Feint and Dodge

My favorite minimum wage job was the one that almost killed me a few times.

Do you know the difference between attempted vehicular homicide and attempted vehicular manslaughter?

I sure didn't.

Whichever one was coming for me, I learned the feint and the dodge because I had to.

The feint and dodge didn't just save my life a few times; it also also helped me escape bruises from half-full plastic cups flung from somewhat above the posted speed limit.

I couldn't feint or dodge sunburn, choking smog, or tinnitus from all that noise, however.

Even so, in all sincerity, sign dancing was my favorite minimum wage job.

Sign dancing is not for everyone: the job is about as demeaning and ridiculous as it sounds: you dance with a sign.

The goal is to be seen, to be noticed, by people driving by.

Dangerous as it was, the numbers didn't lie: the days that I was out there were days that made a company a little more money.

I had plenty of time each day while dancing with my sign to keep my brain busy contemplating that weird fact: lots of people driving by apparently hated seeing me and expressed their hatred accordingly, but they still tended to buy more of whatever my sign was selling.

Before I go on about the unpleasant side of the job, let me stress that I am not being sarcastic: sign dancing really was preferable to the alternatives I had at the time.

I was paid by the hour, and most of those hours, sometimes for days at a time, were unsupervised.

I had bosses of course, and I made a habit of acting as if one of them could sneak up on me at any moment, but more often than not they stayed indoors and picked on people in their air conditioned offices instead of making sure I was actually dancing with my sign.

You might be wondering what products I sold on the signs that I danced with.

The answer leads to my next point about the job: it varied, but it truly did not matter.

I wasn't selling you whatever it was; I was only making you aware that it existed.

I didn't have to lie to you, pretend to be your buddy, fabricate an unreasonable price just to make you feel like you drove a hard bargain when I offered a fake discount.

I didn't have to smile at your condescending remarks, accept your "tips" about getting a real job, laugh convincingly when asked if I was working hard or hardly working, or tell you about the special of the day and pester you to add a drink to that, make it a combo, or make it extra large with a pie on the side.

If you saw my sign, my job was already done.

By the time you were gone, I had already forgotten about you, just in time to read the body language of the next vehicles coming up the road.

If they honked at me, unpleasant as it was, that meant I was safe.

No one that honked at me, no matter how angrily, ever tried to kill me.

It was the quiet ones that were most likely to try to swerve onto the curb to try to "accidentally" run me over.

As an old saying goes, I would have never heard the one that got me.

I didn't contemplate my mortality much; I had to dance.

My dance moves were all improvised, changing with the weather and the time of day.

Most days were hot and dry, dusty and smoggy.

On those days, I held the sign as high as I could and danced in its downcast shadow.

Some bosses didn't like when I wore my gloves. I suppose they saw papercuts and cooked leathery fingers as more friendly and presentable to the public.

When it was windy, I'd dance against it both because it was fun and invigorating and because I had to: a momentary slip of motion and my sign would go flying into the road.

On those occasions, I had to risk my life on purpose to rescue the sign before it got run over.

You might think that those signs were cheap and easy to replace, but I'd come back to the same jobs in the same spots and the same sign would be there, weeks or even months later.

I didn't get work when it rained, which was too bad because the air was much more tolerable then.

It wasn't about my wellbeing, it was about the sign: rain would make the cardboard soggy.

I had a proposal to one boss that had called me in early because it had started to rain one overcast day: let me wrap the sign in a transparent plastic bag.

He thought it over until a grin crawled over his stiff rubbery face, then let me do just that.

I danced in the rain that day.

I even sang in the rain; what a glorious feeling that was.

The wind blew, some thunder rumbled on the horizon, but for what it was worth, I had never felt more happy at that pay rate while on the clock.

That happiness lasted only two hours into my shift.

A car with dark tinted windows, one that I should have recognized, slowed down to a stop by my curb and the window rolled down.

"Having fun?" that day's boss asked with the same plastic grin that had sent me off.

Young and naive as I was, I gave the worst possible answer.

Yes.

He took back his proprietary cardboard sign, peeled the plastic wrap off of it, flung the plastic at me and drove off without another word.

I never worked for that particular company ever again, but there were more curbs and corners and I continued to dance.

I learned from that point onward to never, ever have too much visible fun out there; I was not getting paid to have fun.

That lesson stuck with me and persisted long after the rainy season had passed and I was once again dancing under the scorching California sun.

"Having fun?"

I heard someone ask that question, and while it reminded me of the prelude to getting my plastic-wrapped sign taken away because I had too much fun dancing in the rain, I didn't actually recognize the voice I just heard.

I turned around and what I saw slowed my dance to a stop.

The first strange thing about that man was that he was approaching me on foot; very few people walked on that particular sidewalk but me and I had it all to myself on most days I was out there.

To this day I still don't know why that walking man was so overdressed for a mid-day walk; he had a button-down dress shirt, immaculate slacks, and leather shoes so polished that they caught the sun and dazzled my eyes the moment I glanced down at them.

I rubbed my eye with my free hand and tried to make eye contact while wondering whether that was fresh sweat or sunscreen dripping down his pale face.

The last strange feature about him was that his widely framed blue eyes lacked sunglasses or sun protection of any kind.

At that moment, as far as I was concerned, he had just stepped in from another world and the rules of mine didn't really apply to him, except maybe hydration for a hot day, because he had a small plastic water bottle hanging partially out of the pocket of his slacks.

"I saw you dancing with that sign from a ways away," the walking man said as he pulled out the water bottle and held it out to me.

I looked down the street to make sure none of the cars approaching was a boss's car before I took the bottle and twisted the cap off with one hand, my other hand still holding the sign in my crisply sunburned fingers as I emptied the entire contents down my throat with the plastic cap still cradled in the palm of my upturned hand.

"You got talent, kid," the man remarked. "I see how you opened that bottle with one hand without dropping the cap."

Even in the moment, I felt uncomfortable with that observation; who talked like that?

"You got a name? Mine's Miles," Miles said.

I hesitated for just a little longer, but realized I hadn't said a word to the first person that greeted me with anything but a honking horn or a thrown soda cup all day. "Ulysses," I said.

"Hey hey hey Ulysses, the pleasure's all mine," Miles said, continuing to talk like an alien in a way that was so memorably weird that I still remember what he said because of how he said it: animated and even a little sing-songy on the enunciation, "here, let me take that for you..."

The empty plastic bottle was out of my hand, sans the plastic cap in my palm, and then I stumbled forward, pulled into an unexpected handshake.

"Miles (last name deliberately omitted)," he said, continually pulling at my hand like a dentist trying to twist out a wisdom tooth, "I'm an agent and talent scout for (name of company deliberately omitted). You know..."

He finally let go of my hand and threw his arms out to the sides with an open-handed gesture that flung the empty plastic bottle off the curb and into the dry dusty gutter as he repeated the name of his company with a stretched high note on the final vowel like he was practicing for an opera recital.

"Yeah, I heard of you," I said, lying to his face because my gut told me to; startups were everywhere even back then and I saw so many similar names on the sides of passing vehicles, on billboards, and sometimes on the sides of buildings that maybe I did see the name before but it all blended together after a while.

"Great! That means I'm doing my job," Miles remarked. "Do you know why I'm out here today, Ulysses?"

I already missed several cars by that point, and one of them honked at me; I was so distracted that a boss's car could have gone by already and I'd have already lost yet another curb and another proprietary sign to dance with so I resumed dancing while Miles kept standing there at the corner of my eye.

"I'm out here because I've been in your place. That's right, I was a sign dancer just like you!" Miles claimed, but judging by the spring in his step, I believed him. "It's a tough gig, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I said, because the full truth of me preferring sign dancing to the alternatives was too long of an answer.

"You know, I believe that there's something, you know... a great mystery," Miles said while sidestepping to stay in my peripheral vision as I continued to sign dance, "and I'm not religous or anything, but things happen for a reason, you know? I think there's a reason we've met today, Ulysses."

"Huh," I said, because I had no idea what else to say.

I then saw a boss's car rolling up and the passenger side window going down; I was lucky because I was dancing the whole time before I spotted him and well before he stopped against the curb.

"Miles, my man," the day's boss called out with his arm outstretched as he slid across the seats, sliding their hands together in some sort of mutually understood and pre-rehearsed motions that ended in as high of a five as was possible between one man leaning down and another man reaching out a car window.

"Always be hustlin'," they said together before their hands parted ways and the boss veered back onto the street, swerving around the curb without the slightest acknowledgement of me.

That was a good thing most of the time, just to be clear.

"We go back, me and him," Miles said, "you know he cool, right?"

"Yeah," I said, while keeping it to myself that I had such a casual association with that particular boss of that particular company that I didn't actually remember his name even though his name plate was on his desk for me to see every time I showed up to get the day's sign.

"Yeah-heeh!" Miles pumped his arm before grabbing mine, not particularly hard but enough to make me stumble mid-step just as another car honked at me.

"What are you waiting for, Ulysses?" Miles said with his face still locked into a grin, "let's go!"

"I'll get in trouble if..." I started to say.

"Didn't I say he cool, and we cool?" Miles reminded me. "You can dance, so you can walk a few blocks. What's your favorite smoothie? I'll hook you up," he offered, hand still on my wrist but not pulling as tightly while referring to the smoothie shop between me and the taller buildings closer to downtown.

He let go of my wrist at last and I resumed dancing. "Are you ESL?"

"What?"

"English," Miles clarified, "English as a second language."

"No," I said.

"Do you understand," Miles said, enunciating each other slowly and condescendingly clearly, "that I am giving you a job offer? A real job, with a future?"

"What would I do?" I asked, looking him in the eyes and seeing a pleading, almost sad look on his face, one that made me feel a lot less intimidated and even made me feel bad for being so reluctant to just walk off the job I had, whether or not Miles was "cool" with that particular boss.

"It will be learn as you go," Miles said, "and you'll be getting in on the ground floor."

"Hasn't (name of company deliberately omitted) been around a while?" I asked.

"Look, Ulysses," Miles said, switching from sad to frustrated, even visibly angry, in the span of the syllables of my name, "are you coming with me, or not?"

I resumed dancing, turning slowly away from him, but I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck as Miles left my periphery.

"Thanks," Miles shouted alongside the next honked horn, "thanks for wasting my time!"

I continued dancing, presuming that he was walking away.

My presumption proved correct as I heard his voice, louder than before but also more distant further down the street, "Have fun being poor!"

I confess that I felt a pang of regret and felt just as stupid as Miles intended for me to feel, but the only thing more awkward than sign dancing while waiting for someone to end a one sided conversation would have been asking if the job offer was still available at that point.

I heard a loud skidding sound of a parked car swerving and drifting onto my dancing street.

Miles' car sped past me, without swerving into me, but with a parting angry honk and the stench of burnt tire rubber to remember him by.

The rest of that day's sign dancing felt more exhausting than usual; I felt distracted and regretful.

Miles was more cool with the day's boss than I thought; after I gave the sign back, he told me not to bother to come back tomorrow, or ever.

I didn't bother asking why; I knew.

Years later, after many more days of sign dancing on other curbs and corners until the 2009 recession came around and the bosses stopped calling, I dared to look up Miles' startup online.

The story I missed was like a three part play.

The first act, the prelude, was promising. I could have gotten in on the ground level after all; seems Miles had only just started there himself judging by the calendar dates I had found.

The second act was a meteoric rise, including extravagant parties, foreign investment, even an imminent public offering.

The third act, just a year after that, was investigations of fraud, jail time, and sudden collapse.

I didn't see Miles' name anywhere, so I don't know whether he got out in time.

I sometimes wonder if Miles was actually "in" in the first place, because one of the many accounts of fraud involved unauthorized agents impersonating representatives of companies affiliated with that startup.

For years I thought about the siren song of the hustle he proposed, and wondered what could have been if I'd followed Miles, and took up his offer for a smoothie.

Whatever could have been, I dodged it.