I would go out looking for a job, find one I was qualified for, and apply.

The person who interviewed me would say, "You're just what we're looking for. Let me check your references and call you back."

They would not call back.

I had quit drinking and was going to AA.

A woman hired me to dig with her in Andersonville and write a report comparing Civil War prisons, north and south, based on prisoner diaries, and other primary sources.

I would have a library card, an office and a typewriter, and three months to write the report. We'd be in the field for six months.

It was a 180-day appointment, but that was working days, and it came out to be nine months.

I told her I was a recovering alcoholic, and thought I'd stay sober, but I couldn't guarantee it.

She had someone in her family who was in AA. She knew about alcoholism.

She said if I went back to drinking, as long as I didn't drink at work, it was none of her business. I didn't drink at work, did I?

No, I said. After work.

I was a little apprehensive about going out of town.

I'd be away from my home group, away from Brenda, I'd have an income again, be back in a field I associated with drinking, archeology, and be among friends I had dug with before, who drank. They'd be drinking and I wouldn't.

But I didn't have any trouble.

Back in town, in the lab, I wrote on my book in the morning and worked on my report in the afternoon.

I called myself a writer-in-residence.

I was like a writer-in-residence.

I loved being a writer-in-residence. The coeds, the university campus, the library.

Memories of being an outstanding student at FSU. I still had friends on the Anthropology Department faculty. They thought if something bad happened to me at Tulane, it was Tulane's fault, not mine.

That's what I thought, but that's what I would think. It was nice to have an independent confirmation.

I watched the sand running out of the hour glass, my appointment ran out, and I was out of work again. My boss liked the report I wrote, though. She had nothing but good to say about my work.

I had proven myself.

Maybe a 180-day appointment ran a year, and I had six months in the lab.

I don't remember.

I know I hated to see it end.

I felt sorry for myself.

I complained in the writing. Why can't I stay?

Nobody wants to read that.

Beware not to end this book, Why can't I stay?

You can't.

Deal with it.

Leave that shit out.