Is Gregg There?
After losing my job at The Pennysaver, I was despondent. I couldn’t understand why, after my abhorrent behavior for two years, they’d suddenly decided to fire me. I’d thought my colleagues were my friends. My job was fun. My boss let me get away with everything … until suddenly, he didn’t.
So I was alone. I had no money.
“Can you pay the rent this month?” I asked Gregg, “just until I find another job?”
“Of course!” Gregg said.
Fortunately I had two weeks’ worth of pay coming in, so I could afford to keep drinking and drugging.
It was summer and the construction industry was booming. I was glad I’d been fired at a convenient time for Gregg to take over payments.
Gregg would wake up early, pull on his dirty jeans, and head out. I would roll over and go back to sleep until noon. Or 2 o’clock. Or 4 o’clock.
And eventually, Gregg would come back. His jeans and shoes would be splattered with drywall or paint or mud, and he’d leave his shoes outside the door on the porch. Whatever he was doing made him utterly filthy every day.
But he didn’t bring a change of clothes, so he didn’t bother showering. We just went right to the bar whenever he got home.
One day I called him at work. “Is Gregg there?”
“Gregg who?” said the female who’d answered the phone.
I gave his last name.
“He doesn’t work here anymore,” she said.
“He doesn’t work there?” I asked incredulous. “Are you sure?”
“Quite sure,” she said. “He got fired about eight months ago.”
I hadn’t even known Gregg for eight months. And I was very sure this was the only company he’d ever mentioned. Every day, he’d gone off to work and ….
“But he comes home dirty every day,” I told the woman. “Is it possible you just haven’t seen him?”
“I do the payroll,” she said. “He hasn’t worked here in eight months.”
“Thanks,” I said, hanging up the phone.
Then I waited approximately four hours for Gregg to come home “from work.”
I met him on the porch, and gaped at his newly splattered jeans.
“How was work today?” I asked.
“Good,” he said. He leaned in to kiss me. I turned my head away.
“I called you,” I said.
“Oh I don’t work there anymore,” he said, before I’d told him who I called.
“Right,” I said. “So where do you work? And are you making enough to pay the rent?”
“I still work construction, just a different company,” he said – again, without knowing who I’d called. “Somebody my brother knows.”
He had five brothers. I considered asking him which of his brothers, but decided not to follow him down this rabbit hole.
“You don’t have a job, do you?” I asked.
Suddenly Gregg hung his head in shame. It was the same reaction he’d had when I’d realized that he’d stolen my life savings from the underwear drawer.
“I can’t find a job,” he said. “I go out every day and look! But there’s no work right now!”
Having just been fired, I suddenly felt bad for Gregg. I hugged him from where I sat on my stool.
He nuzzled his head into my shoulder. “I didn’t know what to tell you,” he choked. “I don’t know if I can pay the rent.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
It was so not okay.
But someone had to pay the rent. “Keep looking,” I said.
“Okay,” Gregg said.
“I’ll get a job.” I said.
And I did.