A New Job (Richard, Part I)

When I walked into a downtown frame shop last September and handed over my resume, I was unaware that the job would be just what I was looking for. Not even when an older man in a navy sweatshirt and sweatpants, sandals over his socks, stepped from a back office, did I see the opportunity set before me. He had whitish curly hair and droopy eyes. I had been listening to the CDs of David Sedaris’ Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and had lamented my lack of odd experiences, of window cleaning jobs, and strange characters. There was much possibility in the way Richard smirked at me, comedy gold in this small man with a protruding pregnant belly. But, I was short on money and had been searching long enough. Stories were not the first thing on my mind; I just wanted a job.

Richard pulled up a stool in the middle of the shop where we were surrounded by walls of wood and metal frames and his eyes scanned me.  As time would go on, I would become accustomed to being regarded by Richard. I would learn to gaze back with an amused half-smile painted on my face. The first time it happened, though, I shifted uncomfortably. The stripes on my pants suddenly seemed gaudy, my sandals a poor choice for the Autumn day.

Richard always spoke with his chin tilted toward his chest and his eyebrows raised so that his eyes peered up at you with a skeptical look that said, “I think you are lying. But so am I.” His sentences poured out in a lofty jumble that seemed to swim across top of his throat, and resulted in questions that always ended in a period. “Do you have good handwriting,” was the first questioning statement he put to me.

Had I expected to be interviewed on the spot, this would have been an easy question. If I had spent half as much time concentrating on solving math calculus equations in high school rather than troubling over how they looked on the page, I might never have had to take math in college. Instead, I took math in college, and my handwriting, when necessary, can be impeccable.

“Is that a yes. Can you be on time.”

I nodded.

“Are you good at math . . . we had a woman from the university work here and she labeled everything wrong. All of these frames. So, we have to get you in here to re-check all of them.” There were walls of frames, doors and drawers of frames. As I would later find out, one door could be slid to the side, and behind it would reside another wall of frames. The sides of Richard’s mouth curled upward as he shifted on his chair. “Leah was a moron.”

Given that my only three requirements so far were that I have nice handwriting, be able to do math and be on time, I couldn’t decide whether his judgment of my predecessor was unfair—How could you honestly deem someone a moron based on such a simple job? Or perhaps it was completely just—anyone unable to meet such standards surely lacked aptitude. Still, this discussion of Leah the “imbecile” raised my apprehension about my own capacity for this position. The next question did nothing to help it.

“Do you have a sense of humor. Am I going to make you cry.”

I have cried when being corrected at the ballet barre, countless times while doing homework, and at some point during every other job I’ve had. It was nearly impossible I wouldn’t cry at this one. Pressing these instances to the back of my mind, I lied, and shook my head.

“Then come back tomorrow,” Richard told me. “Be on time.”

***

I do not expect to be asked “Do you want a Valium?” more than once on my first day of work, especially if my new boss is doing the asking and I do not for a second doubt that an affirmative answer would have him rifling through his desk for said pill. Given that I was asked, though, had I ever before needed a Valium, my first day of work at the frame shop was probably the day.

Fifteen minutes before I was set to “be on time” for my first day of my new job, Jake called with horrible news. His dad was not doing well, and we were going back. We were able to arrange for my friend to fly us in a small airplane, and we wouldn’t leave until evening. I went to work, but there was no saying when I might be back in Eugene to work again.

So, as it turned out, without any prodding from Richard and before I ever laid hands on a frame or calculator, I cried of my own accord–for Jake and for Scott, for my own frustration that I was being called away just when things were falling together–as I told him how I needed to leave.

Richard approached me. “Do you want to go home. That’s a serious question.” He spoke slowly now, articulating every word. “I’m not worried about the work. I’m worried that you’re going to have a nervous breakdown right here. The frames will still be here. So if you want to go home and sit in your arm-chair and drink tea or whatever, you can do that.”

I nodded but made no move to leave.

“Do you want a Valium.”

A while later, I went to his office with a question about a frame. Seeming to forget that I had initiated the encounter, he said, “You have four choices. Come closer.”

“One,” he held up a cigarette.

“Two,” he pointed to a jug of yellow Gatorade. Sometimes, in school, at times where a teacher was assigning paper topics, I would refrain from choosing one of the first few options in hopes that something better would come up later. Other times, when all topics were potentially undesirable, it was best to raise my hand more quickly. I accepted the Gatorade.

Richard turned to a framer who was already standing in his office, “Will you go in the back and get her a glass so she can have some Gatorade.” His directions had no urgency to them, which explained why Kelsey only nodded, but didn’t move. Richard continued.

“Three,” he pointed to a bag of Cheetos. The fourth was an orange, which I also took, to eat with my Gatorade. He handed it to me with a couple of paper towels, then turned to Kelsey again. “Will you get her a glass and pour her some Gatorade.”

I felt the need to connect somehow with Kelsey, but I didn’t know what was accepted interaction. Richard was clearly in charge, but his was a loosely defined position. He seemed to do little but walk between his office and the shop, offer people things he found in his desk drawer (e.g. Milwaukee Brewer pins), and speak mock-seriously to anyone who would listen. Were they amused and resigned to his antics or was I alienating myself from the others by accepting Richard’s edible offers?

“I’m going to give you another chance,” he said, again holding up the cigarette. When I again shook my head, he paused and raised his eyebrow toward Kelsey, who stood silently leaning on the door. “Then can you bring me something back from Montana. A pony.” Pause. “I have a horse head,” he added “from the desert.”

This was hardly what you could call a segue, but I offered “A taxidermied one?”

“No, it’s just the head. I got it from my ex-girlfriend.” His hands were clasped on his belly, making it look as if he were holding a puppy inside his sweatshirt. “The rest of the horse is buried somewhere, right next to where I buried my ex-girlfriend . . . Will you get her some Gatorade.”

A few moments later, Kelsey handed me a paper cup of neon liquid. I thanked her with a smile that tried to say, “You really didn’t have to. I mean I guess we both know you kind of did, or we wouldn’t hear the end of it,” and we continued to work in silence.

Pricing frames is oddly comforting in times of stress, there on a clean butcher-papered table, where all the colors have a number and the stickers go in the same place each time. I peeled my orange and tried not to drip onto the frames. I checked my math and wrote more neatly than I ever had before. These were my last few minutes of feeling normal for weeks and I was in an unfamiliar shop drinking yellow Gatorade with fruit, Richard peering through the spattered window of his office.

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