To be fair, this whole start new job-quit new job-freak out-start new new job business happened in only four or five weeks.So while it was wretched and horrible it was mercifully brief.
I'm in a colorful mid-sized NY town covering adult events in the big city. Criminals here are plentiful and eccentric. This is town of 60,000 is not home to a Target, but does boast its own red-light district and crack row. On the way home, I passed what appeared to be a woman and her daughter folding about a million T-shirts that blanketed their lawn in a well-fashioned grid. The same day, an abandoned RV caught fire (in these parts, we chalk it up to an exploding meth lab). Then there was the crack dealer roundup that afternoon. And that was day one on the job, children. Beats toiling in that sterile cube in the suburbs.
But deep down inside me is a suburban kid who grew up too close to the ghetto. My old hood wasn't bad, but that town, like this one, could go from Pleasantville to McShittsburg in about 30 feet. I grew up with the irrational but nonetheless paralyzing fear that fuckers would one day creep into my bedroom window and toast me on a spit or snap picks of my cameltoe. There was a chimo living around the block but, truth be told, most of the gang members the neighborhood Brownie leaders feared were kids I went to school with anyway.
It was a little dicey, though, and shortly after we moved a neighborhood bar was shot up (seven injured, two killed) by a dude who lived about two blocks from my old pad. He had an unusual last name shared by a girl I sometimes palled around with in seventh grade who lived on the street in question. By "palled around with" I mean she was in my social studies and would regularly drop by unannounced when her parents started throwing the family cat and other projectiles at her.
So I'm apartment hunting in a nearby town of 4,000. I know its stupid, but being a crime reporter does not put you on any criminal's good side. It's a cute place anyway, and college gave me a taste for small-town living. I just hope I don't get a reputation. ;) I wonder how long it would take to fuck everyone in my age bracket?
I once again thank you for your patience during the renovations of the Ike's life