Zen, Living the Dream

Zen. Living the Dream.

Louis Shalako

I ran into an old friend on the beach. I laughed when I saw him. 

That’s a kind of joy, ladies and gentlemen.

He was telling me about some work.

He was saying we could get eighteen bucks an hour. He was asking me about drywall, and framing, and partitions, and interior renovations. Something about a building or a few buildings downriver. He doesn’t have that much experience himself.

I told him all about piecework. The boss is offering so much per square foot of board, so much per linear foot of framing, so much for this and so much for that. You’re a subcontractor and you’re either making all your own contributions or you’re kind of an outlaw in this day and age. Yeah, and if you really hustle, and if you know what you’re doing, you can make a pretty good buck for someone with no real skills and no real education.

(One. I have skills. Two. I have an education. Three, I don’t want the fucking job. – ed.)

I don’t want the job. I don’t want the job for eighteen bucks an hour. I don’t want the job for twenty-five bucks an hour, and I don’t want the job for fifty bucks an hour. Yeah, I don’t want to get a crew together, I don’t want to buy a pickup truck and buy a bunch of tools and get up at the crack of dawn every stinking day (which to be fair I do anyways) and round up a crew and try and get them onto a jobsite without loaning or advancing them money so they can get through until payday and by the way we need to sit around in a coffee shop parking lot for half an hour while we’re at it. (Three or four times a day.)

KeepOnTruckin', (Wiki.)

I told him a little bit about ceilings, about hanging twelve-foot sheets of five-eighth drywall while standing on a scaffold and praying your partner will get a couple of screws in there before you die and your arms fall off and it kills the both of you, and him a married man and everything.

I told him I had seventeen novels. I told him I just got thirty bucks from Google Play. He agreed that was pretty smart, like that James Grisham guy, and I didn’t correct him on the details. He told me I need to send one of my books to James Grisham and they’ll tweak it a bit and then I’m on my way. I know what he’s saying, but I didn’t correct him on the details.

I gave him the same advice I would give any young (middle-aged unemployed guy) today.

Don’t do nothing to jeopardize that pogy claim, that welfare cheque, that annuity from the insurance company because you were in a bad car accident fourteen years ago and have some severe head injuries.

(Don’t fuck up that disability pension, in other words. – ed.)

Because in today’s marketplace, you really can’t afford to succeed. For the first time in thirty years, all of a sudden you’re buying your own eyeglasses, paying for your own rotten teeth to be pulled, and paying for your own scrip for your own narcotic pain pills, also one or two members of the diazepide family of mood-disorder inducing dopes, and whatever. You know what I’m saying.

Basically, I figure I’m living the dream. I have achieved every fucking goal I ever had, chief among which was not to work for a living. That’s why I’m not a greeter at Walmart.

I am officially retired from the world of working for some capitalistic bastard. Now I’m the capitalistic bastard—and I like it.

I like it just fine, ladies and gentlemen. In fact, I’ve been so successful at being a lazy cunt that I am now in a position to give something back to my community.

See my Billion Dollar Giveaway.

Krusty Mickdermid, Walmart greeter, (stolen photo.)

Why in the fuck would I go to work, for thirty-five hours a week at minimum wage? Hey, I appreciate the cheap prices, Walmart. But, uh, I won’t even do that for cash under the table for fuck’s sakes. You work a hundred and forty hours a month, for what? Fifty bucks a month more than I make now, and you get to pay all your own prescriptions, eyeglasses, and you’re too fucking scared to line up at the food bank. You’re standing around in a stupid shirt. You’d be surprised by how many people tell me they make too much money to go the food bank, and the fact is its bullshit. You just told me how much you make—and this is just my opinion, but you really should make a point of going there once in a while. Who in the fuck told you that you make too much money?

‘Cause my journalistic instincts are aroused. I could really make something of a story like that…

The fact is, we’re living the dream.

We won’t give that up too easily.

We’re going to sit around on beaches, write stuff, and be ourselves.

The world doesn’t have to like it or even accept it.

That’s just the way it’s going to be.

End