Act 2

2 months passed with no infractions and things started to look almost acceptable at work, actually I had simply become numb to my surrounding. Finally being separated from the rest of the team in my own office shared with only one other for only the 1st few hrs of the day, after which I promptly closed the door and dimmed the lights, concentrating on only me. Life at home was becoming irritating as well; Brian became obsessively late with his bill and rent payments causing static between the landlords and us, but to all that was numb a spark happened. I met Heather through Sean and Derrick on an outing I had on the spur of the moment organized. We were out at a spot kind of out in the middle of nowhere, and of course Brian and the others were trying to show who had the biggest balls, a game I care not to partake in as all it makes you like is an idiot. I could tell something was bugging Heather and could tell she was hoping she would be able to take her truck off 4-wheeling instead of sitting around a campfire watching them try and jump over the highest part of the flames, I fully understood her frustration and finally was able to convince her to go for a drive and get away from everyone.

As we rode around in her truck, we started talking and she told me how she knew Sean because he was Derrick’s best friend, and that she and Derricks used to be more than just friends. I told her how I knew them and we just started talking from there. After awhile I began seeing we had the same views on things, and even better we had the same type of eclectic music tastes. Within an hour I could see she was like any other woman I had met, she was in the most sense everything I looked for in a woman, and absolutely the most beautiful blue eyes I had ever seen in my entire life, and trust me when I say I’ve seen a lot of them, and that’s when I decided I had to know this girl. A few weeks passed and we started talking and hanging out more, I was definitely digging on this girl. The weeks went on and we got to know each other better, and started doing everything together when we could of course. I for the most part I could easily say I started falling for this girl. It had been a long time since I had felt that way, and it was for the most part a welcome relief from the work environment I was experiencing.

Carrie had gone on vacation and I found time to once again pursue actively climbing the corporate ladder, out of the prying and oppressing eyes of the Frau. I had left home 2 hrs early to work on a project with another coworker on my own time when disaster struck. On the 101-highway north a police cruiser waved me over and then passed on by without stopping. As I got out of my car to find out what he was waving at I realized I had a flat tire, but not just one flat tire but 2 flat tires, a piece of police tape trailing 9 ft behind me and a semi low front tire. Thinking I had plenty of time to resolve this issues, I called to work anyway to let them know just incase for some reason something else went wrong. Of course something did, my 2 back tires were completely flat and unable to hold air for more than a mile or two, and the front tire was slowly headed there as well. Eventually I made it to the auto repair shop across the street from my office, and called to let Joe, the assistant manager know where I was. As if things couldn’t get any worse. There was at least an hr wait before they could repair either of the tires, still with more than an hr and 2 minutes before I had to work I called and asked Joe if I could walk to work and then leave when they called to pick up my car, or if I could simply come in late. Joe reassured me it would be okay as he could see my down stairs from his office window. As the hour closed and my car was still in the bay, I called back again to confirm it was okay that I come in 5 min late, unfortunately he was in a meeting and was only able to reach Bridget, who obviously was not whom I wanted to speak with, so I simply took Joe’s 1st statement and finished up with my car and came drove it across the street and came to work.

Deep down I knew I should have simply called in sick and taken care of everything without any hassles. When I walked in the door no heads turned, no sudden gasps for breath were heard, it was like any other day, I even walked right past Joe, whom told me to get on the phones as normal, it was a normal day like any other, until 4 pm when all the upper management goes home and the majority of the office leaves for the day. That was when everything changed. Joe called me into the office with Jens the old school lackey for the Frau, and proceeded to point out my history of tardiness, emphasizing on the dates, centered on the Brian fiasco. I advised him of the previous concerns regarding this and noted that Carried excused them. His rebuttal was he had already spoken with Carrie and HR demanded an example be set no matter what may have been allowed previously. In a nutshell I was to be that example, so Joe asked me if there was anything I to say in regards to the issues, and without saying it in too many obscene words/looks, I let him know the whole situation was BS, and if he knew this was going to happen he should have simply told me not to come in when I called 2 hrs prior to having to be at work to begin with. Of course this resulted in no change of action or now that I look back on it even a remote glimpse of remorse on their part, of course I didn’t expect it either, but I suppose it would have been nice.

I went home that day and surprised everyone, it was so unexpected but at the same time we all sort of knew it was going to happen. 2 days passed and Brian just stopped going to work after a 2-week disappearing act. Sean had already picked up another part time gig to make his bills and I had saved enough for my last month. Brian had been working the nerves of both Sean and me or at least mine, and appeared to be so with Sean. It had been 5 months since we had moved in and on every 1st of the month Brian was consistently late with his rent and Sean ended up covering for him. I found this quite annoying as almost nightly Brian would pull Sean into his room and have some sort of secret society meeting, in which the events were never disclosed. From all eyes perspective Brian had taken Sean under his wing and was trying to act as a father figure to him of sorts. Brian got into the habit of calling Sean and I kids, who greatly annoyed me, as I’m older and more responsible than Brian, this is something that was often questioned by others to me. My response was “Let him live his little fantasy, when the shit hits the fan, the obvious will become even more apparent”, and hit the fan it did. After many meetings and talks with the landlords, they began to wonder about our status in the house. I told them I was planning on talking to Sean about kicking Brian out, to which they responded with “It’s about time”. Sean and I sat down a few nights later while Brian was out at the bar, while having no job still and discussed the situation, and concluded that we needed to approach Brian about the at the time mutual agreement to remove him from the house. We decided we would tell him when he came home, that didn’t seem to happen until the next morning, at which time Sean had to go to work and Brian went to bed, another day passed and Brian had still yet to give the landlord his share of the rent. Apparently earlier in the day Sean and his girlfriend Fawna, whom had been staying with us decided they were just going to move in with Sean’s parent s and save their money, the talk was off.

The next month was spent out of the house as much as possible, looking for jobs, and hanging out with Heather, the house was strangling me and I had to get out. Honestly speaking I think that if heather weren’t in my life at the time I would have just moved back to Sierra Vista or joined the military. Instead I spent the next month searching high and low on the now, drought ridden tech field, to no avail, when a mutual friend of Eric’s, let me know his ex roommate Jeff had got wind of some positions at a company called Effect Net, and that he’d let me know the details. A week or so passed and I’m awake to find an empty house, so I went about my daily routine, of semi cleaning the kitchen to make it look somewhat sanitary form Sean, Fawna, and brains late night dinner experiment. I say experiment because in a nutshell anything Brian tried to cook may have looked tasty but was extremely tasteless, and required massive amount of condiments to make edible. Then at about 3:30 Brian came strolling in and went straight to his room, at 4:10 he came out and told me Jeff had called for me about a job, and to call him back. When I spoke with Jeff he ribbed me about slacking, and inquired why I was calling back more than 6 hrs after brains he’d left the message with Brian. “What message”, I asked and was filled in with the details of an immediate position available at the company Eric had mentioned. Brian had taken the message that was meant for me and gone to the company for himself, applied, was hired and then went out and did whatever for nearly 4 hrs, without calling and giving me the message. Was I pissed, you’re damn right, but whether to make waves at this point was irrelevant. I called and got an interview setup for the next day and was the last of the group of 5, hired to fill the positions.

At the end of the day I decided I’m either moving out or kicking Brian out, not just for this reason but for the fact that another month had passed and he was again over a week late on the rent and refused to acknowledge that fact to the landlords who were now extremely pissed at us as a whole but at Brian specifically. Almost at the verge of blowing a fuse, I decided to use the last amount of play money I had reserved and took heather out to eat, at the end of the night I asked her how she felt about “us”. Her response was good, as she said she wanted to see where things let and was interested in possibly perusing it further. I kissed her goodnight smiled and drove home, thinking once again a glimpse of light in an otherwise bleak situation.

Act 3