NEEDLING

PLAYING IT COOL

Started painting a house yesterday. Should be enough work for most of the week. I could have painted most of the house yesterday except for the trimmings, but the organization of the work is all backwards which means they started me working at the same time as the plaster guy covering the cracks in the walls… and there are loads of cracks in the walls… which means I might have one wall completely painted and all the others are painted in patches. I have to wait till he puts another layer of plaster and that it all dries up good. In the meantime, Janet, the landlady, got him working on another project in the house, a beam made of two 2x6’s glued to each other and stuck up to the ceiling of the main room to hide a crack which goes across the ceiling from the air-conditioner unit to the hallway. She wants it to look like the beam is suppose to be there because that particular crack which goes in a straight line, probably between two pieces of dry wall which weren’t placed up there with the greatest care and always fall prey to the house’s foundation movements… that particular crack is almost smack in the middle of that room and divides the room in two. To put a beam up there is not so incredibly outlandish. It’ll be the only beam showing through a ceiling in the whole house, but who cares about that? Today I have to help Sal, the guy plastering and currently building the beam, instead of painting. I’m hoping I’ll be able to sneak in the kitchen and prime those few bits of walls, and maybe even paint it this afternoon.

Work. I haven’t even gone out there looking for it and it’s falling on my lap. My mother calls me last night to tell me she spoke to a French friend of hers who runs a liquor store up north of town. He’s the manager and though his store is too far north, he told her for me to come in this week, fill out an application and he would try to find me a spot in Austin central. I don’t know if working in a liquor store is such a great idea. The pay is mediocre, but then you get commission on sales if you push the top shelf products.

Was having breakfast with Ken and Janet the day before yesterday. We were at the house to be redone waiting for Janet’s property manager. We waited thirty minutes when Janet decided we should go have some coffee and breakfast at Waterburger. Sitting in the booth after ordering the food and coffee, Janet asked me what I was going to do about work. I don’t know, I answered, I’m not too worried about it yet. Then, just to say something which would make it sound as if I’d actually thought about it more than I have, I said I was thinking maybe to go into Threadgills – local bar-restaurant-music venue well known in the area – and I only mentioned it because the other day Glenn was telling me he’d worked there and that as far as restaurant work is concerned it was a good place to be. Free food and drinks, cool boss, good atmosphere, good folks, and descent pay for the type of work. I only mentioned Threadgills to have something to say, and Janet said, well… Ken knows the boss, Eddie’s a good friend of Ken’s, and I’ve known his various wives throughout the years. We left it at that. Yesterday, Ken asks me how to spell my last name, how old I am, and what I’d like to do for work if I got a job in such a place. I told him, Bartender. You ever bartended before? No. You ever waited on tables? Sure, but mostly I’ve done kitchen work… prep-cook, fry-cook, dishwasher and all around kitchen boy.

This type of work, liquor-store clerk and kitchen worker, isn’t exactly the type of work I had in mind. But I ain’t even out there looking. Mostly because I don’t have to at the moment, meaning I’m doing okay on money, and secondly because I don’t rightly know what I want to do. So far doing nothing and simply hanging out having a few beers has been working out quite alright. I think I’ll continue doing that for a while, and if some little job falls in my laps, what the hell, I’ll try it out for a few days or a few weeks.