The Magnificent 7, no err 4.

I meant to follow up with this a year and a half ago,to complete a post on a expedition to Savannah.
Spring 2005 March, conditions cloudy,phone rings from a customer .Man owns a development on a island off Savanah, needs screening 11' tall and 580' long put up on his boatyard before the weekend.The pay is good, I negotiate it high because I know the girls are gonna want to stay on the beach if we go.I begin with assembling the strike team,Kara a 5'9" brunnette with a husky low voice, the looks of a Liv Tyler and the temperament of sleep deprived badger with its head in a bag of hornets.A fast worker and even faster tongue.So sharp that I have warned her that one day her razor tongue was gonna cut out her teeth. Mickey, the long standing semi-reliable pill and alcohol addicted ex-dancer,Pamela Anderson post opt body and the focus of a redillin addicted 5 year old boy in the middle of a Shriners Circus grand finale.She has been known to pick up her 6' 4",189lb husband and use her 5'4" 135lb mass to throw him over the back of the couch , down the stairs ,and into the basement garage of their modest split level.M.J.,my ex-girlfriend before the trip,think of young "hot lips Houlihan"(Loretta Swit) Tiny, unevenly tempered between engaging exuberance and whiney pesimissim raised to just under supersonic speeds.
The deal was worked out as schedules were made, bags packed and a plan was as usual half formed because I know things will change,never stick to a plan in this business as things WILL change regardless of how well it is thought out.I make a sorta of idea in my head and then proceed trusting to luck,skill and random miracles to propel this outfit into its next job.And to crash out of it on the other side all the while exuding a Errol Flynn devil may care attitude to the general public.
The Plan:
Two trucks, Me in the Big ford, Kara and Mickey in her boyfriends Dodge Dakota,pick up MJ after she gets off work,leave at 6pm from Atlanta and go down to the Tifton plant to pickup the screen at 8 am in the morning, staying at a hotel in Tifton that night so we can be over in Savannah by 12 the next day to start work.The plan was for about 10-11 hours of work since the customer sent some vague pictures of the terrain and we assumed that there would be problems .That would mean about 55' per hour due to height of the fence.Work from 12 to 6-7pm and finish the next day.That left two days for r & r at the beach on Tybee.
HOW IT REALLY WORKED:
MJ is about as punctual as a Nigerian government official on a fact finding trip on corruptipn..Departure time from Atlanta 8pm.Arrived late in Tifton,that morning a major front pushes across to stall over South Georgia, we have 3 inches in 4 hours.Soaked when we load the fabric at the plant and then we literally have to slip and slide our trucks all the way across Ga to Savannah.I call ahead and the customer meets us at 5pm at the jobsite in the drizzle that the front has now become.He shows us the fence while we come to terms that we are sweating into our rainsuits more than they are shedding water,and then there are the gnats.Now I have always heard the tales of the South Georgia gnats and carried a few memories of them from my youth on fishing trips with my dad when he was sober enough not to drive the neon green 73 4 door Torino with the vinyl, green seatcovers into the pond that he was checking out for the states next fishing report.These gnats in Savannah however were a locust plague of bibical proportions,eyes nose,moth,hair,skin,ears everything was up up for grabs.I felt like the Texas panhandle and they were the illegals swarming Brownsville.
Our customer assumed by the lateness of the day we would be starting tomorrow as all at once the chorus went up,no it will be finihed today.He looked down the long row of fencing ,at the black silt that passes for dirt on Skidaway Island, at the drizzle falling from the sky with renewed fervor,slunk back to his truck and contemplated the girls dubiously as they began setting the ladders that sank a foot or more into the rainsoaked black muck that surrounded the fence.
"LET THE GAMES BEGIN" Then it began,gnats in every crevice,MJ crawling under the fence to secure the center seam ,me throwing ladders up and down,Mickey losing work boots, giving up and working barefoot,Kara's hoarse cries to keep going, the sun racing down to leave us in the dark with only the idiot rap hum of the gnats,mud and black silt in our mouths.By the dark hour of 8pm we had finished.Done.Perfect.The packing up. The throwing away of some clothes the girls didn't even want back.I rang up the customer (Who had left hours before)to notify him of our completion,as he asked after a stunned pause if I was kidding him,did it look good? etc..Confidently I told him if he found any problems to let us know and I would like my check on the terms we had agreed on.On Completion.
"Are We Having Fun Yet"
Traditionally I try to set up out of town jobs like mini-vacations.Set a fee for the girls, put in my markup, include hotel,fuel,food etc...As we assumed it would be off season in April we thought a hotel would be no problem and ended up at the worst motel I think that has ever operated in Georgia,You remember passing those half-closed motor lodges on ML King(any city).Vagrants and whores wondering around aimlessly outside,busted out lights on the marques offering 1959 area rates?Cracked concrete pools with green water and trash floating in the slime?Doors nailed up and spray painted walls?THE WALDORF compared to this place.But hey the girls insisted on being out on Tybee and walking across the road to the beach.
The shower was green in spots and not because that was ever the intended color scheme but the girls went next door for supplies and bleached it out.The carpet was more a mosaic of unidentifiable stains and gum(?) clumps than woven threads.The pillows where I swear 1/2" thick and no one even considered sitting on the speads.Sheets appeared to be clean and the ice bucket had a 6" crack on one side.
By now it was 10pm and we went looking for food on Tybee,but the Crab Shack was closing and the only thing left was the stew to which everyone greedily slurped up. Kara though underage was given a consolation draft beer.Some were still hungry so we went to the only other joint on the island at which the gap-toothed locals stared at us until the weeble wooble shaped waitress informed us that everyone not over 21 would have to leave .This caused Kara (a few months short of her 21st)to launch into one of her turrets syndrome cursing attacks that resulted in the waitress becoming so shocked she crept back to the bathroom and peered over the broken swinging door until Kara left the bar.Exhausted we all slunk back to the motel,waited imjpatiently for beach bum and his emaciated toothless skag to vacate the doorway while canoodling,and crashed onto our waifer thin pillows.
OK I GUESS THATS FUN...(?)
That morning the restaraunt next door was offering a breakfast special served by surprise! ,that woman from "Throw momma from a train"Or maybe it was Danny Devito's offspring with Rosie O'Donnell.I went down to River street with MJ to catch the sites and Kara and Mickey hit the liquor stores and the beach in that order.They proceeded to get drunk and accost every attractive person on the beach between 15 and 45 ,regardless of sex,social or financial status,and with or without their children in tow.Although either girl is highest end of physical 1-10 scale, so fierce was their come ons,flirts and sexual intimidation that even the boldest scurried like beach crabs from there combined powers.MJ and I returned in time for the girls to return from their triumphant reduction of everyone on the beach to cowering ninnies,beach patrol et al.
A little sobbering with food at a beachside grill restored our systems from the egregious affront of Ms .Momma from a Train.Next it was time for MJ and Mickey to pair up as they combined their powers for evil instead of for good by going to a little beach dive and bringing down the chaos on the oh so unhip locals.I exscused myself and went to see friends in town who had recently had a baby, a HUGE BABY HUEY BABY. I sat there as the mother attempted to restrain this Marlon Brando in diapers that alternately frowned,smiled ,drooled and gurgled like a mood ring mated with a friendly oyster.The phone rang with Kara's impatient rasp wishing me back as she had left the local beach dive after MJ began dirty dancing and Mickey had picked out some of the slower witted beachnecks for a game of tease and quash.
I returned to Tybee ,picked up Kara and we went to a small grill on River street and talked about nothing important and had some drinks.Finally Mickey began calling demanding to get into the hotel room and and when we returned we found her laying face down at the rooms door,mumblimg about the whorishness of MJ to wonder off with a 21 year old stud.He was going to walk her back to the hotel, oddly enogh this should have taken 3 minutes.I told the incoherent Mickey that MJ was a big girl and she would have nothing to worry about, and we all went to bed.Well,almost, about 30 minutes later Mickey shot out both her arms and nearly disclocated Kara's jaw as she was sleeping next to her."Get up "she said,"We gotta rescue MJ ,she's gonna be gang raped by the locals".Mickey then threw off the cover,and bound out the door wearing a tee-back and black tank top barely restaiming her huge cans.Shouting"SHIT!Shit!SHIT" out the door Kara ran after her equally atirred.More modestly dressed I ran next to the doorway to see them wrestling in the moonlight,Mickey howling like a bobcat and Kara pushed up against a powder blue 78 Granada that hadn't had a set of matching hubcaps since the Carter administation.As I watched Kara wrestle Mickey into submission I looked around for all the guests to be poking their unshaven(male and female )faces out the door or at least the bulky dwarf of a night manager to call out for quiet.Not a sound.Not a light came on.Nothing.Nothing out of place here....
Once Kara had put Mickey back to bed we sat up for a while contemplating what restraints would work best to keep Mickey from breaking out Godzilla style.Just then MJ returned from the beach,fully dressed but spreading sand under her clothes on every step.To this day she still insists that the walk back to the motel took 3 hours.
The next morning I'd had enough of the fun,we packed and left ,and I hope we touched the locals the same way they had touched us.BAD TOUCH!
After Action Report:
Kara carried black and blue marks all over her body for months after wrestling Mickey.Mickey insisted the highlight of the trip was her and Kara's shower together (to save time....?) after their beach foray,MJ gets teased by her 18 year old neice for still getting phone calls from her now 22 year old beach boy(she's 33).All I got was a check and a stupid t-shirt.

Sand Fish

Last Monday morning my cousin Andy died. I was not particularly close to him. As a matter of fact, the last time I saw him was at my Aunt Desi’s funeral, which was at least 5-6 years ago. He was a slight fellow, pale and hunched over a bit with freckles and reddish blonde hair. He always wore this wicked little smile like he was in on a joke that you did not know about and he talked slow, even for a southerner. I remember him mostly from my childhood. Once he convinced my brother and I that fish lived under the sandy bottom of the creek that ran behind our house. We spent all morning with sharp cane poles trying to spear the elusive “sand fish”. Andy kept us going until lunch and then finally let us in on his little joke. I liked him so much that I wasn’t even mad. Another time we went fishing with Andy and his Dad (my favorite Uncle Tony). I don’t remember much about that day except riding in the back of my Uncle’s little truck while Andy sang, “Show me the way to go home. I’m tired and I want to go to bed. I had a little drink about an hour ago and it went straight to my head.” It was the first time I had ever heard that song and I was wondering why he was singing it. I had been with him all day and he did not drink a thing. I was always such a gullible little fuck. Sometime during my teens Andy disappeared from the all-knowing radar of my mom’s family. Occasionally, I would hear gossip about him:

“Andy got caught trying to sell drugs to a GBI man and is going to jail.”
“Andy got married/divorced and married again to a Korean lady.”
“Andy’s wife had a baby that died.”
“Andy has his own painting business.”

The final bit of “Andy” info reached me Tuesday night. My mom called me on my cell phone and dished the bad news to me slow like she was offering me a piece of bitter pie. It seemed like she talked for ten minutes before she reached the horrible punch line, “Andy had been killed Monday morning in a car wreck.” It was the kind of news that surprises you but does not surprise you at the same time. He was 42 and the accident occurred 100 miles south of Tampa, Florida in a place called Arcadia. His funeral is Friday and like the rest of my family, I am looking for reasons not to go:

“I didn’t even know him. He is practically a stranger to me.”
“I haven’t seen him for years”
“No one else is going.”
“Arcadia is so far away.”

I can’t help but think that my grandmother is looking down upon the lot of us, and is ashamed.

Retarded

As much as I hate to write about my career. It is on my mind tonight. Spending the first 12 years of my adult life doing manual labor has had an effect on my confidence. Not that there is anything wrong with hard work. Simple, no-brainer, stand out in the hot sun and do something that sucks. It humbles you. Puts your feet on the ground. I never really appreciated having my feet on the ground until I became a programmer. The IT business is full of assholes. More than it's alloted share perhaps. I have struggled through technical school. I have struggled through 10 years of elitist assholes trying belittle me with their superior intellects. I still struggle. Today for instance. I am working along pretty good. Making some progress, but by the end of the day I am lost and dreading the next morning. Why, you may ask? Sounds like no big deal. I will tell you why. I might have to talk to somebody and that somebody is the architect of the project...P. Now P, on a surface level can be a nice guy. He is constantly leaving exotic snack foods and trinkets on my desk. He can even be warm and funny if given a little space. However, when it comes to programming, he wears his knowledge like a chip on his shoulder. I can't figure out if he was abused or just feels that the whole word is nothing but a pain in the ass. Tomorrow I will have to sidle up to him, ask him a question about some shit he could have done in a few hours, and watch the frustration build behind his thin friendly mask. He will probably work in a few jabs like "sounds like this should be pretty straightforward and easy", and "I'll go ahead and knock this out for you." I really just fucking hate it. It takes me three days to his three hours. It is because of him, my current project is as far along as it is. I guess I should be grateful. And I am...but I just fucking hate it too. I can not compete with him and I have given up trying. I can't pump out the code in vast garbage can sized heaps. The whole situation makes me feel inadequate and not valued. I show up everyday with a smile and my big car and try to be as nice to everyone as is humanly fucking possible. I try to warm the place up a bit. Just like the sun, I am ignored most of the time, but when it is gone...things can get a little chilly. Sometimes I feel like I am fucking retarded.

In Hell the elevators play Phil Collins as Muzak.

Banality the creeping death,found today in music,movies, politics,literature,you name it.I think in the modern age it is to easy to graduate from college and foist your degree onto the New York Times and be called a crusading journalist while cranking out a flowing sewer of psuedo intellectual stink.Now any chump can get a computer and make some weird trash,take it to Robert Redford and bam you're on The Sundance Circuit.Bad mouth the president or the war and hey, you're hip lets see if you can get your own show between Al Franken and Randi Rhodes of the dying Air America Network.Nope that don't work for ya,how about the over loaded list of hacks trying to get famous on American Idol,or the local bar circuit of Atlanta.I think with the modern age not everyone has something interesting to say or contribute.
And maybe I don't either but at least I know when to shut up...........

Who am I to fuck with Monday?

Ever notice how all things rush towards Sunday. Merely blink on a Friday afternoon and it becomes a Sunday afternoon...and everyone knows that Sunday afternoon is just a nice way of saying Monday. Sometimes, when I am feeling particularly defiant, I will stay up late drinking beer, and dare Monday to show it's face. How can Monday come if I am having so much fun that it can't possibly be Monday. But Monday always wins and gloats about it's Victory. "I fucked you up, boi!", it says to me as I sit motionless behind the construction traffic of another Quick Trip going up. "Thought you was gonna be smart, and try to stop me from showing up", Monday would say as it took a sip off of a Starbuck Verona latte. "When you gonna learn not to fuck with me son?". And Monday would be right. Who am I to fuck with Monday? But sometimes you have to fight not because it is the smart or right thing to do, but because it is stupid. Sometimes you have to stand up for something, not to win, but to annoy the shit out of the man. "That's right Monday, I stayed up all night Sunday drinking beer like it was Saturday." "I even contemplated not going to work on Monday." "And one day I swear to God, I am going to do it, and when I do boy, whooooo weeee, I would have made Sunday night, Saturday night, and Monday morning, Sunday morning." "Let your mind chew on that for a while mother fucker." Because in the end the days of the week, month and year are just something the man made up to try and create some order out of this world.

God I am an idiot

If there is one thing that I have learned as of late, it is that things are the way they are for a reason. This is especially important if you tend to romanticize the past like moi. With that in mind, let’s talk about the past. In 7th grade I was picked to be a patrol. Only being familiar with my little backward slice of America, I should perhaps clarify “what a patrol is” to any of my Yankee readership. And yes, you are a Yankee if you do not come from Virginia on down. Some of us don’t even include Missouri and they fought for the boys in gray during that little skirmish some years back. Anyway, being a patrol is similar to being a member of a corrupt police organization. You monitor the dark regions of the town (elementary school) for deviants that run up stairs (speed) and don’t wash their hands after a bit of personal business (show contempt for the establishment), and you deal out raw justice as seen through the eyes of a twelve year old. Justice including: walking up and down stair wells until you drop, and scrubbing your hands until they look like they belong to a 3rd degree burn victim. Anyway, long story made short, at the end of the year the patrols got to spend four days of rest and recreation in our nation’s capital, and you can bet your ass, I was one of them. A long bumpy night spent lying in the grease and gray bubble gum of an Amtrak railway car and I found myself blowing in the wind with the rest of the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. I am embarrassed to admit that I can not remember all of the places that we visited; the entire trip is a bit of a jumble for me. Monuments, majestic buildings, museums, cathedrals all ran together like watercolors in my brain. What I do remember is the hotel, the restaurants, the bus rides and a girl named Susan H. I had gotten word through that grapevine that some girl from North Roswell Elementary liked me. Being the little pessimist that I was and am I figured that the girl would resemble a Sasquatch with Spina Bifida at best. I seem to remember running like hell along some cat walk trying to avoid meeting her, I would regret this decision later on. Early the next morning when our buses were getting warmed up, I was physically forced into this girl’s company by her best friend. I raised my eyes from the ground slowly and braced myself for a vision of horror.

“Oh my God, she is cute. She is more than cute, she is hot. Oh my God, what do I say? Say something funny. Show her how strong you are…make a muscle.. no I have a better idea...”

My plan seemed perfectly reasonable to my twelve year old mind…even genius. I took the Coke that I was drinking and said, “I also like the easy opening cans.” (Mimicking a popular television commercial at the time) Then I tore the aluminum can apart and slung the last sip of brown sticky cola onto her white rabbit skin jacket. She screamed with surprise, gave me a look that said “you are goofy but I like you”, and ran to board her bus. I spent the rest of the trip, trying to find her. I memorized the number of the bus that she was on, and looked for it everywhere: Mt. Vernon, the Lincoln Memorial, even Arlington Cemetery. I finally saw her on the last day at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I remember holding hands and buying her a flower for a penny from a Hari Krishna. Then she had to go, and that was that. Over the next four years we had a few brief telephone conversations and once I saw her at the Roswell library (the worst smelling library in Georgia). She told me that she was in love with some guy from Georgia Tech or the University of Georgia and I acted like I was happy for her and countered with some happy bullshit lie about my life. God I am an idiot.

Sick Mother Fucker

Men are stupid. It is so true. I guess women are stupid too, except in different ways. Recently I have been nurturing a friendship with a friend of my better half. No, I am not having an affair, although I have had a few incriminating dreams. What makes this situation even weirder is the fact that not until long ago this person, well…hated me. She did not hate me enough to spit on me or rub salt in a paper cut, but I could tell that there was something about me that made her nose turn up sour, like she had just smelled some bad milk. Long story short, she is going through a nasty divorce and I have been generous with my ear. Hours I have listened to her lament about her family life, her love life, and her unfortunate marriage to a banker. Heck, I even liked the banker. I even thought that he was lucky at times…and that time not being now. You see, the person that I am talking about is quite beautiful. Fucking…freaking…hypnotizing; a real southern belle, all sugary sweet and engaging. She came over tonight and I actually thought that I had put some friendship currency in the bank and made the mistake of trying to talk to her about some things that are going on in my life. Wrong… big fucking mistake. Little did I know that our conversation was one way. As I talked I watched her eyes dart towards the slightest distraction. I noticed her brain engage with distant matters and interfere with the basic southern propensity for feigned politeness. I let me words trail off noticeably while she took up a conversation with a wandering child. Disgusted, I went upstairs and looked in the mirror at the person with whom she had so recently been talking. I am not a bad guy…I can even be a good friend. What is the thing that I am missing that would have engaged her and why do I give a nasty rat’s ass. There it is…that is the sickness: the desire for approval…the desire to be desired. Why am I drawn to people who could not give a damn about me? I guess the answer is: if I am not worth anything, how can anybody that loves me be worth anything. I am a sick mother fucker.