic leaders that you’re really doing something to improve the lives of those individuals who have such barriers to employment…? Maybe funding for organizations like yours will always trickle down like subsidies from Heaven, regardless of how many individuals you serve or what your placement or retention rates are…?

If that’s the case, then I need to start my own nonprofit company so I can start racking up some of that highly coveted grant blood money…

I just need to find a way to knock back my conscience because I’ll be exploiting entire subcultures of people…

And that takes a very special talent…

i haven’t been able to look at myself in the mirror lately…

what am i ashamed of…?

my bald head…?

my height…?

my age…?

my laziness…?

my net worth…?

because i’m still single…?

because other people are beginning to refer to me as “crazy…?”

because i haven’t had a date in over 10 years…?

because i haven’t been laid in over 10 years…?

hey, you said you wanted honesty…

always said it’s the best policy…

always told me, “the truth shall set you free…”

well, lemme tell you something, friend:

the truth don’t set you free…

it just makes you feel even more self conscious about yourself when you go out in public…

yes, it does…

can you see me admitting this shit to strangers on a bus…?

what are they gonna think of me when i tell them that i masturbate to girls on bebo…?

the shackles are suddenly gonna be undone?

yeah, uh heh…

lemme just go on telling people i’m happy, fulfilled…

shit, even self-actualized…

now people will believe that…

people believe just about anything you tell them…

just as long as you don’t tell them their liars…

because then they’ll just start making up shit about you, anyway…

and then we’ll all be locked back up in our little prison cells again…

I

I needed a job, so I perused the help wanted ads, and found this:

Are you a motivated self-starter not afraid to work in a fast-paced, detail-orientated team environment that rewards performance based on excellence? Then circle me!

“Globewide Solutions, how may I direct your call?” said the bored, nasally operator.

“Uh, yes, hi, I’m calling about the ad in the paper looking for customer service representatives…”

“Do you have a recruiting code for that, sir…?”

“Yes, it’s uh… MDNOPQRWATYDHZR-1478961289…and I think there’s a little -”

“Thank you. Hold please…”

She put me on hold for about three minutes. Then:

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“Would you be able to come in and be tested tomorrow at one-thirty?”

“Sure…what sort of te -”

“It’s an aptitude and personality test consisting of two hundred and fifty questions which you’ll have twenty minutes to complete…”

“Ohkay. Will I need to -”

“You’ll need to bring two forms of identification, one of which must be a social security card, the other a picture I.D., such as a driver’s license, school I.D., military I.D., etc… you’ll also need to bring three business references, two of which must be from former supervisors… do you need me to repeat any of that…?”

“No, ma’am…”

“If for any reason you are unable to attend your appointment, you must contact us at least one hour before your scheduled appointment.”

“Okay…”

“At which point we will reschedule an appointment for you at your earliest convenience…”

“Great…”

“Will anything prevent you from being able to take this test?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Hold please…”

Three minutes later:

“Sir?”

“Yess?”

“What is your name?”

“Chico Mahalo,” I said, spelling it.

“Mr. Mahalo, can I get a contact number where you can be reached?”

“Yes. 555 -”

“Area code first.”

“Sorry. 701-555-4763.”

“Is this a daytime or a night time number?”

“It’s… an all day number… you can reach me anytime… I’ve got an answering machine…”

“Thank you, Mr. Mahalo. We have you confirmed to take our general aptitude and personality test tomorrow afternoon at one-thirty. Please bring a copy of your resume along with the other items I mentioned. When you come in, just let the receptionist know you’re being tested and one of our recruiters with meet with you. Are there any other questions?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Let me give you a reference number then to confirm your appointment…”

“A reference -”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes, I’m…”

“Your reference number is 478239875145236957982541635856-11. Do you need me to repeat that?”

“I’ve got it, thanks…”

“Thank you for contacting Customer Service Solutions. If you have any additional questions, please contact us 1-888-555-6074 and have a nice day.”

“Thank -”

Click. Dial tonnnnnnnnnnnnnne.

II

I arrived at the Globewide Solutions business park fifteen minutes before show time, entered the building, and approached the young woman behind the receptionist’s desk, who was chewing gum, applying mascara, and talking on the phone. A real multi-tasker.

“…girl, lemme tell you. That boy ain’t gonna get you an engagement ring…not as long as you keep churnin’ out the love like that… hold on a sec, girl…” She looked up at me. “Can I help you, sweetie?”

“I’m here for the -”

“You here to take the customer service test?”

“Yes, I am…” I didn’t like the way every one at this company kept finishing my sentences.

“Your name?”

“Chico Mahalo.”

She checked off my name. “Just have a seat, darlin’, I’ll let ‘em know you’re here.”

“Thank you.”

“Uh heh.”

I sat down, and looked around for something to read. Every book I had ever read on interviewing suggested that I browse through some of the company’s literature while waiting to be interviewed because it was supposed to be demonstrative of my level of commitment to the interviewing process or some bullshit, so when I noticed the company’s annual report lying on the end table next to me, I dove right into it.

Twenty minutes later, a door opened and a tall, crisp woman in her early twenties dressed in a gray skirt, white blouse, blue blazer, thick stockings, and black sensible shoes, came bounding into the lobby with a required smile and an extended hand.

“Chico?”

“Hello,” I said.

“Hi, Bianca Bernard. How are you? Nice to meet you!”

“Nice to meet you.”

We shook hands. Her hand was cold but very firm. Mine was a little moist.

“Follow me,” Bianca said.

She led me through a narrow maze of corridors which were littered with boxes labeled “Conference Room 151,” “H.R,” “Dave’s Stuff,” “Quality Assurance,” and “Monica.”

“As you can see,” Bianca said. “We’re in the middle of moving things around… Things are a little disorganized at the moment…”

She brought me to a small conference room, stood to the right of the doorway and gestured me into the room. “Have a seat and we’ll begin the test in about ten minutes.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Several prospective applicants, all female, were seated around a large circular table. They all had those voluntarily immobilized faces people often get when thrown into a room with a bunch of strangers who happen to be competing for the same jobs.

I sat down next to a young, black female, who immediately angled her body away from me as I slumped into the unergonomically-correct chair. For the next few minutes we bided our time by listening to each other’s breath and avoiding eye contact. I read some of the motivational posters on the wall and wondered if anybody had actually ever been motivated by them.

You Don’t Fail Until You Quit!
Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.
Think outside the box.
Rise Above the Ordinary!

The only thing they motivated me to do is to forget them.

The young, black female then turned to the older black female next to her, and whispering loud enough for the rest of us to hear, said “Have you ever taken one of these tests before?”

“Chile, I’ve taken so many tests, I can hardly see straight.”

This prompted a ripple of nervous laughter from the group.

“I mean, what is the rationale behind these tests?” the young, black female asked, opening it up to the others for comments.

“I’ve heard that if you do too well on them,” said a white woman in her early forties, “they won’t hire you,”

“Really?” someone else said, gasping.

“I don’t know if it’s true or not,” the woman continued. “but I have a friend who works here and she told me the test is pretty tricky. You have to really concentrate and pay attention…”

The young, black female shook her head angrily. “See? Unh-unh. I don’t like that. I’ve heard they’re biased.”

“Mmm hmm,” said the woman sitting next to her.

“All I know is I ain’t never been offered a job after takin’ one of these durn tests,” said a middle-aged black woman.

“What do you think happened?” someone asked.

“Well, personally, I have my own opinion, but we done already beat that dead horse senseless more than a few times, trust me on that…”

“I know that’s right!”

This brought on more, heartier laughter, especially from the black females in the group.

That was last thing anybody said until Bianca popped her energetic self back into the room a couple minutes later holding a stack of test booklets in her hand.

“Ohkay, hot off the presses!” she said with the enthusiasm of an infomercial babe. “Are we having fun yet?”

There were a few indifferent mumblings and grumblings from several of the women.

“Ohh, come on!” Bianca feigned disappointment. “Ya’ll are here to have fun! Even if you are taking a test! Okay! Please do not open these until I say so.” She began handing out the booklets. “This is a timed test. We start together, we finish together, alright?”

“Should we use pen or pencil?” somebody asked.

“Either one,” Bianca said. She grabbed a box of magic markers and some name tags atop a filing cabinet in the corner of the room and began passing them around. “Ya’ll, I know this might seem a little dorky, but if you would please fill out these name tags. We’re not trying to embarrass you. It just makes it a whole lot easier for our recruiters when they’re interviewing you. Okay?”

Bianca then went over the ground rules of the test. Do this, don’t do that, blah blah blah. Then toward the end of her spiel, she casually mentioned that we shouldn’t worry about completing all two hundred and fifty questions because no one had ever done that before; and besides, the point of the test was not to finish it. It was to make sure our answers were consistent. Lastly, she said, we should attempt to answer a question rather than to skip it because skipping a question meant the computer would automatically mark them as incorrect.

“A computer’s gradin’ these?” said the middle-aged black woman, with a cynical smirk. “Lord, let me get my prayer on here.”

This time we all laughed. Even Bianca. At least she pretended to.

After we completed filling out our applications and verifying our identities, Bianca held up a timer and said, “On your mark, get set, go!”

I opened the test booklet and stared numbly at the directions.

“Respond to each numbered statement by filling in the circle of the number that corresponds to your response.
Fill in circle “1″ if you strongly disagree with the statement.
Fill in circle “2″ if you disagree with the statement.
Fill in circle “3″ if you are undecided as to whether you agree or disagree with the statement.
Fill in circle “4″ if you agree with the statement.
Fill in circle “5″ if you strongly agree with the statement.”

I read the first five questions.

“I like to have a chance to figure out better ways to do a task. º º º º º

It’s no big deal if a goal is missed. º º º º º

Management’s explanations are usually truthful. º º º º º

Companies will take advantage of employees when they get a chance. º º º º º

I hate the idea of imperfect work.” º º º º º

I took a breath and filled in the fourth circle of the first question.

Like to have a chance to figure out better ways of finding a better job, I thought, and went on to the next question.

III

I had just finished answering question one hundred and ten, when the door slowly creaked opened, and Bianca stuck her head in the doorway and looked around before entering the room. Several seconds later, the timer went off.

“Oh, God!” the young black female exclaimed, startled from the sudden noise of the timer’s buzzer.

“Girl, you about jumped out a that chair, didn’t you?” said the woman sitting next to her.

“Ya’ll, put your pens and pencils down and close your test booklets,” Bianca said, turning off the alarm.

One lady put her head in her hands and muttered, “Lord Jesus…”

“It wasn’t that bad, was it?” Bianca said as she collected the booklets.

“Can I give you my opinion of this test?” said the middle-aged black woman, eliciting lots of suppressed laughter.

“You sure can,” Bianca said.

“What do it have to do with the actual job we applyin’ for?”

There were lots of heads nodding and people mumbling “that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

Bianca giggled nervously and reacted as if she had never heard the question before. “Well?…” You just knew she so wanted to unload on us: Look, ya’ll, just play the game and stop your bitching! But she maintained her composure, as well as her sweet southern lilt, and explained to us, in her best corporate-ese, how over the years, organizations had discovered through case studies that they can improve the accuracy of its selection decisions by using the science of psychology and scientifically developed selection tests.

The whole room went silent.

“Mmh mmh mmh,” said the middle-aged black woman, shaking her head.

Bianca explained that when she was finished grading the tests, she’d call us out into the hallway one at a time and give us our results. Until then we should just relax, chat amongst ourselves, and get to know each other. She’d be back in a jiffy.

“I don’t know about ya’ll,” said the middle aged black woman, making sure Bianca was out of earshot. “But I strongly disagree with some a the questions on that test!”

The room erupted into laughter.

“Whoo, no she didn’t!” somebody shouted.

“Are these people crazy?” she continued. “Of all the stupid-dumb-ass – Lord, forgive me – I’m just like…” She threw her hands up in frustration.

“These people be trippin’! Disagree, strongly disagree, agree, strongly disagree – how ‘bout I strongly agree to put my foot up your scientifically developed selection test.”

More shrieks of laughter.

“She ain’t right!”

Then, pointing to me, she said, “He the only one they gon’ hire.”

“You think?” I said.

“Shoot,” she said.

I smiled and winked at her.

“Mmh mmh mmh,” she said, shaking her head.

Twenty minutes later, Bianca returned to announce the first name.

“Tamara?”

“Oh Lord here we go, ya’ll,” somebody said.

The young black female who had been sitting next to me quietly stood up and left the room to learn her fate. She was followed by Dawn, Leah, Cathy, Linda, Chantaye, Cynthia, Michelle, Tammy, Danielle, Shirley, Rosalyn, Lisa, Beryl, Tina, Rachel, Lynn, Joyce and Anita.

I was dead last. I needed an antacid.

“Chico?”

I walked out into the hallway. I could tell by the look on Bianca’s face that I would not be advancing onto the next round.

In her most empathetic tone, she informed me that I didn’t qualify at this particular time. But if I would like to retest in six months, I could give them a call and schedule another appointment at that time.

“Thanks for coming,” she said, extending her hand.

I shook her hand, mumbled something resembling a “thank you,” and felt the corners of my lips stretching slowly sideward; it was the closest thing to a smile I could muster at that moment.

As I left the building and moved toward my car, I noticed Tamara saying goodbye to the woman who had been sitting beside her.

She reached for the woman’s hand and squeezed it tenderly. “Have a blessed day, Miss Lottie,” Tamara said.

“You, too, dear.”

The woman smiled one last time, turned, and headed to the bus stop

Tamara, whose car was parked next to me, waved at me as she drew near.

“How’d you do?” she said.

“Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

“You didn’t qualify?”

I shook my head. “You?”

“I qualified…whatever that means…dag, all these hoops you got to jump through, though…one crazy thing after the other…”

“I know…”

“Well, gotta jet. Gotta pick up my child, go home, and cook dinner…”

“Good luck…”

“Thanks. Bye.”

Tamara got in her car, cranked it, and drove off.

I got in my car and just sat there for about five minutes trying to figure out if I could afford to take another cash advance on my credit card in order to pay my rent.

phone rings, somebody on the other end wants to know when i’m coming to visit them…

i’m so distracted i mutter, “haven’t been myself lately…”

“hmm?  what did you say?”

“nothing,” i say, wiping sweat from my brow…

the caller waits for me to say something else, but i don’t, which makes the caller very uncomfortable, and they break the silence by saying, “still working through some things, are you…?”

“always,” i say…

another pause and another numb feeling…

“sounds like i got you at a bad time,” the caller says, and i confirm this by intoning, “mmmm…” 

“well, let me let you go… i’ll talk to you later…”

the caller hangs up, but i keep the receiver to my ear until the busy signal stops and i’m transferred to a recorded message that says, “if you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again… if you need help, hang up and then dial your operator…”

i need help, i think, but not from you…

then i remember something a friend whispered to me the previous week…

“you’re starting to like your solitude a little too much…”

“what do you mean,” i say.

“time to venture out,” says my friend, pointing to my head… “and become a living, moving thing again…”

a fleeting moment passes and that phrase, “living, moving thing,” is swiftly distributed across both hemispheres of my brain, and although on the surface it sounds a bit naive and corny, it gets at the truth of something and goes directly to the core of my psyche, deeply affecting me…

she’s absolutely right, i think…

my life has become a quick moving river and i’m just trying to stay afloat and not hit a boulder… i’m a bit angry with my life, myself…always verging on being sorry for myself…doing things for all the wrong reasons…i need to restore to me something that was very important to me when i was a kid… something i’ve lost…or lost sight of or the grasp of…

i need to find a form for my experience… but i’m sure what to write about…

for years i’ve bisected the Psyche of the Man with the Fierce Moral Sensibility Who Can’t Make Any Peace with the World and covered my canvases with the long, emotional colors of all those Lost People Who Find Themselves by Recognizing Their Love for One Another… but i’ve never been able to find the precise rising line of conflict and resolution to those themes…

maybe because i’ve compromised my form and am no longer capable of serious introspection…

i’ve become another 21st-Century Working Class Writer Trying to Come to Grips with the Reality of My Own Life;  too exhausted to develop anything more than the callouses on my finger tips from all that angsty typing…

“getting stuck is what makes us not move,” says my friend… “you’ve got to move into a different place and find what it is you want to write about…”

i pause… then somewhat self-mocking say, “i used to want to write about how we all have to work to find the best in ourselves and others… how there should be less suffering and more humanity, liberty, equality and peaceful coexistence… but that’s just a very pleasant fiction… there’s no way to follow that tale to its end… you can never solve the moment when you write about things like that…”

sighing with sentiment, my friend says, “your fantasies have lapsed into frustration…”

that’s when i begin to wonder just how far down this brown-eyed troubadour can go…

 So now that I’ve finally found my voice, I can begin to write the Marginal American Novel.

I think its major theme will be The Search for Personal Identity. 

Because, quite frankly, I still haven’t figured out who the hell I am.

So in addition to it being the Marginal American Novel, it’ll also be therapy for me. 

Because I sure as hell can’t afford a therapist. 

Besides, I already know what a therapist would tell me if I went to one. 

They would tell me I’m still a child and I’m still not ready for adulthood.

There, I diagnosed myself.  I’m cured!

So anyway, my protagonist  [Okay, you might as well say it's me]  is on this search for personal identity.  He strikes out into The World alone.  Tries to break from society’s conventions.  Grapples with the notions of loss of personal control and whether people can change their situations in life or whether they are in the grips of forces beyond their control, blah blah blah…

What do I know?  I’ve never written a novel before.

But I have read a few here and there.  Every now and then.  Whenever the spirit or martinis moves me. 

I especially like novels that don’t have a lot of big words in them or sound like they were written a hundred years ago by some highly-educated over-achieving European aristocrat.

Okay, so I’m shallow.  Sue me.

The point is, my novel’s not going to have a lot of words.

I know most novels are like at least a couple hundred pages long, but, man, I just don’t have the time to be writing that many words.  I’m working a full-time job and I only have a couple hours a night to work on the damn thing.  By nine o’clock, I’m ready for bed. 

So you can see my dilemma.

And on top of that, I’m going to be forty-five years old in December, so I’m not exactly a wunderkind.  Of course, I’m not exactly a wundermensch, either.  In fact, there’s hardly anything wunder about me at all.  And that’s not an easy thing for a guy like me to admit.  It’s bad enough you got me to admit that I don’t know who the hell I am. 

Like it’s a crime to be forty-five and not know who you are.

Do you know who you are?

You don’t even look like you know where you are.

Me, I’m in a six-hundred square foot subsidized apartment with leaky faucets and a family of mice living inside my bedroom closet wall.

Nice, heh?

And I keep getting these goddamn bug bites on my legs and arms.  I don’t know if they’re mosquitos or spiders or bedbugs, but they’re really pissing me off!

So, as you can see, I have a hell of a lot of obstacles that are getting in the way of me writing  the Marginal American Novel;  which at this point is probably going to end up being the Marginal American Novella or Short Story or Poem.  Or whatever’s shorter than a poem.

A slogan maybe?

Can you write about somebody who’s searching for personal identity in the form of a slogan?

Oh yah, Nike did it, didn’t they?  “Just Do It.”

Okay, well, there’s always variations on a theme.

Every writer steals from every other writer.  Shakespeare stole from the Greeks.  George Harrison stole from the Chiffons.  Milton Berle stole from Bob Hope. 

Me, I think I’ll steal from Moses.

Hey, it’s the greatest story ever told, right? 

Better I should steal from Moses than from say the writers of “Hello, Larry.”

I mean I would at least like a shot at being reviewed by somebody at the New York Times.  I don’t care if it’s the obituary writer, for Chrissakes, I’m not choosey.

I just gotta come up with a plot now.

I mean, I sort of kind of have a plot.

I just have to figure out how to resolve my inner conflicts.

Errr, I mean my protagonist’s inner conflicts. 

Which are…

I’m glad you asked.

Somebody once told me there’s like anywhere from one to thirty-six plots in all of literature.

I have absolutely no idea what they are.  I’ll let you go on Wikipedia to find that out.

But because the major theme of my novel is The Search for Personal Identity, I just have to find out my identity.  I mean, my protagonist’s identity.  And then I’ll have my novel. 

Apparently, there’s like a beginning, a middle, and an end to every story, so…

I just have to find the…

Whaddaya they call it?

Structure?

I think that’s what they call it.

I don’t want you to think this is easy for me.  It’s not.  At all. I mean, quite frankly, I usually get migranes and boils on my ass from trying to be creative.. 

I don’t even think Hemingway got migranes or boils on his ass when he was trying to be creative. 

But I do. 

Not that that makes me a better writer than Hemingway.  God knows I’m not.  I’m just saying…

I don’t know what I’m saying… probably because I’m drunk… but so was Hemingway.

Some of the time.  I don’t want any law suits.

Besides, I have no money.  I’m a parking lot attendant.

I know it’s not the most glamorous job in the world, but it’s better than my last job.  I was a janitor at a porno theater. 

Talk about a self-esteem buster.

Not that it fills me with confidence to be sitting inside a tiny booth calculating parking charges and collecting fees from customers, but, it’s a hell of a lot better than mopping up dried semen.

And it gives me a lot of time to think about my novel.

Which I’m sure I’ll start any day now.

In those days, the prevailing attitude toward Wiley Ouellette was that he was a facist, not a socialist;  although he swore up and down he was a-political, even at those city council meetings where he’d step up to the podium and talk about Eugene Debs, Joe Hill, and the Industrial Workers of the World.

In 1970 something he was diagnosed with acid reflux, gingivitis and narcolepsy.

He couldn’t have cared less;  he’d been suffering from ulcers and conjunctivitis since he was eleven.

The year his father left him out of his will, he wrote a novella entitled “Victor the Hermit,” about a nogoodnik who was the embodiment of kitsch. 

When he went to the post office to mail out a hundred and two copies of his sublimation, the clerk behind the counter asked him, “Whaddaya, expecting immortality?”

“Just a good piece of ass,” Wiley said.

As the rejection slips piled up, he used them to wallpaper his outhouse;  it looked as though he was going to have to keep his night job as a remittance processor for the state’s largest newspaper.

Following his ninety day probationary period, his supervisor called him into his office.

“Wiley, you’re very quiet,” said his supervisor.  “I find there are two kinds of quiet people.  The kind who are quiet, but you know they’re happy.  You’re the other kind.  I don’t know if you’re happy or not…”

“Just know that I’m alive and well and living within my emotional means,” Wiley said.

His supervisor just stared at him as a fire drill alarm interrupted their silence.  “We’ll finish this when we come back,”  he said.

As Wiley was standing in the parking lot with the rest of his coworkers, he noticed his supervisor lurking in the shade nipping from a flask.

Ten minutes later the security guards signaled an end to the fire drill and the employees were allowed to reenter the building.

When Wiley got back to his supervisor’s cubicle, his supervisor wasn’t there, so he went back to his desk, and emailed him:

“Don’t fight pressure with pressure,” he wrote.  “You’ll only end up broken-hearted.”

I  recall 1977.

I wore Buster Brown shoes and was expelled for throwing snow balls at a school bus.

I was called into the principal’s office so many times that year, it appeared my ass had made a permanent imprint on The Chair.

We  called it The Chair for obvious reasons.

We insubordinates liked to fancy ourselves as inmates on death row.

One day I got busted for smoking.

Mrs. Hooper caught  me.

It doesn’t matter how I got caught.

Or what happened once I was called into the principal’s office.

Fact is, I did my penance and got out of sixth grade with most of my balls still in tact. 

The following year I was in junior high.

Sure, I was a loner. 

But I was a loner with people-skills.

I wasn’t what you’d call “goal-orientate” or a “go-getter”, but I knew how to “work a  room” and how to experience those “extremes of emotions.”

I was thirteen. 

Smoked a half-pack of Camel Lights a day, drank six cups of coffee-milk before lunch.

I was a true one-sixteenth of a bad-ass.

The following year, my parents didn’t know whether to send me to private school or military school. 

So they compromised and sent me to Catholic school.

I’m sitting on my bed, watching Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird, drinking martinis and perusing the works of George Burns…

What a life I’ve chosen for myself, I whisper and then I sigh…

[Wait a sec... gotta take a sip of my martini]

Mmm, that’s delicious…

Love the olive juice…

Nice added touch to this drink indeed…

[Have this facial tick... hope it's not (whatever disease it is that gives you facial ticks)]

Cross my legs…

Try to breathe like the Buddha…

Breathing in… I smile…

Breathing out… I’m so confused I don’t know where to begin…

[Another sip of martini]

Phone rings…

I pause the movie.

It’s my friend Jules McGraph. 

Conversation goes something like:

Jules:  What’s up?

Me:  Watching Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird.

Jules:  Dude, you’re 40 years old…

Me:  Fuck you.

Jules:  What an empty life you must lead…

Me:  Hey, at least I’m not shooting up yoga classes at the LA Fitness in Pittsburgh.

Jules:  Whaa?

Me:  Never mind…

Jules:  Gotta favor.

Me:  Oh no.

Jules:  “Oh no?”

Me:  What’s the favor…?

Jules:  Got bats in my attic.

Me:  Well, I have always encouraged you to see a therapist…

Jules:  No, for real.  I got bats in my attic.

Me:  Bats as in…

Jules:  As in bats!

Me:  Really.

Jules:  Yah.  I was up on the ladder painting near the eaves and I smelled shit.  I literally smelled shit.  And I looked in through the vent and I saw fucking bats, man!  Dozens of bats!

Me:  Wow.

Jules:  So I called an exterminator.  He’s charging me like 800 bucks, which I ain’t got…

Me:  What makes ya think I got 800 bucks?

Jules:  You just got your tax rebate back.

Me:  So?  I’m using that to buy a laptop.

Jules:  So fucking selfish, man…

Me:  Selfish?

Jules:  I got bats in my fucking attic and you’re gonna buy a damn laptop.

Me:  Uh heh.

Jules:  How much more selfish can ya be…?

Me:  You’re buggin’.

Jules:  I been unemployed for six months!

Me:  Lazy bastard.

Jules:  It’s the economy!

Me:  The economy.  Please.

Jules:  Help a brotha out.

Me:  I gotta finish my martini.  Bye.

[I hang up]

Why, was that mean?

Sip my  martini.

“Wow, I love martinis,” I say.  Out loud, too.  Nobody’s around, but I’m saying how much I love martinis out loud.  I’m a trip.  I burp.  Don’t even excuse myself.  Who’m I gonna excuse myself for?  Me? 

[I laugh] 

(I’m easily amused)

[Good thing nobody's gonna read this shit, I think]

Breathing in… why am I so sad?

Breathing out… buzzin’ like Dino Martin…

Not that I’m paranoid or anything, but why is everybody laughing at me lately?  Just cuz I shaved my head and I have a really round head like Charlie Brown and it’s whiter than Vanna White’s teeth?

[I choose not to answer that question]

I unpause Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird.

What a funny fucking movie.

I know it’s geared toward like seven year olds, but I’m really enjoying the hell out of this flick.  I don’t know why.  Maybe cuz I have the emotional maturity of a seven year old?

[I sip my martini and make a mental note to investigate this question further at a much later date when I'm not so drunk]

I remember watching Sesame Street when I was a kid.

My favorite character was Oscar the Grouch.  [Obviously]

I also liked Cookie Monster.  [Is it any wonder I'm not overweight from eating so many damn chocolate chip cookies?]

What, too much information?

Aw, the movie’s over.

I sing that line from the Kinks’ Celluoid Heroes: 

“I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show,
A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes,
Because celluloid heroes never feel any pain
And celluloid heroes never really die.”

Why I’m singing the lyrics to this song immediately after watching a movie like Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird is something I’m still trying to figure out.

And I’ll probably never figure it out.

Because, unlike Socrates, who said, “the unexamined life is not worth living,” I believe the unexamined life is very much worth living.

Besides, he was on trial for heresy when he said that.

I’m just sitting here drinking martinis and smoking a grape cigarillo having just watched a movie about a family of “humans, monsters, grouches, honkers, and the other varieties of eclectic species on Sesame Street.” 

[Got that from Wikipedia, in case you were wondering]

[You weren't?]

[Well, I like to provide my sources; I just don't want ya'll thinking I'm plagiarizing all over the place]

[Not that I'd ever plagiarize]

[Learned a long time ago, boys and girls... In Freshman English, as a matter of fact... that plagiarism is the use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work and it's just plain wrong and should not be tolerated]

For me, it’s an ethical thing.

Now “recycling fraud,” that’s a zebra of a different stripe.  I’ll reuse significant, identical, or nearly identical portions of my own work without acknowledging that I’m doing so or without citing the original work till the fucking cows come home.

[Mm.  Think I'm getting a headache from drinking this martini too fast]

By the way, I make my martinis like this, in case you were interested.

Fill up an old fashioned glass with ice
Pour in some Gin
Some Dry Vermouth
Throw in a few green olives
Little bit of olive juice

Go make one now.

Trust me, you’ll feel a whole lot better.

What?  Say you got trust issues?

Sorry.  Didn’t mean to laugh.

Wait!  Where ya going?  I was only trying to…

I sigh.

Put in another DVD.

“Gumby: The Movie.”

Oh, leave me alone.

As I rotated the mala with my thumb, I thought:

For the most part, I like people.  I like doing stuff for people.  I like seeing people succeed.  I like helping people that need help;  but I’m an introvert.  Big-time.  And I don’t know if that’s because I was an only child or just because I’m a strange bird.

Someone once described me as “complex, peculiar…” 

Well, that hurt my feelings.  That just bugged the heck out of me. 

But I’ve come to find out in my old age I guess that that’s probably spot on the money. 

I’m just not your normal guy’s guy. 

I’m kind of a small town free spirit.

Warren Zevon wrote a song called Splendid Isolation.

One of my favorite lyrics of all time.

“Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand
And lead me through the World of Self.”

And the song describes me to a tee. 

If I could live on top of a mountain overlooking the Rocky Mountain National Park and never come out of my cabin except for supplies, I would do it in a heart beat. 

So maybe it’s just me.