National Treasures

By Ryan McCord

James McEwing is an out of work writer nearing his 30's and losing patience for a big break to come along. His best friend of the same age, Gerry Galloway, is a career minor league baseball player looking for a more convincing reason than the prospect of marriage to hook him off the athletic stage.

During spring training in Florida, it appears as if the vicissitude of time has finally given the two young men no choice but to submit, pack up, and together drive all the way back home to Pullman, Washington-for good.

Along the way, they plan a stop in New England for a relative's 40th birthday bash, followed with a layover in Chicago for a game at Wrigley Field on Major League Baseball's opening day.

It was supposed to be a farewell toast; a 3,000 mile road-trip to mark their youth coming to an end. But a clean break just wouldn't play itself out for Big Game James and Gerry G. Life comes back to pedal one more seed of opportunity in exchange for the same old price of persistence and humility.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ryan McCord
• Release date: Feb 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458156662

Ryan McCord

About the Author:Mr. McCord prefers manual to automatic transmission...skeptical towards politics and "enter-to-win free TV" contests...a left-handed mouse user...American taxpayer since 2001...Mr. McCord has been fully reimbursed with his last four security deposits...AAA member in 2002, '03, '08...Honor Roll Student in 1994. Wants to learn how to talk small. HS ELA teacher in Kennewick, WA. Guilty pleasure: getting paid to listen to fixed-mindset folks at work meetings.

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National Treasures

by Ryan McCord

Copyright 2011 Ryan McCord

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CHAPTER 1 THE DREAMERS

With Florida’s calm April skies cloaked behind a cloud formation as far as the eye could see, NASA is about to launch a rocket carrying a team of astronauts into orbit.

In Brevard, about 20 miles north of the launch site, 28-year-old pals James McEwing and Gerry Galloway idle themselves in lawn chairs next to a pond. In order to help pass the time, they engage in a brief discussion concerning health care reform in the United States.

Directly behind them is James’s white Mazda pickup. The canopy-capped bed of the vehicle primarily functions as a shelter for the nomad at this stage of his life. James is a journalist by trade; unaffiliated but aimed to build a career out of writing about the world of sports.

On the other side of the pickup is a chain-linked fence with a baseball field behind it. The very same fence that Gerry, eight hours from now, will be working in front of with a baseball glove, wearing a Washington Presidents uniform. Gerry is an affiliated minor league baseball player with hopes of making it to the Big Leagues some day. This marks the fifth spring training he has participated in with the organization.

James completes his stand on the health care conversation.

"For 40 years we have been voting nothing but false prophets into major political office, and will probably continue to do so for the next 40. So all I’m asking is, if they’re going to continue to: A.) Work us to death B.) Feed us poison C.) Take our money and D.) Stress us out; then we should be getting some kind of annual, remedial thank you in return.

For years I have been teetering the hemorrhoid line because I can’t afford quality toilet paper, let alone running water. Is the right to a bi-annual, 5-minute examination too much to ask?

These two educated Americans are closing in on their 30’s, respectively. Neither one of them have the slightest clue where they will be living or working a year from today, let alone next week when training camp breaks. The inevitable final boarding call for the flight back to Settlesville is being made by now, isn’t it?

We can’t afford it, Gerry starts, taking a brief time out from wolfing down host family evening leftovers of fish sticks with ketchup. "So the question is…if a certain empire, let’s say the United States of America…shows serious signs of crumbling…would the rest of the world just go on?

I can’t imagine us, the King of the World, allowing that to happen.

Just in the nick of time, one of those catchy Jimmy Buffett tunes begins to play on the truck’s satellite radio, sending a cheap wave of fun into the air.

James shrugged, I’ll let you know when I’m teaching Eng-rish in tucked away Korea. He reels in his bass fishing line while bobbing his head along with the tune.

Like many young and untested Americans certain of grabbing hold of their butterfly ambitions, James has had a difficult time finding an employer and consequently a consistent lifestyle he can anchor to. It doesn’t help when the investment of a college degree has yet to return enough to purchase a loaf of Wonder Bread. He’s searched the web high and low for entry-level jobs in his respective field of print journalism, and must have applied for nearly 500 openings since earning his BA from Washington State University in his hometown of Pullman.

His stubbornness to succeed is a byproduct of The McEwing family Mission Statement growing up. You’ve probably heard it before, as it goes something like: You can do anything you put your mind to.

Until the other day, thanks to the Mission Statement, James’ drive was fueled by the underpinnings of the following self-centered life goals: 1. Become a Manhattan-based sportswriter someday and 2. date super models and A-list actresses.

If only James’ parents, anthropology professors at WSU, had known that their adapted Mission Statement was actually formulated by a group of people they happened to be separated a full seven degrees from. It all started during the early 80’s, on a 5th of May in fact, halfway through an eight-ball gathering hosted by a collaboration of part-time community college students and full-time pizza delivery drivers somewhere in upstate New York. A high school drop out turned future motivational speaker happened to be in attendance. He couldn’t sleep or eat pizza for two nights. He ended up betting his career on the idea, and now he is sipping pina coladas made by one of his young wives, on his own tropical island.

James finally finished school at Wazzu (because his tuition was free, he managed to milk his junior and senior years out of a single Bush term), and took the first job that he was offered: a carpenter’s assistant for the summer. That lasted three years before he managed to save enough, thanks to Gerry’s wisdom that he filed away (and living with his parents for 27 years) and decided to take on the role of entrepreneur-in Las Vegas.

Gerry had been telling James for years that in an economy hiring more computers and Chinese youth than their own countrymen, creativity that allures the masses is where the occupational advantages await.

So James moved to Vegas in order to write a sports gambling blog, where he would bet on sporting events for 365 days, for an average wager of $5 a day, for an entire year-with one simple goal: finish ahead of the house. The problem behind this move was that Sin City was already dealing with the second highest unemployment rate, per capita, in the country. James arrived with only $2,000 in overhead, no job, no place to live, knowing nobody.

The blog, infused by the intricacies that grew to define his daily plight, was original and fun to read. It probably could have become commercially successful had it lasted 365 days, but James couldn’t even get a job waiting tables. Financially strapped, the project lasted only a few months. He managed to leave Vegas feeling vindicated as a sports writer, only to fall victim to bad luck and poor timing.

So out of money, with no job, now it was time for James to go back home and get a job working at the University. That would have been the conservative thing to do. James’ parents thought it was the only thing to do. Just a few phone calls had to be made and James probably could have landed any full time job opening he was even the least bit qualified for.

But James was still wrestling with a psychological dysfunction far more detrimental than any of his lofty career goals would suggest: he loathed the idea of settling. And furthermore, the only thing he loathes more than settling, is settling back home. James’ longtime attitude towards having the luxury of growing up within a culture riding high on free enterprise would suggest that settling back home is the downright antithesis of the Mission Statement.

So after Vegas fell through, James decided to utilize his family connections for a quick bundle of cash in the private sector, via the Alaskan fishing industry. James landed an assembly line job in a salmon processing plant during the summer migration run, in Bristol Bay, AK. James would work 16-hour shifts, everyday, for six weeks straight. No cocktail hour. No beaches. No days off. Most of the time he cleaned the guts out of belly sliced salmon with a shank spoon. Fish after fish after fish, James spooned out guts. He spooned out so many guts that summer he was even dreaming about cleaning fish guts.

On his last night in Alaska, James drank a lot of beer. He drank like a fish. He had pocketed around $4,000 for that six-week period. Everybody was celebrating that night. Everybody had graduated from a sort of twisted intensive labor camp. There was Ben from Duluth, Jenson from Arizona, Carlo from Guadalajara, Zach from Sacramento, the trio from Boston, and Big Game James from Pullman. That night of celebration, nobody had a care in the world. After all, they all had acquired short-term financial freedom. They were all best of chums that last night. They worked, ate, shared cigs, and slept within three feet of each other for half a summer. In the end, with the exception of the Boston boys, they will never see or speak to one another other again.

James did a lot of thinking while he was gutting fish. He decided by that second week in Alaska, that when it was all over, it was time to attempt a permanent move to New York City. This was the right time in his life to take his sports writing talents to the media capital of the world. He had a dependable car. He had a degree. He had a body of writing work he was proud to show to potential employers.

James went on to pedal The New York Daily News, part time, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan at the corner of 168th and Broadway. This was as close as he could get in becoming a sports writer for a New York based newspaper.

Theoretically, James was nothing more than a water boy for The Daily News. He figured that by being employed by the media outlet, it would keep him in the company’s internal employment loop.

But James’s circulation advisor informed him that he was nothing more than an independent contractor for the company, and therefore, he would not be receiving any kind of internal employment information. This did not completely send James’s morale into a tailspin, however, because he did need the money and he was still riding the emotional high of living in The Big City for the first time. At $40.07 a week, The Daily News gig kept him busy for three weekday mornings.

James witnessed a lot of strange human behavior during his Daily News tenure on the streets. He saw schizos try to court pigeons for spare change. He saw schizos try to catch house flies in January. He even saw schizos help themselves to handfuls of snow for breakfast. He saw them count those obtuse black spots on every sidewalk panel nearby. He even saw schizos sparring with nobody but the space in front of them.

Incidentally, many of these same guys once sought the very same job at the Daily News that James had occupied.

What separated James from the rag tag crew of local street people was the ability to count change. The supervisor presented each individual the same hypothetical scenario: give the vendor one dollar for one newspaper. The newspaper costs 50 cents. Three guys put the dollar in their pocket, one of them replied, God Bless you. Another guy tried to buy a toothpick from the supervisor with the dollar. And another guy gave a quarter back to the supervisor, pocketed the other quarter, and proceeded to walk away with the newspaper mumbling, It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swang. Do wop-dee bop, do wop-dee bop.

James’s primary means of income came by the way of Arastar: a company that manages a variety of local business needs, including managing the hygiene duties of professional work uniforms. For 18 hours and $125 a week, James would assist the driver in picking up and dropping off laundry for local hospitals, restaurants, etc.

In order to afford living in The Big Apple, James figured he had to make at least $200 a week. Thanks to Junior, a Dominican-extracted co-worker at Arastar, James learned of an opening for weekend help at nearby Heavyweights Moving Company. He took it with little muse.

This job proved to be very dangerous, though. Often times, the moving crew had to deliver office equipment like a one piece, 15-foot long filing cabinet. How do you fit a 15-foot long horizontal filing cabinet that needs to be dropped off at the 15th floor, through an elevator? You don’t. You drop the elevator to the basement and slide the cabinet through the hallow elevator doorway on the first floor until it rests secured by two men already standing on top of the elevator itself. The man inside the elevator presses the 14th floor button. You reverse the process from the 15th floor elevator door, and sign here, please. James did not have to ride the elevator the first time, as the experienced workers took care of that. But there seemed to be at least one new guy every other weekend. Within a month’s time, James would be one of the senior workers qualified to ride the elevator. By James’ eighth weekend on the job, his supervisor, Raul, looks at him apprehensively and quips, Que onda?

James knows what he’s getting at, but plays the communication barrier card and shrugs in coy.

Your turn, primo, Raul smiled.

So James was working seven days a week in order to make ends meet. He rented a room in the Kew Gardens district of Queens. People in Washington Heights would look at him like he was a two-headed monster and ask, Why are you working here and living all the way over in Queens? To James, the answer was simple: for $600 a month, utilities and a window included, it was all he could afford at the time he moved to New York. And if people only knew just how pristine the neighborhood of Kew Gardens really was. James never had to worry about locking the door every waking second. Most forms of lowlifes were non-existent. The neighborhood presented all the New York bachelor staples with just a stone’s throw away from the apartment: a laundromat, a few bars, a liquor store, a diner, a bakery or two, a grocery store, Chinese food, a delicatessen, a coffee shop, a movie theater, a newspaper stand and an old world pizza parlor.

James loved Queens. By comparison, however, he only liked his apartment, in which he shared with two single women around his age.

They’re cat ladies, James would often bemoan.

People looked at James like he was inventing a new cultural stereotype or something, and often responded with, What do you mean?

Most of the straight males he spoke to on this subject simply could not justify why he’s so opposed to sleeping with at least