I Played the Blues With Someone Who Knows, October 20, 2005

Slight context- I delivered newspapers at night for two months during my sophomore year of college (September and October)
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I got to the depot at around two thirty, Paul wasn't there of course, he never gets in until about 3 or 3:15 and we don't leave until about 3:30. I folded my papers as usual. I thought that I'd only have a few papers, I forgot that a lot of people only get the Sunday New York Times, which ballooned my work from 15 to 72 papers. To top it all off, I had to build the papers myself, since the Sunday times is so large they deliver it in two sections. I got down to building the papers next to this pretty big guy with a gold cap and a huge gold cross hanging down from his neck. He had a white hat that said tennis on it, and he had a cocky smirk even though the rest of his face hadn't held up well over the 40 odd years that he'd been alive. I hoped that I could hurry up and fold my half of the papers and be gone right when Paul came in, I wasn't in the mood to talk. I noticed how barren the depot was on Sunday, there was maybe a third of the people who were there on a weekday or Saturday. On the weekdays there were just as many white people as there were black people, tonight I saw only the white faces of the managers and the swing drivers. I was guessing that the black folk needed the money just a little bit more, or figured that an extra 30 or 40 bucks was worth the additional loss of sleep. Either way, the atmosphere of the place was a little different, a little less light, a little bit angrier, but just a little more comfortable as well.
I had been folding papers for about 10 minutes when the man across from me started talking, rather complaining about working for other people and how much he hated it, but also how he had to do it his entire life. Moreover he was angry that his son did not listen to him and instead of going into contracting business with his old man and living at home he decided to work for the government in some type of welfare office and live by himself, which according to him was pure folly. He also wanted his son to keep playing football after college, which his son also didn't want to do. Apparently he was offered a scout team contract with the Rams but refused it, not wanting to go through the rigors of playing football anymore. It was just pure childishness, his son was 23 and instead of being of his father's thumb for an indefinite amount of time, he wanted to be independent, and his father openly wanted him to fail.
He then delved into his life story, how he played for the Kansas City Chiefs for two years before a knee injury forced him to quit. Out of work and with no education, he became a University City school district janitor, which was his job for the next twenty years. In the time span he had two children by two different women, the latter one he married. About 4 or 5 years ago though the wheels fell off of everything, his wife cheated on him and he got divorced, he was accused of sexual harrassment at work and forced to resign with only a third of his pension, and he had been delivering papers and doing odd jobs ever since. His face became noticeably softer as he talked about the past 5 years and he went through ever twist and turn, his voice cracked. There weren't any tears, but I'm sure that they had been cried out into his pillow or over a stiff drink plenty of times before. He paused for a second after that, and then he went back to talking about his son and the lunacy of trying to be independent while being young. I hadn't said a word the entire time he told his story, but I piped in with a comment disagreeing. I said that everyone feels that way while they're a young adult, whether it's right or wrong. The ability to win or lose, succeed or fail on your own is intoxicating, one of the most attractive parts of getting away from your parents. After I finished my case for his son the man’s face changed again, this time in total disbelief that someone would disagree with him so matter of factly, especially someone as young and small as me disagreeing with someone so old and large as he was. At that moment he looked a little like my ex-girlfriend’s father. The type of arrogant man who could never fathom the fact that he could be wrong sometimes. He held his disbelief on his face as he carefully explained again, in almost the same words, how foolish it was to try and be young and independent, like the reason for my disagreement was that I hadn't heard him. He then went on to explain that he would have listened to his father if he had one in his life, how he would have played football (because it got him so far in life) and tried to work for himself instead of getting a government job. We were quiet afterward, I never told him that I agreed with him, I just looked down and finished my last batch of papers and placed them in one of my boxes. He finally spoke up again and I was worried that he would start talking about how his son again, and he did, except it was something I didn't expect to here. "Maybe I really just want to live my life through him." He paused and was about to speak again but he stopped and just smiled and finished folding his papers. By the look on his face, I guess he was going to say "It's not like I'm doing that good with mine, maybe I could do better with his." But he didn't, he just told me good luck with my route and we both walked out the depot with our papers.