Engines

I hear engines revving, speeding past the window of my room and I think, "Why on a Sunday night" and "Technically it's Monday morning" and "What do they have to prove and to whom" and "Maybe they're just having fun." I've always been a firm believer that fun should never be made at another's expense, not if that another don't deserve it. And me, right then, I was that another, probably one of a good few, and I doubt any of us deserved it much. Kept awake at night in the middle of the desert. It's this heat. It's got everyone on edge, even the locals. They need to lash out. They got to drive fast.

I've only been in town two days. Difficult thing to get used to, the desert. Never seen so much sand in my life, I can see it in the air even, I can taste it in my food. Maybe I'll get used to it, maybe I'm overreacting, I don't know. There's enough people here makes me think it must be one or the other. All these people is something I don't understand. The sand, the heat, scorpions and gila monsters, cactus forest after cactus forest. Everything here is designed to hurt. What wagon stopped here and said, "Yup, this looks like a dandy spot"? Maybe they had no choice. Maybe they had to come.

I wonder how many people out there in this place are like me. Not the old ones, living out the last of their days, enjoying just how goddamn dry everything is. But the people here starting over. The people getting away. How many of those suckers are out there? How many are listening to these engines revving, revving, revving outside my dusty door? How many are getting a good night's sleep?

So the next morning I'm groggy, I'm groggy and tired and the coffee just ain't doing it. And here I am sitting in some uncomfortable green chair waiting to see Mr. Shuler and start my first day at this new job. Analyzing warranties in this material handling corporation. Yup, just as glamorous as it sounds. It's fine and I get the job done and then I can pay my bills. I'm best at a desk, surrounded by walls, pen in my hand. Mr. Shuler shows up and he wants to shake that hand and immediately give me a tour of the place. I say OK. He's nice, despite the rug. We all have our vanities.

After the tour of the place we're back at his office and he shakes that hand again. He says it was good to meet me and makes like he's going somewhere. This is when I inquire about the position and when I start since I thought it was today. He says he's confused. I tell him the analyst position, the warranties analyst, I was told there would be a position here waiting for me. He gives me this half-smile, cocky-damn-eyebrow look at me and I can tell he wants to laugh. He never told me there would be any position. I say I know it wasn't him but it sure the hell was somebody. He doesn't like my language I guess, and I sure as hell don't like his. I was promised a job. That's why I'm here. That's one of the reasons I'm here.

He can't help me. Maybe something will open up in the future, but future's an awful big word. I don't thank him and he doesn't thank me, and even though the building is air conditioned and cold as hell by the time I'm at my car I'm sweating. Couldn't have walked more than a hundred feet. This is what I'm talking about, about this heat, this place. Who's here that don't got to be?

I sit in my car but I don't turn my engine on. Don't roll the windows down neither. I just sit there and sweat, I expel. Take out my wallet and take out Janet's picture, which I shouldn't do. But I do it. And I take out the one of Brian and Melissa. I look at them and I grit my teeth. The sweat's through my undershirt, my shirt, it's gotta be at my jacket now. Sweating through a one hundred dollar sports coat. But I just look at them. And I grit my teeth. I ain't rolling these windows down.