The kid's happy, he's excited to go to school. I can't complain. But we got less than a week to go before Iraq happens and I have to admit I hate to see him go this time. A paycheck is a paycheck, though. Gotta pay the bills.
So this dream.
I was in this country club, it was full of snobs and military men, ex-military men and snobs. They sold me a membership to their club. I paid $200, on credit. The receptionist held my card. Did I want to add $50 for towels? Gym access, $50, a month. "Uhh," I said. I came up with a plan. They all stared at me like dogshit. I rolled out my excuse. "I'll sign up for that next week, after my husband goes back to Iraq." Oh, the horror. "My god," said the one who looked like my recruiter. I nodded. "See you in a week. When I start working out and all."
So I go out to the parking lot, there's this fucking sports car out there. I have the keys. I guess it's a loaner from the club, you know? Well, I sit down in the thing. It purrs when you turn it on, no lie. So I'm trying to get out of this parking lot just before dusk and there's some kinda bullshit road construction and a block on my right side. I can't see for shit. People are waiting for me to go. I can't. There are cones! Well, eventually I see how I'm supposed to get out. It's stupid easy and makes me feel like a retard who ought to be wearing mittens and drooling on a tray, not in a fucking Lamborghini or whatever the hell kind of car this is but goddam, is it fast. It's tearing up the road, and I just drive and drive. It's beautiful. I drive all down those country roads in bumfuck nowhere and pretty soon I'm turned back around looking for my street, the road that will take me up to where my parents live, up in the woods.
I see the sign, it's got the right name on it, just this dirt road cutting off from the highway and curving around. I have to park the car, you just can't drive on a road so narrow. It's nuts. I leave the keys in it and start walking. I crest this hill and there's two houses right there at the top, houses made of nothing but the hollowed-out rotten stumps of trees and hippie junk everywhere. They're like hobbit-holes without any goddam doors. Nobody's in them that I can see. I keep going. The trees clear up and I can see all these gorgeous rocks, this ancient open space full of odd rock formations and red-gold sunset boulders the color of clay and they're beautiful, I can see this old ladder I used to climb to get to the forest up above all this stone, and it's hanging from another one of those gorgeous rock ledges. The end of it's broken, it's too short to reach the rock below it. Not even close. Well, Fuck.
So I decide I'll keep going. Maybe the road goes somewhere good, maybe there's even more beautiful things to see. I'm wrong. It ends, a whole fucking box canyon made of this lovely clay. I don't know what to do, so I stand there. Soon I'm hearing music. It's muffled, faint as hell. I start climbing on some of the rocks. Some of it's rock, some looks like camouflaged wood and cardboard and shit. The music is louder. I hear a door slam. I look down from this rock/roof I've climbed up on. There's a door in the side of the canyon/wall. It's a fucking kitchen. I can see a logo printed everywhere. Some fucking bar and grill. I get down from the rocks and approach the door. A girl opens it. "You got something I can cover up with?" I say. She looks down, horrified. Also amused. I'm completely naked. Somehow my hands and arms are covering most of the damage, but she points to this crazy apron. A passing girl laughs. They're waitresses. "You got anything bigger than that? I'll work for it."
And that's how I got a job slinging grub at snotty country club douchebags in the side of a fucking cliff.
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