" This used to be a great country. Not now. Not anymore.
I was laid off from the drugstore. Worked there almost thirty years. Worked my way up from the bottom, from Stock Boy to Manager, with little in the way of education -- I didn't graduate high school, was a semester shy when my dad got sick. I ran that damned place for the owner, Bud Wilkins. Then, when Bud retired, and had no one to carry on the business, this big chain bought him out and they discarded me like a badly worn sneaker.
--From "After the Layoff", included in forthcoming collection, BROTHERS, FATHERS, AND OTHER STRANGERS "

― Mitchell Waldman