Diary of an Unemployed Wanderer, Part 10

Three weeks.

I’ve been gone for three weeks.  I haven’t touched a computer for three weeks.  Holy…something.  If anyone is keeping up with this thing…sorry.  I’ve been busy.  Doing what?  Being alive.

I never realized how hard that statement really is.  Society never really takes into account all the things we do for ourselves.  The things we do not for anything more than it’s right.  Things like food.  Water…flu shots…yes, I’ve been out for three weeks with the flu.

I caught it in the middle of October, and thought I’d be out for a couple days.  Have a nice story about how interesting it is to actually have the flu.  And then I realized that I was roughing it along the Mississippi river.  In Iowa.  In October.  The stupid award goes to me, I know.

But enough about illnesses.  I’m back, and showered, and I’m finally feeling better.  And still unemployed.  No, the ID thing has been on hold.  I realized that a flu-stricken English teacher was not exactly the best resume to hand in.  So now I’m here, raring to go.

And unemployed.  And running out of illegal money.

I need to do something…

Diary of an Unemployed Wanderer, Part 9

October 14, 2012

I feel like I’m in hiding.

I didn’t post last week.  Not because I was running from the law, and not because I was in fear for my life.  I was somewhere along the Mississippi river, and it was cold.  I’ve been walking a lot more since it’s way too cold to fly very high around populated areas.  And I’ve still had a ton of time to practice flying.  Unfortunately, to practice it I’m finding I have to stay more and more not just under the radar, but completely out of the radar’s scope.  I hadn’t seen someone for three days before I almost smacked my face on this truck stop.  Hadn’t looked where I was going, and I hadn’t seen a wifi station this far west for about ten days.

People don’t realize how unpopulated America really is.  We think of the crowds of New York, Chicago, L.A. and D.C., and we think this entire country is just fit to burst apart at the seams.  But there are whole seas of grass and forest that are populated only by an asphalt road and the wildlife that haven’t seen a man in years.  I can hide, I can be away from anyone, simply because America is freaking huge.

I’ve never been here before.   I might have to buy a compass or something…what am I talking about?  I’m either turning and going south for the winter or using the rest of my cash to hunker down in some cabin or other.  I still have no clue.  Do I want to experience homelessness in frost or fire?

The truckers have been here.  Simple, uncomplicated view on life.  “In front’s where I’m going, behind’s where I’ve been, and the beer is in the back.”  I’m not giving a pastoral view of truckers, they also have some pretty ignorant views of…well, everything.  But I think when you look at a person, you’ve got to acknowledge what they are, not despair at what they’re not.

This is way too philosophical for a truck stop.  Comes from a deprivation of a classroom I suppose.  I miss the students.  I miss the teachers.  Not just the actual students and teachers I was with, but the archetypes.  The students, bright-eyed and eager; the teachers, just enjoying their jobs.  I know it’s not always like that, but just being there does inspire.

…maybe I should find a school and lecture.  I’m going to need an ID… 

Diary of an Unemployed Wanderer, Part 8

September 30, 2012

I’m squatting in an abandoned building.

I’m stealing internet from the apartment complex next door.

I’m squandering what little power there is in this building for a blog post that probably isn’t being read by anybody.

…that’s a lot of ‘s’ words.  S has this sort of sound that just sounds sinister.  We use the s sound all the time.  And most of the time it gives a sort of evil…sly connotation.  Smack, slither, smoke, it just rolls off the tongue in a sort of onomatopoetic manner.  And now I’m thinking about onomatopoeia.

I’m an English teacher, and I’m in the middle of nowhere, southern style.  My books, god my books, are probably being ignored in some evidence locker.  If there are people interested in finding me since I fled town…well, I’d like to thank you if you’re reading this blog.  You’re quite likely the only people doing so.  All I’m doing right now is writing words.

Writing words.  Again, the sound of ‘w’.  We never think about the sound of our words.  They were invented, something we so commonly forget.  But down the line somebody saw a man scratching out lines in the sand and called it writing, because it sounded correct.  And it did, it does.  As human beings have evolved…not just by millennia, but by years, days, even hours…we have made decisions that create new words, eliminate others.  These are ideas in action, and I am missing it all because I am not in the classroom.

Damn it all, I’m not in the classroom.  I don’t deserve to be, no one deserves to be in the classroom.  I don’t know of anyone that deserves to walk into a room and declare themselves to be an authority on anything other than what they did within the last five minutes.  But teachers are able to circumvent this, and start thinking about not being authority figures, and instead be facilitators of learning.  I wish I was a facilitator of learning.  Right now I’m just a facilitator of internet comments and the story of “guess which homeless guy I met today”.

Teaching is a full-time job, and one of the most rewarding out there.  For those of you who are still reading this, I apologize for disgracing the profession.  Hopefully you can make it better.

Thanks for listening.

Diary of an Unemployed Wanderer, Part 7

September 24, 2012

A day late and a dollar short.

That’s not completely true.  I’ve got dollars, tons of them actually.  I’m more a day late and…well, a house short.  Yesterday kind of sucked.

Couldn’t fly because of rain.  I need to invest in some rainwear, and then just pack myself down in clothing to prevent a chill.  Of course, that would go into my food fund, and that’s already starting to show a ‘healthy’ dip.  One benefit of having an actual house…having an actual stove.  I just spent tonight just trying to get a fire going, the natural way.  Sticks, stones and prayers, that’s all the natural way is.  Stole some gasoline and a match, kicked the natural way’s ass all the way up the column of flame that shot out.

Don’t get me wrong, I love nature.  If I didn’t, wandering around would be terrible.  But I like the trees, and the nice chill that comes in at dark.  I’m so glad when I cut out that I decided to grab all my warm clothes and some undershirts more for just…well, because.  And it’s getting colder, I can definitely feel it.  I now know why birds fly south for the winter.  I knew it was so they don’t freeze their tail-feathers off, but not having the guarantee of a bed, you understand it a lot more.  Especially after last night.

Last night was cold.  And wet.  And thunderstorm-y.  type of thunderstorm where I found myself a cave in the Appalachians a few hundred yards up a sheer cliff face and just hid there.  I wasn’t getting out, and I had no intent to try my luck against fate.  I just sat there and relaxed.  While freezing.  Relaxing and freezing really don’t go hand in hand.

 Storm broke at about ten this morning, and I had had enough.  Packed my wet clothes, pointed my way south and just kept going till I found heat and people.  God do I love heat and people.  Right now I’m at a truck stop (with an internet café…please don’t ask, I’m not entirely sure myself).  I can tell you right now, have fun with nature.  Be out there in the woods, and just let go of restraint.  But hang onto your cell phone and your car keys.

As for me, while last night sucked, I’m betting this week will turn around.  I honestly do think…

A biker gang walked in.  Wonder if I could beat them in a race?

Diary of an Unemployed Wanderer, Part 6

September 16, 2012

I don’t know where I am.

I guess that happens when I’ve been wandering for a week.  And yes, I mean wandering.  No car, no phone, nothing to give an indication besides license plates that I keep passing.  I think I’ve been heading west since I’m always facing the sun at sunset, but other than that, everything I know from wilderness survival could be read in Hatchet.  I am well and truly lost.

It’s actually kind of reassuring, satisfying even.  I’m alone, completely, and yet I’m not too worried about what’s going to happen.  I’ve been passing through a couple orchards, working for a meal here and there…and yes, lifting a few apples when I could get away with it.  I’ve slept in barns, in trees, I’ve even slept in a shelter when the night dropped below freezing.  I’ve changed clothes twice this week, and my showering has been a stream last Thursday.  I should be miserable, but I’m not.  I guess I’m a bit insane, just enjoying the solitude.

I met a farmer this past week, just off the highway.  I hadn’t seen anyone yet that day (been testing out flying, and the trees are the best way to avoid people), so I landed in her wheat field.  Yes, farmers can be women too.  She glanced at me as I walked up to her, and I could tell that she wasn’t expecting to meet anyone today either.

“You lost?”

“Yeah.”

She threw a pair of gloves to me, pointed out a weed and told me to get to work.  I’ve never weeded before, and she smacked me a few times before I started getting the difference between a weed and wheat.  It was dark before we headed into her house…house.  It was a kitchen, a bedroom and an outhouse.  Houses these days have less lawn than brick.  Hers didn’t qualify.

We had dinner together.  She made the bread herself.  Who does that?

Right now I’m typing this out on her laptop computer (no bathroom, but wifi…America).  There’s a bundle of blankets on an air mattress, and I’m getting a pillow that’s probably older than me.  Last month I was set for making fifty thousand this year.  I had my own car, my own house, and now I have two changes of clothes.  So why am I happier now then I was back then?

I’ve lost everything, and that is truly liberating.  I don’t need to worry about what my reputation is.  I don’t have one anymore.  I don’t have a job, so no need to get up in the morning.  And above all that, I’ve got nothing to tie me down.  If anyone ever finds out about my flying, I’m gone.  I’ll be across state lines before the cops or men in black can ever find me.  I’m well and truly free.

Yay.

Diary of an Unemployed Wanderer, part 5

September 9, 2012

I’m not in jail.

I’m not at home, but I’m not in jail.  It’s a weird series of emotions that I’m in right now.  On the one hand, I’m torn from…everything.  I am gone from my house, the people I knew, the food that I felt so familiar with.  In that sense I’m bereft.  But at the same time, I’m actually accepting some of it.  I’m not in jail awaiting a trial I know I’d surely lose.  I’m not being hounded by a mob of reporters anymore, with my face plastered on the six o’clock news.  Best of all, I’m alive.  And I wasn’t so sure of that last week.

I did try to rob that bank.  I thought I had it all planned out.  During the day, it’s amazing how many people go up on a roof to smoke.  They don’t look around the roof, they don’t try to spot anything unusual, just need a dose of nicotine, and then it’s a piece of gum and leave.  I just had to make sure the door didn’t close, and put some tape on the lock.  Went back, all dressed in black, and ready to make some money.  Or steal it, I don’t know what the phrase is…

Anyway, I’m getting ready, all set up to walk in, when I hear this screeching noise.  It’s tires, and I turn around to see this minivan start screaming down the street.  I know, my first thought was that I finally saw a minivan go over 55, but it’s…it’s…it wasn’t right.  The van was fishtailing, driving all over the place, and oh, my, God…someone’s driving a minivan wasted.  Again, another first for me.

I step to the edge of the roof, hoping to get a good look, and I see this father just slamming down a bottle of liquor.  I mean, all windows are down, I’m pretty sure if I were on the street I could smell the Russian oozing out of him.  And that’s fine by me.  you know, whatever man, you want to get drunk and drive, just don’t do it around my house.  Or what used to be my house.  I’ll read about you in the arrest reports later.

He starts going past me as I’m turning and all of a sudden I hear another scream.  Another quick look, and he’s got, you know, a child in there.  Backseat, and the only smart thing this bastard has done was put his little toddler in a kid seat and strapped her in.  and he’s getting faster.

I’m not a superhero, so get that out of your mind.  I’m not planning on donning tights and a cape and zooming around the night sky stopping robberies.  That’s a great way for me to get shot.  And I was about to commit a robbery so I could, you know, sympathize.  But there’s some innate human-ness…thing, that won’t just let a child get hurt.  There’s something about the scream of a child that turns a bastard into a saint.  I jump off the roof and I’m soaring after that minivan.  Slide up alongside the car, undo the child safety belt, and grab her right out of the car.  The guy was so drunk he didn’t even see me.

I walked her over to the nearest police station, and gave the plates.  Best thing I did was tell them if he got shot, he was probably so drunk he’d laugh.  I hope he finds some nice people in prison.

And then I robbed the bank.  Took about fifty thousand dollars, and just left.  I have a couple days’ worth of clothes and the money in a duffel bag.  I’m at an internet café, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

Do those actions cancel each other out?  I mean, it’s a big bank, they have insurance, they’ll be covered, right?  On the other hand, what did that little kid have?  The hope that plastic would hold up to a crash at sixty miles an hour plus.  I think the balance there is a little in my favor.

I’m going to walk around for awhile.  Maybe find the odd job, maybe just try and get my head straight on what happened last month.  All I know is, I’m different.  And that’s okay.

Diary of an Unemployed Wanderer, Part 4

September 2, 2012

I’ve got to make this quick…

You wouldn’t believe how easy breaking into a bank is.  I’m doing it tonight, and everything is planned out perfectly.  I think.

I know what you’re thinking, and I wish there were any other way.  I spent the past week begging for jobs, begging for unemployment, even begging on the street.  By the way, quick note, I should apologize to any and all beggars I have snubbed.  Except for the ones I knew were going to do drugs.  That sounds like a good promise.  Anyways, last week kind of really sucked.  I was kicked twice while begging, and thrown out of an interview while the receptionist screamed pervert at me.

I’m almost out of cash, and I’ve already gotten out of my apartment.  This is from an internet café.  I don’t even know why I’m keeping up this stupid journal.  What has it gotten me?  Absolutely nothing.  But I’m here, and I’m writing, and I’m confessing to a crime in the middle of an internet café…I need to turn my life around.

I’ll start with cash.  To any cops, this WILL NOT BE A BANK ROBBERY!  I DO NOT CONDONE THIEVERY ON ANY LEVEL, IT IS WRONG AND EVIL AND…not nice.  This is so full of b.s. I don’t even believe it.  And I’m writing it.

Whatever, the point is, tonight is the night.  You’d be amazed as to how many security systems don’t take flying as a security risk.  Actually, that kind of makes sense, but that means kudos to me for being the first to test it out.  I’m just going in and out.  Nothing bad is going to happen.

Trust me.

Diary of an Unemployed Wanderer, Part 3

August 26, 2012

Dear Journal,

School starts tomorrow.  Kids are going to be in school, in my…in the classroom, and I won’t be there.  I guess it’s just hitting me now that I am unemployed, that my career as a teacher just isn’t happening.

The week has been…okay.  That stupid article from last week was only a distraction.  Went to my hearing, Manny was really just understanding about everything.  He helped me with the charges, and as you can see, I’m out of jail.  My account is five thousand dollars lighter thanks to a fine, but I’m out of jail.  And out of work.

I walked out of the courtroom, and who was there, but Kelly.  God, Kelly.  I hate her so much because she is right about so many things.  I know I’ve been, well, hating her for the last few weeks, but the look on her face just floored me.  She was there, she was at the court, to see me.

I said hey, we sort of stumbled our way through how everything was going, and I suggested a lunch to celebrate me not being in handcuffs.  She agreed, and we started to talk.

Maybe this will make more sense if I describe Kelly.  Kelly Bentz was my old boss, and became the first woman to become principal at the high school, at the age of forty-two.  No, there is absolutely nothing sexual there.  She’s forty-two, I’m twenty-eight.  She’s just fantastic, a brilliant mind and a heart that’s only for the kids.  Which is why she’s not giving me my job back.

I tried to explain, and realized I couldn’t.  I was out cold for hours, missed everything, and I couldn’t even give a reason.  For all she knew I was getting high or drunk or even gambling away my livelihood.  She was a bit more comforting than I expected, was even willing to help me compile my resume, but the message was clear.  I’m not going to be in school.

After that, the meeting became awkward.  I just wanted out, she wanted to be gone, but neither of us wanted to be rude.  When the waitress came by with the check, Kelly offered to pay, and I had to leave.  I was abrupt, but I didn’t want her to think I was helpless.  So I just flew away.

No, she didn’t see me.  That’s probably the only thing that I’ve been careful about the past couple weeks.  But I don’t want anyone to see me, take a video, and suddenly I’m the freak on Youtube with federal agents knocking on my door.  So I take off from the woods, or from skyscraper roofs, and I just go.

It’s a feeling, to fly.  It starts straight in the legs, the feeling of the wind between my ankles, and it just keeps going.  Suddenly I feel like I’m being wrapped up in a shell of air, whipping me around yet still in full control.  I can feel the nothingness of air, and yet nothingness is so powerful.

I’m actually writing this on top of the school roof.  The school isn’t tall, only three stories, and this is probably a very stupid idea.  But until tomorrow, until the new year officially starts, I can still trick myself.  I can pretend that I’m just grabbing a bite, taking in the view from my school.  I’m delusional, and I know it’s a dream.  Once those kids walk in and sit down in their seats, I know it’s lost.  The man at the board won’t be me, they won’t be reading Shakespeare from me.  I’m unemployed.

I’ve been out of work for two weeks now.  And though I haven’t been jailed ever, I now have solicitation on my record.  No one is going to hire me.  I’m going to end up homeless unless I do something drastic.

I’m thinking about robbing a bank or something…

Diary of an Unemployed Wanderer, part 2

August 19, 2012

Dear Journal,

Something strange is going on.  I haven’t been able to write for a week, and that in and of itself…you know…bothers me.  I mean, I have superpowers, and yet I can’t even write once a day?  Why can’t I keep up with a diary…I mean, journal?

I think the reason is because I’ve been experimenting.  I know I said last week I have superpowers (AND I DO!) but I haven’t been able to figure out everything they do.  So I’ve been trying to teleport (ended up falling off the bed), put my back into super strength (and I haven’t been able to get my back, well, back)…I even attempted to use x-ray vision (and that girl really didn’t understand…by the way, I have a court date on Tuesday).  So what kind of superpowers do I have?

Oh, right, maybe I should introduce myself.  Gary Plummer, high school English teacher…former, I should say.  And no, I haven’t been able to find work as of yet, but here’s hoping!  I officially have flight under my list of skills on my updated resume, and I think that’s going to be a deal-breaker.  I mean, come on, look at candidates.  One applicant has a degree from Harvard?  Big whoop, there’s new Harvard Graduates each year, and they don’t seem to be stopping.  I can freaking fly.  Top that, Crimson boy.  Yes, Kelly Bentz went to Harvard.

Kelly Bentz, AKA my boss, excuse me, former boss.  She made sure I wasn’t going to be working there anytime soon.  I’m sorry I missed the meeting, but I was in the middle of getting exposed to radiation!  Or something else, I don’t know…it was glowing.  But you know all that.  And for how much I hate her, and yes I totally do, Kelly did kind of help me figure out I now have superpowers.  How?  Well…it involves drinking.  A lot of drinking.  How much is a lot?  Here’s the article.

Ex-Teacher Taught a Lesson

Gary Plummer, former teacher at Fresdale high school, is facing a $500 fine for soliciting a bouncer at a local bar.  Manny Trempkin, the bouncer, apparently was asked if he wanted to go back to Mr. Plummer’s place to talk about a tree.  “In his words, it was glowing,” said Trempkin.  “I could already tell he’d had a few too many to drink, so I just called him a cab.”

Plummer, having been fired for showing up four hours late to mandatory orientations for teachers, has been showing a remarkable lack of decorum for someone charged with the responsibility of education.  “I think it’s sick,” said a concerned parent who wished to remain anonymous.  “You show up late to school, get fired, and then go solicit a man? If you ask me he should’ve been shot.”  Again, this parent asks to remain anonymous.

Gary Plummer has been contacted several times the past two days since his firing, but has declined to respond to inquiries to the reasons behind his firing, solicitation, and disappearance.

Disappearance…I was in the stratosphere!  Well…maybe not the stratosphere.  I think I need to go over the spheres again, since I’m spending so much time up there.  I do remember I was in the clouds.  Before you ask, I did solicit Manny.  Moral of the story: don’t mix vodka with tequila, rum, scotch and everclear.  Bad things will happen.  After I asked him back to my place, Manny did probably the best thing for either of us.  He threw me out of the bar.  Yes, literally threw me, out the side alley, and so hard I hit my head on the dumpster, thank God.  I started to get woozy, and the next thing I know, I’m hanging out in the clouds with a flock of geese screaming at me!  Geese!

Was I flying?  Yes.  I could do anything I wanted up there.  Soar, zoom, dive and twirl to my heart’s content.  All I had to do was picture it, and I could do it.  I never have to pay for travel fare again, or even my car!  My transportation is basically assured.

On the other hand, I’m still fired.  And as much as I love adding flying to the resume…what can I do with it?  Fight crime…I don’t think I’m going to look that good in tights.  Steal?  Don’t be ridiculous.  Get a new job…I don’t think that defying gravity is on the list of possible job qualifications.  What am I going to do?

This is the first time I’ve been back to my house since I last posted.  It’s gotten too hectic, and I don’t blame anyone.  The public think I’m a drunk, a deviant, and I used to be teaching their kids, I’d want to shoot me!  But I need to think right now.

Who needs a flyer?

Diary of an Unemployed Wanderer, part 1

And so begins my foray into Blog Fiction!  Hope you all enjoy this.  Until next week!

August 12, 2012

Dear Journal,

Today has to be the most amazing day I have ever been in!  You would not believe the day I have had.  I mean to sum it all up, I now have…wait.  Build it up, build up everything, I’m supposed to be leading to something, not just spilling my secrets, ha!  That must’ve been anti-climactic, right?

Let me start over.  Sorry, this is my first post, so I’m still a bit nervous.  Imagine, being nervous talking to…well, you’re not exactly alive, now are you?  I mean, you can’t do anything, you can’t fight back you can’t…stick to the point, right.  Where was I?  Oh, right, today.

Today was the day.  THE, day.  The day I was going to ask for a raise.  I know, I know, the school hasn’t exactly been receptive of me (I think the principal called me Larry instead of Gary), but I was confident.  I’d been working there for five years, obviously there had to be something, right?  I wonder if I should still ask for a raise after what happened…probably not.

All right, all right, all right, the day.  I went to school…well, tried to.  I was taking the back roads through the woods (7:00 in the morning, only real option is back roads or traffic, am I right?), windows down on my way to teacher workshops, when all I hear is a pop.  It wasn’t gunfire or a loud explosion, more like the sound a jar makes as the air seal is broken.  Times fifty.  And with it I see a couple of branches just fly past the hood of my car, one even struck my car!  I slam on the breaks, pull over to the side of the road, and get out of the car.

I don’t know what I was thinking.  Somebody might be hurt, there might be something really cool, and as much as I wanted a raise I didn’t really want to be in teacher workshops on a weekend…but I went.  Dress shoes, khaki slacks and all, I went trudging through the woods.  Yes, there was mud, and yes did I step in it.  As I’m typing this my shoes are drying off the caked mud and awaiting a stiff brush and some prayers that the muck will just fly off.  Wouldn’t that be ironic?  Getting ahead of myself again…

Anyways, I’m a couple hundred yards off the road, when I start seeing a glow.  Not an aliens-have-landed glow, or even a sunshine glow.  First off, it wasn’t coming from the sky.  Instead, I could see the light kind of seeping out of the ground.  And the glow wasn’t even fixated on a particular color.  It changed from red to orange to green, almost every color in the spectrum without any sort of pattern. It was kind of cool.

I know what your first thought was.  I kind of freaked myself when my first thought was radioactive spill-off, get ready for cancer or a third eye…but I didn’t feel cancerous or anything.  Cancerous…can you feel cancerous?  Is there a sensation attached to radioactivity?  I’ll admit I’ve read my fair share of comic books and watched superhero movies, but I don’t know how one feels when you’re next to anything nuclear.  Maybe there’s a lot of pain, or perhaps a tingly feeling?  I don’t know, I couldn’t know, so how could I even expect there to be…whatever?  All I knew was I didn’t feel anything beyond normal.  And the light was looking really cool.  So I went further in.

First thing I thought when I saw what the glow was, was kind of disappointed.  There wasn’t a clearing with signs drawn over the ground.  There wasn’t a burnt up circle to indicate where extraterrestrials had landed.  Just a tree, with glowing roots.  Yes, glowing roots.  And let me stress that the rest of the tree wasn’t glowing.  What the hell was up with this tree?  What kind of tree has glowing roots?  Was I losing my mind?  Am I in the middle of losing my mind?  Should I be taking iodine and staying away from x-rays for life?

Why is this the best day ever?  Because I was totally, completely and unequivocally stupid.  I didn’t run for the hills, I didn’t call the cops.  Instead, I tried to find out why the tree only had glowing roots.  Yes, I touched it.  And blacked out.

I woke up next to my car in the high school parking lot.  I managed to get up to find Kelly Bentz, AKA my boss, walking towards my car with not the best look on her face.  I was about to get fired.  Apparently the principal didn’t enjoy the fact that I missed six hours of mandatory workshops, and instead just showed up with mud all over my shoes, dirt on my face, and no explanation for where I was.

So here I am, unemployed, possibly exposed to radiation, and bills coming up pretty soon.  Why is this a great day?  Why is this quite possibly the best day of my life?

Because I have superpowers.