Lost Resort Day Two, Part Two: A Flash in the Pan It all moves in a dreamy spiral. The air is full of swirling promises. A dance of cut-throat proportions. Sounds from outside meandering through the vortex of my perception. My eyes fixed on a painting hung on the opposite wall. A merry-go-round buried in an empty, overgrown field. Rusted over. Its once bright colors all faded to a dim spectrum of brown ruin. Broken-maned horses, with frightful looks frozen on their faces, cracked, whipped, free to run the endless spaces of unstitched land. But they will never move again. They will never feel the ground beneath their feet. Or so I imagine. A hobo camp can be seen in the distance. The smoke from a campfire rising into the hazy skyline. The wounded metal of a long retired set of railroad tracks snakes its way across the landscape. And tucked into the lower corner, upon close inspection, is the clear outline of a ragged toy animal. The circus has indeed left town. Leaving only its cast away shadow behind. I can remember a time. Long ago. It seems. I walked the streets with no thought to the future. The future was taken away. Deemed obsolete. A bureaucratic write-off in the grand ledger of time. And then I'm standing in the middle of a large bookstore. A giant warehouse of words. Escalators connecting the stories. A cafe on the top floor, with tables cluttered with stacks of magazines and paperbacks. An eclectic mix of contemporary standards seeping out hidden speakers. I was a regular. Spending my aimless days drifting through a sea of titles. Too poor to actually purchase any of the volumes which I treasured so dearly. I would just make my way down the aisles and read. A frequent flier on a jet stream of printed thoughts. A freeloader. I admit it. With nothing better to do. I was standing there, when she interrupted me. Asking if I knew where the Photography books were. That's what you get for hanging out any place too often. You become part of the scenery. You carry a piece of the place in your demeanor. You notice the little things. The height of the various layers of books on your average island display. And you know when something is out of place. Perhaps she saw you making note of one such irregularity -- or worse yet, taking action to right the wrong. I wonder. My first impulse was to tell her that I didn't work there. But I stopped myself, knowing full well where the books she was interested in were shelved. Why should she care? I could pretend, for at least one of our sakes. I could do that much. I must have smiled. At some point. I'm almost sure of it. It was pretty funny in a way. In a good way. Follow me. It's a bit tricky to describe. Tucked away. No problem at all. It's my job, after all. While we made our way she confided that she was working on a research project. So I mentioned a book or two in the Religion section which might prove of interest. I paid attention to her needs. And I was kind. Two attributes she was unaccustomed to experiencing first hand, or so she said, even from her children and husband. And when she made her purchases she asked for the manager, to ensure that my efforts would not go unnoticed. I know this because shortly after leaving me a stuffy looking fellow with a bad tie and short-sleeved collared shirt came up to me and told me what a good job I'd done. Me, who couldn't seem to buy a job. I'd done a good day's work without knowing. But now I knew. I am remembering now. I lost my job. That's the acceptable terminology. In fact, there were a whole bunch of people who met in tiny side offices and pooled their magnificent resources and eventually lost my job for me. And they never once asked me for if I had an opinion on the matter. I was downsized. The guy who stayed late and ordered in for dinner. I was expendable. Or so it seemed. Or so it was. And so I was pushed down the mountain. Left me out in the cold. Over qualified. Out of range. A smart, hard-working, all around decent chap...with one foot in the gutter. And then she came along. I could have just directed her to the Information Desk. That would have been a perfectly appropriate thing to do. A polite way to divert her attention elsewhere. Over there. But I wanted to be of help. And I was fully aware of the kind of shoddy and (more often than not) rude manner to which one's needs are attended at your average Information Desk -- which was undoubtedly a factor in my rise to prominence. I kept returning to the bookstore, as I'd been doing almost every day since the layoff, only now I was given work to do. And I excelled. Before I knew what was happening I was the first unpaid employee of the month in the history of our free economy. At least that's what I like to think. Certainly the first who actually lived with roaches and limited his meals to steamed rice and canned goods. Not that I'm complaining. I took over the entire 3rd floor. I was managing minimum wage malcontents. Meeting district honchos. Championing literacy programs. I was an up-and-comer. And nobody once ever bothered to check with Payroll. Until I stopped coming in. I decided it was time to move up the corporate ladder. So to speak. Expand my horizons. Take what I'd learned at the bookstore and apply it on a grander scope. I can picture the bookstore manager. Frantically trying to find a way to contact me. His star. Only to find that there was no record of my existence in the corporate files. They couldn't even look in the phone book. I'd used a phony name. I wondered at the time if they would feel they were violated or blessed by my deception. I wondered if they could tell the difference. But I didn't spend much time worrying about them. I had other things on my mind. New ground to cover. And so it I began -- my career as the subject of my own haphazardly conceived experiment. A nobody with no title or reason to be there. Filling a non-position. I thought back at drone VPs who'd give speeches about thinking outside the box -- hah!...I threw the damn box out the side door window and backed up over it. I was a shining model of go-getter'ism. Basing my work on one basic principle -- for every half-wit who turned me down for a job, I'd find a way to infiltrate the system and out-perform whoever was hired. I'd sit there. Doing my time in an interview. One after the other. Playing my part. Fully qualified. Eminently able. Hands presented for my shaking, along with the polite mention of a call that would never come. So I'd wait and make my appearance. Crossing the front lines with a story of Temp status, armed with names and a keen knowledge of the task at hand, to find the person who was hired for the position spending no small portion of their day e-mailing friends and making small talk to the other pay checkers. Bearing my teeth at the opportunity. Sinking my uncompensated resources into project after project. Making my mark. Indelible. Carved into the very workings of day-to-day agendas. Until their reliance was complete. And then I would disappear. Laughing to myself and whoever else might be in earshot as I reclined in the arm-chaired comfort of my crummy home -- with the stuffing come out the side -- at those stories on the Evening News of a failing economy and the decline in worker productivity. If only they had a few more of us charity cases on the case. I can't recall exactly how many times I did this. Maybe a dozen. Maybe fewer. They tend to blur together. And then my unemployment checks ran out, followed a few months later by my moderate savings. I lost my funding. And I was in a bad mood. Rent was coming due and my shoes were on their last leg. So I took what I could and went away in the middle of the night. Leaving my apartment door wide open. Climbing down the squeaky staircase. Starting my car. Turning on a radio station. Headed straight for the freeway onramp. I know there is more to all this but I can't get it all down right now. I remember something violent. An event. A catastrophic moment of deep wounding. The details are hazy as I sit on the edge of my bed and remember. Everything is spiraling down. Whirling around the edges. Disappearing. As I take my eyes from the painting I realize that somebody is standing outside my room. I can see the shadow beneath the door. I stand and climb into a pair of pants, throwing on a t-shirt with a picture from a Japanese monster movie on the front. A flash of frenzied destruction...covering my chest. I cross the room. And I open the door. I can remember a time... Almost. I find a tray resting on the floor. A small pot of coffee and a sweet roll. I smile. I pick up the tray and return to the cave of my thoughts, kicking the door shut behind me. ~ ~ ~ Continue reading "Lost Resort" Questions? Comments? Send them to Daily_Editor@hotmail.com. Copyright 2001 © Belowthefold.net