This rice is my dinner. Just this pot of rice. The refrigerator is empty now. This is the last of my rice.

I have no more emotions any more. I have been angry for so long. I cannot even afford to feel any more. Too much energy.

I suppose when they laid me off I should have been more upset. I didn’t really care because I hated that place so much. I just thought, I’ll get another job. I always do. I applied for unemployment first as almost a joke, something I’d been paying into for so many years. It was an investment. I thought, This may be the only opportunity I have to use up some of my unemployment money. So I applied.

The checks stop coming next week.

When they laid me off, I knew it was because I’m queer. The day my boss gave me the official letter (it’s not a pink slip any more), I heard him talking in the bathroom to his boss.

"You gonna fire that faggot today?"

"Yes, sir. Funny how lay-offs hit certain people and not others."

"Isn’t that funny?" They both laughed. They should have checked to see if anyone was in that last stall.

My lawyer (when I could still afford one) said that I didn’t have a case. One, I didn’t have any proof. Two, even if I did have proof, it wasn’t illegal to fire someone because he or she is gay.

"I thought there were laws against discrimination." I said.

"There are," he said, "just not against gays and lesbians. It’s still perfectly legal to fire someone because they’re queer, or even refuse them housing. If you don’t believe me, just ask the military. Don’t ask, don’t tell, baby. It’s not just the Army."

Anger. Inside me, around me. Everywhere.

I still have salt and pepper to put on this rice, but no butter. It tastes dry going down. The tap water barely helps. I don’t know which tastes worse. Being poor sucks. Being bankrupt is inconceivable.

I will not beg. I refuse to beg. I don’t care what you call it—pride, arrogance, whatever. I will not beg. Maybe because I never used to give those people any money, not even the quarter change I had in my pocket. I used to think they were less than human. I don’t want to become someone like that. I must maintain my humanity. It is all I have left any more.

It’s not that I didn’t try to find work. I went through a pair of shoes walking from interview to interview. But there was no work for a secretary who had been fired. Everyone is getting rid of their secretaries and getting personal computers. And everyone wants someone bilingual. I don’t speak Spanish. They never made us take a foreign language in high school. I wish they had.

After they repossessed my car, I had to take the bus. Try riding a bus in a business suit and see how many people talk to you. I passed by West Hollywood sometimes. I saw all those men going to their expensive gyms or getting in their BMWs and I didn’t see myself anywhere. Where are the poor gay men? Where are the people struggling to make a living? I don’t fit the image.

Gay men all are college educated, all earn over $70,000 a year, all have a mint of disposable wealth. Not this kid. $224 each Wednesday, thank you Uncle Sam. Unemployment paid some of my bills. But they did end up taking the car.

The week after I was laid off, I was lazy; I’ll be the first to admit it. I hadn’t had a vacation in 8 months. I sat at home and watched all the bad soap operas and talk shows I could take. Sally had on post-operative transsexuals. Oprah had on dancers from gay clubs. Montel had on gay couples in long-term relationships. I kept waiting to see myself—somewhere, anywhere. No talk shows showed low income queers. I didn’t exist.

The next Monday, I began my search for work. I took part of my severance pay to make 100 copies of my resume. I knew that would be enough. I looked forward to the coming weeks. This is an opportunity to better myself, I thought. I can move away from that shitty little company and start doing something positive, maybe even something in the gay community.

My first check came that Wednesday, tax free. I thought it was so quaint, a small unemployment phase I was going through. Look, honey! I got an unemployment check once! Ha ha!

Once the forth check came, I was getting down to the bottom of my meager savings. The $224 a week was barely covering my rent. My car payment, Visa bills, and food burned up my savings.

Every day I had looked for a job. I was on my second batch of 100 resumes. I had six interviews; all of them chose the bilingual speaker over me.

I even went to some of those adult education Spanish classes. I was there one semester and I could say, "How are you? I am fine." I realized that being bilingual took years, not semesters. I gave up on the second language idea.

Check #12 arrived. I gave up. I didn’t go out job hunting any more. I don’t usually quit things easily, but this was too much, too demoralizing. I was suicidal for the first time since I came out to my parents. (They would never help me. The one thing they ever kept their word on was never speaking to me again.) All of month three, I couldn’t get the energy to go find work. That’s how they found my car: sitting in front of my house. I didn’t even realized they had taken it away until 4 days later.

The move gave me the energy to start looking again. My apartment manager finally called the sheriff and evicted me. I would have done the same thing if I hadn’t been paid in two months. I found a clean place half the size of my old apartment and moved. There were gangs in my new neighborhood. I had to get rid of my cat.

The move was a fresh start. I knew I could find a job. I knew I had valuable skills. I would not be defeated. I had told my God-fearing parents that their only son was gay. I could handle unemployment, no problem.

100 resumes, 8 interviews, 0 job offers.

My life became much more regular. Sunday was the start of my week now: get the classifieds, circle the jobs, write the cover letters. Monday through Wednesday were delivery days. (I still believe in always hand-delivering a resume). Wednesday I got the $224 and decided how to spend them. I usually didn’t have a choice. Wednesday through Friday I made phone calls, trying to get a manager, a supervisor, an employer. Nobody wanted to talk to me. Saturday—day off. Day to cry.

This rice is my only dinner. Tomorrow—Wednesday—my last unemployment check comes. The government no longer extends the long hand of charity after 12 months on unemployment.

I have no more resumes and no more money to make copies. I applied to McDonald’s today. A 26 year old high school drop out working at McDonald’s. My parents would say they told me so.

I rode the bus through West Hollywood today on my way back from the unemployment office. It was Gay Pride day. I cried, couldn’t stop. I didn’t see myself anywhere.