Upton Sinclair and Peter Kuper, �The Jungle�
I think I�m going to have to give the California chronicles a rest. It�s been too long and frankly, after finally getting on a plane and showing up in California a day later than expected, the visit was fairly uneventful, if uneventful for you includes weddings, wine tasting and roller coasters, along with a trip over to Kauai whereupon we camped, snorkeled and went to my favorite cheesy hotel for the rich only to discover they don�t serve drinks in pineapples anymore.
Though the trip was symbolic � Kelly and I had never been around each other for more than a week, so this was a test to see if we would want to gouge out each other�s eyes after eight days � we passed with flying colors. Of course, seeing how neither of us are rich, we both had to work during the visit which probably facilitated the non-screwdriver wielding, eyeball aiming.
And fuck, can somebody remind me not to take a trip to California around August through September? Because I got back and had bills waiting for the renewal of my car insurance, not to mention my car registration and the obligatory car safety check, all of which I don�t have the money for.
And there were other things as well, but all in due time, my uglies, all in good time.
While in California, she continued to work weekdays at her job while I caught a train down to San Jose to work at the bookstore. �You�re the only person I know who would work while on vacation,� said Cristina, my old bass player. That can�t possibly be true in the days of e-commuting, but I knew what she meant. I was going out of my way, taking an hour and a half train ride to work nine hours at a retail job. That�s a little weird. But I had my motivations. They pay me well for one, and I had a stack of books to sell back to the store. Most important, I was out of stuff to read and needed to restock (though my stash still hasn�t shown up through the mail, and I�m starting to get worried).
Even with all of those reasons, however, I went back to work because I liked working there. I remember after getting back from England one girl who also made the trip shared a class with me. This girl was beautiful, with kind eyes and a vicious body, and I remember spending a lot of class time picturing her naked. I even called her once while we were in the UK to invite her out on the town and stumbling over her name, which consisted over one of those Africanized names that have far too many q�s and ch�s. Anyway, after being politely refused for four months, she caught me in the hall and asked if I wanted to go for coffee.
�Wow,� I said, �I�d love to, but I have to go to work.�
�Oh, that sucks,� she said, jutting her lower lip out.
�No, actually, I like my work and I like going there,� I answered. �And really, how many people get to say that?�
She asked what I did and when I said I worked at a used bookstore, she remained unimpressed. She never did again invite me out for coffee.
Like in this adaptation of Sinclair�s �The Jungle� retail jobs for the most part are filled with unfair labor practices and in some cases, vermin. What she didn�t know is that I have a long history of working shitty jobs and making it my own, on my own terms, all the while keeping my caustic personality. I started work at the restaurant as a lowly prep cook, and took over as their head chef. I worked at my college library as a page, and soon became the assistant manager of the media lab, a position as high as you could go without having to be hired by the district. I worked my first retail job at the bookstore and was offered something akin to a partnership. And last year, I started working at the nightclub as a barback and cashier and less than a year later, I was filling out the paperwork to become their manager. All of these places had me nearly tripling my original salary.
Though that didn�t really matter to me. I mean, yeah, making more money is always good and the fact that i started at shit wages meant for the nearly unemployable and ending up slamming my head against their glass ceiling proved I was doing a good job. More important, I had climbed up their social hierarchy on my own terms instead of kowtowing to some corporate philosophy.
But as I mentioned before I left on this trip, the owner of the bar said they were in negotiations to sell the club. I didn�t take it very seriously. I knew they were asking for a wholly unreasonable amount, and the sale didn�t even include taking over the building. Essentially, the prospective buyer would have to pay an inordinate amount to have access to the place, and then would have to pay exorbitant rent each month for the privilege of using said space.
Negotiations were taking place when I left for California. When I got back, negotiations were still going on. I took that as a sign that it wasn�t going to happen. When I returned, my boss still didn�t have any new news. It dragged on for so long that me and the rest of the employees felt fairly secure that it wouldn�t be sold.
We were hoping for that as well; the club wasn�t doesn�t all that well, but the reasons for that were obvious. He wouldn�t advertise. Drink prices were excessive (my punk night was the only one that offered drinks at a discount, and I know that nobody likes paying $3.50 for a Budweiser bottle, or even worse, $7 for a jaegerbomb). Some nights were canceled without notice, giving the joint a slipshod atmosphere instead of a place to hang out.
A little over a week ago, when I showed up for work, the boss told me he had news. �It�s not good news, is it?� I said.
It wasn�t. The club had sold. We were, he said, going to be open for another two weeks as usual. On the fifteenth of October the new owners would take over, and the club would only be open for Friday and Saturday, which were the money-making nights. At the end of October, they would shut down for remodeling for an undetermined amount of time.
�So I might be out of work in a month?� I asked.
Yeah.
That was harsh enough. After all, if you�ve been reading this site for over a year, you know I didn�t have an easy time with it when I first got here on the island. I had finally reached a point where I was comfortable; the money that I made from tips, along with my pay rate covered rent and food, and most of my booze bill. The articles I wrote for the newspaper (which would never be steady or large enough to support me on my own) were gravy, which I applied to my massive debt, and I even paid off one credit card in its entirety leaving about sixteen thousand left before I could be considered debt-free. If things had continued on the same path, I could envision paying off all my debts in about three years, and possibly less.
There goes that plan.
I didn�t take it too hard, however. I plotted out my plan of action. I would use the time where the club was only open on the weekend to beef up on bar reviews. During the remodeling period I would concentrate on the smoking ban story, giving the paper one of the best news stores they had seen. After that, I would take the internship, which meant I would still get paid for anything I wrote, including that stock of bar reviews that I had already written. Meanwhile, I would prove myself as being invaluable to the paper and they would have to hire me on, which is what I was moving toward anyway.
It was a good plan, and one that would be hard to fuck up. Except of course for the fact that my boss just informed me tonight that the entire staff was being let go after the fifteenth. That�s next week, in case you weren�t paying attention.
They�ll be coming in tomorrow (or really, in 16 hours from now), whereupon I can beg for my job. From what I�ve heard the new owners plan on making yet another Irish sports bar, because really, having three on the island isn�t proper representation of Irish culture on Hawaii. Being a pasty white guy who likes to drink, it seems like they might want to keep me on. If they don�t, I have a week left of steady work.
If I can be allowed a moment of self-promotion, if you haven�t bought my book yet, this would be a good time to do so. I could use the money.
This Thursday will also be my final Punk Rock night. If you live here and you don�t show up, you�re not allowed to speak to me ever again. Besides, I kind of need you to buy me drinks.
