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Subject True Story Guys--Welcome to the future of America
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Nowhere to go but down: Recession deals local family blow after blow

By PAUL SCHWARTZMAN

The Washington Post

MIDDLEBURY IN — He sinks into the couch, his gaze traveling from his wife to the television to the darkness outside, broken now and then by the distant glow of passing headlights.

His mind settles into another round of "What if?"

As in: What if we don't have cash to buy milk, eggs, bread or diapers? What if our unemployment benefits run out? What if we never find jobs?

Scott Nichols thinks of the option the 39-year-old husband and father of two has hoped to avoid since being laid off nine months ago.

They already took free food from a church pantry, cardboard boxes filled with Corn Flakes and bologna and saltines. His wife, Kelly, walking in, head down, while he stayed in the car, ashen. They pawned his wedding ring, sold part of her coin collection and had help from the Salvation Army paying their electric bill.

Now another cliff approaches: the loss of the home they rent.

"Looks like we'll have to go to your mom's," Scott Nichols says to Kelly, 33, who is in a beige recliner, staring ahead.

Moving to her mother's would mean returning to the rundown industrial town where they grew up, a place that makes him feel dirty, inside and out. They would sleep in her basement jammed with forgotten furniture, a few steps from a pair of cat litter boxes and below three narrow windows blocked by insulation.

Twenty months after it began, what has the American recession come to?

There are signs the bottom has been reached. The stock market is on its way back up. Retail sales are improving. The overall sense of desperation has eased.

Every day come new reports suggesting some improvement.

But underneath all of the reports is this living room.

"OK," Kelly says.

The people who have just agreed that they are out of options sit in silence, wondering the way out.

"It needs to be paid," she insists. The $40 installment on their Kmart layaway plan is nearly a week late.

"That doesn't leave a whole lot of money," he says. If they pay the $40, they will have $31 for themselves, their 2-year-old daughter and his 17-year-old son until their next unemployment checks arrive in five days.

These are the conversations that pervade Scott and Kelly Nichols' days.

How did they get here? How did their every other exchange evolve into a riddle that includes the refrain "How much?" followed by "How much do we have left?" How did their horizon become a basement in southern Michigan?

Nearly four years ago, in search of better pay, Scott took his older brother's advice and followed him to where he had moved years before: the flatlands of Elkhart County, the country's largest manufacturer of recreational vehicles.

"The RV Capital of the World," as Elkhart's leaders say.

Scott got a job on a paint crew at an RV plant, and by the end of 2007 his income was $53,000. He took his son on a fishing trip. He took his family out to eat and told them to order whatever they wanted.

Then gas prices soared, the economy unraveled and demand for RVs plummeted. Over the course of a year, Elkhart County's unemployment rate rose from less than 5 percent to more than 18 percent.

Thousands of workers lost their jobs, the casualties including Scott and Kelly, who worked in accounts payable at another RV company. The crisis in Elkhart drew the attention of President Barack Obama, who traveled there within weeks of taking office and plans another trip today to further focus on the economy.

When he lost his job, Scott had no savings, his primary objective always having been to earn enough to cover the rent, eat an occasional steak, feed and clothe their children, ride his dirt bike, fish, golf, play poker, buy lottery tickets, and drink Bud Light.

For two decades, a robust U.S. economy allowed Scott a paycheck-to-paycheck life. He was always confident the next payday was ahead. Lose one job, and soon enough there was another.

But this time, as weeks stretched into months, Scott found himself not only with no opportunities but nowhere to turn for help. His parents, a retired machinist and truck-stop waitress, still live in the same cramped mobile home he grew up in. His brother, the one who persuaded him to move to Indiana, has been behind on his own bills since his RV company cut his hours. And Kelly's mother, a retired public school teacher, can offer only her basement.

At the kitchen table, Scott opens the newspaper.

"Movie Extras Needed Now — 45 bucks to register, earn $100 to $300 a day," he says, reading aloud.

A company needs "employees to assemble products at home, $500 weekly, no experience necessary."

Another is looking for people to "earn $3,800 a week working from home, selling information packs."

He folds the paper and tosses it across the table.

"Bee Movie?" asks Hailey, the 2-year-old, climbing into Scott's lap. He loves his children. He tries to be a good father. He dotes on them.

"I don't want to watch the ‘Bee Movie' right now," he says, rubbing his eyes. He pours cough medicine into a spoon. "I know it doesn't taste good," he says.

A wedding photograph sits on a shelf in the corner, "Kelly and Scott, July 10, 2004" in script on the frame.

Her smile is wide, her dress bright white. He's in a black tux, grinning, his hair a buzz cut, his goatee neat, the mustache pencil thin.

Now his hair is thick and uncombed, his mustache full. He has gained 40 pounds since his last day at work. He needs to refill his antidepressant but doesn't want to spend money to see a doctor.

In the months since his layoff, he has walked into places looking for work, unannounced visits resulting in nothing. He went to a factory that makes ambulances. Nothing. To another that sells truck caps. Nothing. Another that produces tops for aerosol cans. Nothing. He heard about an RV plant that might be hiring, but decided he needs more information before he'll get in his car anymore. He refuses to waste gas chasing rumors.

So they stay home, a way to avoid spending money.

He thinks about his son, Cody, with his C's and D's and no direction or ambition. What will Cody do in a year when he graduates from high school?

For dinner, they eat breakfast — pancakes and sausages, which is what Scott had scheduled for this night when he mapped out a month's worth of meals to save money. The handwritten menu hangs on the refrigerator. Another night was soup and sandwiches. Another night was Chicken Helper and cottage cheese. Another night was leftovers. This night, Cody washes the dishes, his shoulder-length brown hair concealing his face as he leans over the sink.

"Homework?" Scott asks.

"No."

"Imagine that. If I get another call from school ..."

"You won't."

"What'd you do, tell them I don't have a phone?"

Cody disappears into his room to play Xbox. The TV is still on. As the sky turns black, no one switches on the lights. Kelly and Scott are in their usual places, the living room consumed by the blue glow of the television and an unceasing laugh track.

Monday is the day Scott dresses and leaves the house with a purpose that reminds him of the way he felt when he went to work. Only now he's off to collect their unemployment benefits, electronically delivered to their bank accounts by the state of Indiana: $268 for Kelly, $390 for him.

He withdraws $700, which he tucks into a front pocket of his jeans. He buys a Pepsi, four packs of Marlboro Lights and $20 in gas. He pays the electric bill, buys brake pads, a $66 money order for the kids' health insurance, and hoses down the Cougar at a car wash. He puts $500 toward rent.

"Five, 10, 12 dollars," he says, counting his remaining cash.

He has $100 more coming, his reward for winning the NASCAR betting pool at his bar, a dark, smoky joint called the Winners Circle. He walks in just before noon, hoping to find someone, anyone, who might know something about a job. The place is almost empty. The bartender, gray-haired, gravelly voiced Valerie, delivers his winnings and a $2 draft. He rarely drinks at home or in front of his kids. He never drank at work. But sometimes he drinks here, beer after beer after beer.

"I don't want to end up in a bell tower with a high-powered rifle," he likes to say. "I need to let loose in some way. I'm not going to give up everything."

At 1:44, he orders a fifth Bud, then a sixth. His phone rings. He knows it's Kelly before he answers. There's that question again: How much does he have left?

"We're still fine," he says. "Promise! No I'm not! ... I've only had six. ... I'm good. ... This is it."

He downs a seventh beer, then an eighth at 3:04. He drives home slowly. The last thing he needs is a cop pulling him over. He passes Coachmen RV on his left, a plant where he applied for a job six weeks earlier. He passes Evergreen on the right, another RV maker, the sign at the entrance to the driveway announcing, "Not accepting any applications."

In the kitchen, Scott gives Kelly the rest of the money in his pocket, $70, which needs to last until next week. He hands Hailey his loose change for her piggy bank, then falls into a chair and plays a game of solitaire.

Kelly is the one out of the house now, closing her eyes as she sits in a Subway, savoring a foot-long sandwich.

Her thoughts shift to a phone conversation she had that morning with their landlord, when she gave notice that she and Scott would be moving out in a month unless they found work. The prospect of leaving Elkhart makes her think about the place she wishes they were going, a house that exists in her imagination.

"A Victorian," she says. "Four bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, a family room, a living room, a sunroom, what I would call a sewing room, a kitchen, a dining room and a wraparound porch. That's what drew me to it, the wraparound."

She's ashamed she and Scott have no money. She's embarrassed they can't find jobs. She didn't grow up this way. In high school, she had a 3.9 grade-point average. She keeps a few old papers in a box, a teacher's "A — Well Written" scrawled on one, "Very Good!" on another. She got a scholarship to a community college, then lost it after she started partying and stopped going to class. She held a series of forgettable jobs at forgettable places: a bank, a photo lab, a Burger King. She went back to school, finished her two-year degree and continued to work at forgettable places.

She thinks about her mother, a divorcee, raising two daughters on her own and taking them on trips to New York, Washington, D.C., and Europe. She and Scott have never taken a family vacation.

She takes a last bite of her sandwich.

"I know (the house) will never happen," she says. "But you can still dream. Wish. Imagine."

She wipes her mouth with a napkin.

An e-mail pops up on Kelly's BlackBerry, which she got when she was working and has kept because of the cost of breaking the contract. The message is from a chiropractor needing a bookkeeper, a job she thought was filled because she had applied two months earlier and got no response. Now the doctor wants her to take what he calls a "personality survey."

She drives to the library to use a computer, because she and Scott don't own one. The survey requires her to rate how a series of 80 statements describes her, "4" being "most like you" and "1" being "least." Next to "I am a winner in most situations," she checks 1.

A few minutes after clicking the send button, their landlord calls, asking permission to drop by the next day to see what in the house needs to be fixed. The landlord, also an RV worker, is carrying two mortgages and must rent or sell the place as soon as possible.

Kelly hangs up and checks her voicemail. The chiropractor's assistant says the doctor wants her to come in for an interview, the first callback she has received in more than two months.

"Astonishing!" she says, driving home. "I wish I could stop and pick some lilacs."

Hailey is on Scott's lap, Cody in the recliner, when Kelly walks in the house. They're watching "Bee Movie."

Kelly tells Scott about the landlord's call.

She mentions the call from the chiropractor.

"You're getting a job interview?" Cody asks.

"Yeah."

Scott coughs. He's fighting a cold.

The next morning, as she prepares to leave for her interview, Kelly gives Hailey a book to take to Scott, saying, "Ask Daddy to read it to you one more time."

He finishes the book and hands it to Hailey, who brings it to Kelly, who walks out the door, saying, "All right, wish me good things."

Scott is silent as the door shuts and asks no questions when she returns.
"Want me to tell you what happened?"

"Uh-huh."

He doesn't look up from the wall he's touching up with white paint. The landlord is due soon.

"It's 28 hours, eight bucks an hour," she says. No benefits, she adds.

"You say, ‘Thank you, but — '?"

"Yup," she says. "I make more on unemployment."

An hour later, over lasagna, Scott asks Cody if his girlfriend is still trying to get him to stay with her instead of moving to Michigan.

"I'd rather stay down here," the boy says.

"You understand that life happens?" Scott says. "We've got to do something?"

Cody nods.

Six days until they have to leave.

Jackson is about 80 miles east of Detroit, its only recent distinction being making Forbes magazine's list of the country's 10 worst small cities for finding jobs. Elkhart was named sixth worst. Jackson? Number one.

"You know what he grossed this year?" a woman asks at Scott and Kelly's barbecue, referring to her husband, an RV worker, who grins as he toes the ground. "Under $10,000."

"After I pay all my monthly bills, I've got $40 in my pocket," says a boyish man, a single parent who works two jobs and fixes cars on the side.

Scott is the host at his own farewell party, grilling burgers and hotdogs and hugging friends. He smiles when he sees Richard Oiler, his buddy, who recently got a job painting RVs after being laid off for 15 months.

Soon after he started, Oiler called Scott and told him to get over to the plant to fill out an application. Scott drove over once, then again, but never got a call. Maybe it's worth one last-ditch try before they go, he decides now. He moves closer to Oiler. He says he's going to stop by the plant on Monday to put in another application, and asks if he can deliver it to Oiler. Maybe Oiler could hand it to the bosses.

"See if you can?" he asks. He raises his eyebrows. "See what I'm saying?"

"Right," Oiler says.

Inside the house, Cody and his girlfriend, Brandy, watch cartoons.

"I have atrocious grades and no money," Cody says, which leaves one option, as far as he can see: the military, although boot camp is not something he'd relish.

"I'm not exactly in shape."

"You could lose weight," Brandy says.

"I'll diet then and if I can't get past that, well guess what? They'll send me home."

"No they won't, Cody."

He doesn't want to leave their house, his school, Brandy. He envisions the three of them sleeping in that basement — Kelly, Scott and himself, no walls between them.

"I'm sorry," Cody says, "but this is wrong."

Outside, as the sun fades and a bonfire begins to glow, Kelly keeps an eye on Hailey while Scott wanders from friend to friend, bantering as he tilts his head back and chugs another beer. If anyone says anything approaching sentimental, he obliges with a hug and a promise to return. Then he moves on, laughing as he goes.

After 12 months of trying to fix his life, there is no more fixing to be done. Scott accepts that he is a man in a back yard of a house that soon won't be his. A man with no way out. With no option but surrender.

Monday: Four days left. He does not go to see Richard Oiler. He does not fill out an application.

Tuesday: Kelly packs up some of her things. A clarinet she hasn't played since high school. A Louis Armstrong CD. Two photographs she took at some other point in her life, one of a rose, one of lilacs. A Shakespeare anthology. She shows Scott a wooden keepsake box. "You can yard-sale that," he says, "along with all the damn candles you got."

Thursday: They rent a U-Haul and load, father and son, silent.

They arrive in Jackson the next day, Kelly's mother leading them down the 11 dark steps, apologizing twice for the smell of cat urine.

Kelly's mother offers to ask the cable company about running another line downstairs for their television.
Not necessary, Scott assures her.

"I don't plan on being here for long," he promises. He stands and unfolds his arms. The man with no options wonders what to do next, but there is nothing left to do other than trudge upstairs, unload the truck, and come back down to the basement.
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