5 Years

After almost 4 months of not even touching my guitar once, I am at the literal ‘crossroads’…I am flat broke, somewhat living off the grace of my new girlfriend, and going nowhere fast…my dreams of instant success in music have all come crashing down, and I am starting to believe that whatever ‘it’ is that one must have, I just don’t have it…looking at my dad’s life and his constant hand to mouth existence is depressing…I am really very proud of my father and his enormous gifts, but this adoration comes with a high price…logically speaking, if my father, who in my eyes is immensely more talented than I, couldn’t make it to the big time in music, how is it even remotely possible that I could expect anything even close to success from my musical life…my dad is a much better singer than me, an incredible guitar player, and many would argue even more handsome (certainly more charming!)…plus my dad even walked and talked and looked the part, something I couldn’t accommodate with my lanky stroll, inherently negative attitude, and ghostly white skin…I never thought of music as something I would just do part time…being raised with a very high aesthetic of what ‘good’ music was, and to some degree what constituted success at all, put me in a different position than say someone whose parents tolerated or opposed their musical dreams…my dad cast such an immense shadow over everything I did musically that if I hoped to accomplish anything at all as a musician, I would have to accept that it would probably always pale to his successes, which honestly weren’t successes at all…this thought haunted me, the idea of taking on the ‘family business’, and pushed me quickly towards quitting the entire notion of succeeding once and for all, and most likely for good…

There is a discount bookstore up towards what we in Chicago used to call a ‘5 Corners’, which is where 2 streets cross at 45 degree angles, and a third street slashes thru at an off angle, creating in effect 5 true corners…in the old days before malls, these were always major shopping hubs because people could take buses from all over the city to one particular spot, shop, and go home (this particular corner is anchored by a Sears department store)…the bookstore is just off the spur of that, and I notice one day as I ride the bus by that they have a ‘help wanted’ sign up in the window…I go in one afternoon and speak with the store manager, a really nice girl in her 20’s who talks to me at length about books and art, and by the end of our conversation tells me I am as good as hired…a real job!…the only catch was that I would have to meet with her district manager the following week to finalize being hired, but she goes on to assure me that she will put in a good word for me, and that I needn’t worry about it at all because she really needs the help around the store…I float home on cloud 9, so excited am I about the prospect of getting a real job and pulling myself out of the horrible situation I am in, you know, the one about having no future…

I go home and tell my dad the good news, and call up Chris and tell her it appears I have finally gotten myself a real job…playing music is the farthest thing from my mind in this moment, because my self-esteem is so low that I just want desperately for everyone to stop looking at me like I am a complete and utter loser…so on the afternoon of the interview, I slick back my hair and put it in a clean ponytail, drag out my one white shirt (the one I use for weddings and funerals), and borrow a boring tie from my dad…as I ride the bus to the store, I have already made my mind up that if they want me to cut my hair short to get the job that I will, because it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore as a statement of who I want people to think I am anyway (I figure if my long hair is the only thing between me and a steady income, then it will have to go)…I am pretty nervous as I walk through the front door of the store (I’ve never had a proper job interview), but am relieved when the first person I see is the same store manager who got me this final interview…she asks me to wait for a moment to see if her manager is ready for me, and quickly returns and tells me how to get back there to the offices…as I walk away, she gives me a warm smile and says “good luck’…

As soon as I enter the office, which is just big enough to fit 2 people, the faint smell of weed hits me softly upside the head…it is a lingering smell I am very familiar with, as my father smokes around 10-12 joints a day…the district manager, who is in his early 30’s, has that crumpled “I am smarter than you” vibe, and right away gives me a funny amused look…he asks me to sit down in a plastic chair, and begins by asking me the basic questions like what is my educational background (high school honors, no college), previous job experiences (part-time college book store clerk, pizza delivery), and a few other empty, stale questions…every answer I give is met with a tiny smirk, and I start to sweat through my clothes because, for whatever reason, this interview is not going well…I start to crash down from the high of thinking I was just about to get a job to how fucked I am going to be if I don’t get this job…the tone of the questions shift to things like how will I know I will do a good job, or can I be trusted with money, and it occurs to me that this not-so-closet stoner is enjoying fucking with me, trying to get me to fail…I start to get quietly angry, because this guy is not smarter than me, and I don’t give a shit what he thinks of me or my life…the tone starts to get mildly combative between us, but it is still veiled under the polite decorum of a ‘professional job interview’…he finds the nerve to ask me if I am capable of alphabetizing books, to which I sarcastically reply “I think I can handle that”…the epiphany comes, and my mind splits open when he asks me just one final question: “so, where do you see yourself in 5 years?”…and as God is my witness, these few words came rolling out of this innocent mouth…“5 years? Well, in 5 years I will be famous and I won’t need a stupid fucking job like this”…to which he smiled like an evil cat and said simply, “Ok, whatever, thanks for coming in…we’ll let you know”…

As I am leaving the store, I pause and say goodbye to the sweet manager girl as she was just beginning to ask me how the interview had gone…I tell her “not so good’, but that I so appreciated her giving me the chance…I try to hold my composure until I get across the street and call Chris from a payphone, whereupon I break into sobs and tears in front of the whole world, crying my heart out at my cursed luck…I feel the lowest of the low, not even being able to land the most menial of dumb jobs stacking books on an empty shelf…I rush over to Chris’ apartment, in my white shirt and boring tie, to try and console my sorrows, spending the night…and so it is on the bus ride back home this next morning that I make the most fateful of decisions…