Day two

Chuck

On my first day at the shop they put me next to a guy they called Chuck. He was an older man, his full head of hair a mixture of grey and white. He smelled like a downtown bar. Piss and alcohol, but he seemed happy. "So where you from?" he asked. "All around I replied". I was tightening screws and twisting wires on some sort of device that looked like a plug. He was injecting some tubes with some mg0. Magnesium oxide, white powdery stuff that looked like cocaine. After a brief, but awkward pause I asked "So how long have you worked here". He glanced up and said "Well... about..." Before he could finish the shop manager, Dom, came from behind us and yelled "What the FUCK Chuck!". At this Chuck replied "DOMMM!" and continued as though nothing had happened "ten years I'd say". "What was that all about?" I asked as a continued tightening the wires. Right wire for positive, left for negative I repeated in my head. "Well Dom has something against me, I don't really want to talk about it". Chuck looked me straight in the eye, his breath slapped my face hard. He smelled as if he had just downed a bottle of hard whiskey. After a few minutes Dom came back and yelled again "What the FUCK Chuck!" and again Chuck replied "DOMMM!" This continued two more times and I finally got the courage to ask Dom, who happened to be the shop manager, why he hated Chuck so much. "He's lazy and stupid and always comes in drunk." Dom said pointing at Chuck. "How many whores did you sleep with last night Chuck?" Dom laughed, but his face turned serious... "Don't be late again you idiot" And just as quickly he left screaming his battle cry "What the FUCK Chuck!" to which Chuck screamed back "DOMMM!" "Whores?" I asked. Chuck looked down "Well they aren't exactly whores, I just find them alone on the railroad tracks and I give them a place to sleep and they take care of me." I was surprised Chuck answered with honesty, the man had left his dignity behind him. James, who sat across from us who I didn't notice because he was so quiet, said "Chuck, you forgot to mention that they steal your stuff and take your food" Chuck muttered "They don't always take my shit, and besides I'm moving at the end of the month" He looked at me with a grin "My daughter turns 18 and I don't have to pay child support anymore, I'll have a enough money to get into a better place" "You have a daughter?" I asked. "Yeah I got two kids, my ex has them. My son's already 20 and my daughter turns 18 next month. They live in Pennsylvania. Dom walked up from behind, almost as if he were running the rounds at a hospital... a perpetual cuckoo clock. "Pennnnnnsilvania Pennnnsilvania! What the FUCK Chuck!" Instead of his usual retort, Chuck said something different. "Hey man! Don't talk about Pennsylvania that way... I'm from Pittsburgh and the Steelers are King!". Dom just repeated "Pitttsburg! Pitttsburg! What the FUCK Chuck!". And finally Chuck conceded and yelled "DOMMM!". "Does this happen every day?" I shoot a glance at James who seems oblivious to the chaos. "Yep" was his reply. Later at lunch I found out that Chuck comes to work everyday drunk. That he and Dom absolutely hate each other, but the big boss Bill has a soft spot for Chuck and can't let him go. Chuck can't drive anymore because he got a huge Dui. He said "I had a car once, but it got wrecked". What he forgot to mention was that he was piss ass drunk and slammed his 76' Chevy nova into a Mexican convenience store. There's irony in that. No va means "No go" in Spanish. James took me aside and said "Chuck's a good guy, he's got heart, but he's an alcoholic. You know he was in the Navy at one time and he built a Harley from the ground up, he ain't stupid, the whiskey makes him stupid". I was thinking "Thank god this fucker isn't violent". The rest of the day went by, Dom and Chuck bantered back and forth and I learned to ignore the sound, they were just background noise. And that was the end of day one.

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