It’s 3:40 pm and I’m in Hemingway’s. The $1.50 big draft special is Shock Top. It’s not bad. It’s great for $1.50. I take off my jacket but leave on my long shoreman’s cloth cap, muffler and hoodie and it feels good. St. Joe’s and Texas play basketball on two of the flat screen TVs. The jukebox plays a song I don’t know but it’s jammin’. The singer is beggin’ for mercy against a funky back beat.
I wonder what’s going to be on my voicemail when I get home. Since I didn’t have enough money to pay my rent Thursday I might as well pay my $100 phone bill and send $50 to Sallie Mae. My first social security check is due around Christmas and can’t get here fast enough. I know I must be suffering from depression.
People walk along Forbes Avenue under open wet umbrellas. I won’t know until the first week of December if I’ll be called back for a second interview with the data company I first interviewed with several days ago. I need a job.
GHH
Filed under: Life In Pittsburgh | Tagged: depression, flash fiction writer, loneliness, mental health, rain, random, Sallie Mae, social security, the blues
