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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
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- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1820
He's a friend of a friend of the owners, a bit simple, he's dropping the owner's vehicle off after servicing, popped in for a cappuccino, sympathizing with the owner over his women troubles. He begins his own narrative:
Something like this. He got married. Suspected his wife was cheating. Hired a private detective. Proved his wife was cheating. Divorced with minimal alimony. He feels pretty smart.
He's a fucking idiot. Only an idiot would tell this tale, he tells it with no shame, he's exactly the sort of man any woman stupid enough to marry would cheat upon. It would be an easy choice: Kill yourself, or cheat on him. WYSIWYG. He's telling us this to make himself seem clever, hiring the private eye and all, but he's an idiot, and the owner sighs patiently waiting for him to finish his ordeal so he can begin his own...but the mechanic won't stop, won't spare us any detail, no matter how salacious, trivial or humiliating, he's proud to wear the horns, he's wearing the horns before he opens his mouth to make the proposal, the women (woman) having made her plans upon meeting him, he's damning himself twice with the retelling of this story but he doesn't get it, he'll be the cuckold as long as he lives and proud to tell the world, he's a fucking idiot...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2248
And there's the return to the circus, for a short time only I tell myself (and them), and the insanity resumes...
The Nephew, he's been on a tear, since breaking up with his girlfriend the nights have gone into the morning, blurring with his shifts, waking up in strange beds with stranger women, showing us candid photos he's snapped of their asses, tattoo: "Your Name Here", written on the top, he's nothing if not classy. And as if in a mind to break from the non-stop party he fills in his time at work updating his online personal profile. He's hammed it up quite well, he likes museums and good food, theater, pets, he's a regular cultural aficionado, enjoys romantic walks and describes himself as a social drinker and trying to quit smoking (to be fair, there's no "alcoholic" option), he's showing it to me on his phone, airbrushed glossy photos of him lying unshaven in downy white sheets, him out with the talking waiter from work, only, only he seems to be getting a lot of texts from men...
And now, in front of me he's discovering that for relationships he's been searching the "man for man" portion of the site, damn, now it all makes sense, these men that keep texting him... he's curiously oblique about the number of dates he's had but now it's time for him to ignore me as he repairs his profile...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1929
He's a bit shorter than me, a bit stockier, twenty-something, quiet, broken-English, Filipino.
He started a few days after me, but not as a temp, full time with the company, and at first he hung out with Joe, them both being around the same age and new hires and all.
But Joe proved a little useless, and Wyatt didn't like the way that Joe tried to boss him around (even though they were peers) and so after I became an employee he started chumming with me. I have a little more of a sense of purpose, and it's best to look busy, he understands.
So he's pretty much my team mate, only he doesn't say much, only once in a while bums a fag (he's trying to quit smoking), sometimes he looks around to see what his old buddy Joe is doing, usually it's not much, and he laughs and points and makes fun of him, or if we're high in a tower talks about how he'd kill him in the Philippines, only here it's different....
He's good to work with. He figures out what needs to be done, doesn't need to be told, he's a good partner. These are things you'd take for granted anywhere else, but in this work environment they make you a bit of a genius.
For the first month he said nothing, then I asked him if he liked Karaoke. "Most Filipinos like Karaoke" I tell him. He denies it adamantly, then begins to sing. And from a nasal, broken voice come the most perfect sung melodies...now we can't shut him up, one song after another as we work, classic American music, from contemporary pop to the Everly Brothers and Elvis.
So we're up late at night, perhaps 8:30, rolling out the tarps on the stairwell, a big job, late pour, that's keeping us late. He takes a break and a drag off his electric cigarette. The moon is full, just rising, low on the horizon, in the west the lights of the city are twinkling, below, a snow covered lake, coyote trotting across, only us to see, he imitates the howl of the coyote, the coyote pauses, returns the salute, then continues.
It's a perfect moment and I wonder what he's thinking. So much hinges on language, and I wonder how many thoughts he has, brilliant, poetic even, that go unarticulated...Everything so quiet, the site empty of workers, cold but still, only us up top working upon the tarps, maybe a missed girlfriend back in the Philippines...?
I don't need to wonder for long. He puts away his cigarette and begins..."Joseph...what a fucking idiot...."
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 3548
It began with Temps.
That's a separate and lengthy post on it's own.
But as a Temp I was frequently asked to drive other temps to the job site.
Which was fine, as long as the job was temporary the company would be temporary.
But this job has become permanent, and still I'm inveigled to give rides. A legacy agreement.
This time it's John.
When I was with Temps they promised me an extra 50 cents per hour to give a ride to so and so to the job. Not worth the effort or the money, really, but I did it to be a sport.
And when he lost the contract another filled in, and so I find myself giving him a ride instead. Picking him up, dropping him off, only now I'm not working for Temps and there's no (ridiculously inadequate) compensation offered.
I still pick him up. It's about 45 minutes out of my way each day, given the length of the workdays (12 hours plus), this is cutting into my "free" time substantially, and as time passes I'm begrudging it more and more.
He's pretty happy with the deal, I pick him up, drop him off, he sleeps in, gets home before me, all this in exchange for a single slice of baloney on stale white bread.
He's not the sort of person you'd take a sandwich from. He looks a little like the bum you imagine sleeping beneath the Salvation Army collection bin, white beard and hair, slim figure, lopsided features, he lopes rather than walks...
It's a bad deal for me.
The sandwich, I eat it once in a while to honor his side of the deal, make him feel he's providing value for my time and gas. But I look at him and realize that if I walked into a restaurant and saw him eating there I'd walk out. He's that decrepit. I'd rather be drinking cow's blood with African Tribes people, or eating seals-eyeballs with the Eskimos or bugs with the Chinese...
On the job he's to be seen wandering around, checking his pumps, a stream of frozen green snot embedded into his mustache.
And eating his own sandwich a fly is spotted wandering the bread, "free protein" he remarks...
In the car, suffering a bad cold he hacks for a few minutes and then coughs up a proper toad and spits it out the window. And I find myself thanking God that he rolled down the window first. "At least he remembered to roll down the window...." I say to myself.
He feels obliged to entertain me with his wit, regale me with his fine sense of humor, first thing in the morning, this the price he must pay for the free ride. I don't want it, really want just the silence and my coffee, but what do you say?
"Here's a joke for you.... a poor family... I forget it exactly....eating a rabbit the father shot...first child goes "I peed a lead pellet"...Mom goes "ah, its' from the rabbit......."I was wanking and I shot the cat""
It's murder, and I grimace, smile thinly, not sure he gets my utter disinterest in his witticisms.
And now he's taken to smoking my cigarettes.
In the beginning he'd offer me one of his cigarettes, and then use this to smoke mine for the rest of the day. His roommate had smoked all of his.
But as of late he's grown lazy, gets in the car, spots my pack of fags upon the dashboard, helps himself, tracks me down at lunch or on break for another, finishes the day with yet another, 3-5 cigarettes per day, I'm paying now time, gas and cigarettes to get him to work.
This has to end. My time is my own, and even were he paying for the other 2 this is something I don't want to put a price upon, I have to end it, and it's difficult seeing how intertwined they imagine us to be at work...
I'm furious with him, such a fucking leech and mooch, yet I'll still give him until the end of this week, to payday, to cough up some small remuneration for my time and effort, after that I'm just done...
And in this frame of mind I return home, only to find that one of my roommates had helped themselves to a half-bottle of my Scotch, leaving me but a finger, this despite me having bought him 2 bottles of his own brandy...