Part 2
So I was out of work again. No insurance check this time. This time it was my fault and I was damn lucky not to go to jail. Well I had a little in savings and my former employer in spite of everything was still nice enough to issue me a check for the vacation time I'd accumulated. Hey you gotta give 'em credit, I ran a scam and pocketed some money but when they said "no hard feelings" they did mean it.
And yes, I did learn my lesson. I'm sorry for what I did and will NEVER do it again.
I worked for a while at this crappy little tire shop. Then my bike gets wrecked. Re-enter that hateful nasty b**ch claims adjuster from State Farm. With evil glee in her eye she hands me $500 for the bike and asks where to pick it up. I said "oh no. Hell no! I'm keeping your chump change AND the bike!" After a little arguing, she saw things my way. All the time we both knew the bike wouldn't get back on the road, and basically that's all she wanted was to see my bike off the road.
I ended up with a Yamaha 400 sport bike with a dead battery that would barely top 80. A state trooper swore it was doing 95 once, but the speedometer stopped at 85. (he let me go, by the way. Interesting side story there. Hauling ass to work one morning and those dang blue lights come up behind me. I pull over with a .44 Magnum on my hip and a .380 backup under my shirt so that gets the traffic stop off to a REAL good start. Fortunately the trooper knew my boss, so he handed the guns back over and told me to have a nice day and next time keep it under 60 in a 45) The tire shop gig didn't last long and I really hit bottom. Crashed at a friend's apartment for a while and slept in his utility room on the floor.
Some old friends in Perry looked out for me and hooked me up with a nice little apartment for $175/month. Actually it would be a nice apartment for quite a bit more than that, at least I always thought anyway. (Plus, as they would and do tell you in Perry "it's a white neighborhood". Like I said in another post, Perry is a hick town.) I lived there for 3 years. Since then I've always rented from private individuals instead of apartment complexes and I carefully screen my landlords.
After drifting from job to job, I put in at Western Auto. That job started me on the way to where I am right now but at the lowest level possible: tire installer. I started there with that raggedy old Yamaha in the dead cold of December and no money whatsoever. I put in 13 hour days constantly. Soon the bike got repo'd. One night right after my girlfriend, Dawn, had called me to break up, I didn't have a ride home so at closing time I clocked out and walked almost 20 miles to get home. Cried a lot of the way over Dawn. Next morning I got up and went to walking. Luckily this old black fella (can't remember his name to save my life, but we'd recognize each other if we saw each other) stopped and gave me a ride. He thought I was pretty cool for doing what I was doing and I thought he was pretty cool for giving me a ride so for a couple of months he was my morning ride and I slipped him a twenty every week for it. Bonus for him, since it was his boss' truck and the gas was paid regardless. I managed to line up rides home, most of the guys at the shop were cool with it since there was a few bucks for gas and a cold beer my treat.
Well I did get another car finally. A 1978 Toyota Corolla for $300. And it looked exactly like a $300 car. But it got me to work, right? Right! My girlfriend came back and we dated for a year. Even [expletive deleted] in "Yoda" which is what we called the Toyota. I actually still own the car and have it stored on a friend's farm. But I garan-damn-tee ya that with a fresh battery and fresh tank of gas she'll fire right up even with a quarter-million miles on the clock.
All the hard times I had, and didn't ask my folks for a damn thing. Except once. Between the Yamaha and the Toyota, when I needed a way to go to work, my folks had this car just sitting in their yard. Actually it wasn't even theirs. It was given to them by my step-dad's uncle. I approached them about it, told them my situation, and asked if I could rent it with option to buy. If I didn't buy, they'd have some cash every week for my use of it and I'd make any repairs it needed at my own expense. I didn't ask to use it for free, I didn't ask for anything special, I offered them a win-win business deal for them knowing they needed the money as well. Their answer a couple of days later was nauseating. Mom came over to tell me and didn't even get out of the car to do so. "Your dad asked the elders and they said not to help you so we can't". I walked back in the house and slammed the door.
Less than a year later my foks went into Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Only a few days before their first payment was due, this first payment being crucial to the bankruptcy even being effective, mom came over to ask for a loan to make the payment. What could I do? It was my mom asking for it, not my stepdad and not the elders. Kinda interesting that they didn't seek the elders' counsel before asking me for a loan though! The way I look at it, I had no choice. I wrote her a check and threw in a sack of groceries for good measure. No need to bring up the previous incident and in any case it just wouldn't have been right to do so. This was family in need and you just gotta do what is right.
They paid me back the money I loaned them. I had to ask my landlord to let me be late on the rent to loan them the money. My mom even asked me if I would do that. My landlord didn't like that one bit. See he knows the family, so me being late wasn't the problem, it was why I was going to be late. But he's a Christian man and let me slide even though he did express his disagreement. Harris was just that kinda guy. He would have done the same for his family so he had no choice just like I didn't.
I guess that's pretty much the highlight of my 10 years out. No big scandals or bitter fights. Just some hard times and one moral lesson learned. Since that time, my family and I have moved on. Mom and Dad are still dubs. Mom cleans parking lots and drives a school bus. Dad does carpentry. My brother is now df'd and pretty much keeps to himself. I moved on from Western Auto and living at poverty level through working at Midas and Meineke at near-poverty-level to working at a nice shop for....well let's just say that now I pay a hell of a lot of taxes.
You know, this really ain't much of a "life after" story or any kind of story compared to what a lot of y'all have been through. Not even much of a happy ending or any ending for that matter. Mainly because there really ain't an ending long as I'm around I guess. I didn't "find Jesus". I didn't meet the girl of my dreams and live happily ever after. Hell, I still don't really have many friends. I'd say I had to share it though. The lesson is buried right down here at the bottom, just above this paragraph. And in my case, there really isn't much of a payoff if truth be told. But the lesson is there. I learned it and hope y'all got it too.
You just gotta do what's right. Regardless of if your family is dubs that wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire, they're still family and they're your family. We have the obligation regardless of how they feel. Think of the scriptures such as in the book of James about telling someone in need "go in peace, keep warm and well fed" or the one that says "if a man does not take care of those who are his own...". Jesus said "don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing" meaning pretty much to do what you gotta do without anyone knowing or even acknowledging.
So don't give up on your dub families.
Jesus wouldn't.
Mike.
Edited by - bendrr on 8 July 2002 23:5:51
Edited by - bendrr on 8 July 2002 23:9:34