Hmm… I thought I was in the zone there. Apparently not. Well, this should work for now.
More script after the break.
With not much to do for the day until the media guys provided me with some material to show to Chung, I left work to tend to interviews I set up for the day.
My first one was with Ray Marshall. On paper he seemed like a pretty good
candidate. When he arrived for the interview, though, well…
I offered him my hand to shake as soon as I opened the door, but he didn’t take
it. He simply grunted and walked inside.
He was rubbing the back of his head, like he was thinking or maybe itchy, and
he was looking around the place like a zoo monkey who had just been shunted to
a new habitat.
“I’m Jack,” I said, trying again to be freindly. “Go ahead and have a seat.”
Ray sat down on the edge of the livingroom sofa, hand still cratching at that
mysterious thing on the back of his head.
Now that he was seated, he was rocking gently, forward and back, forward and
back.
“Ok, I just wanted to ask a few questions about your application, verify a
few details.”
Ray grunted.
“Al-right…”
Our interview continued like this for a while, me asking questions designed to
provoke multi-word responses, and Ray retorting with a witty “NNNg” or a well-
worded, “Unn.”
Then he broke out in a sudden, seemingly uncontrollable fit of barking.
I asked my last question and quickly ushered him the heck out to the hall,
making sure he left by spying on him from the kitchen windows.
I held greater hope for the next guy on my list, Guy Phillips.
His jeans, t-shirt, and leather jacket didn’t impress me as something one
wears to an interview, but he did ride in on a Harley.
He gave a firm handshake as he came in, which certainly impressed me enough to
eliminate my first candidate.
“So, Guy, nice bike.”
“Yeah, like it? I’ve got three.”
Our interview proceeded normally though most of the questions. He worked
construction, pretty regular hours, which was nice. And he hadn’t had any
run-ins with the law, apart from a speeding ticket or two.
At some point though, Guy got hot and took off his jacket. His arms were
covered with tattoos.
“Wow,” I said, checking them out. “Nice tats.”
“I’ve got them on 80 percent of my body. Check it out.”
Guy proceeded to strip off his shirt in my living room, and reveal a chest full
of tattoos. Many demon-looking things. Quite a few skulls. A few of those
Grateful Dead bears.
“Say, uh, I know on my application I said I didn’t smoke, but how do you feel
about a little weed?”
Guy pulled a small plastic baggie from his jacket pocket and started to unroll
it.
“Uh, Guy, you shouldn’t smoke that in here.”
“Oh, sorry, man. I didn’t realize you weren’t into it. Listen, if you’re not
down with this, I don’t think I can move into this place. It would cramp my
style.”
“Yeah, and that’s a shame, ‘cause I’d really like to have ya. Oh, well.”
I urged Guy to re-apply his t-shirt, and drive safely on his was back to Lucy
and her diamond sky.
I only hoped that the remaining applicants were better than these guys, or it
was going to be a very long day.
