ancient history

but we went to work for the cocksucker anyway, and
lo and behold another poor bastard of a
soon-to-be-duped sub-contractor, this one
saw-cutting the concrete in the basement so we can
lay our pipe, hops out of his van.
i note the door's distant address, the hometown of the half of the family
that doesn't send cards anymore, making a point
to ask him later.

later comes, again. (later always does.)

being the resident native they ask me where we're eating.
a greasy spoon my friends swear by comes to mind, the
special sauce and hot dogs and paper plates.
the meal is relatively silent, the other three cursing me mentally
for bringing them to this hole in the wall.
i break it by asking that new guy chopping the slab
if he remembers Vahsen's Tavern down by the train station
in port chester.
his eyes light up, "60s and 70s, right?
that was a happenin' place."
"yeah, but my dad didn't want to take it over when it came time
after seeing what it did to his family..."
i try to put a brighter spin-- "his friends
on the football team in high school were the bouncers, and
i'm pretty sure he got a lot of ass out of the gig, too."
my two coworkers look at me somehow differently
like someone with roots, not the better-than-average spic
they tend to see me as; the diamond in the rican rough
is just as german and italian as you bitter old fucks.
it feels good to rub it in without saying a word, and
my win is two-fold:
the special sauce doesn't sit well with my middle-aged
union brothers. they piss and moan about my dud
of a suggestion, and the man
from my old man's old stomping grounds
picks up the bill as a sign of good faith
or maybe to try to pay some sort of past debt
like he forgot to tip the grandfather i never met
one drunken night in his glory days, long past.

we walk back to the site after lunch is over. (lunch always ends.)

things start up smoothly, balls of fire in that trench
popping those lengths of four-inch cast-iron together
like it's nobody's business. the wind pierces the denim, my legs
will be dry tonight, but for now the heat's in the tools
and it feels good to be on such a roll
proving myself at something i don't even entirely know how to do yet
let alone love.
part of that motivation comes from our lunch break conversation
part of it from the desire to keep moving to stay warm
and maybe a larger fraction than i'd like to admit
from the will to impress my partners, despite
their constant ball-busting. (he's gone, the only bar
is in your living room, those cards
still don't come anymore; find it where you can, kid.)

all of that progress comes to an end when a laborer passing by
a pile of dirt excavated from our trench by a machine operator
spots a bone. it's a human jaw. the proper authorities are notified.
a cease-work order is given by the superintendant, we're grounded.
the police captain shows up, a few suits, some officers with latex gloves
and some mysterious characters with no obvious titles; the jobsite's been
transformed into a crime scene, and it's not even pay-day at three-thirty.
thumbs back up our asses, so much for all that progress, all thanks
to some dead hooker in a shallow grave from god-knows how many years ago.
it reminds me of the time the ex-union dock-builder i knew
told me how they'd sink floaters, so to speak, in order to keep the job moving
as long as no one was looking. he said the stench
of the gases in the bloated bodies was almost enough to justify it
even without the wage-loss factor.
cleaning the tools, gathering the fittings, locking the gang box
walking to my car, i hope that this one was the result of a mob hit
and not some poor bastard like the one who's not going to get paid by
my scumbag employer, the one who used to shoot the shit
three sheets to the wind, chasing tail in Vahsen's Tavern
thirty-some-odd years ago.

the checks probably won't even be good friday. (they seldom are.)




Currently reading:
"Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne.