The Financial Lives Of the Poets

those aging Grand Ole Opry stars right before they die of lung cancer.

In fact, my first self-pitying thought is that the angel of my recovery has gone terminal on me-along with my prospects for the future-but he says, “Fuck no, ain’t never felt better.” He had a heart attack, he explains, and his doctor ordered him to lose the weight. “And I don’t do nothin’ half-assed,” he points out, offering me some unsalted edamame. “Doctor says lose eighty pounds, I lose me eighty pounds.” He fixes me with a hard stare. “And what’s the matter with you? You look ten years older.”

I explain that I’m not sleeping well. Or at all.

Another minute of small talk, then Earl says, “Should we get this shit on the table.”

Here is the shit Earl puts on the table: he is prepared, right now, to offer me the job as editor of The Can-Do Times. At first it will just be me, but eventually he wants a staff of six, made up of

three part-time entry-level people, two college interns and possibly one other mid-career person like myself.

“That’ll all be your call,” he says. “I’m gonna stay outta the kitchen. Not that I won’t give you my opinion, but shoot, you can feed glue to a horse an’ it’ll look like he’s doin’ algebra. No, only thing I ask-” and his skinny index finger points at my nose “-is that you give business in this town a fair shake and a voice for once. But this here’s your deal. I ain’ about to piss in the whiskey barrel.”

And suddenly I love Earl. I love his belt buckle and I love that country-lisp-whistle in his voice that cuts the ends off words and makes a word like whiskey sound cool and I love a man who can simply will himself to lose eighty pounds and I love his business sense and I love Can-Do and I love this man’s courage, and his balls (metaphorically) and I especially love this homespun way of his, in fact I vow to start using phrases like piss in the whiskey barrel in conversations. I think I’ll have it burned onto a wooden sign for Earl, the kinds of signs people put at their lake cabins, and I can even imagine-although I’m not stupid enough to bring it up right now-that once we’re off the ground and I’ve introduced the extraordinarily popular feature The Fiscal Poet to The Can-Do Times, I’ll write a sonnet in Earl’s honor, fourteen rhyming lines breaking into four heroic couplets featuring Earl’s own homespun wit, ending with his lyric motto:

…Man who could feed glue to an upright horse

Make it look like the animal’s talkin’

Could throw a fastball a hundred-n-four

Knock down batters even when he’s balkin’

Earl who can eat bone and drink marrow

Ain’t gonna piss in the whiskey barrel.

The business plan calls for one tech person and one advertising person on staff, he says, but this could also take a while. Everything will take a while.

“Fine,” I say, and my cell phone rings-it is my Drug Dealer Dave-but I click it off because I’m not about to fuck up this meeting and just then the voice in my head starts in, that awful Matt-this-is-all-too-good-to- be-true voice. I don’t want Earl to see that things have been going so badly for me recently that I would distrust his offer, but the voice tells me: distrust his offer and so I start down the mental list of what I might be missing. The obvious thing is pay, but I feel the need to circle around to that: “Benefits?” I ask. “Health insurance?”

“This is a start-up, Matt,” he says, and shrugs. “I have a plan for the people in my construction and real estate offices, but this here’s more like my restaurants. I could let you buy into the plan at a pretty good discount, certainly better than anything you can get out in the world, but I can’t match or go employer-based. I mean, you can’t give a virgin the biggest bed in the whorehouse, right?”

Whatever. Still love this guy. I take a deep breath. “And pay?”

“I gotta pay you?” He smiles, then makes a face. “Nah, this here’s a start-up, Matt. Ain’ no one gettin’ rich. I ’spect my ranch-han’s to put in some sweat equity, ’specially in the first couple-a-years. In exchange, you’d get real ownership shares, which-let’s be hones’, neither of us knows if they’ll be worth the paper they’re shit on.”

Yes, this is exactly what I was afraid of. “Look, I understand that, but I can’t work for free, Earl. And I can’t just work for stock. I’ve got a family.”

“No one expects you to work for free, or jus’ for shares.” He looks genuinely pained. “But this bird, she ain’ gonna fly weighed down by salaries. In the beginnin’, I’m sorry but I could only pay

you fifty, Matt.”

Fifty? I pretend to have to think about it. Fifty!

Love this guy!

“Look, I know it’s significantly less than you was makin’,” he continues, “but I’ve crunched the numbers and if we don’t keep payroll at a bare minimum, this thing’s gonna go like the salt block at a slaughterhouse.”

No idea what that means!

“You’d have to supplement your income elsewhere…maybe even jus’ do the job part-time at first, but it’s the only way.”

Fifty grand? Part time? Love this guy! Don’t look too eager, I tell myself. I wish I could call Lisa right now. “Don’t suppose you could go to sixty,” I say.

He wrinkles his mouth. “Fifty…five?”

Love! Him! Fifty is what we need to basically support our lives…to tread water…at fifty-five, we can slowly start to chip away at our debt. “How about fifty-eight?”

“Aw screw it, what’s a few hundred bucks,” Earl says and sticks out his hand. “You got a deal, my friend. Fiftee’ thousan’, eight hunnerd.”

I laugh. “That’s funny.”

“What?”

“It sounded like you just said fifteen thousand eight hundred.”

He stares. “That is what I said.”

“But you meant fifty-eight thousand, right?”

“Fifty?” he says. “You sayin’ fifty? Fu-u-uck.” And then laughs. “Shoot, Matt I can’t pay no fifty. No, I said fiftee’. Fiftee’-eight! Fiftee’ thousand, eight hunnerd.”

“But…earlier you said fifty. Then I said sixty.”

“I said fiftee’. Then you said sixtee’.”

“Wait. Fifteen thousand dollars? A year?” And now I hate this

country shit with his stupid country-lisp-whistle that cuts the last letter off every word so that fifteen actually sounds like fifty. “I can’t live on fifteen thousand a year, Earl.”

“Well, hell Matt, I don’t know why you took this meeting then. I tol’ you it was gonna be sweat equity early on. That it might even be part time. Hell, you’re the one been telling me for years they ain’ no money in this shit.”

“But…fifteen?”

“I got no problem findin’ people will work for that.”

And the awful thing is that I have no doubt that he does have journalists who will work for fifteen grand a year, for ten dollars an hour, there are so many out of work, and I also have no doubt that I can’t entirely afford to walk away without at least considering this offer.

“I got people will gimme shit on the Internet for free,” Earl says apologetically. “An’ I ain’ so sure it’s any worse than the crap I’m payin’ for.”

And I think this is likely true, too. I sigh. Look around the restaurant, then down at my cell phone, which is displaying Dave the Drug Dealer’s text message: “1 hour…”

“I don’ t…know if I can,” I tell Earl. Deep breath. “I might have to do something else.” I rub my brow. “Look, can I get back to you?”

“Fine,” he says. “Sixtee’. But that’s as high as I can go, Matt. I want you. We both know I like havin’ you on my side. But I pay any more’n that…I’ll jus’ be shittin’ in my own soup.”