School was over two weeks ago and finals have passed. Thank god. I don't feel too good about it, but I think my overall cumulative GPA will hold enough weight for me to get into a good state school. My aunt wasn't really on my case about studying, but I know I did enough to get by. Tim wasn't much of a help either. Always calling me, always stoned, always wanted to do something other than study and get this shit over with. Too much shit is going on in my life anyway. I haven't heard from my dad in weeks so I don't know his physical state. I guess he is doing fine. He was due for surgery this week to fix some broken bones in his back after THE accident. Parts of me feel awful for him because he has nobody there to care for him, well, that cute asian nurse, but other than her, NOBODY. Tim's parents say they plan on going over to the hospital to visit him, but they are scared to leave their living rooms so I doubt thats going to happen. I made an agreement with myself. After my first week of work, I will pay my dad a visit. I was too busy trying to get high off the summer fumes. This was supposed to be the best summer before I left for college and promptly got lost with all of the other teenagers looking for their souls in California. A soul searching mechanism that gets hatched in all of us at some point in our life. Its inevitable, but right now I need to focus on work and saving money.
I started that week. My first day flew by in a matter of minutes it felt like. The filing they had was so backed up. A-Z was my part of the alphabet because there was nobody else there and the girl who was supposed to be training me was a complete cunt and didn't do anything. Seemed like on purpose she went out of her way to avoid me, oh well i thought. Who needs people like her anyway. She was the angriest, bible beater I have ever come in to contact with. There was a gay male in our office and she would say to herself aloud, "God help that man." It was pretty unbelievable to be honest with you. Besides her, everybody was really cool. The Senior Paralegal and main attorney were very nice to me and always willing to help. The job was not hard at all, but it took me a bit to understand the difference between a pleading and a document that was used in discovery. After my first few weeks things kinda started clicking. The senior paralegal was very cool. She always had my back and tried to help me out as much as possible. Even when I fucked up she was there to cover my ass because when my boss was out for blood he would hunt around the office looking like mad man. The blame game is the worst game ever invented. It gets inside the person and will not relent until that person has found what they are looking for. The innocent are the ones who usually trip and take the fall.
On some Fridays my work people would sneak me vodka at my desk until my boss left. After he left we had great parties that vibrated with the city. The music, puff of a cigarette, punchline of a jab joke always was in sync with what the people of the outside world had planned. Everybody was in it for the same reason. The people I worked with loved getting high and drunk and the people I didn't work with loved to do the same. But one girl in particular really made me look forward to coming into work. She was a strawberry blonde chick named Carly. She was six years older than me and trying to make her way in this city, world. She was doing a good job at it. At 24 years old she was already a paralegal billing out at a nice rate. She dated this guy who she hated when they were in high school, but one Thanksgiving Break break brought them together. One thing I liked about her was that she always laughed at my jokes. I would call the clients who walked in a "poor mans" Rosie O'Donnell or Kate Blanchett and should would lose it. I would not say it to their faces of course, but she always gave me a deep hint that I had a shot. Not enough though. Always pulled away when she thought she was overplaying her hand, though never bluffing. She probably thought I was still a baby at 18 years old and going into my first year of college.
We left the office around 8:30pm and decided to go run around town a little longer. Now, this was the mid 1990's so getting me into bars at the age of 18 and late night places wasn't really that difficult. We had our water bottles full of vodka with no chasers. Carly didn't need to do that, but she did it for the fun of it. We would take a pull and dance to the tune that was bouncing around the room. This was college before I left for college and I had zero expectations of it. Everybody out to have a good time was my idea of it anyway. To splash a little drink around and look for the first available girl/boy and pounce on that opportunity. Little did I know my opportunity was exploding in front of me. I was dancing with Carly when I looked around and everyone else I worked with was gone. It was just Carly and I. She asked me if I wanted another pull of her vodka. I obliged, but then told her she didn't need a water bottle full of outside booze. She was of age. But the next thing that came out of her mouth made me forget about the lights, the world, the people coke dancing around me. "I want to live like I were 18 again. I am fast on my way to getting married to a guy that I hated half a decade ago". I know alcohol speaks louder than the person wants, but this had me stunned. Here I am at 18 years old, out in the city with a girl who is eight years older than me while most of my friends are trying to beat Sonic the Hedgehog for the billionth time on Sega Genesis. Then it happened. I went in and kissed her. There was no stoppage of dancing and making out. She went with it. She fucking went with it. She pulled back and said that it was about time. I couldn't believe it. Im not one of those guys that amaze myself sometimes, but jesus christ i couldn't fucking believe this happened. We danced a little longer and left the club. We walked around downtown and talked about what we wanted to do in life. She was struggling with her path, but told me to go towards what I really wanted. We sat down in an alley with our backs against the wall acting like we belonged there. The factory warehouses loomed over us like our biggest fears. The red brick shimmered off the moon and acted as a spotlight on Carly. Right on here. Directly on here making this moment perfect. The breathing of the dance clubs was still all around me. I wanted to keep going, but Carly said she had to go. We finished our vodka, kissed, hugged, laughed and left.
