ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°Robert McKay°° ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß dedicated to Mama Cass Elliot The leaves on the trees were brown. It was fitting, for the trees, growing out of squares in the sidewalk covered with metal gratings, were stunted and deformed by the steady diet of noise and smoke and graffiti. The cold sharp wind rattled the leaves as they clung to their stalks. The leaves were already brown, but they hadn't yet fallen. The wind came with a thin, depressing whistle through the buildings. Huddled in corners or behind flimsy shelters of cardboard and newspaper, the few bums and defectives still out shivered in their apathetic poverty. The sky pressed crouched grayly overhead, not like a storm about to break, but rather as a dull, heavy blanket of despair. It was winter in New York. I was out of work, and nearly out of money, and looking at the very real possibility of being out a place to live. There might be jobs here, and the government might be working up a jobs program, but nothing seemed to help me. I'd worn my clothes out of presentability, and couldn't afford to replace them; consequently I was forced to lower my sights and hunt for work where a suit worn to an interview was a drawback rather than an advantage. The clothes, threadbare as they were, didn't provide much protection against the numbing wind that came down the street and scraped my cheeks and forehead raw, and turned my limbs into stiff so many hunks much wood. I wasn't a native New Yorker. I was from what I, as a left- hander, liked to refer to as the "left coast." I was born and raised in California, but with the influx of people from elsewhere the costs were so high and the jobs so scarce that I began to drift. I worked my way from job to job, until by the time I reached Nebraska I was a confirmed drifter. I crisscrossed the country, and finally got across the Mississippi after 10 years of wandering around on the western side. Once across, it seemed as if I'd burned a bridge behind me; it was natural now to deliberately drift east. I wound up in New York, where I settled, drifting now not from place to place but from job to job. As it happened, I managed to work my way up, until I was no longer a day laborer or a messenger, but a minor executive who had an office and a computer terminal and wore suits to work. But I quit one job too many, and at the wrong time. There was a recession on, and for every opening there were a hundred applicants. When all an employer has to do to fill a position is drop a hook into a starving mass of fish, he can afford to pick only the very best. And that didn't describe me. I was competent, and had always done my best at whatever job I'd held, but I'm no expert at anything. Most drifters aren't; they do too many different jobs to be truly expert at any one thing. We're generalists, not specialists. So now I was walking down the street, deliberately walking over the subway gratings to get a touch of warm air if possible. I had no gloves, and my hands, stuck in my armpits, were still red and stiff and subject to pain when accidentally bumped. I'd just come from the last stop of the day - a construction site where the superintendent had said that when they needed someone with a license to drive a wheelbarrow, he'd call me. He thought it was funny. Back in California it wouldn't be this cold. Oh, yeah, they have winter out there. It gets down to 60 sometimes. It rains, sure, and up in the mountains it may snow. I've seen Mt. Baldy white several times - when I could see that far through the smog. But it's nothing like here in the east. It doesn't come ice and snow in southern California, it doesn't blow knife blade winds down from the north, it doesn't torment you with dreams of a warmer and better place. When I find a job, I'm going to stick with it until I can save me some money. When I've got enough in the bank, I'll head for California. and when I get there, where the Beach Boys and Ronald Reagan and a lot of suntanned people live, I'll never leave. That's a promise. -end- Copyright (c)1993 Robert McKay