Four Days and a Wake-Up

It's been 20 months since this shit came down, 20 long fucking months of waiting and wondering and working through the days knowing that sooner or later it would be my neck on the block and though i may have been the low man on the totem pole in the prestige sense i outlasted all the motherfuckers in the posh offices and fancy cubicles, hell sometimes maybe changing the lightbulbs has it's privileges you know but as of next monday i will be one of the freshly unemployed, the last of the roughly 350 or so people who used to work at the Big World Bank Machine branch, some of the guys i'll walk out the door with, some of the guys who i'll buy a drink, have worked there for over 30 or 40 years, a fucking lifetime and yet when it all comes down the lucky ones will retire and the rest will be given the telephone number for the local unemployment office, some of these guys will never make these wages again, some of these guys are hard fucking workers who did whatever they were asked and stayed late and made the shit run so all the golden parachuters wouldn't have to worry about things but i don't need to tell either of my fare readers that big bidness don't give a fuck... they want you to bleed for them but when you become a budgetary concession they point you towards the door and say good luck, there's a reason it's called human resources and not personnel anymore, it helps to de-humanize, maybe it helps those with the axes at the top to sleep better but i don't hold any illusions that they have any conscience whatsoever, they answer to the dollar and all else be damned...

And so in the last week or so i set out to clean out my desk, my desk tucked away in the bowels of the building, hidden from all the prying eyes, the desk i've sat at when i wasn't unloading trucks or moving furniture or delivering packages and what not, the desk i've slept at and read books at and hanicapped horses at, 10 years worth of shit piled up and stuffed in drawers and it took me maybe 45 minutes to clean it out, took it all and dumped it, all except the artwork and photos of my boyos, that i've saved and tucked in a folder and soon to be removed, 10 years 2 months and 2 days from the date i was hired, one of those gigs that i thought would last a lifetime when i scored it, a gig with good bennies and shit pay and a pension, i mean how often do you hear that word these days, of course i'll more than likely cash that out cuz it ain't worth sitting on and who knows if i'll need it, hopefully i'll put it in an account for the boyos to go to school on someday, that is of course if i don't get tossed out of the house, gotta remember that i saw my old man bounced for nothing more than losing his job after 28 years of marriage so don't think it's not in the back of my mind, that event has shaped much of the way i look at things for better or for worse... and yet here i sit and can't help but smile...

See before i got this job i had been laid off from a warehouse gig, a lay-off i damn near engineered cuz back in those days the legit gig was getting in the way of the illegit one and i needed a break, the empire was in full swing and and all i really needed was a way to make it look like i had some kind of income, but those were the days of free and easy living and alot of shit has changed since then, of course don't get me wrong at me olde Pennsyltucky home if someone had to loose a job it was better that it was me, i was most decidedly the second income and what's funnier is i'm the one most cut out to stay home for awhile and take care of things, see i've never had much ambition for the rat race, starting 20 years ago when i decided i'd rather surf and make french fries than take a job in advertising, since then it's been working the loading docks and moving furniture and whatever else "they've" asked me to do, i've never made more than 15 bucks an hour at an honest job, i've been told countless times that i could do anything i set my mind to but the problem is i don't want to do anything, not in the traditional American Dream crock of shit sense...

And come next Tuesday morning what exactly will i do? Well to start i'll get the I-mac off to school and then Nick Disaster and i will set about our day, the morning we'll spend learning letters and numbers and colors and shapes and days of the week and months of the year, we'll do some math and study the map of all the places we've been and might like to go and then we'll learn about that, we'll listen to music and paint pictures and then maybe we'll take a nap or Nick Disaster will and i will set about cleaning the house and the garage, gutting the yard of all the unwanted plants and weeds and whatnot, i'll plaster and paint and demo the bathroom, i'm gonna teach myself how to cook, Nick and I will work on our rudimentary Spanish, i'll pick up the I-mac from school and help him with his school work, i'll join the fucking PTA and be a room-mother, maybe i'll grow a beard and chop down these trees in my backyard, i'll clean gutters, i'll set out to re-read every book on my bookshelf and in my spare time i'll peruse the want ads and look for a new gig, most likely back on the loading docks that i've come to know so well but in the mean time i will enjoy the chance to spend even more time with my boyos cuz damn if those two don't amaze the shit out of their old man on a daily basis...

So next Monday i'll get up and make my coffee, i'll fill up my thermos and drive into this place for one last time, then after 4 hours the powers that be will ask for my keys and my ID badge and kindly escort me to the exit, maybe they'll shake my hand and say good luck and then my co-workers and i will walk towards the pub and have a pint or two, tell some stories and have a laugh, then we'll all go our separate ways, knowing it was a good gig while it lasted.