Between my nightly beer-bombing over at Glen's and our continual teetering on the brink of poverty, my young bride was getting fed up to her eyebrows with life in the comatose lane. We were just two confused kids playing house, flailing at each other with every blunt collision that sudden adulthood generated. High school sweethearts can make for strange bed partners once the reality of the rent and the groceries and the car payments descend on the dollhouse. As my father-in-law saw it, there was only one antidote to our marital woes: finding me gainful employment. He kept suggesting that I pursue a career at General Motors. We happened to live right in the shadows of the Chevrolet Manufacturing plant, the Chevy Engine plant and the enormous GM Truck & Bus facility. How convenient, he often pointed out. I paid my father-in-law nothing but lip service. I told him the shops weren't hiring. I insisted that there were other things on some invisible horizon awaiting my induction. I spouted and sputtered brave ignorant lies about how a young man should pause and blossom into clever vocations that would surely lie in wait once the haze receded and the clear adult mind began to function.
