SKIP TOWN – Part 1

There was something repellent about the man shouting at me. You could hear it in his voice. Even before turning to look at him, I knew there would be trouble between us. He had a mean round face, squinty eyes, and a permanent snarl for a mouth. He was also short and pot-bellied, and only his new boots had touched any mud. It was obvious his little pink hands hadn’t held a shovel in many years, if ever. I looked over at Moose, standing nearby, and he made a slight head tilt in the direction of the man approaching and mouthed the word “Union”. Moose and I had been digging a trench on the north side of the construction pit and it was already a hot day before noon. Planting my shovel in the dirt, I wiped the sweat off my face and waited for the barking man to get close.

       “Hey, you,” He said, in a tone that confirmed my initial assessment, “What’s your name?” He carried a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. He had trouble keeping his balance as he slipped up the small incline to where Moose and I stood.

       “What?” I asked.

       “What’s your name?” He asked angrily.

       “My name is Hank,” I said, very slowly. 

       Glancing down at his clipboard, he said, “There’s no Hank on the list.” He raised his voice and repeated, “you’re not on the list!” He looked at me expecting an answer. 

       I shrugged my shoulders, shook my head, bit the corner of my mouth, and said, even slower,

       “I don’t know why.”

       “What’s your social security number?”, he demanded.

       “Geez,” I said, “I don’t know it by heart. It’s too long.”

       “Where’s the card? You got a wallet, don’t you?”

       “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s in my wallet.”

       “Well, let’s see it,” he demanded, getting puffy and red in the face.

       “Oh, I never bring it to work. Look how muddy I get.” 

       The rep looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel and I was thinking that the best feeling in the world at this moment would be to put him out of his misery by whacking him upside the head with my shovel. But the smart move was to continue to play dumb. He was beginning to stammer and I could tell that the interrogation was quickly coming to a close.

        “I’m checking on you,” he said, turning to leave, slipping in the mud again. “Goddammit. You better have your ID with you next time I see you.” And he stormed away.

       I glanced over at Moose, who smiled at me with what appeared to be newfound respect. We started digging again and then we both started laughing.

       “I didn’t know you could be so dumb, Hank,” Moose said.

       “Neither did I.”

       “You be careful. Those are not nice people.”

       “Yeah, that was close.”

       “You wanna grab a beer after work?”

       “Absolutely.”

       I’d been on the job a few weeks and things had been going smoothly. I liked the hard work, it was honest sweat. I was saving nearly fifty bucks out of every paycheck, and already I had a couple hundred tucked under the mattress. It seemed like my fortunes had turned for the better, and I felt a certain contentment. Life was simple and uncomplicated. From the first day, they put me with Moose and told me to follow what he did. Moose was called Moose because he was just that, big as a moose. We liked each other and soon became a team. I’d almost forgotten that I wasn’t in the union. Nobody until today had asked me about it. It was a little unnerving to be reminded that there was somebody up there counting heads. I had put off the little bully with my dumb guy act. But for how long? 

       After work, Moose and I washed up and hosed the dirt off our boots, then headed over to a dusty little tavern that was close by. It was becoming our Friday night tradition to share a pitcher of beer. It was Moose’s turn to buy. We entered through the front door, passing by a dimly lit neon Budweiser sign glowing red in the window, cutting through pink shafts of fading sunlight angling into the room. The bartender turned and nodded to us. He had a worn, but hopeful look on his face. It was just five o’clock, and we were his first customers it seemed. I went to the back room and put a quarter down on the pool table’s edge, and then sat down on one of the tall chairs braced against the wall and lit a cigarette. It felt good to get off my feet.

       Moose entered carrying a large pitcher of beer and two glasses. He set them down on the small table connecting our chairs and poured the beer. We raised our glasses and drank. Moose emptied his in one long tilt, then poured himself another. He smiled big and satisfied, and I smiled back, impressed.

       “You ready to get your ass whooped?” I asked, standing up and walking over to the coin slot. I fit a quarter into the slide and pushed it in, releasing the balls from underneath the table. They tumbled out into the tray and I racked them up. Once the table was ready, I sat back down next to Moose and took a hit off my cigarette and beer. I offered to let Moose take the first shot, but he waved me off. So, I chalked up my cue stick, set the cue ball just right, and slammed it into the rack with a loud crack, sending the balls every which way across the table. A couple of the balls were sunk on that first shot, so it stayed my turn, and I proceeded to run almost the entire rack. I had warned Moose that I had some talent in this sport, having grown up with a professional-sized pool table in our basement. I was a crack shot by the time I was twelve years old. The smaller quarter tables in most taverns were child’s play for me. It was almost embarrassing how little Moose got a chance to play. I’d sink several balls and then Moose would make a crappy shot and sit back down, then I’d run several more. But Moose never got flustered, I think he liked staying close to the beer.

       We were in the middle of our third or fourth game when one of the Mexican laborers, Jose, from work walked in. We smiled and waved a friendly hello. He sat down on the other side of the room, and then, a minute later, he got up and placed a quarter on the edge of the table. He was challenging the next winner, and that was me, of course. Moose had yet to win a game. 

       After I won the game with Moose, Jose got up and put his quarter in the slider, and racked the balls. It was my break, and my first shot was killer, sinking three balls. I ran nearly the whole table before Jose got a shot. He missed, and I cleaned the rest of the table. Jose smiled at me and then left the room. A few moments later he returned with a friend, who held up a quarter, and I gestured for him to go ahead.  He inserted his coin and racked a new game, and I proceeded once again to dominate the table. Jose and his buddy conferred softly in Spanish, and then Jose left the room again. Moments later, he returned, but this time with two more friends. The new guys smiled at me and put their quarters on the table. As before, I dispatched them both, effortlessly. This continued a couple more times until there were eight Mexicans sitting on the other side of the room, and they weren’t smiling anymore. 

        Then the chatter in the room ceased, and all eyes turned toward the entrance. Two serious-looking hombres entered the room. They stepped to either side of the doorway, like sentries at a guard post. And then a man appeared between them dressed all in white: white suit, white shirt, white boots, and a white cape draped over his shoulders. Everything about him radiated power. Taking an unhurried step into the room, he calmly acknowledged the faces staring at him. Then, he turned to me. Holding my eyes in a hard stare, he snapped his fingers and one guard came up behind him and removed his cape. The other guard handed him his pool cue. A third man racked the table. Not a word had been spoken. Never having seen a vision like this, I was temporarily transfixed. The room was completely hushed. Then the man in white gestured for me to go ahead and start the game.

       Oblivious to the darkening mood in the room, I lined up the break shot and slammed the cue ball into the rack. It was a devastating break, spreading all fifteen balls across the table, sinking two of them. I didn’t suppress my cocky grin. Scanning the table, I locked in several consecutive shots. Without hesitation, I sank ball after ball with dangerous confidence. When I finally did miss a shot, there were only four balls left on the table, which included the eight ball. The man in white stepped to the table and considered his shot. I sat down next to Moose and took a sip of my beer. The man in white took his first shot and he sank the ball. The mood in the room instantly lifted into smiles of approval. The man in white was clearly at a higher skill level than his minions, but he moved and held his cue like an amateur. He managed to sink one of the remaining balls, an easy shot, but he didn’t leave the cue ball in a favorable position, and he missed his next shot.

        I started to get up from my chair to finish the game, but Moose stopped me and grumbled under his breath, “Hank, not for nothing, but maybe you should consider losing this game.” He tilted his head toward the other side of the room, where ten plus unhappy faces stared at me. Like a kick in the teeth, Moose’s warning made me suddenly very aware this was no game to win. 

        Stepping to the table, chalking up my cue, I took time analyzing the shot. It wasn’t difficult, but I had to make it seem like it was. The room knew I was a good shooter, and any intentional miss would be even more insulting. A tipping point was at hand and I had to play the next moment with perfect precision. The second to last ball was an easy lay-up, so I had to sink it. But I purposely overplayed the cue ball and it rolled farther away from the pocket than necessary. Then, taking aim, I gently tapped the cue ball and it slowly rolled across the distance, connecting with the eight ball just right. Just when it looked like it was going to fall into the pocket, it brushed against the cushion and stopped. The last shot, the winning shot, was impossible to miss, and the man in white didn’t. Moose and I walked out of the tavern alive and unharmed. 

       Once outside, Moose said, smiling,

       “I didn’t know you could be so dumb, Hank.”

       “Neither did I.”

       “You wanna do it again next week?”

       “Absolutely.”  

       The following week things got dicey. The repellant little union man returned. It had been a handful of weeks since our first encounter and I frankly had forgotten about him. But there was the same snarly voice shouting, “Hey you!” I turned and saw him stomping in our direction, looking even more agitated than the time before. When he got up close, he loudly demanded to see my I.D. And all I could think to do was to play dumb again. He pointed a threatening finger at me and shouted above the noise of the construction site, “I’m tracking you down! Today!” He turned quickly to leave, but his boots had sunk into the mud and he fell to his knees. “Goddammit!” he shouted, picked himself up, and stormed off.

       Moose and I didn’t share a laugh this time. When I looked over at him, his face held real concern. I tried to shrug it off with a pasted smile, but we both knew serious trouble had arrived. We continued our work in silence. It was Wednesday, and nothing happened the rest of that day. Then Thursday came and went. But halfway through Friday, just before lunchtime, I heard Moose say, “Hank, you better make yourself scarce, and quick. He’s back.” I looked over at the wooden stairs that led down to the floor of the construction pit, and sure enough, he was coming. I didn’t want to lose the job, but I didn’t want to be bullied either. Not knowing what to do, I dropped my shovel and hustled away in the direction of the far side of the pit, where I could climb the opposite stairs and disappear. But halfway across the distance, the repellant man’s screaming voice caught up with me. It was too late, he marched straight at me. I stopped in my tracks, in the dead center of the construction site, and waited. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I could feel anger beginning to boil up inside of me. 

       He got up close, bellowing profanities, letting loose a torrent of insults and threats. He knew how to deal with people like me. And just to make himself clear, he stepped even closer and stabbed his finger into my chest, screaming, 

       “You understand?” 

       And that was his mistake. I whacked his arm away from my chest, hitting it hard. He stumbled backward with a look of shock. I stepped toward him and yelled back,

       “Who the hell are you to deprive me of a job? I work hard for every dollar I make. Who are you to demand a cut of my pay?” 

       It was obvious he wasn’t accustomed to pushback. He took a small step in my direction like he was going to strike me, but I would’ve welcomed that and he knew it. Instead, he backed up.

       “That’s it, you’re done!” He stammered and turned tail, furious.

       I rejoined Moose and picked up my shovel and started digging alongside him again. But we both knew it wouldn’t be for long. Sure enough, a short time later, a man shouted down to me from above,

       “Hank, the foreman wants to see you. Now.”

       I acknowledged the summons, and then looked over at Moose. He was angry and shoveled hard. Not looking at me, he said,

       “Dammit Hank, I didn’t know you could be so dumb.”

       “Neither did I.”

       “You take it easy.”

       “Absolutely.” 

       The trailer door to the foreman’s office was open and I stepped inside. Corky looked up from his desk and a huge smile spread across his face. He leaned back in his chair and laughed as he said,

       “Damn, Hank, I don’t know what you said, but I’ve never seen that little prick so mad. He burst in here fuming and spitting curses, hopping up and down, demanding I fire you. I can’t remember when I enjoyed witnessing something so satisfying.”

       I looked at Corky, surprised and relieved. I had expected to get my ass chewed. Instead, I was joining Corky with a big smile of my own. But, then, he continued.

       “We like you here, Hank. You’re a good worker and you learn fast. There’s been talk about training you to become a crane operator. That pays sixteen an hour. But in the meantime, that little son of a bitch has threatened to close down the entire site if you don’t immediately join the union. Today. Otherwise, you have to be gone. Today. There’s nothing I can do. I’m hoping you’ll stay.”

       I looked at Corky and I could see he was sincere and I felt deeply appreciative. He was offering me a good opportunity. But I didn’t like being pushed around. I didn’t like being forced. And the thought of being lorded over by that disgusting union man made my stomach turn. So, I thanked Corky but told him I couldn’t do it. He stood up and as we shook hands, he said,

“One last thing, Hank. If you’re not going to join the union, you probably should skip town in a hurry. Those boys don’t mind making an example out of people like you.” Hanging my hard hat on a hook by the door, I thanked Corky one last time and walked out of the trailer.