Bitterness Of Soul, part 2

Part 1 can be found here

Jonas picked himself up off the floor and took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the light. Two rows of wooden pews stretched off into the distance, butting up against an altar at the far end. A rack of votive candles stood between the pews and the altar, soaking everything nearby in a faint yellow light. Through the dimness, Jonas could pick out a few people kneeling by the candlelight vigil, their heads cocked sideways to gawk at the man who had stumbled in the doors and disturbed their prayers.

"What the hell are you staring at?" Jonas grumbled under his breath. He sneered at them. Looking around, he noticed a bowl near the door. Holy water. Jonas trudged over to it, cupped a handful of water and splashed it on his face, rubbing away the back alley grime and sweat and flecks of dried-up vomit that crusted up at the corners of his mouth. He looked back at the people by the altar. Their mortified expressions were barely visible in the darkness, but Jonas could see them well enough. He grinned at first, but soon their stares were too much for him. The weight of last night's drinking was heavy on his shoulders and he needed a place to rest. Some place away from their staring eyes. He scanned the back of the sanctuary until he spotted the perfect place to get some shut-eye: a confessional booth.

Jonas climbed into the booth and shut the door behind him. It wasn't much bigger than a coffin, with a small padded bench seat and a screen window on the adjacent wall. He plopped down on the bench, leaned back and rested his head against the wooden panels... not very comfortable, but better than the alley he woke up in.

Jonas was just about to let the dark calmness pull him into slumber when he was disturbed by a voice.

"What brings you here, my child?"

Jonas's eyes flashed open. The voice seemed to come from nowhere. "Hello?" he said. "Who's there?"

"Are you okay?" came the voice.

After a moment, Jonas realized where the voice was coming from: the screen linking the two confessional booths. He sighed and said, "Oh hey, Padre. You scared me."

"Scared you?"

"Yeah," Jonas replied. "It took me a bit to realize you were just a priest and not some disembodied voice, like God, or something."

"I'm sorry about that," said the voice, earnestly. "Have you come to confess?"

Jonas chuckled. "No Padre," he said with a sneer, "I'm just sleeping off my hangover."

"Well," came the response, "The confessional booth is probably not the best place for you. If it's peace and quiet you need, the Church's Parish Hall has a cot set aside for people in need. It's much more comfortable. And you can stay as long as you'd like."

Jonas's sneer dissolved into surprise. This wasn't the response he'd expected. He had hoped the priest would be so mortified by his brashness that he'd leave him alone. "I... uhhh.... You know what, that's okay. I'll just be on my way." He started to stand up.

"No, no... please stay," the voice begged. "I don't get much chance to talk with people these days."

Jonas plopped back into the seat and rested his head in his hands. His brain felt like it was trying to break out of a skull that had grown too small to comfortably hold it. It pounded and rang with every pulse of blood from his heart. And the energy he exerted just from standing up made his whole body scream in protest. Jonas was stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, he was too tired to chit-chat with some holy roller. On the other hand, it hurt too much to get up and leave... as if his body was forcing him to stay. Jonas breathed deep. "Okay Padre, you win," he said grudgingly.

"So," said the voice, "What makes you sound so unhappy?"

To be continued...

Bitterness Of Soul

Jonas Leery's eyes creaked open and peered through the gray haze of a cheap whiskey hangover. His nostrils flared and honed in on the sour stench of alcohol-laden vomit and instantly identified it as his own. His stomach recoiled in horror and expelled a spray of acid pestilence, stopping only briefly to cough and choke. Max spat and gasped as he willed his body away from the concrete pavement he'd passed out on the night before. His head felt several sizes too big for his skull and throbbed with every beat of his fifty-year-old heart. He was cold. His eyes struggled focus, painting the picture of a dank alley somewhere in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He searched his foggy memory for clues about how he got there...
...Pushing a heavy palette of cinder blocks at the construction site where he worked.
...Pulling off his hard hat and wiping the sweat from his forehead.
...A man in a tie handing him a pink slip and a paycheck... except it wasn't payday.
...A bearded man behind a bar, pouring brown liquor into a shot glass and handing it to him.
...A tattooed woman standing in between a cash register and a wall of booze, taking a sweaty wad of cash and handing him a brown paper bag.

Then this.

Christ, Jonas thought as he rolled up and squatted on his hamstrings. What time is it? He peered down at the tan line where his watch normally wrapped around his wrist. Panic shot through him and he frantically checked all his pockets. Empty. While he was unconscious, someone had taken his watch, wallet and keys. Jonas put his head in his hands and sighed. Bunch of goddamn savages in this town, he thought. He sunk back against the cold brick wall behind him.

Minutes passed. Or maybe hours. I was hard to tell. The constant drone of nearby traffic echoed through the alleyway and drowned out his thoughts. When he finally felt strong enough, he climbed up the alley wall until he was on his feet, and staggered out of the alley onto the street.

The noise was deafening. The sunlight, unbearable. He sloshed his body along the sidewalk, using parking meters as walking sticks. Jonas's eyes squeezed shut to keep out the penetrating force of daylight. And every time a sliver of it squeezed through his eyelids, his brain shrieked and pounded harder. Jonas reached for parking meter after parking meter, using them for balance and distance judgement.

Meter, one step, two steps, three steps, meter.

Meter, one step, two steps, three steps...

But the parking meters ran out, and he reached out for nothing. His balance swayed and he felt his whole body careen first into the street, then back into the sidewalk, until he toppled head-over-heels into a set of heavy wooden double doors. The loud thud echoed back and forth through his skull. Jonas pressed against the heavy doors to steady himself, and they gave way, pulling him into the building they were attached to.

Jonas crumbled to the floor, opened his eyes and looked around. He was in the cavernous sanctuary of a catholic church, dimly lit at the far end by candles, and best of all, quiet.

To be continued...

2009 Year In Review

2009 sucked, end of story.

2009 Soundtrack
System Of A Down - Chop Suey
Guns 'N Roses - Patience
Jason Webley - Drinking Song
Todd Snider - Long Year
Life After Life - Mexico
Billy Bragg - There Is Power In A Union
Journey - Don's Stop Believin'
Cymande - Bra

It's been a long year, and I'm glad it's over. Goodbye, 2009. And good riddance.

Holiday Cheer

It's a chilly December afternoon, and I'm standing in line at the bank. Judging from the size of the line I'm in, twenty other people had the same idea. The girl in front of me is wearing a camouflage Under Armor shirt, a matching camouflage hoodie, black tights, and a neon Gucci-knockoff purse. She's talking on her cell phone, also camouflage, to someone about her money situation. Part of me wants to laugh, but part of me is distracted my my own frustration with the Holiday Season.

This is the first year I've ever thought to myself that I hate Christmas. Twenty years ago, such a thought would've mortified me. Back then it was a magical time, filled with the excitement of having three weeks off from school and presents, the reward of being the good boy Santa always expected me to be. As a grownup, I hate the traffic, and I hate the crowds. Nowadays, I don't feel the "Christmas Spirit." It's a crock. It's for kids.

Miss Cathy-Camouflage ahead of me makes her way to one of the tellers. While I wait for my turn, I eavesdrop on their conversation.

"So, I put 900-dollars in my account yesterday," Camo Barbie says to the teller, "And today my balance says 200."

"I see," says the teller.

"What happened to my money?" Camo Barbie asks.

After a series of keyboard clicking sounds, the teller goes into a lengthy explanation. Right before I get called up to a different teller, I hear one of the ugliest three-word phrases in the English language: "Overdraft Protection Fees."

I personally have seen my bank account go from $200 in the black to $300 in the red because of those overdraft fees, thanks to some forgetful accounting on my side. The end result is never pretty. A 75-cent candy bar at Dari Mart ends up costing you $35 more. Add a few impulse buys during that day while you still think you have money to your name and the next thing you know, you owe the bank your whole week's paycheck and more.

A few months ago, I heard on the news that the banks were recovering and seeing profits again, thanks primarily to overdraft fees. It's easy to see why. In less than a year's time, my bank made a cool $1,100 just off of myself and Camo Barbie. That's not counting all the other poor saps out there who also got cut by the business end of the overdraft sword.

Economic recovery? The banks may be rebounding, but the poor are still poor.

Camo Barbie is still arguing with the teller as I leave. No telling if she can kick up enough fuss to get back some of her hard-earned money, but I for one hope she does.

Merry Christmas, dammit.

November Blues

Hello, Dear readers. I know it's been a long time since I've written anything here. Hell, it's been a long time since I've written consistently here. I've had a lot of things happen to me lately, but I don't want to write about them here because the majority of people who read this blog are people I know and care about. I don't want them to worry about me based on what they read here.

All the same, life seems to be getting tougher on me. I'll give you a short rundown:

-Some guy in a red suburban wasn't looking where he was going and he t-boned my pickup. It's now totaled. His insurance company tried to blame the accident on me, even though I clearly wasn't at fault. After some arguing, they settled for $1000 and let me keep my pickup.

-I got the flu and was down for about a week. Not completely sure if it was Swine Flu or not because I couldn't afford the test. I missed out on about 25 hours of clinicals in my CNA class, which I now have to make up.

-My former landscaping boss recently changed his story and told the State Employment Agency that he fired me for misconduct, even though he actually laid me off, and there was no misconduct. So now the State has taken away my unemployment and I have no source of income. To make matters worse, I now have to pay back all the unemployment money I was given for the last three months. I'm in the process of appealing, but it may come down to my word versus his. And he's a pretty shady sonofabitch.

-I can't find a job doing anything outside of caregiving. And I really don't like caregiving. It's the smell, and all the poo. ...so much poo...

So this month, I've been feeling pretty low. Worse than usual. Looking back at where I was when I graduated college, I realize how low I've sunk. The last three years have been rough.

If Karma truly exists, I'd better be racking up some serious cosmic brownie points.

And So This Is October

I thought you guys might want a little update, since it's been a while since I've posted anything. I'm still alive and kicking. Money is still hard to come by. Bills keep piling up. But the light at the end of the tunnel, faint though it may be, is still glimmering.

I recently started working as a caregiver. As you may recall, I only have one client, one day a week. According to my employer, there's little demand for male caregivers... or at the very least, there's few clients out there who are comfortable with having a guy in scrubs wash their junk, wipe their butts and change their diapers. And yet, anything goes when it comes to women caregivers.

But my client is a nice guy. 88 years old and still kicking. Sure, he may suffer from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and probably a number of other chronic diseases named after turn-of-the-century doctors with long names. But his spirit endures. When you get old, you're allowed (perhaps required) to have a few eccentricities. Some clients will only drink from their favorite pink mug. Others will get confused and use their coat closet as a toilet. My client's quirks are fairly benign. He likes to feed me cookies and chai tea, and have me bathe him three times a day. And if I've learned anything from the multiple daily bathings, it's this: When men grow old, their genitals become HUGE... and useless. That's good news for me, because lord knows I don't want to get poked in the eye while I'm down there scrubbing and rinsing. Still, the irony is not lost on me. It strikes me as one of God's sick little jokes on men that our dreams of putting Ron Jeremy to shame come true only after we're completely impotent.

Meal time is fairly entertaining. When you have Parkinson's disease, a spoon in your hand is only an eating utensil half the time. The rest of the time, it's a mini-catapult. The trick is to figure out when it will be used to get food successfully into your mouth, and when it will be used to slingshot scrambled eggs halfway across the dining hall. I'd feed my client by hand, but that'd be harder on him, I think. By letting him feed himself, I'm giving him some independence - some control over his own life. In return, I get to watch him fling morsels of chicken parmesan into somebody's water glass across the table.

In other news, My CNA class is going well. There's this one guy in the class who really grates on my nerves, though. He's annoyingly incompetent, needs his hand held through every step of every procedure we're learning, and constantly harasses me to be his lab partner. He's a nice enough guy, just annoyingly incompetent. I'm hoping he'll rise to the occasion when we start practicing on real patients in the clinical portion of class. But honestly, I think he's got a 50/50 chance of doing that, or bombing out. Part of me feels bad for him, but whatever. He doesn't need to be my problem. I have enough of those already. If he can't make the cut, then he can't make the cut.

Other than that, things have been fairly quiet. That's what happens when you're broke and barely employed. It takes money to do things, and I don't have any. But I was able to scrounge up about ten bucks to build myself a didgeridoo. Amazing what you can do with a hunk of beeswax and a length of pvc pipe. At first, that's all it looked like: a hunk of beeswax fixed atop a length of plastic pipe. But after a few hours of blasting it with a heat gun I had no idea my father owned, I managed to bend and twist the pipe into something less likely to resemble part of a home irrigation system.

So that's the news for now. Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

More Work-Related Stuff

I had my caregiver training yesterday. It would've been more interesting if I had actually learned something. We were each handed a three-ring binder packed with nearly a hundred pages of photocopied material. Our trainer spent most of the time reading it out loud so quickly that all her words blurred together. First, I struggled to listen to her, tried to figure out where she was on the page so I could keep up. Then I realized I couldn't understand a word she was saying. Eventually, I just had to tune her out and read at my own pace.
I think she missed her calling as an auctioneer.
Or a square dance caller.

After training, I spoke with the staffing department to get assigned to a client. It wasn't until that moment that I realized how little demand there is for male in-home caregivers. In fact, they only had one client. One day a week. I kinda wish I'd known about that before applying for this job. Nobody can live on eight hours a week at minimum wage.

Today I went shopping for hospital scrubs. They're required for both my caregiver job and for my CNA training. I was surprised at how expensive they were. $40 for a pair of glorified pajamas?!? Who woulda thunk it! I was also surprised at how deep the v-neck on the top is. Considering that I have a very hairy chest, and it starts right at the base of my throat, I look like came straight out of some 70's porn film. I can almost hear the wah-wah pedal now.
Paging Dr. Love... Bow Chicka Bow Bow!

On the plus side, I got called for a job interview at the WOW Hall this afternoon. I would be really excited to work at the WOW. My only concern is that my class schedule might conflict with working hours. But I won't know until Friday.

Wish me luck.