Mo was getting comfortable in his, what he found out was called, apartment. It was easier to sleep in than the beach, and the temperature didn’t fluctuate as much. His neighbors were noisier, but that didn’t bother him; he was as soothed by their voices through the walls as he had been by the waves at the beach.
The only problem was the bald man at the front desk. Mo didn’t know when it was, but that man had come back asking for more green paper (money, Mo found out, after the bald man had screamed at him about it for 5 minutes). Mo didn’t have much left.
“How do I obtain more?” He asked his uncle’s doppelganger once his face wasn’t red anymore.
“You need a job, Mo.” The man looked him up and down. “But you might not have many options with those sleeves."
“Sleeves?”
The man squinted. “Those tats. All up and down your arm. They’ll limit ya, unless you wear button-ups or something.” The man began counting the money Mo had just handed him.
Mo knew some of the words, and assumed the man was talking about the markings on his arms. Mo discovered they didn’t come off, and even though he liked them, he didn’t know if he liked them that much. Either way, he had to now learn more about a “job.”
“Where do I get a job?”
“What, did you come from space or something?”
Mo began to sweat.
“Studios are always hiring. Probably start with security or something.”
Mo nodded, pretending he understood, mostly because he wanted this man to leave. He was on to him. Space!? How did he know. He began to walk toward the door and ushered the man out.
“Thank you,” Mo said stiffly.
“I’ll be around next month, okay.” The man waved the money in Mo’s direction. “Don’t forget. Got it?”
Mo nodded. The door creaked as he began to slowly close it. The bald man outside never took his eyes off Mo. The door closed, and Mo sighed. He wiped sweat off his face and reached for a big glass of water, which he found out was more important to humans than he had learned in training. He immediately drank the entire thing.
The other training Mo recalled was about human entertainment. It was a short course, because the likelihood of him needing it was low. He vaguely remembered something about movies, and maybe movie studios, so he assumed that’s what the bald man was talking about, but he couldn’t be sure. He kind of tuned everything out when the man said “space” and Mo resisted again to booster off into somewhere else.
He filled his glass up two more times and drank both as quickly as the first.
He needed this place to sleep.
He needed money to keep this place.
He need a job to acquire money.
It made sense, but it was weird. Everyone on his planet lived without these “jobs,” and the fact that he couldn’t do anything in LA without one felt like a waste of time. He’d rather spend his energy figuring out how to get home. But if this is how the humans lived, it would have to be how he lived too. He took a deep breath and downed another glass of water.
Human life was hard indeed, but it was the only way now that he was trapped here. He tucked his hands and feet into his chest and fell onto the floor, in the worn spot in the carpet, where he had been sleeping for the past month.
Tomorrow, he decided, he would go get a job.