Shifts

by Christian Petersen

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Monday

Warren drives forklift.

Afternoons this week. And he's just come out the ass end of a bad shift. The mill yard is treacherous in winter, rutted and patched with ice. First he got stuck. That put him behind. Then going too fast he lost a load of 2x10s, and spent twenty minutes swearing, sweating, and stacking those planks back on the forks by hand. He's worked here twelve years, been driving for five, this is the second load he's ever dumped. That don't stop the foreman's voice squawking over the radio.

Now though, it's 1:01 am. He's got his lunchkit under his arm, and is headed for his pickup.

In the yellow lit parking lot he hears the echo of his name. It's Rick. With a bottle. Ordinarily Warren would wave it off, or maybe have one belt standing beside Rick's Camaro. But tonight, tonight Warren will take him up on it. Sitting in the dark car they kill a mickey of rye, chase it with Coke.

Mothy wet flakes fly in the headlights, streak the windshield on his way home.

Home is a trailer, with an addition which Warren built on. The glow of the porch lamp beckons him from the highway. Stomps his boots in the snow on the path, tries to knock off some of the mud frozen to the sole's black grip. They feel leaden. His balance is slack from the rye.

He steps inside quiet as he can, so as not to wake his wife or the girls. The dog gives a low growl.

"Hush up Joy," he whispers.

Recognizing his voice the shelty runs over, lifts its front paws against Warren's leg. He flicks on the light. Sits down heavily on the bench. The porch is cluttered with boots and coats and puppy toys, laundry is heaped on the washer. For a moment he leans back, rests his head against the wall.

The shelty paws at his legs. Warren scratches her neck. Then pushes her away as he bends over to untie his boots. The laces are frozen. The dog tries to help. "Go on," he shoves her away.

He's got his leg up, tugging off his right boot. The dog jabs her nose in his crotch. Warren swings his left foot, spins her into the corner. Throws his boot. The heel nails the shelty on her ear. She slumps, and shivers on the floor.

"Hey Joy?..." he whispers, "Joy?...Damn it."

Warren lifts her up, carries her out and lays her gently in the box of his pickup. Snowflakes light on her tawny hair. He stands there with his hands on the tailgate for a moment, in his left boot, his sock foot held up as though injured.

Then he hobbles back inside, to bed.

At breakfast Cheryl says to him, "Joy's not here hon, she's missing."

Warren is barely awake, but thinks hard, and feigns some puzzlement. "You sure?...She must've slipped out last night when I came in. She'll show up, probably."

It has snowed five inches overnight, so that the dog is covered over lying in the pickup. Days go by. It snows more. Warren keeps meaning to go by the dump and get rid of Joy, or throw her out in the ditch. But after while it just slips his mind. She's now invisible.

Months go by, then a chinook brings a sudden melt. That day at coffee break Dave says, "Warren, that is one dead dog you got in the back of your truck."

The story comes out. That evening, when the road is empty, Warren stops and flings what's left of Joy into the brush. A ratty, shrivelled rind of a dog.

Tuesday

Gene rotates.

The reason he never works one station for long is simple, and the foremen know it well: nobody likes Gene.

Unfortunately he's got fourteen years IWA seniority. The production crews, the foremen and supervisors, even the office staff keep waiting and hoping, but so far no one has found a valid excuse to fire the guy. So we all get to share working with him.

Think of the person who irritates you most, multiply their bad qualities by five, this = Gene, approximately.

Why? Here are some reasons: he baths about once a month, lives in a cabin out on a dirtpath ranch and his well went dry so he has to haul water from town, but who cares, fact is he smells -- he's a skinflint, always tries to get things for free or wrangle an extra dollar, like raising his wiener pigs last year, selling them to guys at the mill, until it got around that he'd fed them fast food trash, bits of Big Macs, cherry pies, wrappers and cigarette butts -- his nostrils are enormous, he wears bottle-thick glasses that shrink his eyes, so he actually looks a lot like his pigs -- he constantly chews sunflower seeds, spews them all over, often there is a shell stuck to his chin with saliva -- plus a person gets the feeling that Gene is always horny, in strange ways, from his nervousness, and part of his smell -- and he talks and talks about himself, his "ranch", the sex he never gets, his unlimited schemes to make an extra dollar. I know, I know, we all have faults. But instead of trying to hide his faults, like the rest of us, Gene advertises his, waves them in our faces.

Gene sells eggs. I wouldn't buy his eggs. But some guys do. He tells them to return the cartons, of course. But eventually the carton supply dwindles. Gene starts whining about this. There's a planerman, whose name is Jasbindur, and one day he tells Gene he's got a whole stack of egg cartons at home.

"Great," says Gene, "give them to me."

"You pay ten cents each," says Jas, with a wink in my direction.

"No way," says Gene. Still, for weeks, he keeps pestering Jas about these cartons.

"You pay ten cents."

"No fuckin' way." But finally Gene really needs those cartons, to sell eggs, and he tells Jas he'll pay five cents each.

"Sorry," says Jas, smiling, "all recycled." Gene was pissed off, I tell you.

Gene likes to read those newspapers concerning three-headed children and so on. He keeps us all up to date. There is a quiet old man named Mike, who is going to retire next year, he's worked here thirty-odd years. One shift Gene is reading his paper out loud at coffee. He's excited that scientists have discovered the antidote to aging. They say people will live and work for a thousand years or more. Old Mike rarely speaks. But this time he can't stop himself. He interrupts Gene. "Don't tell me," he says, "that I am going to have to sit here and listen to you for the next nine hundred years."

Gene loves free things. As a promotional gimmick they were giving away root beer with a fill-up at Husky awhile back. Gene would get his old truck filled, grab his root beer, drive home and siphon most of the gas into a barrel, maybe throw up, and go back for more.

One day Gene wants a felt pen to take home. Who knows why. But he goes down to the press, where Dave works, and he asks Dave to steal a felt pen for him. Here he is, making twenty dollars an hour, and too cheap to buy a felt pen. Anyway, Dave looks at Gene, and suddenly sees an opportunity. He puts a felt pen down on the bench right in front of Gene, and says, "Steal it yourself." Gene almost did. Dave told us later. See, Dave figured if Gene took that pen, he could report it. Stealing is one of the things that gets a guy fired, pronto. Gene must have been tempted by that free pen, but he was a little bit too leery to steal it himself.

Okay, that's enough.

I've got today off. I should be enjoying myself. And here I am at my desk thinking about Gene.

Wednesday

Dave works the press.

After eight years he bid for this job, because he'd figured out it was better than most in the mill. No dust, he stays dry, and he can listen to the radio.

He also gets a helper, to lay out the nylon sling covers, help staple them on, and to stack blocks. Sometimes the helper is me.

Dave's biggest problem, or the one he talks most about, is that his kid wants to be a goalie. Part of this problem is the cost. After buying skates, pads, a mask, a blocker and a stick there will be little change left from two grand. But the crucial heart of the problem is that Dave doesn't want his kid to play goal. He can't see him as a goalie. He sees him as a centre, or at least a winger -- the kid can skate.

Years ago Dave played two seasons for the New Westminster Bruins. Several of his teammates were drafted to the NHL. Dave wasn't. He came home to Williams Lake and got a job in the sawmill.

Now his kid is twelve. There is a song, a former hit which still plays regularly on Cariboo Radio, and it goes: "My boy's gonna play in the Big League!" Dave always turns that song up. Cody, his boy, loves hockey too, as long as he can play goal. He shows no interest in any other position. This is a real dilemma for Dave.

Otherwise he is doing alright. He's still married. They've got a nice house over in Russet Bluff Estates. His wife works at the Royal Bank. Her mother lives with them, which is great. Granny Kate takes care of the kids while Dave and Susan are at work. What's more, she's a hockey fan.

On Saturday evenings Cody and Granny and Dave take their supper down to the family room to watch the game. Dave is a diehard Canuck fan, though they have never won the cup. Once upon a time Granny had quite a crush on Rocket Richard, and she has supported the Habs ever since. She also loves the Grecian Formula commercials. Cody holds no allegiance to any one team, but all goalies. He bucks the current trend and favours low scoring games.

Like most of us, Dave does not like his job at the sawmill. He often says he hates it. He hurls that word out. Especially when the bander screws up and Dave gets about ten loads behind.

So, one shift, he simply quits. Doesn't make a fuss, or tell anybody, just grabs his lunchkit and walks out to the parking lot.

His helper comes into the press room after piling a rackful of blocks out back and wonders where the hell Dave has got to.

Dave gets into his car. He decides to have one cigarette before leaving the hellish mill for the last time. Before the smoke is finished he is worried about his next mortgage payment, plus what Susan and Granny and Cody will think. So he goes back to work.

Meanwhile I have no clue where Dave has gone. Santok, the stacker operator, he's yelling at me, waving his arms. The foreman, and Warren the forklift driver, they're both on the radio wanting to know what the hold up is. But I'm not trained on the press. What am I supposed to do? I frantically shrug my shoulders at Santok, he turns away in disgust.

"Where have you been?!" I ask Dave when he finally shows up. He can see I'm in a panic, but just waves my question off.

Later on things slow down, we are both sitting there, listening to the radio.

Dave tells me how he quit, went out to the parking lot, had that smoke. But came back. He laughs about it, so I do too. It does seem funny.

All of a sudden though, he turns very serious and looks at me, "Don't tell nobody, eh?"

Thursday

Chris is on call.

I got this job by accident, honest. A sawmill is the next to last place I ever imagined myself.

Six months ago, when I moved to Williams Lake, I had a UI claim and the nagging, idiotic notion to write a book. The few application forms I filled out were meant to cover my ass.

Then I feel safe, because of the eternal Recession and the high rate of local unemployment. Couldn't have picked a safer town for my Purpose, I assure myself, now let's write that book. I buy several pens and ten pads of yellow foolscap. However just as I get started, one dark and stormy morning, the telephone rings.

The mill is lit by tubular white fluorescent lights. In the glare, wearing a hardhat, safety glasses and earplugs, I feel weirdly isolated. My thoughts dart about as if in an aquarium. I catch myself laughing, then glance around to check if anyone has seen me. A few times I've caught other men grinning to themselves.

Haven't decided yet if it is against my principles to be working here, in a sawmill. I put off this decision because I'm making eighteen dollars an hour. For now I need the money, or I think I do. Sometimes, to shirk the question, I blame our Culture; doesn't seem that it gives me much encouragement to develop principles. Who cares? Have fun. Right? At the same time, like Jasbindur, I do recycle. I'm concerned about pollution, and clearcuts. I even vote Green. But I don't talk about this at the mill because I could get beat up. Many of the guys are worried about losing their jobs in the near future. They're concerned about their families. It's in their faces, in their expressions when they talk during our breaks. Myself, I can't wait to get out of this job, one way or another. I say nothing.

At first I stack trim-blocks off the chipper conveyor. This is the most recycling-type job in the mill, which makes it easier for me to rationalize. Later I am trained to stack strips, then to stack blocks down at the press. On dayshift my job usually involves stacking wood in some form.

I also work graveyard cleanup, which at first was unmitigated hell, but now doesn't seem so bad. There is a giant chain-conveyor which runs through the middle of the sawmill. Its links are bigger than my boots. In the basement, clanking on and on in the gloom, it is largely concealed by a lot of other machinery. My preferred method of passing eight hours in the mill is to find a great pile of sawdust that has accumulated in by the conveyor, and to spend most of the shift shovelling it away. I'm by myself, hidden, but I can keep an eye on others, such as the foreman, as they walk past in the lighted breezeway. It's noisy in there, but I'm used to that now. And as I shovel in the darkness beside the main conveyor, I think of myself as a Paradise. I imagine that I have umpteen tentacles along my sides and a big sucker mouth. And I'm making good money, safely lodged in the very gut of madness.

When there is nothing left to shovel I have to walk around the mill and look busy, to kill time. Then I think of myself as a Spy. I know many spots where one stick of dynamite could cripple the whole operation. I imagine myself and a trio of long-haired, black clad Earth Firsters scurrying out of the mill just before the blast. Also, on my way to and from the mill, during the last hours I spend there, i often think of myself as an Actor. I imagine Coppola or Lynch in sunglasses, riding an electric hoist, shouting down at me what to do: "No, no, Chris! You gotta look more miserable. You've got four kids, your wife is getting fat. You're stuck in this bloody mill forever. Scowl, man, scowl!"

What do you think? Can you imagine me as a Paradise, or a Spy, or an Actor? Perhaps, given my mumbling about principles, you see me more as a hypocrite. I won't hold that against you. You write your own story, and call me whatever you want.

This notion to write a book, I came down with it years ago. Suffering the first virulent effects of the fever I wrote a story. It was a story about a hunting trip, about my father, and myself. Maybe you've read it? Or some other writer's better version of it. Anyway, I worked at that story. It took about two months to write. What was difficult was not so much the writing as the process of confronting myself, and telling no lies. I cried over that story. Then to my surprise it was published. And in the mail there came a cheque for eighty precious dollars.

I'm not complaining. I want to make that clear.

Tonight I will go into the sawmill, into the gut of madness, I will grin to myself and shovel sawdust for six hours, probably walk around looking busy for two, and I'll be paid a hundred and fifty bucks for it. That's my Living.

For now I need the money. One day soon, I promise you, I will quit.

Friday

Warren drives forklift. Gene rotates. Dave works the press. Chris stacks blocks.

Spring has arrived. The reeds are greening at the end of the lake. The rust-rock bluff above town is studded with blue sage.

In recent weeks the guys have noticed a red fox around the parking lot. Most mornings she sits watchfully at the top of a log pile. They figure it is a female, and that she must have kids in a den nearby.

"I'm gonna trap that fox," says Gene one day at coffee- break.

"Jeezuzchrist," somebody mutters. Dull silence hangs for a moment. Then talk turns to the NHL playoffs. No one believes that Gene means it. Not even he could be that stupid. But he is.

"I set four traps this morning," declares Gene at lunch the next day. This cuts all discussion off. This silence is honed sharp by the crew's disbelief.

Dave rises half out of his chair, and slowly says, "Are you serious?"

"Yeah," says Gene.

"YOU FUCKIN' --" Dave dives across the table at Gene.

Jas and Rick both grab Dave and pull him back. Fighting is another thing that gets you fired, pronto.

Half the guys in the lunchroom are on their feet now. Gene sits still, a bit pale, puzzled. He just doesn't get it.

Outside there comes a terrific roar as Warren wheels up in the big yellow forklift. He opens his door and flings some things out behind him onto the gravel. Then he revs up the machine, slams it into gear. It charges back and forth, grinds the objects into the gravel. Turns out Warren spotted Gene setting the traps. A few minutes afterward he went along behind and collected them.

Warren climbs down out of his forklift, picks up the tangle of jagged steel, and brings it into the lunchroom. He strides over and drops the mess on the table in front of Gene. One of the ruined traps clatters on the floor.

Warren doesn't say a word. just glares, turns around, goes back out and sits inside his forklift. To calm down, and eat his sandwiches in peace.

This is more excitement than I have witnessed on any other lunchbreak. In fact, it is more action than has occurred during all previous breaks over five months strung together. yet five minutes later, if you walked into the lunchroom, you wouldn't guess anything unusual just happened. Sober order has returned. You could easily miss the little heap of twisted traps lying at Gene's feet.

The horn blows. We go back to work.

When I first started here the hours dragged on forever. This will change, I thought, as I get used to the job. It hasn't. If anyone should be used to the job it is old Mike, who has been here since God was a greenhorn, and who is going to retire soon. He carries a pocket watch in his overalls. And I swear, he checks it no less than once every ten minutes. About fifty times a shift.

Dave works the press. I spread nylon cover along each compact sling which rolls out. After the tail-squeeze drops I pull the safety disconnect. Dave and I fit the cover over the lumber. I pick up the specs tag, and staple the backside while Dave staples the front. i lay out blocks on top of the sling. Often I forget to flip up the disconnect, and Dave has to remind me by pointing up at it. Then this sling rolls out to where Warren picks it up with the forklift. A new one rolls out of the press.

Dave is pumped up by what happened at lunch. He seems glad he was ready to punch Gene's face in on behalf of the fox, though he probably knew it wouldn't get that far.

The incident has depressed me. It is disturbing to know someone so far out of touch as Gene. I don't like him. But I almost wish I had the guts, or whatever it might take, to befriend him. He seems desperate to prove himself, to gain acceptance. But the harder he tries, the crazier his efforts, the more distance he puts between himself and others. The thought crosses my mind that one day he may snap, and start shooting people.

What also troubles me, suddenly, is this very realization that I think I understand Gene's motive. How can I, unless somehow I share it? Gene maddens us all with his babble. I'm nearly mute on the job. Yet I rush home and scribble notes, like a Spy, preparing files on my workmates. And if they knew, how I track and then labour to expose their lives, that I support the cut-backs on the allowable timber harvest, that I vote Green for crying out loud, would they be any more tolerant of me than they are of Gene? What am I doing here?

Friday afternoon. Cariboo Radio plays loud. Ex-hits, commercials for local businesses, Standard Broadcast News. The dj hypes up the Weekend. The windows of the press room are plexiglass. Deep scratches are imposed, and red marking paint is splattered against the blue Spring sky outside.

As I pass by him to pick up the next specs tag Dave punches me on the shoulder. It is a firm, well-placed blow which does not hurt, but comes as a surprise.

He yells, "Cheer up! In three hours we're off like a whore's panties."

......................



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