My Pagan Friends

My Pagan friends Mala Noche and Jymsdottir, for instance, work at the Christian coffee shop. Mostly for shits and grins. They were hired last year after returning from Burning Man, where they ran a successful fair-trade, shade-grown coffee yurt on the playa. Their preternatural skills at caffeinating everybody from Anarchists to Furries to Zappa-ists, using camp stoves and old Italian steam espresso makers they found at thrift stores, gave them a marketable skill that many, many years of half-assed college credits would never touch. So, even with the stench of patchouli and goat milk soap preceding them, prognosticating crystals and the double-headed labyris glinting between their tattooed breasts, they were hired at the decidedly non-pagan, Brew Testament: Coffee Room & Bible Lounge. Used to as I am to the Gothic scare tactics of the Catholics, or the slightly manic Methodist bingo crowds, it seems strange to me, getting my morning java behind the sacristy. This cash-cow offshoot of the evangelical breed of Straight-Edgers and Born-Again Virgins, is located just next to the rectory, has fresh homemade jam-drop cookies made by the Ladies Shut-in League, subscribes to the Monitor and Country Woman, and offers plenty of parking. 

So —what the hell? I go...

Even if truly open-minded, the coffee shop manager had also been truly desperate. The older good people of the First Presbyterian parish had only ever drank the dregs of Folgers or Sanka from enormous dull-nickel Servaware urns. They hardly knew what to make of the Bazziolla professional “Eagle’s Nest” copper-clad espresso machine. To them it looked like it belonged in a chapel crêche, lit beneath with candles. The youth group originally staffing the shop, was earnest and got up bright and early and were generally eager to help, but none of the crew could stop proselytizing long enough to remember how to work the coffee press. Several promising young things scalded themselves and threatened to bring the little shop to its knees, not in prayer, but workers’ comp claims.

“The Saved just aren’t skilled, really. That’s why they ask for money on those programs all the time. Just my opinion.” Jymsdottir shrugged matter-of-factly as she expertly decorated my drink with a foamy topping, replete with the anarchy symbol. I took my drink, paid and added a healthy tip in their counter jar. I knew the Pagans showed me a modicum more interest because I did that, rather than say —because they thought I was hot. But I didn’t care too much. Mala Noche and Jymsdottir were lovely to watch. Of the Pagans’ multiple expressions in body art, I can tell you that the tattoos include: a Kaballah tree with (I think) holy Scratcher numbers alight on its branches; an illustrated bone pentagram; the Hindu Wheel of Life which slightly resembles the gameshow wheel from Wheel of Fortune (Mala’s a self-admitted Wheel Watcher). Also, Snoopy as WWII Flying Ace on his Sopwith Camel is very visible whenever Jymsdottir wears her dotis.

“Dood, employers can’t discriminate on the basis of religion.” Jymsdottir told me this while she steamed some fresh milk. My Pagan friends call me Dood.

“Or sexual preference.’ offered Mala with her lascivious smile. Mala Noche who loved unspoiled virgins of any sex, probably more than a jihadist on a suicide mission. She was grinding a coarse setting in the giant bean hopper, so the conversation paused for a dark-roast Sumatran scented moment: two Wiccan high-priestesses preparing their elixirs, suffusing the beige linoleum surroundings with a golden aura. They cast a spell on the Brew Testament patrons and ran a cozy business. They didn’t try and convert anyone, and usually let the more pushy zealots off with a twinkly smile when asked about their soul in the afterlife.

“We’ve already been there and back’ Mala Noche will quip, ‘Hell is Starbucks.”

Not surprisingly, everyone agrees.

My other Pagan friends have regular jobs, like managing at 7-11 Food Stores or selling motorcycle parts online. Very blue-collar, choke-chain kind of work. Nothing wrong with it, moreover, nothing interesting either. Only one Pagan, Lou, is doing something really weird. His money comes from personal injury by the way, so it automatically converted him from agnostic to raving atheist. See, he was once just an average earner, loading and unloading for the Northern Pacific Railways. His vision quest was to make enough money and retire to Alaska in the shifting shadows of the calving glaciers. Then in a freak railroad accident, a compromised shipping container gave way against the train car doors. A half ton of therapeutic ice packs dumped on him while he was stationed for unloading at the dock. They all burst in their little sacks, triggering the chemical cold and instantly freezing into one giant blue iceberg on his back. This crushed his body and gave him severe frostbite on his lower limbs. For each shattered vertebra and skin graft, he won something like one million in pain and suffering combo from the railway and the medical supplies company. When he was able to finally wheel away from the trauma, he sort of turned against what some call “God's plan…”

He also had had enough of ice. Alaska was right out.

So, now exceedingly wealthy but unable to do much with his fused back, except watch TV, he bought a luxury estate near Huntington Beach at a foreclosure auction. Lou sank all of his settlement money into shamelessly promoting it —like a B-movie star’s agent, desperate for a comeback for both their sakes. He’s had glossy photos taken of the house and bound in a coffee table style book. The façade has been painted (and re-painted), primped and landscaped several times over. From a command center in a small back bedroom, furnished like a utility suite, chair-bound Lou cold calls location scouts, production companies, and commercial agents all over the L.A. empire. He offers them high teas at 4:00, BBQs and Happy Hours at 6:00 and Midnight pool soirees. All this he says, is to “give the girl a shot.” The shot is to get his house selected to be used in one of those advertising wet-dream shows, like say The Real World, or Flava of Love or The Bachelor. So far as I knew, he’d only been able to convince a Bravo TV team to take a couple of digital snaps of the marquetry pavers in the driveway. The rest of the time, he sat alone in an enormous empty shell waiting, quite literally, for the knock of opportunity. 

“It’s not fair...’ Lou calls to kvetch. I pick up because I’m only on my third glass, and I can still operate syllables.

“She’s got presence, style. This house wasn’t built by some Kaufman-Broad committee. The architect was an Ayn Rand fan!! She’s gorgeous with great bones. The camera loves her!”

“Hollywood’s a tough business, man.” I don't know how to console him exactly. I try and be helpful. “Maybe you could rent a room out? Something with a faster turnaround than a reality show?”

“Dood, I am NOT going to have her in pornos if that’s what you’re saying —She’s better than that. Victoria Principal leased here.”

“Nobody would have to know,’ I’m unsure what I'm saying ‘You could like, put up a fake wall? A backdrop of New York? New carpet?”

I heard his wheelchair bang into his desk, “Listen, if I take her down that road, the neighbors will never agree to let us have evening shoots. Sure, the nearest lots are easy 1/4 mile away but they have pretty strict R&C around here. This is an upscale address. It’s not like San Fernando OK? We’re not Wonderland with DVDA and coke in the toilet...” 

I make a noise of agreement. Speaking with Lou nowadays always leaves me grunting.

“Well, I gotta roll, D. I need to make sure the cleaning guys finished the edges of the infinity pool. Tonight’s party might be the clincher! So long as this retro monstrosity on La Cienega can’t accommodate live animals, we might be home to a great Buena Vista show called Monkey Business. It’ll be like a cooking competition show against chimps, or with them, or something... But, really —huge tie-ins with Jamba Juice and GE. That guy from the Food Network is on the short-list to host —We’re talking major exposure. If I nail this down, I’m hiring you as my Transport Captain.”

“Yeah? Wow. So, OK great. Talk to you later.”

We hang up and I think about how much this guy has been through. Why did I think he was weird? He’d definitely found a purpose. He was self-sacrificing and sober. He loved something bigger than himself and wanted to share the beauty he found there with others. It was Jonah swallowed by the whale, and then instead of fighting and slicing to get out, just sort of camps out and orders head shots.

Yet and still, my Pagan friend Lou? Weird guy.

Honestly, I know I have absolutely no business in rating my Pagan friends employment. I am a pretty low rung on the ladder myself. Or, perhaps I don’t qualify as a rung because I don’t know how anyone climbs to the top of the profession “Parking Valet.” I guess I am at the zenith, since I’ve been valet at D’Accord for seven years, and I now oversee the roughneck crew of less than bright kids and older burn outs who park with me. In the valley of the marginally employable, the man with merely one-point on his driving record is king. Le Roi c’est moi.

My Pagan friends call me Dood, but my parking crew know me as Dudaleigh MacInnes, because we are all expected to wear name tags when parking. And, that is my for-real, typed on the birth certificate name. It’s even a legacy, as I am the roman numeral 4 of a line of Dudaleigh MacInnes’. I through III, all gone, so I’m out there flapping on the last thread of the family banner. Most of my homeboy crew though, call me “D-Mac” without any discernible irony. When I’m in a shit mood, they love to further it by calling me Carrot Top, D'Lucky MacCharms, Cabrón and all manner of pet names which, were I built to swing a claymore, they would think twice before letting me overhear them. But, I’m more likely to roll my eyes then roll their heads. As pale and wraith-like as I appear, I know my physical limits. My hair, which I keep long, is reddish and wavy and I also have the matching goatee. That popular snowboarder kid? He could be my twin, if he were 8 inches shorter, pan-faced with womanly hips and non-committal posture. All through high school I wore black; all through college. Now, at age 41, I still wear black. Occasionally, a white tee under a black shirt, but otherwise -the classic misfit wardrobe palette. The deal with black? It’s an absence of color, or the sum of all colors… I don’t know. But it’s easy to shop for me… Except for my childbearing hips... So, yeah -chicks dig me. 

The phone rings, and I let the machine do its toll work. A voice purrs through the automated response,“Ahhhhh...Dudaleigh, sweetie... Pick up. I know you're home.”

My mother's voice. I debate picking up. If I don't, I feel guilty, and if I do I have no idea what I’m in for. Being an only child, and a male child, makes me sensitive about the apron-strings I feel still strung to my wrists, wrapped in my guts. Mom’s parents paid for the school I slouched through for four years, and now, hell –she pays my phone bill, so I really ought to pick up.

“I’m speaking to you. This is my voice, echoing, recording... Testing. Testing. 1-2-3. I guess you're not home then. Working at Versailles, hm-mm... C'est vrais sous enfant credible?’

Mom doesn't think much of my valet situation. Thinks it’s pre-Victorian, like I’m a foot-man for the landed gentry. Considers it a drain on my overall esteem and the reason I drink like I do. She also speaks no French, but likes to use french words to mock the restaurant.

“Quelle allors cherchez! I’m feeling the need to share. Is it wrong to want to share with my only son?’

I can hear her moving around while she's speaking. I hear a taping sound. Like something getting taped. I'm drunk enough to be curious, but not so drunk I make the mistake of talking to her while I’m on my second bottle of wine.

“Well, you call me back’ (which she knows I won’t) and then we can...’

More ripping tape, slight jostling of phone ’share... Bye-bye.”

I pour a generous glass of 3 buck Chuck and try and read about Kant but I really can't.

(to be continued)

Post-Officealyptic

PART I

DELIVER MY TRUTH

I thought about joining up. Doesn't everyone? The smart uniforms. The dutiful discipline. The admirable dedication through tough situations, carrying bulky packs through territories with snarling unfriendlies. Right-handed steering on busy cul-de-sacs and indifference to paper cuts. Yes, indeed! Many have considered joining the Postal Service. But the few -the proud -and the generally diffident- have actually crossed that threshold and begun the process. An almost digestive process that literally breaks down an individual, and calorically burns parts as components to be absorbed into a living, pulsing, Borg-like mass on a mission.

A mission to deliver Bed-Bath and Beyond coupon books, apparently.

GOING POSTAL

The USPS is aging and its staff are happily turning over their laminated keycards. This is a stoic crowd who have had to suffer under a lot of 20th c. US Gov'mint bureaucracy and capricious Forbes 500 top-down decisions: it is as if they've all been children raised by a divorcing couple who never agree and drag their shit out forever and it dwindles their resources and basically leaves everything tenuous and guarded. Now, this is all prelude to the fact that in my personal lifetime, I haven't seen many campaigns to hire postal workers, but just a month ago, a big white banner sailed on the Main PO, WE'RE HIRING! I thrilled a little. As public as mail delivery seems with men and women out on routes every day, it has almost clannish secrecy, that and the Civil Service Exam, and the funky pith helmets some carriers seem to favor; these things made me sign up for the "So You Want To Work For The Post Office?" clinic. I had more than a passing curiosity, and a strange feeling I was fulfilling a long yet unknown prophecy. Was this, finally, my mail calling? I signed up immediately.

Upon the day and meeting hour, a handful of clearly under-employed local citizens with Mead-type folders or legal pads milled around the front of the Main PO desk. Several days earlier, we'd been sent sketchy email directions as to where our clinic would actually be, but at 10:30 a.m. like a time-lock on a safe, a door opened and a pear-shaped woman with cat-eye glasses herded us in to the "Employees Only Beyond This Point" zone.

Welcome to this city's Main Post Office Building, she intoned. Built in 18somethin' —Its the longest continuously operating US Post Office since 19mumbleteen West of the Rockies. Yes. THE OLDEST! (I guess someone made a doubtful noise and she dismissed us all summarily.) Go. Follow the arrows on the floor, go up the stairwell directly ahead. Keep moving. See the arrows? Then take a right, and then another right and then a left. Keep moving.

As Cat-Eye Woman slipped behind a partition, I gazed around. Briefly taking in the enormity of the space, I could compare it to the other Grand Federal style buildings I'd been in while visiting state capitals, libraries or museums. But the interior was a pastiche; a combination of a Jiffy-Lube, industrial dry-cleaners, the workshop of a dozen retired eccentric cabinet builders, and the evident neglect of perhaps a half-century. We passed through a narrow door to an even narrower stairwell that seemed to have been built into a closet. You actually had to duck your head at the stair corner, and then upon reaching the landing you faced a lovely old wood door with smoked glass  and a brass knob as big as a softball. It was off the floor by at least a couple of feet and had a sign DO NOT ENTER. Through a corridor displaying a bulletin board, beyond a small break room with a few tables, chairs and an out-of-order table-top video game, then into our meeting space made strangely disproportional by a low drop-ceiling, and what would appear to be a fake-floor. The arc of the very top of the original 19th century, 13-foot windows were at our feet, giving you slight vertigo. The low walls sported motivational posters, all with soaring eagle imagery. Bristling with "Git'er done!" energy, a sparkplug of a woman named Liza directed us to sign in, grab a folder (boasting A Great Place to Work ©USPS 1993) —and take a seat. 

Eight tables seated about 4 people each. Facing the Power Point Screen, I side-eyed and sized-up the others' Postal Potential. Most were young to middle aged men. Just a few women including me. We were a motley crew, with half of the applicants showing up in full-interview dress-tie askew and the rest just wearing their least crusty shoes. Inside the glossy folder were print outs of the actual job descriptions and wages. When we saw the per/hr numbers we all seemed to exhale deeply, a collective deflation. It was suddenly very warm in the room. I envied the people closest to the foot level windows.

Hello everyone, Liza said. 

We looked at her.

HELLO I SAID, Liza barked.

HELLO we hailed, immediately wising up. OPEN YOUR FOLDERS, she commanded. Folders slapped in precision. The process had begun...

TIME STAMPED

The PO has long been a difficult 'company' to get a job at, not least of which is they require a Very Special Exam. Fail it, and you are OUTTA THERE! Being a nosy nerdling, I'd already fished around the Internets and taken a facsimile of the test. Even without trying very hard, I got a reasonable score, well above the cut-off of 70%. This meeting though, was apparently for the real slow learners who hadn't even THOUGHT to look up, "Post Office Test" on Google. Liza presented us with both hard-copy and visual screen shots of samples of the three different test parts. There was figuring out columns of correct/incorrect Address-City State ZIP; a multiple choice section about how accurately you could fill out certain forms; and memorizing ranges of addresses in order to choose the Postal Zone where they should be directed. All timed. It's this third level that separates the Wheaties from the Cocoa Puffs, if you know what I mean. Liza told us her secret for test success.

I am not a good test taker. Tell me there's a test and I get sweaty. No joke. Like the heaving flop sweats. Throwing up, right? And when I took this test (many many years ago) I was worried about the memory stuff. Some people have told me, Oh! I just have photo memory! I can see something and POP there it is! Not me. But, like, when I studied with a group for the test, I found that if I made a story up, I could remember what I needed, right? Like, I see this set of numbers and street names on the first part. I might say, OK: there's a 4 year old girl named Myrtle Circle, she's going 88 blocks to pick up some Vitamin D Street milk for her Grandpa Tony who was in Court from 1976 until 2001 and she takes East Route 10 with between 13000 and 17500 apartments. See? It doesn't have to make sense. It's all just cues to remember 4-88 Myrtle Circle and so on... A story, ya'know?

She smiles sympathetically at the room of people trying to make up their own short stories from the test samples.

I got a hundred on the exam. Perfect score. So, ya'know. You just gotta do what works for you, right?

Now Liza seems kind of back-door bragging. We're all murmuring with our own half-assed doggerel of the numbers and names. She finished the "workshop" by explaining that the City Carrier Assistant position currently is the only one in the USPS with the potential to move up in the Service, as she did from lowly sorter all the way to a Sr. Career Recruitment Officer, which gives her full benefits and generous pay. Ironically the starting level position for CCA is not a guaranteed full-time, regular shift or benefit covered job. You might work 5 days, 6 or 3 depending on mail load. The benefits for the job arrive after 3 years full-time. She also made it clear that the Carrier was not a job for the faint of heart. That it would require physical endurance and long hours. Really long. Really really hard. She emphasized the duress the job would put us through, and that many can't make the commitment. They work a few weeks, still can't handle it.

But stick with it! she said with conviction. I did it, and I thought I'd be in the hospital after the first few routes. But, then I got into it. I did! I'm telling you, if you can just hang on for those first 90 days, you're gonna know if you can do it as a career... Oh, well and if you haven't been let go after 60 days for not performing well. Then you'd be out —but, stick with it anyway!

We are told to return to the website asap to start the application process, and it's then we are given the only actual helpful information. Liza returns to her laptop controlling the projection screen and clicks back to the first image of the USPS web homepage. 

You might have found the website isn't so great, right? (Groans of agreement from the group.) Yeah yeah they tell me they are working on it...

She says something unintelligible about the IT people.

So, when you "Search for Employment" —don't use any keywords or job titles or anything! Just look through all the California jobs —you'll find the link by City, so it's not too hard. Trust me. If you put anything else in a field, you'll get "Zero Results" back. It's a little frustrating...

More sibilant exhalation. The semi-grizzled Luddite next to me nearly snaps his ball-point underlining FUBAR on his marked up note-paper. Liza calls the meeting over and we all mostly shuffle out, although some in the room crowd her with sidebars, or other test taking tips. Luddite guy wants to know if he can send his resume in on paper. Liza just looks at him sadly. 

DIVERGENT

Beyond the job possibilities (or even the job duties), I am excited as a pedestrian to be in the actual Post Office space, so I leave in no particular hurry. This is my idea of a job hunt, investigating the work space! I re-examine the table video-game and discover not only is it in disrepair, it is a completely obscure game, named like X10-EN0X produced by JEN-RU. No wonder boxes are stacked on it. The little half moons of windows continue along the floor until I step down into the Bulletin Board corridor, which is dark and doesn't seem very conducive to reading the mandatory posts for Dept of Labor Legals, OSHA Notices and copies of faxes (faxes? really?) of what seem to be Official Dog Bite Reports dated 2009. There is a boxy standing water cooler, and I hear its refrigerant hum. I take a metallic drink, more like liquid copper than water, but it is impressively cold. I stare at the Mystery Door Not on the Floor. The hallway leads to yet another door also off the floor, but with the addition of level steps. This one has no sign, no smoked glass same big brass knob style. I take in the walls, the ceilings, light fixtures, floors —they are all different materials; all different eras. I go carefully back down the narrow gauge steps covered in truly ancient linoleum smoothed like wax in the curves and interstices of the stairs. I reenter the Great Work Room, with its rear-end cement floors worn with combinations of ramps and jut-out parts to accept large delivery trucks and palettes and fork-lifts. The air is filled with discrete shuffling sounds, not industrial blasts or computer beeps, and maybe a fine slight haze of paper dust. It's lunch time, so things are at a lull. I walk beyond some painted lines and see enormous bolts cut off flush at the floor, where something once stood, but no longer did. The shelving system looms up on the other side 8-foot or taller in a complex maze of cubbies with ladders intersected by lines indicating  bins to coordinate with satchels. Here and there -over the matrix of partitions and cabinets- I see a pilaster, a cornice detail, a marble lintel from the great old days of the Post Office's belle epoque. Now, the space is collided, divided into fractals; factions even. To the left, Abnegation. Right, Dauntless territory. I almost spin...

MA'AM?! MA'AM!! KEEP TO YOUR RIGHT PLEASE, FOLLOW THE ARROWS OUT! MA'AM?! TO YOUR RIGHT? OUT!!

A younger, yet again, pear-shaped woman squats on a very homemade looking carpet cushioned wooden stool apparently slipping envelopes into low-placed cubbies. She uses more than an indoor-voice to get my attention, as she adjusts her blocky Erudite glasses and focuses on me. She points with a latex glove finger the way I must go.

OUT!

(To be continued...)

Post-Officealyptic 

PART II —COCKPITS and Beyond

My Lemonade Stand On a Dead-End Street

Everyone wants to cash in —ya'know, make a nickel here, a dime. Simplest method, just set up and do it. Right now, on the street where you live... Go on! Drag out the folded table (dirty but a fleece blanket with a Doozer image will take care of that.) Half-ass wash a pitcher you find in the laundry room. Pour some tap water, add 2, no 3 cups sugar along with a cup of SummerTime© lemon flavored mix, then go ahead and squirt some Real Lemon© from the plastic fruit into the brimming liquid. You need more ice cubes, but the six or so whittled looking ones left in the tray will have to do —Time is money! The heat of the day is NOW! People are THIRSTY! They will be on hands and knees, begging for a sweet refresher, O THANK GAWD! YOU SAVED MY THIRST BUDS! Busting out a couple of signs to tape to the blanket, you run out of citrusy colored pens and have to finish with an overlay of brown. Not quite the look you like, but mostly readable. Cups? Cups! Red party cups which are always around, but you can't fill to the top, or like all the fluid value will be gone in two pours. More ice would help to cushion the deal, but no looking back now —the table is up, the duct tape signs in place 50¢ DEE-LISH DRINK DEAL, the frost is dripping down the plastic pitcher utterly embodying the cool promise of a lemonade dream.

You stand and wait, on your own personal street, for your first customer.