The One Time My Name Worked

I was getting desperate.

I’d left the news world and realized I was unsuitable for anything corporate like public relations. I thought about trying my hand at advertising but somehow convincing people to buy crap they didn’t really need or want seemed… unethical.

I’d turned to compulsively applying for every job I thought I was qualified. I then started lying and applied for jobs I knew were over my head. Process engineer. Financial planning. Internal auditing.

The big problem was that I was too far removed from school to suggest that I could be taught a new job. Plus, explaining how great you were at covering triple homicides or tastefully printing the amusing parts of a rape trial doesn’t translate well to most other jobs. And of course, a good reference from the paper was out unattainable.

For a time I was able to make it on the meager amount of savings I’d stashed into the paper’s retirement plan. I thought I would get unemployment benefits but there was a dispute as to whether I was fired with cause. Looking back, it was a fairly mutual parting of ways.

The job I originally applied for was  Cementing Field Engineer. Oil field services companies generally have no need for English majors. It was dumb luck that the head of HR even looked at my resume.

The president of the company, Stuart Byrd, had an estranged  daughter named Jessie. The girl was totally adrift with slight sociopathic tendencies.

Mr. Byrd had given up on his daughter a long time ago. When she was younger, he and her mother had created a trust fund for her. Her mother died and her contribution to the fund was entered into the proper accounts for Jessie. The money, some $6 million, was hers if she managed to graduate from a credited university.

All things being equal, he was willing to write her off as a failed project but Jessie was becoming a bit of an embarrassment for him around Houston. Mr. Byrd worked hard his whole life to remove himself from his humble beginnings. Now, his 24-year-old daughter’s antics were threatening to expose the white trash genome than ran deep in the family tree.

If she had the money, the hope was she’d eventually go away or grow up. Mr. Byrd really didn’t care which route she took. He just wanted to keep her out of sight.

I was told she was a bright girl but “lacked focus.” My “job” was to get her back into college and to eventually graduate. Sort of like being a tutor/mentor except the job turned into more of a babysitting gig.

Lots of people out there would be better at this than me, perhaps a hospital orderly. Luckily, the head of HR was fairly lazy, as most are, and under the gun to “diversify” the work force. My name looked hispanic and that was enough to help mend a previous discrimination case entangling the company. He actually marked the “race” box for me on my application. The English major was, for once, a plus since Mr. Byrd figured if worst came to pass, I could just ghost write Jessie into a cap and gown. It’s the only time my name has ever worked in my favor.

I was warned that if she didn’t make progess academically the employment agreement would end. If she finally does graduate, Mr. Byrd promised me a small stipen. Regular reports would be filed to him directly.

Also, I am suppose to make sure she keeps a low profile.

The money is good. The hours are unpredictable.

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Lazlo: Pronounced “Lays Low”

     What’s in a name? A lot, actually.

Guys named Tom hang out in bars and work dead end jobs. Guys named Tommy work on cars and never really mature mentally past 17. Guys name Thomas are either are fags, corporate officers or playboy trust funders.

If I had any name, it would probably be Jack. You can do just about anything when your name is Jack. That soft consonant at the front followed with the hard “ack” at the end will catch just about anyone’s attention.

But instead I was named Lazlo and spend a fair amount of time correcting the pronounciation for people I meet once and will never see again.

Of course the last name of Gusto doesn’t help much. My parents, degenerate hippies that they were, gave me the last name Acuna after the town in Mexico were I was conceived. Eventually, they didn’t like the squiggly line above the “n” in Acuna and changed my last name to Gusto when I was 2.

Lazlo came about because that’s what my parents were doing at the time: hiding out from my mother’s irrate family. Hilarious, right? Sort of.

So just saying my name aloud, reading it on a traffic ticket or writing it on a job application reminds me of my parents screwing in a dirty little town on the Texas/Mexico border while my grandparents tried in vain to keep them apart.

My mother and father never married. His name was Randy Stevenson. He stuck around until I was 8. I only saw him once after that. My mother’s name is Betsy Gruene. As an act of rebellion against their own parents they gave me a completely different name.

“This way you are your own unique person,” my mother told me once. “Nobody owns you and you will never be tied to anyone.”

Gee, thanks.

She was full of baby boomer idealist dribble like that. This meant that while she was full of good intentions, her advice was generally useless.

There was a small amount of money left from my maternal grandparents that I was able to use to attend college. My mother pushed for me to attain an liberal art education. This is a bad decision for any wishing to be employed.

Comparative religion, philosophy, sociology, politicial science… these are majors which lead a young adult into poverty and frustration. Perhaps, if they catch a break, they might find themselves in sales.

I stayed in the English department. This was also a fairly dumb move on my part. It means I spent roughly $15,000 per semester learning the same stuff I could have have picked up hanging around Barnes and Noble.

“Do what makes you happy,” my mother told me when I started to panic about finding a job.

This is the worst advice you can give to anyone.

What makes me happy? Drinking. Drugs. Sex (more often by myself than with a lady). Having a ton of money laying around and blowing it impulsively. Using this as a career guidance I should probably be dealing drugs.

I lucked out and stumbled into a job covering the courts and cops for a newspaper after I graduated.

Working for a newspaper is one of the few jobs in the world were there is actually an inverse relationship between the pay and the hours performed. The job ended.

After drifting for almost a year I finally have something different lined up. I’m supposed to be tutoring the rich daughter of Mr. Byrd so that she gets out of college. It’s not going well and I’m sure at any time I’ll be fired. But the pay is good enough that I’m going to ride this as long as I can.

People:

Me (read the above again if you’ve forgotten)

Jessie Byrd, the psycho chic I’m tutoring

Theo, Jessie’s long suffering boyfriend of sorts

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