I came and I was sat down in another plushy red chair and I'd be there for 9 hours doing more quizzes and learning the history of the company. It was like school but somehow worse; I'd at least be getting $9 an hour which at that time, around 2012 was pretty much the same even accounting for inflation.
I sat there and clicked and clicked and clicked and watched videos on their desktop. I guess old Macy was a traveling gypsy and the store started out as a sort of snake oil salesman setup, then eventually he got the idea to sell pants and now we have the current incarnation.
Music pumped in through the speakers, and it was a mix of "closing time' by semi sonic, and "Beautiful' by Christina Aguilera. Was it a message?
I finished the ****, then they propped me up and had me do paperwork, and I had no record. I crossed 'No' on the molestation portion and did my drug test the next day. I passed again, and came in and was escorted around the mannequins into the Women's Intimates section. Wow, this is like a bad movie I thought.
"here you just sort through the clothes and put them back on the rack" the supervisor said coldly.
How the **** do you put underwear and bras back on the rack?
"And if customers have a question provide direction or assistance" she said then left and I was all alone picking up underwear off the ground and bras like a strange lost person.
   Right away customers approached me with their questions.
"Where's the restroom?"
" I believe it's over there" and I'd point north. They went North.
" Help, I need rung up!"
I pointed north again.
"There's no one there! Can't you ring me up" they'd say irately
"No It's my first day"
And they'd skitter elsewhere and I'd continue folding the underwear and bras. It was really boring. So many ****-colored ******* and bras, and hideous blue-green dresses clumped up like angry ***** of yarn, kicked around, someone else's problem.
   It'd be time for my lunch break then I'd wander the mall and buy some Thai food or something. I'd sit on the bench overlooking the lobby and the fountain and comtemplate existence and existentialism and what led me to this place, in a mall, air-conditioned folding ******* for $ nine dollars an hour. The more I thought, the more questions would arise and I'd inevitably feel panicked when coming back in.
  I wandered the halls aimlessly in the store, doing nothing. I had practically no supervision. I just got lost and meandered and took 5 ***** a day wondering when I'd be be called out. I never was. I got bored of taking ***** and when my break came up I couldn't take another ****. I didn't smoke then, so I had absolutely nothing to do. When my time was up for the day I was thankful. I drove home listening to bad punk music,
probably Adolescents. Probably Kids of the black hole.

There was nothing I could do. I was a man now as of 4 hours and 22 minutes ago and thus needed to secure myself a job. I could no longer just sit in my room ******* and eat bowls of cereal and resign myself to nothing any longer, nor naively pursue a career in music that wasn't going to happen; I was talented but perhaps I didn't have the drive? I had to get a job. I had to 'do something', so I went online and found the first thing that popped up. It was Macys, a general clerk so I applied and of course the questionnaire was 3 pages and tested my aptitude. Did I have an IQ above room temperature? If so that'd make me a cashier, if not a boxboy. I ended up as a dressing room attendant.
     The interview was fine and was my first. I wore my dad's blue shirt and some shoes I stole a week previous since I didn't feel the need to buy shoes I'd likely be wearing once I rationalized.
I sat in the waiting room and it was before social media and smart phones so I thumbed through some magazines for thirty minutes then was eventually called. The interviewer seated me in a plushy red throne, and he had a nice haircut.
"So what brings you to Macy's" he said to me bluntly.
"I like this store. I shop here a lot and feel like I'd be a good fit" which was a lie; I never in my life shopped there.
" Okay, and tell me a time where you encountered a struggle, and how did you resolve it?"
I had to think for a moment, actually several moments and we sat there in uncomfortable silence for what seemed minutes. I was nervous.
"Ummm, a time I encountered a struggle and had to resolve it? Well there was a little dog that got hit in front of my house before, and all the kids were crying and I consoled them and performed CPR on that dog and he ended up surviving but died later in the hospital. and it was pretty traumatic and a lot of blood"
"okay that sounds heartbreaking, but moreso an experience that relates to working in a retail store"
"I used to sell cookies door to door"
"Yes that seems more relevant" he said while marking his clipboard.
And the interview went on and I felt for sure I blew it, but I shook his hand firmly like I'd always been told and looked him in the eye.
"Thank you, I really appreciate the opportunity" I told him while exiting.
always show gratitude they'd say; well I wasn't grateful and didn't want that job, but I read enough how-to's online. it was an act, an audition and I think I gave a good enough performance. A few days later I got the call and was told to come in for orientation.
I was trapped. It was the beginning.

massive headache, splitting my skull and poking my diseased brain;
I can't keep
living this way, facing no where, and kissing dust. I can't keep believing in pagan fairytales and digging countless graves for every piece of me that dies, every single day, and so pitifully
  I need relief and I don't know what it'll take. 10 years of this,  10 years of
  how and why. the floors are squeaky clean now, and the doors are locked with rusty chains. I open my heart to you, praying for refuge

one day I'll be gone and we'll both be free

I realize I was writing a lot of abstraction without direction. any loser and fraud can write
''
  leaves pronounce the petulant tongue in noon like
leaky
dreams for a feathered
    fawn for its squirming young & the mouth opens for a foster mother in blue jeans.
  squeeze the juice of eternal life into a
  paper cut for faded  faculties"

it's alright, but it's not as impressive as saying ' Took a walk and I felt like blowing my brains out; it is 2:21 pm and I'm bored'
  it takes some guts to be vulnerable is all I'm saying, I like hiding behind abstraction, but when the hurt comes there are only so many purple skies and crippled hands you can paint; the void doesn't care about emotion but I sometimes like spitting in the face of eternity.
  an ant against an army of sorrow; you know the outcome, but you still try, to some avail

bukowski's greatest accomplishment is that his books are the most frequently stolen from book stores;
     No one would bother stealing Moby ****. live on you old ****

greg comes down. he stills lives with his mother at 52,
and is perpetually clutching a coors banquet in his left hand, and his pinky is contorted in a grotesque fashion. his eyes are black without expression, and everything he says is sincere, but laughs at innapropriate times.
He helps us dig the ditch for the bones of the dog in the backyard,
it died when it was attacked by the Great Dane which was subsequently euthanized. He had the idea to put the carcass in a trash bag and now it stunk and the body was a frothing mess of decay.
We laid the bag in as he ****** on his coors banquet.
"GOD REST ITS SOUL"
he said.
we said a prayer; it seemed appropriate. and after the dog was buried, he got in his car, totally drunk and drove back to his mamas.
The stereo blasted Pink Floyd "Wish you were here" on vinyl, and it happened to be 2am. Someone puked on the floor and I promptly went to bed whilst someone ****** in the kitchen. I don't know how I got there, but I was spoonfed yogurt in the night while some random girl ****** me off. good dreams, and hot nights. my shoes sat in the corner staring at the sin. & I made sure to say goodnight     in the morning
as I drove off to Los alisos on the corner of Jeronimo and El toro