nonentity: Chance "Cash" Register Working Stiff series, #5

By Kirk Alex

 Up the creek  . . .
 Volume 5 in the Chance "Cash" Register blue-collar series.

He walked away from the shipping clerk job at the smut warehouse to rescue what remained of his sanity. Only now he's up sh*tz creek. There is zero money coming in for grub and other necessities. What makes it worse: No one wants to hire him. It goes on for months, forcing Register to use plastic to get by. Even so, he knows, the thing to do is to endure long enough to see a break and for his luck to change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tucumcari Press
• Release date: Dec 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9780939122608

Kirk Alex

Instead of boring you with a bunch of dull background info, how about if I mention a few films/singers/musicians and books/authors I have enjoyed over the years.Am an Elvis Presley fan from way back. Always liked James Brown, Motown, Carmen McRae, Eva Cassidy, Meat Loaf, Booker T. & the MGs, CCR. Doors are also a favorite.Some novels that rate high on my list: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole; Hunger by Knut Hamsun; Street Players by Donald Goines (a street noir masterpiece, a work of art, & other novels by the late awesome Goines); If He Hollers Let Him Go by the incredible Chester Himes. (Note: Himes at his best was as good as Hemingway at his best. But of course, due to racism in the great US of A, he was given short-shrift. Had to move to France to be treated with respect. Kind of sad.Am white by the way, but injustice is injustice & I feel a need to point it out. There were so many geniuses of color who were mistreated and taken advantage of. Breaks your effing heart. I have done what I have been able to support talent (no matter what the artists skin color was/is) over the years by purchasing records & books by talented folks, be they white/black/Hispanic/Asian, whatever. Like I said: Talent is talent, is the way I have always felt. The arts (in all their forms) keep us as humans civilized, hopefully). Anyway, I need to get off the soap box.Most of the novels by Mark SaFranko (like Lounge Lizard and Hating Olivia; his God Bless America is one of the best memoirs I have ever read, up there with Ham on Rye by Buk);The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway; A Farewell to Arms also by Ernie; Mooch by Dan Fante (& other novels of his); Post Office by Charles Bukowski; The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath; the great plays of Eugene O., like Iceman Cometh, Long Days––this system has a problem with the apostrophe, so will leave it out––Journey Into Night, Touch of the Poet; Journey to the End of the Night by Ferdinand Celine (not to be confused by the Eugene O. play); Postman Only Rings Twice by James M. Cain; the factory crime novels of Derek Raymond (superior to the overrated Raymond Chandler & his tiresome similes & metaphors any day of the week; Jack Ketchum; Edgar Allan Poe; The Reader by Bernhard Schlink; Nobody/s Angel by Jack Clark; The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester, et al.Filmmakers: Akira Kurosawa (Ihiru; Yojimbo); John Ford (almost anything by him); horror flicks: Maniac by William Lustig and Joe Spinnell; original Night of the Living Dead; original Texas Chainsaw Massacre; original When a Stranger Calls; The 400 Blows by Francois T.; the thrillers of Claude Chabrol; A Man Escaped by Bresson; the Japanese Zatoichi films;Tokyo Story by Ozu . . . and many other books, films and jazz musicians like the amazing tenor sax player Gene Ammons; Sonny Rollins, Chet Baker, Jack Sheldon, Stan Getz, Paul Desmond; singers like the incomparable Sarah Vaughan, Shirley Horn, Dion Warwick; Al Green, Elmore James, Lightnin Hopkins . . . to give you some idea.However, these days though, tv does not exist at all for me, nor do I care for most movies, in that I would much rather pick up a well-written book. I get more of a kick from reading than I do watching some actor pretend to be something he is not.Having said that, I confess that as a young man I did my share of wasting time watching the idiot box and spent my share of money going to the flicks. But those days are long gone, in that there is no interest in movies (be they cranked out by the Hollywood machine, or elsewhere).Final conclusion when it comes to celluloid? Movies are nothing more than a big waste of time (no matter who makes them). Reading feeds the brain, while movies puts the brain to sleep. There it is.

Book preview

A Few Positive Responses From Some Awesome Critics!

Praise For:

nonentity

You can digest this book in two hours — it will stay with you forever.

—Steve Rosen, Curled Up With A Good Book

Angry, funny, and sometimes provocative and quirky.

—NetGalley

Praise for:

Hard Noir Holiday

Edgar Doc Holiday Thriller #4

Living up to its title, this hard-edged P.I. epic dives into desert darkness and action.

—Publishers Weekly/BookLife

This is a terribly violent, disgusting, vile read. I am not into long books. I lose interest easily. But this one is well written and kept my attention all throughout. My husband is glad it is over. I couldn't keep from telling him what happened next. So disgusting, so entertaining.

—BookBub

5.0 out of 5 stars/The Best of the Series!

The language was consistent. The characters were deep and realistic. Every page has exciting action. All the books are good, but this is outstanding.

—Kayak Jay

Murder, mayhem, organ theft, illegal dog fights and more . . .

Hard Noir Holiday by Kirk Alex is the 4th installment of the Edgar Doc Holiday Private Investigator Mystery series. This time Doc and his friends are in Arizona when they are faced with the murder of a family member. It takes everything in their arsenal to find out who is behind it. Not for the faint of heart.

—Denim*n*Diamonds

Praise for:

Love is the Coldest Whore of All

Selected Free Verse for Peeps Like Me

(Who Hate Poetry)

1976 — 1996

Reading Kirk Alex is like listening to your best friend, your oldest friend, confide in you after you haven’t seen him in a long, long time. It’s that honest; it’s that intimate. And from the Nam to Sunset Boulevard, he knows a lot about the world and life. All you have to do is sit back and take it all in.

—Mark SaFranko, author: Nowhere Near Hollywood

Praise for:

Throwback & Backlash

(Love, Lust & Murder Series)

. . . if you want a raw, dark in-your-face good read . . . go for it.

—Hidden Gems Book Review

Praise for:

Lustmord: Anatomy of a Serial Butcher

Great book. Dark—yes. Grotesque—certainly. Sexually explicit—without a doubt. And the writing is excellent. Character & dialogue, is as real as it gets. A terrifying, non-putdownable horror.

—Jeff Bennington, Kindle Book Review

Praise for:

Zook

"Zook was a zoo ride! All of the characters were well written and you find yourself unable to put the book down! You might even find it a little sad. ***** out of 5 stars."

—NetGalley

Praise for:

Ziggy Popper at Large:

14 Tales of General Degeneracy, of Mayhem &

Debauchery – for the Morally Conflicted

& Borderline Criminal

Gruesome, violent, awesome! I absolutely LOOOVEEE Kirk Alex. I am always ready for his next book!! Extremely entertaining. A whole lot of violent, and just what I was looking for. Private detective Felix Choo-Choo Buschitsky and Ziggy Popper are now my two favorite characters. ***** out of 5 stars.

—NetGalley

Praise for:

BLOOD, SWEAT and CHUMP CHANGE —

Taxi Tales & Vignettes

"After reading BLOOD, SWEAT AND CHUMP CHANGE— Taxi Tales & Vignettes by Kirk Alex you understand why the American Dream needs lipo suction. It’s all here: Hate, poetry, sadness, hope and the ache of an aloneness that never goes away. Belly up!"

—Dan Fante, author of Mooch and Point Doom

This is another well done, honest and heartfelt piece of writing from Kirk Alex. It’s short, easy to read, and well worth the reader’s time.

—Paul Lappen, DEAD TREES REVIEW

by Kirk Alex

Crime Fiction:

Throwback: Love, Lust & Murder – Book One

Backlash: Love, Lust & Murder – Book Two

Ziggy Popper at Large – 14 Tales of General Degeneracy, of Mayhem & Debauchery – for the Morally Conflicted & Borderline Criminal

Horror:

Lustmord: Anatomy of a Serial Butcher

Zook

Chance Cash Register Working Stiff Series:

Paycheck to Paycheck — #1

Loopy Soupy’s Motley Crew — #2

Journey to the End of the Week — #3

A Confederacy of Mooks — #4

nonentity — #5

You’re Gonna Have Trouble — #6

Whacky Tales:

Troubled Diva with a Tote Bag — 8 Stories

Last Tango in the Old Pueblo & Pushin’ da Pushbroom —

2 Long-Shorts

L.A. Cab Exploits:

Working the Hard Side of the Street – Selected Stories/Poems/Screams

Blood, Sweat & Chump Change – L.A. Taxi Tales & Vignettes

Eddie Doc Holiday Contemporary Mystery Series:

Hush-Hush Holiday #1

Hubba-Hubba Holiday #2

Hollow-Point Holiday #3

Hard Noir Holiday #4

Hammer–Slammer Holiday #5

Free Verse:

Ballad of the Red Bag Man

Love is the Coldest Whore of All

Overlapping Contradictions

nonentity

Chance Cash Register Working Stiff Series

Book Five

Kirk Alex

Tucumcari Press

Image1

Tucson – 2023

nonentity Copyright © 2002, 2004 Kirk Alex

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Tucumcari Press, P.O. Box 40998, Tucson, Arizona 85717-0998 U.S.A.

First Edition, October 2005

Third Edition, January 2023

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-0-939122-21-9 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-939122-35-6 (ePUB)

Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.

—Barbara Kingsolver

If you are going through hell, keep going.

—Winston Churchill

Foreword

You know how it is: you have a job you don’t mind at all, only the psychotics are impossible to deal with. And there you are, find yourself hating to go in in the morning. Dreading it. The 9 to 5 felt like being stuck in a mental ward eight hours a day, five days a week. WTF?

Like I said: it wasn’t the job itself. Packing & shipping smut. Smut was okay by me. It was perfect, actually. Here in Tucson, of all places. Vids were of chicks with big tits, and some even had the booty, you know? Wide hips, luscious hangers. And now and then a porn actress would fly in from somewhere from time to time: LA, Florida, even Europe, to meet the owner and/or shoot a vid. You better believe it. But the demented, loud mouthed co-workers—some female, some male—made it a living hell for me.

The owner, the boss, was okay; not bad at all. Jersey dude, as were some of the others, but the nutcakes were loose cannons, mentally off—and I knew if I didn’t get out, I’d end up in a real loony bin; either that or jail. It was that agonizing; draining. Psychologically & emotionally.

And I tolerated it for something like 27-months. Hung in there, just barely. Hung in. Until it felt like my skull was about to explode. I won’t go into explaining and/or describing the loose screw mooks in this tome (that was covered in the previous three volumes), only to say it was bad and I had to free myself.

And did. Had a few bucks, but when there is no money coming, your savings, you find out, dissipates way too fast—and there you are: dangling. Can I make rent? Buy groceries? Pay the light bill and phone?

What about a car? I had no car at the time; didn’t want one. Got around on a bicycle, because all I made went toward the publishing thing. And back then, at the time of writing and self-pubbing "Streets of LA," the internet (as far as vendors like Amazon, Kobo, B & N, et al, is concerned, where you could promote and sell your books) was in its infancy. Sure, running a print ad here and there in some publication was an option, but pursuing that route cost an arm and a leg. So it was out of the question for a small fry like me.

Well, I published the aforementioned anthology, paperback version, using plastic—that left me in the hole for thousands. Having ditched the job to hold on to my marbles, I had zippo cash coming in—and I desperately wanted to hold on to the roof over my head in order to be able to continue writing. Writing was everything, and to pursue it, not for fame or bucks necessarily, but—as stated—to stay alive, I needed to find some kind of gainful employment.

And I hit a brick wall. Had no idea it would be so damn tough. That’s an understatement. Tough? It was like attempting to scale Mt. Everest without proper gear. No, no—without any gear.

But it turned out okay. Eventually. Please keep this in mind once you get into the book and come across the f-bombs, grumbling and desperation, because a kindness here and there did come this creative type’s way finally—and I was ever-so-grateful.

Kirk Alex

November 14, 2022

Chapter 1

Jobless again. At age 49 and little money in the bank—about seventeen-hundred, but come the first of the month, and after paying rent and fax and phone bill and paying the flyer designer in Phoenix for the color flyer to promote the book with, that amount will drop considerably.

Am at it again, searching for another meal and meaningless nothing job for low pay. Am in Tucson, a city I still like, a state, the state of Arizona I still love—I love so much about this desert state . . . although the job situation here is always tough. Right-to-work state? Yeah, right-to-screw-you-over state (when it comes to paying you a livable wage).

But every day I climb on that bicycle and pedal for miles and miles in hundred-and-one or 102 heat with sweat pouring from my sunburned face. Today I thought of wearing a ball cap and it was not as bad; I also bring a water bottle with me. The unemployment office is at Craycroft and 22nd Street. Was in there for a while, going over classifieds in the room with other unemployed folks. Noticed one woman in there with fair hair in a blue skirt with an incredible rear end sitting at a table. Said good morning to her; she responded, etc. Yes, am out of work and am still human. Making female friends at Reid Park as well by being there all the time, riding the bike or jogging. It just feels good to be out there. This is why I never met anyone before because I was at my regular 8-to-4 job and seldom ventured anywhere else.

Rode the bike up Broadway all the way out to Sarnoff to see about a job at the Italian bakery, only to find it closed. All that riding, felt like 14 miles. Back end sore. Sweaty, exhausted. Paused there at the bakery glass window, looked inside: clean in there. Spotless. Pastries on shelves inside glass counter display. Had a sip of my warm water from the black plastic. No choice, did not look forward to riding back, but at least it would be downhill from there . . . and slowly, I did, got on back here.

The search for work continues. I’m trying, I keep trying. What else is there? I feel my age as well. When I jog out there, there is pain in the left knee. It would be so easy to slip and injure a knee or ankle. Got to be more careful, concentrate fully, always, when out there.

There are jobs by the airport, but way too far to make on the bike, especially at night. It would be nice if I could sell enough books so that I would not have to work for others for low pay. . . . Wishful thinking. . . .

Chapter 2

Search for work goes on. Just like before, déjà vu all over again. Between a rock and a hard place. No, I was not looking forward to being in this precarious position . . . but here I am. . . .

I was instructed by DES to be home from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. this morning for my phone interview.

Okay. I waited and waited. Guess what? The phone did not ring until 4 minutes of. The lady at the other end asked why I left my job, what the reason was. I explained: the cigarette smoke, the badgering, verbal abuse, being sneezed on by certain Russian employees, etc., all that; never said a negative word against my former employer, though. Did not need to. The man was all right by me. Wanted her to understand that.

She said she did. Only it might be a problem for me to get benefits since I left and was not fired.

This is how it goes.

Keep looking for employment, she said, and then Friday mail the pink form in to us.

I got it. Am I entitled to unemployment insurance?

We’ll let you know after we’ve investigated this further.

What’s to investigate? I felt like saying. There were people at work I genuinely liked, and there were others, the assholes I could not stomach, nor could they stand me. What is there to investigate?

I worked 27 months without missing a day, without ever being late once. What is there to investigate? You are going to keep me from getting my lousy one-hundred-and-eighty-two-dollars a week for a few months? What is there to investigate? How can the state of Arizona be so goddamn cheap and tight-fisted and miserly and rotten and heartless? I felt like saying this, but did not. Let’s wait, let’s get turned down first and then I’ll let them know.

There will be plenty of time for that.

And clearly there was no denying that I felt the pinch, the tightening of the screw. I am bound to worry some, be concerned some . . . this is the way my life, this difficult life of dues, has always gone. . . . And they say, some do, never let them see you bleed. . . .

This is what I heard somewhere once. Never let them see you bleed. This is what your detractors would enjoy more than anything; it would be frosting on the cake for them. Your first gift to them was leaving . . . and now you are going to add frosting on top?

Think of it.

Well, it occurred to me, I wrote and directed a horror flick once. Why not take a video copy along with you for the next job interview? Take the promotional material, the articles in various publications . . . also take a copy of that anthology you published last year . . . it might do some good. Never know.

Did that. Placed it inside my pack and rode the bike in Tucson summer heat south to Broadway and then west for a mile or so, to a production office. I didn’t get very far. They weren’t hiring. The guy, pleasant enough, there were three of them, said they did not have any full-time positions available. I was willing to take anything, part-time, or even work without pay (initially) in order to become knowledgeable with latest digital-editing computer equipment. . . . The guy wearing glasses, who was in his 50s, said they had nothing.

Like L.A., almost. Only they are more pleasant about turning you down here. The story of my life.

I go back out, climb back on the bicycle. Ride it home. One turn-down per day is plenty to bear.

Chapter 3

Something about an innertube. Have my bowl of cereal with banana. Climb on the bike, am in my jogging gear, and make it halfway, no,