Chapter 299: I Get a Job and Do Some Interior Redecorating

Wednesday, April 26 to Sunday, April 30, 2006

Wednesday morning, I spruced myself up in the camping ground's communal facilities, "wasted five minutes of my life shaving" (to quote Dad), then went job hunting. It was important I get a job because if I hung around in Corvallis without one, any future investigators might be suspicious that I had another reason. Having a job would also look good for the cops when I talk to them, because it'd be good for them to have no reason to arrest me.

It was not important that my job be a high paying one, or even average paying. Living in a one-person tent in a back corner of an RV park didn't cost much, and I needed next to no food, only 10% of normal - and for what it's worth, "normal" had also reduced as I'm now in a smaller, less muscular body. So when I approached the mechanic garages, I offered to work for free for the first couple of weeks, half wages for the next couple, then full wages thereafter if the boss still wanted me. I didn't expect to be a mechanic that long, but it was good to memorably sound as if I did. I had a couple more unusual additions:

1. That I finished work at lunchtime during the first two weeks because I wanted to go to the library and start improving my schooling. That's what I told people, but you'll read about my main reason soon.

2. I suggested that I be teamed with an experienced mechanic to help him, because my previous boss had been a bad teacher and my knowledge was patchy.

I started with what I thought was the best garage, tried to grease the boss up (an appropriate expression) by telling him I thought his was the best run, cleanest garage. I made my pitch, got turned down, so moved to my second choice.

That boss actually asked some questions about me - mostly stuff I could easily answer from what I'd learned from the real Ronald Fisher - before rejecting me.

The fourth place (of five) accepted me. I suspected he just wanted to 'steal' two weeks of free labor from me and had no intention of keeping me on once he had to start paying. That was fine with me, as I hoped to have a job with the Anderson-Williams collective by then, or failing that, I'd get to know the mechanics from the other garages during the lunchtimes, to try to impress them enough to be reconsidered by their bosses if I needed another job after two or four weeks.

My new boss put me to work right away, lending me a pair of overalls and assigning me to work with one of his other guys.

Thanks to helping Dad service the family cars from time to time, I knew which end of most common tools to hold, and a few other practical matters. I'd also spent a day watching mechanics at work and had picked up a fair amount from that, plus I had one big book's worth of memorized practical advice. My knowledge was therefore highly erratic. I knew quite a lot about some things, but nothing at all about quite a few things, including some of the automatically assumed basics. I knew that would be the case, so I was up-front with the guy I worked with, blaming the guy who ran the only other garage I'd worked at for the few months since I'd left school.

My supervisor was surprised by some of the REALLY basic things I didn't know, but I was an obedient, enthusiastic, helpful, quick-to-learn worker.

At lunchtime, I went to the mechanics' local lunch place. Some of the mechanics from the other garages had seen me talking to their bosses, and the food joint's owner recognized me too. She even remembered my name, which made me happy. The story about how I'd asked her opinion came out during the minute I was the center of attention, which was fine with me. The more people who knew I was serious about getting a job, the happier I was.

I was also open about my payment scheme (no wages for the first two weeks, half next two, then normal). My fellow mechanics thought I was crazy, but I explained, "No one knows me in this town, so I needed to do something to get in the door. If I live in Corvallis all my life, what does missing a couple of weeks wages matter?"

"Archie could be screwing you." Archie being my new boss and the guy who was probably screwing me.

"Sure he could, but after two weeks, BB," (the guy I was teamed up with. His name was Bruce Burton, and my first lesson had been not to call him Bruce), "will know how good I am and can be a reference for me. That'll be a lot better than my walking off the street as a complete stranger."

Some of them were impressed, but most of them thought I was crazy working for nothing.

After lunch all the mechanics went back to their garages, but I stayed to borrow a pen and some paper and wrote down my current residential address, with the owners' names and the phone number of the RV park, the details for the garage I was now working in, including the hours. I put a comment, "Afternoons, location unknown. Am hoping to do something educational."

The woman asked why I wanted her phone number, so I told her, "I saw a murder a couple of months ago and the LA cops - I'm from LA originally - want to keep track of where I am. I'd promised them that I'd pass on my contact details on to the local cops when I found somewhere to settle, so I'll do that this afternoon."

She looked a little fearful, something I suspected my blackness had a significant role in, so I added, "I was a WITNESS, and the cops know who did it. It was two months ago, so old news and the cops wouldn't be letting me travel around if they were worried, so you shouldn't be. Or are you just trying to make me feel guilty for worrying you, so I'll volunteer to wipe your tables again?"

She relaxed. I wanted to get my story spread, so I added, "Too much violence is why I left LA. I want to find somewhere nice and quiet to live, like Corvallis. To find a nice girl to marry and live happily ever after. I don't suppose you've got a daughter who can cook as well as you, do you?" She said she didn't, so I had to stick to my original plan of seducing Carol.

I first went to buy a pair of overalls for myself, then to the police station, telling the first cop I met, "I witnessed a murder in LA, and da LA cops wanna know my contact details. Who do I talk with 'bout doin' dat?" I was putting on about half the LA accent. I wasn't doing that at work because I'd feared it'd stop me getting a job, but I thought it was a better idea with the cops. The accent was going to fade quickly, so it'd soon cease to be an issue.

I was passed off to someone. I gave him the card of the cops in LA, the paper I'd written with my contact details on it. I'd used block letters rather than handwriting to avoid the risk of a handwriting analysis concluding I was an imposter, and I was grasping the paper on top of NP-fingers so I wouldn't leave any fingerprints.

I explained to him that I'd started drifting into a small gang in the months since I'd left school, I hadn't liked it, and when they'd gotten violent with each other that'd driven me to leave LA. "Da LA cops said dat after I left, four of dem kilt each udder, and six are still missin'. I don' know nuttin' 'bout dat, but dey wanted my number so's dey could ask me more questions I don' know nuttin' 'bout. I said I'd give it to da cops wherever I settled. I gotta job now. I wanna find somewhere ta live and night classes or sumding. And learn to speak betta too, so I don' soun' like trash."

I was polite - never once calling him a "motherfucking pig" - and sincere, so he eventually stopped showing so much suspicion. He called LA while I was there, not getting through to the person so he left a voicemail message identifying himself, me, and reading out the information on the note I'd given him.

I got the LA cop's card back, "In case I need it agin'." I also promised to come back when I had my afternoons organized or if my details changed.

The cop asked, "Why not call them yourself instead of coming here?"

"I don' have much money so it's cheaper on your dime, haha. Also, I'm from a gang in LA so I though you guys might wanna know 'bout me being in town. I got nuttin' to hide and want ya to know it. I like dis town and der being so many smart people my age. I'm smarter dan I showed before, so maybe if'n I work hard I can get to go to college here." Obviously I couldn't do anything that would make me look like Mark Anderson, so going to college was probably never going to happen, but that Corvallis was a university town made it unique among the towns I'd checked out so it was an ideal excuse for me choosing to settle here.

After finishing with the cops, I spent the rest of the afternoon joining the library, taking out a few books - half on automotive repair, half on school subjects, thereby creating a nice little evidence trail of my studiousness - and getting information on various evening classes. I had an early dinner in town, then returned to my tent early.

I stopped in at the RV park's office, showing them the library books and asking them if I could keep all but two of them in their office rather than my tent, for safety, and also to make even more people aware of my commitment to be a good citizen. I'd gotten books out on the real Ron Fisher's worst school subjects because the image I was going for was someone trying to make good on his deficiencies.

As much as I wanted to, it would've looked too suspicious to any later investigators if I'd made contact with my family immediately after I'd arrived in town, so I waited impatiently.

I worked in the mornings, rapidly proving myself to be a very helpful and useful employee, who was well worth the money I wasn't being paid. In the afternoons, I wandered around town as if exploring, but in reality so my planned encounter with my family would seem natural. I also made a few comments about looking for a girlfriend.

I kept an eye on my families at night, but nothing of note happened. Ava spent a lot of time with them, which was good because she looked like she needed it. I should've been in several of her classes at school and been available to talk with her every day, so every time I saw how sad she looked I felt even more anger toward the fucking DHS and CIA.

On Friday I decided to recheck the Portland DHS to see if anything had changed in my file. I didn't want to log in as the State Director when he was out of the building, as I feared that could set off alarms, so I shot up there as soon as I could on Friday evening, hoping he'd still be at work. He was, so I sat on a nearby rooftop waiting for him to leave.

As soon as he'd logged out and locked his office behind him, I logged back in and quickly checked my file. I could sort the file's entries in date order, so it only took a couple of seconds to find that that nothing at all had been added, indicating that the DHS was in total-turtle-mode. I resisted the impulse to jam the Director's elevator between floors and burn the place to the ground. Instead I logged out then flew home. That wasn't nearly so satisfying, but was probably better.

^

On the way home the "Fifteen Hours Since The Last Déjà Vu" criterion was reached, and it was early evening, so the "Evening But Before Midnight" criterion was met too. I crossed my fingers and diverted to Fort Dodge and hoped to get there in time.

This time I arrived without the next déjà vu happening. I sneaked up to the lab as fast as I could, cutting corners more than I had last time. They hadn't had any wide security then, and I didn't think it likely they'd have placed new security after all this time. It was VERY important that the CIA not be able to determine that my body wasn't in the lab, so cutting a few safe-seeming corners was justified.