Just this morning, I discovered an ad on craigslist for a position at a local Vet's office. After creating this blog, I rode out on foot to discover what the day had planned for me.
My steps landed on concrete for the two mile walk around town there. On the way, I found a bunch of thick, perfectly ripe bananas on a red box behind an Olive Garden--yoink. I picked one while walking, and peeled it to devour the mushy sweetness within. Sold the remaining five bananas for a dollar.
REALLY? I was confused, but took the deal. These bananas were ENORMOUS, so I decided that selling them would do them much better. I knew, somehow, that this gas station clerk could care for them much better than I could. However, I was still confused: one dollar couldn't buy hunger. A dollar seemed to me only enough green to get cheap, essentially worthless, slop from a corporate food station: like the one next to and inside the gas station where I sold them.
Continuing my walk, I passed a long barbwire fence. Behind it, what seemed to be a long abandoned residential garden home. Just no-trespassing signs, weeds and rust now. The sidewalk lead from there past an entrance to the local mall. A shady twist of asphalt to keep the cars in and the pedestrians, like myself, near, yet out. The police station was next, beheld from a distance as a mass of identical white cars. There was a large sign hung from a red tank saying, "NO SMOKING"--free gas? No.
With that dollar in my pocket, I suggested smoking. Gas station: bright, yellow and red stripes; any common sense would tell the natural world that this thing is poisonous, but I've grown up around them, so the harm might be overestimated. I entered, and bought the best thing a dollar can buy: death, in the form of a relaxing smoky habit. Here I was, behind a gas station smoking a Black & Mild.
I saved a little more than half, and went to the vet's office. Asked about the position, and the kind, nose-looking nurses smirked and handed me the application. While filling it out with the scratchy pen they handed me, the dog beside me was on cocaine. Blue-eyes and red hair, like his master, who did his best to keep him happy. The dog-man stepped outside for a smoke. I gave them the application with a smile. They wouldn't call back, because the add said, "only experienced need apply."
Back outside, the dog-man just finishing his cigarette, I spoke with him fleetingly about what a good dog she was, and that she just gets really excited. I agreed and smiled and laughed with him, then began home.
I applied, as well, at a seafood restaurant. Here, I was greeted with that strange mix of warmth and razor-sharp professionalism. Manager told me they could use me as a dish-washer. I like washing dishes, gladly, I told him smiling. Filled out another application, and left for home again.
It keeps getting hotter now. It's barely summer, and we're near record heat. Luckily, just a handful of tornadoes and a ream of lightning bolts so far, others haven't been so lucky this year: 2011 hardly knew them. It's sad--well, it's subjective really, isn't it?--that when truth is plastered up in yelling bold caps, when people from across the world can type a message for all to lend an ear and a hand, and yet: here we are, day to day, driving past and seeing me walking, or me walking and seeing a mass of cars. Are we living because our jobs are close enough to let us live? If we run out of dinosaur corpses, does the world end? Sucking the past out of the ground, wrapping it in aluminum, chrome, and leather interiors: making rapid much smoother than mindfulness, making profit much colder than the rising heat. Then the rub of the rising storm: serendipity will find another head to crack on the asphalt, in due time, and, in due time, even the plastic will melt black. It's this relaxing, smoky culture that disturbs me.
A woman was walking down the road. I waved to her, and we began to talk. She was much older than I, she had a good heart, and suggested a place close by where I could work. She cleaned there, and knew the bosses. I thanked her, and smiled.
No comments:
Post a Comment