O.C. Writers

Description: It’s July 1985, and Laura Rodriguez has had a hard time finding a programming job in Silicon Valley. She decides to take a chance on a job opening in San Rafael, but the place is not what she expects. //  

I drove up Irwin Street, a one-way road that extended from the Fourth Street offramp from the northbound 101. I found an empty curb on the left. It looked like a residential district. Nothing looked like an office building. I had to think twice before I got out of the car. It seemed like a safe neighborhood, but I made sure I locked the door and checked the handle.

I double checked the address that Darryl, the man I spoke to on the phone, gave me. He said it was 27643 Irwin Street. It was an old two-story house with dark redwood siding and faded forest green trim around the windows and eaves. It didn’t have much of a yard. Just a small patch of grass in front of the porch with an oak tree in the center. One of its roots pushed up the sidewalk.

A path of stepping stones led from the driveway that ran next to the house to the well-worn steps up the porch. I had to tread carefully with my heels, another women’s fashion trend I hated, and clacked up the steps. I found myself confronted with a screen door with a faded wood frame and a tear in the screen. Next to the door was a doorbell with the brass worn off. I stared at it for a moment. What was I getting myself into? Was this even a real business?

But I told Darryl I would be there at ten o’clock, and it was ten o’clock. I pressed the doorbell. A loud buzz came from the other side of the door.

After a moment, the front door opened. A man’s face peered from behind the torn screen.

“Come in.”

I grabbed the black iron handle and pulled the door open. He wasn’t dressed as if he was about to interview me. For starters, he didn’t wear a tie. He wore a short-sleeve dress shirt with light blue stripes. His brown dress slacks were tight around his hips but loose around his legs. His dark blond hair seemed thin and wispy, but well combed. Shadows covered his eyes. He seemed well proportioned in his shoulders, arms, and legs, but his gut looked like what a man would be if he were six months pregnant.

I smiled, just as my faculty advisor reminded me, and extended my hand. “We spoke on the phone, I’m…”

“I know who you are. Come in.” He stepped away from the door without shaking my hand.

I tried to maintain my smile. “You must be…”

“Darryl Posner.”

I followed him into the front of the house. A stairway was immediately in front of the entrance. Next to the stairway was a marble pillar with a small brass figurine. The house seemed dark, and specks of dust floated in the air.

“It’s a lovely place you have here.” I felt my muscles tighten.

I followed him through an entryway into what seemed to be a living room. But it looked like a living room from 50 or 60 years ago. Everything seemed antique. A plush velvet sofa and matching chair in oak trim. A glass table with ornate gold-colored iron trim. Floor lamps with velvet shades with gold fringes. Even the technology in the room seemed old. A large cabinet TV from the sixties sat against the wall. It probably had vacuum tubes, if it even worked. Another cabinet contained a record player that probably only played 78s. On top of it was a radio in a cathedral case and a cloth-covered speaker. It only had AM. They probably listened to the Pearl Harbor attack on that radio. The only tech that seemed to work was the grandfather clock with its pendulum swinging in a glass case.

The room looked like it belonged in a museum. It certainly didn’t look like the location of a computer company.

I didn’t know what to do. I stood in the middle of that room watching Darryl walk towards the sofa.

“You asked about the programming job.”

“Um, yes?”

He turned towards me. “You can program a computer?”

“Yes?”

He sat down on the sofa. “You’re hired.”

“But…don’t you want to hear about my qualifications? I know 68000…”

“I don’t know anything about that stuff. My brother put that on there.” He crossed his ankles.

“You want the job, or don’t you?”

I realized I had been so focused on preparing for interviews that I didn’t know what to say when I got hired.

“How much do you pay?”

“$10,000 a year.”

“$10,000! That’s half the starting salary for a…”

“And room and board. Do you live in Marin County?”

“No.”

“Do you know what rent goes for around here?”

I stood silently. The steady clicks from the grandfather clock were the only sound.

Darryl only let a few of them tick before he demanded, “You want the job, or don’t you?”