That's the Job, and: Someone Is Always Shouting, and: The Task

That's the Job

That's the job, he said,shrugging his shouldersand running his handthrough his hair, like Dante,or a spiderthat knows its web,That's just the job,he repeated stubbornlywhenever I complainedabout working the night shiftin hundred-degree heat,or hauling my assover the humpfor a foul-mouthed dispatcheryelling at usover a loudspeaker,or riding the cabof an iron dungeoncreeping over bumpy railsto a steel millrising out of the smogin Joliet or Calumet Citywhere we headedto track downa few hundred giantsin chains clanking togetheron rusty wheelsfor dragging homeand uncouplingat the clearing yard loaded with emptyfreight carswaiting to be loadedwith more freight,because that's the job.

Someone Is Always Shouting

Moon-head is shouting at meto back the fuck upon the forkliftI am trying to jabinto a towerof wooden palletsstacked all the wayto the sprinklerslaid out under the roofof the warehousewhere I am strugglingto control the prongsof a monsterand avoid dousingeveryone on the floorof E. H. Sargent & Co.,my summer in chemicals,the school where I learnedthat someoneis always shoutingat someone else on the jobto back the fuck up.

The Task

You never expectedto spend so many hoursstaring down an empty sheetof lined paperin the harsh inner lightof an all-night diner,ruining your heartover mug after mugof bitter coffeeand reading Meister Eckhartor Saint John of the Crossor some other mysticof nothingnessin a brightly colored boothnext to a windowlooking outat a deserted off-rampor unfinished bridgeor garishly lit parking lotbacking upon Detroit or Houstonor some other cityforsaken at three a.m.with lonersand insomniacsfacing the darknessof an interminable nightthat stretched into monthsand years.