smackenzie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smackenzie) wrote2008-11-27 03:28 pm
smackenzie) wrote2008-11-27 03:28 pm
part 26
Then he realized his other loan payments were due soon (one FISA and one from the university) and he finally did what his brain had been putting off since Monday - he panicked.
A lesser man might have hyperventilated, and in fact Val did for about five minutes. Then he got enough of a grip on himself to locate his resume on his computer, revise it to include his years working for Caswell Velez Malcolm and Simonson, and start looking for online placement agencies and job boards where he could post it. He found that if he concentrated on this one thing - looking for a job - he wouldn't start thinking about what was going to happen when he couldn't find one.
And it hadn't yet really occurred to him to realize that he'd been planning on becoming a lawyer since he was about sixteen, and now that he'd changed his mind about that, he had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life. He hadn't yet realized that he had no clear path and no clue. He hadn't yet realized that career-wise, he was completely and totally adrift. Up shit's creek without a paddle, as his brother-in-law might say.
Thankfully, he'd kept copies of all the cover letters he'd sent out the last time he'd applied for jobs, and ok, so they were all at least three years old and a lot of them were specifically targeted to law firms or placement agencies that worked with law firms, but there were a couple that he'd used to send to temp agencies as a last resort, so he edited them a little bit and attached them to his resume and emailed them out.
He wondered if he should be printing them out and mailing them too. He could do that Monday. But he had to buy envelopes first.
By the time Kirk came home and announced that he was ready to take Val drinking to celebrate his newfound freedom from the shackles of office work, Val had posted his resume a bunch of places, emailed a few temp agencies, panicked about money twice, and panicked about potential long-term unemployment about five times. Reminding himself that he'd grown up without a lot of money, that he didn't have a lot of expenses, that he could renegotiate his loans, and that he could survive on a smaller budget than he had been, did not help a whole lot.
"I think I screwed up," he told Kirk, when Kirk stuck his head into Val's room to suggest they go to the bar where he'd started working, because the bartenders knew him and would take care of them, and by "take care of them" he meant "give them free drinks".
"What did you do?" Kirk asked.
"I quit my job without having anything else to replace it. I think all I'm qualified for is working in more law firms, and I don't want to do that. That's why I quit in the first place. I'll still be able to pay the rent, don't worry."
"I wasn't worrying about that. If you can't pay your rent, I'll just kick you out." Val must have looked completely panicked, because Kirk quickly amended himself with "I'm kidding, I'm kidding, don't have a spaz. You're the most reliable person I've ever lived with. Seems like a safe guess that if you can't pay your rent, you'll tell me ahead of time and we'll work something out. I think maybe we should eat before we go out. The bar won't get really busy until ten or eleven, so if we beat the crowd we can get better attention from the guys who are working there tonight. I think tonight's shift is Tony and Mack and... damn, what's her name. She just started. Anyway, now it sounds like you might need to get drunk and not think about this stuff for a night. I'll call Haley, maybe she'll meet us and bring some friends. A cute girl might do you some good. Yeah?"
"I guess." Val hadn't gone out drinking just to get drunk since he was in college, and he hadn't done it a whole lot back then either. He knew there wasn't a lot of point in him spending tonight and tomorrow scouring the job listings and thinking seriously about his future - no one was going to be in a position to look at his resume until Monday anyway - but he also didn't know what the point was in getting smashed just to forget about it.
He also knew there wasn't a point in meeting up with Haley and any of her cute single friends, at least not for the reasons Kirk was implying. Before they moved in together, Val had mentioned to Kirk that he was bi and Kirk hadn't particularly cared, especially not once Val had said he wasn't going to be bringing people home if Kirk was going to be around. Nights when Kirk was away, that was another thing, but Kirk admitted he didn't care what Val did in the apartment when he wasn't there, so no problem. Kirk didn't know any single gay guys, though, so anyone he'd tried to set Val up with had been a girl, just because they were the only single people available.
But Val was not about to tell Kirk that he'd gotten involved in a threesome. He wasn't sure he wasn't going to freak out about that too, now.
Kirk made spaghetti while Val tried to collect himself and stop spazzing, and Val cleaned up while Kirk called Haley and asked what she was doing tonight and did she want to come out with him and Val to make Val feel better about being unemployed. Val liked Haley well enough - she was friendly and pretty smart and just plain pretty, and sometimes she'd clean their place out of disgust for the way boys lived - and he didn't mind if she came with them. There was an outside chance she'd try to talk to him about what he was going to do now, and there was another chance she might try to convince him to apply at the sporting goods/camping/outdoor store where she worked. He might actually take her up on that, if it came to it. He thought he knew enough about enough sports to be of some assistance to someone, and if nothing else, he could fit people for running shoes and swim caps.
"She might meet us," Kirk said after he got off the phone. "One of her roommates had a really hard week and might come too. You want to work in camping gear? She can probably get you a job."
"I might," Val said. "As a last resort." He wasn't ready to work retail again, but he was starting to think he'd have to take it if it was the only option available.
They took the bus to the bar, which was a decent-sized place called The Fish and Firkin in a borderline trendy neighborhood (but not Kirk and Val's neighborhood). The combination of up-and-coming neighborhood and the fact that the bar wasn't on anyone's trend radar yet meant that on the weekends it could get crowded with locals, but most people really were just there to drink and hang out in their neighborhood bar, not to see and be seen. Val had never been there before, because Kirk hadn't been pouring drinks for very long, and when they got there it was still empty enough that they could snag a table. It looked like a reasonably nice neighborhood bar to Val, like the kind of place you could get a local beer, an imported beer, and a good choice of mixed drinks, as well as a plate of nachos or potato skins with real bacon.
They'd already eaten, so they didn't need bar snacks, and Kirk started them both off with a couple of tequila shots.
"Nice and simple," Kirk explained. "Uncomplicated."
Val was lucky in that he'd never had a bad tequila experience and wasn't scared off by the prospect of tequila shots. He licked the side of his hand, shook salt on it, and clinked glasses with Kirk.
"To finding out what you love," Kirk said. "Cheers."
After that shot was another one, and then a couple of drinks that Kirk let the redhaired bartender mix for them, and which were tasty and deceptively smooth going down but had an after-kick, as Val discovered when he got up so Kirk could introduce him to the bartenders. (Kirk only drank about half of his. Val downed the whole thing.)
The redhaired bartender who'd made those drinks was Tony. Mack was more solid-looking and had curly black hair, and the girl whose name Kirk couldn't remember introduced herself as Swan. She had platinum hair in a ponytail with bright pink bangs across her forehead, and she winked at Val when Kirk told her and the other two to take care of him, he'd just quit his job and was celebrating.
"Celebrating" wasn't what Val would call it, but he didn't want to get into it with a bunch of strangers, even if they were cute strangers who made really good drinks.
Haley and her roommate did eventually show up with another friend, and all three girls squished around the table with Kirk and Val, and the roommate drank her beer and vented to the whole table about how horrible her week had been. That topic led to the friend complaining about one of her coworkers, which led to Haley telling them all about some of the ridiculous customers her store had had the past few days, which led to Kirk relaying an adventure he'd had that day with a couple of cabs and a city bus. By this time Val was on his way to being pretty completely smashed, and the noise level had risen in the bar as it had filled up, and he had a hard time following the various conversations. All he could think was At least you all have a job.
He excused himself to pee and made his way through the crowd to the men's room. The floor tilted gently underneath him and he tried and failed to remember how much he'd had to drink. Well, he wasn't paying for it, and he didn't have to get up early and go anywhere tomorrow, why did it matter?
It wasn't until he got back to the table and discovered that someone had bought him a beer (a good beer, too) and he'd drunk half of it that he remembered that he did have to go somewhere tomorrow. He was going to the zoo. With Aidan. On a date.
Suddenly Val didn't want to be here in this bar with these nice people who only wanted to buy him drinks and talk to him and help him forget, however temporarily, that he was without a job and without prospects and without a plan. He picked now to realize that his life path had taken an abrupt detour, had in fact hit a dead end, and the career goal he'd had for the last ten years suddenly wasn't his goal any more. He had no idea what he was going to do. He hadn't had a backup plan in case law school hadn't worked out. It was that or nothing, and now he was faced with the nothing.
He pushed his chair back and managed to untangle himself from the table without falling over.
"'Scuse me," he mumbled, and wove through the crowd and out the front door. It wasn't any quieter out here, but the air was a little cooler and he could breathe. He dug his phone out of his pocket, flipped it open, and stabbed at the buttons until he remembered enough of Stella and Aidan's number to call them. Aidan answered the phone.
"Arbor-McInerney House of Wayward Children," he said cheerfully.
"Aidan," Val said. "Aidan. Hi. I fucked up. I'm at a bar and, and, I fucked up."
"Val? What bar? What are you talking about? Where are you?"
"Some... Kirk works here. Fish and something." He ran his hand through his hair. It was blowing in his face and he couldn't see the sidewalk. "I'm kind of drunk. I really screwed up, Aidan. I mean... I really. I'm screwed. I'm so screwed."
"'Kind of drunk' sounds like an understatement. Who are you with?" He sounded almost concerned, but maybe Val was imagining that. Didn't he say he was at Kirk's bar, with Kirk? It wasn't as if he went out drinking by himself.
"Kirk and Haley and her friend. Friends. I don't know. I'm coming over. Ok? I need to... I don't know. You. I need you. You'll, you'll... I'm panicking. You said I'd panic."
"I did, yeah. You didn't drive, did you?"
"No, I'm not stupid. I'm just, I'm really drunk, I want to, to... you. You can... I don't know. Tell me it's ok. I don't know what I'm doing. At all. I don't. Aidan. Tell me it's... it'll be ok. Tell me."
"It'll be ok. I promise. Do you want to come over now? I'm awake."
"Yeah. I'll get a cab. Something. I can't... fuck. What did I do?"
"You quit your job. You got tired of working for Catherine the bitch. Hang up the phone, Val," he said gently. "Say goodbye to Kirk. Tell him where you're going, ok? Let him know you're coming to our place. Ask him to call you a cab. Is there a bouncer at the entrance to the bar?"
"Yeah. A, a guy. He's... I think he's staring at me."
"Maybe he can flag one down for you. Everything will be ok. It just looks worse when you've been drinking."
"It is worse."
"No it isn't. Trust me. Now get your stuff, say goodbye to Kirk, and come over here. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Do not drink any more. Got it?"
"Yeah. I got it. Thank you. Thank you."
"You can thank me when you get here. Goodbye, Val." He hung up.
It took Val another minute to remember what he was doing, and then he snapped his phone closed, stuffed it in his pocket, and went back inside the bar to tell Kirk he was leaving.
"I gotta go," he said. "I just. I fucked up. I'm going to Aidan's, you remember Aidan, he said everything will be ok. Thanks for, for trying."
"Man, you're really trashed," Kirk said. "Are you going to be ok?"
"No. Maybe. I don't know. I need a cab. Goodnight. Good... later. Goodbye."
"I'll wait with you," Haley said. She got up and went outside with Val. "Where are you going?" she asked, leading him away from the bar just enough so that they weren't blocking people from going in and out. Val was grateful that she was standing with him.
"Aidan's place. I don't think you know him. He's."
"A friend?"
"Yeah. More than. He's... we're going on a date. Tomorrow. I'll be, shit, I'll be so hung over."
"Maybe you can postpone it. Hey!" she yelled, stepping into the street to flag down a cab. "Here!"
She bundled Val into the cab and waited while he gave the cab driver Aidan and Stella's address.
"Drink a lot of water before you go to bed," Haley said, and then the cab pulled away from the curb and Val tried not to freak out any more about his utter uselessness and his massive fuckup. He also tried not to throw up. He was, for him, pretty spectacularly wasted.
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A lesser man might have hyperventilated, and in fact Val did for about five minutes. Then he got enough of a grip on himself to locate his resume on his computer, revise it to include his years working for Caswell Velez Malcolm and Simonson, and start looking for online placement agencies and job boards where he could post it. He found that if he concentrated on this one thing - looking for a job - he wouldn't start thinking about what was going to happen when he couldn't find one.
And it hadn't yet really occurred to him to realize that he'd been planning on becoming a lawyer since he was about sixteen, and now that he'd changed his mind about that, he had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life. He hadn't yet realized that he had no clear path and no clue. He hadn't yet realized that career-wise, he was completely and totally adrift. Up shit's creek without a paddle, as his brother-in-law might say.
Thankfully, he'd kept copies of all the cover letters he'd sent out the last time he'd applied for jobs, and ok, so they were all at least three years old and a lot of them were specifically targeted to law firms or placement agencies that worked with law firms, but there were a couple that he'd used to send to temp agencies as a last resort, so he edited them a little bit and attached them to his resume and emailed them out.
He wondered if he should be printing them out and mailing them too. He could do that Monday. But he had to buy envelopes first.
By the time Kirk came home and announced that he was ready to take Val drinking to celebrate his newfound freedom from the shackles of office work, Val had posted his resume a bunch of places, emailed a few temp agencies, panicked about money twice, and panicked about potential long-term unemployment about five times. Reminding himself that he'd grown up without a lot of money, that he didn't have a lot of expenses, that he could renegotiate his loans, and that he could survive on a smaller budget than he had been, did not help a whole lot.
"I think I screwed up," he told Kirk, when Kirk stuck his head into Val's room to suggest they go to the bar where he'd started working, because the bartenders knew him and would take care of them, and by "take care of them" he meant "give them free drinks".
"What did you do?" Kirk asked.
"I quit my job without having anything else to replace it. I think all I'm qualified for is working in more law firms, and I don't want to do that. That's why I quit in the first place. I'll still be able to pay the rent, don't worry."
"I wasn't worrying about that. If you can't pay your rent, I'll just kick you out." Val must have looked completely panicked, because Kirk quickly amended himself with "I'm kidding, I'm kidding, don't have a spaz. You're the most reliable person I've ever lived with. Seems like a safe guess that if you can't pay your rent, you'll tell me ahead of time and we'll work something out. I think maybe we should eat before we go out. The bar won't get really busy until ten or eleven, so if we beat the crowd we can get better attention from the guys who are working there tonight. I think tonight's shift is Tony and Mack and... damn, what's her name. She just started. Anyway, now it sounds like you might need to get drunk and not think about this stuff for a night. I'll call Haley, maybe she'll meet us and bring some friends. A cute girl might do you some good. Yeah?"
"I guess." Val hadn't gone out drinking just to get drunk since he was in college, and he hadn't done it a whole lot back then either. He knew there wasn't a lot of point in him spending tonight and tomorrow scouring the job listings and thinking seriously about his future - no one was going to be in a position to look at his resume until Monday anyway - but he also didn't know what the point was in getting smashed just to forget about it.
He also knew there wasn't a point in meeting up with Haley and any of her cute single friends, at least not for the reasons Kirk was implying. Before they moved in together, Val had mentioned to Kirk that he was bi and Kirk hadn't particularly cared, especially not once Val had said he wasn't going to be bringing people home if Kirk was going to be around. Nights when Kirk was away, that was another thing, but Kirk admitted he didn't care what Val did in the apartment when he wasn't there, so no problem. Kirk didn't know any single gay guys, though, so anyone he'd tried to set Val up with had been a girl, just because they were the only single people available.
But Val was not about to tell Kirk that he'd gotten involved in a threesome. He wasn't sure he wasn't going to freak out about that too, now.
Kirk made spaghetti while Val tried to collect himself and stop spazzing, and Val cleaned up while Kirk called Haley and asked what she was doing tonight and did she want to come out with him and Val to make Val feel better about being unemployed. Val liked Haley well enough - she was friendly and pretty smart and just plain pretty, and sometimes she'd clean their place out of disgust for the way boys lived - and he didn't mind if she came with them. There was an outside chance she'd try to talk to him about what he was going to do now, and there was another chance she might try to convince him to apply at the sporting goods/camping/outdoor store where she worked. He might actually take her up on that, if it came to it. He thought he knew enough about enough sports to be of some assistance to someone, and if nothing else, he could fit people for running shoes and swim caps.
"She might meet us," Kirk said after he got off the phone. "One of her roommates had a really hard week and might come too. You want to work in camping gear? She can probably get you a job."
"I might," Val said. "As a last resort." He wasn't ready to work retail again, but he was starting to think he'd have to take it if it was the only option available.
They took the bus to the bar, which was a decent-sized place called The Fish and Firkin in a borderline trendy neighborhood (but not Kirk and Val's neighborhood). The combination of up-and-coming neighborhood and the fact that the bar wasn't on anyone's trend radar yet meant that on the weekends it could get crowded with locals, but most people really were just there to drink and hang out in their neighborhood bar, not to see and be seen. Val had never been there before, because Kirk hadn't been pouring drinks for very long, and when they got there it was still empty enough that they could snag a table. It looked like a reasonably nice neighborhood bar to Val, like the kind of place you could get a local beer, an imported beer, and a good choice of mixed drinks, as well as a plate of nachos or potato skins with real bacon.
They'd already eaten, so they didn't need bar snacks, and Kirk started them both off with a couple of tequila shots.
"Nice and simple," Kirk explained. "Uncomplicated."
Val was lucky in that he'd never had a bad tequila experience and wasn't scared off by the prospect of tequila shots. He licked the side of his hand, shook salt on it, and clinked glasses with Kirk.
"To finding out what you love," Kirk said. "Cheers."
After that shot was another one, and then a couple of drinks that Kirk let the redhaired bartender mix for them, and which were tasty and deceptively smooth going down but had an after-kick, as Val discovered when he got up so Kirk could introduce him to the bartenders. (Kirk only drank about half of his. Val downed the whole thing.)
The redhaired bartender who'd made those drinks was Tony. Mack was more solid-looking and had curly black hair, and the girl whose name Kirk couldn't remember introduced herself as Swan. She had platinum hair in a ponytail with bright pink bangs across her forehead, and she winked at Val when Kirk told her and the other two to take care of him, he'd just quit his job and was celebrating.
"Celebrating" wasn't what Val would call it, but he didn't want to get into it with a bunch of strangers, even if they were cute strangers who made really good drinks.
Haley and her roommate did eventually show up with another friend, and all three girls squished around the table with Kirk and Val, and the roommate drank her beer and vented to the whole table about how horrible her week had been. That topic led to the friend complaining about one of her coworkers, which led to Haley telling them all about some of the ridiculous customers her store had had the past few days, which led to Kirk relaying an adventure he'd had that day with a couple of cabs and a city bus. By this time Val was on his way to being pretty completely smashed, and the noise level had risen in the bar as it had filled up, and he had a hard time following the various conversations. All he could think was At least you all have a job.
He excused himself to pee and made his way through the crowd to the men's room. The floor tilted gently underneath him and he tried and failed to remember how much he'd had to drink. Well, he wasn't paying for it, and he didn't have to get up early and go anywhere tomorrow, why did it matter?
It wasn't until he got back to the table and discovered that someone had bought him a beer (a good beer, too) and he'd drunk half of it that he remembered that he did have to go somewhere tomorrow. He was going to the zoo. With Aidan. On a date.
Suddenly Val didn't want to be here in this bar with these nice people who only wanted to buy him drinks and talk to him and help him forget, however temporarily, that he was without a job and without prospects and without a plan. He picked now to realize that his life path had taken an abrupt detour, had in fact hit a dead end, and the career goal he'd had for the last ten years suddenly wasn't his goal any more. He had no idea what he was going to do. He hadn't had a backup plan in case law school hadn't worked out. It was that or nothing, and now he was faced with the nothing.
He pushed his chair back and managed to untangle himself from the table without falling over.
"'Scuse me," he mumbled, and wove through the crowd and out the front door. It wasn't any quieter out here, but the air was a little cooler and he could breathe. He dug his phone out of his pocket, flipped it open, and stabbed at the buttons until he remembered enough of Stella and Aidan's number to call them. Aidan answered the phone.
"Arbor-McInerney House of Wayward Children," he said cheerfully.
"Aidan," Val said. "Aidan. Hi. I fucked up. I'm at a bar and, and, I fucked up."
"Val? What bar? What are you talking about? Where are you?"
"Some... Kirk works here. Fish and something." He ran his hand through his hair. It was blowing in his face and he couldn't see the sidewalk. "I'm kind of drunk. I really screwed up, Aidan. I mean... I really. I'm screwed. I'm so screwed."
"'Kind of drunk' sounds like an understatement. Who are you with?" He sounded almost concerned, but maybe Val was imagining that. Didn't he say he was at Kirk's bar, with Kirk? It wasn't as if he went out drinking by himself.
"Kirk and Haley and her friend. Friends. I don't know. I'm coming over. Ok? I need to... I don't know. You. I need you. You'll, you'll... I'm panicking. You said I'd panic."
"I did, yeah. You didn't drive, did you?"
"No, I'm not stupid. I'm just, I'm really drunk, I want to, to... you. You can... I don't know. Tell me it's ok. I don't know what I'm doing. At all. I don't. Aidan. Tell me it's... it'll be ok. Tell me."
"It'll be ok. I promise. Do you want to come over now? I'm awake."
"Yeah. I'll get a cab. Something. I can't... fuck. What did I do?"
"You quit your job. You got tired of working for Catherine the bitch. Hang up the phone, Val," he said gently. "Say goodbye to Kirk. Tell him where you're going, ok? Let him know you're coming to our place. Ask him to call you a cab. Is there a bouncer at the entrance to the bar?"
"Yeah. A, a guy. He's... I think he's staring at me."
"Maybe he can flag one down for you. Everything will be ok. It just looks worse when you've been drinking."
"It is worse."
"No it isn't. Trust me. Now get your stuff, say goodbye to Kirk, and come over here. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Do not drink any more. Got it?"
"Yeah. I got it. Thank you. Thank you."
"You can thank me when you get here. Goodbye, Val." He hung up.
It took Val another minute to remember what he was doing, and then he snapped his phone closed, stuffed it in his pocket, and went back inside the bar to tell Kirk he was leaving.
"I gotta go," he said. "I just. I fucked up. I'm going to Aidan's, you remember Aidan, he said everything will be ok. Thanks for, for trying."
"Man, you're really trashed," Kirk said. "Are you going to be ok?"
"No. Maybe. I don't know. I need a cab. Goodnight. Good... later. Goodbye."
"I'll wait with you," Haley said. She got up and went outside with Val. "Where are you going?" she asked, leading him away from the bar just enough so that they weren't blocking people from going in and out. Val was grateful that she was standing with him.
"Aidan's place. I don't think you know him. He's."
"A friend?"
"Yeah. More than. He's... we're going on a date. Tomorrow. I'll be, shit, I'll be so hung over."
"Maybe you can postpone it. Hey!" she yelled, stepping into the street to flag down a cab. "Here!"
She bundled Val into the cab and waited while he gave the cab driver Aidan and Stella's address.
"Drink a lot of water before you go to bed," Haley said, and then the cab pulled away from the curb and Val tried not to freak out any more about his utter uselessness and his massive fuckup. He also tried not to throw up. He was, for him, pretty spectacularly wasted.
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aidan: *offers paper bag*
he does eventually get a grip.... after the hangover, anyway.