9.25.2008

Damn Injuns!

My foreman came up to me laughing
after the weekly job meeting.

"Hey, college boy! You'd appreciate this one."

It was an introduction that I'd grown to hate
more and more each time it was used
by my beloved union brethren.

"What happened now, Nick?"

"The architect just asked Paulie, the electrician
if the light fixtures he planned on installing
in the hallway of the library will have enough panache."

He took a big pull on his cigarette
the perfect rows of pearly teeth
in his shit-eating grin almost glistening.
I waited a second as he basked proudly in his glory at having
used and pronounced a five-dollar word correctly
him not being one of us "college boys" and all.

"Yeah, so?," my pliers looser in my hand
since this joke wasn't on me for a change.

"So his dumb ass looks right back at the architect
and goes 'Yeah, sure...but what the fuck is panache?'
and the whole trailer was rollin'!"

I cracked a smile; I couldn't not.
It's not every day us stupid plumbers
get to feel smarter than those bright electricians, you know

(though I'm not convinced Nick knew the meaning either
and two days later he called up his apprentice after work
with a question from his fourteen-year-old kid's math homework).

No comments: