Chance "Cash" Register Working Stiff series

Paycheck to Paycheck –– Chance "Cash" Register Working Stiff Series –– Vol. 1   My favorite books to read have usually been "novels" without plot, classic tomes like Tom Kromer's Waiting for Nothing, Jack Black's You Can't Win, Hamsun's Hunger, Bukowski's Post Office, Sa Franko's God Bless America, et al. I could go on. You get it. These tales are not plot-driven, instead they are about things that actually matter (and, frankly, should matter way more than they do to readers in general), like being able to feed the belly and keep a roof over one's head. And that's exactly what Paycheck to Paycheck is about: toiling at a blue-collar job side-by-side with other working stiffs in this Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. Not everyone is rich––nor do they necessarily wish to be. Not everyone is a celebrity, nor do they want to be. Just plain survival is enough of a challenge for the vast majority of us. And to be sure, I do know what it's like to write a thriller with an actual plot and have done so––as my Edgar "Doc" Holiday series attests to that––and I do it to deliver the tropes that the genre demands, yet there is no denying writing that is the antithesis, as my Chance "Cash" Register working stiff series surely must be––is just as gratifying, if not more so. K.A.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire. . . From bad to worse . . .   Is this the situation Chance "Cash" Register finds himself in? It soon becomes evident: he'd left the backbreaking factory job for a position as shipping clerk in a smut warehouse––that was closer to being stuck in a lunatic asylum, as opposed to an easier way to pick up a paycheck. It's 8-to-4. Monday-through-Friday. Forty mentally-taxing hours a week. In a bug bin.   The job itself seemed stress-free initially, the owner sane, decent . . . so this was not the issue. Problem was the downright psychotic and mentally skewed coworkers. But this is the way it is throughout the land for most non-monied peeps without connections and/or silver spoon advantage. You took abuse to stay alive, put grub on the table, make rent. Register knew he was fu*ked, but needing to make a dream happen, without having to go through the rigamarole of dealing with a big publishing entity and the BS that very often goes with it, he had to endure somehow, put up with the sadistic loons and their insanity . . . long enough to see his beloved anthology printed and out there . . . his way.   Question is: Will 'Nam vet Register be able to take the craziness long enough to scrape the funds together before he either suffers a serious breakdown and ends up in the VA nut ward . . . or slammer––for confronting a venal bully or two.

Blue-Collar Hell Hole   It's the late 1990s. Tucson, AZ. Before POD, before kindle. For Chance "Cash" Register the struggle to scrape together enough cash to get his beloved short story anthology self-pubbed continues. It's a year later, he's still in the insane asylum––aka smut warehouse––as shipping clerk, dealing with some of the looniest effing co-workers he's ever encountered (and he's known his share over the years as a cabbie in rat race LA).   So far he's only got half the bucks required to make his dream happen. Stress is a bi*ch and getting him down. Will he say F*ck it, and let the sh*t hit the fan, or––will he––persevere and stay with the nightmarish gig long enough to put the rest of the funds together?   He couldn't tell you. It's day-to-day, hour-to-hour. All he knows is that his nerves are frazzled and holding on to his sanity is as daunting a task he's ever faced.

                         "Hell is other people."                            ––Jean-Paul Sartre                                 Adult star Sheba Darling, the Marilyn look-alike, addicted to coke, pills and booze is spinning out of control and making life for Soupy, the mail-order smut company owner (as well as her handlers there at the warehouse) a living hell, just as they themselves have a tendency to do to others, namely our intrepid shipping clerk Chance "Cash" Register, who's managed to endure the gig long enough at this point to see his book edited/formatted and printed. Only he's in the red now, deep in debt, broke. Can he last long enough to launch the blue-collar short story anthology and create the needed momentum to see his dream soar (and possibly liberate himself from this dead-end/low-wage hell hole)––or watch it sink like a stone because the job situation makes it impossible? It's a work environment rife with out-of-control psychotic types who should've been committed years ago––just as Register feels he's headed there himself––unless he can summon the brass to walk out and salvage what remains of his dwindling sanity.

 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.

Life is a cakewalk for some. For many others it's anything but.   As you may (or may not know), I have always appreciated blue-collar tales by those who have spent time in the trenches, whether it's Tom Kromer (Waiting for Nothing), Edward Anderson (Hungry Men), Bukowski (Post Office), Jack Black (You Can't Win), George Orwell (Down and Out in Paris and London), Lucia Berlin (A Manual for Cleaning Women); or even Jean Rhys and her melancholy woes of heartbreak and struggle that she experienced throughout her life and deftly threaded into her novels. Granted, some of these folks maybe have lucked it at some point (just a tad). No matter. Because as far as I'm concerned, to a one, paid dues and knew what it's like to go without, what it's like to endure demeaning toil in order to make rent and put grub on the table. Yes. Exactly. False Eyelashes & Tight Jeans Got Me Sh*t-Canned at the Bean Cannery is #7 in the Chance "Cash" Register blue-collar series & is dedicated to anyone who has been there and can relate.