3.09.2008

Ain't no Aesop.

We'd left off without finishing the last branch
of sewer line the day before, the fittings
and cut-to-length pipe were waiting
for us in the trench the next morning.
I picked up the quarter-bend 90
to shove its corresponding pipe into
the socket of the fitting. I finished waking up
when, upon flipping it around, I doused my work
jeans in stale piss. Someone had decided to mess
with the plumbers in typical fashion the night before
by relieving himself in our trap assembly.
Not a nice way to start the day.
My partner and I were close to certain we knew
who it was, the same little weasel who constantly
gave us shit for no good reason, the pencil-pushing
toolshed mandatory to every job, the only one here
late enough to pull this stunt off.
I cursed, my foreman laughed until he realized I wasn't kidding.
The day went on.



Coffee time came and all of the tradesmen
gathered around the truck to buy their egg sandwiches.
I saw the laborer that lives near another foreman in our company
the one who tried marrying me off to his daughter, then settled
for having me as his bastard son
when he accepted my lack of desire to mix work and play.
I asked this laborer if he had any funny stories about the old man
like everyone else seems to, maybe one about him hunting
out of his truck or shooting deer through his bathroom window.
He went on to tell me a story that caused some neighborly tension.
A couple years ago my buddy was hunting in the woods adjacent
to both of their homes with his nephew. Shots rang out
through the dimming forest, but when the two men
came stomping out of the treeline they were empty-handed.
The laborer told me that my foreman said he tracked the deer
for a hundred yards, but lost the blood trail and had to give up
since he had a dinner to attend. This didn't go over so well, leaving
a wounded animal to die unclaimed in the woods
especially since it was going to rain soon so the trail would be lost.
The laborer called a friend and the two of them hunted it down.
They could hear the high-pitched cries of the dying deer, it didn't
take long to find. When they did, they were appalled.
There on the ground lay a fawn dragging itself slowly
across the leaves, six feet of its intestines trailing behind it.
It had been shot in the guts by accident, a slow and painful death.
After putting the baby deer, not even legal to shoot, out of its misery
the two men carried its body to a nearby stream
and disposed of the body.
Young meat is tender, as we know,
but not worth getting caught with, as we also know.
(Unless, of course, it's really worth it.)
When the laborer confronted my buddy the next day about the
incident it wasn't pretty. He claimed he had shot
a six-point buck, not a fawn
and said that he'd find the deer and bring its antlers back as proof.
Sure enough, the next morning a six-point rack hacked off with a saw
was sitting in the laborers driveway. It probably came from the
collection mounted to his garage wall
but the matter was settled for the time being.
I paid for the laborers coffee order like some kind
of penance on behalf of my adopted father
and rejoined the rest of my pipe-fitting brethren.

"Jesus, Kid. That guy was talkin' your ear off."
"Yeah, he was telling me something."
"What could a stupid laborer possibly tell a college boy like you?"
"The same thing that I learned this morning with the piss incident."
"Oh Christ, another riddle. Whatever, go grab me some napkins
before the coffee truck takes off."



The rest of the day went faster since there were no more reminders that people
are only human, at best
that being enough
to justify my cigarette falling into a pile of paperwork that my elbow
brushed off a desk and into a trashcan in the office
of that pencil-pusher with a weak bladder.

Us "college boys" are just as petty as we are profound.






Currently reading:
"Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse.

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