Pink Slip Party (6 page)

“You’ve eaten it all,” I say.

He straightens, and I see he’s drinking out of my milk carton. He has the decency to finish it off. Ron burps loudly.

“That milk was past due,” I inform him.

He shrugs.

“It’s the hormones that will kill you. Not the bacteria.”

Ron plops down on my couch, wiping off his milk-mustache with the back of his sleeve.

“Dude,” he says, tossing me a crumpled flier from one of his cavernous front pockets. “I’ve got a freelance gig for you.”

“Does it pay?” I ask skeptically, squinting at the moist flier, which is for his band, Sink Gunk.

“YES,” he says. “I even have a down payment to give you.” Ron slumps on the couch so he can reach down to the bottom corner of his pocket. He retrieves a twenty, balls it up, and arcs it at me.

“Thanks,” I say. “What’s the job?”

“Design our CD cover,” he says.

“You have a CD?” I ask, amazed. Sink Gunk usually only plays lame cover songs for tips at local bars. There was a time, back in college, when I thought even lame cover bands were cool. Back then, I’d relish wearing Sink Gunk T-shirts. Now, they’re just another local band that probably won’t ever make it.

“Not yet, but Dan’s working on it,” Ron says.

Dan is Sink Gunk’s “visionary,” the front man who is always claiming he knows someone who knows a record producer, and who can sing on key only when he’s high. Ron is the group’s bassist, and two other guys, Russ and Joe, play guitar and drums, respectively.

“You don’t happen to have three thousand more where that came from, do you?” I ask.

Ron scoffs. “I hardly think so,” he says. “Twenty now, three hundred later. All in cash, tax free.”

“It’s a start,” I say. “And I like the sound of tax free.”

Freelancers don’t get unemployment benefits. In one of the many ironies of our public benefits systems, it is in my best interest to turn down freelance jobs and not work, rather than risk losing benefits. As far as I can see, the unemployment benefit system, like most welfare, is designed to lower self-esteem and create dependence.

*   *   *

My goodwill toward Ron evaporates almost immediately after he sticks his hand down in the waistband of his pants and lets out a long, low-pitched fart.

“OK, that’s it, Ron, got to go,” I say. “I’ve got to figure out how I’m going to get my unemployment check.”

“Wait, are you going to Social Services? I can
totally
help,” he says.

“I don’t think so,” I say.

“Come on, dude, I have
connections,”
he says, flashing me his chipped-tooth grin.

As it turns out, Ron is very helpful when it comes to the unemployment office. Even though he’s never held a steady job for as long as I’ve known him, he seems to be intimately acquainted with everyone at the state building. For example, he calls the guard at the door Bob and asks about his kids.

I take my place in the coiled-rope line behind a man muttering obscenities under his breath and tugging obsessively at his tie.

“Lucinda!” I hear one of the employees shouting. “LOU-SIN-DAH!” Somebody behind the counter, invisible to the people in line, shouts, “She’s on break.”

“Oh, she better not have left me with this
line,”
the woman sniffs.

“Cheryl, just tend to the people, all right?” Says the buck-toothed manager. His tie is askew, and his hair is oily.

“Why does
she
get to take three breaks. I don’t get to take
three
breaks.” She’s shouting.

“We’re in the wrong line,” Ron tells me.

“But this says ‘new beneficiaries’ and that’s me,” I say.

“Trust me, dude, we have to go upstairs.”

Reluctantly, I head to the elevators. Ron trails behind me, his Birkenstocks making loud sucking sounds against the tiled floor.

On the fifth floor, there is another line, and it is twice as long as the line on the third floor. I am suddenly possessed by an urgent need for a cigarette.

“Do you have any smokes?” I ask Ron, who digs in his ample pocket and retrieves a joint.

“Not that kind,” I say, cross. I only abuse legalized substances. I have standards.

“You know nicotine is
terrible
for your lungs, right?” Ron scratches his weedy goatee. “You know how many impurities are in cigarettes?”

“This from a guy with a six-joint a day habit,” I say.

“At least the pot isn’t laced with arsenic and formaldehyde.” He taps the joint. “This is one
hundred
percent cannabis, babe.”

I snort.

“OK, OK.” He puts the joint back in his pocket. “Hang on a second,” he says, digging down further. Ron is skinny, a trait amplified by the fact that he insists on wearing extraordinarily baggy clothing. He could fit a full roast inside his one of his front jeans pockets. After several long seconds of digging, he pulls out a small piece of folded paper. Inside are two single white pills. E, probably. Ron is a fixture in the clubbing scene.

“This will make you happy,” he says, smiling his chip-toothed grin. I slap his hand away.

“Dude, no need for violence,” he says, carefully wrapping up the pills and putting them back in his pocket.

*   *   *

Nearly a half hour passes, and my craving for a cigarette has become nearly unbearable.

“You need to
chill,”
Ron tells me as he tries to rub my shoulders in line. I slap at his hands and he withdraws.

“I was just trying to help,” he says, sullen. “You’re so freakin’ tense.”

“Next!” barks the woman behind the third window. The man in front of me, who’s been bouncing from one foot to another, as if preparing to sprint, bolts from his stationary spot and nearly collides with the window. He needs adult Ritalin. I need a smoke.

I glance over at the other unemployment window. There’s a small man with thick glasses sitting there behind a computer. He’s not calling anyone forward, but he doesn’t appear to be helping anyone, either. He’s not on the phone. He’s not eating his lunch. He’s just typing on his computer in short, controlled bursts. I decide he’s playing a video game. Maybe some 1980s games like Space Invaders or Centipede. I want a job where I can play video games. And take long lunches. And not show up for long stretches at a time.

I sigh.

“Next!” barks the woman at the first window. The guy playing Tetris is still intent on his computer screen.

“Hi,” I say as I walk over to the woman’s window. I smile to show I’m friendly and not insane, and that she should help me because I can be cute and perky when I’m not clinically depressed. The woman isn’t buying it. She’s frowning at me, and clearly unhappy in her job.

“I need my check,” I say.

“ID?” she says.

I scrounge around in my pocket and produce a battered Illinois driver’s license. I look fourteen in the picture, even though I was twenty-two. My hair was short then and spiky, and a mismatch of colors because I didn’t go regularly to a salon. Now it’s long and has deliberate highlights, and I usually wear it up in a messy, haphazard way. My brother Todd says I look like an ostrich, because my hair sticks up and I have a long neck.

I take off my Buddy Holly glasses so the woman can get a good look at me. I smile again to show that there’s no hard feelings about her curt manner.

“This doesn’t look like you,” she says, squinting at it and holding it up against the glass to get it closer to my face.

“It’s an old license,” I say, smiling brighter. I’m sending her “please like me, I’m perky” vibes.

“You have another form of identification?” the woman asks, coldly indifferent to my overtures of false friendship.

I reach into my purse and retrieve a gas card, but this is not enough, apparently. Ron then steps up beside me and says, “Oh, I can vouch for her, Deena. She’s OK.” Ron puts his arm around my shoulder. Visibly, I flinch.

“Ron? Is that you?” cries the woman behind the counter.

“In the
flesh,”
Ron answers, showing his chipped front teeth. Ron is the sort of person who uses lines like “in the flesh.” He also, on occasion, will say “you rang?” in an exaggerated Scottish brogue.

She rolls her chair backwards and calls to some of the invisible people in the cubicles behind her. “Girls! It’s Ron, come back to pay us a visit.”

Immediately, two rather large ladies lumber up to the front window.

“Ron!” they cackle. They look like a small herd of yaks wearing Kathie Lee Gifford dresses and Payless faux-leather shoes.

“You got any more sugar for us, honey?” one of them asks.

Carefully, Ron looks one way and then the other, and puts his finger to his lips. Then, stealthily, he takes the small white packet containing the pills and pushes it under the glass.

In one swift motion, almost so I don’t see it, the woman behind the counter grabs the packet, shoves it into her pocket, and hands a slip of paper to me. It’s a check with my name handwritten on it and the amount of my meager unemployment: $1,035.

“Is this for one week?” I ask, hopeful.

“One month,” corrects the woman behind the counter. “It’s forty percent of your regular salary, minus taxes.”

“Taxes?” I shout. “I have to pay income taxes on my unemployment?”

“I didn’t make the rules,” the woman says. “I just hand out the checks.”

“Wow, that’s a
lot
dude,” Ron chirps. “Last time I was here, my check was only $203.”

The unemployment check, plus the money already in my account, means that I have $1,330, and even though I was an art major and stink at math, I know this means I’m almost two thousand short of the rent. I am so royally screwed.

Human Resources Dept.
Barnum & Bailey Circus
8607 Westwood Center Dr.
Vienna, VA 22182

Jane McGregor
3335 Kenmore Ave.
Chicago, IL 60657

March 7, 2002

Dear Ms. McGregor,

Thank you for your interest in employment with the Barnum & Bailey circus. Unfortunately, we do not have any openings for you at this time.

While we appreciate that you have a natural sense of balance and have always dreamed of walking on a tightrope, we must inform you that we only hire trained specialists to do all of our acrobatic acts. A two-week gymnastics camp during the summer of your 8th grade year, we’re afraid, does not qualify as adequate training.

Thank you for thinking of Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Sincerely,
Kate Ricordati
Co-director, Human Resources Dept.
Barnum & Bailey Circus

4

I
have emptied out my closet hoping to find something worth $2,000 to sell on Ebay. The only things I find as salvageable, sellable merchandise are:

Call me crazy, but I think I’m going to be a few dollars shy of the rent. I’m going to have to do what any self-sufficient modern girl would do in my situation: sell my eggs. Since I’m not getting any action these days, maybe I should let my eggs have a go.

I go online to research egg donation and discover three things in rapid succession: 1) it pays $7,000; 2) there is a screening process; and 3) it requires minor surgery and something scary called transvaginal ultrasound. “Trans” and “vaginal” are two words that don’t belong together in any context other than
Jerry Springer.

But, the pink and blue fertility site assures me I’ll “have a great sense of fulfillment from helping an infertile couple fulfill their dream of parenthood.”

Fulfillment is less tempting than the seven grand.

I consider this, and while I’m doing so I’m suddenly struck by the horrible thought of my life turning into a bad sitcom where I end up dating my own son or running into my daughter at the gym — complete with garish laugh soundtrack.

Still. It is seven
thousand
dollars. I could pay Landlord Bob what he’s asking and still have more than a month’s worth of expenses paid for. All in cash.

No. That’s crazy. I don’t want them to accidentally take my only healthy eggs, since I probably only have five or six of them. The last time I checked, smoking, not exercising, and eating your weight in high cholesterol foods does nothing for reproductive health. Besides, egg harvesting takes at least two months, and I don’t have that kind of time.

My thoughts are interrupted by a hard knock on my door.

I jump, fearing it’s Landlord Bob, but when I get to the peephole I see Mrs. Slatter, my downstairs neighbor. As she’s never even made sustained eye contact with me before now, I am curious as to what she wants.

I open the door cautiously.

“You’re too loud,” she says to me, right off. “I can hear you all stomping around up here like a herd of elephants.”

“It’s just me in here,” I say.

She looks past my shoulder into my apartment.

“You sure you’re the only one in there?” she croaks.

“Sorry, it’s just me.”

“Well, I’m going to Bingo, but when I get back, I think you should tell your
friends
to go on home. I’ve gotten a new hearing aid, and I don’t mind telling you that things up here are loud.”

“Mrs. Slatter, honest, there’s no one in here but…” Did she say Bingo? “You’re going to play Bingo?” I ask her.

“Every Wednesday at the Y.”

“Can I come?”

Mrs. Slatter looks at me like I’m about to hit her over the head with a metal pipe and take her purse.

“Why?” she asks.