Chapter 4: New Job

David Suez goes looking for new beginnings and turning down dead ends.

David scrawled the words, “Beginning New�"new job,” in cursive across the yellow sheet of paper with blue lines.  Then he copied the phone number for the first job on the list in the newspaper, and punched it in.  Then a second and a third, and in the end an interview for tomorrow and two obvious rejections and he was out of newspaper options.

Nervously he got up from the couch and walked out into the kitchen where he poured himself another cup of coffee and started to lie down again.

“The hell with that!” he shouted though he was the only one there to hear.  “New beginning�"new job,” he read from the paper he had laid on the floor.  Then he picked it up, and went outside. But having no idea where he was heading, he simply stood against the wall for a moment.

“Hello,” a girl said to him as she passed.

Normally David would just look at the ground or look away and not answer the gal.  But today was a new beginning.  He shyly said, “Hi,” and tried to look her confidently in the eye.

The way she looked back at him seemed to tell him, he was as much asking her not to reject his salutation as greeting her.  So he looked away from that much naked honesty as his eyes fell to the ground and only back up to hers when she did not laugh, or say anything.

She was smiling.

He smiled back.  It had been a long time since he had even spoken to anyone without having to.  It felt good so he stood up straight a moment and walked away down the street, trying not to be afraid he would not get that job tomorrow.

As he walked people spoke to him, and he spoke back.  It was as if they understood from his body language he was friendly.  But it seemed that he was causing them to speak to him somehow.  He now pitied people who like he was, just yesterday, either could not, or didn’t care to, speak to others.  It felt good to have sympathy for someone else rather than thinking, ‘Oh, woe is me,’ all the time.

Soon he was at the park sitting on a bench along the main path through it.  It was peaceful there and he took in the maples and oaks when the first person he saw came along and he said, “Hello,” trying to sound just as chipper as he felt.

It was a guy.  He looked at David with surprise and then nodding, he hurried on.  David thus encouraged spoke to several people.  Some actually spoke, others just nodded or smiled, and a few said nothing and just went on their way.

Ultimately he got bored and sat atop the table he was near with his feet on the bench seat and just watched people walk by; catching every eye he could of the people who went by on their way to work. 

Finally a girl he wished he knew smiled at him.

“Hello,” he said.  

She smiled and seemed to walk by feeling foolish for reasons David couldn’t fathom.  It made him feel good.  Then the thought came to him that she was taken with him.  He was proud.  That in itself had been a long time in coming.

A short while later and David had decided to go back to work, take the flack he had coming for not clocking in, and for being an hour or so late, and …

The girl who had smiled at him was back.

David was surprised as he continued to sit where he was and not let on if he could.

She was not surprised and said, “Do you even have a job?”

David was even more surprised as he looked at her, tipping his hand with his expression as he did.

She smiled.  “Me neither,” she said and looked him in the eye.

At first he tried to pretend she was wrong but she didn’t buy it for a moment, so he just nodded and looked away.

She sat opposite him on the top of the table, turning to look at him and said, “I hate coming here.  I managed to get myself on a government program.”

He looked at her very surprised she would say that.

“Maybe you should try it too?”

David stared at the grass a safe distance from hers and anyone else’s eyes, and then he shook his head.

“I mean, if you qualify and all, why not?”

“They are hard to refuse, but hard to get off of I hear.”

“Yeah,” she said.  “I know what you mean.  I’ve been stuck in the system for years.  I’d have to get a really good job to afford the benefits I’ve got now.”

They sat in silence a while before David got up and walked away without looking back at the girl who was not hard to look at, at all.

As if he had been being tested or something his ringtone startled him by coming alive in his pocket.

“David here,” he said into it.

“David Suez?”

“Whom may I say is calling?”

“This is Tina at the British Pump.  We had an ad in the newspaper? How soon can you be here?”

“You want me to just pump gas?”

“If you can handle it, the store will be yours, if it works out.  John, our manager quit us and quite frankly the guy I told you we hired never showed.”

“What-what do you mean the store is mine if I can handle it?”

“Not right away!” Tina said, “But it’s a beginning and I’m sure you can handle it.”

“Okay,” he said starting to wonder what made her think he could handle it.  ‘What if he could not?’  “It’s a new beginning?” he asked ignoring his doubts.

“If you want it to be, David, it can be your beginning.”

“How does ten minutes sound?” he asked and smiling never waited for her to answer and rushed off to the gas station to begin a career in sales he hoped.

“Hey dude?” a fellow in gangster clothes seemed to be inquiring something of him.

David just looked at him and said, “No thanks man.  I’ve got a job.”

“See you soon,” the gangster shouted as David hurried away.

David looked back and deciding he was a safe distance away yelled back, “Hope not!”

“You’ll be back!” the gangster yelled, “When you get a few dollars, you’ll be back.”

‘No way man,’ David thought very confidently as he actually began to run to work selling gas and chips he suspected.  But it was a start.