A Crappy Summer Job

I was watching the kid who works at the coffee shop while she was on her break. She sat down at a table outside and lit a cigarette and appeared perfectly at ease, unfazed, calmly enjoying her smoke. When she was done she would go back inside and take up her post at the counter. I watched, fascinated. When I was her age and worked my menial jobs, I could never achieve that level of detachement and relaxation.

 For most of my life I hated my occupations, my co-workers, my supervisors, bosses, offices, my desk, file cabinet, telephone, rolodex, the view, my clothing, uniforms, shoes, haircuts, duties and the parking lot where I parked my hated car.

The jobs were varied. In my early work experiences I dug holes, painted buildings, delivered furniture. I bagged and carried groceries, cleaned floors, drove trucks, and washed windows. I was a gardener, lifeguard, janitor, and sandwich-maker. I wore blue shirts in the warehouse, tan shirts on the truck and white shirts at the grocery store and all of them had pinpricks over the left pocket where I stuck my name tag every goddamned day.

I needed money so I took almost any position. I had no skills. Some of the work was hard, but it didn’t matter. Every day was difficult.

When I turned 18 I began drinking regularly and I woke up most mornings with a hangover. Thirsty, swollen, sticky, sore, a headache and usually a minor injury of some sort dictated how comfortable I was going to be that day on the job.

My clearest memories of a crappy summer job are associated with the time I was employed as a gardener’s assistant with August G. His unpronounceable  name started with a “G” and the rest consisted of combinations of consonants in the wrong places in relationship to vowels. Mr. G was a German immigrant and he was probably somewhere between 70 and 90 years of age.

This was decades ago, while I was killing time between college flunk-outs. August G advertised in the local paper for a helper. I was, again, out of work, so I applied. He interviewed me in the clean kitchen of his home, which was in a neat, upscale part of Marvista County. His wife was stout and friendly in a plain housedress, he was serious and wore brown khaki pants and a plaid shirt buttoned up to his throat. He took my name, asked a few questions (“Do you have a car?” “Can you be here at 7 a.m.?” “Are you strong?” Yes, yes, yes.)

His thick German accent was unusual for that part of Northern California. Most of the population were Italian-American and had a first generation grandmother, a Nonna, living in a converted basement room with bath. I was familiar with the Mediterranean intonations when applied to English; the lilt, the unnecessary vowels that ended many words and the romantic construction of the sentences.

Mr. G’s accent was harsh, clipped and cold . He sounded like the bad guys in a lot of the war movies I’d seen at the Saturday matinee.

He paid me a fair wage, not extravagant, but enough for gas, food, rent and beer, and I arrived at 7 a.m. five days a week. I’d park my car in front of his cottage and he’d drive us, in his pristine, perfect truck, into San Francisco to work in the lush gardens of the wealthy residents of Upper Broadway, Sea Cliff and Presidio Terrace. These were beautiful homes of marble and tile, fountains and fish ponds, swimming pools and palm trees. It was usually foggy as I pushed the lawnmower, raked leaves, pulled weeds and carried bags of trimmings to Mr. G’s, ancient, spotless pickup.

I was always hung over. Eighteen or nineteen years old and I wasted most evenings with erstwhile friends, listening to music, sitting in a beat up car and drinking beer, smoking. Most of the time someone would have a bottle of vodka to pass around, sometimes some pot. I hated the idea of getting up every morning, but I hated the idea of staying clear headed even more. If my friends weren’t available I would go to one of the nearby bars and drink with men and women who were ten, twenty years older than I was.

I’d get home at midnight, sometimes later, knowing perfectly well how I was going to feel in the morning. I’d had plenty of practice. I kicked off my clothes, flopped on the bed, dizzy, and I’d spin into a few hours of restless, guilty sleep.

The alarm was set but I was always awake before it rang, tangled in my sheet, nauseous. I was a little late and had to hurry to get to Mr. G’s place so I didn’t have much time for remorse. Dressed, sometimes shaved, I’d drive several miles in the early morning traffic, park my car behind the truck. I felt crappy when I saw how well the old man kept his vehicle; washed, tuned, detailed. My fourth-hand used car was full of books, magazines, empty beer cans and the ashtray was overflowing. The radio didn’t work and two windows were jammed closed. The tires were bald.

I’d knock on the heavy front door; August answered, ready to go. I was barely on time, and his brisk demeanor made me feel that I was letting him down. Did he know how crappy I felt? Did I look like I’d been up most of the night, muttering and laughing sourly in a dark car with a few friends or sitting in a smoky bar next to a sad woman who wore too much makeup?

“Good morning.” He didn’t remember my name. I’m sure of it. Whenever he needed me to do something he would just say, “Take those bags of leaves out to the truck”, or , “No, no, not like that. I showed you. This is stupid; it’s not how I showed you. Did you forget?” He was a prick.

“Good morning.” My reply to him was the first, sometimes the only words that I would speak all day, aside from “Good bye,” at five o’clock.

Lunch?

August would eat with the family of whomever we were working for. I found that interesting and odd. He would say, “OK, now we have lunch. I’ll be in the house. I eat mit the people who live here.”

I sat alone in the truck and ate whatever I’d brought from home, bread and cheese, salami, a piece of fruit. Sometimes I had a book or a comic and I’d read a chapter and then stare through the crystal clear windshield, looking at the homes. Money. Lots of it. I began wondering what was going on inside. Who the hell has their gardener in for lunch? What was it like to live in one of those clean, polished, light homes? I never saw any of the residents. Were they Germans, too? In my toxic reverie, I began to suspect that August had been a Nazi, a war criminal on the run or a political refugee who was now being protected and his crimes concealed by the United States Government. He was responsible for many deaths, was an officer in the SS, had killed thousands in cold blood. His clients were all part of a Nazi cult and plotted their next blitzkrieg during opulent lunches while I raked leaves just outside. Mr. G was the leader, codename: The Gardener, and he controlled them with an iron fist. The others were terrified of disappointing him.

After I finished my sandwich I’d get out of the truck, wander around the house until I found a hose and drink out of it for a long time. I was still hung over, dehydrated and very thirsty, and I gulped cold hosewater until I became soggy and bilious. When Mr. G finished his lunch he’d tell me to load up the tools and we’d go to our next job. We rode in silence until we pulled up in front of another palace, overlooking the San Francisco Bay with terrific views of the Pacific Ocean, the Headlands, and the Golden Gate Bridge. The residents of the houses had access to those views all day, every day. I was resentful, jealous, and miserable. The combination of discontent and bile was exhausting and my energy plummeted by the afternoon. Greasy and slow, I tried to avoid August as much as possible. He’d be doctoring some shrubs or cultivating a flower bed and I’d make it a point to get out of his line of site, light a smoke and sit in the shade. There were times when he’d come looking for me and when he spotted me lying back on a damp lawn he’d grunt and say, “Must do our work.”

I heaved myself up and went back to raking, trimming, loading, clipping. It was a long summer. I can’t remember if I had a girlfriend at the time, who I was hanging out with and what else I did when I wasn’t working. Reading, certainly; some writing. That summer is a cluttered, out-of-focus collage.

When the day was done we’d drive back across the Bridge and I could turn around and look at the homes perched on the cliffs overlooking the bay and recall the gardens, the ornate doorways, the tall windows and heavy curtains that were always drawn.

At home I’d take a nap, dress, eat, and count my pay. I calculated how much beer or wine I could afford, and if I had any money left over I could get some weed, maybe some cocaine, blunder through the night and wake up the next morning feeling sick and mad, ready to repeat another long, hard day.

That job and the way I felt every single morning helped me decide to go back to college. I still drank too much, but I managed to save some money and register for a few classes. I got away from The Gardener as soon as I could, took another job in a furniture warehouse, delivering and moving heavy hide-a-beds three days a week. It was indoors, there were no rich people to judge and disturb me and, along with my co-workers, I could drink beer on the job. I felt it was a step up from working with Mr. G.

The girl at the coffee shop was polishing off some kind of smoothie that looked healthy and refreshing. I’ve spoken with her and she’s funny, pleasant, and makes a good cup of coffee. In 40 years, how will she feel about her work? When she looks back on her life, will she regret this summer? Working with Mr. August G was pretty dismal, but, I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to experience that level of self loathing and resentment. After six more years I graduated from college and I never had another job that was quite so depressing. Maybe everyone needs to experience soul-crushing humiliation at certain times in their lives in order to change. I would have liked to work in a coffee shop. That tasty smoothie, cold, sweet, full of fruit and other healthy nutrients, would probably take the edge off of a hangover.