Sucking The Rind

Sucking The Rind By Rusty Haight

Temp. labor office. 5:30 a.m. Except for one hooker leaning into a car
to solicit a trick, the streets are dead and I feel the same. I sign
in, sit down and there's nothing to do but stare up at the cracks on
the ceiling or down at the gum on the floor. Three long church tables
are surrounded by scruffy, dirty desperate men. They've all taken a
number for the opportunity to earn a day's wage. A TV in the corner is
playing A Dolph Lungren movie.
A few days earlier I was roofing. I came home black, covered with soot
from head to toe. Children and old ladies gawked in horror and
disbelief as if I had just emerged from hell as I walked the mile home.
When I blew my nose afterward all the snot came out black with dirt. It
was a good day though 'cause I made sixty-five dollars tax free. Today
I don't know. I just have to wait for the phone to ring.
After about an hour I'm so awake it hurts. My skin feels tight, like
it's choking me. My teeth feel like they're starting to rot from
drinking too much coffee, like they may shatter as they grind nervously
together. At the exact moment I think this, a guy comes in pushing a
dolly stacked high with boxes of coffee filters and non-dairy creamer
and I wonder how he got his job. My guts are backed up with shit. A
horrible rotten smell creeps forth from my guts as a car chase flickers
across the television screen.
It's all men in the room. One has "love," tattooed across his
knuckles, a homemade prison job. Some are sleeping, mouths open,
leaking drool onto their sleeves. Others wait patiently, like they've
had practice, waiting their whole lives for something to come along.
For most nothing will. Some of them probably even know it.
Rubber boots sit in rows against the wall, arranged according to size.
Gloves and goggles and dust masks hang on racks and line up like
cattle. Hired help, grunt labor, a collection of arms and shoulders and
backs. A restless bullpen, waiting to be called up for whatever they
toss our way. So far it's been nothing, but it's early, so we read the
complementary employment papers, watch the television, pick at lunches,
stare at things and try to stay awake.
I woke up at 4:30 in the morning, out of my warm bed, from my
girlfriend's arms. She slept draped across me and I had to move her
over so I could get up and make breakfast. She said I was ranting in my
sleep again, uttering threats and mumbling gibberish but I felt
peaceful in her arms, pressed up against her warm skin. Outside it was
cold and the sun had not come up . The street lamps were still lit and
the streets were quiet and deserted. There was a small group
congregated around this place when I arrived, waiting to get in. Most
of the them are still here now, two hours later.
A man walks in the room and asks "Is there anyone that hasn't had a
hearing test this year?" A few of my fellow grunts say "What?" as if
they can't hear him and then chuckle at their joke.
I walk out to the testing van. They take us in two at a time and we
sit down in small cubicles. The tester takes our names and vital
information.
The man next to me is named Richard and he is twenty-three years older
than I am. He has been working labor jobs his entire life.
I give my years of experience as zero.
The door to our cubicles shut and we put on headphones. With the door
closed it feels like I'm sitting in a porta-john. It feels like I
should be taking a crap. I am holding a little joystick, with a button
on the end that I'm supposed to push whenever I hear anything. There is
a series of high-pitched beeps in my right ear. Beep beep beep. I press
the button. Beep beep beep. I press the button. And so on. Then the
left ear. It is much easier for me to hear the beeps in the left ear
but mostly I can just hear the sound of traffic speeding down Broadway,
where the testing van is parked. I continue to press the little button
at the required times.
Richard finishes his test first and his hearing is as good as it was
the previous year. Then it's my turn. The tester shows me a sheet with
a graph and a bunch of wavy lines on it.
"See, the left is more or less normal. You range from zero, which is
average, to about fifteen. On the right ear you can notice some
differences right here," he points to where the lines dip into a "v"
shape.
"Here, it dips down to a thirty and you compare that to the left ear,
where it's a normal zero. You have some trouble distinguishing certain
frequencies. If you're exposed to loud noises for an extended period of
time on the job site, you should wear some protection or you might
start to have problems." I nod. I get a laminated card with these
results printed on it and return to the waiting room and the same empty
faces.
I head for the washroom. There is no mirror because none of us want to
look at our faces anymore. When I squeeze a zit on my chin I have to go
by feel.
Across the wash-basin, in black magic marker someone has scrawled
"Genifer loves sex with animals." I piss and leave.
I sit back down at my spot around the church table, popping a sugar
cube into my mouth from the box beside the coffee machine.
Another hour goes by and two guards from an armored car company come
in to empty the quick check-cashing machine. One stands, arms folded,
gun holstered, while the other removes the cash.
A dozen sets of weary, deep-set eyes watch them stuff the wrinkled
bills into a bag. I imagine one of the haggard old men making a
desperate leap for the bag of cash and swallowing bullets through his
forehead. It doesn't happen. Nothing happens.
"Does anyone have a car?" asks the woman at the front desk, on the
phone with an employer. No response. "Anyone with a vehicle?" she
repeats. "Motorbike?" Nobody has one. That's why we're there in the
first place. The hours tick by and there is no work to be had for us
mere pedestrians.
Across the room in see a face I recognize from the day before, when I
came in, to fill out my. One of the remaining few that haven't given up
and gone home. He was probably here the day before too. And he'll
probably be here again tomorrow. Maybe I'll see him.
I rise up from my seat and look at the waiting list. It's a game of
endurance. At least a dozen before me are still here with the work day
nearly over.
I decide to cut my losses and begin the same walk that brought me here,
in reverse. When I return home, everything is the same, just as I left
it. It's like I never left, except my bed is now empty.