[254] Screed City

[254]

06/10/2023 Saturday. Kitchen Microwave. Queens Palace. Brooklyn/Queens, New York.

This is an emergency newsletter. I wasn't going to screed until maybe sometime next week, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Remember when I said the polls had closed on the Best Published Writer in Vermont and I lost in a landslide? I was wrong. I was wrong! There is still time to take me over the top! If we believe in ourselves and try our hardest, all of dreams can come true! We got tonight and tomorrow. The early boob gets the worm, as Nick Marden would say.

[Insert Voting Link]

https://ballot.sevendaysvt.com/culture/best-published-author?fbclid=IwAR3Ow-Cunvjak9npq8QwU_3NQmZemd0nrNRB21_WikJ0qMhTjQH4EcODQT0_aem_th_AQc_etzit1O2o-I5KOfXSmwjWWcyivAtDaDsurDxUk59teZZgVPd11gXsq2L8ivjFSM&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

But since I'm here, why not do a little screeding to clean the pipes? Agreed. I don't know what I did to deserve this, but my god. I mean, I know exactly what I did to deserve this, but it still sucks anyway, or does it? The reading on Tuesday went fabulous. Standing only crowd. I was hilarious. Peri was hilarious. Stu Spasm was hilarious. Puma Perl was extra hilarious. Everyone had a great time. But here is where my karma got knocked sideways. I had a signup sheet for Screed City as I am wont to do. You know, right your electronic mail, take the ride. But usually I get maybe one, or two people, plus about three people who are too drunk to write straight, but this time I was smart, or pragmatic I guess would be the word. Instead of being passive about the signup sheet, you know, giving people the option to signup, having the list languish in some obvious corner of the bar, like any decent human being in the modern age would do, I read second, so I had plenty of time to harass people about it, so what did I do, you ask? I made sure that thing passed through every single persons hands that was there. Like literally. And because humans do human stuff, people signed up. Lots of them. And all the sheet said was SCREED CITY email: I mean, I am not saying that everyone that signed up was ignorant of what they were signing up for, but as I watched the papers cruise around the room like some sort of signup sheet for after school activities, there were quite a few confused looks.

Now, maybe that is not a crime in today's modern society to be ruthlessly self-promoting, but in my society, the one I have to live in every day, by myself, that is frowned upon. Without sincerity, my world kind of falls apart. It has been a defense mechanism since at least high school. How I can tell if someone is a good person or a bad person is by how they treat me the first time they meet me. Which sounds over-simplified and obvious, I am sure. But for most people, I have noticed, meeting each other is something innocuous and respectful. For me, however, I couldn't count how many times I have heard second hand accounts of somebody that turned out to be a total dick say about me, "Is there something wrong with him?" And sure, maybe there is something wrong with me. But if you are somebody that immediately dismisses another human being because they seem off the first time you meet them, that says way more about you than it does about me. That means you are probably quite self absorbed and probably most likely think the status quo in this world is just fine with you. And please don't change it because that would make me uncomfortable and who cares about millions of people that are suffering, as long as I am doing alright, that is good enough for me.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am sensitive. In general. But personally, and anecdotally, I have never been wrong. Not once. If you are a dick to me the first time we meet, you will be proven later to be a dick in general. And if you are a dick in general, you can suck it. The world doesn't need more fuckers.

Which brings us to the mailing list. The cardinal rule. Don't go anywhere you aren't invited. And that is exactly what I did. I invited myself into a bunch of people's houses, and now I am in their kitchen looking in the fridge and wondering what's good to eat. And because I did this, the Universe gave me a great big fuck you. Or not. I mean, depending on your perspective, the Universe might have done me a favor, but from where I am standing right now, how I feel, and what I have been through since that fateful night, I mean, I don't know. But then again, as a Buddhist, I may have found enlightenment, but as a human, suffering blows.

On Thursday afternoon I received a text from a person who shall remain anonymous, who is a very good person, a great person, in fact. Someone who is not a dick. Someone that has shown me love since the very first time we met. Many, many years ago. Let's call them O. So O texted me about a job on Friday and could I come fix some floor boards. The job seemed simple and was near my apartment so I asked for pictures and said probably. They sent some pictures and everything seemed good and they are a close friend, so it didn't matter what the terms were because I could come and do the job real quick and it would be a way to make some money. Me and Professor Curly were at Ikea at the moment getting some wooden spoons and meatballs. Chicken fingers and rugs. File holders.

The next day I get up. Not really thinking. I went to Junior Mint and got my tape measure, my gloves and my Future Abes and walked to the job site, 25 minutes away. It was a nice morning. The smoke had cleared, I mean, for those of you not in the Metropolitan Area, NYC got fucked with Canada smoke. Like crazy. It was scary for a while and for about four hours on Wednesday it was Lower East Side 9/11 all over again. The smell at least. Visually it was entirely different, but that smell, I mean, PTSD. But by yesterday the smoke had cleared and I was able to walk around outside without a mask, although I probably should have still worn one, it didn't smell bad, but the light was wrong. And it was the early days of Covid all over again, you walk out of the apartment without a mask, and get halfway to where you are going before remembering, and then what? You go back? Fuck that, but maybe? Nah, fuck it. Or?

I got to the job site and the second worker aside from O had managed to hit his hand with a hammer so badly that he couldn't use it. I showed up at 9a. They had been there since 8:30a. So in that 30 minutes apparently some chaos had ensued.

Now, in the normal world, when work needs to come to a halt, work comes to a halt. In the construction world, when someone that is pivotal to the work that needs to get done, instead of coming to a halt, everyone goes into panic mode. Mostly because capitalism is a stupid way to do things and efficiency is more important than personal safety. You know? So when the migrant worker cuts off his arm while cleaning the clogged push mower, instead of giving him a tourniquet, you have him use his exposed veins as a weed whacker until the ambulance shows up. And since I was the ambulance that showed up and time was money and the rental sanders needed to be returned by Saturday or O was going to take a cost hit, my easy simple job of replacing some floorboards became me becoming the injured worker and the worker that I was supposed to be, and a third, mysterious can you maybe work on this job with me for the next two months otherwise I am FUCKED.

I mean, I am good in a crisis. I lack sense. Panic doesn't register. My day was free and I needed money. Need money. Work? Not so much, but money, yes. And, oh boy, did I not know what I was getting myself into. O was used to telling people what to do and them having them do it. But because there was a missing piece, they had to become a middle-manager as well. And because time suddenly became a different thing, where O would have to do the injured workers work, but also manage the job and manage me, it became a hair on fire enterprise.

This needed to happen before this could happen and when that happened this needed to happen so this could happen. Three floors of a brownstone needed to be sanded. Three three bedroom apartments, basically, with hardwood floors, needed to be sanded. And O couldn't operate the edge sander. Which, I was certain I could do, but I didn't want to. I had just spent three days in wood fire smog and the idea of getting behind a dust machine seemed intolerable. But what can you do? I mean, every time, every single time something like this comes up the stupid Beatles song, Live and Let Die gets stuck in my head. What does it matter to you, when you have a job to do, you have to do it well, you have to give the other fellas hellllllll. So on top of it all, I had a god damned ear worm bouncing around my Styrofoam cooler box.

I mean, I won't go into details because work is very hard to explain. But instead of me calmly fixing floorboards, I was trying to fix floor boards ASAP. And by fixing nearly a century old floor boards in a Brooklyn apartment you have to remember that a century of time had happened since those things were installed the first time. And it is a slow and methodical job. One that does not need to be rushed by panics. And, I mean, the right tools for the job? They were not there. I said I didn't have tools, but no tools were needed. But tools were needed. But it didn't matter. There was no time to get tools. And when you are doing a job with the wrong tools, but there is a time constraint, you use what you got. And luckily I was able to zone out and take things as they were, otherwise I would have just done what I normally do and give up first, then the solution will present itself. There were no solutions. I was using a circular saw to do fine carpentry. A cordless one to boot. And the replacement planks had to come from the third floor where they were planning on replacing the old hardwood floors with new hardwood floors. So getting the new planks was strategic. And the saw was broken and couldn't be adjusted. So I had to use all 2.5 inches of the blade at all times. And up and down the stairs I went. Cutting just barely to the edge of the next plank, just enough to get the thing loose without destroying the next one. Then chipping away with the chisel. Wearing a dust mask, my glasses fogging. Running up the stairs to cut a new one loose, making sure I had enough space between the wooden beams that I could maintain the integrity of the next boards without destroying them. And then, right in the middle of it all, using a door that was removed as a thing to kneel on while I cut old planks to replace other old rotten planks, in between the beams, I started cutting and midway through I saw sparks. I was so close to hell that I saw sparks. Which is a sign outside of Reno, because there is a town called Sparks. Nearby. So Reno is so close to hell that you can see Sparks.

Anyway, I am living in a different universe now. Or in a universe where I hit the gas pipe and blew myself up, the house included, or, there was just no gas going through the pipe and I got very, very lucky. I mean, what happens when you cut through a gas pipe? There were sparks. I saw them. Maybe I didn't blow up, but I had a blow-torch shoot a never ending gas flame, full blast, until what? The whole place burns down? I mean, what do you do? I would have been surely singed. Probably burned a little. But that flame would not have stopped. I mean, I would have had to back up, make sure I was still alive, try to understand what was happening and then what? Run down and scream fire? I didn't know where the cut off valve was. It's not like a water spigot where I just plug the hole and scream for help, or maybe? I don't know? Maybe that is exactly what you do? Stop the fire with a plank of wood and then just deal with the gas? I mean, who knows. I don't know. But in my decades of working like this, never once have I come into a situation where I was cutting through a hardwood floor with a janky circular saw and cut through a gas pipe. It just never came up.

But luckily there was no gas. At first I thought it was just a conduit for old electical work. The pipe was black. Which was odd. But so what? And there was other bendy conduit for electrical stuff. Underneath. And all of it was confusing. I bent down to the pipe hole that I had made and had a good smell. It smelled like oil. Which meant gas. I stood up and went into the kitchen, praying the burner on the stove would turn on. Nothing. I took my lighter from my back pocket and tried to light the thing. Nothing. No noise. No gas. But it was the gas pipe to the stove, it just happened to be turned off. It just happened to be turned off. Let me reiterate that, it just happened to be turned off.

And who knows? This may be the next Universe. In the other one I am dead and the house is in ashes. The simple couple hours of work I was supposed to do with a friend putting and end to me. You always end with a friend, is how they teach you how to spell friend in Wyoming, FYI. Fucking idiots. Anyway, either way, since this is the same Universe that you have always lived in, it doesn't make a difference to you, but to me, Hello! I am Joe, I am a Scorpio and I like the color yellow and tacos and I have been going through a mid-life crisis for over a year now that makes me do things like take jobs I wouldn't normally take because I am trying to figure some shit out, and it turns out life is wild and I don't know what to do about anything.

After the gas pipe was cut and I figured out that nobody, mostly me, was not in any danger, I went downstairs and brought O up to check it out. Their response was a little funny. They said they had a plumber to do stuff like that. Sorry for the scare. The scare? The scare! My life! Mounds and mounds of sawdust! Old, dry wood! A flame-thrower that surely would have burned the place down! I mean, different people panic differently, apparently, but this was not just a scare. But so what? What does it matter to you, when you have a job to do?

Anyway, I worked and worked and worked all day. And as a nice topping to the sundae of insane work, running up and down stairs, covered in dust, using the wrong tools to do delicate work, and somehow succeeding, I mean, this is kind of the point of all of it, had I not had all the information I had amassed in the last 25 years, what I did or was doing would have been a total shit-show. I think I would have just walked away the second O went somewhere else and then just ignored texts for the next, I don't know, forever. But I strangely enjoyed it. Or I didn't hate it. It was so absurd that I couldn't wrap my mind around it. I was a dishwasher all over again. My shift was my shift, the money was crap, but what needed to happen, needed to happen. Except instead of being unskilled. I felt like Scott for the first time ever. Overqualified and surrounded by boobs. I mean, I don't mean to call O a boob, and I don't mean that at all, it's just that I have seen him do things I would never do, and I don't understand where he is coming from with it, but I really didn't mind, it was brutal. Truly brutal. And to top it all off, to put the real capper on the thing, the ice cream on the cake, or whatever the bridesmaids say, the very last thing we did that day was me getting down on my knees with the sanding edger, which, if you know anything about work or anything, there is no easy way to run that thing. It is just an unruly dust machine that you can't control, like holding a feral pig as it shits all over you and shoots cancer dust into your nose. It's too heavy to use on your knees, but to unwieldy to use with your back. Bent over. You kind of have to stand on your knee and crouch at the same time. And, I mean, the very last chunk of edge I was sanding, the crotch on my pants split wide open.

And there I was, the whole operation fucking me up. The end of the day. My body more sore than it had been in years and years, my naked dick and balls getting blasted with cancer dust. It felt nice, but so what? I couldn't believe it. I gathered my things and walked back home. I took a shower and did some writing. And then today, I did it all again. And I will do it again on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and on Thursday I will go work somewhere else. And Friday, and then again Monday. And I don't know, I am not entirely convinced it is because I added a bunch of people to this mailing list against their will, but maybe the Universe is telling me something. I mean, I am a good boy, I swear, I don't mean to cause harm, but that is the kind of thing that I think can fuck a guy up. Be careful out there. And remember to vote!

[Insert Voting Thing Reminder]

https://ballot.sevendaysvt.com/culture/best-published-author?fbclid=IwAR3Ow-Cunvjak9npq8QwU_3NQmZemd0nrNRB21_WikJ0qMhTjQH4EcODQT0_aem_th_AQc_etzit1O2o-I5KOfXSmwjWWcyivAtDaDsurDxUk59teZZgVPd11gXsq2L8ivjFSM&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

And as a nice thing I will do for you, to get the ear worm out of your head, because this is the only way, When you have a job to do, you have to do it well. Here is the Beatles Live and Let Die. You're welcome! Wings.

[Insert Live and Let Die]