Standards
I was hunched over a box,
packing aluminum cylinders
to go out for anodizing,
my back still killing me
from that car wreck
a few years earlier.
One of the veteran welders
caught me stretching and wincing,
brought over a five-gallon bucket,
said, “Here you go, man.”
I thanked him, flipped the bucket over,
sat and resumed my work.
Not long after, the manager
ambled around the corner,
said, “What the hell
do you think you’re doing?”
I didn’t know how to respond,
so I didn’t.
He telegraphed the move,
so I had no trouble standing
as he attempted to
kick the bucket out from under me.
“Men don’t sit on the job,”
he said, then walked away.
Later on, I strolled by his office;
he was on the clock,
sitting, scrolling through
pixelated porn and eating popcorn.
The Machinist
I hadn’t slept in a few days,
and most of that
couldn’t be blamed on the infant
sleeping in the room next door.
Coworkers kept telling me
I was starting to look and act like
Christian Bale in that movie where
he worked in a factory,
couldn’t sleep,
and lost a ton of weight,
so – accurate.
I’m still not sure how it happened;
it’s funny how time can
fold in on itself when it wants to,
or stretch all the way to Valhalla,
if that’s what tickles its pickle.
I didn’t feel it at first;
wasn’t even sure it happened;
maybe some kind of
sleep-deprived hallucination,
but the dripping red laid that hope to rest.
I now knew what the inside of my hand
looked like, and Tom Savini
wasn’t all that off.
Parts of my fingerprints were still
in the ribs of the drive belt,
and pieces of rubber were now
mingling with my bones,
and I had to wonder if that
made either of us cyborgs.
I laughed a little at that,
then the pain set in,
so I clocked out
and bummed a ride to the E.R. down the highway,
trying my best not to bleed all over
the pristine interior of a new Camaro
worth more than me.
Cages
I’d climb the cages,
these stacks of chain-linked
steel containers full of parts, rising to
twice my height, or maybe more.
I’d do this despite what
OSHA might say,
because when everything you do
is timed, and your raises,
your bonuses, should you be so lucky,
are at least based in part
on how quickly you produce,
there’s no time for a ladder,
or even a spotter.
Several times over the course
of all those years,
the worn soles of my sneakers,
still wet from outside drizzle,
would slip on the thin metal bars,
and I’d start to go down,
the fingers of my left hand
hooking in the spaces of the
cage directly above me.
It’s surprising how quickly
you get accustomed to the feel
of your own finger dislocating
and sometimes breaking.
I’d gingerly, one-handedly
lower myself to the concrete floor,
pop my wedding band off
before the swelling took hold,
store the ring in a pocket,
go to the trough sink
to run my hand under cold water
(the water heater rarely worked)
in leu of ice,
and inspect the damage.
Sometimes there was blood,
sometimes stitches were probably advisable,
but that’s not an option
when your ability to eat
is based on your ability to produce
at least five to ten percent
faster than last year.
Burn
Another lonely lunch break
sitting in my car,
the factory-next-door’s dump truck
groaning a rusty protest,
as I tried to convince myself
that a single granola bar was
good enough to count for two meals.
Thirty minutes gone,
I locked up and headed back in.
Smoke was billowing up
from some unseen source,
noxious black mingling with the clouds.
I clocked back in,
walked through the office;
an easy way to kill a minute
while simultaneously getting paid.
Someone ran through the room
screaming, “FIRE!”
Turned out a spark from a grinder
went up the ventilation duct
into my upstairs workshop/storage.
A filter should’ve caught it, but
“We’ll get around to getting you one
someday. It ain’t gonna kill you that quick.”
The whole building smelling like
melting bubble wrap
and plastic shrouds
and engine oil
and drywall
and particleboard
and all the other things
that were never supposed to meet flame.
Some tried with kitchen fire extinguishers,
but by that point, the smoldering had won.
We were ushered outside,
waiting for the fire department,
then we spent hours standing around,
management sure they could
get us back to work real soon.
Quitting time came, and we all
trundled to our respective homes.
Skid marks on my driveway,
tracks in the dying grass,
the garage door battered in,
its flimsy lock still engaged on both sides
but separated from one another.
I grabbed my axe,
the first potential weapon at my disposal,
and walked through my
violated home.
TV
and computer
and my wife’s jewelry
and the cigarette lighter
her grandfather kept socked away
when he was a P.O.W. in WWII
and even the leftover Halloween candy.
They’d flipped the bed,
but joke was on them:
the only thing under there was
pet hair and dead skin.
My dog stared at me as if to say,
“How could you let this happen?”
I sat on the couch,
petting the dog with one hand,
reluctantly calling the cops with the other,
all the while musing on how
no matter how good you think you’ve got it,
there’s really nothing keeping you from
falling face-first on your own axe.
The Minutes Before the Seconds
So many days I’d get there early
just so I could lie back
and close my eyes
and breathe
and breathe
and breathe.
I knew what was coming,
and I knew it was no different
than anything anyone else
had to deal with.
I knew it’d be over
in nine or ten hours,
there’d probably be a
little break in the middle,
where most likely
I’d sit silently in my car
doing the same thing.
In those few minutes,
I’d endlessly examine
my existence, or at least
all the evidence of such
I could pile up around me.
With a minute to go,
I’d lock up, and amble inside.
The beep of the electronic timeclock
always felt inhumanly oppressive,
like some bit of my soul
was being sucked out
every single time.
I’d return the employee badge
to my back pocket,
and count down the seconds
until I could breathe again.
Outside the Walls
There was a small stretch of woods
out back of the warehouse;
it was a pretty pleasant place
to take lunch if you could get past
the sewage smell from the drainage ditch.
I’d hop the ditch (it was usually close to dry),
then sit on the dead leaves
and drink my water
and eat my off-brand granola bar.
Once I had my food down,
there was usually a bit to go
before I had to clock back into life,
so I’d lean my head back
against the rough bark of the tree,
close my eyes,
breathe deeply,
and dream of a life
where any of this made sense.
