Life Movie

Start or end your story with someone realizing that life isn't like the movies, for better or worse.

           Well, “life isn't like the movies,” certain people wind up old, broke, and alone. The people around me aren't like me. Some of them are schizos, bipolars. Druggies, drunks, etc., me, I just broke up with my girlfriend of fourteen years and she was the one paying the bills, but we weren't officially married. I cooked for her, though, I hugged her and smiled at her every time she came home, I cooked the foods she liked and was upset, but understood, when she didn't like the food I cooked, which was rare. I'm 45 years old, I haven't had a job (unless house parent is a job) since high school. I have a degree in sociology, but with no work history, I'm now on the street, begging for cash from passers-by who think I want to use it to get drunk or high, but I don't. I want to use it so I can get a shower, new clothes, work on a resume, and get back. Maybe there's a single, working mother who needs my help, but she won't want me if I'm unshaven, unshowered, and homeless. Now, if I was a woman, I could get food stamps (EBT), be accepted to a shelter, get on a VR program, keep the house clean, and get back on my feet. But, I'm a man, an effemerate man, but a man none-the-less. A man. 

           So, I've come up with themes to get back on my feet. I ask for money from passers-by. I try to explain I'm not your typical homeless person and if they give me money, I'm not going to use it on booze or drugs, but to get back on my feet. I hear the usual: “Get a fucking job. Yea, right. Food? Go to a freaking food bank”. Certain churches give out free meals. Thank God, but they don't like that I smell bad either. 

           Then, something happens; I recognise one of the passers-by and, thank God, it isn't my ex. It's a colleague from college. I walk up to him, smiling and extend my hand. He looks at me like cattle before it's slaughtered. 

           “Do I know you?”

           I tell him my name and say we took Sociology 102 together in college and I explain what happened with me and my girlfriend and I try to make a story that'll make him cry, but he doesn't cry. He just says, “Wow. That's tough. I'm in a pretty hard spot myself so I can't help you, but remember, out college had a Career Center and they might be able to help you out.”

           “Can you drive me there?”

           He has the dead cow look again, but agrees, because I helped him move in college. 

*

           I get in his car. It's something that doesn't smell like puke, garbage, or alcohol, and it's nice. He has one of those scented things hanging from his rear-view mirror. The car seats are leather, warm, soft. I could fall asleep here and be happy. Then, I wake up and he's shaking me: “We're here.” I get out and walk up the stairs of the college career center. I check my pockets and I have a wallet with my driver's license in it. With my driver's license, maybe they can look up my college ID and help me.

           I go up to the desk with the feeling of hard carpet against my shoes. The college-aged Caucasion girl looks up at me with a false smile. The kind the teller has at McDonald's when she wants to go home, but needs the money more. She asks me, “Can I help you”? I take out my driver's license and tell her I used to go to school here. I tell her about how my significant other broke up with me and kicked me out of her home, and I was left with nothing. I told her I wanted help finding a job with the degree I had. She told me she could make an appointment with a career councelor, but it wouldn't be until the following day and I agreed. I'd have to find a conspicous place to sleep tonight though and make sure I was up and ready by 2 pm the following day. Easy.

*

           I came in the office, smiling with a full, unkempt beard. The woman I was meeting with was in her mid-fifties, Caucasion, and turning white. She listened to what happened and we worked on forming a resume, which wasn't easy. We went over what skills I had: cleaning, cooking, hugging, and we decided I would be great in the hospitality businesses. Things like waiting tables, hotel clerk, etc. Customers. 

           I asked her though how I could get a job with the way I looked and no address. Then, she asked if it was okay if she closed the door and I said, “Yea. What do I care?”

           She then looked around and looked at me square in the eye and said, “My husband broke up with me and he was the bread winner in our house and I went to divorce court and won a good settlement, but I have three kids: 5, 10, and 15 years old and it's a lot. If I let you stay in my home and feed you, clean you up, etc., will you help rear my children?

           I must be dreaming. This is something that would only happen in the movies and “life isn't like the movies”. I said, Yes. She helped me send off ten resumes that day. She then waited for all the other employees to clock out and go home, and she snuck me out the back door, like a child stealing vodka. 

           We went out the back door into the parking lot. There was one car there: a 1996 Christler LaBaron. She is hard on her luck. She had an off-white bra, black socks, and a pair of shorts on the passengers side when she opened my door. She took her right hand, which had red nail polish just starting to peel, and threw the clothes in the back.

           I entered her car, which smelled like soiled laundry, buckled up, closed the door, and waited. She turned the engine and the starter didn't work the first time. She got it started on the second try though. As she drove, she did her best with the bullshit conversation people try to have. Things like, So, what do you think about the weather we've been having lately, but to a homeless man, the weather is a bitch. You're outside, trying to stay under the pieces of the roof that go over buildings to stay dry, and always failing. So, I gave the typical answer, “It's ok”. She tries talking about sports, local news, etc., but when we get to her house, it all changes. 

*

           I look around the place. There are shit stains on the carpets, something smelling like mold in the air, and laundry littered everywhere. I ask her if I could have a meal first and she told me, “No. First clean the kitchen, then you'll get your meal.”