The follwing piece was created for a benefit for CHIRP, a story series where the authors write about "Firsts". Within each story, a song or musical artist is reference and a band, the former members of Chicago's own, Frisbee, plays that song or a song from the referenced musical artist afterwards. I wrote and performed in "My First Job" at Uncommon Ground on June 30th, 2010. My story is entitled, "Ups and Downs in The Hunan Province". I referenced Prince and the "Purple Rain" Soundtrack. I let the musicians choose the song and they chose, "Take Me With You", which was a great choice. Here is the piece-
My first job that paid me in cash rather than in pizza-
Was the type of summer job you'd expect a 15 yr old girl to have over summer break-
As an elevator operator for a Chinese restaurant.
I was on summer vacation from the School for Creative and Performing Arts where I was a Drama major and Art minor which I later switched to a Creative Writing minor, eventually switching to not going to school. 2 dance major-friends of mine, Tracy and Judith, had gotten jobs running the elevator at the House of Hunan Restaurant and there was a spot for one more person- was I interested? I said "Cool. I'll do it". Just that much thought went into my employment there because I had to get whatever my friends had, a thread of belief that made up the fabric of my entire youth, my first drunk, giving away my virginity to my best friend's charismatic high-school-dropout boyfriend, a few bouts of the clap, shop-lifting, running away and mohawks.
As Oscar Wilde said, “Youth is wasted at the Clinic."
I even walked like Tracy and Judith, like dance majors, with my feet turned out in first position, like duck feet, which were on the menu.
For a well-regarded Chinese eatery with an impressive menu and elegant interior, the owners, Sue & Sonny (not there Chinese names) had a somewhat lax interview process. There was none. The references of my turned-out friends were enough for them to hire me. I wish all employers had similar practices.
2 evenings a week, in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, in an old, commercial brick building I would answer the ring of a bell and transport eager diners from a dingy, linoleum covered ground floor lobby to the second floor, to the delicacies of the Orient, to the House of Hunan.
Operating the actual elevator took me a couple of weeks to master, trying to maneuver the hand crank to get the car level with the floor so the guests weren't doing a Neil Armstrong into the restaurant. The guests were enchanted with the elevator. It amused me to make people happy. The guests responded with ooh's and aah's and tales of riding in old elevators when they were kids, or they'd make jokes. They'd make these jokes:
5th floor please ha ha ha.
Lady’s lingerie ha ha ha.
And my favorite joke, made by local television personality and host of the kiddie show of the same name- Uncle Al-
"I bet this job has a lot of ups and downs."
This joke was my favorite because in my first real, brave act I responded,
‘Yes, and that joke is one of them.”
Which made Uncle Al laugh loudly and me feel very proud.
Occasionally someone used physical humor, pretending to trip as they got off the elevator though I was sure I lined it up perfectly. Oh, You jokester!
Looking back at getting that job, it was an unintentional departure from my otherwise Larry Clarkesque existence, because the 2 nights a week I worked, I never drank there, never screwed anyone, never even smoked a Marlboro red and always dressed appropriately. I was on time.
Maybe the MSG was having an effect on me.
I just sat at the end of the bar, sorting the menus and waiting for the bell to ring, fantasizing how I was going to make it from this place to Minneapolis and get discovered by Prince because he needed a tall, gangly white girl to round out his entourage. A straight one.
Look, there were many opportunities in my life to go on to be star in music, dance, theater, art and writing, right in my school - Carmen Electra went there- but one had to participate, had to audition and I was too frightened, though I didn’t know I was afraid. My fear came out in jealousy, resentment, bitterness, rage and self-hatred. My head was really loud with self-loathing pep-talks. All I knew was to follow my brain, not the yelling of Moms, advice of teachers, counselors and friends. Instead of honing my craft, I drank away the voices. At school I was a hoodlum, a juvenile delinquent in leg warmers and backwards Forenza sweaters.
During my first shift at the restaurant, I was invited to sit at the family table and share the shift meal with Sue, Sonny and some family. We made as much short, awkward conversation as the language barrier allowed. They smiled though when I ate with chopsticks and I thought, "Well this is my new family." However, on my 2nd shift, when I plopped down in their booth for the shift meal, Sue gave Sonny a look and he said, "No, you sit over there," and pointed to the empty bar.
I felt embarrassed and sorry for myself for a few shifts but I went back. liked the break from the party house, or party garden apartment, I hung out at, where my fellow delinquents and I hung out drinking and screwing each other. Then I'd go home in my jizm-stained mini skirt, put the Purple Rain Soundtrack and stare in the mirror, crying and singing along-
How can you just leave me standing / alone in a world that's so cold…
I was miserable, lying to my Mom while she worked 2 jobs, lying to come off like a nice American girl at the Chinese restaurant, lying to myself by entertaining fantasies of my greatness while not working on what might make me great.
Sonny made idle chit-chat with me once. "Do you like Michael Jackson?" I should have said, “Yes”, offered any polite interaction but I shut him down. "Um, no." Sonny looked at me puzzled and walked into the kitchen. I was losing it. I was a fraud, a dangerous fraud, my presence corrupting his restaurant.
I read so much into everything because there was a lot to read.
Culturally I was not impacted by working for this Taiwanese couple, not inspired to investigate their culture, because, outside of the food they ate their physical appearance and language, they kept seeming familiar. Sue wore a fur coat, they lived in the suburbs, they thought all races were inferior to theirs, blacks, whites, Vietnamese, poor and uneducated people –thought their shit didn’t stink. They seemed like Americans. Sue smacked a waiter on his head once. It was rumored Sonny beat the illegal cooks in the kitchen. But was this Chinese? Was it American? Or just the restaurant business? I guess I expected Confucius wisdom and calming Buddha quotes to pour out of my bosses because they were Chinese, but they just sounded like my relatives, my Croatian ones, my Latvian ones and my Tennessee hillbilly ones. But they gave me a job so I tried to be on their side and see their hard work and desire for a good, secure life. Besides, I was too entrenched in the glamorous world of teenage alcoholism to protest any injustices. I was too hung over to care.
I kept the job all summer and through the first quarter of the school year when consequences caught up with me and I got pregnant. It was automatically understood between my mother and me that I would get an abortion. I gave my 2 weeks notice to the restaurant because I was ashamed to be there though my Bosses never knew. I worked my last shifts, suffering with morning sickness so that I could not even enjoy the food.
I left there and slid down the tubes.
There were no more silly fantasies of going to live at Paisley Park, sorting Prince’s dry-cleaning and having his ear. I found much more hateful music in the Punk scene. There was no job driving the elevator. There was nothing. I went into a well-deserved depression.
I want to assure you though, that even the most Harmony Corrinian of kids can turn it around to become okay. I’m alright. I enjoy Chinese food, and when I run across an old-fashioned, hand-operated elevator, I find it much more than quaint. Ofcourse I say to the person running it,
“I bet this job has a lot of ups and downs.”
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