About Phil (and thinking about America's Laziest Turdsucker)

Like, I've never been opposed to working. 
I'm opposed to working with certain people, 
but not working itself. 

Before I got this job washing dishes for 
a Private School in Connecticut, 
my three previous jobs were: 
a seasonal overnight-stock for a department store;
an on-call (substitute) janitor for a 
 rural high school ; 
and selling concentrated soap/detergent 
 door-to-door (whilst living in motel 
rooms with multiple other guys) 
in Ohia and Pennsylvania-- 
All Equally Shit. 

Then, I got this good job. 

I stayed there 3 years (with summers off, 
obviously) and they'd reimburse you for a decent 
pair of shoes since you practically needed boots 
to do that job efficiently. And it was part- 
time but I'd take as many hours as I could 
 get to supplement my full-time at the factory 

and it's where I eventually met Eleanor, 
fleeting as that was (she was truly special 
in a way few other girls have ever 
been to me) and... 

Right about here I should get to the point: 
There was some sordid bullshit about our 
Head Chef getting the lamest of lame DUIs 
(Hey, Dave!) and so we  had to get 
a new Head Chef to replace when he 
was supposed to go to an in-patient 
and put his whole fucking adult life 
 on hold 
for something like 6 months? 
Phil was the new Head Chef. 

Think of Kyle Kinane except 
moderately more manic, that 
wise insanity that makes being 
 working-class 
actually kinda good for 
your soul. 

He could talk about being a drunk, we 
could talk about drugs and musicians 
and just throw random opinions 
at each other knowing 
the other guy would throw something 
 back 
just as hard. 

And he'd let me talk about Buddhism and Camus, 
 from time to time, as very few people have 
and just as few are likely to do. 
(This is all around 2013, by the way: 
just when my personal computer was 
becoming decidedly less personal) ... 

And then I was a schmuck enough to 
quite my job at the factory, see a car 
repossessed because I couldn't make 
the payments--but again Eleanor was there 
to give me rides home to Dover, about 30- 
plus minute of the best of every day--and 
it ended up being this persistent, if 
ambiguous, promise of large sums of $$$$, well, 
everywhere. 

Somewhere in early 2014 I got another job 
 as a dishwasher 
in Millbrook, New York. 
Nothing was working right. 
There was this creeping suspicion, 
really, everywhere that everything 
 you heard 
was at least 3/4s bullshit 
and 
you simply had to take it 
because No One would take your side 
if you didn't. 

The people I worked with 
were fast-becoming like facetious relatives, 
and I guess Phil got shoved...or drawn...or 
just fell in some other way 
into that.... 

But it's Two-Thousand & Twenty-Six, now. 

I'd say hi to him if I saw him around here. 




**** 

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