Chris's job log: 11
Chris Illingworth
- March 2010.
The story so far...Chris graduated in 2009 with a degree in archaeology from Leicester University. He has huge debts, a little freelance writing work and no clear idea about his future. My next door neighbour was thrown out of his own front window last night. He didn't struggle, in fact, it looked as if he was running for his life: diving head first into the pebbles like a drunken Greg Louganis, half-naked and ashamed. He and his lovely wife had been arguing for hours, loudly, in the front hallway, over the schooling of their baby girl who was sleeping in the upstairs bedroom. Insults were thrown; fruit bowls and plates too. The baby woke and joined the yelling that was rising through the bedroom floor, while the neighbours peered through the cracks in their curtains, hoping to catch a glimpse of the next Crimewatch brute, his photofit face maddened by booze and rage. The wife made a phone call. Three men arrived in a Land Rover. And ten minutes later my fat, drunken neighbour was falling through the air, the driveway rising to kiss his clammy, naked body. High horse A few days later I discovered that this noisy pair of sluggards, my drunken neighbour and his lovely wife, are in fact a lot younger than I am, and much more successful to boot. So while I was hiding beneath the windowsill, feeding brioche to my high horse, confident that my future doesn’t involve a late night excursion through the double-glazing, the object of my pity was sitting on a nest egg that could’ve come out of a pterodactyl’s behind – between arguments, of course. I wiped the smile off my face, and went to bed. Vicarious In January, I decided that I wanted to be independent, and that quest took me from Doncaster, to Sheffield and Leicester, and then all the way back to the North, where the police live in fear of thirty-strong gangs of drunken children. I applied for a job in Lutterworth, near Nuneaton, and another in Loughborough hoping to up sticks and fly away from this tiny mining village, but lady luck had deserted me. I’ve yet to receive a reply from anybody. On the plus side, my ultimate goal is now clear – I want to move to the Midlands. Maybe it’s because there are more jobs in the luminous South, away from Doncaster’s monochromatic people, or perhaps I want to live vicariously through the local students, as they steal road signs and eat pastries. Regardless, a change is as good as a rest, as the old maxim goes, and I’m tired of sitting in this chair watching the skyline smoke beyond the falling snow. Slow Train to Scunthorpe Last weekend, I was standing on the platform at Sheffield train station, watching a pink and white flag billow in the breeze. It was midday, but the temperature was stuck at zero, and pockets of icy dust slid about the pavement like ghosts in white robes. In front of me, the doors of a wide, fat train stood open – the self-proclaimed, Slow Train to Scunthorpe. I was given a choice: ride the modern equivalent of an ox and cart, or catch the fast train which was standing on the other platform. I chose to remain on the former with the hay bales, the coughing pensioner and the man drinking cheap rosé out of the bottle. The 45-minute trip quickly became a two-hour ordeal. There’s a life lesson in there somewhere. Read my previous blogs
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