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| It doesn't quite feel like fall this year's trip around the sun. This summer in Fargo was one of the coldest in recorded history. Without a hot summer, I'm not sure anyone is looking forward to another arctic Fargo winter. Plus I've been in school during the fall season almost every year of my life. The fact that I'm not in college this semester and around campus makes autumn feel less exhilarating. The decision to take a year off wasn't necessarily my choice. I had failed qualifications for receiving financial aid, and to add to that, I owe the school a sizeable debt. I've been filling the void by working the maximum hours allowed at my job as a cashier at Sunmart, while residing in a motel room cum apartment for $200 a month (or $50 a week). What kind of dilapidated piece of shit only costs $200 a month, you ask? The Great Northern Hotel, of course, which is also affectionately known as the "Bates Motel" in my inner circle (which consists of merely you and me). The GNH is close to that of a "flop house" you'd find in South Chicago, or the Jersey side of New York City. This is the kind of housing arrangement one seeks out in his/her most dire circumstance. It is a safe-house for ex-cons on work-release, unregistered sex offenders, and transients passing through. Meth addicts and sellers live in harmony while the pine-scent of marijuana permeates the halls, spilling out under doors. I had hoped to distance myself from any negative surroundings (a theme I ran into the ground in CP#1), but I somehow managed to gravitate towards what I feared most. | |||
| It's not the place that disturbs me, or the admission of defeat in staying in such a facility. It's the ghoulish people that live around me. In fact, there are two typical archetypes at the GNH. There's the early 30-somethings that listen to Alice in Chains all day and sport prison tats. They have a tendency to ask me for a cigarette or to borrow my VCR. They also say disgusting things to Allie when she's with me in the hall. Then there's the silent, graying hermit type. They wear flannel, have long beards, and listen to the Beatles. They're the type to wander the hallways aimlessly without shirts on- in the middle of the night. Oh, and they never flush after they use the community toilet. You get the idea. | |||
| Like usual, the commons area reeks a familiarly vague scent of old man and bathtub crank. Another light-bulb is plucked out of the hallway, making it harder to find the keyhole I so urgently frisk for. Inside my room is a 10 by 12 foot cell, complete with a radiator and a sink, which I've conveniently modified into a commode. I leave the fan on at night because the guy next door leaves his radio on at all times, at top volume. I have yet to confront him, as I think he wants to rape and kill me. His eyes told me so when I saw him last night in the commons area. | |||
| And now the transformation appears complete; from living the high life in the dorms, not working and having a meal plan, to rubbing elbows with Fargo's elite class of social parasites. I'm one with them. | |||
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| Its a rite of passage in 'zinedom to lament on about one's job, so I'll pitch in as well. And why not? Most of us spend a large part of our time at work. Since our environment has a significant influence on who we are, how we react to things, and what our character is made of, bitching about a job seems natural and necessary. So you don't end up as that guy on the 5:00 local news, gun in hand, in a hostage situation. | |||
| When I first started working at Sunmart, I was astonished by almost everything I saw. All walks of life come through our Sunmart; therefore you experience trying to help and communicate with people of various physical or mental disorders. Some of them looking and smelling so repugnant that it is hard to not throw up. Some so mentally insufficient that you no longer believe in a sane God. But then you get used to the screaming kids, the shitty music on the PA, the crippled, the mentally handi-capped, the white trash and the awful smells of human disposition. | |||
| These days it seems like I can't go anywhere without someone saying "Hey, its the Sunmart guy!" Like I'm an obscure actor in a movie someone saw one time. All that hard work to build a reputation and its shot to shit by being another town character in Fargo. At least I'm not the jizzmopper at the ABC porn palace. | |||