Gale Hawthorne | The Hunger Games (fromtheseam) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2013-12-09 07:35:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !log, !open, ~2013 december, ~40 points, ~~gale hawthorne (fromtheseam) |
WHO: Gale Hawthorne and OPEN
WHAT: Looking for work
WHEN: Monday morning
WHERE: Subway
WARNINGS: Hunger Games warnings
STATUS: Open/Ongoing
Gale needed a job. He hadn't been lying when he'd told Katniss that he wasn't going to take anybody's charity - he'd not done all he'd done in his life only to lose his pride by begging from some town council. He'd spent his whole life supporting himself, and working hard to do it, and that wasn't going to stop now. He had his pride - it had been one of the few things he'd always had, and he wasn't going to give it away so easily.
He didn't need things. He never had. He'd made do with hunting, with the meager rations of grain and oil he'd received from the tesserae, and with the trades he'd made in the Hob. But Katniss was right about one thing - there wasn't a hob here, and people had so much that they weren't eager to trade for things like meat or hides. So if he was going to be able to buy the things he needed that he couldn't provide for himself, he was going to have to have a little money. Which meant he was going to have to find a job.
Gale wasn't afraid of working. He was strong, and healthy, and had always possessed a good work ethic. You worked because you had to, because if you didn't, people would starve. He'd gone down into the mines as soon as he could, every moment wondering where his father had been when he'd been blown into pieces too small to bury. But he'd done it anyway, because there hadn't been a choice. A job in the mines was about the best a boy from the Seam could aspire to.
But there were no mines in Madison Valley. There wasn't a military presence either, so he couldn't find a job with them. And those were his two skills, really. He'd gone from shop to shop, trying to find someone who was hiring, but so far had no luck. He wasn't sure if it was because he was a refugee, or if it was because of his lack of any sort retail skills, or if maybe they thought he just didn't have the personality to be a sales person. Which he didn't.
Then he'd noticed an ad in a discarded paper for an opening at the Indiana-Kentucky Electric plant. A coal-burning power station. It wasn't mining, and it wouldn't necessarily be pleasant work, but it was something he could do, and more familiar than anything else he'd known.
He went to the address on the ad, consented to the blood test (why not? they took their blood for the Games all the time, no big deal), and after a quick interview with the manager, found himself employed. His heart soared. Twelve dollars an hour to start, with periodic raises! He felt like he'd never had more money in his life. Union dues would come out of that - he wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but it hardly mattered. Forty hours a week at twelve dollars an hour. He was set, especially since they didn't seem to be asking any payment for the house.
Leaving the interview with a smile on his face, he went to the Subway place that had always smelled so good, but that he'd never dared to try. He had a little bit of money from where he'd sold a pound of venison to someone at the Market (not because they needed it, but only because they'd wanted it, apparently). He'd been saving it, but it didn't appear that he'd have to, now. He went inside, and to celebrate his new job, he bought a roast beef sandwich. He'd never had beef before - it was far too expensive for kids from the Seam. But it was time to celebrate. And times for celebration came far too rarely to waste them.
Sitting at a table, he unwrapped it and took a bite - savoring the flavors. Is this how they lived in the Capitol? Always able to have what they wanted, whenever they wanted it? He could never be like that, no matter how much money he had. He'd always be worried about something going wrong (as it always seemed to) and finding himself on the bottom again - where the world always seemed to want to push him.
In fact, he only ate half the sandwich, as delicious as it was, wrapping the rest up to take home. Half of it was more than he was used to eating in a day, anyway.
He looked around him, at all the people throwing away their half eaten sandwiches, and his stomach clenched in disgust. He could have fed his family for a week with what they were throwing away.
Standing rather angrily, he took his own tray to the trash, looking at the person who'd just thrown away a half-eaten sandwich with ice cold rage in his eyes.
"What did you do that for? Was there something wrong with it? Or do you just like spitting in the face of people who are starving?"