4
So here I am, back at the construction site.
Thanks to a pay raise, this is my first day driving a monster truck around the Clear Lake Condo Estate. I call it my security mobile. I bought a big, black monster truck that runs on four fat wheels. The engine sounds of cruel intention and worldly domination. It even came with a skull painted in flames on the hood.
Many of the hammer-and-nail, hard working fuckers have stopped what they’re doing, to admire the size of my mean machine. They look stuck between general motor head curiosity and outright jealousy.
The security guard is now at command of the wheel, riding high.
I park the monster truck beside the trailer and I drop down the step ladder to ground level.
I march around the site collecting the keys from the door knobs of completed condos. I walk over to a row of empty buildings and start to pull the garage doors down, but locking nothing, just giving the whole place a blocked-out barricade look. This activity is done in view of the construction workers, in plain sight, just to prove that I have some sense of duty. I set traffic cones across the road to prevent the idea of public touring. I close all the bulkhead doors to the basement, as a way to highlight my role in the fortifying process. I shut doors that have no lock, even when a windy gust can blow them open again. But still, I place value on the security measures, the act itself. I pretend to work. I do not lock, I perform. Everybody recognizes my effort to close the place up, seal the place off. By portraying a busy body and some useful hands, I accomplish something on a very small scale, while at the same time knowing it looks big to the resentful eyes of the others. My job’s a joke, and yet, I still got a second generous raise at the end of the last pay cycle. Without know why I got the increase, I did not dispute it.
Right now, standing at the front exit, hands on hips, eyes shifting under the brim of my badge cap, I watch a worker approach. This guy holds a hacksaw. The green John Deere hat on his head has orange letters, which match the color of his beard. I once heard a co-worker of his call him Butch, but it’s a name he’s slow to react to. I always guess he’s running from the law, under a false name, working under the tax table. He’s also the same guy who hurls insults at me every time I’m nearby. The closer our proximity, the more hostile he becomes. I get the impression he holds serious disdain for any type of authority figure, anyone who wears a badge or reminds him of a life spent looking over his shoulder.
The worker prompts me, goads me, saying, “Don’t work too hard, buddy.”
These rude remarks usually miss any sign of wit, but Butch fires them off, all the same. I just stand there and stare as he continues to strut by. I keep eye contact, until the last moment he looks away. My total lack of a response can be seen as a challenge.
So Butch feels the need to repeat, “Don’t work too hard, buddy. Nobody out here wants to see you pull a muscle, you know, strain yourself.”
I shout over to him in reply, “Would you like me to jog in place?”
“What was that, buddy?”
“Nothing, old pal. Don’t mind me, while I run over there and lift a really heavy bag full of back breaking purpose. You can watch me do it, if you want.”
The worker just lets his face contort, tilting his head to the side like a dumb dog, waving the hacksaw to show a threat. He raises the hacksaw even higher in warning when I tell him he’ll be hacking himself silly for the rest of his stupid green hat life.
I walk away, between the condos. The other workers think I can’t hear them laughing behind my back. I know their opinion of the guard position will never change, so I let it slide. The lowly security guard will always represent a series of jokes to them. Besides, I sometimes piss in their toolboxes. Sometimes I throw those same toolboxes into the lake, watching them sink, only to then crack open a beer that I raise in a toast to salute the act of my revenge.
I go into hiding on the top floor of an empty condo. With my binoculars, I watch the workers get together in a circle. A tall man hands out a case of beer to the thirsty. They hold the cans right above their beer belly guts, each taking a turn to speak in comical jest. They pull physical pranks on each other, like slapping each other with a paint brush. They point out faulty things. They all make fun of the guy who has to drive his mother’s old car to work because his is in the shop for repairs. They certainly are a clever bunch. They sip from their beer, mounting a strong defense to snappy one liners, waiting for the right moment to attack, seizing on another man’s weak spot. Vulgar language is the standard, or else it’s weak vocabulary. They huddle close together to laugh with unhealthy hearts at obscene adult humor, most of it pornographic. They talk about fishing rods and boxing and race cars and army boots and the right way to lather yourself up with deer urine to attract the biggest buck. Finally, they end on a joint sour note, about the women they have unrespectable affairs with.
I move over to the other side of the condo, just to look at the lake. I know what I intend to do next will take my mind off this pointless job. I will touch upon euphoria and put myself in the sphere of ecstasy. I pull out some crack cocaine, and I smoke past my tolerance level. Another smooth pipe rip and my high gives me a huge head rush. I confirm the feeling out loud by saying, “Elevation, baby!” At the present time, I’m loving life so much, there comes a point where I think I might swell up with happy ideas, then explode.
By the time I switch to the front side of the condo, just about all the workers have taken to their trucks, gone home. The site is now under the control of the guard, with keys to roam the grounds as I please. This is how I envisioned the job when I first applied—the silence and the solitude.
So I walk outside, down the dirt road, whistling in the sunlight, while the green and yellow foliage falls from the tree tops. I’m tempted to skip along, I’m that high, that damn happy.
And just when I think I’m alone, a scrawny dog, skin and bones, does a small trot across my footpath, into the woods. A greyhound. The dog has his nose to ground, in hunt of food, but I wonder where the abandoned pooch will get some, since the land is closed off, secluded. Nobody lives within a few miles. Which means no food scraps for the street hound.
The daylight is no more. It has ceased to be. Darkness has fallen and I can still hear the hungry dog whimpering from the woods. In some kind hearted way, I feel obligated to feed the animal.
So I start up my monster truck and I drive away from the construction site, down the highway. I take the exit for the Twin City Plaza and a restaurant called The China Bang Express. I park at the entrance, but I leave the truck running, while I go inside.
The take-out line is short, but the wait period is long.
There’s a rock group playing on the bar side of the restaurant, a cover band called, Pink Lips Hot Sticks. I find the whole instrumental array to be loud and somewhat sweaty. The guitarist bangs out a solo riff, while the drummer misses a beat, just causing the cymbal to clash.
Men sitting on barstools, in a row, all begin to cast an evil eye at me, as if I’m some cop ready to stamp out the festivities.
Women, mostly of a middle age, flock together to flaunt their pocketbook purses and their hair sprayed hair, their fake eyelashes and their silver loop earrings. They all sip on cocktails while I wait for the dog food. The lady with the hip-hugging jeans winks at me, maybe wanting some man-in-uniform role play, inspecting me for handcuffs.
The band takes an offstage break, but a funk song plays next.
These women catch me in their sights, guessing I have all the energy of a young sex machine. They mentally undress me with their ex-ray eyes. They wave me onto the dance floor. A man from the DJ booth has just announced a cash prize to the best dancer, so I figure why not.
I have danced on the tops of tables at many a social gathering. The movement of my body appeals to most women, but it wins hate from a greater number of men. I always ready myself with a fresh step. I have enough ability to switch from the Latin line dance to the Irish jig in a matter of seconds.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who dance, and those who shake and nod without a rhythmic clue. The latter keep a critical eye. And so, just as I am king of the dance floor, I’m also known as the guy who might steal a longtime lover.
I win the dance contest. The DJ points me out, as none other than “the man in blue”. He rewards me with a hundred dollar bill.
People make a path in the crowd for me to walk through, many of them patting me on the back.
The bartender calls me over and he sets a drink in front, a White Russian, indicating the four English gentlemen in the corner have sent it over.
I look with some trouble into the dark corner where I finally see four men, all wearing trench coats. The taller, older man in the middle looks to me like a well-connected underground mafia boss.
He raises his glass to me.
I would have declined their best wishes but the White Russian is my favorite mixed drink. Besides, I think I deserve a celebratory swig or two. I put my lips to it, and sip it slowly, cautiously, since it hits my throat with a sting. My immediate guess, it’s poison.
Then the bartender passes me a napkin. On it, the men have written a note in lipstick. It says, “Who watches the watchman?”
I choke, in a coughing fit. I proceed to run out of the lounge area, grabbing my food bag, without paying for it, rounding the corner, out the double doors.
Soon I’m in my monster truck, speeding down the highway. My forehead sweats for good reason, from worry about what kind of liquid has just entered my bloodstream. My eyesight is fine, so I start to relax, but only slightly.
Back at the Clear Lake Condo Estate, I try to locate the dog, but it seems the closer I get to his barking, the more he scampers away, tail between his legs. His dreadful howling goes on for two hours straight, during which time I ponder the lonely feelings and the boredom associated with this kind of job.
I finally leave the meat in the path I saw the dog take last. I wait a good distance away, until the barking stops.
Returning to the site, I find nothing has changed. Nothing has been altered. Objects did not move. Every detail stayed the same, like I never left my post. I’ve been gone for an hour. Nobody missed me. I was not needed in any capacity. Yet, the paycheck still comes in the name of Mike Miller.
With my flashlight on, I re-enter the woods. When my eyes adjust, I find is the food gone, but the dog is dead, just a few feet away. The greyhound lay there sideways, paws crossed together, dead from starvation. So I stand upright, under the moonlight, looking at the skinny beast, privately mourning.
I wonder if Gary Lee Vickers got to the meat first.
Oddly enough, I know that on lonely nights, in the middle of my boredom, I will be reminded of that sick dog howl. I will be tortured by his ghostly growl.
And lurking always, that murderer.