Lewis Black, �Nothing�s Sacred�
- $50 parking ticket.
$25 taxi ride to get to the impound yard.
$130.50 fee to get my car back. Cash only. The fifty cents is just to be difficult and annoying.
Welcome to Hawaii.
After all dealing with all this crap, it should be fairly obvious I was feeling pretty down. There�s been a few people back home who have sent me money or care packages, all of whom get big, big thanks from me. With the freelance gig at the paper and the newfound employment with The Company, I still knew I wasn�t going to have enough to make rent by the end of the month, and called my mom to ask about a small loan. Instead she sent a larger amount saying I can consider it a very early Christmas present. Me and the lesbian hit Costco and I loaded up on things that were not Top Ramen. The rest I thought I would save in case of some sort of emergency.
Like getting my car towed on the next day.
I got back from the impound yard and amazingly enough found a parking space by my house. I poured a big glass of whiskey and coke and sat out on the front porch staring at the moon overhead, wondering how the hell I was going to manage to stay afloat. I have too many bills both from credit cards and student loans. I did the math in my head. I�m not good at math. I got more frustrated. I refilled the pint glass.
As far as I can tell, the guy who owned the used bookstore I applied at didn�t even bother to call my old employers to check on my references. Apparently, he took one look at me and decided that I wouldn�t be good for his business, despite working in a used bookstore, essentially at the management position, for the last five years.
I went into that place a few days before and talked to the person working the night shift, whom I hadn�t seen before. I asked him about a few authors and he had no idea who I was talking about. I�ve done this at Barnes and Noble a few times, just to see if the people hired new anything about books. It�s like a test. The Barnes and Noble employees always failed.
But hey, I don�t know how to make cappuccino, so there�s that.
Anyway, I�ve already started to look at the books that I did bring with me, wondering which ones I�ll have to sell to make my monthly bill regiment. So I scoped out the used bookstore in order not to cart over things they didn�t need. I asked if they had any Erika Lopez. He had never heard of her. OK, so she�s a little obscure. I tried again.
�Don DeLillo?� I asked.
�What does he write?�
�Fiction. How about Richard Brautigan?�
�Does he do fiction as well?�
�Mostly. Um, Ernie Pyle?�
�Who�s that?�
Go ahead and be incensed at whichever favorite author of yours that he knew nothing about.
I�m fuming as I recollect the conversation. And then I think about the death-rock club that seemed interested in hiring me, though I had been in there three times since then and he hadn�t offered me any position. I didn�t understand that one either, as he seemed to genuinely want to bring me onto the staff. I took another sip from my drink.
I got tired of looking at the moon and moping and grabbed my bicycle, riding along the creekside trail. Soon after, I found myself in front of the same death-rock club. I walked upstairs and saw the owner, who came over to shake my hand.
�Hey,� I said, �I was just wondering if you filled that barback position we were talking about. Because if you haven�t, I could really use it right about now. Things are pretty skint.�
�Yeah, actually, let�s talk about that,� he said, waving me into a side room. We both sat down. �I was planning to do a background check on you, but I had a heart attack, and had to get that angioplasty operation.�
I blinked and stared.
�So,� he continued, �that�s why I haven�t got back to you.�
�Wow.� I said. �That has to be the best excuse for not calling me back that I�ve ever heard.�
He ended up saying I have the job if I wanted it, which I did. I first found out about the place through the same column that I now write for, which described it as an over-the-top deathrock bar, and while you did see a few people in corsets and vinyl skirts, I didn�t find it to be very severe. But I�ve been to San Francisco. In fact, I thought of the club as a sort of light alternative theme, playing the safe so-called fringe music like The Cure, The Smiths, The Cult and The the.
He outlined my duties, saying once I prove to the state of Hawaii that I won�t be serving TB cocktails, I can be trained as a bartender. In the meantime I can take orders and keep the tips. He gives me a tour of the place, which located above a laundromat. If there are enough people shaking their butts on the dance floor you can feel the floor shake, almost like it�s ready to give way. As we go into the back room, one black-garbed individual calls out after us that he�d like some drugs as well.
He didn�t sound like he was making a joke.
The next day I go to check on my schedule at The Company. I was already annoyed since I explained I was a student and poor and needed as many hours as they could give me, yet they only gave me one training day for that first week. I walk in and look at the schedule for the coming week.
They�ve again only scheduled me for one day.
Not even one day, really. A four hour shift. Best of all, the one day they schedule me for conflicts with the schedule I was just given at the deathrock club.
So let�s see, do I keep the retail job in a mall where they want to check my pockets each time I leave for minimum wage where I�m apparently supposed to be happy with one four-hour shift a week? Or do I go to the place that is paying me under the table, with tips, serving drinks to many of the same people I saw shopping at The Company?
Seems pretty obvious, doesn�t it?
I took both. But I made The Company switch my one shift.
And so on Friday I started my first shift at the deathrock club, emptying ashtrays and picking up discarded drinks. And let�s get a few things straight, OK?
To people who drink Corona: Why the hell do you drink this crap? Don�t you realize the reason you have to shove all these damn pieces of fruit in the bottle is because it�s a bad tasting beer. Worse is that I have to spend all this time shaking out all these lemon and lime wedges.
Blue drinks are annoying (sorry, Mary). Why? Because you can�t see if there�s any liquid left in them until I get right up in your face and stare intensely at the glass. They also don�t have much in the way of alcohol, so you just look like an amateur drinker. Just like people who drink Corona.
If you decide that you don�t want to finish your drink, do me a favor and put it on the bar on the way out. Most places I frequented on the mainland had a code of putting a napkin over a drink you planned on fetching. Not here. And since I respect the fact that you may want the booze, I�m reluctant to take the glass away meaning it stays in the owner�s line of sight and he thinks I�m not doing my job.
Because really, that�s what I�m doing here people. It�s my job to bring the glasses back to the bar. Don�t get annoyed when I approach. I�m not hitting on your underage girlfriend and I�m not gonna ask you for a cigarette, I just want to clear the pieces of the napkin you ripped up and scattered throughout the booth while you seethed in sexual frustration, chewing on ice from your drink that I want to take away.
I had one guy complain that I took his drink too quickly. �I don�t mean to be a dick about it,� he said, �but there was one tiny drink left in it, and I�m poor so I can use that one tiny drink.� First of all, the only was he was going to get any more alcohol from that drink would be if he sucked each and every individual ice cube dry. Second, if you�re that poor, should you really be going to the place with the five dollar cover and buying six dollar drinks?
If my first day taught me anything, it�s further proof that Newcastle is the best beer around, even when I can�t drink it. It�s in a clear bottle and it�s dark so I know when it�s finished. Every other beer, whether it be Budweiser or Heineken, is hard to gauge in a dark smoky club with flashing lights and disco balls. Worst is the bottles of Guinness, which have a solid color on the glass, and that piece of metal clanking around inside.
In any case, I continue working and I realize that I�ll need a different descriptive name for this place. Despite being presented as an upper-level dungeon of all things dirge, Friday seems to be their 80s theme night.
And I�m afraid we�re entering private joke territory here because really, the only people that will understand what I mean are the eight or so people who read my book. Sorry.
For you see, as I emptying out an ashtray, I heard this bass line begin. The crowd shouted their approval and started dancing with renewed aplomb. I stopped and stared at the speaker, eyes widening with horror.
No.
It can�t be.
Everybody on the dance floor shot their fist into the air and sang along with the one-word catchphrase.
�GHOSTBUSTERS!�
Oh, fucking hell.
