I am truly American

After work, Thursday night, I had a dry blue collar thirst for beer. This is an unusual occurrence for me, it happens once in a great while, I could probably count the times on both hands. It manifests after a day of hard work, physical labor, moving tons of material, with fork lifts, with your hands, clothes covered in dust. The only thing that sounds good is a cold beer, stomach nearly empty, lunch digested by energy, a fast pace. This is the kind of evening not to wait but to drink it down on the drive home.

I am truly American, I have joined the ranks of the archetypical auto worker. Except I am in the business of building trucks, tractor trucks, semis, diesel engines, fleet trucks, heavy duty trucks, military trucks; in the business of creating more need for oil, feeding the needs of war. A union worker. & a lay-off is in the near future.

So on this day, at the beginning of the shift, they have what they call a town meeting. The production line shuts down & all the swing shift workers in the plant, remove their ear plugs, take off their protective eye wear & gather in the middle of the floor. They have a stage set up & a big power point, screen. More & more gather, mainly men, it looks like a harley convention, a rock concert. “All those standing move forward,” a man yells & droves mill forward. Some sit on orange dingy’s – one man standing golf carts for moving parts quickly through the plant. A few have metal folding chairs. Every race, black, white, asian, every working age. One guy looks south american indian. I mistake his round face for a woman’s but then see the long black soul patch hanging from his lip.

Along with the smell of fresh paint & solvents in the air, there is an energy as all face the stage, waiting to hear the specifics on the lay off. It’s known that 800 were laid off in a Canadian plant. Rock music plays over the speakers until the plant manager steps up to the podium. He is the new plant manager, explains his past, working thirteen years for a competitor, now he’s settled his family in Vancouver, excited to be back in the northwest, a place that has a lot to offer. The outline appears on the screen & he addresses what will be covered, last years progress, this quarter’s progress, safety & what everyone wants to hear, the forecast for 2007. When he finally gets to the forecast he essentially says nothing that’s not already known. Due to new emission standards, truck buyers are leery of purchasing trucks with the new engines, this is industry wide, sales are predicted to fall off in the spring; but as long time auto workers know, there is always a rebound & this is counted on. & when the market comes back call backs will happen. Then he highlights things to keep in mind in a lay off, quality should not go down prior to the layoff, as the buyers now will be the same buyers later etc., there is funding for school or career development, food help from the unions. All over the floor the work force listens rather unmoved, it is massive, it is the flesh muscle behind the rigs. Some have climbed up on a military truck & listen to the speech perched on its bed. One guy sits in the drivers seat of a just completed semi, window down, listening.

I think of this mass of strength, & how it is mobilized by one thing, money – each person is here only because there is a paycheck waiting at the end of the week, the same with armies. If we paid all these men & women to kill would they? what about to plow? to remove every dandelion between here & Mexico, what if they were all paid to sit cross legged for eight hours a day, paid to pray, paid to help their fellow man? Ah, the whistle blows & it is back to work.

So I make a stop at the convenience store & search for quarters in my ashtray & find only two in a mess of nickels & pennies. I miss the cash of pizza delivery. I buy a quart of beer with a credit card. Every time I’ve hit this convenient store the parking lot has something going on, usually internally, in a strange crack addiction way, the guy in the car next to mine fidgets with something, or the slight man, leaning his strength to push open the glass door, looks emaciated by liquor or something, dressed in tattered layers, wandering off to find a hole to sleep in. Christmas music plays inside, jingle bells, ring in my head.

I sit in the car w/ my bottle opener & see a kid walking, aimed at my driver side window. Nope, I say before he’s near. I crack the window, his hair is dyed black, hanging in thin locks, baggy pocketed black pants. He starts his speech, “I’m not able to go in there & buy something” he stutters, smiles, & starts again, “I’m not able to go in there and buy something because I’m too young. Do you think you could help me out?” He is beautiful. And the times I used to do the same thing, one day, Andy & I skipping school, spent all morning, searching for a buyer, one old man, lectures us, “I used to be an alcoholic, if you’re smart, you won’t touch the stuff.” Thank you sir, & we head off to find someone else, finally locate a bum that goes into a downtown liquor store & gets a little something for himself along with our purchase. This kid is all alone, maybe planning to drink alone. Young, maybe 15 at the most, wonderfully, naively hoping for a fine escape, to cure everything. “No,” I say, “I can’t but good luck.” I drink the beer in 7 miles, getting the carbonated, elevation of slight numbness into me & feel fine for bed when I get home to the sleepy house.