Dear Job Interview, You’re like a father to me. What I mean is I want you to like me. I want you to look at me and think I’m doing a good job at being a person, being a son. When you haven’t seen me for a long time and we walk toward each other slowly in a field of rosemary and tall trees, I keep my head bowed because I want you to think I’m lost, I want you to think I’m not worth your time and attention. I’m not fooling either of us. I walk toward you with my head bent because I don’t think I’m worth anything at all. I’m not worth a wedding ring or a piece of silver with the face of a Roman Emperor on it. I want you to come over and knock on my door like Tony did. He wasn’t even my father, he wasn’t even you and yet, he called me out to the front yard and we stood in the cool dark grass and threw a baseball back and forth and afterward he hugged me and told me he was proud of me. Why would he do that? Maybe he was always looking for a father too. Maybe he felt the same way I do when I’m thinking of you and how I’ll answer all your questions. I’ll say something about work ethics, about how you shouldn’t steal from other employees, I’ll say something about the way I’m not only on time for work but early. Really all I’ll be saying is pick me, pick me, love me, tell me I’m special. Rebecca wrote a poem about a king who tortured his only son and how she didn’t understand why he would do it, and then she ended the poem by saying you have to spend money to make money. I think you have to kill fathers to make fathers. When I think of you late at night and the moon is filling up the bedroom and my infant son is lit up by the moon like a blueberry bush on fire, I imagine you walking into the room in a suit that I will wear one day, or one thousand days, after you’re dead. Love, Matthew
Job
Interviews
edited by Chris Evans published by Para Site with uh books
Contents Matthew Dickman Dear Job Interview,
1
Marina Vishmidt Untitled
9
Jonas Žakaitis Radio Waves
17
Heman Chong The Book of Drafts (Part 4)
23
Nadim Abbas THE REPLICANT
31
Howie Chen Fireflies
37
Holly Pester A Dialogue Between Two Actions of Work on a Break in a House Occupied by Four Women 45 Jason Dodge Preparation 500
49
Natasha Soobramanien The Architects
53
Angie Keefer
throughout