Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
This was the end of an era. Michelle Borok – who some of you know or don’t know has left the building. After 7 years or more, the employee who left an indelible mark on shops and art in LA and beyond is leaving for Northern Mongolia. On saturday, LA experienced warm weather. Even at night, a light jacket would suffice. Across the globe, it was -50.
Some of the photos from Year of the Dragon are happy and the room was filled with artists. Some young, some older and a few of them asked, “is that Michelle?” The answer, “Yes she is” – no matter where she’s at.
No crying here.
(Art by spoon+fork.)
When my sentence was almost up, I chose the one-week job-placement course in food management. Ben was right. There weren’t any furniture-making jobs out there.
I was released in late June and got assigned to a restaurant run by these two brothers named Conti. It was a small place, they told me, next to the boardwalk. I was going to be paid through deposits into a monitored bank account, but the money was mine and it was even a little bit more than I was making at the Chatterbox. I was excited, even though I had to sign an employment contract for the duration of my one-year probation.
I had figured out that after my probation was up I would go for the ultimate office job, which was the administrative office in the middle of the boardwalk. There was always an “Office Job” sign in the door.
But I had to get through a year at the burger stand first. It was weird to leave prison on the same public bus the visitors took. I took two transfers and walked 15 blocks to the restaurant attached to the Seahorse Hotel. I was immediately disappointed because the owners, the Conti brothers, weren’t there to meet me and the restaurant was really a nameless burger stand. Even worse, it was five blocks away from the boardwalk and the hotel was run by hindus.
As I approached the order window I could faintly hear the people on the log flume screaming on the final plunge.
The only guy who was at the burger stand was Howard Peppi. He was in my class but I lost track of him when he got left back in fifth grade. It kinda wasn’t his fault. His mom had died and he needed counseling to deal with it.
I saw Howard a few times in the working world, but I never gave him much more than a nod. Him, too.
Howard came out from around the side of the stand. The skin on his face was peeling around his nose. He shook my hand and I saw that his arms were hairy to the wrists.