All my heroes are weirdos
Howard S. sits across from me at dinner, clean cut and well groomed. I first met Howard as a flunky in the grade school of some statewide test scoring concern, which was just one in a number of unending temp positions I have worked in my life. I remember talking to Howard then, and the unending vacillation over whether or not he should cut his hair, the symbolism of the event, and what it would all mean. Then he had intricate dreadlocks, which were creatively tied back into a large bunch. He was the type of individual you would imagine hanging around and listening to Kruder & Dorfmeister albums while high on pot. But today he is some dusted off version of his prior self, sparkling clean, with a mortage, fiancé, and a fenced in yard. It’s weird, hanging out with someone who has graduated from the trenches. Howard’s life stands in startling contrast to my own, which is haphazard and grim-seeming. My mom gave me the number for food stamps the other day and I copied it down enthusiastically. When did Howard rejoin? I wonder. And what turn did I miss, I find myself thinking, which put me on the collision course with impasse and total failure, like a train car rushing full force ahead into an implacable brick wall, destined to crash over and over again?

Howard invokes memories of the cast of characters we used to work with. “I hated all of those people,” I find myself telling him. “All of those pedantic fuckers,” I say, “destined for better things. –So completely obnoxious.” I find myself alarmed by the conviction in my voice, about seeming to care about something so vigorously. Howard laughs it off. “It’s pretty much true, though.” he confirms. We laugh at those same people, and wonder what they’re doing now. “I think you either become disillusioned by the process," I say of the temp world, “or you transcend it all together, figuring everything out in the end.” Howe has joined the ranks of the transcendent, apparently. And meanwhile I’m a train wreck, a wreck of all wrecks, destined for collisions, and references to arcane song lyrics which validate all of this behavior. When the check finally comes, I wonder if they take food stamps here.