Down Bottom
"Damn!" Max cursed under his breath as his car sputtered to a stop on the busy highway. It was already a horrendous day, and now this. He had just been fired from his job and had to deal with a broken car in the middle of the highway. Horns blared behind him, reminding him of how terrible his day already was as he tried in vain to start his car.
At least he had been able to distance himself from his brother, but Max couldn't even count that as a good thing. It was unfortunate that his car broke down on a day when he was in a foul mood and had been wrongfully fired from his job.
After trying several things to start the car in vain, Max got out of the car to open the hood and see if he could somehow fix the engine. It was a hot and humid summer Tuesday in July, and the sun beat down mercilessly on Max as he tried to get his car working but failed in the end.
Max's car broke down on the road, but fortunately, it didn't cause much of a problem other than forcing other drivers to take a turn to avoid his car. Helpless and alone, Max couldn't help but feel like the world was against him. He had been living paycheck to paycheck, and he didn't have any significant savings to fall back on.
As he stood there defeated, the only option that presented itself was to have his car towed away after attracting the attention of the police on patrol who came to him after noticing the disturbance he caused on the road. This was the only option available since Max couldn't start the car.
The tow truck arrived a few minutes later, and Max watched as his car was loaded onto the truck. The tow truck driver was a burly man with a thick beard and tattoos covering his arms. He looked like he had seen it all, and Max felt a sense of comfort knowing that he was in good hands.
Max had to sit with the tow truck driver because he had used all of his money to pay the tow truck driver to carry his car to his residence, and since the tow truck driver didn't refuse him, Max was able to get on board without difficulty.
While Max lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, his place of employment was in the suburbs of Chicago.
Even though it seemed like he was living quite the life because of his residence, it was actually in the downtown area of the city Max was living in. He literally had to cross two states twice every day just to get to work, a job that was later easily taken away from him. Since he still had his mother's and his own debts hanging over his head, his living situation was one of the reasons he avoided living in the big city.
He used to receive a $1500 salary, which was barely enough to sustain him, but now that it was gone, how was he going to get by?
For starters, he would soon have to pay his usual $300 house bills for maintenance and all that. He still had some money saved up, so even with some additional expenses, he could still manage.
He was more concerned about how he was going to pay a portion of the debt that he typically pays in the final week of each month. If he lost his job when the month was about to end, he wouldn't be too concerned about how to pay since it was the same week he got paid, but that was impossible now. He was no longer being paid by anyone.
Even though the amount of debt he still had to pay was only $18,000, it was still a significant amount. If he had been fired a few months later when he perhaps had access to a few other jobs, since that had originally been his plan, he wouldn't be thinking about it now.
He only had $700 in savings and was unable to part with it because doing so would leave him with nothing on hand. He had faithfully been paying $500 in debt payments each month on his own since his mother passed away for the past two years. If he were to deduct these payments from his cash reserves, he would be unable to do quite a lot of things.
His mother's house was basically the collateral he used to collect a bank loan, and if he didn't pay according to the agreement this month, the interest would be increased, which he didn't want.
If only finding a job in the United States was simple.
As he thought of these things, Max decided to message his girlfriend and give her an update on how things were going while thinking about how he could resolve everything. But when he turned on his smartphone, he saw that the phone was already close to dying so without wasting any time, Max hurried to Facebook to message his girlfriend.
After quickly summarising his day and how awful it was that he got fired, Max tapped the arrow button next to the message he had written to send it. She should at least call him to comfort him after she sees it because he really needed that at the time.
Max was about to close the app as he contemplated this and other issues when he noticed that his girlfriend had just logged on and was typing. But it was at this precise moment that the phone finally gave up and died.
When Max saw this, he briefly became enraged and wanted to smash his phone against anything. But after remembering that he didn't have the money to fix it and that he wasn't the owner of the truck he was in, Max just sighed and put his phone in his pocket while resting his back on the chair.
He turned to close his eyes and relax, thinking, "I'll just check her message when I get home." After all, the journey was going to be quite lengthy.
The time spent on the road with the car to travel from Chicago to Grand Rapids, Michigan, was slightly more than two and a half hours. Barely half an hour had passed, so there was still a significant amount of time for him to spend on the road.
He would have browsed the internet if his phone had been with him to get his worries, concerns, and thoughts off his mind, but since it was off, he was unable to do so. If not for this, he would have visited Instagram and checked out what was going on.
He wasn't sure why, but despite his best efforts, Instagram and YouTube just seemed to have a magical ability to divert people. That was the case for him, at least.
As he thought of these things and other unrelated matters, Max inadvertently drifted off to sleep to the music playing on the tow truck's radio.