“You sound like the average 25 year old kid.”
“That’s what fucked me up so bad. Everyone else seemed like they had it all together. Tony and Karen were already engaged. You were … somewhere … Europe or Japan…”
“I was in Portland, Maine. I hadn’t left for Japan yet.”
The chair seemed a little less comfortable.
“But you knew you wanted to go and you were in the process of making it happen. I was trying to find a job with benefits.”
“You always said you had a plan but you never told me what your plan was.”
“Really? I thought you’d be the first person I told.”
She just looked at me and waited.
“This might take a while. You’re going to need more wine.”
I walked to the kitchen. I had put a small bottle of motor oil in the fridge to chill. It was an exercise in futility. The 16% beer was super thick when it was room temperature. Putting it in the fridge almost gave it the consistency of ketchup.
I refilled Marrianne’s glass then sat back in the comfy cozy chair and started my dissertation.
“In 1986 I …”
“1986?!?” She almost spit out her wine. “How old are you?”
I felt my nose scrunch up as a smile cut across her face.
“In 1986,” I started again, “I asked my Dad for something. I think I remember saying something like 'I'm part of this family so I should have a say in things!' He just looked at me and said 'You can have a say. I have no problem with that. The only thing you have to do is come up with enough money to cover the mortgage, pay the phone bill, electric bill, gas bill, and put food on the table for the month. Once you are able to shoulder the responsibilities you can have a say.'"
“Sounds like a smart man.” She cupped her glass of wine.
“Are you sure I haven’t told you this before? You know what,” I said snapping my fingers, “it might have been V. That’s right. It was V.
“Anyway, I sat down at the table when everyone went back to doing what they were doing and I figured out a whole house budget for myself. I figured the mortgage, phone bill, gas bill, electric bill, all of it. I figured I could cover all of my bills if I made $2000 a month, take home.”
“In 1986, that was,” she did some quick math, “$24,000 a year. Maybe $32,000 before taxes.”
“The golden ticket jobs.”
“That was $15 almost $16 an hour..”
“Yep. At the time that seemed like Wall Street money. Minimum wage was $3.35/hour if you could get it.”
“What was the plan?”
I took a deep breath.
“The plan was to graduate high school a few years later. Go to college. Get out of college around 22 or 23 years old. Dick around for a few years and get the first real job around 25. Every place still had a pension back then.”
“A pen … a pen-sion …” she slowly enunciated the seemingly long dead word.
“Fucking, right? You could put in 20 and get a pension. The idea was to be settled by 25, get the gig with a pension. Be married with a kid or two by 30 and …”
“Wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait, WAIT!!” She kicked herself forward in her recliner and sat on the edge.
“What?” I said slowly. My lips were a thin line against my teeth.
“You wanted to have kids?”
“I put this plan together when I was 14 or 15. This is what I had been told was the path for my entire life. But I didn’t just know I wanted to have kids, I knew I was going to have two little girls. And I knew their names.”
“Wow,” she pushed her chair back. “Just wow.”
“Where was I?” I took a deep pull on my chilled beer. There was a pleasant warmth as it hit my stomach. “Oh yeah. Around age 45 you make some hard decisions. How long before the girls go off to college? Are they going to college? How much do you have left on the mortgage? You’ve been at the company for 20 years and earned a pension. Do you move to another company, work another 20 years, and get a second pension?
“That was the goal. Retire at 65 with two pensions and social security. That all got shot to shit when the market crashed in 1987.”
“I was 7.” She nuzzled in her chair.
“I was older than 7.”
“How did that affect the plan?”
“By 1989, lots of the companies that would have given you a pension or stability moved out of the state. The companies that were left were still basing their financial projections on 1986, from before the crash. Rather than take the time to readjust their projections they relied on magic math. They weren’t trying to hold on a little longer for things to get better. They just made things up. Then the bottom fell out.
“The thing was, it didn’t happen right away.” I heard a small voice whisper ‘Plans change’ in the back of my head. “Businesses started downsizing. They were squeezing as much as they could from as few people as they possible. My Dad got hurt in ‘89.”
“You were only, what, 14 or 15?” She had barely touched her wine. “How did this make you think you were going to be a shit husband?”
“By ‘89 I was older than 14 or 15. I was thrown for a loop. I didn’t have a back up plan. It stuck with me. If I was thrown off guard and took so long to get back on my feet with the support of my parents, how would I get back on my feet with a family and a mortgage?”
“Everybody was going through the same thing, weren’t they?” she asked genuinely wondering.
I took another swig of my warming beer and stared at the ceiling.
“There is this level of magic thinking, that’s the phrase I use now. Back then it was fake it til you make it. People just closed their eyes and hoped it would work out for the best. I went in eyes open and just saw darkness. Over the last few years I figured out it all goes in cycles and if you can just hold out a little bit longer things get better.
“Back then the mind set was ‘If I couldn’t get my shit together alone, how was I supposed to build a foundation with a wife and two little girls when the ground beneath our feet was shaky at best and at its worst, quicksand?’ It sucks when you are just smart enough to know you aren’t smart enough.”
“Ugh,” she sighed and took a deep pull of her wine. “I’m going to need …”
“More wine,” I said getting up from the chair.
“That’s such a nihilistic view.” I heard her say from the living room.
“Trust me, I know.” I said over my shoulder. “Do you want to stay with the Chardonnay or go with the Sauvignon Blanc?”
“Chardonnay, please.” She had quietly moved to the doorway of the kitchen.
The late afternoon sun streamed through the bay window and brought a gentle glow to the room. As I closed the refrigerator door, I felt its warmth work its way across the floor, over the counter, and through my body as it revived my soul. We both seemed to feel it.
“Let’s sit outside,” she said walking to the patio door.
It was a surprisingly nice spring afternoon. Not all of the cold days were behind us but better weather was coming soon. If we could just hold on a little bit longer, that would be the golden ticket.
We sat on her back porch, clinked glasses, and watched the sunset in silence.
