American Outlaw - Jesse James [44]
Then I saw an advertisement that said, “Skilled Welders/Fabricators Only.”
I looked closer, and was greatly encouraged by the next line: “Earn $1,000 a week! Immediate openings. Exp. required.”
Now, that looked interesting. I’d learned to weld in freshman shop class, and I’d always been pretty good at it. Consistent practice had eluded me to this point—I’d always been too busy with sports—but I’d kept up on my skills here and there. And I’d certainly cut up enough cars to know my way around a blowtorch.
Nevertheless, there had to be a catch—and there was. The job wasn’t local: it’d be in Seattle, up at a shipyard, near Puget Sound. Still, I took down the number and called up a manager, who described the job responsibilities to me. It was aluminum TIG welding, which I’d never done before. But there didn’t seem to be many other jobs out there, so I lied to him and told him no problem. “TIG welding? My favorite!” He replied that he liked my initiative, and that I should report to work the following Monday.
“I’m thinking about going up north,” I told my mom. “I found a job, and it pays really good money.”
She slammed the refrigerator door. Pickles shook. “Really? You just got here.”
“I know, Mom.” I gave her a hug. “I think I need to make some kind of new start.”
She nodded.
“Be good,” my mom said. For a second, I imagined asking her if she wanted to come up there with me. We could start some kind of new life together, have the lovable, kooky mom-son relationship that we should have had all along, but didn’t. But she was already looking at her hands blankly, forgetting I was even there.
I wasn’t angry at my mom. I didn’t disdain her, like I did my dad. She wasn’t a bad woman. But she had never tried very hard to be part of my life. It was sad, but by now, we’d sort of missed our window. Neither of us really had the inner resources or the drive to fully connect.
I had never been out of California in my entire life. I had nowhere to live, and no money. The prospect shook me a little. How the fuck was I going to survive? Fortunately, my mom wouldn’t let me go before she’d stuffed a couple hundred bucks in my pocket. I tried to refuse, but she could probably tell that my heart wasn’t in it. She wouldn’t let me say no.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, embarrassed.
“Write me when you get there,” she said.
I found a Greyhound going north and bought myself a ticket. As soon as I boarded, an ancient wino plopped down next to me, reeking of whiskey. Immediately, he passed out on my shoulder. I looked out the window, watching the highway pass by blackly.
When we finally pulled in to Seattle, it was early evening, and very cold. I still wore my Southern California uniform: a pair of cut-off Dickies and T-shirt. Shivering, my heavy bags on my back, I bounced from motel to motel, unable to find a place that fit my budget.
Exhaustion threatened to undo me. In desperation, I found a phone book and called a Red Lion Inn in Kirkland, Washington. They had a single small room that was going for fifteen bucks a night.
“Where’s Kirkland?” I asked.
“Oh, just about fifteen minutes from downtown.”
“How am I supposed to get there?”
“Bus?” the night manager suggested, perversely.
One interminable city bus ride later, and I arrived at the Lion, sweating and clammy in the cold night air.
“I’m the guy you spoke to on the phone,” I announced. “You said fifteen, right?”
“Sure, fifteen bucks. But you gotta stay a week.” The dumpy woman gave me a quick once-over. “You got a week’s rent?”
I gave her the money, and lugged my two duffels up to my room, where I sat down heavily on my bed. The bedsprings creaked beneath me. A feeble lamp cast a putrid yellow light around the room, displaying a small, grayish dorm-style refrigerator, two rolls of toilet paper, and a plastic bath mat that lay coiled on its side in the grim tub.
It would have to do. I rolled over, listening to the creak of the bedsprings. My clothes