Amadeus

The summer between first and second grade, my mom and I watched Amadeus about that wacky prodigy, Wolfgang A. Mozart. This may have been an attempt to help get past the fear I had of opening the shower curtain thanks to having watched Nightmare on Elm Street because my aunt Candy who was deathly afraid of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow brought it over. I held on to that fear no less than three months and every time it was time to bathe, I solicited my little sister's help with the shower curtain. I consider Freddy Krueger responsible for my inconsistent love affair with hygiene. That and my obsession with sarcasm-tinged morbidity.

So this Amadeus, this Mozart, I believe led me to think that I had to be really awesome at a very early age. This paranoia that time would slip by without me having been terribly fruitful and memorable was only strengthen by the kids I found in the Guinness World Book of Records. I marked my potential for greatness by the ages at which other people had achieved their nominal success as recorded by the good folks with the Guinness World Book, which was itself designed to peaceably settle disputes among drunkards who swore they knew a man who had (fill in the blanks).

I thought I was well on my way, too, when I sat in my desk during the first days of second grade humming his Symphony No. 25 in g minor, K 183, 1st movement, and by coincidence invoked a smile from Ryanne Schultz. Man, anything I could do to get her attention was great so I learned to drum it with my fingers and at one point; I believe I could even play it with my armpits. This set into motion a certain ability and drive to ascertain what people react to and thusly, carved a part of my personality that I might have been better off without. That part of me that dies to get a little attention, to get a reaction, to get some love. Awwww....

You might be thinking, "Hey, Chris, I'm reading this now at night but you wrote this at 2pm. What's up? Shouldn't you be at work?"

Heh-heh, that's funny. I should, you're right.

I worked a long and hard day yesterday, falling right back in love with physical labor. Soaked head to toe as I'd been the day before and ready for another day of the same, I left the plant with a co-worker in search of our head foreman, Brandon, who would have our timeslips which we were required to drop in a box on the way out.

As MB and I walked, we talked about the pitfalls and the glory of the work we were doing. Since he'd been out there for the past few years, I believed it when he said that we had the hardest job among all the jobs at shut-down; the dryer. This beast of a machine stands more than six stories tall, shaped like a giant box and similar to a prison cell block in appearance on the outside. The work we did yesterday was to climb up and down the walls of a 65 foot deep hole, tethered to a safety device and vacuuming out hundreds of 40 foot long tunnels within the heart of the machine. It was hot and humid inside, and the work itself was no piece of cake but it felt good. Every two hours getting your second wind and climbing back down, clinging to the sides like Spiderman.

We passed folks on the night shift and nodded, sometimes adding, "Good luck, boys," because we knew they knew what was laying ahead of them for the next twelve hours. By the time we found Brandon, he was standing outside the administration building talking to a group of workers. We saddled up next to him and asked for our timeslips.

"Actually, boys, I'm laying you off."

That hurt, even if it was -- as we hoped -- a joke. It felt personal, like we'd done something to merit that action.

"You're kidding," we each said, trying to turn a prayer into reality.

"No, I'm sorry. If I had it my way, I'd work you all day long and bring you back for more. But they tell me how many to bring in, what to have them do and when to let 'em go. I told them it wouldn't be no week but they didn't listen and now we're already almost done. We got too many people."

"C'mon, Brandon man, you're kidding, right?"

"I'm afraid not. If you go to the office down the hall and to your left, they've got your check. Just turn your stuff in and they'll give it to you."

Still in shock, we dragged our feet and mumbled about the unfairness of it all. I'd enter that work thinking it'd be two weeks of work, gone to orientation and been told it'd be more like a week, and then in the end, found out I had a check worth two days, which falls well short of the money I expected and further still from the dough I needed to escape Middle Georgia.

We gathered our checks and politely bitched to the people taking our shit, then I took MB to the liquor store where we were going to cash them. A couple of the dudes we'd been working with that day came out and told us the owner wasn't cashing checks tonight. In turn, we told two electricians who'd been laid off early too.

On the way to MB's place in the projects of Montezuma (which I was surprised to see existed), we went back and forth with the injustice served us. One thing that fucked with my head was that four guys were fired today because they were faking their work. They'd vacuum a couple holes, skip a few, vacuum. Bossman found out and canned them, justly. Meanwhile, me and MB, Jerome and Walter, a handful of others were busting our ass. In the end, we were all as fired as the kids who did wrong.

"Well, I'll see you at Smiley's this weekend if you're there because I'll be selling my shit to make ends," I told him.

When he got out, he introduced me to his kid -- one that came running out to meet 'Daddy'. He said, "At least I get to take my kids to the fair now."

"Yeah, y'all have fun down there. You be good to your daddy, little lady."

"Hey Chris, see you at Smiley's," he laughed and I called out through the window I'd cut him a deal on some steel toe boots.

Three hundred bucks in my pocket didn't feel good and still doesn't. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I have it because it far exceeds what I'd have otherwise. Thing is, I have to hustle for more if I'm getting out here. And dammit, this job was going to be good training for me. I was getting up at 5am and busting tail all day. I'd dropped five pounds in two days. My muscles were waking up and I was meeting every challenge. It became more than just money.

Fuck it, right? Two teardrops in a bucket and all that. So I have backup plans. One is prostitution. If there are some lonely, wealthy women in your acquaintance or you, yourself, are one, then I'm for hire.. cheap, too. You'll get what you pay for.

Keep your boots laced if you want to keep pace.

And I'm out.