So, I got this new job. The economy has forced my old employer to fire every body at Big Red Pena's Restaurant. Now it's just Mr. Pena and a Mexican guy and another guy that might be his kid. I looked and looked and looked until I found a job. It's way downtown in Chicago.  I have to take the train at 2 a.m. I like the train because you can just sit there and push your face on the window and stare at everybody and get to look at hobos and gang members without really being in danger. Plus, because it's so far downtown, I don't have to listen for my stop because I ride all the way to the end of the line. The end of the line is cool cuz there's like 40 sets of tracks and trains almost colliding until the very last minute and all the lights and bells and everything.

Getting off the train is not so great because then I walk like eight blocks and downtown a block is like a mile long or something and so far I have found that a lot can happen in one block if it's the wrong block. I call them "People of the Night" (in my head) and it's way better not to have much contact with them and just walk fast. I have a cigarette and pretend to smoke so I look more menacing. I pretend I'm in too much of a hurry to be beat up and I keep looking at my watch (which I don't have) . In three blocks it starts to smell pretty bad, like poop and burning tires.  Also all the buildings are factories and warehouses and junkyards but some of them may not really be junkyards and some of the factories look closed then a guy will go in or come out. I'm really building up my leg muscles with all this fast walking. Once I thought I heard a guy running up to me and it was my own heart beating so loud and fast! That was really weird.

When I get there I have to show a guy at a little house my ID and there's like 300 people swearing and going in and leaving at the same time. Everybody calls eachother "asshole" and way worse. I just tuck my head in my coat and act like I'm in a big, important hurry and like I'm deaf. I have to walk through a break room that's as big as a prison cafeteria. I can't afford the prices in the breakroom so I pack my pockets full of food. There is a lady in that room who services the machines and she looks exactly like that one on the Drew Carey Show who is big and wears all the make up. You start to smell fruit at this point. Then I walk through a place where twenty forklifts are all twirling around and you smell fruit and exhaust. Everybody is yelling at everybody because it is so loud. I was walking through there yesterday and I saw a guy who looked exactly like Edward G. Robinson and even had a cigar in his mouth and he and some guys in suits were all looking at bananas and Edward G. Robinson kept saying "Ha-Ha-Ha! Green Dicks!" only he has a greek accent or something. Then they would all laugh.

Then I get on this wire cage elevator and down we go. This place has three basements. It gets cold and dark and they could use somenew bulbs I think what they are using are like 20 watts or something. It really starts to smell like rotten fruit, mostly bananas. THEN... finally you go into this teeny little room and you just wait there until a guy brings in a big skid stacked up eight feet high with cases of bananas. There's a guy behind him yelling at him. He looks and sounds exactly like Danny Devito. I am finding out there a lot of people who look like movie stars down in the city. danny Devito only calls the guy pulling the bananas "asshole". It's very uncomfortable. "Move it asshole!" "Set 'em down, now "asshole" "this way, asshole". The story goes that "asshole" wrecked a forklift, two years ago and earned his new name. I told everybody that my name is Richard, to avoid any of that nickname trouble that people are likely to start. There is one wise guy who already calls me Ricky. We each grab a box of bananas and start tossing the rotten ones into a garbage can and packing these white bags with six bananas to a bag. After the skid is empty Asshole comes in and takes away the re-packaged bananas. Then he comes back with a new skid of bananas to be re-packed.Then after 5 or six hours of that a guy comes in and says "that's all, fellas.
Then we all leave. I made this one black guy my friend. He's really big. he's not crazy about me but he doesn't tell me to beat it. I follow him all the way out to the gate because nobody messes with him.There are no girls there, except for that Drew Carey Show girl. It's all men, men, men... Now that I write it it is a lot like prison. Well, in prison you only
get cigarettes and I will be getting a paycheck every week and they have showers but nobody can make you take one and I never ever will
There are a couple of guys I would call creepy in a way that makes me think of prison showers. They just stare.
Who knows? Maybe I will win Shaft over!Then maybe we could go to a diner and eat together.
He already calls me "Spider Man". And, you know, it's like they say, once you name something.. well?
I'm tring to think of a cool name to call him that won't get me punched. I really want o call him Shaft, cuz he looks like Shaft. But I better wait. Finally,  it's back to the train station and it's not so dark out and not so scary.
The train is really full of people all the way back and I have to listen for my stop. When I get home, I take care of my news distribution job
which is neccessary to keep up with these inflationary times. I think I seem a little more worldly now to others, you know, with these new, grittier-sides-of-life experiences I am collecting. Maybe a little harder, a little less impressed by the suburban life. But I am still very warm. I may even get an apartment downtown, after a couple of paychecks, because the apartments in this factory area are really cheap!!!
It's only day #3, so, you know we'll see. Eventually I fancy myself as a strolling banana salesman. Oh well, baby steps, right?