Ask the Rust

Originally published in Esoterica

After being kicked out of my ex’s apartment I had to move back in with my old man. You’d think after beating prostate cancer last December he’d be grateful to have me back. But no. He says I need to pay rent if I want to stay in my old childhood room. I remind him that if things went differently I’d own the house by now.

“The house belongs to the bank,” he says. “You’ll be lucky to inherit a single quarter from the change jar.”

So on Monday I have an interview at Pollo Haus. The manager looks fifty and has a face that doesn’t exactly scream I Read Books. We sit down and I hand her a list of personal references from my creative writing teachers in college. But she ignores it and asks if I know my way around a deep fryer.

“Not intimately,” I say.

Five minutes later I’m in the kitchen wearing a hairnet. It’s a windowless sweat lodge that smells like chicken and beans. All the other guys are latino except for me. Not that I mind. If anything it’ll give me material for my forthcoming book. It would be about the time where I worked alongside the marginalized, mostly Spanish-speaking workers. Half the book would be in Spanish. And there would be footnotes that gave translations of key-words to readers who were too stupid to learn another language.

I’m told by the head kitchen guy to work the salad station. His name is Rogelio. He’s barely five-foot one, probably from malnutrition back home. He also speaks better English than I expected. I ask where he’s from. “Colorado,” he says. Right. He has me chopping tomatoes for half an hour. When I was finish he pulls the garbage bin over and tosses all of them. “Try it again, but slice them evenly,” he says.

How dare he. I’ll show him. I’ll slice the shit out of these tomatoes and then move on to more important tasks, like breading the chicken strips. While I slice I think about my book. It’ll be about about migrant field hands in the Central Valley who fight for better working conditions. It would be like Animal Farm except with people. I already have a great first line: “Gazing across the flat plains that constituted the Central Valley, all I could see was spiritual starvation.” Then I look down and notice I’ve sliced off the tip of my left index finger.

After I wrap my hand in gauze Rogelio asks if I want to go home. “This is nothing,” I say. “Put me back in.” So he has me folding boxes by the dumpsters in the back. I go at it for a while until I realize this was a waste of my talents and leave. I have to ride the bus because dad wouldn’t let me take his car. He can’t stand that his son is smarter than him. This being a man who would rather build shitty birdhouses than watch The Daily Show or anything that requires a hint of intelligence.

On the way I pass by Hot Shots Sports Bar where I know Stacie is working. Technically I’m not allowed in there after that time the security guy heard me say the N-word completely out of context (I was quoting a line from Pulp Fiction). But I figure he’s forgotten what I look like by now. So I hop off the bus and go inside where Stacie is behind the bar slicing lime wedges.

“It’s me Stacie” I say. “I’m so happy to see you.”

“Ben!” she yells, him being the security guy.

“Wait,” I say. “I just wanted to come down here and apologize in person.”

“For what?” she says. “The lying? The back rent you owe me?”

In a different life we used to live together. Things were good for a while. We bought curtains. We cooked dinner on Wednesdays. We had shower sex. But then everything became unspooled. During those last few months it felt like we were strangers living in the same space, or phantoms haunting the dead bedroom, passing through but never really seeing each other. She says it was because I hooked up with the Starbucks girl, which isn’t true. We were just sexting.

“I’ll pay you back and more,” I say. “I just completed the first draft of my novel. Now I can submit it to literary agents and they’ll submit it to some publishing houses, maybe make a few edits here and there, send me the final proofs, then distribute it to small bookshops at first, though the real money comes from Amazon.”

“You should work in a children’s cancer ward,” she says. “At least you know how to entertain people.”

“No. I really mean it,” I say. Well technically that wasn’t true. But what is a mistruth except a forthcoming truth? “I think we should reevaluate things.”

“I’ll get Ben to reevaluate you in a second,” she says.

“I’ll leave,” I say. “But next time you see me I’ll be signing copies of my book at Barnes and Noble.”

I had to run like hell before Ben caught me.

Back at home Dad is immediately on my ass.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” he says.

“I quit,” I say. “I wasn’t going to stand there and watch those workers being taken advantage of. Citizens or not, all laborers should own the means of production.”

“Shut it,” says Dad. “We agreed you could stay here until you either got a job or go back to school. Well time’s running out.”

“Incredible,” I say. “Either shove me into a capitalist workforce or dilute my mind with stagnant academia. Why don’t you just bludgeon me with a shovel and get it over with.”
“I will bludgeon you until you learn to support yourself,” he say. “Christ. You’re twenty-seven. I don’t know what that girl ever saw in you.”

At that moment I snap. How dare he bring Stacie into this. I grab the food processor off the counter and smash it on the ground. I sprint out of the house before Dad can give me one of his famous Louisiana Beat Downs. He yells something about tossing my stuff out on the curb, but I don’t care. Now I am a true-blooded, homeless bohemian writer.

I go to Everything Rises cafe so I can sit down and write. But most of the seats are full and that douche Emery is working. Emery who wears oversized sweaters and gets fussy if you order anything besides drip coffee. I sit down and watch him discussing Nietzsche with some girl who looks nineteen and smells like vape. I pretend to clear my throat until finally he comes over to take my order.

“I want a cappuccino,” I say.

Emery sweeps his stupid My So-Called Life Jared Leto haircut away from his forehead and grumbles.

“I don’t have the stuff for that right now,” he says.

“It’s just hot water, milk, and espresso,” I say. “You don’t have to be a mixologist to figure it out.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says.

I sit and watch him fumble with the espresso machine. I move closer to the Nietzsche-reading girl and ask if she knows him.

“No,” she says. “We just met. Why?”

“I’m shocked to see him out in public,” I say. “After what went down.”

“What happened?” she says.

“I don’t know the details,” I say. “Let’s just say it involves a blind girl and rhymes with CREPES. I would watch what he puts in your coffee.”

Then I look up and Emery is hovering over me.

“What’re you talking about?” he says.

“Nothing,” I say.

“He said you assaulted a disabled person,” says the girl.

“What?” says Emery.

“You can deny it, but the truth will shine,” I say. People have started looking over at us. Good. Now that the seed has been planted, I’m sure others will start digging deeper and find some reason to excommunicate Emery. Maybe even castrate him. Perhaps I did make this all up, but what is an allegation except a forthcoming crime?

“Don’t listen to him. I know this guy,” says a voice behind me.

I turn around and of course it’s that jealous bitch Mathilda from creative writing class. I haven’t seen her in years. Back then she hated everything I wrote, just because I made jokes about kids and dogs dying. Meanwhile all she wrote were shitty poems about being bisexual, which isn’t even that cool anymore.

“Well looks like someone here doesn’t believe victims,” I say.

“Victims?” says Emery.

“You need to shut up,” says Mathilda. “You made these accusations all the time when we were in school whenever you got mad at someone. Like when you accused Mr. Park of exposing himself to you because he didn’t like that story you wrote about Hiroshima.”

“He was clearly very biased against the Japanese,” I say.

“It was incredibly racist and you obviously did no research,” she says. “Now stop harassing my staff and leave.”

“You have no right to kick me out,” I say.

“I absolutely can. I manage this place,” she says.

“Managing a cesspool that hires sexual predators,” I say. “Really making strides in the world.”

“And what have you been doing?” she says.

“I just got back the final edits for my novel,” I say. “I’ve been talking to Penguin, Simon Schuster, HarperCollins, just your basic stuff. How’s your literary career going?”

“I have three chapbooks published,” she says. “And I wrote a piece for The San Francisco Chronicle next month.”

“Sure you did,” I say. It’s really sad to see someone so deluded about their abilities and accomplishments. Eventually she’ll realize that nobody wants to read her trash and she’ll spiral downward, maybe get addicted to ketamine or heroin. At least then she would have something interesting to write about. “I better get going. I’m supposed to come up with a curriculum for a summer writing class I’m teaching. Maybe you should enroll.”

“I already have my MFA,” she says.

“Of course you do,” I say.

I feel confident that everyone has seen me put Mathilda in her place. So I leave and go to a nearby park to sit on my haunches for a while. It’s dark. I have less than twenty dollars in my pocket. My computer is probably smashed on the sidewalk outside my dad’s house. Still things could be worse. For example there’s a homeless guy sitting on a bench with no shoes on. I sit down next to him and immediately get a whiff of the most vile gutter smell of my life. I want to leave but I also don’t want to offend him. So I breathe through my mouth and ask him how he’s doing. He shakes his head and mumbles something about dwarves.

“I see,” I say.

Here is the forgotten underbelly of this supposedly progressive city. My fellow writers might pay lip service to acknowledging these undesirables but it’s only for clout. I imagine I’m the first person in a long time to treat this man like a real person. I would shake his hand if his fingernails weren’t all black and crusty. Then some teens with skateboards pass by and pretend not to stare but clearly are.

“Take a long look,” I say to them. “One day you’ll move out of your parent’s mansions and realize life isn’t all Modern Family but more like Intervention Laugh now, but it could be you sitting here talking to yourself like a maniac.”

The teens say nothing and keep walking. It makes me so mad that people can be so callous. I hope that on the way home they get hit by a bus and be stuck in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives. That would humble them. And also by ignoring us they missed out on some really enriching conversation.

“Tell me friend,” I say to the homeless guy. “Have you ever read Jack Kerouac? It’s alright if you don’t know him. Not many people do. He’s more of a writer’s writer. I’m a writer, by the way. I know what you’re thinking: ‘Am I going to be in his book’? And the answer is: Absolutely. But I’ll portray you with dignity. I’ll make you a complete person. I won’t even mention your race, unless you want me to.”

I can’t tell if he’s listening or not. He seems to be fumbling with something in his pocket while staring off into the star-littered blackness of the nighttime sky. I pull out my notebook and write that line down so I can use it some day. Then he turns around and I see that he’s firmly stroking his exposed penis. I tell him good night and walk away quickly.

For the next few hours I roam aimlessly until I’m by the new high rises. Here are the expensive boutiques where the bourgeois temporarily alleviate their ennui by buying two thousand dollar t-shirts. It’s absolutely disgusting. I want to throw a rock or a bottle through the windows but there’s nothing on the sidewalk. They keep this part of the city immaculate for the wealthy Anglos who live there. And who does all that upkeep? Not even the poor whites like me. I wish I would’ve been born as a brown person, or at least a brown-passing person. To show solidarity I buy a tallboy of Mexican beer and sit on the curb outside a gas station.

Across the street are four Latino men waiting at the bus stop. It’s almost five in the morning. I imagine they’re just getting off work and going to their second jobs to send money back home. I’m sure they all have captivating stories to tell, if only they have the necessary tools, like a MacBook, or an HP because they’re cheaper. Suddenly it gives me an idea for a novel: A former cartel hitman named Luca “El Cuchillo” Gomez (“The Knife”) now living as a window washer in San Francisco goes back home to Tijuana to avenge the death of his madre (mom) after she is killed by a local drug kingpin. To make it authentic I would work as a window washer for a few months. Then once I’d saved up enough money I would move to Tijuana and immerse myself into the Mexican gang life. Because unlike some writers I’m not afraid to put my feet on the ground. I’m willing to travel to some of the shittiest places in the world so I can find interesting stories. People would compare me to Anderson Cooper or Anthony Bourdain, but younger and more successful.

Feeling reinvigorated, I walk down to the wharf to catch the sunrise. I squeeze through the rusty gate that blocks the part of the boardwalk that’s rotted and collapsed. I stand over the water gazing across the bay at nothing in particular, like some badass Gatbsy, “You will know me,” I say. Dad. Stacie. Mathilda. Look upon my books and despair. Verily, I laugh at you illiterate plebeians. Ye who would bring themselves up by bringing myself down. But though they do not deserve it I will be merciful. I will spread warmth and joy and truth everywhere I go, and for this I will be loved. And while Nietzsche says I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time, I wouldn’t mind being praised some of the time, and for this I am holier than most.

“Do you hear me?” I scream, but a foghorn deafens my voice.