Business was "insane" at Kenny & Zuke's Monday, Brice Clagett says, and for 10 and a half hours, he was lost in the funhouse, cutting pastrami, assembling Reubens, schlepping desserts.

When he clocked out at 9:03 p.m., Clagett was, like the bagel bin, running on empty, and still facing the bus slog to St. Johns. On his lone 20-minute break, he'd run to the bank to send his landlord an electronic check for $672.50.

His share of the August rent. His final month's rent. "I have 28 days left before I'm homeless," Clagett says.

He's 26. We met a few days earlier at the deli's take-out counter. I asked a question or two, and Clagett rarely shuts up. As his father, Michael, says, "There are no strangers to Brice." We started on local comedy clubs, then moved on to rental application fees and his bruising fall toward the poverty line.

His head's still above water, Clagett says, so he doesn't qualify for a life preserver. I hate to think how many millennials in town know the feeling.

Clagett works two jobs, 40-odd hours each week at the deli and another dozen as a bud-tender at Cured Green, a cannabis dispensary behind Mock Crest Grocery on North Lombard. Asked what the marijuana shop's owner saw in him, he says, "Probably the same thing Kenny & Zuke's saw in me: trustworthiness, and a willingness to supply effort, no matter what."

Clagett grew up in West Virginia, his parents divorcing when he was 10. With his dad's help and a state scholarship, he made it through college without debt or a credit card, focused on film and electronic media. But he ended up making pizza for barely more than minimum wage and catching weekend buses for open mics in Boston and New York.

"It's hard to accumulate wealth in West Virginia," Clagett says.

His grandmother died three years ago, leaving him $5,000, so he struck out for the Northwest. He arrived on Independence Day, dropped the U-Haul at the Econo Lodge in Vancouver, Wash., bought some weed from a homeless guy, and figured, as fireworks lit up the night sky, that the new start would be an easier one.

Little came easy, of course. Kenny & Zuke's hired him in June 2015, but after two years and three raises, he makes just $12 an hour. "A little bit less," Clagett offers, "than the guy making cookies at Subway."

The housing situation is worse. He's sleeping on a couch in a battered bungalow near Pier Park in St. Johns, but his roommate has health issues and the lease expires at the end of July.

He's hard pressed to cough up $50 application fees and still has no credit history, so you can imagine the search for an apartment. Believing himself no stranger to Portland's City Council, Clagett reached out for help to both Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, a vaunted advocate for renters, but says he drew no response.

The storied website - NoAppFee.com - that previews area listings for a single and refundable $35 application fee? On Monday, it showed a single Portland apartment under $995, one at Alder Village, just off Southeast 160th.

Portland's apartment options for monthly rent of $1,000 on NoAppFee.Com

"But I would get two bedrooms. One bath. And granite counter tops," Clagett says.

His last two-week paycheck from Kenny & Zuke's was, after taxes, $678.05, or just enough to cover that final rent payment. He has no health insurance: "I had to decide if Kaiser Permanente needed my money, or Sprint." He's embarrassed and, yes, discouraged.

"I have no idea what's going to happen," Clagett says. "That scares me the most. The uncertainty. Am I going to put all my stuff in a storage unit? Am I supposed to pick up a third job?"

His father, 3,000 miles off, worries about the weed and roots for a career. "I've never heard anyone complain about his work ethic," Michael Clagett says. "When he gets a job, he sticks with it."

Even when it no longer pays the rent. "I'm a bankruptcy attorney," the father says. "I see this every day, this generation bouncing from one job to another. It's not unusual to see families that worked all their lives in the coal mines or the factories, and the kids are doing nothing.

"It's a typical West Virginia problem. Each generation is doing worse than the one before."

That's why Brice Clagett left Appalachia ... or thought he had. On Tuesday, his third anniversary here, he logged five and a half hours at Kenny & Zuke's. Working without holiday pay, he pulled in $4.50 in tips at the take-out counter.

Afterwards, he bummed a few cigarettes and took the Yellow Line to Lombard. It being the Fourth of July, he bought a six pack of Sessions IPA at the Shell station for company on the bus ride home. "It was hard to go to sleep," he admits.

In another three weeks or so, it may be quite a bit harder.

-- Steve Duin

stephen.b.duin@gmail.com