Life Behind Bars Chapter 12

Chapter 12

The Great Escape, Part II

In spite of my triumph over the Brothers Grimm, I couldn’t help but feel underappreciated.  I felt like I was the glue that held the place together.  Angry Dave, the night time bartender, gave up decades ago.  Storm Cloud Sam was one bad shift away from blowing his brains out and most of the customers at the time were coming in just to see me.  It was at this point in the saga where the day time bar was out performing the floor.  I haven’t even mentioned that I took on the task of cooking two hours a day when the cooks’ hours were cut to save on money. And no, I didn't receive extra pay for my efforts.

I was still holding a grudge about the meeting of the minds down in the basement.  I could understand how The Thief wanted to bring his fire and fury, because he worked at our other place and had to rely on secret shoppers and the like.  But when the younger brother, The Butcher, who I had worked with all those years never said a word to stick up for me, I was hurt.  His inaction cut deep and I couldn’t let it go.

I fully understand that blood is thicker than water, but because of me, this guy didn’t have to be there at all during the day.  I basically ran the show for a measly five bucks an hour.  I just couldn’t shake his silence, his inability to stick up for my work ethic and dedication.  After all we had been through together, I had expected more.  I once considered The Butcher to be a father figure, or failing that, an older brother and now I couldn’t stand looking at his face.  He was so full of shit it was coming out of his ears, and I just couldn’t bring myself to ever take him seriously again.

On top of the shit hitting the fan at work, things with my mom were getting worse by the week and it was only a matter of time before we had to find another babysitter for my son.  We knew though, that the structure of watching him was what was keeping her last few marbles rattling around.  My mom didn’t charge us much, practically nothing in the grand scheme of things.  So we knew that if we had to replace her, I would be working just to pay for childcare…and that’s when the call came.

All those months back when I was beginning to hatch my escape plan I filled out dozens of applications. And wouldn't you know it, it finally paid off.  I was asked by the fine people at Budweiser if I was still interested in the sales job, and was asked to come on in for an interview.  Like most of my life’s interviews, I bullshitted my way into the job immediately.  Like my job at the payroll company, I did all three interviews in one sitting and was offered the job by the time I got home that night.

I gave my two weeks, and unlike the payroll company or the Italian joint, I did it with class…for I knew I could very well be selling to these jackasses in the future and didn’t want to burn that bridge.  Also, I had laid it all out on the line months before so there was nothing else that needed to be said.  Seeing the look on The Butcher’s face was payment enough.  The Thief didn’t know what he was losing, but The Butcher did.  He knew his workload had just quadrupled, and his customer base, as small as it was, was going to shrink even more.

The next two weeks were bittersweet and the customers went out of their way to express their sadness and disappointment of me leaving.  Cakes and cards and presents and goodbye tips were abundant.  There was no attempt whatsoever to retain me from ownership, and feeling underappreciated to the very end made the exodus that much easier.  I hadn’t had a new job in a long time, let alone one that didn’t involve pouring drinks, so I won’t lie to you, I was nervous to be headed out the door.  But there was a steady paycheck involved and now we could transition my son to a safer environment. 

I would be getting home earlier which would take the burden off my wife at dinner time.  And best of all, the sales route was the town in which I lived.  It was simply a no brainer.  I would finally be free from asshole customers, cranky chefs, line cooks, and aging waitresses hot flashing and complaining about how much they hate their jobs.  I was free.

---

Uncle Ray's Tricks of the Trade

Always have a 'go-to foo-foo drink' for the idiot who can't figure out what to order. You know who I'm talking about...you're three deep at the bar, time is not on your side, and you have a non-drinker who just cant make up their mind. I think a Malibu Bay Breeze is right up your alley!

---

When the time came I had no idea what to expect.  Especially when I discovered that I had made the biggest mistake of my life.  I figured selling booze to pre-established customers was like shooting fish in a barrel.  I figured that every customer would be just like me.  In all the years of ordering the booze and beer from my sales people, I did it myself.  I ran my own inventories, rotated my own stock and I had my order ready when they arrived.  Everybody else, apparently, not so much.

I had discovered a breed of people who were more miserable than restaurant owners.  Yes, liquor store owners.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Where were the Uncle Harry’s of the world?  He was one of the happiest and coolest people I knew when I was a little guy.  I wonder if he was miserable too, and just put on a happy face when he saw me walk through the door with my dad.  It’s quite possible, dealing with drunks on a daily basis is not easy work.  Seeing families destroyed by lady liquor is enough to break anybody’s spirit (no pun intended).  Why I didn’t think about this scenario going into this job still escapes me.  What made me think liquor store owners would be any different than restaurant owners?  How naïve I was.

As day one of training wore on, it got worse and worse.  One miserable asshole after another.  They did nothing to help you, and demanded the moon.  We spent a good hour in every joint stocking shelves, running inventories, placing the orders and even running down checks.  None of this was ever told to me as being part of the job when I interviewed, even when I asked and pressed the issue several times.  I was under the assumption that I would walk in with the laptop, take down the order, shoot the breeze for a minute or two and be on my merry way.  Wow, was I wrong!

I can recall it being a 100 degree day with 100 percent humidity, a typical New Jersey summer day…this of course was making people even more miserable than they normally would be.  On our second to last stop, we walked into a bodega style white trash liquor store and I was introduced to the store owner as his new salesman.  He looked me up and down, rubbed his chin and said, “Why in the world would you want to be my beer salesman?”

I didn’t know how to answer, so I bullshitted some silly response about moving up in the world of booze.  Somehow, I think this guy knew he would never see me again.  He was right.  When I got home that night, I opened a bottle of Grand Marnier the staff at the Irish joint had chipped in to buy me as a parting gift.  I sat on the front porch in the sweltering New Jersey heat and plowed through it with about a half a pack of cigarettes.

My wife, knowing how miserable I was at the Irish joint, saw I was even more miserable with the new job.  Having just received an enormous promotion at work with a hefty raise and knowing how much daycare was going to cost, she simply said, “I don’t want you being miserable at work and I don’t want to send our son to a daycare center either.  It’s up to you, but you can just quit if you want, fuck it!”

I wasn’t going to give her any time to change her mind.  I called the new boss and told him the job just wasn’t for me.  He did his best to try to talk me out of it, and rightfully so, what a pain-in-the-ass it was going to be to start his search again for another employee…but I didn’t want to waste anybody’s time.  If I trained for a month, worked for half a year and then quit because I hated it, I wasn’t only wasting my time, but theirs as well.  So I walked.

I always joked with people that I would retire in my late 30’s, and that I would spend my elder years raising the little ones while the wife battled through the rat race.    Much to my amazement, that’s how it kind of went down.  The timing couldn’t be more perfect either. Things with my poor mother were deteriorating quickly.   On top of her onset of Alzheimer’s, mom had fallen ill, and was rushed to the emergency room on what seemed like a weekly basis.

It took some time to figure out what was going on, but the doctors were finally able to piece things together.  She was taking so many prescriptions from so many doctors over the years, that they were all conflicting with each other.  Several trips to the hospital and a change in her doctors eventually remedied that.  It still didn’t take away her mental decline, but at least she was stabilized.  Long story, short, we didn’t quite trust her to watch the boy anymore.  It felt awful telling her, because I know it broke her heart.

My tenants, on top of everything else, had moved out of the rental house and left the place in disarray.  Had I been working full time, there was no way in hell I would have been able to fix it back up and get it on the market without ever seeing my family again.  Dealing with the complexities of a short sale and rehabbing the place so it would have a chance at being sold would be nearly impossible.  But with the extra time now on my hands, I had the place looking gorgeous in record time. George W. Bush got me into that mess by lifting all banking regulations, and Barak Obama saved me by bailing me out.  Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too?!

Once again I was free to do what I pleased.  It was the summer of Ray, part deux.  I built rock walls and cleared brush and worked on the new money pit until the sun went down.  My son would accompany me, my little buddy at my side all day long.  I would cook dinner every night so that my lovely wife Kathy, who had freed me from the Brothers Grimm, would have less to worry about when she got home.  And then with a stroke of a little Irish luck of my own, the rental house sold in record time.

The world was certainly my oyster again, as money flowed and debts were settled.  With the rental house gone and a distant memory, work on the new money pit was progressing at a tremendous pace…but alas, summer was coming to a quick close.  With winter upon us, things would certainly get tough again.  In my life I was never good with the cold dark winter to start with, and now that I had no structure and no projects at home, once again, I was searching for meaning and purpose. 

My beard grew long, and I put on weight; my wife at one point had to remind me to shower.

I began to feel that she was starting to resent me, jealous at the wonderful life she had afforded me.  I too, felt the guilt of not producing anything at home other than maintenance and childcare.  It seems that balance is something I could never quite accomplish.  If I worked too much I was miserable, if I didn’t work at all I was miserable…having to ask my wife for an allowance made me miserable. 

As much as I hated the thought of it, I was going to have to find a job, and most likely it would be doing what I had worked so hard to escape.  It was time to get back into the game and babysit drunks at the bar again.  It was a tough pill to swallow. I would have to go back with my tail in between my legs, my ego bruised, my freedom squashed. To quote the Godfather, “I thought I was out, but they keep pulling me back in.”