Part Two

So four weeks drying out with the rich and famous (lucky for me, my sister made a buttload of money) and then the next two months looking for work while mooching off of her and her husband.

I opted for a somewhat unconventional approach to finding a new job. Mostly it involved sitting on my ass playing my nephew's Xbox for six, eight hours a day. But nobody ever started a professional Halo oldtimer's league (I could kick me some Covenant ass) and so occasionally I would also try a more traditional job-hunting approach.

Which was no more successful than the Xbox approach, frankly. I would get the Chronicle of Higher Education each week, search the want ads, and mail out obsequious letters with my c.v. But apparently I was still persona non grata in the academic world.

To begin with, apparently flipping off McCullough has broader ramifications than one might think. I mean OK, it was national TV, but it was PBS for chrissakes.

Then I discovered it was probably a bad idea to send a resume to any school I'd visited during my last book/lecture tour. That SOB at Vanderbilt called me up just to laugh at me, and to remind me I still owed them four hundred bucks for puking on the carpet in their guest residence. I told them that if they served better Scotch I wouldn't have been obligated to return it so... violently, and that they were lucky I wasn't suing them for trying to poison me.

Jen pointed out that this conversation probably didn't increase the odds of me being hired. I disagreed. I was a prick before I was a drunk, I said to her. People need to know the old Nick D'Alessio is back.

I even tried getting back into the punditry business. I figured a nice one-year fellowship with Cato or Brookings or some think-tank like that would help pad the resume and give people time to forget about some of my more excessive excesses. But when I had been making the talking-head rounds I was equally hostile to liberals and conservatives. The Republicans won't tolerate dissent, and the Democrats only wanted people who could help them get back into power, and plus --

"You gave David McCullough the finger on national television!"

Oh, please, get over it, people.

Rumors of my unemployed status reached far afield, however, and after two months I was contacted by someone to whom I'd not sent a c.v. My guess is it was that asshole at Vanderbilt who forwarded it down there.

Touche, asshole.

He said his name was... I don't know, Cletus or something. He was the head of a community college outside Mobile, Alabama, and he was willing to offer me a one-year contract position teaching American history to the paralegals and nursing assistants of tomorrow.

Jen pointed out that it was, in fact, a paying gig. Look, she said, you'll be on the beach, you'll be a big fish in a very small pond, you'll have time to start writing again.

I reminded her that all of my icebreaking jokes involved Southerners and/or community colleges. "I wouldn't know what to say," I said.

She didn't push. She could have threatened to tell Mom, but she said nothing.

But anyhow after two months she called me at (her) home one day and said "I just talked to someone about a great job for you."

"How great?" I said.

"Well..." she paused. "Look, you're going to say no. So just say it now, so we can get it behind us, and then I'll explain to you why you should change your mind."

"How do you know I'm going to say no? Is it at another deep South community college?"

"It's about Preacher Haywood."

I rolled my eyes, even though she couldn't see them. "No."

She laughed. "OK, now let's get serious. They're going to offer you a lot of money to do something pretty easy. And you won't have to actually see Preacher at all, if you don't want to."
"They?" I asked. "Worshippers? Jen, what's a good Catholic girl like you doing mixed up with them?"

"They called me trying to find you," she said. "And..."

"What?" I said, after the pause got too long.

"Nothing," she said. "Look, you're having lunch with them tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's no good for me," I said. "Besides, you don't want me to look desperate."

"Tomorrow," she said, and hung up.

I took her car and twenty dollars and got a haircut. Went through the clothes that Sarah sent up to me and found a decent suit. Might was well make them feel bad about not being able to hire me.