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November 05, 2003
On the Dole
"You plan on applying anywhere today?" H@rold 11 asked me. As he did every day. As the government required robots like him to ask. The government paid for the electricity that kept him running in the hopes that he'd eventually be able to drive me out of my apartment and back into the mainstream of employed and productive society. The bastard. Pretty friendly though, otherwise.
"Actually, Aich, I was thinking about taking in a movie. There's one of those at the Lumiere that has that one cop that teams up with the robot detective. Know the one? Turns out the robot detective is the killer? At the climax, the two have a fight in a giant, industrial power station and the robot is knocked into a generator and gets electrocuted. In the epilogue, we see he's been converted to serve soft drinks."
"So you've seen this movie," said H@rold 11.
"Yeah, Aich, I've seen it, but it gets better every time I see it."
"Sure you wouldn't rather apply for a job. I noticed in the paper this morning--"
"You grabbed my paper?"
"-- an opening for a dishwasher."
I straightened a box of Kleenex that I had on the kitchen table. The edges squared up with the table's edge. "I thought all those positions were automated. Got robots doing all that work."
"This restaurant must be run by people like you, Thomas."
"Not like me."
"People who feel uncomfortable about robots. Who prefer not to deal with them."
"People like me don't run restaurants, Aich," I told him. "People like me prefer not to do anything at all."
"Yes, sir," said H@rold 11.
I dropped my bowl and spoon into the sink. Still had a few days before I'd run out of room in the sink and would have to wash dishes.
There really wasn't a movie about a robot killer who gets killed at the theatre. I made that up, trying to get a rise out of him. But I never get a rise out of him. Not even when I ignore him and his hourly job suggestions.
H@rold 11 moved in with me after the seven weeks of unemployment I had been living off of ran out. His presence was required if I was to transfer from the unemployment to the dole proper. The money they give you because it's cheaper than having you stick up liquor stores and cheaper than handling your dead body when you freeze to death on a park bench, your stiff body glued to the newspaper you were shivering under by the nights snow and hail.
Things that H@rold 11 can not do:
1. Tell a joke.
2. Tell the government the awful things I've said about the government.
3. Leave my apartment.
4. Get a job on my behalf, work the job, and bring me the money.
5. Fuck off.
I have tried to get him to do each of these things and failed.
It's a full time job, this dealing with H@rold 11, or Aich, as I call him for short.
"There is also a position available for an operator."
"A telephone operator? Forwarding calls?"
Aich paused and clicked. "No."
"One who operates? A doctor? An operative, a spy?"
"The job listing did not give details."
"Then I'm not applying."
"Thomas," Aich said. "You disgust me. I did not know I was programmed to feel disgust, but I feel it nevertheless."
I looked out my kitchen window. The neighborhood was quiet. The working stiffs had left for work hours ago. I tugged the belt on my robe tight. "Well... I imagine that you were programmed to feel disgust. There's not other explanation."
"There is a listing for a food preparation position. At a school."
Nope.
"There is a listing for a data entry clerk at the Journal newspaper. Classified ad division. You can type, can't you, Thomas."
I loosened the belt a touch. I glanced at the clock on the wall. If I could just hold out for about 45 more minutes, we'd get through all the new job openings and then it would get easy. Then it would just be disappointed sighs every ten minutes. Every twenty minutes, a disparaging comment, an attack on my self-worth. And only once every two hours a threat.
No more money. Cut off for good. Lack of effort. Et cetera.
That was about the size of it. Park bench with my name on it. The feel of icicles sprouting from the follicles of hair in my nose. Dripping down the back of my throat and becoming solid. Unable to breathe at three a.m. because the rain is freezing and the cells of my body are bursting.
"I can type," I tell Aich. "But I prefer not to."
When they chip me off the bench and peel off my clothes to have them burnt, the soy ink will be readable in reverse on my thin button-down shirt. They can read the news of the day. Or even flip the shirt over and hold it up against a mirror to read !!HELP WANTED!! No Prior Experience Required! Are you a young, motivated person who wants to stop making a living and start LIVING? WE CAN HELP!
"You prefer not to," said H@rold 11. "For weeks now I have been living with you and in all that time, you've never told me what it is that you prefer to do for a living. I ask and I ask. I cannot stop asking until you tell me."
Okay. Okay, keep asking. I can see children at play across the street. Days will go by. Checks will come. I will sleep and H@rold 11 will not.
Nice work if you can get it.