when it all happened i looked forward to a day like today. i thought that i would look back with all that twenty twenty bullshit and make sense of it all but it still makes me angry. it hurts the way anger hurts. physically, like holding back vomit and it burns like you just held back your vomit. so i tried not to think about it. i put it away hopeing that, eventualy, a day like today would roll around. when i can remember everything. not just the bullshit that pissed me off that day but every bad thing that ever happened to me all throughout reincarnation. lets not fool ourselves though by calling it clerity.
this happened a few years ago when i was standing on the last broken legs of my marriage watching its sand spill into the bottom cylindar and just giving up. i was jaded from fighting with her all the time. never too far from a glass of beer. or a line for that matter. we both did it. we wanted to stay awake but for two different reasons. i worked two jobs.... and she just couldnt stand the idea wakeing up next to me.
i would stare up at mars during the graveyard shift, feeling nothing. wondering nothing. just spent. mars was very bright in the sky that summer. it looked like an air plane slowly descending on you but never quite getting close enough for you to get out of the way. alot of us at work would blankly stare at that planet. we were too exhausted to say shit about it. that year ,it was said, mars orbit would bring it closer to the earth than it had been in like... a long fuckin time or something. it was talked about alot in the news. with that bland insincere concern that news anchors dishout when they talk about the world.
"if you get a chance this evening, folks, you should go outside and take a look into the southern sky. you might be wondering what that bright ass light is up ther but dont be alarmed. an airplane isnt landing on your fuckin house. its just mars."
mars is the god of war.
it was the top story in a slow news cycle. there were still things going on in the world, california in particular, that were still relevant but that shit got old. it was stale and nobody cared any more. mars gave us something to think about besides iraq. besides a bleeding economy. and in california they were damn tired of wasteing any more air time on the dead beats sitting in front of vons holding picket signs. earlier that year there was a labor dispute in californias grocery markets and it made big headlines because it was suposed to have hit close to home. every body goes to the grocerie market right? we all knew thies people and now the man was putting the squeeze on them because he needed a new limo or something right? those poor people. for shame mister man.
i remember how hard every body tried to give a half ass effort to care. all of a suden the martini wife was down with the revolution. she could join THIS fight. thies were people she could identify with. it wasnt a bunch of unsightly darkies refuseing to haul her trash. thies people were clean shaven. alot of them had blue eyes and smiled at her drunk ass when she came in to buy jugs of vodka and olives. i dont want to call the initial support of the labor dispute racialy motivated. thats too simple. it had to do more with the class and station of the people involved. people cared because something needed to be done and it was much more inviteing to speak your mind to a news crew in front of the market than it is to be down for the cause standing in front of a dumpster. we now had the convenience that the american public demanded of its revolutions.
i tried to care too but i didnt. i wanted to. i wanted to belive that something was being done about the problems in our society. i wanted to believe in the good fight. that it was being fought on behalf of those that could not fight it. everybody did. it was disgusting. the whole community gatherd around to see what the rukus was. like they do when a fuckin house is burning down.
i over heard, from time to time, conversations that people were haveing about the picketters. the part of me that tried to care would turn my ear in their direction and soak up their opinions and stances on the subject. what was unusual to me was how many people felt guilty "crossing the picket line". that guilt was labors only real leverage against management in this fight.
originaly they wanted management to unerstand that what the workers did when they clocked in was more than just a job. it was the glue of the community. a humble service that was an esential component to americas life blood. so they sold themselves in the media like they were your neighbors or cousins or like they delivered fuckin babys or something. they were banking on the community rallying around them and telling the corperations that they will not let their neighbors be picked on. and untill they stop their opression of the working man thay will do their shopping else where. they wanted to hit the CEO's in their pocket books.
but that didnt work because of the simple fact that not enough people realy gave a shit. so they changed their tactics. they started to play the guilt card. i dont blame them. yeah its desperate but guilt is a very powerful weapon. i once guilt tripped an ex-girlfriend into anal sex after she disapeared one weekend on a cocaine binge.
she hates me now but as a means to an end .......... guilt works.
first it was subtle. they began giveing customers dirty looks and yelling out traitor at the people walking into the store. thats what they yelled at sam when she went down to get diapers for our son. thats when i began to care. she stormed into the house with the diapers screaming about some mother fucker in front of vons talking shit to her. she was frustrated and almost in tears when she told me what happened. she doesnt watch the news so she had absolutley no idea what the fuck was going on. all she knew was that some asshole just got in her face and started yelling at her.
i fallowed the story in the papers on the bus to work. they interviewd people on both sides. some rich mother fuckin lawyer for the big companies and some rich ass union chief for labor takeing shots at eachother in the press. at first i sided with the labor because after working hollidays in retail for 5 years you begin to understand what they mean when they talk about a hall mark conspiracy. i felt obligated to stick up for the workers. i just couldnt get into the image of themselves that they tried to shovel on us. when i would go to the grocerie store i didnt see some unapreciated yet vital part of the community. i saw that bitch who rolled her eyes when she rang us up and asked the people behind us,"why do people bring coupons when they they pay with food stamps?"
after that cocksucker yelled at my wife they be became the enemy.
i began to make an effort to get down to the grocerie store more often. we stoped going to Mc donalds. i would go to the store and by ground beef and buns. then i would come back again fifteen minutes later smileing at the protesters outside.
"i forgot to get cheese and pickles." then stopping, reaching my hand in my pocket, and ploping a quarter into some fools coffe on the way out, "there you go. thanks for not touching the car man."
same thing with the liquor store.
the funny thing is, nobody ever said anything to me. i got a couple of dirty looks but people werent getting in my face like they did to sam. some fat cunt gave me a dirty look but she turned away when i mad dogged her back.
and that was it!
it seemed like it made sence.
it wasnt a fight. it was an event. like when they make you dress up like a christmass tree in 4th grade. nobody realy wanted to be there. ther union made them go. that fat bitch looked away because she didnt believe in what she was doing. most people dont believe in shit to begin with. much less a placebic labor movement. ther wasnt conviction behind their dirty stares. i want to call it mob rule but it was much more docile than that. it was more like a contagious yawn. it was a joke. a free pass for them to sit around in front of their store with their coworkers and talk shit to people. they hid in the crowd with a bully mentality that it was you that was trespassing. so i fuckin trespassed and every time i went to the store i made it a point to single one of THEM out and give THEM dirty looks until THEY turned away. and they always turned away. a snow ball of cowards.
so a few weeks go by and im still going to the vons as much as possible: batteries, tampons, vodka, lottery, cigarettes, my lunch break at the deli, and im even going inside the store to by an LA fuckin times. all this along with all our regular grocerie shopping. one day some one finaly says something to me.
"excuse me sir. we are currently locked out from returning to our jobs and would apreciate it if you would do your grocerie shopping else where this evening."
i paused for a moment... "you know... if you people would have carried yourselves with some dignity to begin with i might give a shit about what you all are going through. but you didnt. you yelled at my wife when she came to get diapers for our son. i dont fuckin feel sorry for you."
"im sorry sir that some of our union brothers have stepped out of line and insulted you but you have to understand the frustration and durress we are all ......."
"man fuck you! dont give me that bad apple bullllsshhhit! and dont give me that 'times is hard' shit either. i am the sole provider in my family and it doesnt look like its going to be a family much longer the way me and my wife are going at it. we have enough stress at home trying not to destroy each other in front our son and the one thing that we are able to co operate on is provideing for our son but we cant even do that because you stupid bitches think the reast of the world should stop what its doing and help you. and like i said, if you guys would have carried yourselves with some dignity i would give a fuck. but i dont. and do you want to know why exactly? because i work harder than you, i make less than you and i pay 5 times more in insurance than you. most of all if you guys win, you get to go back to a good job with good pay and good benifits. if you guys loose, you get to go back to a good job with good pay and good benifits. this isnt 1914, we arent in ludlow colorado, and you mother fuckers arent coal miners. now you think about that shit when you go back to work. when you have to look all those people in the eyes that you talked shit to. you think about it then because in a few years people will forget and you wont have to kiss our asses anymore to get us to come back and shop here. we wont remember anymore and you can go back to treating us like shit when we bring our foodstamps and our WIC vouchers."
i looked over and saw the girl that made that comment to us. she looked away. so i walked up to her.
"do you realy want to know why people bring coupons in with their food stamps? .....because theyre fuckin hungry."
yeah i remember that year. i worked two jobs. i never had money and i never slept. the problems of the middle class were an insult through the eyes of the working poor and to this day it takes a significant effort not to spit in the face of the few people who remember that lockout and sympithize with those chicken shit bastards. i look for a moral or a metaphore in all that shit but its just not there.
j
