What you lips said
your lips said
JUST A FEW TIMES
so I pushed
fool that i am
your lips said to me
MORE
in the soundless language
of pressing kisses
so i pushed
like the fool that i am
your lips said
IM NOT READY
so i pushed hard
fool that I am
your lips swooned
SLOWlY I WILL ARIVE IN TIME
with purrrrs that burnt
into my guts
like hot white
phosphorous
brute that i am
so i pushed
your lips at last said
for the stars to hear
for the gods to hear
for my cat to hear
for everyone to hear
even the fool that i am
GOODBY
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Song for Grendel
what steel will fell him
what spell will slow him
what face would face him
what pace out-race him
what peace would cease him
when Grendel climes from his
muddy pit
what clear spirits move him
no wine will sooth him
clear spirits support him
but no wine to comfort him
what spirit shall confront him
how to out-run him
when Grendel crawls from his
watery cave
will time not slow him
nor age show him
who names the devil
that must control him
when Grendel gets
that taste in his throat
what spell will slow him
what face would face him
what pace out-race him
what peace would cease him
when Grendel climes from his
muddy pit
what clear spirits move him
no wine will sooth him
clear spirits support him
but no wine to comfort him
what spirit shall confront him
how to out-run him
when Grendel crawls from his
watery cave
will time not slow him
nor age show him
who names the devil
that must control him
when Grendel gets
that taste in his throat
Variation on a Theme in Eliot
Variation on a Theme in Eliot
In time and tide all must be swept.
What tears remain that Priam wept?
What corps remains on Flanders' field?
Even Carthage's soil is tilled.
Under the depths green murky light
Countless souls must rest tonight,
In haunted caverns of the deep
The dead must find a restless sleep.
In time and tide all things must fade.
The beauty of youth so soon decayed
A child's steady laughing eyes
So soon are swept to sure demise
In time and tide all things must fade.
All bonds are but a masquerade.
The ties that hold life and heart,
By time and tide are torn apart
Under the waves that sway the moon
Countless men have met their doom
Who remembers sailors, ages past
What god could hear their drowning gasp
What bones does time now wash ashore
Of old and dead with kin no more
In time and tide all must be swept.
What tears remain that Priam wept?
What corps remains on Flanders' field?
Even Carthage's soil is tilled.
Under the depths green murky light
Countless souls must rest tonight,
In haunted caverns of the deep
The dead must find a restless sleep.
In time and tide all things must fade.
The beauty of youth so soon decayed
A child's steady laughing eyes
So soon are swept to sure demise
In time and tide all things must fade.
All bonds are but a masquerade.
The ties that hold life and heart,
By time and tide are torn apart
Under the waves that sway the moon
Countless men have met their doom
Who remembers sailors, ages past
What god could hear their drowning gasp
What bones does time now wash ashore
Of old and dead with kin no more
No Greater Misfortune
Have you seen the old? The old and alone? There is no greater misofrune.
In the grocery store like Whitman evoked in Ginsburg. Trembling hands reaching out for fresh spring fruit. Sagging, shuffling through the meat killed red blooded. Cloudy eyes they live with cats. Alone. Except for the evening news and Opera. Kids done flew, spouse dead, fumbling toward death. Tumor head black mass brain. Preparing for bed in the etherized evening shadow light. Blast through walls. Light. Dripping etherized. One day, fingers like claws razor toed. One day, lock you away, talk to yourself like Ajax shell-shocked by too many years.
In the grocery store like Whitman evoked in Ginsburg. Trembling hands reaching out for fresh spring fruit. Sagging, shuffling through the meat killed red blooded. Cloudy eyes they live with cats. Alone. Except for the evening news and Opera. Kids done flew, spouse dead, fumbling toward death. Tumor head black mass brain. Preparing for bed in the etherized evening shadow light. Blast through walls. Light. Dripping etherized. One day, fingers like claws razor toed. One day, lock you away, talk to yourself like Ajax shell-shocked by too many years.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
in the end 1.2
In those days death stalked the earth unabated. After the bombs came the plague. It roamed from the skeletal cities to the scorched countryside, casting death like dice among the living. Randomly taking them. They were burnt in great pits in an attempt to stop the spread of the infection. They burnt day and night. Their light reflected from the low cloud sheath that blanketed the earth. The night was orange translucence.
The infection spread through populations multiplying exponentially, then recede for a time, then strike again. By the end of the war most of the cities were totally empty. Those that remained in them formed loose fraternities and tribes. They marked themselves by various means. After the plague started those that the bombs didn’t burn prayed to be passed over by the sickness, but the gods closed their ears. The ones that the plague didn’t take held on like refugees in a dying world.
It became clear that a few were immune to the sickness. It was not clear how infection spread, weather through blood, or water, or air, or touch. Some people got sick, showed all the signs of death, but recovered, they never feel ill again. This was a small fraction of the people.
In the beginning the what was left of the National Guard tried to prevent looting and stop the spread of disorder and infection. The government tried to hang on to a bankrupt system long after it became apparent that it was all falling apart. And yet all the federal ministries of the globe finally succumbed to the plague. The bombs stopped falling because no one was left to launch them. Armies melted into the country side, weather that of “their” home nations or of the “enemies’”. Some of the elite tried to hold up in underground shelters. They were prepared for just such a disaster. But the plague got in. Some are still sealed perhaps, now tombs. Sometimes you would come upon tunnels leading to the opened shelters, passage ways under government buildings or in the subways. As they were opened to the outside world they were looted and abandoned or occupied by tribes.
After the bombs stopped Adam’s mother Rebecca set up a small shop in the third floor of an old apartment store in what had been Beaumont, Texas. Adam and his brother, along with some hired guns, would travel to Houston to scavenge and trade, bring the goods back, and barter with them.
Long before the fact Adam’s uncle suspected a long war. He was very wealthy and bought 10 archers. He built a large compound, complete with a bunker 40 feet down. He had co-owned a construction company, and contracted out to an international firm that specialized in apocalypse proof domiciles. They stayed in the bunker during the war and for some years afterwards. They were forced to open the doors when they ran out of food. Adam’s uncle and father took sick and died, but he, Rebecca and his brother Elwood had what people called the gift. They got sick in various ways, but pulled through.
The family heard from other survivors that some of the big cities on the East coast were hit by nuclear missiles, but he had no way of knowing. In Beaumont at least it had been conventional bombs and some ground fighting in the city. Conventional bombs can do almost as much damage as nuclear weapons, if they fall in sufficient numbers. But the war was over fairly quickly as the solders and commanders and big wigs started dying. The Bolivarian forces tried to occupy some cities but they died too quickly to get a foot hold, those that survived joined tribes or wandered home. Death had brought peace.
Sine people started dying in such great numbers, and suddenly, there was no shortage of food and supplies. All the electricity stopped, but people had gas generators, and there was gas to freeze food and run other electrical gadgets. There was plenty of canned and otherwise preserved goods. When tribes fought they did so over fuel and weapons, or good land on which to settle, or machine parts, or the like. Some areas were safer than others, and one had to travel with armed. But overall it didn’t pay to fight. There was enough food for the few left, to tide them over till the first harvests. It was easier to dig in and start crops.
Chad, another among the gifted, lived in the remains of the Lamar University Library. It was relatively well preserved because it was built like a fortress, and did not suffer any direct hits. The library was a 10 story red brick, concrete, and cinder block building. It was basically one big monolith with a 13 inch strips of glass running up the side windows. These “windows” were set about 5 inches into the brick, looking like something Norman nights might shoot arrows from. The university was bombed lightly for whatever reason, but the nearby petrol plants were blown sky high. They burnt for days, and the nearby houses caught. The neighborhood surrounding the university, very old and very dirty, was burnt almost completely to the ground.
Chad had been a professor for all of 2 months when the city was bombed for the first time. At that point all classes stopped. But Chad still went to the library almost daily. The university maintained a skeleton crew, and he would chat with the bored administrators. He and some other well liked staff had key-cards to the place so they could come and go as they liked. No one could turn on the lights, and only a few were allowed on during the day, so often he read by candle light sitting deep in the stacks. This suited him fine. He mused that the life of a 10th century Irish monk could not have been much different.
One day the air raid siren went off while he was there and he held up in the library archives, which was in the basement. After the air raid siren stopped and the sky was clear of planes he walked the ten flights of stairs to the roof and saw everything around him for miles belching smoke and flame. The refineries about a mile off popped and exploded and sizzled. The neighborhood surrounding the refineries was catching fast. He doubted he had a home to go to, and he liked books, so he stayed win the library. He had a key to the big solid steel freezers in the cafeteria that the administration had kept locked since the beginning of the war, and he knew that there was more food where that came from.
The neighborhood surrounding the University was almost totally abandoned before long. It was too dangerous to be near the refineries, and much of it was burning. Also, Beaumont was early hit by the plague. When it first started, the government tried to stem the infection by rounding “at risk” populations into “medical internment camps”. Soldiers swept through the neighborhood in bio-hazard suits, herding the reaming population who squatted in the ruins into flatbed trucks where there was food waiting. It was a quick operation overall. When the solders came through Lamar they had a very hard time getting into the library, and the large steal door to archives was locked from inside. A sign beside said “This door is to remain locked, for access to the East Texas Native American Photograph Archive see the reference librarian on the 3rd floor” The solders figured nothing was inside but photographs. Chad was inside reading books on agriculture and hunting.
Adam met Chad as he was wandering through the campus looking for whatever he could find. Chad was crouching in a garden of broccoli. Adam walked up slowly with his hand on his gun holster, and stood and watched. Chad had his back turned, he didn’t stop digging as he spoke.
“It’ll do you no good to kill me. You can have what you want. Are you hungry”
Adam walked up closer.
“I’m not into killing farmers, they are the smart ones. The smart ones should live. Its only the brutes needs killing”
“I guess that depends on your definition of brute”
Adam squatted beside Chad and looked at a broccoli sprout, he smiled inspecting his ugly stringy beard, “or of farmer”.
Chad made eye contact, “well you know, a person can be a farmer and other things too”
“That might be so, but brutes can’t be farmers because brutes can only be brutes"
Maybe they are the lucky ones because they have to be what they are, totally”
Chad quoted “count no man lucky in times such as these”
Adam looked up at the castle like building. “you must have some McCarthy in that shit box of yours”
Chad reached out his muddy hands. “Chad Daily”
Adam shook it and said, “Adam of the River, pleased to know you.”
The infection spread through populations multiplying exponentially, then recede for a time, then strike again. By the end of the war most of the cities were totally empty. Those that remained in them formed loose fraternities and tribes. They marked themselves by various means. After the plague started those that the bombs didn’t burn prayed to be passed over by the sickness, but the gods closed their ears. The ones that the plague didn’t take held on like refugees in a dying world.
It became clear that a few were immune to the sickness. It was not clear how infection spread, weather through blood, or water, or air, or touch. Some people got sick, showed all the signs of death, but recovered, they never feel ill again. This was a small fraction of the people.
In the beginning the what was left of the National Guard tried to prevent looting and stop the spread of disorder and infection. The government tried to hang on to a bankrupt system long after it became apparent that it was all falling apart. And yet all the federal ministries of the globe finally succumbed to the plague. The bombs stopped falling because no one was left to launch them. Armies melted into the country side, weather that of “their” home nations or of the “enemies’”. Some of the elite tried to hold up in underground shelters. They were prepared for just such a disaster. But the plague got in. Some are still sealed perhaps, now tombs. Sometimes you would come upon tunnels leading to the opened shelters, passage ways under government buildings or in the subways. As they were opened to the outside world they were looted and abandoned or occupied by tribes.
After the bombs stopped Adam’s mother Rebecca set up a small shop in the third floor of an old apartment store in what had been Beaumont, Texas. Adam and his brother, along with some hired guns, would travel to Houston to scavenge and trade, bring the goods back, and barter with them.
Long before the fact Adam’s uncle suspected a long war. He was very wealthy and bought 10 archers. He built a large compound, complete with a bunker 40 feet down. He had co-owned a construction company, and contracted out to an international firm that specialized in apocalypse proof domiciles. They stayed in the bunker during the war and for some years afterwards. They were forced to open the doors when they ran out of food. Adam’s uncle and father took sick and died, but he, Rebecca and his brother Elwood had what people called the gift. They got sick in various ways, but pulled through.
The family heard from other survivors that some of the big cities on the East coast were hit by nuclear missiles, but he had no way of knowing. In Beaumont at least it had been conventional bombs and some ground fighting in the city. Conventional bombs can do almost as much damage as nuclear weapons, if they fall in sufficient numbers. But the war was over fairly quickly as the solders and commanders and big wigs started dying. The Bolivarian forces tried to occupy some cities but they died too quickly to get a foot hold, those that survived joined tribes or wandered home. Death had brought peace.
Sine people started dying in such great numbers, and suddenly, there was no shortage of food and supplies. All the electricity stopped, but people had gas generators, and there was gas to freeze food and run other electrical gadgets. There was plenty of canned and otherwise preserved goods. When tribes fought they did so over fuel and weapons, or good land on which to settle, or machine parts, or the like. Some areas were safer than others, and one had to travel with armed. But overall it didn’t pay to fight. There was enough food for the few left, to tide them over till the first harvests. It was easier to dig in and start crops.
Chad, another among the gifted, lived in the remains of the Lamar University Library. It was relatively well preserved because it was built like a fortress, and did not suffer any direct hits. The library was a 10 story red brick, concrete, and cinder block building. It was basically one big monolith with a 13 inch strips of glass running up the side windows. These “windows” were set about 5 inches into the brick, looking like something Norman nights might shoot arrows from. The university was bombed lightly for whatever reason, but the nearby petrol plants were blown sky high. They burnt for days, and the nearby houses caught. The neighborhood surrounding the university, very old and very dirty, was burnt almost completely to the ground.
Chad had been a professor for all of 2 months when the city was bombed for the first time. At that point all classes stopped. But Chad still went to the library almost daily. The university maintained a skeleton crew, and he would chat with the bored administrators. He and some other well liked staff had key-cards to the place so they could come and go as they liked. No one could turn on the lights, and only a few were allowed on during the day, so often he read by candle light sitting deep in the stacks. This suited him fine. He mused that the life of a 10th century Irish monk could not have been much different.
One day the air raid siren went off while he was there and he held up in the library archives, which was in the basement. After the air raid siren stopped and the sky was clear of planes he walked the ten flights of stairs to the roof and saw everything around him for miles belching smoke and flame. The refineries about a mile off popped and exploded and sizzled. The neighborhood surrounding the refineries was catching fast. He doubted he had a home to go to, and he liked books, so he stayed win the library. He had a key to the big solid steel freezers in the cafeteria that the administration had kept locked since the beginning of the war, and he knew that there was more food where that came from.
The neighborhood surrounding the University was almost totally abandoned before long. It was too dangerous to be near the refineries, and much of it was burning. Also, Beaumont was early hit by the plague. When it first started, the government tried to stem the infection by rounding “at risk” populations into “medical internment camps”. Soldiers swept through the neighborhood in bio-hazard suits, herding the reaming population who squatted in the ruins into flatbed trucks where there was food waiting. It was a quick operation overall. When the solders came through Lamar they had a very hard time getting into the library, and the large steal door to archives was locked from inside. A sign beside said “This door is to remain locked, for access to the East Texas Native American Photograph Archive see the reference librarian on the 3rd floor” The solders figured nothing was inside but photographs. Chad was inside reading books on agriculture and hunting.
Adam met Chad as he was wandering through the campus looking for whatever he could find. Chad was crouching in a garden of broccoli. Adam walked up slowly with his hand on his gun holster, and stood and watched. Chad had his back turned, he didn’t stop digging as he spoke.
“It’ll do you no good to kill me. You can have what you want. Are you hungry”
Adam walked up closer.
“I’m not into killing farmers, they are the smart ones. The smart ones should live. Its only the brutes needs killing”
“I guess that depends on your definition of brute”
Adam squatted beside Chad and looked at a broccoli sprout, he smiled inspecting his ugly stringy beard, “or of farmer”.
Chad made eye contact, “well you know, a person can be a farmer and other things too”
“That might be so, but brutes can’t be farmers because brutes can only be brutes"
Maybe they are the lucky ones because they have to be what they are, totally”
Chad quoted “count no man lucky in times such as these”
Adam looked up at the castle like building. “you must have some McCarthy in that shit box of yours”
Chad reached out his muddy hands. “Chad Daily”
Adam shook it and said, “Adam of the River, pleased to know you.”
mediation on Duchamp's on nude descending staircase
mediation on Duchamp's on nude descending staircase
i want us to live in the space
occupied by Duchamp’s nude descending the staircase
there I hold you now
we are learning each other after the run
for the first time now
i have always held you there, always will hold you there
but if i am holding you now, then you have always hated me
as you hate me now
then you have always and still are leaving me caressing a bottle
i will always have been holding it like a newborn, slouched against the wall
madness boiling in my hot brain
now you always will have left me alone
in my badly furnished messy room
now the doors and windows are locked
all our moments exist stacked
always the same moments in the
same instant in the same singularity together
fused into one
my heart vibrates like an atom when i think of those times
my heart vibrates and splits time and sucks
itself into a black hole compression
where all the seconds that ever-were-will-be
are smashed into a single quirk size period of momentum
in our meta-time-all-time is our one time
in our no-time you will have been with me by now forever
now all is compressed
we are an infinitely dense
one moment-thing-now-then
in this vice of relativity we
are smashed into each other in pure simultaneity
under the strain we are
(like the mind of god and her creation)
all at once one
i want us to live in the space
occupied by Duchamp’s nude descending the staircase
there I hold you now
we are learning each other after the run
for the first time now
i have always held you there, always will hold you there
but if i am holding you now, then you have always hated me
as you hate me now
then you have always and still are leaving me caressing a bottle
i will always have been holding it like a newborn, slouched against the wall
madness boiling in my hot brain
now you always will have left me alone
in my badly furnished messy room
now the doors and windows are locked
all our moments exist stacked
always the same moments in the
same instant in the same singularity together
fused into one
my heart vibrates like an atom when i think of those times
my heart vibrates and splits time and sucks
itself into a black hole compression
where all the seconds that ever-were-will-be
are smashed into a single quirk size period of momentum
in our meta-time-all-time is our one time
in our no-time you will have been with me by now forever
now all is compressed
we are an infinitely dense
one moment-thing-now-then
in this vice of relativity we
are smashed into each other in pure simultaneity
under the strain we are
(like the mind of god and her creation)
all at once one
Step Work
we fathom down, fathoms down
must we sink, yet never drown
to breath the thin watered air
and spy the Gorgon that sleeps there
sleep it must in dark see caves
among past divers in murky graves
whose fearful hearts were turned to stone
fear choked they sank alone
deeper still brave mariners sink
suck air from water when on the brink
of death, yet sill rip the monster's flesh
to deliver himself, born afresh
must we sink, yet never drown
to breath the thin watered air
and spy the Gorgon that sleeps there
sleep it must in dark see caves
among past divers in murky graves
whose fearful hearts were turned to stone
fear choked they sank alone
deeper still brave mariners sink
suck air from water when on the brink
of death, yet sill rip the monster's flesh
to deliver himself, born afresh
sphinx
Query the goddess for a hint or sign
Perhaps she’ll let you see.
Through the darkened, glass into her mind
Whatever Forms might be.
Perhaps she’ll search her database
And cite the proper page,
Or she’ll lead you blind on a seers chase
But never play the sage.
Perhaps she’ll let you see.
Through the darkened, glass into her mind
Whatever Forms might be.
Perhaps she’ll search her database
And cite the proper page,
Or she’ll lead you blind on a seers chase
But never play the sage.
Dream (four tet hands dub)
Dream (four tet hands dub)
In my dream you are the same forever
The first flush of spring forever on your lips
Summer radiance forever mixed into the musk of your hair
In my dreams you come again and again and again forever
You never age or grow or have kids or turn to rust
You are Athena, Diana, Abnoba, Sirona, Isis,
Forever
Mary forever, virginal forever, bursting with fruit forever,
Red forever, full of the river and the rain
Giggling forever, abundant and supple forever
In my dream, nothing is dead, there is only forests and green fields
Forever wild flowers where you recline with grass on your
Belly, and thighs milk weightless breasts bulging
And everything is good in gods green universe
And we grow old and sleep side by side forever.
In my dream you are the same forever
The first flush of spring forever on your lips
Summer radiance forever mixed into the musk of your hair
In my dreams you come again and again and again forever
You never age or grow or have kids or turn to rust
You are Athena, Diana, Abnoba, Sirona, Isis,
Forever
Mary forever, virginal forever, bursting with fruit forever,
Red forever, full of the river and the rain
Giggling forever, abundant and supple forever
In my dream, nothing is dead, there is only forests and green fields
Forever wild flowers where you recline with grass on your
Belly, and thighs milk weightless breasts bulging
And everything is good in gods green universe
And we grow old and sleep side by side forever.
lamb of molach 2nd draft
Lamb of Moloch
It had been raining for five days but the work went on, continually. Day and night. Two shifts 12 hours each. It was called a “shut down”. That’s when a big petroleum processing plant shuts down completely for maintenance. The longer the plant is off- line the more money is lost. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. So the bosses push to get it done. Everybody works 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.
A petroleum plant is a mass towers, made of gauges, pipes, heaters, coolers, valves, and dials. Towers are knots of metal twisting stories high, called stacks. In the rain the “stacks” were surrounded by giant sheets of plastic, hung from wires and tied off to the scaffolding that surrounded the stacks. The wind was so high the rain still blew in. The sheets caught the wind like sails, and ripped. They popped and whistled. Everything in the stack was dripping wet. Guys had to climb up the “racks” or scaffolding--into the great tangle of pipes to do the work. In the rain and dark this was a terrible and slow going. They were often nearly soaked before they even got to the place in the pipes they had to work, their heavy one piece fire resistant suit weighing up to 30 pounds when wet. Harsh florescent lights blazed from the ground on the outside, but in the middle it didn’t help. Inside the stack small lights were hung at various points, but it was still too dark. Shadows hid everything because everything was a tangle of pipe. Climbing inside the stack was squirming through the entrails of a robot monster.
The guys wore harnesses and lanyards. They hooked their lanyards to the racks and climbed up. They called it “tying off”. But it was hard maneuvering through the tangle, even without lines to get hooked on gauges and tied up in. So guys often “flew” up. They climbed without tying off because it was quicker and easier. There were safety guys who were supposed to watch everything, but they often looked the other way because the job had to get done for anyone—including them—to get paid.
Most of the guys were x-cons. They had shaved heads and tattoos. The tattoos that made it obvious where they had been to anyone with an eye to see. It was absolutely the best job any con could get. When they all showed up at starting time they were loaded into a bus at the gate and the buss drove back to the stacks. They called the buss the “Grey Bird”, same as they do in jail. They had a mean and often vulgarly violent sense of humor, much like that in jail. They cliqued up the same as they would in jail. The cliques followed roughly racial lines. There was some mixing, but not too much. Guys always jostled for position in the little hierarchies that were constantly being erected and challenged. Also, like in the joint one was either a shark or a fish. There was a constant threat of violence, it hung in the air and informed every action and word. Fights often broke out but were quickly stopped. Confrontation was usually over petty grievances, and tended to be settled just as quick. Mostly dude’s bark was worse than the bite, but the bite could sometimes be pretty bad too.
Adam considered the whole culture one borne of a wage slave mentality. He didn’t much talk to any of the guys. He kept to him-self. He had a plan. The plan was to make enough money to pay for a few semesters of school and quit as soon as he could. Most of the guys left him alone. He seemed to them not very sociable, or scared, or both. He was no threat and stayed out of the little rivalries so he was not given much mind one way or the other. When he did talk to the other workers he bitched about working conditions. Sometimes they seemed responsive, sometimes they just replied that they were glad to have a job, and to not let the foreman hear them talking that uppity shit.
One night the crew leader tried to get under his skin because Adam had told hin he was just a tool of the bosses. The lead kept sending him to get Benntol Karitine. BK was a solvent that the men used to melt the adhesive that was left on the pipe when the insulation was stripped off. It was one of the nastiest jobs, and the most dangerous because it involved a lot of climbing up and down the stacks. Plus you had to siphon by mouth the BK out of the tank when the pump was broke, which it currently was. There was a large tank of the stuff on the ground near the stack. Adam would have to climb down with a five gallon bucket, fill it up by siphoning the BK from the tank, and tie the bucket to a line. If the bucket got hung up, as it often did, it was his job climb up and un-lodge it.
At the bottom a guy they called “One Man” or “Just One Man” was standing watching Adam climb down from untying a tie-up. Also like in prision everyone got a nickname. They called him that because everytime he was asked to do do something chaellinging he would say something like, “I’ll try boss, but I’m just one man” or something. It was sort of a running joke.
“Why you let him do you like that Crash? Tell him to send someone else, no one person should have to do it every time.”
Adam took off his helmet and wiped his fore head on his sleeve, “Fuck em, I’m gonna quit at the end of the week anyhow, I made enough to go back to school. This job is easy because every time I come down I rest, and I take my sweet time, they don’t say much if I take my time”.
Listen here young buck, listen, it’s all about respect, you got to let guys know they can’t fuck with you like that. You shouldn’t have to come down every time. Its considered bitch work, you should be patin by now. Yous a painter by trade ant you”. Adam noticed the small beads of beard starting to form on One Man’s chin and neck. His skin was shinny black and beautiful in the harsh light. Adam thought that 10,000 years ago hed would be a proud hunter or warrior, witgh many children and a strong totem. Adam thougt he’d rather be a medicine man, but a hunter would be cool too. He thought, “we’d be frineds, me and One Man, we’d sleep by the fire to keep warm and track large game like two free men”.
“CRASH, wake up space coybow, you fuckin listen to me homeboy!
Adam blinked, “Respect”?!
Adam looked at him with amusement. “I get paid the same weather I’m haulin BK or paintin. I don’t care what that chicken shit crew leader thinks of me. He gets paid as much as we do, they choose another one every few weeks anyhow, he won’t be there long. You know why they do that? They do that to make some guys think they are better than the rest. But truth is they ant no better than dog shit, just like the rest of us is treated like dog shit. If you guys were smarter you’d demand to lay out while its ranin. Nobody should have to work in the damn pouring rain, but instead you’re too busy knocking dicks and grab assin like you was in the joint. Ya’ll should get it together and stop givein each other such a hard time. You should learn how to give the bosses a hard time instead”.
One Man looked off across the yard, far off, “I’m gonna be a boss sometime soon. That’s why you gotta get the good jobs not the shit jobs. It shows you can move up, take on more responsibility. One day I'll be management, I gotta rase my seed to have a little somthin”.
Adam laughed. “It’s all the same. All jobs are the same out here if you are working in the stacks. You get paid the same and the conditions are the same and the hours are the same and the risks are the same. IF you’re not sittin your fat ass in the office then you’re out here with the rest of us dogs, and if you’re out here its all the same.
Adam tied off the bucket and frowned as it got tied up on a gauge. He stated up. Half way up he got tangled up in his line. He could barely move enough to un-hook him-self. It was hard to see. The easiest thing to do was just un-hook, free himself from the tangle of lanyard, and tie off again. It was hard to move but much easier not being tied up to a scaffold. He went to unhook himself. Just as he did his foot slipped. Everything was so wet.
There was a large open spot just behind him. He fell into the hole backwards. His hard hat came off as he fell and he hit his head on a pipe, hard, then fell the rest of the way dead. The lanyard lines trailed up as he fell like impotent wings.
One Man watched blankly as he fell, it happened so quick he did not really register what he had just witnessed until Adam crashed on the concrete, his head cracked aginst it and some brain spilled out. No matter, his soul had already flown.
His broken body stretched across the concrete, pelted by rain, head pouring blood and brains. The blood fell washed in lines, on the concrete. The wind groaned through the guts of the stack.
The lights smoked as the rain pelted them. The blood was absorbed into the concrete, or washed into the drain.
It had been raining for five days but the work went on, continually. Day and night. Two shifts 12 hours each. It was called a “shut down”. That’s when a big petroleum processing plant shuts down completely for maintenance. The longer the plant is off- line the more money is lost. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. So the bosses push to get it done. Everybody works 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.
A petroleum plant is a mass towers, made of gauges, pipes, heaters, coolers, valves, and dials. Towers are knots of metal twisting stories high, called stacks. In the rain the “stacks” were surrounded by giant sheets of plastic, hung from wires and tied off to the scaffolding that surrounded the stacks. The wind was so high the rain still blew in. The sheets caught the wind like sails, and ripped. They popped and whistled. Everything in the stack was dripping wet. Guys had to climb up the “racks” or scaffolding--into the great tangle of pipes to do the work. In the rain and dark this was a terrible and slow going. They were often nearly soaked before they even got to the place in the pipes they had to work, their heavy one piece fire resistant suit weighing up to 30 pounds when wet. Harsh florescent lights blazed from the ground on the outside, but in the middle it didn’t help. Inside the stack small lights were hung at various points, but it was still too dark. Shadows hid everything because everything was a tangle of pipe. Climbing inside the stack was squirming through the entrails of a robot monster.
The guys wore harnesses and lanyards. They hooked their lanyards to the racks and climbed up. They called it “tying off”. But it was hard maneuvering through the tangle, even without lines to get hooked on gauges and tied up in. So guys often “flew” up. They climbed without tying off because it was quicker and easier. There were safety guys who were supposed to watch everything, but they often looked the other way because the job had to get done for anyone—including them—to get paid.
Most of the guys were x-cons. They had shaved heads and tattoos. The tattoos that made it obvious where they had been to anyone with an eye to see. It was absolutely the best job any con could get. When they all showed up at starting time they were loaded into a bus at the gate and the buss drove back to the stacks. They called the buss the “Grey Bird”, same as they do in jail. They had a mean and often vulgarly violent sense of humor, much like that in jail. They cliqued up the same as they would in jail. The cliques followed roughly racial lines. There was some mixing, but not too much. Guys always jostled for position in the little hierarchies that were constantly being erected and challenged. Also, like in the joint one was either a shark or a fish. There was a constant threat of violence, it hung in the air and informed every action and word. Fights often broke out but were quickly stopped. Confrontation was usually over petty grievances, and tended to be settled just as quick. Mostly dude’s bark was worse than the bite, but the bite could sometimes be pretty bad too.
Adam considered the whole culture one borne of a wage slave mentality. He didn’t much talk to any of the guys. He kept to him-self. He had a plan. The plan was to make enough money to pay for a few semesters of school and quit as soon as he could. Most of the guys left him alone. He seemed to them not very sociable, or scared, or both. He was no threat and stayed out of the little rivalries so he was not given much mind one way or the other. When he did talk to the other workers he bitched about working conditions. Sometimes they seemed responsive, sometimes they just replied that they were glad to have a job, and to not let the foreman hear them talking that uppity shit.
One night the crew leader tried to get under his skin because Adam had told hin he was just a tool of the bosses. The lead kept sending him to get Benntol Karitine. BK was a solvent that the men used to melt the adhesive that was left on the pipe when the insulation was stripped off. It was one of the nastiest jobs, and the most dangerous because it involved a lot of climbing up and down the stacks. Plus you had to siphon by mouth the BK out of the tank when the pump was broke, which it currently was. There was a large tank of the stuff on the ground near the stack. Adam would have to climb down with a five gallon bucket, fill it up by siphoning the BK from the tank, and tie the bucket to a line. If the bucket got hung up, as it often did, it was his job climb up and un-lodge it.
At the bottom a guy they called “One Man” or “Just One Man” was standing watching Adam climb down from untying a tie-up. Also like in prision everyone got a nickname. They called him that because everytime he was asked to do do something chaellinging he would say something like, “I’ll try boss, but I’m just one man” or something. It was sort of a running joke.
“Why you let him do you like that Crash? Tell him to send someone else, no one person should have to do it every time.”
Adam took off his helmet and wiped his fore head on his sleeve, “Fuck em, I’m gonna quit at the end of the week anyhow, I made enough to go back to school. This job is easy because every time I come down I rest, and I take my sweet time, they don’t say much if I take my time”.
Listen here young buck, listen, it’s all about respect, you got to let guys know they can’t fuck with you like that. You shouldn’t have to come down every time. Its considered bitch work, you should be patin by now. Yous a painter by trade ant you”. Adam noticed the small beads of beard starting to form on One Man’s chin and neck. His skin was shinny black and beautiful in the harsh light. Adam thought that 10,000 years ago hed would be a proud hunter or warrior, witgh many children and a strong totem. Adam thougt he’d rather be a medicine man, but a hunter would be cool too. He thought, “we’d be frineds, me and One Man, we’d sleep by the fire to keep warm and track large game like two free men”.
“CRASH, wake up space coybow, you fuckin listen to me homeboy!
Adam blinked, “Respect”?!
Adam looked at him with amusement. “I get paid the same weather I’m haulin BK or paintin. I don’t care what that chicken shit crew leader thinks of me. He gets paid as much as we do, they choose another one every few weeks anyhow, he won’t be there long. You know why they do that? They do that to make some guys think they are better than the rest. But truth is they ant no better than dog shit, just like the rest of us is treated like dog shit. If you guys were smarter you’d demand to lay out while its ranin. Nobody should have to work in the damn pouring rain, but instead you’re too busy knocking dicks and grab assin like you was in the joint. Ya’ll should get it together and stop givein each other such a hard time. You should learn how to give the bosses a hard time instead”.
One Man looked off across the yard, far off, “I’m gonna be a boss sometime soon. That’s why you gotta get the good jobs not the shit jobs. It shows you can move up, take on more responsibility. One day I'll be management, I gotta rase my seed to have a little somthin”.
Adam laughed. “It’s all the same. All jobs are the same out here if you are working in the stacks. You get paid the same and the conditions are the same and the hours are the same and the risks are the same. IF you’re not sittin your fat ass in the office then you’re out here with the rest of us dogs, and if you’re out here its all the same.
Adam tied off the bucket and frowned as it got tied up on a gauge. He stated up. Half way up he got tangled up in his line. He could barely move enough to un-hook him-self. It was hard to see. The easiest thing to do was just un-hook, free himself from the tangle of lanyard, and tie off again. It was hard to move but much easier not being tied up to a scaffold. He went to unhook himself. Just as he did his foot slipped. Everything was so wet.
There was a large open spot just behind him. He fell into the hole backwards. His hard hat came off as he fell and he hit his head on a pipe, hard, then fell the rest of the way dead. The lanyard lines trailed up as he fell like impotent wings.
One Man watched blankly as he fell, it happened so quick he did not really register what he had just witnessed until Adam crashed on the concrete, his head cracked aginst it and some brain spilled out. No matter, his soul had already flown.
His broken body stretched across the concrete, pelted by rain, head pouring blood and brains. The blood fell washed in lines, on the concrete. The wind groaned through the guts of the stack.
The lights smoked as the rain pelted them. The blood was absorbed into the concrete, or washed into the drain.
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