It’s a lot of fun to say you’re a “freelancer." It sounds like a really cool futuristic job where you make your own hours and thumb your nose at The Man while eating ice cream for breakfast.
The actual truth has more to do with applying constantly to full-time gigs to save up enough money so I can move back to New York and blow way more money on an apartment deep in Greenpoint or Bushwick and then relate tales with friends about how some young kid threatened to beat me up for scuffing his shoes.
Really. While on the L the other night, I stepped back and felt someone smack my knee. I looked down and this teenage kid made a face like I farted on him. I went further down and saw he had a pair of white/red leather nikes that cost more than my ten-year old work boots. I apologized, but the kid mumbled something. So I got off on Jefferson and as I did I felt someone grab my arm. The kid, now standing, said, “You scuffed my shoes."
"Oh. Sorry," I muttered. But he didn’t let go. So now, on the platform of the Jefferson L stop as people are walking away from us, he’s got his hand on my arm. I yank back and he stumbles a bit but regains himself.
"You scuffed my shoes."
"Right. I’m sorry."
But again: “YOU. Scuffed MY shoes."
"Ok. What do you want?"
"An apology!"
By this point my mind began clicking around that his definition of apology meant money while mine meant saying sorry for a third time. And yet, I thought immediately I was going to be mugged because three friends of mine had been mugged in the area based off equally stupid shit said to them. But I took off my headphones and said,
"I’m sorry. I didn’t see your foot. It wasn’t intentional."
The kid waited and then said, “Fine." Turned around and walked away.
The worst part about being freelance is when you realize you’ve spent so much time alone with your thoughts looking for and doing work that this almost seemed like a possibility of where I’d get mugged or have to fight some teenage kid because I scuffed his shoes.
Though, to be fair, when I was in high school in DC there was a ten-on-ten person brawl in our gym when some kid scuffed another kid’s $500 Tims.