Hustling

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I am broke. Dead broke. As I’ve looked for part-time work to augment my full-time income and pay down post-divorce credit card and tax debt, it feels like 1975 all over again. That year, I and thousands of other graduates entered the work force, college diplomas in hand, only to find a rolling tide of recession and unemployment.

At the time I was living in a small town in southern Ohio with my older sister’s family. In exchange for room and board, I helped with chores and childcare for the three children and also cleaned house for several of my sister’s friends. Just to our north, in Columbus, dozens of my classmates had Real Jobs and shared awesome apartments. Anxious to be on my own, every Monday morning I boarded the Greyhound bus to Columbus and disembarked in the dingy terminal, sliding past street preachers and circumventing winos while I worked my way to the center of the city. I spent the day going door to door, looking for any available job, but hit a steady string of dead ends.

One restaurant manager looked over my application, saying, “You’re overqualified for this job.” The idea of being overqualified caught me off guard. I had waited tables before; it was right there on my application. I had cleaned toilets, too, in the throes of what I thought was true love, because cleaning toilets at a sailing club in Connecticut was the only way for me to be near that beautiful boy for the whole summer. I had vacuumed and dusted and scrubbed rich people’s houses, worked as a hostess for private parties and cooked dinners for a man whose wife was “away at her mother’s.”

I thought I would do just about anything in pursuit of my independence, but I got the chance to learn my limits, thanks to a friend of my brother-in-law. John practiced law in Columbus and restored old houses as a side business. We went out a couple of times, to downtown bars where we danced till we were sweaty, ending up in his Suburban where we necked in an alcoholic frenzy while his English springer spaniels licked our faces. We both knew this would not be a serious affair, but it was a lot of fun, and I grew to think he was wise and had my best interest at heart. So when he suggested I interview with a newly founded Columbus magazine, I perked up. I had my degree in American Studies, but my first love had always been writing.

“What’s the name of the magazine?” I asked.

“It’s called Hustler,” he said.