Back on the job

I remember some offhanded words of advice I received from a fellow employee of the summer camp I worked at. At the time, active follicles on my face were nothing more than an abstract concept. My skin, studded and pocked as it was by mid-teen acne, seemed to be destined only to breed an endless supply of stringy cores squeezed with gusto from whiteheads. The advice, and let me be frank, it was in fact not advice but in fact a comment overheard, directed not at me but to a well-bearded superior, was that for normal shaves one shaves ‘with the grain’. For those all important times, those times when reputation is on the line, you should shave against the grain to get a closer, more exquisitely smooth cheekbone, neck and upper lip. This tip, overheard nearly five years ago, is the reason I stood at my sink before my first shift back to work, examining my neck – freshly perforated as it was by a few deft swipes by my not only new but also first real razor at the age of very nearly twenty-three. Not to be dramatic, I’ll point out just how minor these cuts were, more nicks than real slices. Yet visually it was as though I had a guiding strip just above my adams apple, stretching from jugular to jugular, of just where to easily tear my throat away.

I went to my closet, a wad hanging under my chin like a toilet-paper turkey, and pulled out my uniform. White button-up dress shirt with black dress pants. These are important clothes and I take them importantly. I button the buttons with purpose. I imagine this is a ritual. I have a friend who among other things is a talented bartender. He once told me how he listened to Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean” every evening while he suited up for work. An anthem for the kind of raw charisma he wields behind the bar. But we are not equals in station. I’m buttoning up my shirt not to sling gin, have women brush the back of my hand with their breast when they lean in to get their drink, emerge at 3am in the downtown core a master of the night. I’m going to work for a university catering company, where I’ll remove chafing dishes and try not to let the water drip on white table clothes. I will ask people with my biggest shit-eating grin if they’re done with their glass and then I will take it from them and put it on my tray, holding it poised on the tips of my fingers to perhaps make it appear that this is a more expensive event than it is, that they’ve ordered some real service. It isn’t, honestly, that bad. But it is not glamorous. And so I will not have any music playing per say, but I will listen to it in my head. And as I get to the top button and decide to leave that bad boy open Michael isn’t even singing any more, I am, because I wrote this song, and because all the Billy Jeans are going to think that I’m the one tonight, unattainable with the hint of a thrilling grace in the way I move around their conference tables. It’s too bad for them that they will all not be my son, which is a part of that song I never understood.

There is a problem though, and it is with my pants. They are covered in lint, and between my bleeding neck and the half hour dream sequence I’ve just lived through I have very little time left before I have to be at work. My pants, after sitting for about two weeks in my luggage, are covered in lint. A quick check of the internet supplies a number of home remedies. Tape for one. A flurry of inspection reveals there is no tape in the apartment. Add vinegar to the wash? It is far too late for that. What I was left with was a decidedly low tech lint removing idea posted on google answers. Get your hands wet and wipe. If anyone should be in a similar situation I would suggest this method, as it was in the end quite effective. However, for simplicities sake put the pants on and just stand in front of the sink and alternate between wiping your pants down and washing the collected link off your hands. Don’t drape your pants over a chair in your living room and run back and forth from the bathroom wearing black dress socks and a dress shirt. It’s hard on your dignity even if no one walks in.