Devonne Brown

My first real job couldn’t have been when I was a waitress or a bartender. They were menial, physical, fast, and required a lot of memory. It was fun to be fast on my feet and fast in my head and hands. Those jobs required social skills and smiles, and knowing how to handle a drunk man, big or small without getting hurt. Those jobs couldn’t have been real. I had those jobs before I graduated from college, before I was a real person. 

My first real job was in a Texas high school as a substitute gym teacher where all the boys were bigger than me. They said, “No hable Englais,” and they laughed at me from one bell to the next, all day long. The classroom was a dusty baseball field surrounded by bleachers and football lights. It lasted one day. I found a job as a bartender right after that, and it didn’t work out so well. It mustn’t have been real either.

I came home to West Virginia to get a real job in a school where I let it take my breath away. I put numbers in boxes and document dumb shit kids do. I just want it to be over. 

Real jobs suck.