Recent events in my personal life have prompted me to do a great deal of thinking.  Aspects of life to which I typically do not dedicate much thought have pushed their way to the front of the line over the last couple of months.  These newly turned stones have caused their share of discomfort, but have also provided what appears to be a newfound clarity that I hope will prove to be permanent.

It all began on July 3rd.  I woke up that morning in a rented house on the banks of the Mississippi - the last day of a working vacation Jon Anne and I had taken for the purpose of working on our new script.  It was a good day, and we made the drive home without incident.  Later that night, as I began to fall asleep, it hit me.

The last 10 years of my life had been a gift.  July 3rd was the 10 year anniversary of the day I was supposed to die.  Every moment of the last decade was extra time.

In 1999 I was working as a store manager for Rent-A-Center, the delightful rent-to-own chain that preys on lower income folks.  At the beginning of the year, I had taken over as manager of store #510, on the corner of 35th & Wisconsin in Milwaukee.  I was the only white guy in the store.  All black crew.  I say this because it becomes relevant later on in the story.

My crew and I got along pretty well.  We all worked hard to make our store the number one store in the market.  We reached number one two months in a row and always led the market in collections.  I took care of my crew...bought them lunch, gave them unauthorized bonuses out of my own pocket...and they took care of me by working hard and watching my back.  Rent-A-Center is an odd business.  Managers are judged on two things: new rentals and collections.  More often than not, the new customers will stop making their payments and try to "skip".  Then the repo guys go to work and try to get the merchandise back.  "Hi, welcome to Rent-A-Center.  We value you as a new customer......until you're late with a payment.  Then we get ugly."

My boss, the Market Manager, was in charge of roughly 20 stores in the area.  He hated my crew and didn't care much for me.  Routinely, he would "advise" me to get rid of the crew I had and replace them with "more presentable" employees.  Each time, I argued successfully against it.  He was of the opinion that we should have nice, clean cut white guys out there doing the collections and repossessions.  He would send freshly scrubbed white guys in to apply at my store, and I would reject them all.  I already had a crew, and we were damn effective.

In April of 1999 I attended the annual manager's conference in Las Vegas.  During that trip, my boss informed me that if I did not fire my crew and replace them with "more suitable" employees (white guys), I would be demoted to an assistant manager and moved to a different location.  He gave me a deadline.  Once back in Milwaukee, I ignored his directive and went on with business as usual.  On the day of the deadline I called my boss and explained that my store had once again been the top store in the market for the previous month in both sales and repos, and I saw no need to fire a productive crew.  He faxed over a write-up form for insubordination.  I signed and returned it.

Around the end of April, I received a phone call from a customer, who, for the purposes of this story, I will call "Garbage" (he was a mid-level crack dealer in the neighborhood).  Mr. Garbage was calling to inform me that he would no longer be paying for the dining room set, stereo and big-screen tv he was renting....nor would he be returning them.  I let Garbage know that his plan was not going to work out for me, and I laid out another plan.  I would be coming to his place with a couple of my guys and we would leave with our merchandise.  Garbage laughed and told me to give that a try.

The next day, that's exactly what I did.  I showed up at the house where he was renting the upper flat, on north 34th street, with two of my guys.  Being a drug dealer, Mr. Garbage didn't like a lot of attention, and when I offered to call his landlord and tell him that his tenant had stolen merchandise in his apartment, he opened the door and let us in.  As my guys took the merchandise out of the house, Mr. Garbage and I stood to the side and talked.  I explained to him that he could get the stuff back once he brought his account current.  He laughed and said nothing, but locked eyes with me for an uncomfortably long period of time.  Once we were finished and I was making my way out of his place, Mr. Garbage grabbed my arm and locked eyes with me again, saying nothing. 

Mr. Garbage's account had been seriously past due and my boss called the store later that day to congratulate us, and told me to take money out of the petty cash to treat the guys to lunch the next day.  He seemed to be coming around.

Two days later, 30 minutes before the store opened, my boss showed up at the front door.  I let him in and followed him to my office, where he sat in my chair, leaving the "guest" chair for me (never a good sign).  He slid some papers across the desk and explained that he had given me numerous chances to fire my crew and replace them with more presentable employees.  Then he told me to sign the papers.  They were for my demotion and transfer.  I signed them and silently got up, found a box, and cleaned out my office while he watched, still seated in my chair.  Once I had everything, he followed me across the sales floor to the front door.  On my way out of the store, I saw my replacement.  His name was Aaron.  He was 23 years old, fresh out of college, and looked a bit like Alex P. Keaton from "Family Ties".  I was certain the customers at that store would eat him alive. 

A couple of days later, I reported to my new store and Aaron began calling me two or three times a day, asking questions about specific customers, wanting to know where things were kept in the store...He was a nice kid.  I helped him.  Gave him advice, answered his questions.  He was raised in a nice neighborhood in Beloit and was way out of his element at that store.  Within three weeks, Mr. Market Manager had directed Aaron to fire the entire staff, leaving only Cornell, the assistant manager.  Now the store was only staffed by two people, Aaron and Cornell.  Aaron would stay in the store while Cornell would do deliveries, collections and repos.  As I knew would happen, Mr. Market Manager was not able to staff the store with the kind of people he wanted.  none of his "preferred" candidates wanted to work at that store.  Aaron would stand behind the counter and explain to customers that they were contractually obligated to make payments on time and.........and they would yell obscenities at him. 

I remember a conversation Aaron and I had once, during which he explained to me that he had learned in school (he went to Blackhawk for Criminal Justice and was on the waiting list for the Milwaukee Police Department) that if someone was pointing a gun directly at you, all you had to do was put your hand out in front of the barrel of the gun and it would deflect the bullet.  I tried to tell him that was not altogether accurate, but he insisted.

On Saturday, July 3rd, 1999 Cornell went out to do collections while Aaron worked the store. 

Meanwhile, on north 34th street, Mr. Garbage was putting together the final pieces of a plan.  He was not happy with the treatment he had received and was looking to get even. 

At around 1pm, Aaron sent me a fax at my new store and playfully said his store was going to crush ours in new rentals that day.  I returned the fax with something goofy.  He called me a little while later and we "talked smack" about how each of us was superior to the other. 

At around 3pm, Mr. Garbage got into his car and picked up a crackhead customer of his, who we will call "Trash".  Mr. Trash owed Mr. Garbage $200 for drugs and was having a hard time coming up with the money, so Mr. Garbage had come up with a solution that would benefit both of them.  They drove toward 35th & Wisconsin. 

Mr. Garbage let Mr. Trash out of the car about 1/2 block away and handed him a pistol.  He told Mr. Trash to go into Rent-A-Center, kill the white guy, and take the money from the cash register.  In exchange for doing this, Mr. Trash would be allowed to keep all of the money, and his debt to Mr. Garbage would be erased.  The only condition was that "the white manager" had to die.  Mr. Trash walked into the store and approached the counter, raised the gun and fired it point blank into the face of the only white guy there; Aaron.  He then reached across the counter and took the cash drawer out of the register, which contained around $1,800.  When Cornell returned to the store, it was a circus.  A customer had come in and found Aaron dead behind the counter, with the back of his head blown out. 

And a bullet hole through his hand.

Mr. Trash was arrested within a couple of days and Mr. Garbage followed a couple of days after that.  At the trial, Mr. Trash explained that Mr. Garbage had told him that he wanted the white manager of the store dead because of the repo we did on him in April.  Had I not disobeyed my racist idiot of a boss and been demoted and transfered, I would have been standing behind the counter that day.  Mr. Garbage had not been in the store since we repo'd him, so he had no way of knowing I was gone. 

I've thought about Aaron from time to time, but never as much as I have this summer.  He was only 23 years old, with big plans, dreams, hopes....all of it.  And then it was gone.  Just like that.  And it was supposed to be me.  It was SUPPOSED to be me.  It was supposed to be ME.                

As I said earlier, I started thinking about all of this a lot after I realized that the 10th anniversary had passed.  The one thought I can't get away from is: What have I done with the ten years?  I'm ashamed to say that the answer to that question is: NOT ENOUGH.  While it's true that not long after that, I changed the course of my life by getting into stand up comedy, I feel like I should have done more with this gift of time.  There are strained relationships that I have yet to repair.There are people who need to hear things from me and those from whom I need to hear things.  There are personal and professional goals I've put on the back burner. 

But here's the thing.  There's no such thing as the back burner.  None of us is guaranteed tomorrow.  Aaron surely thought he'd have plenty of time.

I fully intend to make the most of whatever time it is I have left, because it truly is a gift.  I hope you all will do the same.  You never know when it will all be gone.  Just like that.

Gull