Every day, my husband and I have an uncomfortable decision looming over us. No, it’s not who to vote for in Indiana’s primary...we’re both decided on that. It’s not whether or not to put the air conditioner in the bedroom window again....we agreed March in Indiana is way too early. It’s not even what we’re going to have for dinner, because that’s my problem and he’ll eat whatever I put in front of him.
My husband does roadside assistance for Triple A Motor Club in Indianapolis and its surrounding counties. He loves his job. The work is physical but not overly exhausting (most of the time), it varies from day to day, but he knows that since "roadside assistance" doesn’t involve heavy recovery, he knows that it will be within certain parameters. He’s proud of his skill opening car doors, and towing cars, even towing them when they have serious suspension issues that many drivers would consider beyond their skills. He’s got defined hours, working a standard second shift. Sure, he doesn’t get along with all his coworkers, and sometimes he has to change stubborn tires in the pouring rain, but that’s life, and as he is fond of saying, everyone’s life has a Monday morning in it.
He makes a decent paycheck, which is enough to cover our needs and a few of our wants, though we are without health insurance due to preexisting conditions. We live pretty quietly; I read, sew, cook, watch the cats play, and write when my various conditions admit. He goes to work, comes home, and occasionally rents a movie or goes out to the garage to play with wood or work on the van.
Problem is, we own a house in Anderson, which is 40 miles away, according to Mapquest, from his yard in Indianapolis, where he picks up and leaves his tow truck every day. When he filled the tank of our minivan yesterday, he put in $80 in gas. He uses two tanks of gas a week if we do absolutely nothing but work. Church, grocery, anything else adds to that...we have to drive to a third neighboring town in another county, as there’s no Unitarian Universalist congregations in our county. Most weeks our check is about $550. A third of it goes in the gas tank.
A lot of people say that the obvious answer is to move to Indianapolis. But we own here, free and clear, though with abysmal credit. We can afford working class but decent here. In Indianapolis, the only place we could afford are places where my husband really doesn’t want to go, let alone leave his sick wife alone all evening while he’s at work. Plus, our parents are aging. We’ve got an extra bedroom here that may wind up being for my father-in-law, or my mother-in law. He’s what they’ve got. We don’t want to move any farther from them than we are now.
Getting a job in Anderson is our option. Anderson used to have auto plants here. His mom and dad, several of his uncles, several of his older cousins, my dad, my uncles....they all worked for General Motors. General Motors isn’t here any more. With them went working class jobs paying seventeen to twenty dollars an hour, with insurance and vacation and sick leave and retirement benefits. Anderson still hasn’t decided yet what next. We’re not the only people who commute to Indianapolis to work working class jobs. And that means we’re not the only ones caught in the vise of rising food prices, rising gas prices, rising utility bills, and rising health care costs.
My husband’s fortunate. He’s got skills that are needed here. He can walk right into a job with a towing company here in Anderson, and he has admitted that he’s kind of interested in applying his mind to the puzzles involved in heavy recovery. But it comes with permanent on-call status, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We will make about what we make now. But we can’t go down to Indianapolis to shop at an organic grocery or attend a show that would never play up in Anderson. We probably won’t be able to go to church anymore, since that’s in a neighboring county. He’ll be stuck at home, waiting for the call, and never being able to turn off his phone and relax. Understandably, he’s not eager to make the switch.
Right now, we both know that it’s going to be necessary soon. I spent some time today whittling a lift for my shoe, since we can’t afford to order one to solve my short leg issue. I keep stretching the fascia of my foot, but without a passive night splint the inflammation will continue. I need several tests that we can’t afford, and without the tests I can’t get medications for the conditions both the doctor and I are pretty sure I have. He needs some major dental work, and possibly glasses. We need a new roof, since we get to put buckets in the corner of the dining room when it rains. A friend of ours is willing to do the roof, but it's still $1200. That extra four hundred a month we wouldn’t be spending on gas would be very very useful.
He said when gas was two dollars a gallon that when it hit four dollars a gallon, he’d quit Triple A. It was $3.28 today. I hate that he’s going to have to give up a job he loves. I hate that there aren’t jobs here that pay a living wage, that we have to take money for emergency doctor visits out of the grocery budget. I hate the fact that many nights I drink water to quiet my stomach, so that I only eat once a day. I hate that our retirement plan has to be double suicide. I hate that I know I’m speaking for hundreds and thousands of working class people who don’t want to be rich, just have enough to live decently, and who are very quietly suffocating in the financial vise.
Bush said the economy’s going to rebound. I think he’s overestimating the elasticity, at least in this little bit of Middle America.