Samuel and Candy

     Why do you wake up every morning, and how can you go to sleep at night? That was a question for the ages, and one for Samuel and Candy more than a lot of other people.

     They had a place, yes, a small place, a place that was not big enough to weather their constant struggles to get along. Their rent was $1,235 a month, but they were lucky to to make that sum as they did working part-time jobs which required full-time commuting. Samuel's checks averaged $450 for two weeks and Candy's about $400. So, yes, there was technically a little more than $500 a month to spend on other things.

     And yes, either of them could have gotten another part-time job, though they were more interested in finding other jobs that might pay more and give them full-time hours, or else pursue their hobbies and turn them into paying gigs someday, which, honestly, made a lot more sense than doubling down on jobs that were working for their employers but not really so much for them.

     And yes, some couples don't mind the struggle, in fact they get stronger for it. They find ways to bond and connect that don't involve spending money, and they take their small jollies in what they can. But that was not Samuel and Candy. Both of them liked to spend money, and they fought over who got to spend their money, and the more they felt cheated by each other they more they hated each other, but neither one made enough to live without the other, nor would they have been able to agree who should get to keep their place and who should have to move out.

     Things were not all bad. Every other Friday, flush with cash, they would have a merry time. Saturday, still will some money in their pockets, they would have peace. But already by Sunday, that would be wearing thin, considered the week and a half ahead of them with nothing much to offer in the way of excitement, only hungry drudgery.

     And, you know, working alongside Candy and Samuel was not much fun, because of how little joy life gave to them. No, working alongside of them was terrible for all their coworkers. Riding alongside of them was terrible for everyone around them. They were balls of hatred, and also racism, for they directed their hatred more and more against Blacks and Latinos, who, they thought, were getting free money and were stealing from folks like them. 

     The longer and more pronounced the couple's growing debts, the stronger their hatred and prejudice grew: the credit card and college loan debt, their debts to each other, both real and imagined, and the debt of a life devoted to working to not getting enough to survive and even that little being taken by having lived in the first place.

     Both of them would lie awake at night, usually not in a loving embrace, wondering what to do. How to improve things or, mostly, how to get rid of the other. Whether that other was people that weren't like them, or people at work that wanted to hours they wanted, or each other, they stewed with hatred hoping for the day when they could get what seemed rather simple to give them: forty hours a week at reasonable pay--and rent that was more reasonably in line with what they earned. Just that, and most of their hatreds would have fallen away.

     Perhaps, even, their hatred for each other.

     And, it was funny for Candy to note, homeless people thought they had it good! Thought they were doing well! Just because they had the privilege of worrying about making rent. One more to throw on the pile of grievances!