A blue piece of paper covers the mirror on the kitchen cupboard. It says, “Someone is special today: Happy Birthday Garth! Have a cinnamon roll.” Garth is 32 today.
We go to Penmac, the local temp work agency. It’s clean, sanitary, well lit. It has ficus plants. In the lobby there is free coffee and popcorn. Next to it there is a sign that reads, “Someone has been doing disgusting acts in the bathroom involving the paper towel dispenser and the garbage can…” below that claim, it lists lots of new rules.
I wonder what you can do with a paper towel dispenser and a garbage can.
Garth and I sit at computers and fill out applications. A businessman who sits behind a name plate that says “Best of America” on it asks us if we’ve worked in the past 60 days and how many allowances we’re going to file. He uses the same practiced script and the same genial tone with every applicant.
There are also a bunch of round tables in the lobby. You don’t have to sit on the floor like you do at Labor Ready. There are white-haired men in leather and chains; middle-aged men in hunting gear; young black guys in plaid shorts, baseball caps with flat bills and shiny white tennis shoes; blob-shaped women in sweat pants with shocking mullets. They sit and stare. No one speaks. They all wait to be called to one of the 4 interview windows.
Garth and I sit amongst them with Styrofoam cups of coffee. Instead of staring at the walls, we catch up on writing.
“It’s like a cafe,” Garth says. “We sit at tables and write and drink coffee.”
“And it’s free.”
All you have to do is apply for a job… press your thumbprint to the plate… have your retina scanned… refrain from scratching the chip they’ve sewn into the back of your hand…
A couple of arena rock headbangers at our table lose patience.
“No one’s been called since we got here,” one of them says.
They leave.
When its our turn, Garth and I both tell our interviewers we’ll be leaving town Friday. We’ll ride to California with Justin. We have a good feeling about it. Why not?
We write for 2 hours at the library. It costs $1 to use the internet without a local library card.
A black cloud looms up behind us as we walk back to Jake’s. Some raindrops fall. Garth decides they’re life threatening and literally sprints all the way home. Such is his relationship with rain. I walk at a leisurely pace and arrive on the porch dry.
Justin runs into the front room wearing a fishing hat with a lure attached.
“I’m going storm chasing,” he says.
Garth, Jake and I get into his car with him. He turns up the weather station on the radio and zooms all over the highways. Eyes darting around in the rearview mirror, he leans over the wheel, watches the sky. He’s after the same black cloud that chased Garth and I. It covers the whole sky now and hangs low and black. Lightening splinters thru it. Rain falls so thick the windshield is entirely blurred. We pull onto the shoulder of an exit. The asphalt is drowned. Rain splashes up off a standing film of water and bounces upward, creating a layer of mist that hangs like fog. This isn’t the worst of it. We missed the real storm by about 13 miles.
We stop by a grocery then go home. Garth makes pasta Alfredo with chicken.
A guy named Taylor comes over. He talks fast. He’s sarcastic. He’s an entertainer. He sits cross-legged in front of the fire hydrant and eats his pasta.
“My compliments to the chef,” he says.
No one knows how easy this dish is to make. It always gets the same reaction.
Later, Jake tells me Taylor gave them the fire hydrant, but wouldn’t say where he got it. He lived here for two months but never pitched in around the house or paid rent. A classic freeloader.
Around 9pm, Penmac calls. They want me to work at the Fairgrounds for 12 hours tomorrow and Sunday. I take the job. I don’t ask what I’ll be doing. I don’t ask what the event will be. Whatever the job is, it will be mind-numbingly tedious. Such is minimum wage temp work.
I should make just enough to buy a Netbook. Garth and I have accomplished our goal. I like it when things work out.
I’m glad I got work instead of Garth. Every time we both get jobs, he ends up working twice as much as me for reasons neither of us have been able to control, and I have to sit around and wait and feel guilty. This time he’ll get to relax and I’ll get to provide.
May 1. 2010.
In order to get to the fairgrounds at 7am, I must wake up at 4:45am. The last time I woke up to an alarm was when Garth and I worked the Annapolis Boat Show back in October. Garth wakes up with me, makes me breakfast and a sack lunch.
My transportation options include walking 5 miles, taking a bus or calling the Penmac van, which cost $6 each way. I don’t feel like walking 5 miles and tiring myself out before I even begin my first 12-hour shift doing God only knows what. I have qualms with paying $6 for a van ride. The City Transit route map and schedule make as much sense as a peanut butter and asparagus sandwich.
Paige wanders out of Jake’s room.
“Are you guys talking about buses? I can drive somebody somewhere.”
She and I walk to the university parking lot and get her car. She drops me off at the fairgrounds at V.I.P. Vendor Gate 2, where everyone’s supposed to meet. It’s still dark. I’m an hour early. The only person present is the overnite security guard.
“What’s the event this weekend?” I ask.
“Monster truck show.”
Perfect. A whole new culture for me to observe and digest. At least I’ll be entertained.
I get coffee from a corner gas station and sit in a fogged up bus shelter to write. I’m jealous that Garth will have two days to catch up on his blog. Jake will be away on hunting and rock climbing trips all weekend, and he’s left Garth his laptop. My blog will be almost 2 weeks behind by the time I get a chance to update it. Other than that, I’m content with the idea of working.
Today is my first day on the job. Tomorrow will be my last. I can cope with that.
At 6:55am, when the sun’s finally risen, I stroll over to V.I.P Vendor Gate 2. A young black guy and a middle-aged redneck guy stand quietly waiting.
“Are you guys working for Penmac today?” I ask.
They nod.
“Do you know what we’ll be doing?”
We’re watching the gates, taking tickets. It’s the boat show all over again. Except I’ll be dealing with rednecks rather than rum-addled sailors.
While we wait for our assignments, I talk with Derrick, the young black guy. He’s smart, energetic, animated. He’s got an open mind and likes to learn about the world. When he’s not doing temp work, he promotes music, books bands and musicians in the clubs and venues around town. He wants to have his own talk radio show one day, or maybe sing in a funk/soul band.
My favorite thing about Derrick is that he believes that opinions should have foundations.
“I was talking to this hillbilly guy,” Derrick begins. “And he says, ‘I don’t think people should mix races.’ And I asked him why not. He says, ‘It’s just wrong.’ And I asked him, ‘Why do you think it’s wrong?’ And he says, ‘It’s just my personal opinion.’ If he had said, ‘I don’t think people should mix races because I wanna preserve the Aryan race,’ I woulda been like, ‘Okay.’ At least he would’ve had a reason. It may not have been a good reason, but at least he’d thought about it.”
Derrick doesn’t need everyone in the world to agree with him. He respects that opinions on all subjects differ from person to person. But like me, he thinks it best when a person has thought about or even researched a subject before taking a stance on it. Like me, he can’t stand it when a person chooses a certain side just because they were told it was the best one, or because that’s the tradition amongst the people they grew up with.
A man in a golf cart drives me to Gate 7, where I’m to work. There I meet Chris.
He was born and raised in Springfield. This is his 3rd year working the monster truck show. He’s always wanted to go on tour with them. He knows everything about the trucks and the drivers and he can answer any question I ask. He used to ride BMX bikes and rollerblade. He shows me all the permanent scars and injuries he has from it.
Sadly, neither the monster truck tour, nor the sports will be a big part of Chris’ future. He also has a wife and 2 kids and a full time job with Ozark Coca Cola. His life no longer belongs to him.
“How old are you?” Chris asks me.
“Twenty-seven.”
“I just turned 27 too. Do you feel old?”
“Not at all.”
I’ve never concerned myself with age. If my mom didn’t call me to ask me what I want for a gift every November, my birthdays would probably pass without my noticing. I didn’t feel like I needed to have a college degree at 22. I didn’t feel like I had to be married by 26. I don’t feel like I have to have a career and a family by 28. I dont feel like I have to have a car and a house by 29. I don’t feel like I have to retire at 65.
My life is not planned. It did not come with an itinerary. So it’s impossible for me to fall behind or run out of time.
Not only do I not feel old; I still feel like a child. There are so many things I do not know. There are so many things I have not experienced. In the scheme of things, I may as well have been born yesterday.
I’m glad I’m living my life instead of waiting to live and worrying that I may not be able to once I get the chance.
Chris fears that by the time his kids are grown, he may not have time left to do what he really wants to do.
He and I spend 12 hours together at the slowest gate in the Fairgrounds. He sells tickets from a little booth. I tear them and give out hand stamps. Our job consists mostly of pacing back and forth and standing around.
By the time I’m set free, I’m restless enough to walk back to Jake’s house. I walk fast, but it takes 90 minutes. The neighborhood is sketchy. I can feel sinister things going on all around me. Each time a vehicle passes, a redneck guy sticks his head out the window and hurls whistles and cat-calls in my direction.
My blood boils. I loath few things more than disrespectful, mindless, aggressive come-ons. Especially when they come from guys who have fewer brain cells than they do broken yellow teeth.
I arrive home worn out. Garth makes cheese burgers and we watch a Wes Anderson film called Darjeeling Limited.
May 2. 2010.
I wake at 4:45am again. Garth makes me breakfast and a sack lunch again.
There’s no early morning bus service on Sunday, and I don’t wanna deal with the sinister rednecks of North Springfield. I call the $6 Penmac van.
Today there’s a fellow in a green Notre Dame shirt waiting by V.I.P. Vendor Gate 2. One of the security guards comments on the shirt.
“I don’t like the team or the school,” the guy says. “I’m just Irish.”
His name is Jonathan. He grew up nomadic. His father was in construction and the family followed the work. Jonathan travels around a lot, paying his way by building houses and guarding gates at monster truck shows. He’s never left the country, but he wants to go to Costa Rica or Africa next.
He talks low, like he doesn’t want anyone else to hear our conversation for fear they’ll turn him in as a terrorist.
Jonathan stays in hostels when he travels thru towns, but he prefers to be outside amongst trees and animals, where it’s quiet.
“I was playing Frisbee,” he says. “And this little squirrel no bigger than the palm of my hand comes up to me and says hi!”
He’s so exited that I wonder for a moment if the squirrel actually said the word Hi in plain English. He shows me pictures of it on his phone.
“I’d like to wander into those trees over there,” he says. “I could climb up like 25 feet and tie my hammock into the branches and take a nap.”
It looks as tho the day is shaping up to be incredibly boring. It’s threatening to rain. They’re not even going to open up all the gates. Jonathan and I have been left to wait beside a gate that’s already sufficiently manned by a cowboy named Tex.
I tell Jonathan what Chris told me about feeling old at the age of 27. Like me, Jonathan is not concerned with age.
“I’ve never been afraid of death,” he says.
“Neither have I. I’m kind of like Peter Pan in that respect. I look at death as the last great adventure.”
Death is the only true unknown left in the age of information. You can’t look it up on the Internet or watch it on the travel channel. I’m not in a hurry to get there. I want to live my life while I can. But I’m more fascinated by it than I am afraid of it.
And I think it’s absurd to spend your entire life fearing and trying to prevent something that’s absolutely inevitable.
“You know,” I say. “One of these people might get run over by a monster truck today and die. It might be little Billy Bob. And his parents will say ‘Why, God why? He was supposed to grow up to be a doctor! He was supposed to get married and have a family!’ But obviously, if he dies today, he wasn’t supposed to grow up to be a doctor.”
Jonathan laughs. I’m impressed. It’s rare to meet a person who’s not repulsed by that kind of blunt logic.
I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be sad about losing those they love. I’m saying it’s silly to plan out your entire life and act like you thought death would only happen when you were ready for it- like it would only happen at a moment deemed appropriate by society or religion or politics.
Dying is the only plan you can make that is guaranteed to follow thru.
For the first half of my shift, a guy in a golf cart drives me around the fairgrounds so I can give all the other gatekeepers breaks. While watching the arena entryway I get to see a few events. There are a couple that locals can pay to enter. They’re competitions. You win things like sets of tires.
First I watch the mud-bogging. It’s pretty self-explanatory. A big, loud 4 by 4 truck with a confederate flag waving off the tailgate drives thru a 5-foot deep mud pit just to see if it can make it to the other side without getting stuck. I’m not sure how you win this event, but the audience cheers loudest for whoever throws the most mud into the air and makes the most noise.
Next I watch the Burn-out contest, in which a big, loud 4 by 4 truck with a confederate flag parks on a line, holds his break pedal down and pushes the gas pedal straight thru the floor, spinning his tires against the pavement. The whole point is to see who can make the biggest cloud of burnt rubber-smelling smoke.
America. We burn gas and pollute the air for entertainment. The spectators in the stands paid $15 per adult and $10 per child to watch this.
It’s fun.
I can’t think of anything better to do. I wouldn’t want to learn to read, for example. That would be a pointless waste of time. I also wouldn’t want to brush my my teeth or get some exercise. That’s not entertainment, that’s work.
For the second half of my shift, I open and close a gate every time a security golf cart wants to get in or out of the show.
I can’t see the monster trucks, but I can hear them. They are the loudest, most disturbing racket on the planet. I’d rather shoot myself in the head with a machine gun than listen to them rev their engines.
“Is it actually necessary for them to be that loud in order for them to do what they do?” I ask a co-worker.
“No. They just like it that way.”
For 5 hours, I watch people drag themselves up to the box office and hand over money so they can watch gigantic trucks run over junk cars in a mud pit.
All of the spectators are fat. Especially the women. They’re shaped like apples on sticks with donuts around their waists. Their abdomens hang down their thighs like udders full of pudding. Their skin is the color of Elmer’s Glue. Shoulders slump forward, necks tip back, mouths hang open dumbly.
I’m not making fun of these people. This is not a joke. I’m not laughing. I’m becoming steadily more repulsed. If one in a hundred people looked like this, I’d think nothing of it. But I’m describing 95% of the audience.
I try not to judge people. I don’t want to. But a question repeats itself in my head.
What Happened?
People are not born like this. People turn into this.
Who in their right mind would ever respect, much less emulate this country? We are lifeless blobs. We leave our houses only once a year. We pay money to watch someone pollute the environment and waste the recourses we send our children to fight and die for?
What is going on here?
We are not world leaders. We are an example of what not to do.
I’m glad I worked this job. It not only gets Garth and I our laptop, it widens my perspective of my home country and strengthens my convictions not to be a part of it.
