Eye of a Needle

Character: Matt, a 35-year-old unemployed professional male

Seeking employment in a new city.

 

Time: Present Day

 

Scene 1:

Matt speaking to the audience and himself from the environs of his apartment.

 

{Matt}:

 

What men among you have felt the sting of unemployment?

Raise your hands. I will not judge you. Too embarrassed to be honest?

I can relate.

At this very moment hands tighten into a fist to repress the memory.

It’s a masculine reflex.

As common as the cold; as clammy as a toilet bowl before it overspills.

 

I would be the last man to say to you “Don’t be afraid, don’t be nervous,

Don’t lock those feelings inside your burning forehead.”

I know better. I know the fury of an unemployed man

Facing rejection after rejection interview after interview.

Imagine being told by some corporate drone you are “too experienced” for a job.

 

Who dreams up this crap? “Too experienced?”

You can’t have a job because you’re too good?

Does this make sense to anyone?

Do you really think these idiots take this notion to its logical end?

 

“Nurse, I don’t want my heart valve replacement performed by a doctor with too

much experience. Give me that new guy, the one I can shape and mold and

guarantee won’t run out in the middle of the frigging operation!”

 

Men are fragile inside. Women know this…this sorry truth about men.

The better ones find ways to allow men to express themselves---and still be men about it.

A blessed situation especially when you find yourself unemployed---like me.

The agony to my pride is nearly unbearable.

Every two days I call the woman I love and tell her,

“No, honey I haven’t found a job, yet.”

 

I dread these calls. Each one eats into my soul.

I have to reinforce myself with drink just to hold back the floodgates

of raw rage seeking to burst forth and injure the first person it meets.

Not in the physical sense, but emotionally.

And its emotions, bitter enemy of all men, that threatens

to escape the veneer of manliness we work so hard to maintain.

 

I could never hurt this very wonderful woman. I want her to be my wife,

the mother of our future children. I love her like I loved no other.

Yet this love affair feels like an anchor around my sun burnt neck.

It’s the humiliation of not finding a job.

I find myself weak in front of a woman

whom I must report failure every two days.

No matter how much I love her,

This is the stuff of sour mash and suicide.

“No, honey I haven’t found a job, yet.”

Jesus, what have I become?

 

What I totally hate about being unemployed is how everyone you know

Asks you every single day

“Did you get a job? Did you get a job? Did you get a job?

It’s a bloody hammer to the head every time someone asks. They begin to look

At you funny with that, “he-must-not-be-looking-very-hard look.”

Some pat you on the back and mumble “you’ll find one soon”

And rush out not wanting to be reminded they’re only a few paychecks

from the poorhouse themselves.

Others think they’re doing you a favor by reminding you to check the Sunday paper.

You whisper under your breath, “Thanks, wanker brain. I nearly forgot that!”

 

And, of course, there’s always a sorry SOB who sees no problem in reminding you

About his toothless grandpa “having to take what he can get,

Cause you can’t start at the top.”

Bet he can’t wait to inherit grandpa’s fortune stashed away

From working all those years at the soda fountain.

What did they used to call those guys back then?

Soda jerks. Yeah. Apt title.

 

These government job agencies are a sick joke on the taxpayer.

Looks good on paper.

But can’t help you.

Takes a nice photo op for the politicians.

But bloody can’t help you.

Great for those it employs.

They can’t help you either.

Damn lucky to have jobs themselves.

The office has a real neat computer with one of those catchy

Public relations nicknames, Job Finder.

Too bad this thing’s down more than a hooker at an insurance convention.

When the thing is working it lists job openings three months old.

Time you call; the job was already taken three weeks before you were even unemployed.

A staffer told me they’re just too busy to do a lot of updates.

 

Busy with what?

Filling out paperwork. Answering phones.

Making out reports full of statistics about their value to the community.

If you ask them how many people they’re placed, it is considered rude.

If you ask them why you must register, they cough up something about the

“Computer matching your skills with a job opening.”

A computer that crashes three times a day!

This place is a Potemkin village with a word processor!

 

In the final analysis the counseling they give you is plain common-sense stuff

your eight-year old niece could figure out.

And all the paperwork you fill out helps them keep their jobs by justifying

their existence with misleading numbers.

I’m pretty fancy with numbers.

In fact I’m government-trained with numbers.

I used to be a government number!

Where can I get an application for this place?

I can’t. As usual--I’m overqualified.

 

Ever get the suspicion the want ads in the paper

Are for jobs not worth a cup of cat piss?

It’s easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle

Than land one of these gems.

You’re always stuck filling out a fifty-page application

From by a middle-aged woman whose middle name is twice divorced.

She gives you the “life sucks” attitude and sermonizes about applicants

stealing her stupid disposable blue pens.

I write with a 10K Gold Cross pen and wonder what the hell I am doing here.

Is this my penance for making fun of handicapped kids when I was 8?

 

If I were a modern-day Shakespeare trapped in this state of Un-Certainty.

(I know what you were thinking, Ha.)

 

If I were a modern-day Shakespeare trapped in this state of Un-Brace.

 

I’d bury my face in my hands and pray out loud

“How Far Sanctuary?”

 

How many misfortunes can one man take before he loses all faith?

How steadfast are my friends in the presence of repeated failure?

 

“How Far Sanctuary?”

 

How can this woman love me in the midst of my unmanly existence?

How can I hate myself to the point of soul sickness?

 

“How Far Sanctuary, Lord, How Far?”

 

Must my knees see bone before I am deemed suitable?

Must my back...