“What are you?” I asked out loud while clicking on the neon paintedbus.
It was a regularly scheduled bus service from L.A. to Las Vegas every weekend. It left L.A. Friday nights and Saturday mornings and returned Sunday night or Monday mornings. It looked a lot nicer than the regular buses and boasted a fun atmosphere. But the best part was that it cost nineteen dollars roundtrip.
“Fuck, yeah,” I whispered and glanced around the gym to see if anyone had been looking atme.
The ad said to call for availability. I picked up the gym phone and called the number. I knew that I couldn’t make the bus for tonight, but hopefully tomorrow morning. My foot bounced nervously as I waited for someone to answer mycall.
“Vegas Party Bus,” a cheery womananswered.
“Yeah, I’m calling to see if there are any open seats on the bus tomorrowmorning.”
“Yes, there are three open seats,” she confirmed. Yes! “Would you like aseat?”
“Yeah. My name is RyanHudson.”
She read me her script of potential time delays due to traffic and explained that seats aren’t assigned, so it was first come, first serve. I needed to be at the station by 3:30 a.m. for a 4:00 a.m. departure. The bus would get me to Vegas by 10:00 a.m., barring any trafficdelays.
When I got home, I told Skyler that I was going to Las Vegas this weekend for a job fair that started next week and asked him if he’d take me to the bus stop downtown. He said he would take me and spent the next hour helping me get stuffready.
“What are your wearing next week to the job fair?” he asked me as I was setting underwear and socks out on thebed.
I had two pairs of what I called dress pants. I categorized them as “dress pants” because they weren’t jeans. One was navy, and the other was black. I pulled those out and the dress shirt I wore to my dad’sfuneral.
“That works for two days, man. But was about therest?”
I stared blankly in my closet. My clothes consisted of a few pairs of jeans and a bunch of USC Trojan baseball t-shirts that I had been given for being on the team. I would need to expand my wardrobesoon.
Skyler told me that polo shirts would be presentable for a job fair. I found a few of those in the back of my closet. Everything was all set. I was going, and there was a good chance that I wasn’t comingback.
Chapter Twelve
May2004
Isteppedoff the bus and the first thing I noticed - the heat. I made my way toward the hotel that was holding the job fair on Monday. They wanted almost two hundred dollars per night to stay there. I almost went for it considering that I saved some money on getting here. But I had to be frugal. At this juncture, I was homeless and jobless. I was determined to make this work because failure meant going backhome.
Across the street, from the job fair location, was a cheap motel that didn’t ask for a credit card. When I got into the room, I felt the urge to lock the door and put a chair up against it. It had dank carpets and drapes that hung just above the vent to cool the room. First thing I did was crank the air conditioning up. It wasn’t even one in the afternoon. I decided I couldn’t just sit in a shitty motel while inVegas.
I walked the famous Strip, saw the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, and found a buffet dinner for less than four dollars. On Sunday, I sat by the pool for a while and found an office store where I was able to type up my small resume. I had written it out on the motel stationery while at the pool thatafternoon.
I showed up bright and early Monday morning when the job fair opened. Upon entering, I was greeted by an older man in a beige jacket. He handed me a plastic bag and directed me to the registration table. While I waited in line to register, I checked out the contents of the bag. It was full of what I would call promotional pieces for all of the hotels here at the fair. There were plastic cups, mousepads, pens, notepads, keychains andmore.
A pleasant woman took down my basic info, and she asked me what kind of experience I had. I panicked because I recalled the ad specifically saying I didn’t have to haveexperience.
“The advertisement I saw mentioned that experience wasn’t necessary,” I politely said toher.
“That’s right, Mr. Hudson. We put a green sticker on your name badge for no experience, yellow for some experience and a blue sticker if you are experienced. When you stop at departmental tables, they’ll have the sticker colors next to their sign to let applicants know which levels of experience they have open positionsfor.”
“Oh,” I said and glanced around. I noticed all of the signs and saw the colored dots she spoke about. “Sorry, this is my first jobfair.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Hudson, there are plenty of jobs and departments where not having any experience is a plus. They like to train fresh applicants and develop them to be part of theorganization.”
I was given my name tag with a green sticker and started my way through the aisles. After walking and talking to departments for the different hotels for close to two hours, I spotted a food table. I plated some fruit and pastries, grabbed some coffee and sat down for a while. I opened my bag to begin reviewing some literature I had collected. There were so many opportunities here. All of the hotels offered incredible benefits packages that came with two meals a day. I would never have food costs with a job with them. I also found out that Nevada has no state tax. They all offered tuition assistancetoo.
This all was very promising. I didn’t care what I did or where I worked. This was the kind of break that I needed. I threw my trash out, chugged a bottle of water and began making my roundsagain.
I spent a lot of time talking to a guest relations department for multiple hotels. This department appeared to have lots of openings for people without any experience. Two of the hotels even helped me fill out their application and said they were holding interviews beginning tomorrow afternoon. Each of the hotels I filled out the application for scheduled me for interviewstomorrow.
A third hotel’s guest relations department gave me a good vibe. I was drawn to their table because they had a sign up that welcomed college students. I picked up their college student flyer and skimmed it as a man stood and came out from around the table to greetme.
