[271] Screed City

[271]

12/02/2023 Saturday. Kitchenette Microwave. Holiday Inn Express. Room 209. Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Deep South. Supposedly. I mean, everyone has an accent and there is a church on every corner, so maybe? We are working with a guy named, Goob and a guy named Bone Broth, so double maybe? I only question it because it is freezing as hell every morning and it's been raining like crazy. Then again, the work site is basically unregulated, everyone keeps calling it the 'Wild West' and 'Business Friendly' which means friendly for business owners and complete garbage for employees. Overtime? Nah. Age you can work full-time? 14. Not a single trash can on site and some asshole clogged the urinal in one of the honey buckets with his chewing tobacco so there is a gallon of piss waiting for you when you get inside.

We are basically miners here. Show up when it is dark. The job site is dark. We have to use headlamps all day. Black dust surrounds the site. Loud heavy machinery forcing us to wear ear muffs at all times. I nearly lost an arm today. Because I did something stupid. I rested my elbow on the hand rail of the scissors lift and nearly got the thing crushed between the hand rail and the loft steel. Luckily I squealed loud enough for Scott to hear me over the din and the ear muffs he was wearing. I won't lie, I was in quite a foul mood afterwards. 10 hour days all week and then come in on Saturday just to get your arm lopped off for a few hundred bucks. Totally worth it.

[Insert Job Site Photo]

Our crew is quite good. We are over hire. Working on a different project than the local crew, but they are helping us when we need it. Goob is their boss. He wears fantastic jeans. Seems to only speak in yelling. Younger, like 30's. I think his upper teeth are falsies. But screwed in falsies. My future. Ugh. They look good though. He is under paid, I think. Sadly. From what I have garnered. He is very experienced and I think the company is taking advantage of him. He has a side-kick named Herc, maybe short for Hercules? A Mexican from Texas, he tells me. Has braces, 18 years old, from what I have garnered. He keeps sleeping in. He keeps getting threatened with having to move into Goob's hotel room because of it. Kids. He's cute. Wears cowboy boot work boots. The other two guys are union. Mark and Bone Broth. They seem knowledgeable. Oddly, the work site isn't racist. Not like that Albany work site two years ago. I wonder what Sally is up to? That uncouth rascal.

The job is going well. We are making progress. They are paying us decently. We negotiated a fair price. It's all work. Every day, just work. But in a good way. On the road 12 days, bring home a decent pay check that is worth it. We flew into Atlanta last Sunday. Rented a car. Drove north to Chattanooga, two hours. Here we sit, broken hearted. Came to...you know the rest.

They have biscuits and gravy in the breakfast nook. Really testing my resolve. I mean, if I could only eat biscuits and gravy and saltines with cheddar cheese I would be happy about it. I would be 300 lbs, but I would be happy about it. That's how the Pandemic took me down, you know. Not the biscuits and gravy, although I did try to figure out how to make them, luckily I failed, but the saltines and cheddar. I don't know why, they just hit the spot. Age is awesome. Nothing like tantric blandness to inspire you to strive to live another 30 years. ALTHOUGH, when all my teeth fall out, one thing I think I will be able to eat will be biscuits and gravy and saltine crackers and cheddar cheese. Very interesting. Things are looking up!

We have the day off tomorrow. We can't get into the site. Sunday. Laundry day. Laundry day and OSHA 30 day. I mean, there is a museum of cast iron pans in town that would be interesting to go to, but if I don't finish this dumb thing I won't be able to do this other job that is very good money in Brooklyn. I am stressed out enough about it that I had a dream last night that I got an electronic mail saying that I missed my opportunity, that somebody else did the job. Pretty dumb dream, but because I left the rolling shade up a couple of inches from the window sill, when I woke up from the dream it looked like it was daylight outside. Daylight! I was two hours late for work! Why isn't Scott banging on my door?! Whatever, it was 1:32a and I had been asleep for four hours already. Hotels are brutal. You never get used to them. Your trash just piling up. Microwaved burritos. A slow erosion. Out the window, the Burger King sign like a full moon rising. The glistening parking lot. A steady stream of cars going through the McDonald's drive through. The room itself, hot and dry or cold and dry. A mirror at every angle exposing your insecurities. I need a haircut, new boots and a vampire's stylist. You know, because they can't see themselves in a mirror?

[Insert Photo of Parking Lot]

I was telling Scott earlier in the scissors lift today, maybe an hour after nearly chopping my arm off, well, at least crushing my elbow, that the ending to Frankenstein [Italics] is pretty funny. Anyone else remember that book? It ends with Dr. Frankenstein running away from the monster he created. Like that was all. The monster was pissed and he was going to get him eventually. No matter where he went, he was going to get him. I don't know what made me thing of that today, but I did. I mean, it must be some sort of metaphor or something, right? Aside from just the obvious one, where you need to be careful what you create because you may become haunted by it. I mean, the story is supposed to be scary or something, right? But it's not. The ending is comedy. Your ass is grass, Dr. Frankenstein, you better watch out! The monster is just pissed off. Pissed off because the doctor is lazy. Brought him into this world and didn't give him a companion, so he chases him around the globe? I mean, I feel like the monster could have maybe done something else, right? He had agency. Aside from being unattractive, he kind of was a super-human, right? He was just so horny for a lover that looked like him he chased this wimpy, scared loser all the way up to the North Pole?

I mean, Frankenstein's Monster was feeling randy. He was going all around the woods trying to find something to fuck. He fucked this hole, that hole, any kind of hole he could find. One day he came to a cabin in the woods. There was a knot-hole on the door. Perfect size for Frankenstein's Monster's corn dog. He started humping the hole. A few moments later there was a knock on the door. Frankenstein's Monster pulls his corn dog out of the knot hole. He opens the door, 'Hello? Can I help you? Can't you see I am busy here?' An old man was standing there. He was red-faced and shy. A modest and meek man. He looked down at the slats on the porch, embarrassed, he paused for a second, finally got the courage to say what he wanted to say, 'Um, sir, my wife and I just sat down to dinner, if it's not too much trouble, do you mind coming in and fucking outwards?'

RIP Shane McGowan, we spent that one beautiful, gin-soaked night together at the Magician on the Lower East Side with Rambona. I must have rode the train for hours, back and forth, passed-out on the seats, I woke up at dawn in the Bronx, the back of my phone missing, so confused and hungover that I almost gave up and went to sleep in the gutter because it would have been easier than getting home. I mean, your beard was soft and your fame was fun. Take care. May the next world be less difficult than this one.

[Insert Dirty Old Town]