The Early Days Pt 1: The Interview (January 2009)
Back in January of 2009, I moved to NYC and interviewed to become a dog walker. I had no idea that I was about to start a job that would change my life completely.
A look of perturbation stayed glued to Tracy’s freckled forehead for the entirety of our cab ride from LaGuardia to Washington Heights, and I couldn’t have cared less. My eyes were trying to drink in all of the bridges, streets and buildings we passed. I’d never been to New York City. I’d never looked at a map of New York City. I was just there because I knew I had overstayed my welcome on all the couches I used to surf back home. I’d become a delinquent in my hometown. I needed a change. My friend Tracy needed one, too.
Tracy had gotten into trouble for (what she really wanted to be) the last time the previous summer. She’d wanted to get away from the crowd she hung around with, the party life that wasn’t much fun anymore. Her older sister Sara was attending Barnard in New York City and convinced Tracy to move in with her, into an apartment in upper Manhattan which she was sharing with a few other college-aged girls. Tracy left in August, and I was stuck back home, going to the same parties, making the same bad decisions. Tracy would call me from NYC and tell me how spectacular it all was. How happy she was to get away. It didn’t take a lot for her to convince me to leave everything I knew and move in with her.
When people looked at me with surprise after I’d share with them the news of my impending move; when they’d asked what I would do if I couldn’t find a job or if I didn’t like it in New York, I’d just shrugged my shoulders. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do. It wasn’t like there was anyone I really felt like I was going to miss. I didn’t have high hopes for New York, but I thought almost anything would be better than where I was coming from. Suddenly, though, I was thrilled by the sight of it all.
When the driver stopped it was just after dusk and yellow lights spied on us from the windows in the buildings around. Tiny little windows with all different types of people inside. I got out of the cab and picked up my over-stuffed, bright yellow duffel bag, its strained zipper barely containing ripped jeans, hoodies, flip flops and hairbrushes. The bag did not contain a computer, a credit or debit card, a social security card or a checkbook. I did not own any of those things at the time.
I dragged the big yellow bag behind me as I followed Tracy to the entrance of a building on Wadsworth avenue. She pulled out her keys and opened the door to the building and I followed her through. The second I passed through the threshold, my nostrils were assaulted by the smell of must and cat-piss. I don’t know what I was expecting when Tracy told me she was subletting at a place in the city, but I know it wasn’t this shit-hole. This isn’t even so-dilapidated-it’s-kind-of-cool old-movie New York-shitty. It just reeked of cat piss and the lighting was bad, a yellowish iridescence that exposed the tracks of muck that outlined footprints on the floor.
There were little piles of trash everywhere. Wait, I couldn’t believe it, were there actually swastikas painted on the tiled-floor? I asked Tracy about that and, without giving much of the reaction that I thought the question deserved, she said something about Pre-war buildings and unfortunate but unintentional decorating decisions. Then she started to skip up five flights of stairs. She was literally skipping. Could she really still smoke? She must have gone soft. No one who was smoking their fill of Reds should have made it up five flights of stairs so quickly. I started feeling weary. Tracy and I were good friends, but we hadn’t been around one another in months. Was it possible that she wasn’t cool anymore?
While I entertained this possibility I heaved my duffel-bag half-way up my back (as far as my muscles would allow), peripherally aware that I was dragging it through mysterious and moist debris made up of years of dust, most definitely cat piss, and god knows what else, but I still chose to do that rather than try to hoist the duffel over my shoulders because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to. I was physically weak, slightly anemic, and it didn’t really bother me. It took effort to maneuver the steps, but I was careful not to touch the walls whose yellow color seemed unintentional, dictated by a gradual oozing rather than a paint job.
When we got to apartment 5A Tracy opened the door with her key and walked quickly through the door without trying to hold it open for me behind her. My god. How could she be this mad already? I hadn’t done anything, yet. Judging from past experiences it was very likely that I was going to do something, but I hadn’t yet! Sure, it was true that she’d put her neck out for me, as she had so many times before, risking her reputation in her new city, at her new dog walking job to get me, a deadbeat friend, an interview. I knew that I should’ve been grateful, but now that we’d embarked on our journey I was feeling resentful of her mood.
The apartment smelled even worse like cat piss so I asked if we had a cat but Tracy just scrunched up her eyes and looked at me. I guessed she thought I was joking because she turned away and kept walking down the long, dusty hallway, past two closed doors and one opened bathroom door to the end of the hallway, where some light flooded into the hallway from a kitchen whose counters were covered in weeks’ worth of dirty dishes and some long-untouched and very grimy appliances. Tracy glided through the kitchen unbothered and didn’t tell me to follow her but what the hell else was I going to do, stop off and take a cig break? Tracy doesn’t usually use words that don’t need to be used so she doesn’t tell me to follow her, but I would have and I think she should have. Manners.
I followed Tracy through a dilapidated and dusty living room with two barred windows, a cobwebbed exercise bike and a couple of musty, broken-down couches. Was it me or was everything leaning three inches to the south east? Tracy pushed open a pair of French doors and I set my duffel bag on a dust-coated wooden floor in a spacious if run-down room, and I felt a little relief. There was only one bed, but it was a big one and I’d certainly shared smaller. There were big windows and a dresser, and I could already imagine the early-morning sunlight flooding in. But then, Tracy, barely even bothering to look back at me, said “This isn’t our room” and walked to a little doorway at the end of this one. She opened the door and steps into an extra-large walk-in closet. There was a loft bed over a desk, a dresser, and a desk chair inside. I tried to drag my bag in but Tracy, The Bag, and I could all be in the room at the same time so I decided to cast The Bag out.
Tracy plopped down at the desk, lit a cigarette (the stair-climbing maniac still smoked, I guessed), and said,
“Okay, you have to go get ready we need to leave soon.” I just stood there and let out an incredulous “I am ready” to which she guffawed and looked me up and down without even attempting, although I was a guest in her goddamn home, to hide her disgust and said “that’s what you’re wearing?” So I rolled my goddamn eyes and felt anger bubble inside my chest, but turned around to dig through my big, stupid yellow bag.
Fifteen minutes later my hair was brushed, deodorant and eye liner reapplied, ripped jeans exchanged for less-ripped jeans, and I was mockingly twirling as much as the little room would allow for twirling and was asking Tracy “Well, do I look dog-walker interview appropriate now?” I did it to be mean but was more satisfied by her clear approval than I wanted to be. She was relieved that I looked good, not that she’d ever tell me so. Instead she just jumped out of her chair and pushed past me with a barely audible but in arguably commanding: “Let’s go.” I had the good sense to pocket my question about whether there was any liquor in the house for later, even though I really could have used a pick-me-up.
I followed Tracy to the train in silence, and she seemed annoyed even at having to show me how to swipe a subway card. Luckily, I was immune to disapproval and was having a swell time just taking in the sights. Thirty minutes later Tracy and I stepped off the train and into a movie set. Or, what I later found out was the Upper West Side. Even on a freezing January evening this place felt quainter than any place I’ve been before.
I was stunned into silence as I walked up a pristine block, barely trying to keep pace with Tracy who still wasn’t speaking to me and had her hands dug anxiously deep into her pockets. There were men in driver’s caps straight out of the movies standing at the entrances to the buildings we passed. I followed Tracy as she made a right and then flew down two more blocks before stopping abruptly at a building on 83rd street and Columbus Avenue. She sighed, regretful and resigned to her task. She pulled out her little Nokia brick phone and pushed her thumb rapid fire against keys, then the building’s buzzer buzzed and Tracy went through the doors and threw them behind her so that they would stay open long enough for me to catch them before they closed. She did another show-off run up the stairs and I couldn’t help but think that if I were her, if I had just invited my friend to move to a whole other city, that I would have reassured my friend and climbed up the stairs at her side and told her she was about to kill it at this interview. But then I remembered that Tracy wasn’t anything like me and that was a lot of the reason that I liked her.
I started climbing the stairs as Tracy had already landed at the second-floor platform. I saw a door open and light spread into the hallway and, abruptly, an unfamiliar smile plastered itself over Tracy’s face and she bent her knees and turned to me with arms outstretched like she was presenting the big act at a show and said:
“Here she is!” just as I stepped onto the landing and turned to face the doorway. The man who had opened the door for Tracy stood just in front of it. He was younger than I thought he would be, probably about forty.
To be honest, all the times that I’d spent on the phone with Tracy, listening to her talk about her new job and boss, Ricky, owner of Bat Dog dog walking company, I’d been picturing someone vaguely resembling Danny Divito. The man I encountered was in fact several inches taller than Danny Divito. He was clean-shaven and his skin gave off a grayish, yellow hue. He had a full-head of sandy-blonde hair, a big nose and glasses that covered eyes that already seemed to be dissecting me as I stepped in front of him.
I turned to Tracy and saw that she suddenly has this goody two-shoes smile on her face and heard her speak in a voice that was unfamiliar to me, maybe because I had never seen Tracy trying to impress someone before. Or, well, trying to impress someone with something other than her ability to pull safeties off lighters or roll three-skinners. She sounded younger and more naive than usual and the tone was working with her freckles and red hair to paint a picture of a person much different than the one that I’d always known Tracy to be. The strangest part was that it all seemed sort of… natural.
The guy didn’t extend his hand toward me and I was sort of surprised to feel myself plaster a smile like Tracy’s stupid one right onto my own goddamn face. I heard that sickly sweet tone tumble from my own mouth and suddenly I was squealing:
“Hi! I’m Jamie!”
The guy didn’t respond he just looked at me seemingly unsure of why I’d addressed him, then looked at Tracy and conveyed a lot of information with just a squint right in her eyeline. Then he stepped back and let Tracy come through the doorway and then I just followed behind, even though no one invited me, not even with their eyes.
Immediately upon entering the bright and crowded living room, I instinctively dropped to my knees and held my arms out to the dogs that howled and flew to me, seemingly from every direction! At the same time my senses were delighted by the sweet familiar smell of cigarette smoke and my eyes swallowed in the three other people who somehow seemed distantly apart in this tiny space. Just as I was embracing the first dog who’d flown into my arms, a little one with long ears, the smoothest orange and white coat and the biggest most adorable brown eyes that were making my heart twist and flare with affection, I was stunned by a stream of cold liquid that hit me sharply on the side of the head! My hand flew to the point of penetration, just below my right temple and my head swiveled toward the direction the assault had come from. There stood the sandy-haired man: jaws clenched, cheeks aflame, his hand clutching a spray bottle which he held like a gun, feverishly squirting water on and manically shushing the barking dogs (and me?). His bespeckled eyes bulged with anger and with power. Power over those dogs, power over me and power over every person in that room who did not bat an eye at what was happening in front of them. They continued at their tasks and took, or pretended to take, little notice of me or what was happening to the dogs in front of me…I felt stunned.
The man, who Tracy, at some point in her moronic speech had introduced to me as “Ricky” motioned for me to sit down at the only available space aside from in the room and everyone else sort of fell into pockets of chairs or good leaning spots, they let dogs climb into their laps or laze at their sides, and it all seemed too perfect to be by-chance but also too nonchalant to have been planned.
As I sat, I looked around the room which was tiny, but well-organized. The decoration was simple, everything seemed a shade of beige or white, and it seemed surprisingly clean though it was currently hosting multiple dogs and people dressed to work in the outdoors. The desk which held two giant computer monitors lent an air of seriousness to the place which contrasted sharply with the rows and rows of comic books that lined the walls.
Ricky sat down on a desk chair on wheels which he wheeled away from the desk at the end of the room and over to the rug that was under the futon I’d been directed to. He pushed it just about four feet away from me and stared at me, straight in the eyes. It was so hard to keep his stare and keep staring back, but, for some reason, I did. And that made all the difference.
For the first time in a very long while, things seemed serious. This wasn’t a joke: this Hollywood set of a neighborhood was one that could be my workspace, these dogs, one of whom, the little white and orange one I’d met upon arrival, was currently crawling into my lap and sprawling, lacksidasically into my arms, could be my new companions. My friend, who was regretting putting herself out on a limb for me could be happy that she had. More than that, all of the people in the room I was currently in seemed invested in this interview. They were a team, they belonged together, and these dogs belonged with them. I wanted that. My getting any of these things depended on this interview.
Ricky dropped our staring contest (winning still, somehow), and picked up a pack of Reds from the little side table next to him. He pulled out one of the cigs and hung it under his top lip, lit a match and held it to his cig and inhaled. He did this in such an unhurried, important and mechanical way that he told everyone in the room what he wanted to be seen as: dominant. Then, as suddenly as he’d dropped it, he took up my gaze and started to ask questions, slow and seemingly improvised, but constant, darting, unexpected, calculated. I kept up.
He asked me why I’d moved to New York and I responded that I’d wanted a change, I was young and didn’t have anything holding me back. He dug deeper. It didn’t take him long to learn that I wasn’t close with my family and that I didn’t have a lot of savings, but also that I was well-spoken and quick on my feet. After a few more questions Ricky asked what I would do if I didn’t get this job that I was interviewing for? I smiled and said that I would “Make a job out of getting a job,” which was a line that I had stolen from my current but soon-to-be-ex boyfriend’s dad who was always suggesting to his son, Ethan, who was chronically unemployed and spent most of his time watching movies, drinking beer and sometimes doing heroin in his father’s basement. This particular line never made an appreciable impression on Ethan, but it sure seemed to on Ricky. I could tell that he’d liked it.
Then Ricky started to ask me about what I liked to do outside of work and things got a little more difficult because at the time I didn’t really have any strictly “legal” hobbies, but, refusing to flounder, I fell back on a line that was tried and true, stuff adults love to hear come from the mouths of freckle-faced youths: “I like to read.” Three simple words, I’d so soon regret.
Ricky stomped out his cigarette, put his head down and took a deep breath, then he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes locking onto mine and said, quietly: “Well… what do you like to read?”
I started to stumble a little…trying to remember the last time I’d read a book. I thought back to that night I’d read Harry Potter while rolling on ecstasy, but decided that wasn’t a good one for sharing with this crowd. Frantically, I thought of Rebecca Wells and Pat Conroy books that I’d read as a preteen after my parents had discarded them. Suddenly I was saying, “I like to read southern authors, books set in the south.” And I smiled in the sweetest way I knew how.
His face revealed no emotion, but his chin lifted a little and he shot back: “Who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird?”
Shit. I knew it was a softball. I’d had to read it freshman year and the most embarrassing part was that I had read it and liked it, qualities totally at-odds with the persona I was going for in high school, so I didn’t vocalize any of that to my freshman English class where we learned all about the author who was…who was…mother fucking fuck.
I hadn’t used my brain this much in a while. My daily life didn’t require much! I usually woke up hungover, smoked a couple of bowls or joints with whomever I could get to drive me to whatever minimum-wage job I was currently (but probably not for long) holding. There I’d spend most of the day nursing my hangover, eating-for-free and then going home to get high and plastered with my friends.
Thinking this hard reminded me of the breath-holding contests I was always having with myself when I jumped into pools as a kid. I’d get down on the wall, my arms stretched behind me, holding the gutter, my feet pressed flat to the sides of the pool, my mouth hovering half-open at the surface of the water, then I’d take a deep breath and thrust forward, my head diving below the surface, and I would swim as far as I could without coming up for air. My goal was always to make it to the other end of the pool, but always, sometimes only mere strokes before, my heart would be pounding so hard in my ears and I’d start to involuntarily gag and I’d be forced to push to the surface for air: that’s what I felt right now. Only I was searching for a memory that was just strokes away, and instead of drowning I was in danger of a brain-aneurism from thinking too hard on my first time out in a while.
“I uhh…don’t remember,” I admitted, dropping my eyes and pulling the dog in my lap a little closer. Ricky lifted his eyebrows, took in a long breath, and looked down to stamp out his cigarette. Then he leaned forward, as if to stand up.
No! I thought, desperately, I need this.
“I-I remember she was neighbors with Truman Capote, though. Dill was based on him. People thought Capote was the real author,” I said this last part with a little sigh of laughter, trying to convey that I knew volumes, I just couldn’t be put on the spot! I was that kind of nerd, shy, only needing a strong mentor! He paused, leaned back in his chair a little, putting his fingers together and tilting his head a little as he began fixing his stare back on me, more inquisitive than piercing now.
“Do you think he wrote it?” And, regaining momentum, I pretended to contemplate for a while, but really just remembered what my mom had told me about that controversy one night on a rare and pleasant hangout between the two of us, while she was doing dishes and asking me what I was up to at school. Then I said,
“No, I don’t really think so.” He nodded his head, not in understanding, but granting me a point of some kind, then dropped it again and picked it up again and locked eyes with me and said:
“What’s your reasoning?”
Now here was somewhere I could shine. An open-ended question with no correct answer. Bullshit was my forte. I relaxed and launched into an explanation, something about how Capote seemed a little too serious to have created the character of Scout. Of course, I’d never actually read Capote, but I sensed that it was an appropriate answer, and my senses were doing pretty well that day because he seemed to accept the answer. Not that he said anything…he just squinted at me, nodded his head a little, then pulled the pack of cigarettes from the little table next to him and took out another, though he had just stomped his last one out.
This time, he paused after sticking the cig under his top lip. He leaned over toward me and held out the pack of Reds. It could have been seen as a nice gesture, but I could tell this was just another test…a test not to see whether I was quick on my feet, pleasant, or well-spoken…a test to see if I was one of them. I sensed that it was important that I accepted, so it was pretty goddamn lucky that I was actually dying for a Red. After I accepted he struck a match, cupped his hand around it and leaned over toward me, offering the light. I inhaled, careful not to let the first drag all the way in as I’d heard it was very unhealthy to inhale deep after lighting your cig with a match, carcinogens or something like that, then Ricky lit his own with the same match (but no one had told him about the initial, unhealthy drag because he took a deep one), then stamped out that match and took another long inhale. The room was silent, he held us all in the balance, no one moved except for me, putting my Red back up to my lips and taking an impressive pull. Then Ricky looked back into my eyes, and I met his gaze. The questions continued, but the tone was different, I sensed that I’d been accepted, and I was right, because once we’d stamped out our cigs Ricky put his hands on his knees and hoisted himself onto his feet, and held his hand out to me. He still didn’t quite smile, but rather stared at me pensively, then held out his hand. I smiled and took his hand in mine. As we shook he said “I like you, Jamie. You can have the job.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
