Chapter 12: Slouching Towards Bedlam

Chapter 12: Slouching Towards Bedlam

Jobs 11 - 17

From here on out, the jobs start coming fast and furious, so you'll have to look sharp or you might miss some. Even I am not sure I haven't forgotten one or two, and I certainly won't swear to the chronological accuracy of this “history”.

In fact, at the end of the last chapter, I made reference to an unorthodox method of job search I used. Upon reviewing my notes, I think that doesn't come until a bit later, but I'm going to let the previous chapter stand for now, and come back to that later.

I think I've said before that you'll probably start to figure out that, at least early on, when it came to work, I was a bit of a wanker. I wasn't a victim of circumstances – I was just a neurotic dork. Another thing you should know about me is that I do not quickly learn from my mistakes. Please just keep that fact in mind when you start to wonder “What on Earth is wrong with this guy?”

For a lot of these early jobs, I can't usually remember how I got them, but I suppose that doesn't matter. Before the internet added new possibilities, the usual methods for finding a job included the state employment office, temp agencies, classified ads (those were predecessors of Craig's List that came out in things called “newspapers”, kids), word of mouth and just plain “pounding the sidewalk”. So it's safe to assume that if I can't remember the specific means by which I came to a new job, it was through one of those means.

Job #11: Cleaning Out a Garage

Job #11 was a one-day gig cleaning out an old man's garage. I think it was located on a property he had been renting to someone else, but which hadn't been occupied for some time. A lot of junk had piled up in the garage. When I saw what was in there, including mountains of aluminum cans, I made a deal with the gentleman that for a reduction in the cost of my labor, I could keep anything I might find in there, to which he readily agreed. I've never seen myself as much of a wheeler-dealer, and in fact, I may have done myself down on that one. The old guy probably wouldn't have known or cared if I kept some of the stuff or just trashed it, so I likely didn't need to offer the reduced wages, but I felt it was better to be upfront and clear from the get-go.

I made a pretty penny by recycling the cans, and some of the better items I gleaned from that job were a pair of removable, canvas Jeep doors. I had no use for them myself, but I figured I could sell them, which indeed I later did. I forget how I transported all that stuff, since I didn't own a vehicle. I think I was using a pick-up belonging to the owner.

Job #12: Groundskeeper

Job #12 was as a groundskeeper at the golf course, which was located by the airport. It was actually a pretty nice job, but the commute was murder. I would get up well before dawn and ride my bike over 5 miles to work, then of course the same distance home at the end of the day. That was probably the deciding factor in my not-so-eventual decision to leave that otherwise unobjectionable position.

Of course, I was still living at my parent's house, and chaffing to break away. Old buddy Good Time Charlie was then living and attending school in Santa Barbara, so I decided to try my luck there. I rode down with the parental units, who were on their way to a Thanksgiving gathering of my dad's relatives. Charlie welcomed me to his tiny studio apartment. I think the plan was that once I got on my feet, he and I would room together in a larger place.

Santa Barbara is almost exactly half-way between my old home of San Luis Obispo and my dreaded former residence near Los Angeles. Fortunately, it's much smaller than LA, and its geography was more reminiscent of SLO, so I didn't get me that heeby-jeeby feeling that LA induced in me. In fact, I had a very interesting experience being back in southern California – one people smarter than me would call a Proustian memory. I was in a natural foods cooperative near Charlie's place when I saw some fruits called pineapple guavas. I was suddenly smacked with the memory that we'd had a pineapple guava tree in our front yard in SLO. I used to love the taste of the fruit, but I had not seen or heard of it since we had left there, and had completely forgotten about it. That may seem insignificant, but it was a very powerful feeling to suddenly have some long disused door in my mind yanked open and a bunch of thankfully pleasant memories come spilling out.

Job #13: Jack in the Box

This is one of my many brief jobs which I'm having the hardest time placing confidently in the time-line. So much so, in fact, that I somehow missed it on my messy hand-written chronological list of the jobs, subsequently forgetting to include it when I first published this post. That job was at none other than O-Town's Jack in the Box restaurant. As previously mentioned, I had worked in restaurants before, but never in fast food. What a different world that is. I donned the itchy, horrible polyester tunic and silly paper hat and stepped into hell. I just couldn't keep up with the insane pace of places like that. After a couple of days, I quit. Yeah, I know - I'm a wuss. You would think that slinging burger patties would be a breeze compared to - say - dragging a tub of shit. I think it was more the getting yelled for not being fast enough that got to me. Too many shades of my father for my angry, insecure mentality to deal with.

Job #14: Sales Associate in Training

Another thing that helped me forget my proximity to LA was the clothing-optional beach near Charlie's apartment. I probably should have spent more time finding work than I did collecting material for my favorite hobby. As it was, it wasn't long before I landed job # 14, as a sales associate at a home improvement warehouse store.

That was an interesting job. During my training, I learned about all kinds of things I had never done before, like calculating square footage, cutting glass and operating a fork lift. After a couple of weeks, they said that we needed to begin thinking about what department we wanted to specialize in. It was nice we had a choice, but this made me very nervous for some reason. I guess I didn't feel prepared to try to become an expert on anything.

I don't think this minor anxiety was enough to push me on my way down instability lane, but true to my developing pattern, I began itching to be on my way again. I think the southern California ambiance was starting to get to me, after all. It seems that I never wanted to stay where I was, but I wasn't brave enough to just set out for parts unknown, unless there was someone there I knew. When the thrill of a new location began to wear off, and the dull reality of having to work to live set in, all I could think of was returning to the only place that seemed like home. These brief interludes of relocating provided me with an escape from the humdrum of being a grown-up. I was able to delude myself that I was somehow moving toward an as-yet-unknown goal. The world was my oyster, but I didn't know if I even liked oysters. I'd never had them, but I was allergic to abalone, so maybe oysters were just as bad.

Since I didn't have the luxury of a ride in my parent's motor home, but a little too much stuff to reasonably carry aboard a bus, I got an empty bike box from a shop and put in my partly-disassembled bicycle, along with my few other possessions. The driver of the bus looked at me funny when he attempted to heft the box. Of course, it was heavier than the average bike, so he threw it on a scale, but it was still under their limit, so it got put in the cargo hold of the bus. Then I was on my way, once again, toward O-Town and an uncertain future.

Job #15: Personal Attendant

The months after my return to O-Town are a bit of a blur. I stayed for a bit with my parent's, but then I happened into job #15. In high school I had a girlfriend named Liz, and her mother is a wonderful lady named Sandy. Both of them are still dear friends to this day. At that time, however, Sandy had ovarian cancer, and had to have a hysterectomy. She was very sick for a long time. Sandy was living with an older gentleman named Al, who was in a wheelchair. In addition to being his partner, Sandy also provided for Al's medical needs. Of course, she was too sick to that, so they hired me as a live-in care-giver for Al. I also had some responsibility for Liz's brother Andy, who was about 10 years her junior.

It was a mutually convenient arrangement, but it was especially beneficial to me. I had free room and board, and money to boot. Of course, I was too dumb to look far enough ahead to see that this arrangement couldn't last forever. Instead of saving my wages toward this eventuality, I spent it on silly stuff like a .22 rifle. Sandy gently tried to talk to me about this, but I was too clueless to heed her wisdom.

Job #16: Yard Work

I also picked up a little work on the side. Job #16 was doing a bit of yard work for an old lady friend of Al's. Really nothing much to say about that.

Eventually, and thankfully, Sandy was once again well enough to resume her usual domestic duties, as well as attending college, which would eventually lead to her relocating to Berkeley to attend the Pacific School of Religion. Liz would follow in her footsteps a few years later.

Job #17: Air Conditioning Helper

With Sandy back in the pink, I needed to find new digs and a new job. I once again squeezed behind the piano in my former bedroom in my parent's house. It was then that I hit upon the unusual idea of just cold-calling a bunch of possible employers. I started at the beginning of the yellow pages and called every local business who seemed likely and asked them if they needed workers. My dad was sure that such a method would never work, but I proved him wrong. Before I even got out of the “A's”, I got job #17. I think I can safely say the real name of the place, since they don't seem to be around anymore. Besides, you'd probably think I was making this name up anyway: Sweem's Air Conditioning.

Now I had a job, but I still needed a place of my own. My parents departed on yet another of my mom's painting trips, and I was left alone for a bit. I jumped into action, and had a yard sale. I sold a lot of my old stuff, including those Jeep doors I mentioned before. I also sold a pachinko (Japanese pinball) machine I had received as a gift, for which I got a good price.

The proceeds were enough to get a dumpy little studio apartment on the south end of town, near the railroad yard. It was one of about four units under a common roof. I'm sure it used to be company housing for the railroad, which at one time had been a major employer in the area. It was hideoulsy furnished, and had strange Art Deco prints on the walls, but it had a wall air-conditioner, and it did nicely for my purposes.

Sweem was a funny old guy. He never did seem to be able to get my name right, instead calling me by any name starting with R. I finally gave up on correcting him and just answered to whatever he called me. Eventually he figured it out – probably when he had to issue my first pay check – and then he gave me some ribbing for letting him call me by the wrong name.

I was initially hired as extra help around the shop, which was in desperate need of some cleaning and organizing. Pretty soon, I was going out on calls with some of the technicians, one of whom was Sweem's son-in-law, Jeff, who had been a pretty good friend of mine before high school. It was a funny feeling now being a subordinate to a former peer. Jeff had never been a very happy kid, and work had only seemed to make him a grumpier man.

For my part, I didn't really know how to do construction-related work. I was learning on the fly, inside dark, dusty, super-heated attics in the Sacramento Valley summer. One day I was struggling to nail a bit of duct-work into an opening of a ceiling, and just making a total bollocks of it. Jeff came storming over, and with a few angry but well-aimed blows of his framing hammer, and a few choice words, he slammed the troublesome sheet metal into place. He later apologized for his temper, but I felt especially unmanly and incompetent that day.

Another time our only access to an attic was through a very narrow hole in the roof. I knew I could fit my skinny self through it, and though it was a creepy prospect, I was about to do it. But Jeff – who was thin enough to fit as well – said that he wasn't being paid enough to go down there. I can't remember how much he made then, but it was well above my legal minimum of $3.10 an hour. I found it odd that the well-compensated employee felt underpaid for such work, and the definitely underpaid employee was ready to tackle the task.

Some of the other pros were more agreeable. I preferred to go on calls with an older guy. He was more of a repairman than an installer like Jeff, so I usually had little to do, which suited me fine. That guy was funny. One time he said that when he was on a tough job, he liked to let his dong hang out of his pants and go about on all fours. When I asked why, he said, “Well, if I'm going to work like a donkey, I might as well look like one.” Heh heh. Donkeys.

Then a new technician joined the crew, and I seemed to get stuck with him a lot. I couldn't stand that guy. He wasn't much older than me, but he seemed to think he knew everything, and wasn't shy about sharing his wonderful wisdom. One day he left me alone to do some menial work at a house in the foothills that was being remodeled, and said he would be back later. I couldn't stomach the idea of having to see that jerk again, so I walked all the way back to the shop and told old Sweem I was leaving.

So now we're at 17 jobs and I was still only 20, and I had been on the work force for barely five years. According to my understanding of math (which is poor, at best), that yields an average of one new job approximately every 3 and a half months. Ye, Gods! Now you can start to see how I've managed to pack so many jobs into a lifetime. It's a dirty job, but somebody had to do it.

In the next chapter, the whirlwind of employment continues, despite being briefly interrupted by the crunch of broken glass and bone, on the eve of that dark period known as the Reagan era.

It's

The End

of the

World as We Know It.

Chapter 11: Working with the Fishes

Chapter 11: Working with the Fishes

(Jobs 9 and 10)

Anything involving the legal system seems to take forever. Even though I was prepared to plead guilty and throw myself upon the mercy of the court, there was still a long series of meetings with lawyers, appearances before judges, etc. I was assigned a public defender, who seemed like a decent fellow, if a bit lazy. When I met with him, at one point he was in a telephone conversation with a colleague about my case. He said something about the nature of my crime (spritzing a teacher with dog repellent), and then he said that in his opinion I ought to be given a medal. This surprised me a bit. Up until then, everyone involved in the legal system had seemed so deadly serious and devoid of any sense of humor. A little levity was refreshing. His joke also made me feel like not everyone hated me for what I had done. As a little side note to this erstwhile public servant, much later I ended up mowing the grass at his suburban ranchlet as part of job number 47. It was memorable because he had a donkey, and I love donkeys. No! Not like that!

In true prosecutorial fashion, the district attorney wanted to punish me to the maximum extent possible, in order to make an example of me. Apparently my case was the first time in Butt County history that a teacher had been attacked in such a brazen and bizarre fashion. In addition to assault, they were also charging me with interfering with a public official in the course of his duties. Even though this was my first crime, together the two charges could have added up to something like a year or two in jail, the prospect of which frightened me very much.

Then there was almost an 11^th hour miracle. My lawyer missed it, but the judge noticed the fact that I had confessed before being officially charged. This presented a legal technicality, and the judge was prepared to dismiss the whole case, which made me like that judge very much. However, the district attorney talked him into a compromise, to which my lackadaisical public defender acquiesced. It seems that I just had to receive some sort of punishment for my dastardly deed, which I suppose is fair. In the end, I was given a year of formal probation and a few weeks of community service. Pretty light, when you think about it, although a criminal record is not a great thing to have, especially when looking for work. Fortunately, things were easier in the late 1970s than they are now. Back then, not as many employers ran background checks. If I didn't want to reveal my felonious ways, I just didn't.

While all these legalities were grinding along, I was in a bit of a bind at home. I couldn't really look for work until I knew what my fate would be (or maybe that was just a handy excuse), so my parents decided for me. If I didn't go to jail, then I was going to enroll at Sacramento City College. The plan was that I would spend my weekdays staying with my dad in the travel trailer on the truck yard in West Sacramento, and getting to come home to O-Town on the weekends. Apparently I wasn't to be trusted to attend O-Town's own Butt College without parental supervision. Needless to say, I was thrilled at the prospect. Is there a typeface more sarcastic than italics? Hmm, apparently there is.

Job #9: Working with Dad

In the meanwhile, most of my time between court appearances was spent performing job number 9, the one mentioned previously as involuntary and indirectly related to my legal imbroglio. I was working for my dad at the truck yard. It was involuntary in that I didn't really have a choice, but it was voluntary in the sense that volunteers work for free. It was just what I had to do to earn my keep.

My dad was head mechanic for the trucking company, and he decided to use the free labor to clean out some junk from around the shop and yard. I made countless trips with the company owner's pickup truck full of metal objects to a scrap yard across town. It was rather fun to watch the crane operator carefully lower the huge electric magnet into the bed of the pickup. He had to be especially cautious because the pickup had those silly rails along the tops of the walls of the bed for tying down loads. Even though there were a scant few inches of clearance between the magnet and the rails, so consummate was his skill that the operator never once bumped them. Even more fun than that was when I had to go up to the window for the payment for the scrap, because the girl who worked the window was gorgeous. On the last day I performed that job, I summoned up the courage to tell her I thought she was very beautiful. She didn't seem impressed.

The work itself wasn't bad, it was just having to spend so much time in the presence of my father which was no picnic. My oldest brother Dick lived in Sacramento, and he would visit from time to time, so I had a sane person to talk to. One night he and a buddy came around to take me out. Despite the fact that I was awaiting judgment for a crime, somehow it was decided to try to get my under-aged self into a bar. I must still have looked older than my years, because it worked, and a splendid time was had by all.

Job #10: Community Service (Fish Hatchery)

When my legal fate had been decided, I undertook job number 10: community service. This was also involuntary and unpaid – unless you count the fact that I was working off my debt to society. I met with a very rotund man whose job it was to assign miscreants like myself their tasks. I lucked into a gig at the local fish hatchery, a part of the State Water Project, of which O-Town Dam was the keystone.

The people who operated the fish hatchery were used to having small-time criminals working off their community service obligations, which were mostly for traffic violations and other minor crimes. It was a little unusual for a violent madman like myself to be assigned there, but fortunately the hatchery men weren't privy to the nature of my charges. They treated me like I was any other mild-mannered misdemeanor-maker, which is to say with respect and kindness. It was quite a tonic for my psyche after months of having prosecutors, my father and even myself telling me I was a bad person.

The bulk of the work consisted of cleaning the long, shallow concrete tanks where the tiny hatchlings matured until they were big enough to be transplanted to lakes all around the state. The tanks had a constant current flowing through them. The fish spent most of their days just swimming in place against the current. I put on a pair of hip waders, lowered myself into a tank and then just walked up and down its length with a wide squeegee on a long handle. All I had to do was loosen the gunk that collected on the bottoms of the tanks so that it could flow out with the water at the downstream end. I had to shuffle along without lifting my feet so as not to crush the little fishies, especially in the tanks with the youngest hatchlings.

The bigger fish were in less danger of being stepped upon, but they were a little harder to walk amongst because they took up more room, and were big enough to bump your feet about when they got riled up – which the appearance of a bipedal giant in their realm tended to do. Under normal circumstances, they tended to stay away from me, but the thing that really got them excited was feeding time. Periodically throughout the day, one of the hatchery workers would drive up and down between the tanks in a strange vehicle which blew tiny food pellets into the tanks. If I was in the water at that moment, I had to turn away and shield my eyes. It was quite a sight to see the moving spray of pellets breaking the surface of the water, followed immediately by a furious boiling caused by thousands of hungry fish in a feeding frenzy. The big fish temporarily forgot their fear of me in their rush to gorge themselves. I sometimes felt like I might be swept off my feet. I dreaded to think what might happen if my delicious flesh should happen to land in the water with the ravenous hoards.

After a few weeks, the physical portion of my debt to society was paid in full, and I rather reluctantly said goodbye to the friendly fish wranglers. That wouldn't have been a bad job to have for money. I then settled into a dull routine of having to report monthly to a probation officer. For the first couple of months I had to appear in her office in person, then just a phone call was sufficient until the year was up. And that was about it for my life of crime. Unfortunately, now that my community service was completed, I had to face the grim prospect of attending college and staying with my father in West Sac.

I went through the motions of enrolling for classes, and I even attended a few. I had only skipped a class once when I was in high school, and I got a fair amount of grief for it, but it became a regular habit in community college, because they don't call your parents. I found a lonesome spot at the top of a fire staircase in a corner of some campus building. I never saw anyone else up there, but I knew some unknown number of scrutiny-avoiders were using it, because I often found “roaches” on the stairs, and not the kind that scurry about on six legs – which is good, because I would gather them up and assemble them into a new tobacco alternative stick. Reduce, reuse, recycle, you know.

One week, my father left me alone in the trailer. He was accompanying my mom on one of her group trips with other aspiring artists (read: bored, middle-aged women with disposable income), usually lead by Richard Yip, a reasonably famous artist of the day. My parents had apparently decided I could be trusted to fulfill my obligations. Oh, poor, deluded fools.

I continued to make a stab at being a college student, but I was becoming more and more depressed. One day, after I rode my bike back “home”, I lay down upon my bed in the trailer and turned on the TV, when I should have been studying. I didn't even eat – I just stared at the television with unseeing eyes until late that night, when I fell asleep. The next day I didn't bother to go to school. I had decided to face my parents' wrath and tell them of my decision that college just wasn't for me.

Surprisingly, my dad didn't seem particularly disturbed, but my mother threw up her hands and yelled, “I guess I'm never going to have a child who's going to be a doctor or a lawyer!” I was surprised – I didn't know my mother was Jewish! Badum-tish. Seriously, though, I hadn't been aware that my mom had held these hopes for her children. I was a little sorry to be the last in a four-part line of disappointments, but at least I could take some comfort in not being the only disappointment.

Once again, I was back in my parents' home in O-Town and in need of work. This just wouldn't do. The chances of finding employment seemed good. After all, I hadn't yet come close to exhausting my opportunities, even in an economically depressed area like Butt County. This time, I was uncharacteristically motivated by the strong desire to get out of my ancestral home. I embarked upon an unorthodox method of job search, but that's a story for another chapter.

The end.

Chapter 10: My Brilliant Criminal Career

Chapter 10: My Brilliant Criminal Career

This chapter is probably going to be one of the hardest ones to write. The funny thing is, I could easily leave this part out, and you could just think that I'm simply a somewhat neurotic doofus who has had problems keeping a job. After this chapter, you'll probably think that I'm at best a total fuckwit, and possibly dangerously insane. I'm willing to take that chance, however. I think honesty is the best policy if we're going to come to some kind of understanding of my emotional state over the years.

The other reason I felt I should include this life episode is because it lead to two of the positions that I've included in this memoir – one directly and one indirectly. Neither were jobs in the traditional sense – they didn't pay anything, and I didn't really have a choice about doing either of them. The indirect one could have been easily explained for other reasons, or left out entirely. I've included the direct one because it actually was rather healing to my psyche after the events I'll soon describe.

But before we get into that grim stuff, let's do a quick recap. In the space of about my first 5 years in the workforce, I had 7 jobs (not counting the paper route gig). That's not so bad for a young fellow, is it? That's the equivalent of a new job about every 8.5 months. I don't think anyone expects great consistency and years-long commitment from someone still in their teens. At least that rate is a little better than my lifetime average of a different job every 5.25 months. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Getting back to the narrative, I now found myself back in my parent's home, and faced with the prospect of looking for work in the economically depressed seat of Butt County. However, I seemed to have stalled in my life plans (as if I had any in the first place). The threat of having to start attending college if I was still at home and not working was hanging heavily over me, but it seemed to do little to motivate me. Instead I recall being more interested in hanging out with my old high school friends, many of whom were still in high school.

At O-Town High School there was a math teacher – whom we shall call Mr. Schmossas. I had never been smart enough in mathematics to have had any classes with him. However, many of my smarter friends – including the future Mrs. Rimpington – had, and they told some tales of what a cruel and rude tyrant this fellow was. It really seemed like this guy needed to be taken down a notch, but of course, as mere students, my friends were in no position to do anything about it.

So I got the idea in my head that a former student might be just person to teach this cad a lesson. Don't worry, I'm not talking about murder or great physical violence. I'll admit that there is a scary little part of my personality that has made it easy for me to imagine that I could have been some kind of stone cold assassin or hit-man. After all, I sure showed those chickens who was boss, didn't I?

No, I just figured that something humiliating and perhaps a little uncomfortable would fit the bill. As I mentioned in the last chapter, I also seemed to be riding on some sort of high after my Alaskan adventure. It was probably completely unwarranted, but I was feeling pretty full of myself – as if I had accomplished something great. Unambitious as I was, I seemed to think I could do anything I put my mind to – and the wackier the idea, the better.

Mrs. Rimpington has a worthy theory about why I did what I did. She thinks my overweening sense of my own importance was compensation for feeling as though I had failed in my first quest for independence, and that I was unhappy about being back under the roof of my overbearing father, who certainly didn't share my high opinion of myself. I probably decided to take on the critical Mr. Schmossas as a substitute for the father I still couldn't yet stand up to. Smart lady, that wife o' mine. Lord knows why she married me.

Whatever my motivations, I decided to make a non-lethal hit upon the pride of the evil Schmossas. Remember that can of Halt! dog repellent from Chapter 8? Well, I still had that can. I also had a balaclava and some gloves from my recent life in Alaska. One December day just before Christmas break, with ski mask, gloves and weapon of choice in the pockets of a loose-fitting jacket, I ambled nonchalantly onto my former high school campus during class hours, at I time I had previously determined that Schmossas would be oppressing a room full of hapless students.

Amazingly, I was delusional enough to think that no one at the school would recognize me, even though I had graduated only the previous summer. Aiding me in my imagined anonymity was the fact that I had grown a nifty little beard in my absence (I had always been precociously hirsute). As it was, I had no close encounters with any of my former school mates or staff. In the empty hall outside Schmossas's classroom. I donned my gear, and with capsaicin cannon in hand, I pulled open the door and sauntered into the room. I kept my knees bent to try to confuse witnesses as to my height.

Schmossas was in front of the classroom, as teachers do. When he saw me coming he laughed, thinking it was some kind of joke, but he stopped laughing when he got a face full of mace. The classroom erupted in screams and yells and I turned tail and beat feet. As I exited the hallway, I threw the can of repellent into a trash can. I waited until I had cleared the school grounds and was sure that no one was in pursuit before I pulled off the mask and gloves, which I deposited – along with the jacket, for good measure – in a dumpster behind the supermarket a few blocks from my house. I then backtracked to my home via some side streets. When I came in, I was a little flushed from all the exertion and excitement. My mom asked what I had been doing. I gave her some lame story, then went to my former bedroom to contemplate my successful caper.

Or was it? A few hours later, I heard my mom answer the phone, and moments after that she came to my door and said that the police department had called and they wanted to know if I would be so kind as to come down to the station to talk with them. She of course wanted to know what was going on. I feigned innocent ignorance as to what the police could possibly want from little old me, and I set off with dread in my heart. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I had decided to let the police come to me. I don't know how strong their case was against me at that point. But I was no hardened criminal, despite my daring escapade, and at that point I thought I would look more innocent by appearing to cooperate.

The O-Town constabulary was located in a dumpy trailer next to the municipal courthouse on the levee above the river. I sat down with a Detective Spumoni (not his real name, but the ethnicity is accurate). He was actually the father of a girl I had gone to school with, but I had never met him before. At the risk of sounding racist, Spumoni was the embodiment of some common stereotypes of Italian-American police detectives you've probably seen in many a cheesy movie or TV show. He was a portly, greasy loudmouth in a cheap suit. His sense of humor ran to sexist jokes toward the females in his department, and he alone thought he was very funny. I took an instant dislike to him, although, all in all, he treated me rather kindly.

Our conversation started out as you might expect. He asked me if I knew anything about what had happened at the high school that morning, to which I responded that I did not. He proceeded to tell me that some witnesses claimed to have seen me on the campus before the incident. He could have been making that part up, but I wasn't savvy enough to think of that at the time. As it was, I said that I was just passing through. Then he dropped his bomb. He pulled an evidence bag from his desk drawer. Inside it was the can of Halt! He said that it had been found by a janitor. He also said there were fingerprints on it, and he had a strong suspicion that if I were to agree to submit my own prints, that they would match. Now I think that the bit about the fingerprints may have been a lie. I had been careful to wipe the canister down with alcohol, and then not to handle it again with my bare hands before the “hit”. At the time, however, I figured I must have missed a couple of incriminating prints, and the jig was up. If it was a ploy on Spumoni's part, it worked. I broke down and tearfully admitted to my crime.

Spumoni then read me my rights, and I was officially under arrest for the first (and only) time in my life. He didn't cuff me. He could probably tell I had no threat of fight or flight in me. I decided that cooperation was my only hope for a light sentence. I agreed to show Spumoni where I had ditched the other accouterments of my crime. We drove down in his unmarked car, and I even climbed into the dumpster to retrieve the evidence against me. Spumoni certainly wasn't going to heft his fat, polyester-clad ass up into a dumpster.

We went back to the station. Spumoni called my mom and told her I was going to jail, and would she like to bring me anything for my stay. She drove down with my toothbrush and some clean underwear in a bag. I stood with my chin on my chest while my poor, confused, sad mother handed Spumoni the bag. He then drove me out to the jail. Since I was a cooperative suspect, and a first-time offender, he pulled some strings to get me a cell to myself, rather than putting me in with a bunch of real criminals. I was very thankful for that.

I traded my clothes for some rather butch jeans and a denim shirt with “Butt County Jail” stenciled on the back. No ugly orange back in those days. The guards found my homey bag of personal items amusing, and relieved me of it. There went my plans for making a shiv out of my toothbrush.

I only spent one night in the pokey, but it seemed like forever. I could hear the other inmates in a common cell watching TV, but I had nothing to distract me from my worries. I tried to nap on my cot, and was just about to succeed when some asshole who was passing my cell with a group of inmates yelled, “Wake up!” at the top of his lungs. He was probably envious of me and my luxurious private cell.

Eventually a kindly old trustee came by and asked me if I would like something to read, to which I eagerly agreed. He came back with a western novel by one of the famous authors of the genre - either Louis L'Amour or Zane Grey. This brand of fiction had never appealed to me before, but I fell to it in desperation. I didn't get to finish that book before I left, and I desperately wish I could remember the exact author and title. I still want to find out what varmint done it.

I had no way of knowing what time it was. I was still reading when I heard the Brady Bunch theme song coming from the far off TV. I knew that a local affiliate always reran the show at 10 PM. I was surprised it was so late. I had thought that the light which was shining from down the the hallway must be sunlight coming through a barred window, but I didn't notice that it hadn't moved. Soon it was lights out, and despite my anxiety, I drifted off to sleep.

The next day we were roused early, and those of us with appointments with a judge were handcuffed and herded into a paddy wagon-style vehicle for the trip to the courthouse. Back in those days, three of O-Town's more notorious scofflaws were these twin brothers and their nearly identical cousin. They were really something to see. They had no hair on their rather simian-looking heads, except for long, straggly goatees. I heard that the brothers had some kind of rare condition wherein they had no sweat glands. All three of them liked to boom around town on big Harleys, striking fear into the hearts of the more mild-mannered populace.

The cousin was one of my fellow passengers in the paddy wagon, and at first I was nervous to be in such close proximity to this infamous and frightening-looking outlaw. You know what they say about judging a book by its cover, though. It turns out the guy was really cool. He was obviously highly intelligent, and well-spoken. He was full of friendly advice for us other inmates. He chose to represent himself when he came before the judge, and he did so admirably. No doubt he'd had a lot of experience at it.

I don't remember all the legal details of my appearance in front of the judge. The important thing is that it was determined that I was fit to be released on my own recognizance. I had to return to the jail to get my street clothes back and get processed out. Most of the guards seemed pretty friendly, and were even joking with some of the inmates. I remember one guard laughingly telling a prisoner to always plead “innocent”, even if he were to be caught standing over the body with a smoking gun in his hand.

By the time I was able to leave, they were just starting to serve lunch, which was friend burritos, and they smelled pretty damned good. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't stay and partake. Jail had not been as bad as I thought it would be, but it's not something I wanted to ever repeat. I'm proud to say that I have avoided incarceration since then – with one minor exception, though I wasn't actually under arrest for anything then. We'll get to that later.

Of course, being out of jail was by no means the end of my new legal entanglements, but this has gone on rather longer than I intended. Next time I'll wrap up my criminal career, and we can get back to all those jobs.

The end.

Chapter 9: Go Even Further North, Young Man

Chapter 9: Go Even Further North, Young Man
(Jobs 6, 7, and 8)

So there I was – and here we are – at the start of my adulthood. I've actually been dreading this part to some extent. I've seldom felt like I've done a terribly great job of being a responsible adult, and I'm not sure I've ever completely figured out why that might be. I've had a goodly bit of counseling over the years (thanks to the encouragement of my good lady wife), and I've spent more than a little time on introspection. In fact, working on this project is helping me to realize some new insights. But still, I have nagging doubts about my worth as a person, and downright mystification at some of my past behavior.

Before we go any further, then, I thought I should get some of the self-loathing and self-pity out of the way. I've already spoken of how my father was a critical and judgmental parent. It seemed like his only criterion for a meaningful life was work. He emphasized it to the point that the idea of work started to seem terrifyingly stultifying to me. Physical labor didn't appeal, and I had no mind for business. My dad would sometimes tell me of some young man or another he had heard about who had taken a simple idea and turned it into a highly profitable business. That sounded like death to me.

I leaned more toward the creative side of life, particularly writing. Unfortunately, I lacked the self-confidence to ever dare to submit my work to a publisher. I also seemed to lack any kind of drive. I was like Ferdinand the Bull – all I wanted to do was sit just quietly and smell the flowers. As my father would be quick to point out, however, no one pays anyone for flower smelling.

Along with a stunted attitude toward work, I also lacked financial acumen. In fact, most of my adult life has been characterized by fiscal irresponsibility. I'm not trying to be glib about that – It has made certain things difficult; my credit rating is a joke of cosmic proportions, and it has damaged relationships with certain family members and friends. But do not feel sorry for me. I can do that very well on my own, thank you. I made most of my decisions with a reasonably sound mind, although sometimes I wonder just how sound (and so will you later).

When the plane home from Japan landed, I didn't know what I would be doing for work, but I had already decided where I was going to try: as far from my parents as I could get without a passport (which I had, but I wasn't interested in emigration).

One of the places I had visited on my Alaska vacation was Juneau. I had a good friend in high school named Tammy who had married a nice man named Greg, who was stationed in the Coast Guard in Juneau. Since it was a place with which I had some familiarity, and there was somebody there I knew, I decided to move to Juneau to start my life. Of course, myopic idiot that I am, I didn't tell Tammy that I was coming. I guess I just figured that she would be so surprised and happy to see an old friend that it would all work out. And for the most part, it did, but I still cringe when I think of what a rude and self-centered act that was.

I had some money, probably graduation gifts, and some of my relatives were happy to “grub-stake” me a little cash for my great undertaking. I flew into Juneau (the only way in or out of Juneau is by boat or plane), and found Tammy and Greg's apartment. They were out at the moment, so I left a cryptic little note that said, “I was here, where were you? - Rimpy.” I then found a place to wait for their return. I may have been hiding, or I may have just returned from a reconnoiter when I saw Tammy reading my note. When she said, “RIMPY!?” in shock and confusion, she turned and saw me standing there. It was a memorable moment.

Tammy and Greg were very gracious. I guess I somehow expected that there would be no problem with me staying with them, and thankfully, they acted like there wasn't. If they had, I suppose I had enough money to get a motel room, but I hadn't thought that far ahead. In fact, it's a good thing I didn't have to pay for lodging upon arrival. To thank them for letting me stay, I offered to pay for dinner that first night. We ordered pizza, and when I got the bill, I realized that the cost for goods and services was much higher in Alaska than what I was used to in the lower 48. That one dinner put a goodly dent in my meager budget. Tammy and Greg nodded knowingly and said, “Yep.”

Over the next few days I started blanketing Juneau businesses with applications and seeking living quarters. I rented a room from a man across the street from the Alaska State Office Building, and next door to Bullwinkle's Pizza, which is still there today, although my old residence (just to the right in the picture) seems to have lost its top story – not surprising when you consider its age and condition and the way it would shake when the infamous “Taku winds” would roar down off the nearby glacier. A local legend said that a meter was once installed to measure those winds, but it was blown away.

My place was a small, two-story wooden house which was probably built in the 1940s. There was a living room, kitchen/dining area and a bathroom downstairs. The bedrooms were upstairs. In fact, my “room” was little more than a laundry space at the top of the stairs. My landlord-slash-housemate's room, which had a real door and everything, was on the end of this space, opposite the stairs. In other words, he had to pass through my room to get to and from his, so there wasn't a lot of privacy to practice my favorite hobby.

My housemate was a decent sort. He was probably in his mid-thirties, and looked a lot like David Crosby. He had worked on the Alaska pipeline. Because he had a college education, the other roughnecks he worked with had dubbed him “Doc”, although I think he only had a Bachelor's degree.

Job #6: Busboy

In short order I managed to procure job number 6, as a busboy at one of Juneau's finer restaurants, called Yancey Derringer's (no longer extant). I had to buy a long-sleeved white shirt and black pants for my first real, grown-up job (even if “boy” was part of the title). The store I got them at let me have them on credit until my first paycheck. Things were rather laid-back in Alaska.

The manager and the chef were also the owners of the restaurant, and it was quite popular with tourists and more well-to-do residents. Sometimes we would have staff meetings, where the chef would basically scream obscenities at us. I couldn't understand what he was so angry about, or why he thought he could talk to people like that. I was just glad that I seldom had to deal directly with him.

One of the best parts of the job for me was that the wait staff had to put their tips together, and then it would be divided equally between all of us. I suppose the waiters probably didn't think this was fair, and I think that busboys probably got a smaller percentage, but some nights I would leave work with upwards of 18 dollars in my pocket. Life seemed pretty good.

Unfortunately, my time there didn't last long. One day I was setting tables for the dinner shift. The manager passed by and said that I was going to have to move faster. This surprised me, because I hadn't been aware that there was a problem. Maybe my anal retentiveness (which has bordered on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder at times) made me spend a little too much time getting the placement of cutlery just right. I tried to move quicker, but a few minutes later the manager suddenly reappeared and grabbed my tub of clean silverware and napkins and said, “That's it, Rimpy. You're out of here”, as he began slapping down place settings. I wasn't sure what he meant – I had never been fired before, but I was pretty sure it actually involved the word “fired”. I thought maybe I was being given an unscheduled break or something. Seeing my confusion, he kindly explained, “You're too slow. You're fired.” Ah. Now I understood.

This was a bit of a blow to my self-esteem. After a few more years in the work force, I realized that fast-paced jobs and I were not a good fit. I am a good, steady worker, and I like to produce quality results. Jobs that require some sort of super-normal pace are not for me. At the time, though, I was rather devastated.

Job #7: Building a Back Office

Through the local employment office, I got temporary job number 7, helping to build a new office space at the back of a downtown store. I didn't have any construction skills, but I didn't really need any. A Native American man and I helped the store-owner. After we had nailed up the drywall, but before we applied the skim coating (I had to look that term up, because I certainly didn't know it at the time), I insisted on signing my name and the date on the sheet rock. My employer thought I was weird, and he was probably right. I knew it was going to be covered up and no one would ever see it, but I felt this need to have my name on this – my first (and pretty much only) construction job. Sometimes I wonder if that sheet rock wall still exists with my name hidden away on it.

Job #8: Dishwasher

After that job, I found job number 8 as a dishwasher at Sally's Kitchen, a cafeteria style diner next door to the State Office Building (and therefore just a short walk from my home). After being declared “too slow” at my previous restaurant job, I was a little nervous about how well I would fare at this job, but I received no complaints about my speed. Sally T. and her husband (last name withheld because there is currently a bed and breakfast up there with the first name “Sally's” ; it's a shame I can't use it – because it's a great name and I'm amazed that I still remember it all these decades later), were very nice people.

That was a great job. I could eat there for little or nothing. Sometimes slices of cellophane-covered pie that had passed their prime in the refrigerated display case out front would find their way back to my station for disposal, which usually meant into my perpetually hungry teenage belly.

One of my favorite parts of the job was setting up the grill for the lunch-time hamburger crowd, which included preparing the soft-serve ice cream machine. I would pour the mix in the top, then do other chores while the machine chilled and stirred it. When it was ready, I would squeeze off a sample cup, you know, to make sure it was mixed properly. Quality is job one, after all, and “waste not, want not”, so of course I would wolf that down as well. I only weighed about 150 pounds back then, stretched over a 6'1” frame. I was always starving, and I could eat anything without worrying about gaining weight. Sigh. Those were the days.

Sally and her husband also owned a liquor and convenience store on the north side of town. Another duty of mine was to help make sandwiches which were wrapped up and sold at the store. Occasionally I would go out to the store to help unload a truck. I called it a “liquor and convenience” store rather than one or the other because of a curious quirk of Alaskan law, at least at the time. A store that sold food wasn't allowed to sell alcohol, and liquor stores couldn't sell food. Why, I don't know. Even though Sally's liquor and food enterprises were under the same roof, they complied with the law by having a dividing wall down the middle, with separate entrances for the two halves. The same cashier would serve both sides from a central corral with a cash register on each side. If you wanted chips and beer, you had to buy one, then go outside and in the other door for the other. It seems a little silly, and this setup was probably pretty common, but it struck me as a rather clever work-around.

Another interesting thing about Alaska was that the drinking age then was 19. I bought my very first legal beer while living there. When I returned to California, where the drinking age was 21 (like it would be nation-wide in 1984. See? Orwell was right!), it was like being sent back two years. I had to wait to be able to legally continue my burgeoning alcoholism.

The only thing I didn't like about my dishwashing job was how early it started. I had to get up at some ungodly hour like 4 AM for work. But I got off early in the afternoon, and the rest of the day was mine. As long as I got to bed at a reasonable hour, I was fine. One evening I was talking to my parents on the phone. I had the handy (and true) excuse of concluding the conversation in a timely manner because of having to get to bed for my early day. My dad said that so did he. There was something in the way he said it that sounded like he was proud of me, and I remember feeling very good about that. It wasn't easy to get my dad's approval, and he seldom specifically said it in so many words. After all the lectures about work, it's seems silly that it should have mattered to me, but it did. Such is human nature.

All in all, life in Juneau was pretty good. I had even managed to talk the owners of Bullwinkle's into starting a tab for me. I felt like quite the swell, being able to order pizza and beer without money, then walking about 20 feet to get home. I probably could have worked at Sally's Kitchen indefinitely, but then the Alaskan winter descended upon this California boy like some sort of metaphor. Juneau is quite southerly for Alaska, and the waters of the Gastineau Channel are warmed somewhat by the Japanese current, so their winters are nothing like what is experienced further north and inland, but it still seemed like Siberia to me.

A funny thing about people who moved to Alaska is they tended to build they way they had in the lower 48, with no consideration for extra insulation and such. My old house was no exception. Some nights I would take my laundry right out of the drier and put it in my bed and climb in after it so I could get to sleep while still warm.

Eventually the cold and long, long northern winter nights (which take up much of the day, as well) became too much for me, and I decided to head home. In true form, I didn't inform my parents of this ahead of time. I did, however, tell Charlie, and he picked me up at the San Francisco Greyhound station (I flew from Juneau to Seattle) because he was attending school at Berkeley at the time. He was about to travel to O-Town for the Thanksgiving holiday, so I rode with him. I surprised my mom by just walking into the house behind Charlie on the pretext of a friendly visit on his part. She was very happy to have me back. She had never been too keen on my choice of new residence to begin with. It had to have been hard for her to see her last child leave the nest (and leave her with only my father for company). My dad, for his part, wasn't impressed with my quick return. After all, I had only been gone about 4 or 5 months.

So now I was back in my parent's home. My mom hadn't been so cut up by my departure that she hadn't wasted any time converting my former bedroom into an approximation of the arts and crafts room she had enjoyed in southern California. I had to sleep on a sleeper sofa that barely fit between the wall and an upright piano. I can't remember when my parent's got that piano – perhaps during my absence. Certainly no one in the home played. I 'm sure my mom had plans to learn, but I don't think she ever did.

This situation was not acceptable, even if I did plan on staying – which I didn't. My dad had always said that I could live at home rent free if I would attend college, which would probably be a pretty sweet deal for someone who didn't mind his parents' company. If I stayed at home and didn't find work, there was the ever-present threat of having to go back to school. The choice seemed simple to me: the first order of business was to get a job, and then a place of my own.

But despite the cramped conditions in my former room, I still spent a few days enjoying the mild winter weather of California and just sort of taking it easy. Looking back on it, I was acting as though I had just returned from some taxing adventure and was in need of rest and recuperation. Like I said earlier, this was one of those time when I really wonder what was going on in my head.

During these days of slack, I got another bad idea – one that really makes me wonder if maybe I wasn't a bit schizophrenic at times. This astoundingly bad decision sent my nascent adult life off the rails for a bit, but you'll have to wait for the next installment to hear about that.

The end.