Rest Assured

Rest Assured Michael Merlo (bio) Before Jean left for work in the morning, she said she wished things were different and that we'd talk about it when she got home. Then she put her coat hood up, opened the door and walked out into the cold. I looked through the window to see if she needed help with the car. She started it earlier and scraped it herself. Something I used to do when we started dating some years ago. I'd been out of work and the layoffs at the newspaper led me to believe that after nearly a decade at small publications, there wasn't much else I could do. She wanted me to apply for a city job, but I didn't want to work with the people I wrote articles about. I looked online for gigs. There was an opening at the post office that paid more than my reporter's salary. Maybe it would be nice to drive one of those little trucks in the summer and spend time outside on foot instead of being at a desk all day. I "romanticize," she said, pick something you'd actually like. The one thing I knew was that I didn't want to work in newspapers anymore. It had been the only job I had since graduating college. I was at the point where I was just as boring as the news. Jean forbade me from talking about work three years ago. She said it was, "too depressing," and that my mind had been stuck in the gutter by the 24-hour "liberal" news media. She used finger quotes. Sure, I said, I'm a victim of our era. We couldn't really talk about it too much, because we were on different spectrums of the news. I wrote it and she spoke it. Jean worked as a secretary for the city manager. That's how we met. I called so much to get a quote that we became first name acquaintances and then friends and then I asked her out. When my editor found out about the conflict of interest, I was moved to the crime beat. My editor said that it would be an easy transition. It was, but the difference was that it kept me up nights. The thoughts I had of people in jail or dead were followed by more thoughts and stories which I wrote and tried hard to ignore after. Although I hated to admit it, the crime beat didn't fit me. Anyway, it was hard not to think about my work. And when I woke up this morning, I couldn't help but pull myself out of this mental trap. The one thing I hated worse than reminiscing about secondhand work-related End Page 147 trauma was listening to someone in public relations talk about their "journalism days." Whatever I do, that wouldn't be me. The bread in the fridge was molding so I ate salami and cheese for breakfast. Five beers and a half supermarket cake were left from the party over the weekend. I cracked one and sat on the couch while I ate. The dog walked over as I finished my last bite. He licked my fingers and I sat back and drank the beer. It was weird being out of a job. The curtains looked different. Not like I cared really, but also the paint and the wood floors were glowing. These mundane things I forgot about or never viewed charmed the hell out of me all of a sudden. The couch scratched a little more than I remembered and I saw myself looking haggard in the reflection of the TV. I turned it on. The news came on so I turned it off. I always wanted to be a "novelist." Jean knew that about me. She knew that I wanted to write more than just FOIA requests and 500 words about the county commissioners speaking words said to be written. Jean said that since I'd been out of work maybe I should try to sell some of that passion or what was left of it. I sat at the computer...