Every Idiot is Somebody’s Son
When my son loses his job as he invariably must, he won’t admit it right away, but I always know. He gets a squirrelly look in his eyes. I’ve no better way to describe it. His eyes get squirrelly. Now, I’ve been told squirrels can be stupidly industrious. I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.
There was a time I piled cracked corn in the corner of the yard at the base of an elm tree to attract wildlife. I liked to keep tabs on the neighboring varmints. There was one squirrel in particular who believed the mound of maize belonged to him alone. He often sat atop the pile with his back against the tree, little Buddha belly pooched out, languidly shuffling the cracked corn into his gob as though he were the duke of squirrel county.
I named the squirrel Jared after my son who sits atop his own pile of cracked corn that I’ve provided. And I named my son Jared because naming him Mordred would have been a little too on the nose.
Right, then, so I stopped by his house which I’m still paying the rent on. I wanted to make sure he hadn’t spilt anymore strawberries and crème Dr. Pepper on the bedroom carpet. He emerged from his bedroom, and I saw the squirrelly look in his eyes. I also noticed he’d developed a pooched belly from eating McDonald’s chicken nuggets all the goddam time, his cracked corn of choice.
“Ah, shit, you lost your fucking job, didn’t you?”
His expression shot straight to shifty. I watched him consider lying to his put-upon father, opting for the truth. Watched him literally shrug like “fuck it, what’s this dumb Polack gonna do about it.”
“Yeah, Dad, they decided I needed to seek employment opportunities elsewhere.”
“What the fuck, man, you gotta show up if you wanna keep your job.”
“I did show up.”
“Then why they fire you?”
“Guess cause I kept fucking up orders.”
“At Little Caesars?”
“Yeah.”
“The pizza joint?”
“It sure ain’t the salad bar.”
“Hey, jackass, don’t start getting smart on me, now. They got two different pizzas! Sausage and pepperoni. That’s it! What happened, somebody requested both sausage and pepperoni and your little Polack brain just gave up?”
“It’s more complicated than that, Dad. And it wasn’t just one thing. I guess they didn’t like my attitude, either.”
“Attitude? What the fuck? You ashing your cigarettes on the pizzas?”
“I guess I just didn’t show up with a smile on my face.”
“Son, the problem is you just don’t apply yourself. Showing up ain’t enough. You gotta put in the work.”
“I know. I know.”
“You don’t think I want to tell my bosses to eat a dick? I work for the dumbest motherfuckers what ever trod the earth. In all of history! But I don’t tell them to eat a dick because I gotta pay your goddam bills. I don’t care about me. I can live under a bridge. You ain’t made for that kinda life, kid. I can beat motherfuckers to death and take their money. Can you?”
“Dad, you couldn’t go without your library.”
“Shit, I’ll carry my favorite thirty-five hundred books on my back. I don’t give a fuck.”
The problem with raising a boy to think for himself, he ends up never thinking the way you want him to think.
I’m often asked by people who don’t know me well, who don’t know Hydra Hydraulics well, and only know my son by his lazy ass reputation why I don’t get him a job where I work.
The simple answer is that I love him. Why would I purposefully introduce him to a place that has abandoned any semblance of reason? A place that is only capable of manufacturing misery. Though, I suppose, the true answer cleaves closer to the absolute fear that he will shame me with his every misbegotten action. I’m painfully aware that he prefers not to invest any critical thinking into the circumstances surrounding him that does not immediately involve getting the power-up and rescuing the princess on his video games.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately given the natural incompetence of the new hires I’ve been called upon to train in the nuances and subtleties of dipping metal cylinders into vats of boiling chrome.
When the boss introduces me to Fernando, my first inclination is to take the kid, slap him to the ground and kick him to death. And not because he’s Guatemalan. I didn’t vote for Trump. I could just look into his eyes and see the utter lack of comprehension. My son gets the same look in his eyes when I implore him to read a book I’m excited about.
Now, the problem with Fernando being Guatemalan is that he’s built like a Guatemalan. Which is to say he stands two inches north of five foot and weighs about two dollars short of a buck, fifty. He dresses like he’s on his way to buy some egg-laying hens at the Mountaintop flea market. His belt buckle which I could have worn as a broach, looked like a goddam dinner plate on his torso.
I look into my boss’s eyes, and I don’t see a whole lot of comprehension there, either. In the chrome shop you’re routinely lifting a hundred pounds of metal, slinging it from rack to table to tank, back to table to buffer to rack. It helps the process if you’re built like a fucking minotaur. Or if you’re a dumb Polack. This kid was neither.
“You sure about this?”
The boss says “Yeah, why? It’s not that physical back here.”
“I can’t tell if you’re fucking with me. Goddammit, man, it’s nothing but physical labor. The only time I use my brain back here is when I hide under the catwalk and write my Polish Hammer columns. Otherwise, it’s all dead lifting. Why you think by the end of a twelve hour shift I’m having to crawl out the door on my hands and knees?”
“I just thought that bottle of Jameson you keep in your locker got on top of you.”
“Man… He better speak English.”
‘I was told he speaks three languages.”
“Is English one of them?”
“I’m not the one who interviewed him.”
Ah fuck, he’s already trying to absolve himself from responsibility. Now is the time to tell him to eat a bag of dicks, but then I think of my son and the fifteen hundred dollars a month I’m still paying on his bills.
“I’ll do my best, boss.”
I look at Fernando. He stands there. I hate the way he’s smiling at me. With his mouth half open. It smacks of retardation. At least when my son smiles, it’s just a sardonic twist of the lips. Just like mine.
I have become the elder statesman here at Hydra. You get old enough, everyone becomes like a son to you and you’re constantly having to parcel out good advice like “never fall in love with a stripper” or “never loan money to a man who drives a squatted truck.”
“All right, Fernando. Are you ready to learn everything you’ll ever need to know about chrome and the seduction of wayward women?”
He open mouth smiles, nods his head.
“You understand what I’m saying?”
He open mouth smiles, nods his head.
“Goddam, what do you think about engaging in some meaningful conversation with me?”
He open mouth smiles, nods his head.
“So, what do you think about this horseshit life? This world? You think it’s worth the effort?”
He open mouth smiles, nods his head.
We are standing next to the grinder/polisher, trying to smooth out the finish on a component that was absolutely manhandled during a previous operation. Austin is doing most of the work. Fernando and I spectate. Austin takes a grease pencil and makes two hashmarks thirteen inches apart where the most significant damage is located.
I point out the hashmarks to Fernando and tell him “Austin says that’s how long his cock is.”
He open mouth smiles, says “there’s no fucking way.”
“Goddam, he broke his Guatemalan kayfabe just to deny any chance you got a big dick!”
Austin shakes his head. “This entire set-up was for a dick joke?”
“Yep.”
“What about your son?”
“That idiot’s got an interview with Arby’s, Thursday.”
“Christ, he can’t get a pepperoni pizza right, but he’s gonna be knocking together roast beefs and Reubens?”
“He will for at least a month, anyway.”
Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama. He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids. He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER is a weekly column, posted each Tuesday morning.
