My Failed Independence

It was raining. It was too cold, with every drop, I kept thinking. What was I doing here? Here in this damp city, which I secretly liked. I often wondered this while walking through its most busy street: The Fremont avenue. But I liked walking on it because it gave me faint sense of satisfaction. A strange sensation indeed considering I hadn’t made any money in the 8 months since I had moved. To my horror, I realized I was conned in to a scam of a job. I couldn’t go back, I was too proud…I was my own man after all. Plus I don’t think I could have been able to sustain the embarrassment of it all. Why? I was too naïve and ignored everyone that told me that I was crazy to go. I responded by shrugging off what they said and making up stories about the glories of this new job. I didn’t want to hear the negativity. I wanted to just go out and be a man and live how I was intended to live. Soon though, subconscious delusion became the conscious and instead, I started believing my story. I bought into those dreams and all I could think of was getting my own place.

Here was the plan: setup shop at a relatives’ initially, and then after my first paycheck I was to move into a downtown apartment in the proper city, complete with exposed beams and naked brick walls, I’d have the dream place of a lifetime. Next on the list was the elimination of my old car that, with its cracked windshield, with its four rocking cylinders, had managed to outlast the lost journey. The car had served its purpose and wouldn’t be necessary any more because I was now going to be living in downtown. And no one in their right mind needs a car in downtown, right? Duh! All I’d need to get around was the train and the bus. Where else would I go besides going to work near by…perhaps the airport for the occasional and random trip to anywhere for a weekend, or maybe the periodical trip back to home to visit my family and the rest of my family like nieces and nephews, who I’d bring presents for with the money from my very first salaried position. All of that wasn’t far from the truth, if I had a job.

It rained, and I had just crossed the 43rd on Fremont Ave. My head with its thinning hair was punishment enough, but the wind made it worse as its chilly strides scraped my scalp dry. “Haircut for you suh?,� I had begun to walk past a nasty puddle when a man standing outside a barber shop grinningly offered me to come inside for a do. I looked at him puzzled wondering if he had one bit of sense by looking at my hair that out of hundreds of people that walked by with full sets of hair, he had to ask me. It was really annoying and the type of stuff that pushes you down in a day when you don’t need any more of it. I walked past him without answering. You meet weird people on Fremont Ave. One time I was walking around and man dressed up as a traditional eighteenth century Englishmen stopped me and inquired about directions to the “finest tea stall in town.� The lunatic spoke to me an English accent, while completely immersed in his character. With people like that, you can never be sure, so I gave him a weird look and then gave him instructions on how to get to the nearest Starbucks.

I still wondered what the hell I had gotten into as I did my errands: a part time job I had taken up after quitting the “free gig.� After learning that I wouldn’t be compensated for my move, and won’t be getting any compensation at all, I was distraught and lifeless. A man I knew offered me a measly ten an hour job which I accepted. I didn’t have a choice, it was an office job and it was better then nothing.

Actually I had many options. My choices were: either to take this “job;� find employment at a fast food restaurant; or go back home to questioning, inquiring eyes of friends and family. Creditors were coming at me at full speed from all sides then. I had gotten out of school 9 months prior and the 6 month grace period for college loans was way past over. The folks at good old loan bank couldn’t wait any longer it seemed for my 100 dollars a month. They appeared pretty needy, and annoyingly persistent with their friendly weekly reminders through mail, bi monthly ones through email and random reminders at all times of the day on my cell phone. Sometimes I would dream in the night about the school loan creditors politely asking me to pay my bills. At least they were polite. Besides them, I hadn’t paid my credit card dues for the past few months. It seemed they were panicking at not getting my 40 bucks a month more then the hungry and needy banks I paid. Of course, then there was my cell phone company whose bills surprised me every single cycle with its outrageous charges which made me mad, then sad, then depressed then accepting of the abuse.

I got out of work, and braved the wind once more to get to the bus station. Here’s another wonderful fact: Since I moved to this city, I couldn’t even sell my car. My car made it here, but because of the lack of pay, and my reserves running low, I didn’t get it to the mechanics for regular checkups. It was a terminal patient and this much I knew… but I didn’t even have money for little patch-ups. One day, luckily before I even got on the freeway, I noticed the heat gauged was abnormally beyond the usually abnormal, half way mark. The needle was slapping relentlessly at the end of the screen way ahead of the end of the red mark. My old car. I was tempted to leave it, but it was a possible loud-mouthed witness of my failed independence. It was titled under a relative’s name, and the authorities would have immediately sent him a letter to come pick up his abandoned car, leading him to suspect the obvious and then telling the rest of the family. I decided to get it towed to my place. That’s when I started taking the bus. There is no shame in taking the bus and or the train I suppose. But hell hath no fury, for if I were to miss the bus, my miserable world would come crashing down to a halt.

I sometimes accepted the fact that I am only prolonging the inevitable. I envisioned myself finally losing it and moving back with family. They would have questions like what did I do for all that time? Why couldn’t I get a job anywhere? To further embarrassment every single person would then offer to “fix� my resume, upon learning of my failure to succeed anywhere. So my point is, that I get it and that I am just not good at being independent. I can make up an excuse but it would be yet another farce. After all, you are a product of choices you make.

So, I sit here - not in the damp city, but another one – and I still sit. I gaze out of a café and continue to live lies. I dream about a woman I will meet, the children she will bare me, the house I will buy, the life I will live with my failed independence.