"You should have hung around."
Ana peered at those hazel eyes and said with complete conviction: "I couldn't—I had a meeting to get to. In fact, it's still going on right now. I should get back in there." She headed for the front door. She didn't wait for Bruce to go first. And she didn't look behind her this time.
* * *
Ana called Joe early that evening to share her news with him. When he answered, he sounded really happy to hear from her. Which made her happy. "Hey, I've got something to tell you," he said.
Joe's voice was so animated that Ana was a little worried. "What's going on? Everything okay?"
"Everything's fine, Ana. Guess what? I got a job offer."
This she did not expect. "A job offer? Really? Wait, like a freelance job?"
"No. Like a job-job."
"Oh my god. Is the Independent hiring you full-time? Did they get some funding somewhere?" She could hear her own voice accelerate and rise in pitch.
"No, it came out of nowhere. There was an ad, so I sent my résumé and clips and the guy called me back right away and offered me a job with a great salary, full bennies, profit sharing, the whole shebang."
She had never heard Joe use the word bennies before, unless he was making some reference to beatnik amphetamine use. Corporate officespeak (especially obsolete corporate officespeak) was a bit chilling coming out of his mouth. "So I guess it's not at the Independent then. They wouldn't give bennies if they were the last alternative paper on earth."
"It's not the Independent, Ana. It's the Dollar Daily."
Ana had to think for a moment. "You mean that little free thing that we get on our porch on Thursday and immediately throw away?" She could hear him sigh, even over the phone and across the country.
"Yeah. That's the one. But I guess they want to change their image, get a little hipper, more arts-oriented."
"A little hipper? More arts-oriented?"
"I know, I know."
"But there's nothing the least bit hip or arts-oriented about it."
"I know, Ana. It's a horrible little newspaper."
She knew she was not being appropriately supportive, but she just couldn't stop herself. "Joe, if you know that it's a horrible paper, why would you want to work there?"
Loud, shallow breath. "Because they're offering me a job, that's why." His tone was hard to read. Was it aggravated or piteous?
"I don't get it. Other places have offered you a job and you didn't take those."
"Those were like ten, thirteen years ago. No one's offered me a job in a long time."
"Aren't you going to be miserable?"
"I don't know. Maybe I will be, but I want to find out. I'm tired of freelance. I'm tired of constantly begging for jobs. I'm tired of self-starting. I'm tired of pitching stories. I'm tired of not getting paid shit for all the time I spend working on things. Fucking fifteen cents a word. It's horrible being poor all the time. I can't keep letting you pay for everything."
"Honey, I don't care about that."
"Thank you. I appreciate that, Ana—but yes, you do. You're just too nice to say anything about it. Usually. Unless you're mad at me. But I can tell it bugs you. Besides, I care. It bugs me. I hate always being reliant on you for everything."
This was not like her Joe. She couldn't believe what was coming out of his mouth. "Are you sure you want to do this? It really does sound like something that will make you unhappy."
"I'm unhappy now."
"You are?" She could hear him breathing.
"I'm sorry, but yeah, I am."
"Are you unhappy with me?" The words caught in her throat.
"Baby, I'm unhappy with everything."
"Me included?"
"I don't know, sometimes. But I'm mostly unhappy with me. I hate this. Maybe a change will help."
Ana let it sit there for a moment. "Okay then. You should take the job if that's what you want."
"I already have."
"Oh," she said. "Okay. Well then . . . great. Congratulations."
"Thanks."
Ana didn't tell him her news.
3
13
Full-Time Jobs and Other Petty Crimes
Who would have thought that a column called, "Rap Sheet" would turn out to be the favorite part of his job? As far as Joe was concerned, it was the one page of the paper actually devoted to something interesting. It wasn't a rundown of the new hip-hop releases, but a tally of the area's petty crimes for the week. Not that there were only petty crimes being committed—Ferndale did have the occasional drug bust or murder or knifing or robbery or carjacking, even some guy performing voluntary castrations on the kitchen table of his house. (After the procedure, at the very same table, the "surgeon" served pie to the new castrato. Amazing.)
"Rap Sheet," despite its tough-sounding name, was solely devoted to crimes of a small-time nature, committed mostly, it appeared, by extremely stupid citizens, which Joe surmised was why it was so much fun to write and read. An excellent example: Stupid citizen gets pulled over for suspicion of driving while intoxicated. Police officer asks for license and registration. Stupid citizen freaks out, tells officer, "Please don't look in my trunk!" thus giving said officer just cause to look in stupid citizen's trunk, thereby revealing a garbage bag full of hydroponic marijuana.
That was some good readin' right there.
Expanding the column and giving it a humorous edge that accentuated the stupidity of the criminals had so far been the only change Joe had been allowed to put into action for the past two months. And he hadn't really told Terrance that he'd done it. The rest of the paper was exactly as it had been when Joe started. "I just don't want to scare away our core audience" was what Terrance kept saying to Joe. "We'll implement changes a little at a time, and before they know it they'll be reading an alternative newspaper with real features about real issues." The "core audience" that Terrance kept talking about was, much to Joe's dismay, older, more conservative people who lived in the metropolitan Detroit area. (Shortly after starting, Joe discovered that the Dollar Daily, while headquartered in Ferndale, was distributed in various editions to most of the suburbs surrounding Detroit. This was also one of the reasons for the sizable income generated by the paper.) According to Terrance, these masses frowned upon (in roughly this order): minorities, homosexuals, liberals, artists, musicians, peaceniks, hipsters, tree huggers, pinkos, and younger people in general. In Ferndale, the core audience was a small but vocal group of holdovers who had lived there when the storefronts were deserted and the area was a trashy DMZ between Detroit and its suburbs, but at least all the faces were pale. That, in Joe's opinion, was their precious "core audience."
Meanwhile, Joe was writing articles like: "Good Neighbor Awards!" or "Senior Citizen Update!" or "Kickball Comes to Town!" All of the headlines reflected Terrance's undying devotion to the exclamation point, which he lovingly referred to as "a slam." Every time Joe mentioned an idea of his for the paper—say, a short piece on the new LGBT community center, or even the upcoming Chin Tiki night at the Midlands—Terrance would say something like, "That's great. Hang onto that for the idea file," or, "Let's put a pin in that one." Joe's idea file was rapidly growing, but not as fast as his overall sense of dissatisfaction. Tack that onto the fact that he hardly ever saw Ana anymore, since she was so busy with her new position—always working nights, weekends, holidays. When they talked, it was either on the phone or just before bed. Ana would be completely wired at eleven p.m., full of chatter about some exciting project she was working on; meanwhile, he was dozing off, aching for the sweet escape of slumber. Joe wasn't working as many hours as her, but after years of freelance, he was completely unaccustomed to standard workdays and the relentless tedium of nine-to-five. Or nine-to-nine, depending on how close they were to press time. He only complained about the hours once, but there was no sympathy forthcoming from Ana.
"Welcome to the working world, Joseph," she said, a gleeful edge of derision in her voice. "Try to rememb
er that most people work way harder than either of us for far less money. We're lucky."
"You're right," he said, thinking of his grandfather working for Cadillac in the thirties, his father on the line at the Chrysler Jefferson Assembly Plant, grabbing every hour of overtime he could to help pay for Joe's college. "Duly noted."
Then she started laughing at him. "Look at you. You're like a delicate hothouse orchid suddenly exposed to the elements. Your little petals are shivering."
"All right," he said. "Now you're just being mean."
Unfortunately, that was probably closer to the truth than he cared to admit.
In some ways, Ana seemed happier than he had seen her in years. He knew that she and Adrienne had always wanted something like this, to have a little more control over their work and their destinies. It meant a lot to her that they were doing work that was directed toward women.
"Bruce says that we just need to win two new business pitches this year and the company will feel like this whole idea of marketing to women is justified." She had probably told him this four or five times already. Joe would just nod and smile supportively. After living together for this long, he had learned that Ana didn't want to hear his opinions or his advice when she was venting about work. She just wanted him to listen. So he listened. He was, however, getting a little tired of hearing about Bruce. Years back, Ana had filled him in about Bruce Kellner, telling him about how all the women at the agency adore him, how clients love him and all that. Joe had met him once at an agency holiday party where spouses were invited, and another time at the Midlands. As much as Joe had wanted to hate the guy, he actually couldn't. (He may have done shots with Bruce, now that he thought about it.)
But what had changed the most was their financial situation. They were abruptly and quite amazingly flush. It was sooo nice to have some money for a change, to pay for his full half of the bills, go to whatever shows he wanted (he was still getting free review copies of CDs and DVDs too, which he happily hocked), lunches or dinners on those rare occasions when he did see Ana, even pick up some brand-new clothes (he hadn't shopped at a thrift store for months) or whatever else he needed without worrying about it.
For the first time in his adult life, Joe was stable financially. It was a peculiar sensation. Still, after a couple of months of giving his job a chance, he was officially starting to hate it. Not working itself, but The Job. Yet until another job appeared, he wasn't going to give up on this one. And with the way things were going around town, it didn't look like another one was coming along anytime in the near future.
The day that the Dollar Daily called Joe and he realized that he did indeed want a real full-time job, he had gone down to the offices of the Detroit Independent and officially lobbied the managing editor, Tim Shudlich, for one. Just to see if there was any chance he could go full-time there.
Once Tim stopped laughing, he filled Joe in on the realities of the situation. "I don't know what to tell you, man," he had said, taking a long pull on an American Spirit menthol and blowing the smoke in the general direction of the closed window. "We love your work, but I can't offer you shit. There's only one person in editorial with a full-time position and that's amazing in itself. I fear they're trying to figure out how they can get freelancers to do my job."
"So there's nothing?"
Another deep drag on the cig. "Joe, this is an alternative newspaper. Part of 'alternative' refers to finding alternatives to actually paying people money."
Joe sighed. "Really? I thought it referred to an alternative to the giant corporate newspapers that were the propaganda tools for the military-industrial complex and the evil establishment conglomerates."
Tim leaned back in his chair, hand splayed across his chest as if to somehow contain his silent laughter. "Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe. How quaintly amusing of you. That is just adorable. What do you think this is? The nineties?" He then gazed up at the ceiling and smiled wistfully. "Ah, the nineties. La belle époque." He sighed, then crushed out his smoke in an overflowing Reddy Kilowatt vintage ashtray. "Perhaps you'd like to broach this distressing theory of yours with the giant conglomerate that now owns the Independent. Of course, they're not evil." Tim held up a blue plastic bucket next to his desk that looked like something Joe once used to bus tables at Big Boy. It was filled with wadded fast-food wrappers and pop bottles. "Look at this. See? Recycling. They're green."
"If by green you mean profitable, I see what you're saying."
Tim shrugged. "Hey, conserving the environment, conserving profits, what's the difference?"
Joe stood up. "So the only tools around here are us? For putting up with this shit?"
Tim touched the tip of his nose. "Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner."
On the drive home, Joe had called Terrance Blankenship and signed on with the Dollar Daily.
* * *
Joe had long since finished up his assignments for the Independent, though he continued to think about writing a piece for The Paris of the Midwest Is Crumbling when he had a chance. At first, it seemed like the kind of thing that would have been perfect for the new and improved Dollar Daily. When he pitched the story, it was enthusiastically considered until Terrance realized that it involved an illegal activity, and then it was immediately relegated to the black hole of the idea file.
Joe wasn't giving up so easily though. There was something about it that fascinated him, enough to make him think that there was there was a big story there. He'd e-mailed Brendan Sanderson, the blogger-in-charge, a couple of times, to see if he could call to ask him some questions about urban exploration. Even though Joe wasn't sure if he'd ever get around to writing the piece, he still wanted to talk to the guy.
When they finally spoke on the phone, Brendan actually turned out to be pretty cool. Though Joe couldn't quite get a bead on him. He was like some curious hybrid—archaeologist/anthropologist/profane philosopher/hip-hop beatnik. Still, he was willing to be interviewed.
"What are you most likely to find while urban exploring?" Joe asked.
He could hear Brendan on the other end of the line tapping a pencil. The tapping stopped, replaced by a plosive throat sound that led him to believe that Brendan did not approve of his question.
"Motherfucker, don't even call it that," the guy said bitterly. "These days, every twenty-year-old art student going into an abandoned building with a digital camera is an 'urban explorer.' Putting it on the Internet, creating more ruin porn, perpetuating the media hatefest on Detroit. Fuck that shit." Pause. "Sorry. What was your question?"
Joe was taken aback, but he trudged onward. "What are you likely to find?"
"Does rubble count?" said Brendan, calm now after considering the question. "Because if it does, it would be rubble. Or dust. Or debris. Or broken glass or crumbled plaster, all of which I suppose are forms of rubble."
Joe laughed because he thought Brendan meant it as a joke.
"Why are you laughing?" Pencil tap.
"I just . . . I thought you meant that to be funny."
"Tramping around in abandoned buildings is a lot of things, but funny ain't one of them."
"I'm sorry."
"Unless, of course, one of the people you're with slips on a big steaming pile of hobo poop."
Joe again thought that Brendan might be kidding. "Can I laugh at that?"
"How can you not? I'm just messing with you, dude. There's not that much hobo poop anyway, and most of it is like coprolited Tootsie Roll."
Joe was glad that Brendan felt comfortable enough to mess with him, but he wanted to find out more. "What are you trying to do with your photography?"
"I'm trying to give these buildings back some of their fucking dignity, son. When you step into these places, you can feel their sickness. It's like walking into the first circle of hell. They are dying, yo. These were important places for Detroiters in their time, and now we have turned our backs on them. This shit needs to be seen. And if it takes a little illegal trespassing, so fucking be it."
&
nbsp; Joe liked the fact that Brendan took his website so seriously, like it was a mission. When he asked Brendan about the interior graffiti art, he wound up listening to the man wax enthusiastic for three minutes straight.
"You'd be surprised at how incredible some of it is. I mean, there's endless gang tags—most of them boring—but the old buildings do seem to attract the real artists. The United Artists Theatre? A few years ago, every window was covered with art. You remember that place?"
"I think I do," said Joe. He wasn't sure.
"Come on. Fuckin' suburbanite."
Joe hadn't heard that word spoken with such ire in a long time. And how did he know?
"It's a C. Howard Crane theater. Twenties? With a big out-of-character fifties streamline marquee?"
Then Joe did remember. "Yeah! I do know that place. Was there like a crazy Googie ripple canopy right by where the ticket booth used to be?"
"That's the one. Shit was awesome. Artists had taken it over, bombing the fuck out of the place. Throwing up pieces everywhere. Not tags either, but art. Some of it like Botero or Miró. Mayan hieroglyphics. When you stood about a half a block away and looked at the whole thing with the windows all full of color, it was like a skyscraper of stained glass. Shit was sick."
"That sounds incredible."
"That ain't the whole story." Joe heard the pencil start tapping again. "You really interested in this?" Brendan said, suddenly agitated. "'Cause if you aren't, you shouldn't be wasting my time. If you are, you need to come with me and experience it."
The Narcissism of Small Differences Page 9