Volume 3, Issue 100: Jose Jimenez

"What a beautiful sight this is, seeing this kid do this."

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The first thing I had to do in the new year of 1992, a couple of weeks after my 16th birthday, was get a job. There was nothing of more importance in my household. I’d spent three months driving an old Ford Escort around on my parents’ dime, and now that I’d proven, so far, that I was unlikely to kill myself or any of my friends with it, it was made explicitly clear that in order to keep that car, I’d need to make some money to put some gas in it. So I went looking for a job.

I had a few friends in Mattoon who already had jobs. Amanda worked at McHugh’s Drive-In. Tom picked up shifts at the Kraft plant downtown after school. Kim waited tables at Pizza Hut, back when people waited tables at Pizza Hut. I’d detassled corn and delivered newspapers for a stray buck or two, but I needed a real job, one that took taxes out of your check and everything. I didn’t want to work in fast food, but there weren’t a lot of minimum wage jobs for 16-year-old kids willing to work for the $4.25 minimum wage that were not fast food. So I applied at Hardee’s.

Hardee’s was the only place in town that was open 24 hours, which made it an absolutely terrifying place to visit after 10 p.m. (And pretty scary before 10 p.m., all told.) But there was a sign on the door saying HELP WANTED, and my father had gotten tired of my dithering and delaying, so he came home one day and said, “There’s an opening at Hardee’s. So don’t tell me you can’t find any jobs.” Shoulders slumped like a proper teenager, I dropped by, filled out an application and was told, by the old woman behind the counter smoking a cigarette and ashing in one of those old aluminum ash trays, to come by the next day to meet the manager.

When I got home and told my parents, my mother was so excited: Will’s first job interview! She immediately pulled out my nicest church suit—which hadn’t been used in a while—and tied my tie for me. “You have to look nice for your interview,” she said, and I didn’t disagree. I didn’t mind. I liked getting dressed up. (I still do.) I was pretty sure I didn’t want a job at Hardee’s, but “wanting” didn’t have anything to do with it. I needed a job, they were hiring, so there you go: Go get the job. I stayed up late that night running through possible interview questions in my mind. I wanted to nail it.

My interview was after school, so I headed home, changed into my suit and drove the six miles back into town to Hardee’s for my 5 p.m. interview. I was greeted by the smoking woman, who turned around, yelled “Dan! That kid’s here!” and then told me to sit down at one of the empty booths, of which there were plenty. About five long minutes later, Dan, the manager, came out to meet me. He was wearing a golf polo shirt and khaki pants, with a name tag that said “DAN — Manager” with the Hardee’s logo on it. (The old, better one.) He had a mustache, poofy blonde hair and sunglasses he wore around his neck. He was probably, like, 23, but to me, 16 years and two months old, he was A Grown Up. I was so nervous. I stood up to shake his hand and thank him for this opportunity. He stepped backward, like I’d leapt out at him from around the corner.

He paused and gave me a once over.

“Well, you’re pretty dressed up,” he said, smirking.

I smiled tightly. Was this a compliment? Did this mean I was doing well? “Yes, sir, I am,” I said.

He smirked again. “Well, sit down, let’s see what you have here,” he said while picking up my application and fastening it to his clipboard. I don’t remember what he said while doing so, though I imagine him clicking his tongue. All I remember was him making fun of my tie. He didn’t say anything all that creative about it. I think it was just, “nice tie.”

He called over a co-worker to sit in on the interview. They whispered to each other for a second, then giggled. “So, did your mother dress you for this interview?” the co-worker said. I wasn’t sure how to respond; that was not one of the questions I had prepped for.

“Yes?” I said.

“I can tell,” the manager said, and they both laughed. He then said they had my number and that they’d call me if I “was a fit.” I drove back home, and my mom asked me how it went. I told her I didn’t think they were going to hire me. She said that was crazy: How do you get turned down for a minimum wage job at Hardee’s?

I was right. They never called.

******************

A month later, a girl from my Spanish class overheard me talking about needing a job and told me about an opening at the movie theater downtown where she worked. The Kerasotes Cinema 1-2-3 and the Time Theater downtown were looking for an usher and projectionist, basically someone to splice the movies together from their reels when they came in on Tuesday, screen them after the final show to make sure those reels were placed in the right order and otherwise sweep the floor of popcorn and field complaints if any particular gaggle of teenagers were being too loud. I wore the same suit to interview for that job. The manager was a man named Don. He told me he was the only man who worked at the movie theater—"I’m surrounded by a dozen chicks!”—and that “we could use another dude around here.” He also liked that I was on the baseball team. “The kids who come in here will respect an usher who’s on the baseball team,” he said. (This would not necessarily prove to be true.)

I got the job. And that job, I do not believe it is too bombastic to say, changed my life. I fell in love with the movies there, staying up all night to watch movies like Unforgiven and Malcolm X and The Last of the Mohicans and The Crying Game. I wore a nice white shirt and a tie and got to be at the dead center of what was the thriving teenage social scene of 1992 and 1993; I saw every clique and crew every Friday night. I allowed all my friends into the movies for free and sometimes sneaked up with them to the roof of the building, where we’d just stare up and the clear night sky and talk about nothing for hours. I made friends with all the older employees, who introduced me to bands like Sonic Youth and Arrested Development and Liz Phair. I met my first serious girlfriend there. I, in many ways, got the first inklings of who I was there. It was the platonic ideal of a first job.

I would be a different person today had I gotten that job at Hardee’s—I’m sure of it. I don’t know how I would be different, how things would have worked out, which direction the world might have turned. But the life experiences I had at that movie theater 30 years ago are inextricable from the human being I am now. I don’t know who I am, had I not had them.

But all it took for me not to work at Hardee’s was one blonde mulleted guy with a wispy mustache who decided (sort of understandably) to take some time to pick on a kid wearing a suit to try to get a job at Hardee’s. He could have been another person, he could have taken a different tack, he could have just been in a friendlier mood that day. But he wasn’t. So I didn’t get the job. And every single moment of my life has been different since then, because of it. One random moment in January 1992. One random guy. One random Hardee’s. And the world spins off in an entirely new direction because of it.

I used to think of that interview, 30 years ago this week, as this uniquely pivotal moment in my life. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that these sort of moments—a decision made one way or the other, a left turn rather than a right, leaving the house five minutes later rather than five minutes before, all the flips of the coin—happen all the time. They happen every day. Your world changes constantly, without warning, for the most mundane of reasons. The permutations of life are infinite. You control parts of it, you don’t control other parts of it, but all of it is a Choose Your Own Adventure book that takes you down a never-ending series of alternate paths. It can be overwhelming, even paralyzing. But it’s also kind of incredible. Everything you do today will change the rest of your life. That’s terrifying. Until you remember tomorrow’s going to do the same thing.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. I’ll Be Writing Weekly for GQ About the NFL Playoffs, GQ. Here’s the first one, I always love doing these.

2. The Unvaccinated Are the Extreme Fringe, Medium. The smart policymakers are treating them as such.

3. My Interview With Chris Herring, Author of a Great New Book About the ‘90s Knicks, New York. This book rules.

4. Player of the Week History: Dominic Brown, MLB.com. Got a few of these stacked up now: Still writing one a week!

5. We Do Not Know Our Celebrities At All, Medium. On Joss Whedon, and Bono.

6. I Re-Ran My Old Ode to Meat Loaf Newsletter, Since He Died, Medium. Torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike!

7. Your Friday Five, Medium. Have officially decided to just do these until they make me stop.

PODCASTS

The Long Game With LZ and Leitch, going back in on the NFL playoffs, taking stock of the NBA at its midway point and grappling with sports gambling.

Grierson & Leitch, we are back, baby. We discussed Scream and previewed the 2022 movies we’re most excited about.

Waitin' Since Last Saturday, we had our big in-our-feelings championship podcast.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“The Undoing of Joss Whedon,” Lila Shapiro, New York. How could you not pick this this week? As I wrote in Medium, “Shapiro’s piece argues, convincingly, that we can’t truly know the people making our art, and that’s it’s on us to try to stop doing so. Because there will always be Whedons. And there will also always be great art made by them.” Just a complex, difficult, nuanced, very, very smart piece.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers!

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“Nothing Compares 2 U,” Sinead O’Connor. O’Connor suffered some more personal tragedy and woe this week, and once again you just hope she gets through it OK. Grierson wrote a great, empathetic, personal reflection on O’Connor this week, which you should read, as well as Amanda Hess’ great piece on her last year. This song will never not knock me over.

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section.

And give “Bat Out of Hell” another listen while you’re at it.

My parents got a new dog last week. I’d say Alice is settling in just fine.

Have a great weekend, all.

Best,
Will