Chapter Twenty-Five - Home and Gone Again

Welcome to the Workin' Week

No sooner was I home than I got a pretty good-paying job driving a lunch truck for a local deli. I got to the store at about 5AM to load up and spent the next 8 hours driving from construction sites to the DMV to office buildings, lather, rinse, repeat. The worst part of the job was the constuction guys. They were constantly trying to rip me off. I finally started wearing mirrored sunglasses and making change without looking down just so they wouldn't know where I was looking. But the pay was great for the day ($125 per week), and the best parts of the job were: 1) Listening to music all day on the radio and 2) Ruane. She drove the other truck but had the plum route. She only had to park at a Farmer's Market all day and rake in the dough. Man, Ruane was a stone cold fox. She was funny, bright and wholesome as an apple pie. Really wholesome. She wanted me to be the one to take care of that. Yowzah! And yet we never got to that last base. Always some complication or another. And me squealing tires as I drove off in frustration yet again. Looking back I wonder sometimes whether it was part of her act, but I believed it at the time, and that's what gave an extra kick to the insanity.

It only took me a few weeks back under my parents' roof to realize that I couldn't hack being with them again. I had spent too much time out on my own, more or less, and their constant nagging and button-pushing drove me up the wall. Between that and my sexual frustration I was ready to bolt. I spent as little time as possible at the house, preferring to see friends over in Vienna or hanging out with some new buddies in or new neighborhood, Hayfield Farms. Nice name, no? We would meet down at a dead end street and catch a buzz, play music and dream of other places. But it always ended the same way: back to the folks' place. So I started squirreling away cash in a savings account with the aim to move out the minute I had $800 or so. Week after week went by and I watched the balance grow with anticipation, each perceived slight by my Mom and Dad growing in my mind to the level of insult. One day I came back from work to discover that my nice queen sized bed had been replaced by a single. My feet stuck out the end like some Lil' Abner cartoon.

"Why did you do that?" I asked Mom.

"You aren't going to be living here forever", she said.

I couldn't wait to see how they reacted to the dramatic announcement I had planned.

Finally the time had come: I withdrew all my "mad money" and packed up a suitcase. Mom and Dad had gone to their room for the evening. I knocked softly on the door.

"Come in."

"Um, Mom, Dad, I have to tell you something. I really can't stay here anymore and I, uh, I'm moving back to Norfolk. I've already called and they have a room for me at the frat house. So, I guess I just wanted to come in and say goodbye."

They looked at me in stunned silence for a moment.

"Well, if this is something you have to do, then we won't try to stop you. What are you going to do there?" said Dad.

"I'll get a job. Maybe go back to school."

"Will you let me drive you to the bus station?" said Mom.

"Sure."

We said good night and I went to my room with a feeling of excitement and liberation. Out in the big world on my own at last! This is gonna be so cool.

Exit Stage Left

Morning came and Mom drove me to the Greyhound station that had become such an icon to me during the years at SMA. Many trips through there to and from the old place over those two years. Now it was my way station to another big chapter. I got on the bus and my Mom and sisters watched from the car as we pulled out of the station. Years later they told me that she wept on the way back to the house. I knew Mom was sentimental, but I was so full of myself and my own grand adventure that it meant little to me at the time how anyone else felt. I was in charge now, thank you very much.

I got to Norfolk and moved into my new room, a place over the garage the Brothers called the Crow's Nest. It was fantastic. My roommate was a kid named Xavier Cineseros, and he was a real partyin' dude. He had local buddies who we hung out with and some of the cooler Brothers came up for evenings of illegal imbibing as well. I adopted some rats from the ODU Psych Department that had been used as test subjects and we had a lot of fun watching them run around, begging for our munchies and then scurrying off to their cage. Or so I thought. One day I needed my sport coat, and when I took it out of the closet the pockets were filled with rotting food! The rats had been climbing up into the closet and hoarding the crackers, nuts and other junk food in my clothes. Thanks, guys!

With the waning of summer came also the waning of my cash. I hadn't worried much about getting a job as long as there was a party going on. But now it was time to get moving or move on out. I was pretty desperate, going so far as to apply at the Coast Guard office to take the entrance exam. I went to the Virginia Employment Office and sat down with a jobs councellor. After seeing that my job history consisted of a burger joint and a deli truck driver, the man told me to take whatever I could get.

"Here's one," he said "It says 'Platform Operator'. Do you know what that is?"

"Maybe it's like a loading dock type thing?"

"Good. Sounds like something you could do. I'll call and set up your interview this week."

A couple of days later I went for my interview at Colorcraft, INC. It was a big, nondescript building about a half mile from the frat house. I came in through the front door, and that was the last time I would enjoy that view. I was shown into an office where a tall, gray-haired man rose and shook my hand.

"Hi. I'm Frank Pyle, good to meet you."

"So this is the guy who is going to start my long and distinguished career in the exciting world of professional photofinishing", I didn't think to myself.

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