Just Another Day

"Miles, you have to listen to this!" As usual, Mark spent the night at Pat terry's, working on his demo tape for Larry. "Listen, and see how much better it is!"

We tool through the quiet midtown streets - mostly yuppies in the neighborhhod now, and they're either at work at the crack of dawn, or sleeping in. We wait in line at the backed up onramp where we got rear-ended yesterday.

"The gas tank filler is bent and squashed. Took 5 minutes last night to put 5 gallons in," Mark snorts in disgust.

We are at the line. There's a tiny hole in the jam packed 50 MPH traffic, so Mark floors it. "Right on time," he muses, critically eying the clock. "So, what do you think?" He grins proudly.

"Guess I wasn't paying enough attention. It sounded pretty much the same as yesterday. Sorry."

Mark laughed. "We spent 5 hours last night on that last 3 bars of the part with the horns. Cleaned up the French Horn part. It's completely different now!"

Mark pops in a Jerry Clower tape as we exit I-75. Soon enough we're passing "The Perfect Church". Then it's over the tracks, and "here we are, the mighty Spinks Company, home of the Atomic Dashpot Indicator!" The "atom" logo is so funny for an automatic chicken feeder factory that Mark has a couple on his guitar case.

We hurry in, just in time to get in line for the time clock. Mr. Laird expects us to clock in on the dot. All 12 of us. So everyone grabs their card, the clock clakcs the hour, and we all punch as fast as we can. Last in line, mine goes in just as the clock clunks for the next minute. Now I have to clock out a minute late as well; our time is figured by the minute.

Mark and I are pointed to a row of freshly painted hoppers by Homer. "You boys can assemble them feeders. Everything's ready, but only the legs are with the hoppers. Have to get everything else yourselves." Homer stops to cough.

Irene glances worriedly at her husband. "Homer! You need to see the doctor!"

"You know I got no time for that." Tall and slender, Homer is in good shape except for his lungs. No point in fussing about his smoking, though - even if he quit, the air here would have the same effect.

"Any double hopper jobs?" Mark asks. Homer shakes his head no, still coughing.

Mark gets the electric boxes and sliders; I count out the nuts and bolts we'll need. We haul the parts over and get to work.

"You know, this is just a part time job for me," Mark observes, wrestling with a sliding door that won't slide.

"Hmmm. So how come you put in 40 hours a week here?"

"Well, I haven't had any gigs except on wekends, and Homer needs me to work. Oof!" The offending paint blob breaks off and the slide slams home. "With all this stupid sawdust and metal dust and fumes in the air, I can't sing worth a flip on Friday nights. I just cough up big wads of nasty black stuff." he demonstrates. "By Sunday evening my throat is clearing out and I can sing, but Monday morning I'm right back here breathing all this stuff."

Having each finished a Spinks single-hopper, semi-automatic chicken feeder, we grab a Coke[tm] from the machine and start on another. The final step is to test everything, and we end up under the feeders, checking the limit switches and the sliding doors. Someone hollers "Break time!" and everyone stops what they're doing and runs for the break area.

Everyone except for me. My neck and back are a little sore from the wreck yesterday, no big deal. But here I am, in this weird position under a chicken feeder, twisted like a pretzel, my legs, shoulders, back and neck locked up. "Mark, I need some help - I can't move!"

Mark starts laughing again. "You're kidding, right?"

"No, I'm stuck!"

Mark laughs a bit more, then gets serious. "I was about to ask you for help - I'm stuck, too!"

"No way!"

"For real!"

We offer each other suggestions, and finally I start rocking a bit, topple over, and Wham! hit the ground. In the breakroom, I see Ronnie laughing at us. "Look, Curtis, he did a back flip offa the roof onto the concrete!" Fortunately I have a hard head; now I'm OK, if sore in a few new places. I crawl over and wrestle Mark out from under his hopper, and he's able to unbend a bit. We stagger, bent like old men, into the break room. Irene, amused, observes that we look like Homer on a rough morning. Homer allows that even he doesn't look that bad. By the time we sit down, break is over. Back to work.

Copyright 1996 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.