~ ~ ~ Hello San Dog
~ ~ ~ Chapter 1
As I rose I bore witness to the sun, smiling gracefully through the wood frame window. My dwellings were less than accommodating, I could traverse the entire width and breadth of my apartment in a few steps. Aside from a small, steel frame bed and an oak dresser, my square residence consisted of only a wall-mounted television and a wastebasket. No telephone, no bathroom, and no amenities to speak of.
I leaned out the window, the morning city air and the spray of the sea just a few blocks to the west hailed my wakefulness. I recalled the night, or perhaps the pre-dawn morn when I was startled from my slumber by the angelic sounds of trolley cars passing through the transit station several floors below. The shrill wail of their compression brakes were haunting and cryptic. I equated them to the midnight voices of the feminine sea, a realization of le beau ideal.
I looked out eastward down Broadway, where the slithering mass of cars, buses, pedestrians and bicycles made the city floor a crawling carpet of activity. I got dressed, turned the television off and locked my door behind me. Down the hall on the right was the floor's bathroom. I stood in front of one of the half dozen aged porcelain sinks and took my toiletries out of a plastic zip-lock bag. My disposable razor, shaving cream, toothbrush and paste were all still damp from their last use. Grooming myself before the public mirror, I was soon joined by a gruff, older man who too was shaving at another sink.
I stepped into the elevator and made my way downstairs. The front lobby of the YMCA was busy with the stoic faces of its tenants, who enjoyed the first few hours of a sedentary day over orange juice and doughnuts. I left my humble place of temporary residence and put my feet to work, walking Broadway with the purpose of a business man. The streets were my companion, their asphalt, cement and brick accommodated my every movement. Each building, standing firm and tall, seemed to put me at ease.
I made it to the building where I worked, at street level a bank with dozens of ubiquitous office floors above it. I entered the elevator, accompanied by another fellow who worked in the same office. Arriving quickly on the seventh floor I made my way past the executive liaisons, stopping at my supervisors' desk to grab a handful of fresh, three by five cards on which were printed the names and telephone numbers of an endless supply of unsuspecting potential 'customers'. I made my way through the sea of grey cubicles and to my own station, which to an untrained eye would have appeared identical to the rest. Before me sat a single cream-colored telephone on an otherwise clean and empty desk.
My work day was made up of the incessant phoning of strangers to whom I read a script encouraging them to make an appointment to attend a 90 minute timeshare presentation in return for one of four prizes. The mindlessness of telemarketing left me to my own subconscious facilities to make the day go by faster. This, however, would often produce the unfortunate side effect of employee apathy.
It was only when I noticed an unfamiliar couple walking into the office that I became at all interested in my immediate conditions. A young girl and a much older gentleman, he could have been her grandfather, they seemed more like old friends than relations. Newly hired, the two sat at adjacent, empty cubicles perhaps two rows ahead of mine. For some reason I was drawn to them, and I watched them from my desk. The man was thin and pale, with the weathered face of age, the girl looked as soft as a peach, with very curly, strawberry-blonde hair spilling over a cute face.
For a great chunk of the day the old man and girl captured all my attention, and it didn't even occur to me that I wasn't making any appointments. Due to some quasi-legal mumbo-jumbo I'd haplessly signed upon getting the job, this meant my pay was to be docked. It would be the first in a long series of introductions to the cold, cruel world of capitalism for me.
At the end of my shift I left the building innocuously and decided to splurge on some ninety-nine cent Chinese food before heading out on the long way home. I took 9th ave north a few blocks and then went west on A street, alongside the trolley tracks that were fed by the main transfer station. A bright red Trolley sped east, with it four cars in perfect file, each a token to the brilliant San Diego transportation system. As the trolley disappeared into the distance, I noticed the odd couple from the office who I'd been watching earlier- they were walking in the same direction as I, but on the other side of the street. Suddenly, my curiosity reached its pique...