the sweet 'n low

yes, it's been a while. but don't you fear--nothing has changed. Eh, who is exactly reeeeally interested in my Welfare, anyway?

Chances are, whereever we left off, I was sitting around in seriously uncomfortable reception area, hating on something. And said something, in turn, was sitting around and hating on me right-back. The welfare office and I are just symbiotic that way. Yes, like bedbugs and box springs, we are. Wait--bedbugs are actually parasites sucking off with human beings, but in a bad way. So, that's a bad analogy. But back to the welfare office...

Now that I'm back from my break at the blog, I've got some bitching to do. That is the job of the jobless--bitching. And dammit, I am good. I don't remember where I left off other than my empty pockets, which seems to be where most of my tales, delinquent accounts, and thrifstore pants leave off anyway. Yes with the empty pit of my pocket, it's a journey like side-dishes that touch each other, like bile and other wasteproducts, where it all ends up in the same place. Hmm, I'm doing it again. Back to the story.

Blahblahblah, I finally meet my worker, Linda Brown. I've got a sobstory to tell her, and in turn, she's got a blank look and a generous hand-out of attitude to give right back to me. She's seen my kind before; it is all over her face. I'm one of those human-people-urchins that fill up her day. Human-people-urchins stuffed with woes, guts, and possibly contagions, and maybe snot. Understandably, she's gotta get me out of there quick-like; I feel a sneeze coming on.

Linda Brown has got a tidy, slick ponytail that I'm fairly certain is made from real hair--just not her own. She is pleasant and coldly cordial in an I'm-sick-of-your-shit sort of way. The fact that I have just met her and not had the chance to give her my shit--of which I have plenty--is besides the point. She knows. It's in her eyes. She is polite, even a tepid degree of warm, provided that she is the one talking, and you are the one quiet. I figure out the rules quickly; conversation is for the working class--the lowest rung, which lies on rungs far above me. I don't even know what a 'rung' is; no wonder I'm on Welfare.

After 7 hours of aforementioned waiting room social hour(S), it's almost closing time. There are pages upon pages to be signed and jotted that were never given to me. When she realizes I don't have my "pink packet", which reminds me of something that causes cancer in rats, her eyebrows arch. And people's eyebrows only arch in places like these when you've blown it. They are like rabid cat's backs that way. And you, little applicant with the missing document, you, are the mousey. Now go get your gubment cheese in this maze. But this metaphor is getting weird again. Waiting for Welfare will do that.

Ms. Brown is apologetic that I will have to come back the next day with said papers and gives me an appointment. The paper says 10:30 at the top. I have flashbacks to the waiting room I just left, flashbacks to the check-ups back in the golden years when I had insured visits with doctors that ended, a little sadly, with parking tickets--that's what appointments mean to me. Here, in the waiting room of all waiting rooms, it's a scary process. And a really boring one once you finish your book. So, when she tells me I must come back again, I think about more waiting, it hurts. No, I mean, physically--my ass, it hurts, because I've been waiting all day. It's gone as numb as my Will to succeed at this point. I mean, I haven't even left the house yet, hell, I haven't even left the welfare office yet, and I'm already shifting in my seat.

So, I ask her, Excuse me, do you think that I will actually be seeing you at this time? Or will it take quite a while? I just have an appointment later that day and you know how appointments--

--At that, her whole ponytail almost blops off because her face gets that tight. The air is full of "oh hell no". I am breathing its sulphur.

"Why would you ask me that?"

I gulp. She says it so plainly that I indeed wonder. Originally, it seemed a good enough question, a lot better than the last time I tried to buy a single donut hole across the street. I question myself. I come up with "Um," It's soft and squeaky.

"Does that not say 10:30 on that paper? Why would you ask me that? Do you understand that it is an appointment? Why would I see you at some other time and tell you to come at with this one? Here I am trying to help you..."

Although I have cringed myself into a speck of raisin on the chair, I still manage to interject.

"Sorry," I eek. "You know how appointments are. I just waited a long time. Sorry."

She explains more about what appointments are. That what I had today, you see, was not an appointment. But what I have tomorrow, is. I am wondering, by the pacing of her exposition, if she is going to give me a bucket of crayons, which would be great if I do indeed have to wait. The explanation is lengthy, so now I see why the waiting takes so long. She should have just made me look it up for homework, really. But occasionally, she will reflect on my question and repeat, " now that don't make no kind of sense". But it does, to me. But I'm glad for the details. Because on Planet Loser where I come from, surely we don't know what appointments are. Planet Loser is a crazy place, really. There, we just freeforall when we want our teefs pulled, punch each other in the mouths near the abscesses and call it a days work. Her appointment explanation is killing me. It is killing me to where I want to test out her theories immediately and make one of these "appointments"--between Ms. Brown, and her maker. I mumble either 'thank you very much' or 'fuck off and die.' Tomato. Tomahto.


The next day, I am running to get up the elevator. It is 10:28. I am like a frantic white rabbit, but this ain't no wonderland. Ohmigod. Have I learned nothing from our discussion? I know damned well what an appointment is. My being late would make no kind of sense. Oh no. What happens to the chair raisins at 10:31? Is it to the end of the line?

Speaking of line, there is a long one just to walk in the door, or to say things like "excuse me, where is the restroom?" or "I'm an invalid/graduate student." I skip the line--it's long. I am scolded. I wait in the line. I am then scolded because people with appointments don't wait in line. By this time, I've developed a strong conspiracy theory that goes like this: somebody, somewhere, is fucking with me.

Here is proof: the clock is fucking with me too, it's moving forward. 10:29. Man, move it crazy drunk dude behind me in line, I gotta go. I had my lecture yesterday. And I now know what an "appointment" is and those things mean business. Everywhere I go, government employees give me linda-brownian-stare. I ignore them. I run for the elevator, hurtle bound the strollers and "dayuumn hey babies" as I whiz by. I make it to my appointment. Less than a minute late. Catch breath and then...

forty-five minutes later,my name gets called. Well, at least this appointment story won't end sadly when I get outside to the parking meter; I took the bus here.

hard times: things are touch all over

It's been a while--years. But at least this time at the welfare office, I don't have a wailing baby. Clearly, I've made some progress in society. Now, I am in college. Again.

I'm moving up these days. I haven't been here since my angry teen was an angry infant. The last time I was chewing gum during receptionist interviews, wondering why I didn't quite land the job--even though my Spanish was great and I could type like the dickens despite my tappity acrylic nails.

But now, as I round the end of graduate level education, I can see where it has brought me: I'm applying for my county check. And within moments of my arrival through the the metal detectors, I have already been here for hours. How IS that?

But it's not through the waiting and the paperwork and the job placement programs that the learning is done. No, not for me. Once I get cattled across a few separate waiting areas, I learn one incredibly valuable bit about the welfare office building. No, I'm not talking about service in a healthy society or doing your part. Or am I?

People always tell you that a bar, a nightclub--these are the worst places you can meet a guy.

I say, bullsheeyit.

The worst place to meet a guy, has gots to be the Welfare Office.

At least at the bar, they let you drink. Some douchestrap might even pay for it--in regular ole currency that has nothing to do with a sidestreet cash-in of this month's foodstamps. He may even be employed somewhere and have a telephone in his name. Therein lie possibities. Possiblities in backseats and rooms paid for with cash--maybe credit. Maybe good credit. Reach for the moon.

Hanging at the bar, if you put on your 3-D(rink) goggles, you get things put into a palatable, though spinning, perspective where in the morning, at least your toilet is there for a hug.

At the Welfare office, I can barely bring myself to pee in those toilets, let alone hug them. At the Welfare office, you ain't got shit. Well, except for maybe some motel vouchers. I guess those really are handy if dates end well.

In one of many waiting areas, I sit. After I am done sitting, I sit some more. All sorts of people come here. It's disheartening, annoying, sad, loud and occasionally smelly. Things are touch all over. There's a woman across the way, the nicest lady in the place--all smiles and clearly living out of a shopping bag. I don't want to stare, but is that a bedpan in there? If you're homeless, is that really a necessity? I don't know. I have never been a practical packer. I pull out one of two paperbacks from my bag.

A gentleman approaches me. Heh, "gentleman", I crack me up. He looks normal enough.He is not packing a bedpan. Only one of his eyes has a cataract. He is not afraid of introductions. I am.

"Girl, I just came up,"

He says it kinda on the sly, taking a seat.

oh,

I say. I begin reading my book for dearlife. Everyone in this book* is a hustling criminal with no money. Shit, I can't escape this life. It is a flimsy forcefield because he keeps talking.

"Girl, they just gave me all these motel vouchers," he explains.

As incredible a conversation starter as that is, I am reluctant. I am wondering if working laps at strip bars might carry more dignity than continuing to wait here. Hmm, I bet this guy would be a shoddy tipper.

"Um, good for you?" I say. It's the most congratulatory thing I can say. I just can't make myself highfive him, even if that would be funny.

He sees that I clearly don't get it. He is going to have to up his game.

"Girl, they're supposed to make you sign these things. But they weren't even looking. I didn't sign shit! I'm about to sell these bitches!"

I can't figure out if I'm supposed to be impressed or making a purchase. Or notifying the authorities. I decide my best bet is to blink stupidly, and find my happy place, far, far from here.

Somewhere with palm trees or where people have jobs. We only have the former in Los Angeles.

"You got a place to stay?" he asks. "You having a hard time?"

Well, I am having a hard time, it's true. But, I think that he is the one giving it to me. This conversation is already doomed to be ridiculous. I should help it along.

"I'm fine. I wish you luck with your welfare fraud." It seems that I can only say the wrong thing. I just suck at boy meets girl, don't I. I watch the clock with fear and hatred. I think of the movie, Beetlejuice. I think of the dude in the waiting room with the shrunken head. I make wishes.

"Girl, it ain't like that. Don't worry."
He senses my concern and makes a quick save.
"I drive an Escalade!"

Blink-blink.
An Escalade? There is nowhere to run. I read the shit out of the same sentence, over and over, like a mantra or a spell that clearly isn't working because he is still sitting here. Hell, I am still sitting here too.

"Well, I don't wanna bother you. You look busy," he says. Oh, is he leaving? maybe it did work. I will work on the shrunken head part next. Or at least his other eye, but then he'd crash the Escalade on the way home. But it's a false sense of hope here at the welfare office--he keeps sitting there. I am in for more disappointment in myself. No, not in the paths I walked to get here, but in the fact that I react with such ugly honesty to him. I fold the corner of my book and explain that it is not that he is bothering me exactly, which, yes, I suppose that he is. But it is in that I do not drive an Escalade. I do not have a motel voucher racket. All I have is a headache and that I do not want to be here. Realization sweeps over him, there is a glimmer in his good eye.

"No, it ain't even like that," he says. "Girl, I used to work at the airport. That's how I got this eye. They gave me a settlement and THAT'S how i got my Escalade. We all have hard times. All of us do," he explains. I resist the urge to ask about a jet getting his eye somehow. Hard times, indeed. It's a very long book I got out of reading at school. I do feel bad for hard times, and whoever may be having them, despite how completely ridiculous each moment gets here at the welfare office--the West Los Angeles branch of Hard Times.

I just nod. I go back to my book. In it, a lady with two babies sells her plasma because she's strapped for cash. Dammit, why didn't I think of that.

"You alright girl. You real cool."

Shit, you're still here?

"I'm from the Bay area--I ain't racist. I would ask you for your phone number."

Yes, I know what you're thinking. I don't know what the Bay area has to do with his racism, or lack thereof, either. But, I am very glad to have dropped my phone into my cat's water bowl, just days prior. I get excited to speak more truths.

"My phone is broken. Sorry."

He offers to sell me one. Hell, he'd GIVE me one. His head doesn't need shrinking does it. He needs all the space up there he can get. But the good part hasn't come. The good part is when he offers me career advice. He explains that I should go back to school. That is what he is doing. Girl, if you go to school. They will pay you! You can take easy ass classes! P.E. 1+1 shit! I bet you could do it for the rest of your life! That's what I'm 'bout to do!

I think of the booklist in my bag, the one I can't afford to purchase despite the coming semester. I feel something like fury again. Before I can ask him how to get in on the cellphone selling racket, they call my name, tell me to wait in an additonal area. I don't even mind more waiting. I'm getting used to it. Hell, it's all about books and waiting at the welfare office. And bad dudes, with bad eyes, and bad luck too. I'm just glad that I can still see out of both eyes. Even if I can't afford the glasses it will take to do it right. I sit down again, turn the page, and keep reading about a young, stupid mom taking pills that make her feel funny. Don't do it! I want to say. Although, I sympathize. In a few pages, she'll get raped.






*Angels by Denis Johnson--shout out!