Page 31 of Love Set Free

Like I said, all I can do is bid my car a forlorn goodbye.

I leave my keys in the ignition, figuring I might as well. If anything, maybe they’ll be a fun surprise for the people at whatever impound lot the forewarned tow truck takes it to. I also don’t bother to lock the doors as I resignedly climb out of my car. Again, why bother?

My belongings are somewhat neatly stuffed into one small carryon bag and one large, black garbage bag, sitting on the backseat. I always tried to make it not look as though I was living in my car–I didn’t want to attract any sort of unwelcome attention from the cops or any criminals who wouldn’t have any pangs of guilt over robbing somebody who had nothing to spare.

I’m almost tempted to leave all that shit behind, too. Lugging around all that I’ve left in the world while I figure out what I’m going to do next, where I’m going to go next, feels like more effort than it’s worth. But some small portion of me, stubbornlynurtured and bred into my bones by the poor, struggling, never-succeeding generations that came before me, doesn’t let me give up what little I have left. Numbly resolute, I loop the strap of the carryon over my right shoulder then hoist the black garbage bag over my left.

The wintery wind is still swirling cold air and snowflakes through the air and, after I slam the trunk of my car closed, it slaps and stings right at my face. But there’s not much I can do about that, or the way my lined fleece isn’t exactly up to the task of keeping me warm, other than to pointlessly curse out Mother Nature.

My resigned sigh puffs a cloud in the cold air as I turn and trudge my way to the sidewalk, a few extra curses leaving me as the snow clings to my tennis shoes and sneaks its way inside my now dampened socks, chilling my feet and toes. Reaching the sidewalk, it’s only the vague notion that I might as well head to the gas station as I’d intended, that has me turning to the right. What would’ve been only a couple minutes driving is going to be much longer, and infinitely more miserable, walking, but it isn’t like I have anything else better to do with my time. Besides, the time spent walking to the gas station is time I can use to put off thinking about what I’m going to do after that.

Maybe I’d even walk right on by that gas station and walk to the next one. Or the one after that. Or on and on. Maybe I’d just keep walking and walking. Let my feet carry me to…somewhere. Anywhere. Maybe I should just turn my brain off, turn off all my worries and fears, and let my feet and fate guide me to what it would.

Hunching my shoulder and huddling inside my fleece does little to keep me warm or stop the shivers that wrack and tremble through me before I’ve even walked a block. But it almost feels as though fate heard me or does have sort of plan in mind for me when I shove my right hand in my pocket and myfingers brush up against a crumpled-up piece of paper tucked inside.

I have no memory of putting any sort of paper in my pocket, although, just like the memory of how I ended up with a hangover this morning, most of my recollections of last night are pretty fucking hazy and disjointed. I don’t know what has me nervously casting glances to the left and right as I pull the piece of paper out of my pocket. Fear? Hope? Even though I could’ve sworn that I don’t have even a kernel of hope still left in me. Whatever it is, I don’t turn my eyes to the paper until I make sure that there’s nobody else nearby to see what it is I’m holding in my hand.

The slip of paper isn’t much larger than an index card and it looks as in rough a shape as I feel. It’s wrinkled in multiple places, although I’m not sure if that’s from being tucked away in my pocket or if that’s the state it was already in when I found it, one corner is torn off, the edges are slightly frayed, and, based on the multiple small pinprick holes jabbed into it, it looks like it has spent most, or all, of its existence tacked up on a bulletin board.

And it seems to be a job ad.

Handwritten in neat, carefully spaced, black ink are the words:

HELP WANTED

One dependable individual for the task of accompanying a certain individual on a multi-week, international vacation.

Job applicant must be: friendly, discrete, calm under pressure, and able to follow directions without question or fuss.

No particular level of education or prior work experience needed, but a current passport is required.

Only serious applicants need apply.

Unlike the normal website or link that I’m used to seeing on job ads, there’s only a phone number listed on the paper underneath the job description. That’s unusual enough, butwhat really catches my eye, and the thing that takes me from mildly curious to the territory of what-the-hell and why-the-fuck-not, is what’s at the very bottom of the slip of paper, below the phone number. And that’s one very pretty, very large number after a dollar sign.

$10,000

That’s…that’s…a shitload of money. Too much money. For one job, one that even advertises itself as only lasting a couple weeks, that’s way too much fucking money. There’s no way this job could be real. Or if it is, there’s no way it isn’t illegal, or immoral, or both.

Honestly, illegal and immoral aren’t always the same thing, not for people like me. Not for most people, really.

But $10,000… That’s more than anyone like me could ever hope to make in just a couple weeks. Hell, I would’ve had to have worked at my last shitty, minimum-wage job for almost nine or ten months to take home that sort of money, especially once Uncle Sam took his overly greedy bite out of it. So, the lure of that sort of money… Is it any wonder that I’m sort of hoping that the job would be illegal and therefore paid under the table?

If it’s even a real job opportunity.

For $10,000…a life changing amount of money… Wouldn’t that be worth the cost of one little phone call?

Desperation can make a man make stupid, stupid choices.

The bar I was at last night isn’t really sort of the place for college kids, but I’m almost convinced that the phone’s going to be picked up by a frat-boy, college kid ready and eager to laugh their ass off at me as I hold my cell phone up to my ear, listening to the ringing and waiting for someone to answer.

But to my surprise, it’s a mellow, fully-grown adult male voice that answers my call with a brief and to the point greetingof, “This is Jones. If you’ve dialed the correct number, then I assume you’re calling about the job.”

It’s because of my surprise—that somebody picked up, that thereisa job—that I splutter out, “Yes. I…yes. I’m calling about the job.”

“Fantastic. And to think, we were all just about to the point where we thought nobody was going to reply to the adverts we put up,” the man replies.

The number on the paper, the number I called, has a local-to-Tennessee area code, but the guy who answered, who identified himself as Jones, he doesn’t sound local. Toanywherein the South. The roundness of his vowels, and particularly the way he said the word ‘about’, brought to mind any number of comedy bits I’ve seen about people who hailed from Canada. But do I care, or even wonder, just a little bit, about why someone who may or may not be from the country of Canada would’ve posted a job listing—a handwritten job listing—to a bulletin board in some shithole dive bar in Chattanooga, Tennessee? No. No, I sure as fuck do not.

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