RUDIMENTS, pt. 353
Making Cars
I never made a datebook or
kept any sets of lists. It never
worked for me, although I tried.
The problem for me was just the
plain drudgery. I always hated
working - for wages and jobs
and stuff. I was never at a loss,
ever, for things to do, and work
itself, eight long hours, a big
chunk of time, was just grueling.
Have you ever thought about that?
When something is distasteful,
thick and pasty, downright
unpleasant to have to eat, what
do they call it. Yep, gruel! And
from that comes my use, here,
of 'grueling' for the way I felt
about work. Always some schlub
lording it over you about getting
things done, earning your pay,
meeting requirements and quotas
and all that. People squish you
into school for all those years,
twisting you and turning you,
filling your head up with all this bad,
and useless, and inconsequential,
information about nothing but
what's already been structured
and laid out. Yeah, like a corpse
you're supposed to go visit and
say how good it looks, life-like,
just like it was sleeping.
Right. I wish it was.
-
There's never been anything more
rigorous than the tendentious
thinking that goes into progress
and logic and moving forward.
Back when I worked at St. George
Press all those years, there was
this guy, always a half-on lunch
drunk, staggering and fuming
around about something; he didn't
work for us, but was a big enough
guy in some local wire-cable
company that everyday he got
like free reign to drink a two-hour
lunch and then if he could still
stand (let alone drive!) he'd wend
his way over to us to sit around
and dry out, a least a little. He was
always in the bag. His job somehow
oversaw the dispersal of these
big, printed catalogs and update
sheets and and all. He was probably
supposed to shop around and get
bids and stuff, but - there were
kickbacks involved - and he'd
just heave all these printing orders
our way. Year after year he always
gave us a gold-embossed faux-leather
bound date and calendar book -
the entire year and maybe a month
overlap on each side of the year -
lines to write on, things for each
day's notations, records, comments,
planning, spots for weekend stuff,
weights and measures, international
time zones and cities and all. I
must have had 8 or 10 of them,
until about 2 years ago when I
purged a lot of it. Just useless
junk, and I really had no need
to save or hang on to any longer.
Each year he'd hand out 15 or so
of these to us - big deal items
for a while (before computers and
phones and laptops and hand-helds
and all that). This was pure, old-school
paper-world stuff, in the days of
both Rolodex and Filo-Fax, which
was a highly-prized item in the
1980's. (Hard to get too, I think
he thought; kind of like sobriety).
After some two years they even got
so boring that it became hard to
say thanks to him. Not that he'd
ever focus enough to hear us.
As I recall, by the end of his
tenure - no actually, my tenure,
because when I did finally walk
off that job he was still there -
there were so many people
covering for him that no one
wanted to answer to his name
if they heard it. For a while, too,
they gave some some pretty hot,
girl sidekick, a southern girl named
Jana. She was about 35, pretty hot
if I say so, and the voice of a siren,
all that southern charm and stuff
slipping out. I never knew what
the two of them ever did together,
but I never asked either, nor
witnessed. I think if they'd been
up to anything I'd have noticed.
She put the 'she' in 'shenanigans.'
She had this cool, Southern way,
too, of always saying 'How are you?'
but slurring it quickly and real neat,
so it came out like a four-letter word
or something. 'Hrya?' Cool stuff.
-
I always filled these things, but with
my own writings and stuff, thanking
the good Lord no one ever looked in.
('Hrya, Lord; hope yer well'). The
kind of rigorous chart-keeping that
went into this kind of job - like a
million others - didn't take into
account doing your own stuff as
you pleased. That wasn't supposed
to be. I never knew what got into
people - who jumped right from
endless school into a graduated
job of their choosing, rigorous
and tasty, just doing nothing else
after that point for like the rest of
their life - getting raises, hopefully,
money, things, houses, and vacations.
Finding a mate, making kids, talking
about nothing ever except God-awful
sports, or errant politics, talking tits
and ass, money, interest rates, TV,
movies, barbecues, cars, and all that.
Good Lord Almighty and Good Golly
Miss Molly too! Not for me.
-
If I was ever and only sincere about
one thing in my life it was probably
about Dying. I figured, all this crap
for nothing, and then you die, and
get to leave it all behind. Oh, good.
People always fool themselves into
thinking they're forestalling Death.
Ain't gonna' happen, Carlos. It's always
lurking around there, and that calling
card it carries has your name on it.
One of these times anyway. You
can have as much fun as you want,
and stay as drunk as you want, or as
sorrowful as you want, and it's all
going to get knotted together at the
end and clonk you d-e-a-d right on
the head. So, go home early, if you
want. It won't kill you.
-
One time, at this job, maybe about
1984, I played this big detective
game with myself and juiced out
some guy who'd been rifling through
coats and jackets, stealing money,
wallets and stuff, as the coats and
jackets hung there, untended. One
day, whoever it was, got to mine -
took my wallet, all the good stuff
in it, and whatever money and things
was in the pockets, that he could find.
It all really pissed me off, so I began
lurking, watching everything, seeing
people's patterns and coming and
goings, etc. I finally landed on the
idea that this was the guy. The 'Perp.'
He was a marine-like kid, deep into
rules and order. He was on some
Olympic hopeful tryout team, '84
Olympics, I think it was, and was
supposed to be pretty good, whatever
that event was where you have to
do five things - archery, running
to a bicycle, then bicycling to the
next thing, then marksmanship, than
this or that. I don't know. He was
way into all this; a real Mr. Polite,
calling everybody Sir and all that. It
just didn't seem to work, something
stunk. I was mad enough to really
do something about this crap, other
then just another endless police
report to some goofball patrolman
assigned to this ever-growing case.
I told the kid I had his trail, things
weren't looking good, and that I was
ready to pounce. I gave him to like
7pm that night to turn the stuff
over, come clean and all that. He
did his righteous-talk to me, all
all that polite crap. I called him
up at 7, and asked for his decision.
He denied everything. Honestly,
I forget what happened next, but
the cops got to his house. They
found all the stuff, mostly intact
too - wallets, things, some money.
He broke down, confessed to
everything. the cop guy called me,
said they had recovery, and his
admission of guilt. Blah. Blah.
The next day, I get my slim
wallet back, and other things, as
do various other people who'd
been robbed. The guy disappears.
No one knows - his parents, his
sister. He lived in Sewaren, but was
gone. (We'd hired him about a year
previous, out of the Woodbridge
High school Distributive Ed Program.
Half-day of school, half-day at a job
placement; then he got hired out of
school too). Two or three days later
we get a call notifying us that he'd
been located, and his car, in the
Adirondacks somewhere. Hanging
from a tree. He drove his car up
there, found some secluded spot,
and hung himself, poor bastard.
-
This is true stuff; I'm not making
anything up. And it ain't over yet.
The weird parents, since we were
a print shop, decide to come to US,
mind you, to print up the funeral
program, the funeral cards, and
some little bio. piece about their
dead kid. No shit; and we did it too.
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