To pick up some extra cash in 2000, I became a field worker for the US Census. I thought having an activity at night would keep me out of trouble and having to knock on people’s doors might make me do less drugs. I ended up 0 for 2.
My area was Studio City by CBS Studios. I had to check every address I was given, even the Killer Shrimp on the corner of Ventura and Colfax, even though I knew no one lived there.
One Saturday afternoon, I was on my Census route, grabbing my forms before heading to see someone who could have avoided an unpleasant visit from their neighborhood junkie by filling out a simple form only a couple months before. I decided not to get too high that day before heading into the field, and it had been a couple hours since I last doped up.
I walked up to an apartment building on Tujunga and knocked on the door. My nose was running a little, but it was a short form, so if the residents were home, it would take five minutes, max.
When the door opened, I was only slightly taken aback by the guy who answered the door completely naked and covered in baby oil. He had to use a dishtowel to open the door. He had nice tattoos and his jaw was desperately trying to break free from his face, like a raccoon with a leg caught in a bear trap, just panicked orbiting around a hinge.
Speed, I assumed.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes. My name is Brandon Thomas, and I’m with the Census Department. We don’t have a form for you and I was wondering if you had a minute to answer some quick questions.”
He eyed me up and down. “Uh, my boyfriend isn’t here.”
“Do you know your boyfriend’s name?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it’s fine.”
“You want to come in?”
I didn’t really want to go in. I could see the white leather sofa and black lacquer furniture from the door, and really, that was enough. This being my last form and the guy being home, I thought it would be easier to just get it over with.
“Sure.” I walked in.
Above the fireplace was a huge, round Robert Lyn Nelson marine art giclee called “Visual Sensation Hawaii.”
The fact I remember that so clearly, but can easily forget where my wallet is, irritates me.
But I digress. The naked guy was probably only couple years older than me, maybe twenty-five on the high end. He had a good body, but he looked like he misplaced his penis and attempted to replace it with a wet piece of spaghetti hoping no one would notice.
I noticed, but I’m too tactful to say anything about it.
Everything in the apartment was shiny and wet. I couldn’t find a place to sit and I thought of trying to use the bathroom to look through his medicine cabinets, but I was starting to kick and just wanted to get the hell out of there.
He asked for the forms and I handed them over with a pen. Next to entering the apartment, it was the biggest mistake I could make. His oily hands were drenching the census form and the ink wasn’t sticking.
“I think you’re pen’s broken.”
I grabbed a blank form out my bag.
“I’ll just fill it in, you answer some questions.”
He went to sit in the sofa and slid right onto the floor. It was funny, but not as funny as it needed to be to break the tension.
He asked me why I needed every answer to every question and I was on the verge of losing my mind. He had a big glass of water he spilled twice because he wouldn’t wipe the baby oil off his hands before trying to drink it, which with cottonmouth, was often.
The five minute short form took over forty minutes. He casually grazed his oily skin and took himself around the world at least twice while I was there.
I wanted to tell him he was barking up the wrong tree for so many reasons, including I was a kicking heroin addict so I make no guarantees about the cleanliness of the kitchen, baby oil creeps me out as much as cotton balls and ankle socks, and the last time I was around that much black lacquer furniture was in my mom’s friends house in the eighties as she walked around eating raw bacon getting ready to hunt for guys with my mom at a bar called Tickets in the Warner Center Marriot in Woodland Hills where my mom met my step dad because she enough sequins to land a plane in dense fog and even he couldn’t miss her.
As much as I wanted to lay that out so I could get back to me car to get high, assuming something could get me fired should I misinterpret the situation presented to me by the naked and oiled up man with large shitty art above a white lacquered fireplace.
I threw the completed form in my bag and told him he could keep the oily one.
“You want my number in case you need anything else?”
“No, I’ll just make it up and lie.”
I shouldn’t have said that, but it was the truth. I made up a lot of the information on my route. It was small variations on the same theme: wealthy white person or four works in entertainment, or law, or entertainment law, and can’t seem to hand a simple for over to their assistant, or nanny, or nanny’s assistant to fill out.
B
My area was Studio City by CBS Studios. I had to check every address I was given, even the Killer Shrimp on the corner of Ventura and Colfax, even though I knew no one lived there.
One Saturday afternoon, I was on my Census route, grabbing my forms before heading to see someone who could have avoided an unpleasant visit from their neighborhood junkie by filling out a simple form only a couple months before. I decided not to get too high that day before heading into the field, and it had been a couple hours since I last doped up.
I walked up to an apartment building on Tujunga and knocked on the door. My nose was running a little, but it was a short form, so if the residents were home, it would take five minutes, max.
When the door opened, I was only slightly taken aback by the guy who answered the door completely naked and covered in baby oil. He had to use a dishtowel to open the door. He had nice tattoos and his jaw was desperately trying to break free from his face, like a raccoon with a leg caught in a bear trap, just panicked orbiting around a hinge.
Speed, I assumed.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes. My name is Brandon Thomas, and I’m with the Census Department. We don’t have a form for you and I was wondering if you had a minute to answer some quick questions.”
He eyed me up and down. “Uh, my boyfriend isn’t here.”
“Do you know your boyfriend’s name?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it’s fine.”
“You want to come in?”
I didn’t really want to go in. I could see the white leather sofa and black lacquer furniture from the door, and really, that was enough. This being my last form and the guy being home, I thought it would be easier to just get it over with.
“Sure.” I walked in.
Above the fireplace was a huge, round Robert Lyn Nelson marine art giclee called “Visual Sensation Hawaii.”
The fact I remember that so clearly, but can easily forget where my wallet is, irritates me.
But I digress. The naked guy was probably only couple years older than me, maybe twenty-five on the high end. He had a good body, but he looked like he misplaced his penis and attempted to replace it with a wet piece of spaghetti hoping no one would notice.
I noticed, but I’m too tactful to say anything about it.
Everything in the apartment was shiny and wet. I couldn’t find a place to sit and I thought of trying to use the bathroom to look through his medicine cabinets, but I was starting to kick and just wanted to get the hell out of there.
He asked for the forms and I handed them over with a pen. Next to entering the apartment, it was the biggest mistake I could make. His oily hands were drenching the census form and the ink wasn’t sticking.
“I think you’re pen’s broken.”
I grabbed a blank form out my bag.
“I’ll just fill it in, you answer some questions.”
He went to sit in the sofa and slid right onto the floor. It was funny, but not as funny as it needed to be to break the tension.
He asked me why I needed every answer to every question and I was on the verge of losing my mind. He had a big glass of water he spilled twice because he wouldn’t wipe the baby oil off his hands before trying to drink it, which with cottonmouth, was often.
The five minute short form took over forty minutes. He casually grazed his oily skin and took himself around the world at least twice while I was there.
I wanted to tell him he was barking up the wrong tree for so many reasons, including I was a kicking heroin addict so I make no guarantees about the cleanliness of the kitchen, baby oil creeps me out as much as cotton balls and ankle socks, and the last time I was around that much black lacquer furniture was in my mom’s friends house in the eighties as she walked around eating raw bacon getting ready to hunt for guys with my mom at a bar called Tickets in the Warner Center Marriot in Woodland Hills where my mom met my step dad because she enough sequins to land a plane in dense fog and even he couldn’t miss her.
As much as I wanted to lay that out so I could get back to me car to get high, assuming something could get me fired should I misinterpret the situation presented to me by the naked and oiled up man with large shitty art above a white lacquered fireplace.
I threw the completed form in my bag and told him he could keep the oily one.
“You want my number in case you need anything else?”
“No, I’ll just make it up and lie.”
I shouldn’t have said that, but it was the truth. I made up a lot of the information on my route. It was small variations on the same theme: wealthy white person or four works in entertainment, or law, or entertainment law, and can’t seem to hand a simple for over to their assistant, or nanny, or nanny’s assistant to fill out.
B
Posted by Peanut Butter And Jealous 
