Author Note: Take a little stroll with me down a meandering path in a town called Point Place. It's not a big exclamation point on the map of Wisconsin. It's not a tourist trap you would go to on purpose. But there are people and families that make Point Place a place you would remember.
This story begins with two young people who have experienced struggle and hit rock bottom only to pull on their boots and heels and strive to make the best of a bad situation.
Parallel Lives
Chapter 01 – Down and Out
Point Place, Wisconsin
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He rolled over and felt like vomiting on the filthy floor of the sleazy motel room. The air smelled like whiskey, cigarettes and sex. His body ached as if he had been running a marathon except he hadn't. He spent 30 minutes with a $40 hooker and regret was the worst of the pain.
Eric Forman watched with bleary eyes as Belinda pulled some cash from his wallet and lit a new cigarette from the end of the previous one. "Well doll…it's been fun. We'll have to do this again sometime." She waved at him with the tips of her fake 'Dragon lady' fingernails and scooped up her handbag before leaving the room.
Eric pulled the stinky pillow over his head and tried to erase the last few hours from his mind but it was there, out in the open like an open wound. It only started out with a few drinks at a bar with his buddies and he was drunk. This wasn't just have a couple of beers drunk, this was mixing hard liquor with beer chasers drunk. Surely Fez would have stopped him but then he was boozing it up pretty good also.
Steven Hyde seemed to be the only one that could hold his own. The curly headed friend sat on the bar stool and looked on with amusement while Eric and Fez got shitfaced. Belinda was a frequent Grooves customer who listened to Eric Forman's sad tale of woe. Hyde suggested she take Eric to the No-Tell Hotel and 'make him feel better'. She winked and slung one of Eric's arms over her shoulders and led his drunken feet out the door.
At the beginning of the evening, Eric liked that Belinda listened to how Donna was the love of his life but she moved on. Belinda was removing her skirt and nodding her head as Eric bemoaned the fact that he left for Africa leaving his girlfriend behind. She tore open his shirt, buttons flying in all different directions while Eric expressed in tears how he should never have left home.
Belinda straddled his hips and nodded knowingly as Eric began to cry for all of his transgressions while she humped the sins from his soul. The only thing that bothered Eric was that she wouldn't stop chain-smoking as she went about her job.
He was a sad little man.
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February 2, 1980
Eric Forman woke up in his childhood twin bed replete with Spiderman sheets and pillow case. The posters had been removed from the walls and the window curtains replaced. Some things changed and others didn't.
This was home.
He rolled over and looked at the alarm clock. The red digital display read 7:44 a.m. and Eric knew that his parents were already downstairs eating breakfast.
It sucked being home.
Eric looked at the ceiling and reflected on how much his choice had changed his life. Going to Africa was supposed to begin a career but it ended up being a failure. He wasn't a teacher. He was really a student with so much to learn about life. He took the first plane back home because Eric believed that Donna was his future, but in retrospect, the student learned that his girlfriend had changed her priorities (as she should) and moved on to attend college. His friend Michael Kelso had moved to Chicago to be closer to his daughter. Steven Hyde still lived in the basement but the rumor was that he was getting his own apartment. As far as Eric recalled, Fez still shared a place with Jackie Burkhart.
Not much seemed to have changed, but Eric was the only one still living with his mommy and daddy. Eric put the pillow over his face and wondered if he could die by suffocation. He inhaled deeply and realized he could still breathe through the old worn pillow. Suicide was clearly not an option so he just had to suck it up and make it through another day.
Still a sad little man.
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Jackie Burkhart woke up freezing again for the third time that night. The zipper on her sleeping bag was broken and every time she turned over on the tiny backseat of her car, the bag opened up to the chilly Wisconsin winter temperatures. She shivered and pulled her mittens back onto her hands. Damn Fez and his sleep-with-me-or-else ultimatums. Didn't he realize that kiss on New Year's Even didn't have the Zing! Pow! Wow! effect that determined whether a relationship had potential or not? Was she too polite because she had been drinking?
Whatever.
The relationship didn't happen. Fez was pissed. Consequently, Jackie was fired from her job at the salon and kicked out of the apartment with nowhere to go. Bob Pinciotti sold his house. Pamela Burkhart was traveling Mexico again. Brooke and Michael were trying to raise a baby. Jackie wouldn't think of asking the Forman's for a room since Steven was still living in the basement and Eric had just returned from Africa.
Jackie's savings were nearly depleted from staying at local motels that were dirty and at worse, skanky! She had demanded clean linens, but those came at an extra cost so Jackie decided to purchase a sleeping bag and camp out in her car until she got a job or a place to live.
Unfortunately, three weeks later, nothing happened.
Still, Jackie waited patiently for the local gym to open so she could shower. She washed her clothes by hand and used the leftover minutes on the dryers at the Wash-O-Mat. She kept warm by staying in the library and reading the want ads.
She was starving!
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Eric was driving down the main part of town when he spied the Unemployment Office. Perhaps there was a temporary job he could take until a potential career opened up. He parked the old Vista Cruiser along the curb and jumped out, shivering, and ran for the door. Not surprisingly, there was a line of over 20 people waiting for their turn to be interviewed. Eric suddenly wished he had thought to create a resume. While he waited in line, he examined the many bulletin boards that hosted instant employment promises for salesmen, auto mechanics, apprentice welders, day laborers….all of the jobs Eric Forman didn't have a real skill set for.
As he waited for his turn he could hear muffled conversations about businesses that were laying off as far as Kenosha and at the same time, buildings that were going up which would bring commerce back to Point Place. Not one of the tête-à-têtes involved working for the school district.
He sighed.
"NEXT!" the clerk's voice startled Eric out of his reverie. He stepped forward, looked around to make sure the woman was talking to him and then eased into the hard form of the plastic chair that sat in front of an ancient metal desk. The 40ish-something woman with a harried expression exhaled loudly. "Can you speak English?"
"Well, uh….yes." Eric replied.
The woman checked a box on the form pinched on her clipboard. "Have you finished high school or completed some other kind of secondary education?"
"High School and a year teaching in Africa…..for college credit."
The woman raised her brows in a "whoopee" expression and continued. "Do you have a valid driver's license for the state of Wisconsin?"
"Yes ma'am." Eric replied proudly.
She looked at him, "Are you insured."
Eric nodded. The woman scribbled something on the back of an index card and handed it back to Eric. "If you get to this address in the next half hour, they may still have an opening. Otherwise, we'll see you back here tomorrow morning."
Eric took the card and slipped it in his pocket without a glance. He thanked the clerk and tried to bypass the angry glares of the still waiting unemployed. Once outside the door, Eric breathed in the fresh cool air which was a wonderful respite from the nervous sweat and cigarette odors from within the room. He casually pulled out the card;
Custom Couriers
1473 Halemark Dr
Point Place, WI
You buy, we deliver
Eric shrugged. Didn't sound like a bad job…driving around in his car all day and getting paid for it? He was pretty sure that there were worse jobs and certainly he didn't have the technical skills for the better paying jobs so….
"You keep track of the packages you pick up, your mileage and maintain this log book. It is expected that your vehicle is in top running condition. We do NOT want to be called out to a site because your radiator dried up or your flat tire won't make to the next destination. Are we clear on this?"
Eric swallowed. Harry Arden was a tight ass, but Custom Couriers was his business and he was the boss. "Crystal clear. My dad knows a lot about cars….I'll have him check everything out tomorrow….so am I hired?"
Arden looked at this Forman fellow. He seemed respectable and trustworthy and the last asshole robbed the company blind. "You are hired after we run a police report on you. If you have no warrants for arrest, you can start training on Monday."
Eric grinned. His first smile in weeks. "Is it too soon to ask how much I'd be paid?"
Harry Arden leveled a glare, "Forman, you never ask the salary when you are interviewing. Perhaps after you pass the basic background check, we'll talk wages."
Eric held out his hand to thank Mr. Arden. "I have your number. I guess I call you at the end of the week?"
Arden nodded and warned. "If I call you first, it's because you failed the background. Make the police station your next stop."
Eric understood and rocked back on his heels. "Okay then….I'll call you!"
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Eric was still wiping the ink from his fingertips as he entered the kitchen. His mom was cooking something with chicken and it smelled great. He kissed on the cheek on his way to the living room. Red looked up, "What was that for?"
Kitty shrugged her shoulders, "I don't know. He was actually smiling!"
Eric came back through the door and headed for the sink. He splashed a huge dollop of dish soap on his hands and scrubbed his fingers. Red looked up, "What are you doing over there?"
Eric replied, "I got fingerprinted."
Kitty cleared her throat, "You – you were arrested?"
Eric grinned, "No….it was for a job I applied for. I had to pass background check."
Red harrumphed and went back to reading his paper while Eric slid into a chair at the kitchen table. "Er, Dad….I kinda have a favor to ask you."
Red folded the newspaper and set it on his lap. "A favor?"
Eric smiled, "Can you show me how to do a tune-up on the Cruiser?"
Red Forman was taken aback by the question. His son was asking for advice about a car? "Are you sure you don't have a fever? Kitty? Take his temperature, I think the boy is sick."
Kitty wiped her fingers on a dishtowel and pressed the back of her hand against Eric's forehead. "He's not running a temperature."
Eric only smiled, "Seriously, I applied for a courier job and I needed a background check. I'll know later in the week if I get hired."
It was Red's turn to smile, "Good. You get this job and we can start charging you rent."
Eric was startled. "But Hyde lives in the basement…"
"….and he pays rent. I'm retired son. Do you think the bills get paid on your Mother's good looks?"
Kitty glared at her husband, "Red. You better say something nice in the next ten seconds or you'll be sorry."
He grinned, "Sorry doll, I meant you are so good looking that the utility company should be paying us for electricity. Look Eric, you get employed, you help the household or….go find someplace else to live. It's just that simple."
"I'll help out. I know the family is on a budget and I'll do everything I can to help with bills or food or whatever." Eric promised. In the back of his mind was a reminder to stay away from $40 hookers and go to the free clinic and get checked out.
"Well… all right then, first thing in the morning you and I will go over the Vista Cruiser and make sure she's in good running order." Red announced, happy to be useful again. Dumbass had a job and Kitty's smile assured Red Forman that his house was coming back in order.
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Huddled in the back of the library, near the furnace, Jackie was reading a business journal and discovered the old Holliday Hotel which had employed Steven as a cook had been bought out and renamed the Point Place Holiday Inn. The new owners added extra floors and went bankrupt. A conglomerate from the East Coast funneled money into the Kenosha airport, but there was no land in the city to build a new hotel on so they purchased the Point Place Holiday Inn for an inconsequential amount of money. After weeks of refurbishing the aging hotel, the brand spanking new Point Place Hilton Airport Adjacent would be opening on the first of March, 1980.
Jackie looked at when the news journal was printed and found to her delight that the official hotel opening would be happening on Friday! She could probably get a waitressing job or at worse, something in housekeeping (like she really wanted to clean up after strangers) but living out of her car was humbling and it would be nice to have a job again.
Tidying up her little mess, Jackie ran through a mental inventory of what she could possibly wear that would be appropriate for a hotel interview. She still had a suitcase of clean clothes and the gumption that any job at that hotel was going to be hers. A Burkhart never gives up. She may freeze her ass off in the backseat of her car, but she never gives up.
Jackie was determined.
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"Dude, if you truly need a job, I can hire you. Randy's gone and who knows where the hell Leo went."
Hyde said on the exhale. Eric took the stub from Hyde's fingers and drew in a deep breath before replying.
"Thanks, but really, I need something that gets me out and moving. I might find out what I'm looking for."
Hyde lifted a brow. "You want to be a delivery boy? Seriously? You could be delivering pizzas….what is the difference?"
Eric shrugged, "Well….I don't exactly know. I'm going to be a courier and it just sounds better." Eric leaned back into the seat of the Listening Pit and relaxed. "Oh, I forgot to thank you last week for Belinda. I stopped by the Free Clinic and I'm clean."
Hyde choked on a laugh, "Cool. I thought the worst that could happen was a bad case of crabs…you know, something to remember her by."
"Ha-ha." Eric replied. "I'm most embarrassed that I cried."
Hyde bit the inside of his cheek, "So….it was that good?"
Eric shook his head, "No….I was thinking about Donna. Man, I should have never written that letter."
Hyde held up his hands, "Stop. Don't want to hear about it. It's over. She's gone. You have to move on. Stay in the present, my friend. You got a car and possible a job – just make sure you drop off some of those pizzas my way."
Eric stood up while Hyde was still laughing at his pizza joke. "You should get a job as a comedian. There will be no fast food deliveries to your store my friend." He looked around for a clock, "What time is it anyway? I'm supposed to help Red give the Cruiser a tune up."
Hyde stretched, "Oh man that is something I'd like to see. You're probably going to be left holding the flashlight while your dad does all the work."
Eric flashed a grin, "Don't I always?"
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AN: Like a lazy river, this is a slow moving story – don't expect any sudden action unless our fictional boat hits some rapids, or something like that.