There's no turning back
Even while we sleep
We will find you Acting on your best behaviour
Turn your back on mother nature
Everybody wants to rule the world..."
The Long and Winding Road
As I cruised ever so slowly up California Highway 101 from Ventura, towing the U-Haul trailer behind with my poor little Maverick, I had time to think. Every mile under my wheels brought me closer and closer to Lani and the kids. I was excited about getting back to more contact with PJ and Jessi but feeling a knot in the pit of my stomach over being so close to Lani again. She was my Kryptonite, I was powerless against her. I had such a burning desire for her that being summarily dismissed as I was had not stilled my beating heart. And it came down to physical proximity. I could talk to her well enough on the phone but face to face I started turning into a puddle of goo.
Didn't matter. Man's gotta do what he's gotta do.
The New Grind
I had rented an apartment in Walnut Creek for cheap and I moved right in. The reasons for the cheapness were two: 1) A home nearby had recently burned to the ground and had caught the roof above my place on fire as well. The firefighters got it out quickly but the place smelled like mildew and burnt wood. Yum. And 2) In a year the whole place was going to be torn down to put up an office complex.
The one hazard the property manager didn't tell me about was the squirrels. Damn things had found their way into the attic through the burned spot and had set up housekeeping. Memories of the dancing rats of SMA ran through my head when night after night the furry bastards would run across my ceiling, apparently bent on driving me insane. One early morning I had had enough and stood on a chair screaming at the fuckers, pounding on the ceiling. "Aaaaagghhh! Get the hell out of here, motherfuckers!" BAM BAM BAM CRUNCH! The "crunch" was my fist going through to the attic. While it was pretty unsightly, the squirrels were gone for good.
The guys next door were not much help either. I worked the night shift, so I had to try sleeping during the day. It was hard enough without the drunken frat boys waking up at the crack of noon and partying til dinner. What did they do for a living? I didn't think the "fist through the wall" maneuver would work as well with them. Grin N bear it.
The lab job was...another lab job. No more, no less. The work flow was identical to the place in Hawaii, the machines carbon copies of so many others. The people were tolerable, but it takes a certain kind of person to work the graveyard in a production job. If you were willing to hang out after work and watch the sun come up over breakfast/dinner, trying to have some kind of social life with a very limited group of people the job was great. I wanted to split my time between that world and the daytime one to be with the kids. Sleep? I'll do that when I'm dead. Believe me, I heard that a lot from my co-workers.
The layout of the place was kind of funky. Where the Hawaii lab had been spread out over a large single floor, this one was split between four floors of an old office building in downtown Oakland. The elevator was right out of 1929, with a folding gate and no door. One had to reach up and manually disengage the kill switch, then press the floor button. The elevator would take off and only stop when the switch was released. With practice I was able to step on, rise, and step off without hesitating or closing the gate. That was the most interesting part of the job. The rest was the same boring crap that I tried to look interested in.
One evening I was slogging through another shift when Mike the Manager called me up to the exec offices on the fourth floor. When I entered the office I saw Grady the general manager there with him. Uh-oh. This was getting all deja vu-y on me. Right on schedule I had worn out my welcome. This time it only took a few months for them to get tired of my act. And it was such a good act! Another exit interview, another severance check, another slow ride home. But you know, this time I didn't feel panicked at all. I was relieved. They had seen something I was denying: This crap was not for me, not at this time. It was time to simplify, pare down. No more management jobs. I was happiest as a worker bee and that's what I would go for next.
Keep On Smilin'
Dad always said that to me. Now it was time to start living it. Next day I got the paper and scanned it for photo jobs in my area. I came upon one in Walnut Creek and decided to go for it. I called the manager and we had a brief phone interview. He told me to grab a resume and come on down. So I hopped on my bike and hit the road. As I spun along the Iron Horse Regional Trail
I smiled at the thought of going back to good old lab work, nobody to answer for but myself. The early Spring weather had me feeling alright, maybe just a bit too good. As I whipped between a couple of poles set in the trail to keep cars off, my hand nicked one and went flying out behind me. I felt a jab of pain and I pulled over to check it out. Oh my. Middle fingers aren't supposed to jut out at a 30 degree angle at the center, are they? No. Guess the interview will have to wait. I pedaled slowly home and drove myself to the emergency room, where i got a quick tug to match the bones back up and a splint with a cast. Now for the interview.
While I was waiting for the doctors to set me up I was thinking about all the ways I could still do a lab job with a cast on my wrist. By the time I got to the interview I had it all figured, and I impressed the manager with the stuff I could do. He was curious about why I wasn't looking for a managerial job myself, worried that I might jump at one and leave him high and dry. I told him not to worry. I was done with that gig for a good long time. A little Ed's Recent Adventures with Three-Part Harmony and he was convinced. Welcome back to the hive, little worker bee.
"Its my own design
Its my own remorse
Help me to decide
Help me make the most
Of freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world"
New Digs
I also needed to get out of the stinking, squirrel-infested apartment. I saw an ad for a room rental that would knock $100 off my rent payment so I took it. The young girl, Chris, who rented the place had a spare room and I was a sublet, less than legal.
What a setup. She was 19 and, I found out later, a meth head. We never got close. In fact, she told her friends that I was a loner type who didn't like talking to people, so none of them ever had a word to say to me. She had two cats, one a female tabby and the other a friendly, tuxedo-clad fellow named Mervyn. I loved that cat, though it was maddening when he raided the trash can, knocking it over and scattering stuff like a raccoon. Chris insisted he should never go outside, and he worked tirelessly to defy her. Whenever he made it out she would drag him back in and scrub the bejesus out of him in the bathtub, slapping him and shouting the whole time. It was a crime. One she would not get away with.
So my new day to day became simpler. Wake up, nice breakfast, bike to a job I loved, bike home, rent a movie. Weekends I would spend time with the kids. They stayed with me for overnights and we spent a lot of time at parks and the mall. Malls are a divorced Dad haven. Lots of cool stuff to look at and a center court for play in any weather. I couldn't afford much more but that wasn't the point. I felt a great sadness every Sunday night when I would have to drive them back to Lani's folks' place and drop them off. It was hardest on PJ, who would cry and hold tightly to my leg or try to block the door. I found myself sitting in my car with tears in my eyes, trying to drive away without running into anything.
A Fortuitous Meeting
My only real entertainment besides long bike rides was watching videotapes. My buddy Jim had introduced me to his friend Rick, who managed a video store. Rick had been with us the night I left Lani and he and I had bonded over the many lines of coke and cans of brew consumed that night. We also had a great barter agreement: I would develop and print film for him and he provided me with a never-ending video rental account. I would stop in once or twice a week and pick up three movies: a new release, a classic and a porno. Once I had them all memorized I would get a refill and start all over again.
One day I was returning my tapes and a cute girl was working the counter. I had seen her there before from time to time. Her name was Jan and she was the company's relief manager, on duty at various locations when the regular manager had a day off. She took a look at the movies I was returning and gave me a grin. "Airplane, huh? You have to have a pretty weird sense of humor to like a movie like that."
"Is there something wrong with having a weird sense of humor?"
"No, no. I like weird people."
OK, time for the Mr. Suave act, voice included..."Really? So, what are you doing on Friday night?"
"Nothing, really."
"Ah."
Then I took my new videos and went home.
I was about halfway through dinner when the thought suddenly hit me: "Nothing, really." So...she...was saying...that she...would like to....go out with...me? Man, I had taken this laid-back approach way too seriously! What the hell was I thinking?
Next day I was off, so I waited until the place opened at noon and pedaled on down there to follow up. God only knows what she had been thinking. "Is he gay or something? No, I see he rents all hetero porn so that's not it. Is he slow?"
Yes, I was slow. On the uptake. But now I was oh so confident and ready to jump back into the pool. I glided on up to the store and walked in like Alexi Grewal. And she wasn't there.
"Check the Concord store, dude", said the slacker at the counter. Back on the road.
I enjoyed the sight of myself whizzing past the store windows at the Concord store and strode forth, my longish hair blown out behind like a freak flag. There stood Jan, admiring my form in those tight cycling shorts.
"Hi."
"Hi."
"So, were you serious about being free on Friday night?"
"Yeah. Were you serious about asking me out?"
"Yeah."
"OK"
"Well then, um, I guess I'll see you at around 7 on Friday. OK?"
"OK"
"OK. Ah, see you."
"Bye."
This is the stuff of great literature. But hey, I had a date for the first time in too long and it was looking good for Mister Ed.
Chapter 46: Some Endings, New Beginnings, Three Dates and a Wedding
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