When I first got the job I would avoid riding my bicycle home up the steep steep downtown hills by walking it up the even steeper Church Hill behind me. I would steer myself up a long, rarely taken asphalt road, winding up through overgrown ghetto palms, under the crisp new overpasses, through the tiny bit of neighborhood where kids are always out front on bikes little bikes, past the orange square school squatting there and finally climb on my bike to turn back around and swing down onto the Martin Luther King Memorial aka Leigh Street Bridge.
The bridge was my first bridge somehow in this town, though there are now when I think about it several bridges with a certain special sentimentality to me. The Leigh Street one is a single long curve, a horizontal arch straight over the remanents of this rail town, swinging over the tracks and connecting the different plateaus of these fortified historical hoods. Six lanes wide, it unites the burroughs looking down on the docks and old tobacco factories. There is never much traffic and there is always a lot of wind and I would brace myself against it and pedal ever harder, sweeping along with the concrete and pushing against all those invisible things.
There is a lot that I did... but outlining it all is for the resume, ay? I did slap together tomato sandwiches to raise little bits of money, I did write the grant proposal that won us a ton of money... there are these things to be proud of. I spoke languages like spanish and html all with a southern draw when necessary. I worked hard and was overworked, as overworked and underappreciated as everyone else in that office. On the verge of revolt, with another festival looming and a hurricane on the way, my boss once pulled me outside. I leant on one hip and said Listen. I've done a whole lot less for a whole lot more under much better conditions... and she treated me better after that. I knew, I know, if anything, at the end of each day, I did a very good job.
I quit today.
There are more things in this world.
... though I will miss the bike rides to work, flying down the downtown hills, with the Sounds in my headphones, with her singing so loudly I gave my heart to rock n roll...
