<\/p>\n
\nIt was 2008, at the height
\nof the recession. I had dropped
\nout of college after consuming
\na crop of magic mushrooms
\nand was now foraging for work
\nto fix my being broke, a fact
\nexacerbated by a nasty addiction
\nto coke. The problem was
\nthere were too many people
\nto compete with. Desperate
\nJoes and Janes who\u2019d been let
\ngo from shops and chains
\nthat had considered their positions
\ndisposable income. Surplus.
\nA plus side to the unemployed
\nmass of applicants was that
\nthe few places that could recruit
\nthe occasional dupe or two
\noften did so through group
\ninterviews, where all were equal
\nuntil proven unequal and nearly
\nanyone who wanted could go,
\nfrom former CEOs to hobos.
\nThey were like AA meetings
\nbut with less chance of recovery.
\nSpeaking of drinking, Starbucks
\nwas hiring. Which was ironic
\nsince I\u2019d been cutting my blow
\nwith instant coffee to conserve it.
\nSide effects included buckshot
\nenergy stalked by suicidal
\nthoughts and anxiety attacks
\nbut I kept on using because
\nit wasn\u2019t an option to not
\nwhen like a pre-dawn train
\nthe day of the interview came
\nand I showed up looking like
\na spokesman for the living dead.
\nI was high. Ionosphere high.
\nHad my eyeballs fallen out
\nthey would have shot into orbit
\naround my Ferris wheel head.
\nInstead my nose started to bleed
\nand the questions veered toward
\nme. I blamed the dry weather
\neven though it had poured
\nthe week prior, a portentous
\nbank of sky having blown
\nin from above the rough ocean.
\nIt was as if a supersonic jet
\nor giant Greek trident had ripped
\na hole in the stretch denim
\nof the space-time continuum
\nthat sucked all the moisture
\nfrom the unripe fruit of the future
\nthen spit out rain like buckets of
\ncoins from a slot machine, only
\nno one got rich. Just wet.
\nBut soon the heat returned with
\nthe sun like an NBA trophy
\nand increased the temperature
\nlike the volume on a speaker
\nblaring the rock \u2019n\u2019 roll music
\nof light: dynamite bright, and hot.
\nSo there I was, sitting in a cell
\nof a room like a sauna, dripping
\ndrugged blood like sangria.
\nI excused the zombie that was
\nmy jacked body to the john
\nwhere I wiped the warm
\ngore like a pur\u00e9ed rose
\nfrom my nose then sniffed
\na venti-sized line of smack
\nwith a buck. When I got back
\nthe interview was almost over.
\nI sat. Everyone was going
\naround in a rectangular circle
\nstating where they would travel
\nif they could travel for free.
\nThree people said Hawaii, one
\nRussia in a Russian accent,
\nsome dude in a suit the moon.
\nShit, I thought. How\u2019s anybody
\nsupposed to top that? I could
\nhear the anxiety arriving.
\nYet I had to wonder whether
\nhe actually meant it or just
\nsaid it to strut a rehearsed
\noutside-the-box wit because
\nto make like an astronaut
\nand leave this oxygenated planet
\nin a shut shuttle you cannot leave
\nbecause if you did you\u2019d become
\na snowflake drifting across
\nthe perennial winter of space
\nwould induce in my cerebrum
\na hemorrhage of panic I\u2019d pop
\nopen the exit like a sealed
\nbag of chips to stop, to feel
\nfor a suspended moment a sense
\nof expansion and of my place
\nin the cosmic entropic order before
\ndrowning in a sea of stars
\nwhich reminds me of the time
\nI went on Supreme Scream
\nat Knott\u2019s Berry Farm at night
\nexcept I didn\u2019t go on if \u201cwent on\u201d
\nmeans rode because I jumped
\noff before the metal leviathan
\nbegan levitating, stricken
\nby a rush of irrational adrenaline,
\na feeling I\u2019d get stuck
\nup there forever like that poor
\nfucker who got stuck in an elevator
\nfor two days or maybe three
\nor four or eleven or a billion
\nif no one had ever pressed
\nthe up\/down button again.
\nCover a rat with Tupperware
\nand it\u2019ll start thrashing against
\nthe dome, suddenly aware
\nthat it\u2019s in something\u2014caught,
\ntrapped. Unable to evacuate.
\nAnd I suppose a rocket ship
\nis one way of escaping
\nthis warm terrarium of a world
\njust as suicide and psilocybin are
\nthough it\u2019s possible you may
\nfind yourself more cornered
\nthan before, sent to some warped
\nblack hole of a dimension
\nin which there is no door
\nyou can punch in a code and push
\nopen, parachute back down
\ninto the downy safety of sanity
\nfrom the kaleidoscopic carnival
\nof your skull. But I wasn\u2019t about
\nto tell the interviewer that.
\nThe interviewer with her green
\napron and caffeinated grin
\nand pen poised above a clipboard
\nwho was waiting like a customer
\nfor my percolating answer.<\/p>\n
Group Interview Originally published in Tammy. It was 2008, at the height of the recession. I had dropped out of college after consuming a crop of magic mushrooms and was now foraging for work to fix my being broke, a fact exacerbated by a nasty addiction to coke. The problem was there were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8422,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1345"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8422"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1345"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1379,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1345\/revisions\/1379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}