LOW MAN by T.J. Vargo

Low Man is a wild ride through a Dante-like purgatory, or better yet, a strange in-between where wise and knowing children run free before they pass through a dark forest and over a fast running Styx-like River. Wow, is right. Here is my warning, beware Vargo’s bizarre world of honorable thieves, lurking shadows, knowing spirit guides, corrupt gas station owners, and overcrowded for-profit emergency room receptionists. Each character is well rendered in just enough flesh to make my skin crawl in revolution, heart pound in anticipation, or eyes tear in sympathy. Sure, I’m laying it on kind of heavy here, but I think that this is book is full of very timely themes.

Benny is a father. He is trying to do the best that he can by his wife and his baby boy. The local plant closed and Benny has been forced into a low paying job in a 24 hour convenience store. However, Benny is trying to better himself by taking classes at the local community college. He is holding down a fulltime job, a full course load, and seeing to his family. Benny is a hard working individual.

Benny only wants what is best for his family, but because of his schedule, he is rarely home to help out at home. The story opens with a superbly written fight between Benny and his wife that ends in her saying, “Just go to work. I’ll take care of it. Just go to work and try to be the man of the family for once.”

Those words haunt Benny throughout his shift at the store. He can’t get them out of his head. He knows that he has not been home much, but he has taken steps to see that he will be home one more day each week. He has gone from a full time to four days a week, which his employer was more than happy to accommodate. At this point in the story, Benny finds out that his shady boss took away this family’s health benefits and classified him as part-time with out his knowledge.

Meanwhile, Benny’s wife has taken their son to the emergency room because he has been sick for a week and is now burning up and has stopped moving, but because they don’t have health insurance the emergency room will not admit them without seeing one of Benny’s check stubs incase they need to garnish his wages to pay for the visit.

At the same moment that Benny’s wife calls to ask him to come down to the hospital with a stub, Benny’s is being robbed at gun point. Here is where the story takes a nasty swerve into the realm of the unreal. Benny runs after his robber with a gun. See, Benny is worried that his scummy boss will fire him for letting the robber get a way.

Benny and the robber meet up in a dark alley. They both fire. They both wake up in the store. And from here the story becomes a strange odyssey that you will just have to read and enjoy your self.

The most enjoyable parts of the novel for me were the sections told from Benny’s wife perspective while in the emergency room. These scenes are fully realized and full of economic emotion. Those with money and health insurance are rushed in and seen first while those without waited in the lobby, in some slowly bleeding out where they sat. This situation seems to mirror current conditions in The United States of America, my beloved country. I think that it is time for a change! Obama 2008! Vote 2008!

Anyway, Low Man is a good read full of surprises. I hope to see more from Vargo in the future.

Vargo, T.J. Low Man. Poway, CA: Leucrota Press, 2008