Never the Same IC#11 Part Four: Yet, the Same

What limerence feels like. Ineffective job interviews and dark emotions

Cue: “Always” https://youtu.be/9BMwcO6_hyA  

Even though facing north, Kirk’s room had brightened with the early morning’s low illumination.  After a nearly sleepless night, Kirk pondered, why can’t I shake Dee from my constant thoughts and dreams? Why’d she leave me?

His thoughts of Dee had swirled through his mind all night long. How she looked, her smile, her giggle, her hair, her cute little body, their time together, the endless embraces, the millions of kisses, obsessing over her warm, sensual lips on his. How could he ever forget holding her hand, her small, delicate hand while walking together, and staring into her eyes, her beautiful brown eyes. In the lowlight of his room, from the hollowness of his soul, with a heartbroken intensity, he whispered her name over and over into the ether. Dee! Maybe Dee will hear my pleas to come back to me.

It seemed no matter his brief, fleeting reflections on his other relationships with Bonnie, Farrah or Babe, his thoughts and dreams always circled back to his loss of Dee almost a year before. And every morning, Kirk asked himself the same fundamental question.

Was I truly in love with Dee, even though come to find out, she didn’t love me? Or was it only the deep, intense feelings of love. Was that it? That’s I felt, and it wasn’t about Dee at all? I cannot truly believe that. I remember every little thing about her, so it has to be that I miss her�"dearly. My constant intruding memory of her is holding me back from getting on with my life, but the fear to never experience that sort of intense feeling ever again is heart breaking. Oh Dee! I want you to come back to me!  

Kirk squeezed his watering eyes tightly shut and after a moment reopened them to take in the low light. He shook his head, rolled out of bed, and slowly dressed with no particular task for the day in mind. Maybe he only looked as far as his scrumptious morning bowl of cereal.

 Only his mother occupied the kitchen when he appeared downstairs. She pattered around with a cookbook spread out on the table. His mother often came up with uniquely different meals and snacks. Farmers famously run on their snacks and his mother supplied the family with anything from cookies to cakes to pies. Sitting there after a few minutes of eating, Kirk heard the back screen door slam. The father returneth. He stepped into the kitchen and eyed Kirk who sat hunched over his cereal bowl.

“I told Wade that you’d be by to see him this week,” his father brusquely pointed out yet again.

“I planned on going today,” Kirk said, between bites making the pivotal decision on the spot.

“You should make good money there after going to that tractor school, it sure cost enough.”

Kirk knew exactly what his father implied but said nothing nor reacted in any way. After finishing, Kirk stood up, stowed his bowl in the dish pan, and announced his departure.

“Well, I’m off to see what Wade has to say about my working for him.”

“Tell him right off who you are,” his father insisted.

Kirk turned back to his father. “I think he would remember who I am, and you just talked to him, right?”

Kirk grabbed his keys and wallet out of the bowl on the cabinet by the door, and he was gone.

**

So, even though thoroughly unenthusiastic about the prospect, Kirk had broken down at his father’s insistence to make his way to the John Deere dealer, which was about 15 miles away. He took his time getting there going a roundabout route. He recalled the road he drove was part of the route that he, as a young teen, took the tractor and equipment twice a year.

 In his early teens, Kirk’s father worked both their homestead farm and his grandparent’s farms using only one set of farm equipment. That said, after baling hay at one farm meant most of the equipment had to be taken to the other farm for baling. Kirk, back then, maintained a youthful enthusiasm toward driving the tractor, especially wide open, in high gear on the road that he didn’t experience as an older teen when it had become undeniably “old hat.” It seemed dangerous for a fourteen-year-old to be driving a tandem caravan of tractor, baler, and wagon with the grass mower on top, but back then, it was a different time and for the young teen Kirk, exhilarating. Kirk drove the route several times over the years without incident which is saying something when considering his father took out a couple mailboxes on one trip with a mistake in hitching properly.  

Anyway, from the street on his way to the possible job interview, Kirk scanned the tractor dealer building and lot. It seemed while pulling in the rough gravel driveway that nothing much had changed over the years. A rather large, overgrown field situated adjacent to the building had row after row of various used and abused agricultural equipment. There, decades of old equipment sat, the farther from the building, the thicker the weeds that grew in and around said equipment. Tractors of all makes, models and sizes in various states of disassembly sat parked along with dilapidated balers, junked rakes, decrepit mowers, plows, disks, drags, and an old rusty behemoth crop harvesting combine sat at an acute angle missing a wheel, an engine, and sheet metal pieces. Exactly one newer tractor and a new baler sat in the driveway. Overall, not a pretty sight.

Kirk recalled the main front “showroom” area of the building. The last time he was there with his father a couple years prior, that area appeared like nothing had been cleaned or moved since the second world war. Nothing new in the way of equipment was for sale just various replacement parts and boxes of oil and such sat around on the grubby and stained floor. A mess if Kirk correctly recalled. He already garnered doubts about working there wondering what the shop looked like if the showroom reflected the business’s overall cleanliness.

Parking near the side door, Kirk became pleasantly surprised in a couple of ways when he stepped inside. The showroom actually looked like it had been cleaned within the last ten years with a couple new garden tractors parked there, but what surprised Kirk the most was who stood behind the relatively new parts counter. Kirk froze in his tracks because there stood Yolanda.

Yolanda had attended the same school as Kirk and even though they weren’t in the same class, Yolanda had been undoubtedly school-wide renowned. A rather full-figured young woman, she stood a bit taller than the average young woman. Without a doubt, she could be called buxom. Pleasant and spicy appearing, Kirk knew of her mainly because of her brilliant red hair, at least that’s what he’d admit to out loud. Indeed, her voluminous red hair enveloped her head in great curly and colorful cumuli. Yolanda remained quite a sight to behold, as if she hadn’t changed at all in Kirk’s recall. Undoubtedly, Yolanda had indelibly dwelled in many a schoolboy dreams and desires. Kirk instantly wondered how she got the job.

Swallowing hard while trying to catch his ragged breath, Kirk walked up to the counter opposite Yolanda.

“Good morning,” Yolanda said. “How can I help you�"sir?”

The question made Kirk swallow again. He decided to try a bit of small talk if he were able.

“Hello, Yolanda. Are you running this place now?” Kirk said, with a smile and a gesture.

Yolanda leaned forward with a smile. She glanced aside. “Just about. I’m the receptionist, secretary, and parts person.” She glanced about again. “I put my foot down when they wanted me to fetch coffee and lunch.”

“Good for you,” Kirk said. “Say, I’m here to see Wade about a job�"a mechanic job. He was supposed to meet me though�"we, I didn’t have an appointment per se.”

“Well, he had to run out to make an adjustment,” Yolanda said, while making air quotation marks. “Say, thinkin’ about it, do I know you? You look very familiar.”

Kirk told her his name and that they went to the same school.

“Ahhhh,” Yolanda’s brain gears engaged. “YEAH! I remember you. You and that little young girl were hot steady. I remember you guys being very lovey dovey.” She made googly eyes. “What was her name now?”

“Dee.” Kirk sure didn’t want to bring Dee’s name to the light of day especially with another girl.

“Oh, that’s right! So, how’d you two make out, ah, I mean you guys stay together?”

“Well�"no, we didn’t work out at all,” Kirk said to the floor.

“Yeah, EVERYONE knew she cheated around with all the boys as soon as you were out of the picture. She gained a REAL reputation REAL fast with the guys.”

Kirk wondered about then the many perceived reputations of girls in school but kept it to himself as he floor gazed. Yolanda detected his downtrodden expression.

“Oh�"sorry. Breakups like that can be really messy and really tough on a guy. I know, I’ve had�"or caused several myself.”

Yolanda turned a lighter shade of pink, shifted her weight, and semi-casually put her left-hand palm down on the counter. She looked down inducing Kirk to look down as well. Yolanda wore a diamond and a gold band on her finger. Kirk understood the unsaid gesture, though thought, perhaps, she found him handsome and a temptation. The interaction suddenly became silent and uncomfortable.

Kirk eased back away from the counter and turned aside. He wanted to say SOMETHING, ANYTHING, but he couldn’t think of a thing. He paced a bit as Yolanda pattered around with some paperwork until she finally glanced up to look out the window.

“Hey look, here’s Wade.”

Wade remained pretty much as Kirk remembered: tall, stocky, a bit rough around the edges and a few years younger than Kirk’s father. When Wade entered the building, he glanced in Kirk’s direction, then Yolanda’s with a nod and a grim smile but continued on without a word, second thought, or apparently, a third.

“Hey Wade, wait!” Yolanda called out. Wade slammed on the brakes and turned back her way. “This is Kirk, here to talk to you about a mechanic job.”

“Oh right!” Said Wade, noticing Kirk for the first time. “Hmm, you must be Rob’s boy, right?”

Kirk bristled a bit but recovered.  He recalled the brief training the course provided for job interviews though he had thought at the time sounded awkward. Kirk stuck his hand out. Wade firmly gripped it.

 “Yes, sir. I attended the diesel course and just finished up couple weeks ago. I’m sure my father mentioned it.”

“He did. So. what they teach you down there at that place?”

Kirk began to tell him that even though the main focus of the course had been diesel fuel systems, they also covered powertrains and hydraulics, which he thought might apply to farm equipment repair. He went on to emphasize the rebuilding of fuel injectors and pumps to include testing pressures and spray patterns. Motoring on the best he could, Kirk went through the whole, detailed and inclusive rigmarole of the course.

“Well, that sounds good though I told your dad that we’re not planning on hiring a mechanic right now, but he insisted that you could drop by anyway.”

Wade glanced over to Yolanda who wore a neutral expression as she gazed at some paperwork. They dwelled that way for a moment with idly chatting about farm equipment and such. Kirk on a side thought wondered if Yolanda was more than an employee to Wade, but the age difference?

“So,” Wade scanned the driveway. “Business is light right now, so how about us going back to the shop area, and you can talk to my head mechanic, Bud.”

“Sure,” Kirk said simply. He then noticed some heavy thumping coming from the shop.

Entering into the shop through a heavy, over-sized door from the front room was literally going from a relatively tidy room to an immense grimy dungeon. The backside of the door they walked through was definitely murkier than the other side. Grime and splatters of unknown liquids covered the door as Wade made a conscious effort to shut it tight. No need to let that mess creep into the other area, Kirk thought. The thumping he had heard before entering now assaulted his ears. A big grimy man in dirty, once-blue coveralls pounded on a tractor tire with a prybar and sledge hammer to loosen the bead so he could remove the tire from the wheel.

Kirk scanned the rest of the shop. Far removed from the pristine, clean shops he had worked in when taking classes from BOCES and college, this shop exhibited a mix of dirt, grease, filth, and who-knows what? Undoubtedly, it had been a very long time, decades since anyone had seen the floor, if there was one down there. A tractor sat on one side of the shop split with the halves hanging on a cherry picker and precariously on a large jack stand. Old dust-covered tractor parts lay along the walls with the debris continuing right out the open back door. Where the grimy guy pounded on the tire stood a haphazard pile of old wheels. Taking it all in, Kirk’s stomach knotted up.

Another middle-aged man came in the back door carrying a large starter in two hands. This man also wore coveralls that hadn’t been washed in quite a while. Matching the guy with the tire, both men were burly with large muscular hands and arms. Kirk felt especially small, scrawny, and weak around the three men.

“Hey, Bud! Set the starter down and come on over here,” Wade shouted.

The man, apparently Bud, did so and walked over with a limp.

“What ya’ need, Wade?”

“Bud. This is Kirk, Rob’s boy,” Wade said. Kirk felt a twinge course through him.  “He attended that diesel course down south by the border.”

Kirk held out his hand to shake. Bud hesitated, but grabbed Kirk’s hand with a greasy, grimy hand and squeezed hard. Kirk noticed Bud was missing a little finger and wore a multitude of scars on his hands and forearms. Kirk started in with his spiel about the course for Bud’s edification.

“So, you’re pretty much an expert with fuel systems, eh?”

“I wouldn’t call myself an expert,” Kirk said. “Though they taught us all the main manufacturer systems for farm and industrial equipment.”

“Your knowledge and skills would not be useful here at all,” Bud said bluntly. “We just R&R the parts and send them off to the shop downtown at the Cummins Shop. Hmmm, thinking of that, I’d suggest checking with them for a job. It’ll fit your expertise better than us, here. Besides, I don’t think we’re needin’ another hand right now, right Wade?”

“Oh right. I already mentioned to Rob’s boy here that we aren’t hiring right now,” Wade said. I have a name, you know, Kirk thought bitterly as his mind went blank. “Besides, we’d have to start you as an apprentice at base pay. After that school, I’m sure you can do better elsewhere.” 

“I s’pose,” Kirk said, subdued. Kirk was not disappointed in the least and probably relieved after all he had seen. He recalled some of the job interview lesson. “Well, Wade, Bud, thanks for seeing me and hearing about my course and�"my skills. Thanks for the suggestion about checking with the Cummins Shop. I might just do that. Thanks again, have a good one.”

Kirk spun on a toe and strode out the open side door while avoiding a large puddle of oil and then weaving between a couple forlorn tractors in the parking lot. He wiped his hands together, recalling he had a hand towel stashed under the seat of the Bug.

After thoroughly scrubbing his hands with the towel, Kirk got in his bug and bugged out down the road. So. My father essentially knew that they weren’t hiring and hung my coming over here on me as something I HAD to do. A total waste of time for everyone involved. I could never stand working in a place like that. Am I doomed for job prospects?

Cue: “Paint it Black” https://youtu.be/O4irXQhgMqg

Abruptly, the gloomy doldrums struck Kirk hard again, and so he headed out on the highway and drove aimlessly with nowhere to go with no time constraints or as remaining unsaid in his mind, having all the time in the world to do nothing important. He experienced that down feeling just like those cold lonely days in college: depressed, unworthy, and still an aimless boy all alone in the world with no viable future to aspire. It didn’t help that Kirk always dwelled on all the things missing in his life: Dee or any girl to care about, a job and with that money, and no real friends to buoy him up in times like that.

The world around him in which he drove became blurry in a sheen of self-induced moisture. The hours on the road rolled by with no readily available answers coming to Kirk’s mind. He should have recalled that he always had a difficult time escaping the doldrums that came at these times which were then compounded by the constant recall of losing Dee. As Kirk drove, all those especially dark ideas flooded his conscious existence. Startling him, a tractor-trailer roared by from the other direction giving him an old familiar notion that shocked him. Kirk envisioned his pink bug crushing up in an accident like a soda can under a foot.

How would death by head-on collision feel? Would it hurt�"for long? Would anyone actually miss me? When and how would Dee find out I departed this physical world? Would she cry?

Would Dee even care?