Bad Offer

24^th January 2016

My Dear Sister Margaret,

I spoke to you of the events of the hearing where I fought for my unemployment, and I still await the results. I got another call that day and one of the darkest I have received so far.  I received a job offer to work in skid row as a security officer: Less pay, more danger, but promise of overtime. I could tell this fellow thought it was an easy sell. He figured that I needed the job which is anything but true, but if I was losing my unemployment, if I knew I was I mean, I’d have taken the job. That’s the kind of work I get called for, the pay is a joke, and the conditions are bad. That’s the life of a man with my experience.

To add insult, I never did hear back from Raf on that script. You’d think after how I proved myself to that fellow he would be honest. I tell you, there was an altercation out front one night. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew Raf was out there and so I went out to watch his back. When you’re ready to bleed for a fellow it should mean something.

I always figured that if the script was good enough he knew someone who would want to produce it and if it wasn’t I needed to know. Now my option is to put money into the script to try and find a producer. That’s the thing about writing, you need friends or you need money. Friends always come up short so I got to try money. That’s why taking any job becomes a thing. 

In other news, I still don’t have my car back. They said it would be another week but that they would have to cover the rental fee. At least that’s something.

The only honestly good thing I have for you is that a friend, Dan, was happy to know of my bringing you recyclables and thinks he may have some toiletries for the homeless.  Dan told me that the woman he lives with, I’m not sure his relation to her, is a nurse and takes these things as they are given to her at her work. He winds up with a stalk pile and so on.

Here is to the light at the end of the tunnel,

Richard Leland Neal