1,000 Days of Losing

How can I have lost this much and still have too much to lose? I get up every day early to catch the bus now that the car has been repossessed and go stand in line at the union hall hoping to get picked to go out and help on the beer trucks for the day. When that doesn’t happen (most of the time), I walk to the unemployment office to save bus fare and check the boards, fill out more forms, sign up for counseling and head out to the food pantries.

I don’t even need to check the lists anymore; I know where every church is and what day they’re giving out food. I fixed the wheel on an old laundry cart I found in someone’s garbage last month and I lug it with me everywhere. When I get back to the shelter each night, I lock it to the frame of my cot before my evening shortie of cheap wine….one of the last things I can’t afford to lose.

My sob story is as boring as anyone else’s; nothing special. The part that’s special to me is how long it’s taking for things to turn around. I’m not the brightest guy to drop out of Midvale High and, yeah, I’ve lied and cheated about as much as the next guy. But come on. I did all right at the machine shop. I never stole shit like a lot of the other guys there and I gave them a solid 40 every week, never flaked out on the overtime. What difference does that make when the shop shuts down?

It’s probably a good thing I never had much luck with the ladies. Can you imagine how much fun this would be with a woman and maybe even a kid or two? I see guys with families making the rounds. They’re the ones I feel sorry for. I don’t feel sorry for myself much, mostly because I know I can turn this around. It’s just a matter of showing up and not giving in.

I’m out on the trucks one day just as the weather’s going rainy and cold with Harve, one of the old badasses who came up when the city was hiring goons to break the knees of union organizers and I’m all up in my head figuring how to parley today’s $86 into something that’s gonna get me a real job. What do I need more now: a decent set of clean clothes or a new pair of boots? My wet feet want to make my decision for me but I’ve never been one to jump at stuff and, if anything, I take my time even more these days.

“Want pizza for lunch, there champ? My treat.” Harve’s a good sort, but then most of these old union guys are pretty solid.

“Sure, thanks a lot, Harve.” We’re delivering to the Giant Tiger supermarket and I pull my hood up. About half the truck will get unloaded here making for a nice, short day out.

Harve backs the truck into the loading dock and I jump out, going around to the back for the wheeler and slamming the side doors of the truck up. I don’t get out on the trucks enough to really build up any strength so it’s always a struggle to get the cases down from the top and then lined up right on the wheeler. I’m wrestling the second case down when a sudden gust of cold wet wind slams a door off to the side of the open bay and I almost lose it but with a surge of panic I manage to get it down in one piece. Jesus.

That night, back at the shelter I face a new dilemma. Where am I going to put these new boots so they don’t get stolen while I sleep? A dark slow moving rage comes out of nowhere and I sit as still as possible because if I move one muscle I am going to rip this place to pieces. The bum on the next cot glances over at me and then turns away quick. The fury is thick in my throat. I hold everything down and in and hold it hard. In time it passes and I decide to sleep with the boots on, reaching for tonight’s shortie.

It’s a long miserable winter, the worst ever. Working with an indifferent social worker, I’m placed in an SRO, but I still can’t find a regular job. I qualify for subsidized rent and $45 of food stamps a month. I go out on the trucks when I get picked. I volunteer for stupid shit, like cleaning up litter in the park. No money in it, but it keeps me moving.

I see all of you driving your new cars and laughing with your pretty families and girlfriends. It’s easy for you, isn’t it? It’s going down to 4 below zero tonight. Tap the old thermostat up a bit and make sure the garage door is closed so your car starts in the morning. Then you’ll go snuggle into a clean, warm bed, probably next to a sleepy someone who pushes her butt against you under the sheets.

How I get through this winter feels like one of God’s practical jokes. I nearly live in my social worker’s office and she gets so sick of me that I get the extra blankets I’ve been begging for (I’m not sure, but I suspect she buys them with her own money just to get me off her back). She gives me leads on jobs and I don’t skip a one of them. I go to everything. And I get turned down for everything.

Right: overqualified to clean out cages at the local animal shelter. Not enough experience to wait tables, but overqualified to do the damned dishes. Too old. Wrong sex. And my attitude? They got a problem with my attitude?

Where I get the onions to get the hell out of bed every goddamned morning at 4am to slog down to the union hall is beyond me. I do it. I do it because my only other choice is to give up. I’m surrounded by the ones who’ve given up and I am not that. Harve can usually be counted on to grab me if his regular guy isn’t around. I get a solid two weeks out on the truck in February when his guy’s off in Florida.

When his guy gets back, we’re seeing the first small hints that winter might not last forever. I go down to the hall for seventeen days in a row without going out on the trucks once. Each day I leave the hall and consider my options. I keep seeing the beggars and I just cannot, will not, panhandle. I can’t do it. I even save a cup from Arbies and still can’t hold it out and ask for money. I go get into a soup line at St. something or other and wait for food.

There’s this day in the middle of March when I hit some kind of wall. I twisted my ankle on the ice last week and know I need to go sit with the rest of the cattle at the free clinic but have been putting that off. A man can only be treated like meat for so long. I flop down onto a bench in the park. I know I look like the rest of the bums and right now, so what? I don’t give a rat’s ass. The two beat cops coming along the path got their eyes on me.

I get ready to heave up off the bench and be on my way when one of the cops calls me by name.

“Frankie? Frank whatsit, Kingston?”

I look and sonovabitch if it isn’t Danny Nather’s kid brother whose name I never could remember. I ease back down onto the bench and nod. The two come up to me and I’m reading something besides social stuff on the kid’s face.

“Shit, Frank. I’m sorry about this, dude, but there’s a bench warrant out for you for that time you trashed that bakery back before the Gulf.”

“Guess I won’t be going to the clinic for this ankle then, will I?” I lift my foot. “You guys help me up?”

And here I am, waiting to be booked, but at least my ankle’s wrapped and feels some better. I’d forgotten all about that shit with the bakery. I guess I had the idea that enlisting and then putting my life on the line to keep the gas cheap for my fellow Americans would have taken care of that little detail. Danny Nather’s little brother sure must feel like a loser, hauling me in for this, and me feeling bad for him, I’m behaving. Besides, it’s not like I got all that much out there to go home to. In fact, I can sleep in!

We get rounded up and herded down to the courtroom. Because of my bum ankle, I’m moving slow and this seems to be a problem for the CO herding us. He comes over to me and gives me a push. Ok, I don’t have to go down; he doesn’t push me that hard, but someone inside of me, someone a lot more pissed off than I feel like I am right now, calls the shots and down I go. Down right on that ankle and finally I got all the reason I need to howl like a damned animal and I do.

You know those bastards haul me in for booking before getting my ankle checked out? So they book me for disorderly conduct, time served, $250 fine and, oh yeah, get him down to the infirmary about that ankle.

So I got me a broken ankle courtesy of the city without the benefit three hots and a cot, dammit. The medic takes one look at it and gets me into an ambulance. Keeping his voice down the kid leans in and tells me to get me a lawyer, the sooner the better. I don’t know any lawyers, but I know who does and before the morphine they hit me with in the ER shuts me down, I call Harve. He loves getting this call. Now most union guys are tight with the cops cuz cops are union guys, too, but Harve must have had something happen. He hates the cops and knows just the guy for my case.

And this lawyer, he is a piece of work all right. It’s like he hit the super lotto with my case and he’s pulling out all the stops. He gets the local media going. There’s interviews with microphones shoved into my face. Even the police commissioner is on the hot seat for this one; looks like what happened to me is part of (as the lady with the mic says to the camera)a larger issue of abuse rampant in the department.

So I’m laid up in my SRO, I can’t get out on the trucks, I can’t get to any of the food pantries, I can’t re-up for my food stamps. I call my lawyer and get his secretary and she assures me that they’ll get someone over with some groceries and not to worry about the rent or the bills because they got that taken care of, too. Then I call again when the landlord threatens to evict me (Harve and the guys bring me food and beer). Now the lawyer’s secretary isn’t returning my calls and I see on the news that my guy, my hotshot take-no-prisoners, we’re-gonna-own-this-city lawyer has been disbarred and is in the pokey himself now.

Harve feels responsible and lets me stay with him and his wife and their grown computer whiz son who still lives at home out in the suburbs. I bunk in the spare room over the garage. Harve’s wife isn’t happy about this arrangement, so I pretty much stay holed up in my room. I can’t smoke here. I go down at night and raid the bookshelves. The ankle’s getting better, but I’m getting close to the end of my rope. After all, my jackpot has gone down the crapper and I just about can’t keep up the lies in my head that I can get through this.

I hear Harve and his wife going at it again tonight and I make up my mind. The ankle is enough better that I ought to be able to manage. Once I drift off to sleep, I have that old recurring toilet dream; the one where I’m in a large public john and every toilet in every stall is overflowing with nastiness. I walk from stall to stall to stall, all the way down the line and then back up again, finally settling for one that’s not so bad. I pull the door shut just as this gang of gossipy, snotty teen age girls come in (don’t make too much of this part of it, ok?) and they’re talking about me, about how stupid my hair looks and can anyone believe I wore those shoes again today? And I’m in the stall, trying to be real quiet because I don’t want anyone to know I hear every word and looking down at my shoes to try and figure out what’s so bad about them.

Harve is one straight up ok dude all right. He gets the guys together and they get me set up in this little place not far from the train. He talks Ranzatti, the shift boss, into taking me on as a dispatcher and they’re even working to get me a union card. So I don’t have to go into work until 7am and it’s steady, see? I can almost believe that things are turning around. It’s one of the most perfect springs I can remember. It only rains at night and even then, it’s this soft warm rain that smells nice. The ankle gives me some trouble now and then, I sure ain’t going back out on a route anytime soon, but I can get around ok.

It’s funny how quick a guy can get used to things being ok. I get so used to things being ok that I start to not like my little pad by the train, so I’m saving up my money and looking for something better. I’m also getting just a little too used to the grind of the work week but I got about enough for the new place. So what do I do? I go and blow a bunch of it to get laid. No one ever said I was some kind of saint or anything. What a waste of money, though. How do I always forget how fucked up and just sad it feels after paying for sex? I remember thinking this the last time and now I think it all over again. But then I come out of her place into that nice smelling spring rain.

I didn’t bring an umbrella, but those boots I bought way back when are holding up good and the rain feels like it’s washing off layers of crappy thinking. New thoughts rise, stuff I hadn’t really considered before. I don’t go straight home; I need to think and the rain seems to be helping.

If I get this new place now and have to pay higher rent, I suddenly see how I’ll be trapping myself at the dispatcher’s desk. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a life-saver and I’ll thank Harve and Ranzatti to my dying day, but I begin to think I can do better. I turn back in the direction of home. I’m not sure how I can do better, but I decide to stay put for the time being.

What I need is another night of sweet smelling spring rain because this staying put crap got old months ago. All my bright ideas for doing better went splat. That night course for computer programming? The online thing to be certified as an English as a second language teacher? Even the in-house training program to be promoted to shift manager panned out. I’m looking at winter again and all I got to show for all my effort, all my not giving up, is this lousy little two room apartment and a steady paycheck. I don’t want anyone’s interruptions here; it’s my turn to feel sorry for myself.

How long can a man be expected to play by the rules and do all the right shit and show up every day and be ok with treading water? If I have to step aside when it’s my light because another of you fuckers in a SUV needs to push the light, I’m seriously thinking of getting a gun.

The nasty toilet dream is now happening like once a week. I wake up needing to go to the bathroom, then I sit here in the dark and I can’t go and I know I won’t be able to get back to sleep and the alarm goes off in three hours and I’ll just about fall asleep halfway through my shift. Again.

I hate letting Harve down like this, but I got this idea that I might actually pull off and he’ll never have to know. All I need is for it to work this one time. I’m not going to be one of those idiots who needs to knock down bank after bank. It’s not going to be like that with me. I’ve planned this thing really carefully. One bank. One hit. I’ll pull a solid quarter million out in one hit and that’ll be it. I can quit the hall, find myself some cushy little part time thing and sleep in and find out what it’s like to have a life. Maybe I can make some friends. Maybe I can even find myself a girlfriend if I can take her out someplace nice. I park my rust bucket Honda around the corner from the bank and go over my plan again.

Someone, I think it was Mikey back at the machine shop, told me once that if you’re gonna do any crime, rob a bank. If you only rob one, the odds of getting caught are slim to none and, besides, if you do get caught, it’s federal time and that’s easy time.

I never did get that gun, but that’s for the better. I don’t need a gun. I am not some stupid drug addict taking his chances. I am a man who thinks things through and plans accordingly. I’ve cased this job thoroughly and know just the right teller to hit and exactly when the branch manager goes to lunch. I know where each camera is and which way it’s pointed. I got clear instructions written out and I know where the silent alarm is in this joint. See?

Now I’m gonna just waltz in and politely ask for a quarter million in one withdrawal. Miss Soft Touch will just hand it over. And I’ll wear this hat, the one with a nice wide brim.

I’m still shaking. I walked out of the bank with that money and took it directly to that little culvert down behind the school. I didn’t open one bag; I trust Miss Soft Touch. The money is garbage bagged up and sunk in a small concrete inlet just off the culvert. I leave it there and go out for a beer; Christ do I need one!

See, where those other losers go wrong, is they get impatient. Not me. I go right back to my regularly scheduled life like nothing has changed. The only thing, though, is that I can’t just go home after my shift anymore; it makes me crazy in the head, so I stop into this little diner to read for awhile, drinking coffee and then here I am chit chatting with old Stanley and his buddies. Christy is our regular waitress and she just is so nice that I’m looking forward to seeing her each day.

I leave the money tucked away in its hiding place although I have to admit that I kind of miss the news reports after interest dies down about the robbery. I don’t even go back out to check that the money is all right. I stop having the dreams and sleep like a baby every night. Christy surprises me by agreeing to go for dinner one night. I play it like a real gentleman and we have a great time. I drive her home and settle for one sweet, little kiss.

Stanley suggests some great books and pretty soon I’m sitting in with the old guys, talking about this or that book and we even go to some author events over at the only bookstore left in this part of town.

I had the strangest dream last night; I dreamed I went out to the culvert and the water was bright red from the dye pack that finally broke. I lay in bed for a couple of minutes after I wake up and think that this is my sign. It’s time. Well, it’s almost time.

Right now it’s time to go to work. And tonight Christy and I are going to the movies. I’ll get to it.

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