08.18.08
Orphan fighter, pt. 5
Having nothing better to do, I went down to the part of the city where Dale’s House of Orphans was operating. Unlike the LCO, which was in the middle of nowhere, Dale’s was in the heart of the city. It was around the corner from a hospital and across the street from a high school. I had a hunch that the location was deliberate — what with all the teenage pregnancies these days. While I was scoping out the block, I stopped in at a coffee shop to order a pick-me-up. Sure was cold that day, and I hadn’t slept much the night before, either.
While I sat there sipping my expresso, I thought long and hard about whether I should throw myself into the kid business. I mean sure, it wasn’t something I was going to write home about, but the money looked good. Plus, it was kind of fun being there and seeing the fights. And to be offered a piece of that pie by one of the key players? That’s not the kind of thing that falls in your lap every day. Eh, even so, I still wasn’t sure.
I guess you could say that ever since I’d graduated from high school, I’d done a whole lot of nothing with my life. Every time an opportunity presented itself, I walked away from it. It’d been 5 years already, and I still hadn’t found a steady job yet. Mostly, I was just fooling around all the time, and I was starting to think that maybe it was time to go all the way with something, ya know? As far as I could tell, this gig was probably the only thing out there that wasn’t going to bore me by the second day. I had to wonder though, would I have to work with kids? ‘Cause the thought of it was a little unnerving. I mean hell, what are you supposed to do if they start crying or something?
I didn’t want to get too into it and talk myself out of the job, so I figured I’d give Dale a call and see what he wanted from me.
“Dale’s House of Orphans,” said a woman’s voice over the phone, “This is Doris speaking, how may I help you?”
“Hi, the name’s Jack McMillan. Dale gave me this number to call, you think I could talk to him?”
“One moment please.”
I was on hold for about 5 minutes before I heard a voice on the line.
“Ey, Jackie Mac, you’re the one from last night, right?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Cool, what can I do for you?”
“You offered me an opportunity to play for your team, and I wanna know more.”
“Well, I don’t got anything going on this afternoon, can you swing by for a visit?”
“No problem,” I said.
“Wonderful. Any time between 2 and 5. I’ll give you a tour of the facilities.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“See you in a bit then,” he said, and then he hung up the phone.
“Yeah, see you then.”