Never The Same #44 Kirk Hits the Reset Button

Kirk couldn’t delay the inevitable or did he just finally catch up with his irrefutable fate? He enters a new phase of his life.

              Kirk, irritated and pressured by his father to do something, to take action, didn’t know where to turn when it came to getting a job. He had tried searching for a job before the dealership job and he obviously wasn’t full of himself in a way to sell himself to attain a good job, a job to be proud of. As we’ve seen he wasn’t a self-starter by nature preferring to drag his feet when he faced something unknown or work-related.

Well, his future remained a dark, frightening unknown because Kirk didn’t know what he wanted, which way to turn, in his employment, racing or anything else in his life for that matter. Maybe he just waited for something, some sort of impetus to show itself or something obviously beneficial dropping into his lap before he takes action. Admittedly, Kirk has in the past occasionally stepped forward with gusto to guide his future in offhand minor ways, but of late he stalled venturing out, not wanting to try to forge a way forward. Yeah, for now, Kirk just stalled not doing much of anything. He didn’t go out, he didn’t work on his vehicles, he didn’t want to go out with Sarah Elizabeth. You might say, he lived a total funk.

            One morning, a week later, his father launched into Kirk’s lack of direction. His father wasn’t quite so direct as that morning.

            “You need to get off your a*s and get a job, Kirk!”

            “Yeah, yeah. I’ve been thinkin’ about it.”

            “Thinking about it ain’t going to accomplish a damn thing. You need to go look.”

            “I KNOW!” Kirk said forcefully. “I don’t know what direction to turn.”

            “Go put your application in at the plant. I mentioned to the plant guys that you’re looking for a job.”

            “You did? Why did you do that? Maybe I don’t want to work at the same place as you.” Kirk said wishing he hadn’t, which was truthful definitely the factor holding him back. He couldn’t see himself working in a factory setting especially if his father was going to be around there to judge him.

            “You need a push. Though you really need a kick in the pants to get going.”

            “Oh really. A kick in the pants, huh? How very nice advice that is from a father. Nice. Very nice.”

            “It is good advice for you to get going.”

            “Sure. Right.” Kirk couldn’t take any more of his overbearing father so he got up and walked away.

            His father called after him. “You going to the plant? They’re expecting you.”

            “NO, I am not going to the plant.”

Kirk slammed the door. He wandered out to his pink van, got in started it up, and headed out the gravel driveway probably too fast. Kirk’s head spun as the tires spun in the gravel. The very last thing he wanted to do is to work at the same place as his father and also, he sure didn’t want to do what his father told him to do. Kirk cooled down as he headed to town.

Heading through the small village’s canyon of two- and three-story businesses and apartments, he cruised past the old shelter where he hung out a few times during school. Some of the badass kids hung out there all the time, though Kirk didn’t know or care what they did there all that time or what became of those BA kids. Probably in jail or living on the street or in their parents’ basements. He shook with a chill. He then drove through the park, and even though it had been three years earlier, he felt an urge to follow an old familiar route. That route took him past Dee’s home. What he expected from a drive-by he had no idea.  Maybe he expected a warm feeling of reminisces of a simpler time when he loved Dee and had a promising future with her, forever. Why’d she cheat? Kirk could never fully relinquish her visage, voice, kisses, and touches from his total being memory. He wished he could just remove her and so many other things that clogged up his psyche and bothered him, constantly.  

Kirk did a big loop on secondary roads around a few of the small villages in the area. He didn’t plan on it, but he ended up driving past Babe’s childhood home, though he knew she had been married a couple years already and began knocking kids out. He recalled her tall, lean, dark-haired posture appearing very much like a model hence the “Babe” moniker. That seemed so long ago which only reminded Kirk that he had no future laid out before him like it seemed everyone else apparently had fashioned years before.

On his way back home, he drove past his high school, but that seemed so long ago as well. Aiming for his final destination, he slowed down and drove past the drywall plant. He creeped by to take it all in. Large sheet metal buildings with few windows spread out across on the lot. Steam and smoke spewed out from several chimneys. A good-sized parking lot was filled to near capacity with some high-end vehicles. Good money to be made? He was not sure except from what his father indicated, but Kirk knew not to believe his father when it came to money matters. Kirk surveyed the huge infamous scrap pile of, what he assumed was, drywall rejects. With some weeds and scrub bushes growing in it, the pile stood higher and stretched farther than the plant complex itself. Should he work in a place like that?  How dangerous would working in a place like that be? Could he admit to anyone he knew that he worked there? On the other hand, Kirk didn’t know if anyone he knew already worked there. That would be awkward, no doubt. He very slowly drove home.

On arrival, Kirk parked his van, shut it off, and sat there. And contemplated his life. He looked at his stock car, appearing a bit cleaner without the faux vinyl top, but he couldn’t imagine what he was going to do with the car. Would he race next year? Did he have the gumption to be an “also ran” another year? He wandered into the farmhouse and went straight to bed. He stripped down, slipped in, and sunk into his favorite position--fetal. He lay there for a while contemplating if he should canvass various automotive businesses to at least utilize his meager mechanical skills. He drifted off to sleep still unsure if he would do anything tomorrow because tomorrow was too soon to jump into anything.

The next morning, Kirk rolled out of bed and sat there on the edge of his bed. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the floor. He took a deep breath. He put on his best, newest jeans, cleanest tee shirt, and a flannel shirt he had never worn before. He wasn’t a big flannel man after all. Wandering down stairs he was relieved that his father wasn’t there. Maybe outside, maybe at work. With some idle chitchat with his mother, he downed a big mug of coffee and his cereal. When he got up without a word, his mother asked where he was off to, but Kirk answered uncommittedly with “Oh, I don’t know, I’m just going.”

Kirk started his van and drove out of the farmyard his destination undetermined at that moment anyway. He drove well under the speed limit, something he never did when driving the Firebird, but with the low-powered pink van Kirk didn’t have to adhere to any reputation of being a lead foot. Taking the short drive to the village about ten minutes at his slower speed, five minutes with the Firebird. He went to the far side of the village and entered from there. He cruised the streets not taking in the sights, not really paying attention to his driving. You know, like one of those instances when you drive home and can’t recall the trip. Kirk motored up the village hill and turned toward the schools like he had done on a thousand (at least) past occasions. But his mind wasn’t on his high school high jinks or even on Dee Dee who rode with him during so many cruising instances. He continued past the school not wondering how it was now, how it might feel walking the halls as he did as a student. His mind remained ahead, into a future undiscovered.

Kirk did take notice of the impending Georgia-Pacific plant with its spewing steam up ahead of him on the left. He took a deep breath and pulled into the front parking lot in front of a building which he assumed housed the office. He parked facing the building. It didn’t say “office” it only had the company logo and “Georgia Pacific” across a windowless wall. What am I doing here? He questioned himself. Letting the breath out, he gingerly closed the door and slowly walked toward the small one-story building which was about, in his estimation, twenty by thirty feet. He walked inside and immediately faced a business-appearing woman seated at her desk behind a typewriter.

“Good morning, sir,” she said, rather business-like.

“Ah, oh, hi,” Kirk stammered, unsure why he did so, but there he was. “I’m here to, ah, apply for a job.”

“All right, young man,” she said, reaching into a desk drawer. Still leaning over her drawer she turned her head to face him. “Your name?”

“Ah, it’s Kirk Biscuit.”

She sat upright, square in her office chair with a single page in her hand. “Oh, Mister Biscuit. We’ve been expecting you.” She paused looking at her desk for some reason. “You are already hired.”

“I am?”

“Yes, you are. Can you start tomorrow morning?”

            “Ah, sure. I guess so, but how come, ah, I’m already hired?”

            “The COMPANY likes to hire from members of hardworking families. You come highly recommended because of that.”

            Kirk inwardly groaned realizing that he was hired not due to his own attributes and this job just dropped into his lap. AGAIN!

            “Are there any requirements? I mean safety equipment? Clothes?”

            The secretary looked him up and down. “No, just wear work clothes you don’t mind getting dirty.”

            Eager to get away from the situation, Kirk turned for the door.

            “Wait a minute, Mister Biscuit.” She called to him holding up the page. “You still have to fill out this application form before you go, you know for our records. Mostly contact information and education those sorts of normal questions.”

            “Oh, okay.” Kirk let his breath out and took the paper. She pointed to a small desk in the corner.

“Have a seat.”

“Thanks.” Kirk sat down and breezed through the form, unsure if he was relieved or concerned. “Okay, so what’ll I be doing tomorrow, then?”

“I can’t say to that. Just check in with Jim at the plant’s main entrance tomorrow at eight.”

Kirk bent down to peer through a back window behind the secretary to try and see the entrance. “Ah, where is the main entrance?”

“Oh, just pull in, go down the hill toward the big parking lot down there,” she pointed generally behind her. “You’ll probably see workers coming through the people door in the big brown doors. You’ll see where to go. If not, ask someone.”

“Okay, thanks,” Kirk said timidly wondering what he was in for.

Maybe wallowing in gypsum muck or carrying heaps of drywall boards, his mind spinning with many possibilities some of them quite absurd but all unknown to him. He had no clue seeing he never listened to his father when he talked about his work there in the plant because he couldn’t have cared less. But now? Maybe he cared somewhat more, but he decided he’d find out on his own hoping he wasn’t working anywhere near his father. He wandered out to his pink van and slowly drove off wondering what he was in for. Definitely unexcited and definitely anxious and unsure of the taking of this job, he was torn with his feelings. Would it be something he sticks with or does he give it a haphazard short-term try and quit.

Whatever happens after this foray into a real, honest-to-goodness working man’s job, Kirk would be Never the Same.