Side Jobs Wanted
I’m looking for side jobs. If you need a pet sitter or a house sitter while you’re away. I’ll sit with your plants if they need company. I’ll talk to them if they like talking. Or a babysitter—you want to go away and have me sit and talk with your baby? Sounds a little off, I know, but I’m flexible. Or if you want me to sit and talk with you, I can do that. Everybody needs to talk to somebody. Also if you need your house organized. I’m organized and can help you become organized. Maybe your life needs to be organized but in a deeper way, a spiritual way. Like you’re searching for meaning. I have a thing for meaning. Or you need help talking with your spouse or your neighbor. Maybe they’re the one who needs to get organized. In the sense that they’re “out of line,” if you know what I mean. I specialize in alignment of all kinds. But anyway we can talk about your needs. Because I’m good at handling difficult people, and maybe you’re the one who’s difficult and that’s the source of your difficulties. You’ll never know until you try me out and see how I do. I think you’ll see I’m very skilled. I’m open to negotiating my fees, too. I’m sure we’ll be able to reach a deal. Besides everything else, I’m optimistic and I know how to work through differences we might have.
Mini-interview with Mario Moussa
HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)?
MM: There are many moments that have shaped me as writer. But if I were pick the one that revealed the distinctive pleasure that writing can provide, it would be the moment when I read a story I wrote for my first creative writing class in college. The story was about a character who lived on the street. He encounters a group of kids in the park and they exclaim, “He looks like Aqualung!” Aqualung was a character in the Jethro Tull concept album of the same name from the 70s. (I’m dating myself, I know.) The other students in the class really liked the story, and they wanted to learn more about my Aqualung. I wrote several more stories about him. I’ve long since lost the copies that those stories, but I still remember that feeling of connecting with readers decades ago. I’m motivated to seek that feeling, in all my stories, to this day.
HFR: What are you reading?
MM: Mostly flash. But also longer short stories. For years I read “longer”—how I read novels when I want a break. But mostly I read “short,” because that’s how I write. As far as flash and short stories go, I’m reading Gary Lutz and Ben Marcus, whose work I think of as voice-driven. And I like to think of my stories in that way, too. I’m so impressed with Gwen Kirby’s collection, Shit Cassandra Saw. The title story is a flash work of genius that spans centuries in less than five pages. It shows how much can done in the short form. There are authors, as well, who I’m almost always re-reading: Stuart Dybek (for his lyricism), Lucia Berlin (for the way she conveys emotions in apparently simple language that goes very deep), Denis Johnson (who seemed to have tapped into some reality-channel that only he can access), Catherine Lacey (whose Certain American States captures the off-kilter way we actually think).
HFR: Can you tell us what prompted “Side Jobs Wanted”?
MM: I saw a post on Nextdoor in which someone said they were looking for side jobs. It started me thinking about all the different kinds of side jobs, and how if you were really serious about making money at side jobs, you’d have to be willing to do just about anything, and maybe some strange things, like plant-sitting. Once I began to imagine such a person, I let their voice go and I followed it to the conclusion of this story. Many of my stories are similar in that respect. It’s the voice that creates the narrative momentum, and usually the voice leads the speaker to a place where they didn’t expect end up. In the case of “Side Jobs Wanted,” it’s claiming they’re a specialist in working with difficult people and helping them work through their differences with the people they’re closest to.
HFR: What’s next? What are you working on?
MM: I’ve written a collection of thirty-five flash stories about a fictional neighborhood in Philadelphia. “Side Jobs Wanted” is part of that collection. Over half of the stories have been published. I’m doing a final edit of the entire collection. I continue to write new stories, which I anticipate will become part of the next collection. I’m not rushing the process of editing or writing new pieces. I heard that Claire Keegan spends years on a single story. I appreciate the willingness to give one’s writing the time it needs to develop.
HFR: Take the floor. Be political. Be fanatical. Be anything. What do you want to share?
MM: I love stories. I love hearing others’ stories. My political message is that we need to spend more time listening to each other’s stories. Listening to what we choose to share and what we’re compelled to conceal. Listening to the rhythm of our words, and to how feelings emerge from fragments of sentences and garbled syntax. I think we’d all be better off if we did more listening and less arguing.
Mario Moussa is a writer living in Philadelphia. His work has appeared in such varied publications as Flash Fiction Magazine, Short Edition, Fortune, Forbes, and many other places.
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