A brief collection of writings that blends 11 pieces of short fiction and 13 works of non-fiction. This volume is essentially a continuation of Writings Near the End of the Human Era, which addresses themes sufficiently dystopian to get us to pay attention to some of the possible futures of our species.
Excerpt:
“I’m a machine,” says the spot-welder. “I’m caged,” says the bank teller, and echoes the hotel clerk. “I’m a mule,” says the steelworker. “A monkey can do what I do,” says the receptionist. “I’m less than a farm implement,” says the migrant worker. “I’m an object,” says the high-fashion model. Blue collar and white call upon the identical phrase: “I’m a robot.” Studs Terkel, Working.
Think back to the mid-70s. Or, if you weren't there, just imagine.
In the nation: We heard "I'm not a crook." We contracted a new economic disease—stagflation, calibrated according to the Misery Index. We watched Saigon Fall and Americans flee. The South finally got its Lombardi Trophy but we had to accept Miami. George Wallace was still running for president.
In town, we got three TV channels and occasional radio reception of WGN otherwise country music. We had a history but didn't know it too well. Some of it was well dead, buried and forgotten. Blacks and whites were pretty much living side by side in separate worlds. The federal courts made us integrate. That's why the high school was 60:40 black to white. Lots of whites started up a private school—an academy, they called it. Exclusive. Just like the country club. Churches were as segregated as they ever were. We had one doctor—a crotchety old man whether you were black or white, but if you were black you had a separate waiting room in the back. That was the 70s. High school football—just about the only local entertainment—brought blacks and whites as close as they ever got. Didn't mind a black stud running back but the quarterback had to be white. An unspoken rule. The legacy of the 19th century plantations was still alive. The town had two millionaires. Both were plantation owners—peanuts. They were the employers, but the State came in a close third.
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Already at 15, he was unloading the weekly grocery truck every Tuesday morning at 6:00, cold and dark in the winter. After school and Saturdays he bagged groceries and worked his way up to stocking shelves and running a register. Sunday was the Lord's day, and most working folk duly appreciated the Lord, particularly when they heard that in the city work went on seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.
After a couple of months working full time during his first summer, he got to learn what the world of work was all about. At first, it was exciting to learn new stuff that wasn't taught in school. And the money ... that was worlds better than an 'A' on a test. But over time the same thing, day after day; each week looking like the last and expected to be the same as the next. It didn't take much imagination to get the feeling that that life would be mighty dull ... and downright depressing. In the mind's eye, it seemed like a long, long tunnel, pitch black ahead, and no way but forward. It reminded him of the lead-in to that old TV series, Get Smart, where the guy walks through corridor after corridor, turning this way and that, time and again, as the powerful steel doors automatically clang shut behind him sending a reverberating echo ahead down the corridor as his guide.
In the summer and during the holidays, running the cash register for the lunch crowd that rushed in every day around noon—everybody in a hurry to check out before the food got cold and before the lunch break was over. He got to be so good and so fast that customers lined up to go through his checkout. It was a challenge to get everyone rung up, cashed out and sent on the way to their half-hour (or hour if they were lucky) lunch. For about two hours each day around noon, there he was mechanically punching prices into the machine, collecting the money, making change, bagging the sandwiches, coleslaw, French fries, Salisbury steak, mash potatoes, pecan pie, and so on saying "Good day" or something of the sort to a parade of faces that rarely uttered more than "Here's a ten" or "Can you break a fifty?" or "Don't need a bag" and usually "Thanks." Elapsed time: less than 30 seconds per customer. If he took longer, he got those looks from the other cashiers. The 'lifers' were the most disagreeable, but after he'd been broken in he sort of understood why. Having a young kid pick up the job you've been doing for a decade or more wouldn't make you feel too special about yourself and your work.
He often overheard what they said about him—they weren't exactly whispering.
"Kid thinks he's special cause he makes as much an hour as we do."
"He's always trying to show us up, but you just wait'll he's been doin it for awhile longer—he'll slow down, stop trying to impress the bosses."
"His folks'll be packing him off to college soon I expect, and that'll be the last of this kinda work for him."
"Yep, but we'll get another one just like him."
"Dunno, I've got a college degree and I've been here two years now. It's the times."
"Well, I don't think it's right his taking our hours from us. We got families. He's just savin. I ain't never been in a position to do that."
After high school, I Ieft. Never went back other than to visit my parents. Once they passed, I never returned. I had friends but most of them were gone as well. News came back to the eager townsfolk about the ones who'd escaped or set out to make a mark ... in the military (that was the most accessible ladder), in computers (very common), or in customer service (also common) or as an accountant, an engineer, a veterinarian, a real estate broker and so forth. There's always a little envy, but outwardly you were proud if you could talk about someone who'd made it 'out there,' as if some of what made them special reflected on you, too—"I knew so and so and ...." There likely was no shortage of embellishment in the telling and retelling of their successes. A paralegal, for instance, wouldn't necessarily object to being introduced as a lawyer. That sort of thing.
Anything less than success, well, that made the rounds, too, but there was a bitterness to those stories, as if those who'd stayed behind had been let down.
What they didn't understand was that making it on the outside wasn't a whole lot different. Work is work, and most of us do it because we have to and because we don't know what else to do. Sure, there are more different kinds of work and there are opportunities you won't find in a small town. But getting and keeping a job is more than just being good at something. For white collar work, you have to sell it. I mean you have to be as good at selling yourself as being good at something or for something as you are in actually doing something. For all the jobs I've ever worked, you have to respect the hierarchy and 'conform to the norm.' All the while, you may think you've made yourself indispensable, but you really haven't. It's a big world and there are a lot of hungry people. And then, of course, there are the ubiquitous machines. Blue collar knows all about them. White collar is growing aware.
As much as people complain about work, most don't seem to realize how much of their identity is wrapped up in saying, for example, "I'm an engineer at BMW in Spartanburg" or "I'm a tax accountant with H&R Block" or "I'm a professor at Valdosta State." Funny thing about being without a job. When it happens, all that status vanishes. And regardless whether you could boast about your title or your employer, suddenly you feel lost and alone. If you're out of work too long, you become 'untouchable.' And if that isn't enough, you lose your routine. You're not gonna appreciate how incredibly substantial a routine is until you don't have one. Unemployed, you miss the human contact—even the silly, stupid conversations about the weather, sports, elections, and so forth. You miss having somebody asking your advice or looking to you to do your job so they can do theirs. You miss that panicked rush to meet a crazy order or deadline. You're outside looking in, disconnected from the great machine that once managed your thoughts, efforts, goals, emotions. Basically, your sense of being deflates like a party balloon.
I hated work, but then when I didn't have it, I hated not working. It's like you're a redundant piece of equipment—obsolete, maybe even malfunctioning—ready for the scrap heap. And that paycheck—no matter how measly—is a validation of your work, but more than that—a validation of your existence.
Now, how are you gonna explain that to the folks 'back home?' In their eyes, you're a failure. You remind them that they, too, are trapped. You were a hope, a source of vicarious liberation from everything small about a small town. Now, however much some may enjoy periods of schadenfreude at your expense, there's something about your failure that sticks to them when they imagine themselves 'out there.'
Now that I'm two years from 'retirement,' I don't want it. Can't afford to be a pensioner anyway. I was meant to be what I am—a machine. Even if it means picking up gig jobs here and there. I don't know any other way. The money is one thing. Fitting in, being part of something larger than myself is something else. I used to think I was pretty confident and independent minded. But then, as they say, "Life happens."
During my grocery store days, I was too young and inexperienced to understand where the 'lifers' were coming from. It was probably better that way. I don't want my grandkids to know what I didn't know ... not until they're strong enough to take it on.
