THE LONGEST ROAD - Part IX - A VIEW from BEHIND the MOP

John Miller had no idea what to expect! He was 21, going on 22.

He'd told his parents about his new job. His father laughed. His mother crumbled - " my son cleaning toilets", she cried, "what is wrong with you? What ARE you thinking?"

Elsewhere he got support... from friends - "that's cool, ya know".

John had worked for 3 years for a discount department store, part of a large chain of stores. His mother pleaded with him to become a store manager. John didn't completely discount the idea, but he really didn't like that place, that work. He didn't know why. The people working there were mostly okay... and he got to flirt and try his wings with a few of the women working there. Older women and those his age... one he actually got up the nerve to date... Angela, he recalled... slender, fit, and hot... and he'd gotten a date with her. A date he knew included sex...

Ironically, he chose the college park after dinner to pull over and make out with her. He was about to get to 2nd base when the police cruiser pulled up beside them, lights going - red lights! Angela had her shirt off - well, almost off. We pulled ourselves together quickly, as the officer knocked on our car window.

John rolled the window down... the officer asked questions, told them they need to leave. They left, and John never saw Angela again. He quit his job and went to work for the community college. How ironic he thought a year or so later. If he'd only gone with Angela in the hundred acre park, he'd have gotten to home. But he lived home then, and when he got the new job, he lived on the edge of the campus. A half a block from the arts building he'd be working at for the following three years. He often walked to the park at night, and not along the road, but through the dark woods.

John's mind was overloaded with information, new experiences, new revelations, knowledge and questions he didn't dare ask. Who could he ask. His father was generally cool and supportive, but he always seemed to hand him off to his mother... yeah, his mother. What happened between mother and son??? John really wanted to know. But it went so far back, and he was free to seek out a new life... for the first time he felt an overwhelming inspiration.

John wanted life! He wanted to be friends with women, and he felt that was taboo, which isn't surprising he often thought given the "general morality" in town, and how strictly his mother bought it. He wanted knowledge, he wanted to write. He wanted to solve mysteries, wanted to find the truth that had been strung in front of his nose his whole life... being told what was right, what was wrong, and there was little flexibility, in his opinion.

The first day on the job at the college his new boss, Frank, asked to see his hands. Nearby was his new co-worker, a man with bad teeth, a jutting lower jaw, but strong, and obviously he had a power of some kind. You could easily see in his dark eyes, the mischief within them. Half Italian, half a direct descendant from Apache Native Americans, Oats, it's what he was called, was a man that didn't take sit from anyone... he was exactly the kind of guy that John probably would not have chosen as a co-worker, had he the choice. Oats saw him as a hair-bag, a guy with longish hair - a hippie. He was right. But Oats turned out to be a better friend, than not. He would turn John upside-down at times. In a good way; though his pranks got John in minor trouble on a few occasions.

Frank, wasn't too impressed with John's hands. "The guy hasn't done a day of work in his life", he scoffed. Oats laughed. Frank handed him a partially cut-open white plastic bleach  bottle, and a toilet swab... "time to learn how to clean toilets", he told him.

And he learned...

After work that night - his shift ended at 11PM, John went home, rolled a joint and took a walk to the Hundred Acre park... mostly river and forest... he didn't go far, he just wanted to get out and walk in the darkness and the lights on campus; then get a feel for what was something he was familiar with during the day... when he'd walk along the paths in the woods. Funny how no matter how alone he was he felt paranoid, like a dozen police cruisers, helicopters would swarm in on him when he least expected it. Never happened... those years of paranoia were a waste. But John had to laugh... he would think, if pot makes a person paranoid, as he was told, then how was it he had a reason to be paranoid?

He'd been raised his whole life to strongly believe marijuana was a dangerous drug... a heinous drug, "the destroyer of youth..." Some destroyer... to John he'd begun to discover himself... and for the first time in John's life he realized he'd found a road that he liked. A road he felt good on.

In the middle of the dark woods John stood... he sparked up his Zippo lighter, and lit the joint. He inhaled deeply, held it in. The woods grew brighter, then darken and started closing in on him. The rush hit him a few seconds later, and the dark woods turned alive. Now he could see in the dark. He pushed back on any fear he felt. He told himself... believed, a dream had come true.

To be continued...