Unemployment; no talent no tap dance

Unemployment; no talent no tap dance

fiction
edward w pritchard

No talent, no tap dance; I had to slide and shuffle down the ramp near Kline's bar at the after party following  graduation. I had just became a certified barber  here in Juxston, fifty  miles to the East of Louisville, Ohio. I felt a fraud because I just couldn't seem to get the knack of cutting hair.

Five years later I was a bulldozer and heavy equipment operator in Canton, Ohio. Hubener trucking company, I got to take my 25 ton truck home after my shift; my landlord Mr. Owens didn't much like that but he was glad to get the rent paid on time for a few months. I hit the corner of Little Drop coffee shop with the back hoe, sacked again. Darn shootin, it's hard to make an honest living with no God given talent.

I remember exactly to the day when my employment problems started. Napoleon's French army was about to enter Moscow. We Russians were leaving the City without a fight. Just like that on September 1st, or second I think, 1812, all us inmates of the madhouse there in Moscow were turned out. Just like that, to protect us from the French armies, I guess. But what was I to do, I had no talents, no God given skills, and along with others I was thought crazy because of it. Should I flee Moscow or wait for the  benevolence of the French. I decided to go, Napoleon would be in a foul mood that we had not officially surrendered the City to his Magesty. Then what direction should I go, toward St. Petersberg, to find friends and allies or along the Smolensk road where Napoleon's grand armee  had come from after conquering most of Russia.

Well I escaped Napoleon's army but how shall I support myself now. Here in Central Ohio. I've lost my Barber's license, what's to come of me. No talent no tap dance I suppose.