It's a sadness that memory is murky. I'm trying to remember what I was doing as my part-time jobs in 1985 & it has befuddled me. You might as well be asking me what classes I was taking in 11th grade from first to sixth period. I might guess one or two, but not all.
My mother worked at a convenience store, the Time Saver, owned by the man whom she was dating, if you can call two people who were both in their fifties "dating." Ed was an unpleasant fellow who really didn't like me. I returned the feeling, but it was more complicated than that. He bought me a car in 1984 & I agreed to work afternoons after school to pay it off. Fifty dollars a week, I would get I think five dollars an hour, I would keep what was left for myself. My mother, who had no real sense of self-preservation, stole constantly from Ed. In later years, she would chuckle & say, "I ripped him off blind!" But of course he only had the store; he had no other source of income, he wasn't independently wealthy; this was what he was doing to make a life, & he was giving money to her to pay her rent, feed & clothe her kids, etc. When I look back at how mercenary my mother was, I wonder what had happened to her to make her so. I wonder if she treated my father that way, & if they contributed to his own fall into alcoholism. I couldn't really ask her when she was alive, & now that she's gone, it's all speculation.
In any event, Ed was somewhat loathsome. I will perhaps write me about him at some time, although I am sure I've written about him before. It's kind of impossible to search for "Ed" in my many posts. I came to find the time we spent together at the store trying. He had discovered things I liked & he would remark on them in a condescending way that I knew had some kind of malice behind it. He was my mom's boyfriend, he was my boss, I couldn't just explode at him. So I longed for a way out. Despite it being a pretty good gig, & despite the fact that I, too, was stealing from him.
It pains me to admit this. But it was so easy. I wasn't making much money, I had a gas guzzler, I needed comic books, & I often ate fast food because my mother didn't really cook. If a certain number of people came in, I would often leave the cash register open, calculate what they bought in my head, & then make change as if I had rung up their purchases. In this way, I would pocket five dollars a night. I never did more - I had enough of a sense of right & wrong, or at least I didn't want to get caught. & I covered my tracks, which my mother never did - it was common at the end of the night to be something like fifty dollars off, which I took to mean my mother had stolen fifty dollars that day.
One major factor was that I was a bit envious of people at school who had good stories from their dumb jobs. They were working at fast food joints, interacting with all sorts of weirdos, & I was just in the same store that I'd worked in & been in & my mom worked in forever it seemed. A guy I knew named Karel - who was a grade above me - happened to mention that he delivered pizza. I had a car, he said it was good money, & so I applied & got a job at Crusty's Pizza in the Eastgate Shopping Center.
This has to be late 1984 or early 1985. It seems like I worked there forever - but it was probably only a few months. I might have mentioned that I worked at the Mobil gas station during the summer of 1985, & for some reason I thought it was before my pizza delivery experience. But now I am pretty certain it was after. For one thing, when I delivered pizza, I was able to listen to a lot of music. Sure, I was running my poor old car down, but when you drive for several hours a night, you can listen to a lot of albums. By the summer of 1985, I had consumed a good deal of music, mostly Bowie's, Lennon's, & Costello's catalogs. But there's also this piece of evidence:
One of the fellow who worked with me was a very tall, very homely, very thin, very quiet dude named David. David was a classic rock fan, & also something of an illustrator. I don't think David stayed at Crusty's as long as I did - he wasn't there when I left. I once hung out with him to see if he wanted to collaborate on a comic book with me (he wasn't that kind of an artist), but what I can remember is, if a band came to town, he would take the time to paint on his hatchback the band's logo. He seemed to do this for radio promotions - he had won free tickets for that before. One time, he did it for U2, he recreated the cover of the Under A Blood Red Sky album on the back of his car. The only time U2 came to Dallas in the period was in February, 1985. The last time was in 1983 when I didn't have a car. So I had to be working at Crusty's at that time.
It seems like everyone left (David & Karel too) as spring approached, & the new delivery guys were jerks, & they stole money from where I kept change inside my car. (I was dumb, I didn't lock it, because I was in & out so much.) & then Crusty's closed, they had a store in Arlington they wanted me to transfer to, & they said I could be a cook but I was terrible at making pizza. So I ended my pizza delivery days then.
My brother Ralph was working at a Mobil at the border of Garland & Richardson, & I believe I worked there for a while. I seem to remember working there in the summer. I may not have been there long when the manager transferred to a different Mobil, which is where I was working on the Saturday when Live Aid happened (July 1985). So maybe I didn't work at the first Mobil for long. That manager left & I stayed when the new manager came along, but he didn't like me much. I always felt uncomfortable around him. He always seemed to be testing me. After I apparently failed at training a new employee, he called me & fired me. But I believe that was in early 1986.
The funny thing is, I remember that my boss at Mobil was called Rob. I have no memory of anyone else who worked there, except one woman who was very attractive but kind of intimidating. Sometimes I think about my life & all the conversations I've had with people I've known & of course I can't remember any of them. What does it say about memory that we can work with people for months & have no memory of them at all? Why would I ever dare to think I was memorable?
This evening, on a dog walk, I worked out my 1985 work history & am still not very satisfied. I wish I had saved pay stubs, I wish I had kept something like a journal. I didn't. Imagine carrying all that from high school to college! But there's something interesting to end this probably dull entry with:
My brother Ralph got me the job at Mobil, but he was fired quickly after I was hired. Why? He was caught stealing. Our mother's example was always with us.
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