Cleaned out apartments, groomed horses, carried concrete forms, washed out storm drains with a firehose, got up at three in the morning to bread chicken for a fast food restaurant, the stinking smell of the breading is still fresh in my mind, fifty years later.
Made a dollar and a nickel an hour, got fired when I asked for a dollar and a dime.
I did what I had to do to survive, like most of us. Painted signs, built houses, ran a financial research firm for a little while. All sorts of crap.
And since about 1990 I have exclusively hustled paintings and antiques, was never exactly easy and there were a lot of times when it was next to impossible, but I managed to soldier on and survive while watching a great many cohorts bite the dust and exit the arena. Hooray for me. Last man standing.
I like the job, there's no boss, a lot of freedom and only one person to praise or to blame when it goes upside down, me. Plus you meet a lot of nice folks.
I figure I will try to hold out for seven more years, until I am 75. Several of my cronies have made it to 80 but it gets harder as you get older, especially the long hours driving.
The grand plan, if I make it that long, is to cash in whatever chips I have left in 2032. Hopefully have a few years to mess around and have fun before some orderly starts feeding me gruel in the old age home and wheels me off to the bingo game.
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I mention this because I am running into a weird phenomenon. I have friends who did everything right and got the cush corporate job or public gig and retired early. They retired when people are supposed to, in their mid sixties. Now they knock on my door or call me up and ask me when we can go play? Of course, they did everything right and I engaged in a different sort of play and fucked around and continually shot myself in the foot. Should have stayed on the straight and narrow.
My bad.
I have to explain that I can't go out and have fun, can't really get off the hamster wheel. It may not look like I am working but I am. Can't take a vacation and haven't in years. Money pours out like a sieve in this life, my insurance bills alone on home and shop would send most into a catatonic state.
I really can't take a break. I travel for shows or business, or deaths in the family. That is about it.
I have to keep pushing the pedal to the metal and crossing my fingers or the house of cards collapses. Happily, tragedy has been averted so far, but only narrowly. Perhaps that is why it is easier to congregate with people on a similar income level?
A buddy was flabbergasted the other day when he found out that I didn't have a Roth or 401 k plan. Actually, I put what little money I have left over into inventory, it is how most of my ilk survives. Frightening, isn't it?
No trust fund, no inheritance, just an eye, a mind and a decent ability to communicate with people. What does that get you? Not a lodge in Wisconsin or a second home in Kennebunk, I can assure you.
Was probably a fool's errand from day one but it was the path I chose and the horse I picked to ride. Never said I was all that smart. So don't ask me to come out to play because I honestly can't. I've got too much shit to do. Enjoy your retirement. Have fun. But don't hold my seat. And I'm not saying I don't enjoy life along the way. I do.
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Had a friend who married well and never worked much. I don't hear from him anymore, never calls except for a postcard once or twice a year from an exotic locale. Bora Bora, New Zealand, wherever. I am honestly happy for them but can't help but feel like my nose is getting rubbed in it. He wants me to know that he is living the great life for some reason but he no longer wants to talk to me. Well, good for him.
I know another man whose father was a prominent national architect. The family decided to ride out the great depression by circumnavigating the globe a couple times on the queen whatever.
I was a prep school student in New York Coty, on scholarship. Knew a fellow whose family had a gigantic floor in the Dakota. You rarely see a green persian carpet but this antique one on the floor was a hundred foot long if it was a foot. Took my breath away.
He had three names, Harding Winthrop something or other. Another family that was setting out to go round the world for a year or two on the family skiff.
Toodleoo! A neat fellow honestly and one who lived in a part of the world that I would never encounter.
Beautiful, the rich get to skate, I get it. Not my fate.
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I drove seven hours yesterday, three and a half hours each way to Chatsworth in terrible traffic. Lawyer fellow told me that thirty years ago I had promised to handle his estate at a fraction of my normal rate. Don't exactly remember that but, as a man of my word, thought I would come up for a look see.
Spent all day giving free appraisals to the couple, took two minor paintings home.
I wrote up a rough and honest appraisal today. They just got back to me, bring the two paintings back, they paid more back when. It was honestly a little test on my part. The cost benefit equation did not favor me whatsoever. I would never pay for my time. Lets see if I can sneak out the back, jack.
I am done. I was trying to help them but nothing there I really need and nothing I can't live without.
I won't be making a special trip back, probably easier to write the whole thing off and just stick them in the mail.
Whoops, I did it again.
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Had a cool thing happen the other day. I get up at five and got dressed, sat on the couch and watched my two cats fixated on something outside the screen door.
Hmmm, wonder what they are checking out?
I never went over to look and went my merry way.
Leslie called a few hours later. She said that she got up shortly after I did. She actually walked over to the door and saw a giant buck mule deer out the window. For months we have seen the large doe and her fawn but not the male deer.
We rarely see deer in Fallbrook and in forty five years have never had one in the yard. He jumped a four foot fence. Leslie said he was proud, strong and grateful.
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