Darkness and lonliness mate to beget thoughts of death...

It's a cold, dark and ugly evening in February 1996. Enkei America Manufacturing Plant, Walesboro, Indiana

I'm at work tonight. A Tuesday perhaps. The days all run together here. Every day begins at noon. I have time to eat, watch some pointless television, perhaps a few cycles of Sportcenter which rattles off the NBA and NHL scores and highlights ad nauseum. Baseball season is a long time hence. But with the abrupt end of my high school playing career last spring still burning in my stomach, I don't even care much about it for the first time in my life. In fact, I kind of dread it. The New York Knicks, once a source of annual pleasure and joy for me with their springtime jaunts deep into the playoffs, suck.

I have to be at work at 3 p.m. each afternoon. It's a 20-minute drive from home to work. So I leave by 2:30, start getting ready by two. That's two hours for me and I have nothing to do, nothing to look forward to. I still live with my parents and they're never home when I'm awake. They're glad I'm working at this factory every day because it keeps me away from my derelict friends. I don't see them much anymore. Most of them have gone to college or the military. Those who are still around don't do much but party and take drugs. I'm on probation so I don't get involved - well, not very often.

Workdays here are long, hard and excruciatingly boring. I work in the rework department where I operate a sandblast machine. It's a 6' by 4' by 3' box made of steel that has been worn ragged by the toxic sand I use to blast the paint off of the front of steel-aluminum automobile wheels. They're the nice, strong shiny ones you'll see on a Lexus, Honda or a Toyota all over the place. The wheels weigh between 20 and 45 pounds and I lift them with my hands, load them into this cabinet. I then peer through a cloudy piece of plexiglass with my hands in hard rubber gloves screwed onto holes at the face of the cabinet. I press my foot down on a pedal that allows air to forcefully shoot sand out of a small cement nozzle attached to a hard rubber hose in my right glove. The smell of the sand and paint in the air is thick and the clouds of stuff constantly end up in my eyes, hair, mouth and nose. After 20 minutes of this, I'm covered with a film on my clothes and skin. I always wear a baseball hat, blue jeans, a T-shirt and steel toed boots. I'm always filthy here and I don't really care anymore.

I've been working in this plant for nearly a year. I began in June, right after graduating from high school and completing a week's worth of community service, wacking weeds and mowing grass in a large city park. I got the job from a temporary service, thinking I'd only need it for a few months until I could start college or get something better... or something.

I started out on first shift, which was actually ok. I was off work by 3:30 each day, just in time to meet my friends in the park for basketball or a party someplace. I could spend time with my girlfriend, a high school senior and a beauty. We'd spend evenings in her bedroom with the stereo playing low. We'd talk and laugh for hours, our embraces seemed to be unbreakable. Her parents didn't mind if I stayed all night. It was summertime then, I was gone for work before they were out of bed.

But I don't see her much anymore. By the time I'm off work now, she's in bed on a school night.

In the fall I was switched to second shift by the rework shop supervisor, a fast-talking, hard drinking redneck named Laverne. He said it was only temporary until he hired another worker to take second shift. But they didn't hire a new worker but they moved someone from another department with more seniority than I had to work on my machine on first shift. So the move is permanent, I guess. I don't see Laverne much anymore, he's ready to hit the road as soon as the day shift ends.

"It's Miller Time for me!" he always says as he jumps into his giant baby blue Oldsmobile land yacht and barrells onto the interstate. He's bound for his little piece of land where he purportedly kicks back a case of Miller Lite every evening. Perhaps one and a half on weekends.

I'm afraid my girlfriend will leave me soon. We don't have the same relationship we once did. With two free evenings a week, I must divide my time between her and what friends I do have left. I have dreams of becoming a prefessional rapper or "M.C." and we have to practice. We freestyle and discuss our plans for getting a demo tape together. Sometimes we take long car rides through the country roads, just rapping, laughing and smoking trees. It's a great time. It's cold and dangerous out there but it's fun. It makes me feel like I'm alive again. Not like I feel right now. I know I shouldn't smoke. I'm on probation until April. But I know when my drug tests are going to happen weeks in advance. And I don't smoke all that often. I'm cool. I guess. My girlfriend doesn't think so. She thinks I'll get busted soon and my parents will kick me out, I'll go to jail, lose my job and blah, blah, blah...

She doesn't complain all that often though. Not to me at least. She doesn't want to mess up the one night a week that we do get together, I think. Maybe by next fall or winter I can enroll in a few classes at IU and get grades good enough to get accepted to the Journalism school. If I got into IU maybe she and I could be together in Bloomington. I could rap at some parties, get my songs on the radio there. I'll meet other rappers and join a crew, get some gigs. It could be the start of something big for me. Maybe.

Right now I have to get back to work. Lunchtime is over. They give us 30 minutes to eat around 8 p.m. I'm so far out in the sticks at this crummy ass factory that I don't have time to drive to get anything halfway decent for dinner. I bring something from home sometimes but I mostly eat the junk in those machines down in the cafeteria. I'm 19 so I'm not gaining weight from these frozen cheeseburgers and hot pockets. My work is hot and intense. I remain in good shape. So this lifestyle isn't killing me. I just wish it was.

Oh, it's a long, slow walk back to the rework department from the cafeteria. I'm alone of course, somebody is running the machine while I'm away. He's probably blasting more wheels in 30 minutes then I will in two hours. But I don't care. The work gets monotonous. I can't keep up a steady pace all night. It's just not possible.

I'm walking through the factory slowly. Everywhere I see middle-aged men at work next to bubbling culdrons so hot they could burn your skin from a foot away if you weren't wearing the proper garb. Fire and brimstone indeed. There's black smoke and giant mechanical arms making hideously loud robitic noises. These giant wheels get melted and molded and slammed down on conveyor belts on their way to laser machines that cut them down to precision. Then they're polished, painted, inspected and if they're not up to company standards, they either get thrown back into the melting hole or brought by forklift to my department for touch-ups or refacing (sandblasting).

Nobody speaks English here - at least not the way I was taught to. Their's is a primative dialect, common to this region in southern Indiana. I've been around it long enough to understand it clearly. But I don't speak it andthat makes me an outsider. These guys don't trust me completely. Perhaps I'm an object of real scorn or and resentment. I can't really tell. I don't care what rednecks think of me. They're interesting though, different. Raw. I just watch them, listen to them and laugh to myself.

"Boolsheeit, I ain't doin' none a them wheels over thar, I don't give a shit whut they tell me to do. I aint' doin' em!"

"Boy you may think yer mean but you aint gonna do nuthin' but blow yer bag out tryin' to move that barrell around. Git up on the forktruck at & try it."

"Take 'er easy! Hell, I'll take 'er any way I can get 'er!"

"Yep, atswhutwerdun, Bub."

"What was you doin? What was you even thinkin? You didn't see or hear nothin? That's a load a crap! Hail, I heard it & I was clear over yawnder!"

"Ay! Yoo bear take at dat trash, Bobo! I tell Lenny, you aint never take at da trash & ever naht I gotta take et at. I tell em & he say tale yooo! Yooo take at dat trash! Yooo hear me, Bubba?"

Umm... right. Ok, dude. Whatever.

Is this any way to live? Who are these people and how long have they been in this place? Five years, 11 years, 16 years... They'll be here until they retire. That's their goal. Not me. I want out of here.

But what can I do with no work exerience, fresh out of high school? At least I'm making decent money. Every week I take home about 256 bones. That's pretty damn good money. I have nice clothes a nice stereo in my car. I can take my girlfiend out to nice restaurants. I can afford all the trees and rap CDs I want. It would be perfect if I had the time to enjoy this stuff.

But I don't and as I walk through this maze of suffocating heat, filthy uneducated men and greasy twisted metal I'm arrested by this horrible thought: I don't want to be here anymore. And when I say here, I mean the whole world. I've ruined my life already at age 19. I'm the man my mother warned me I'd become. A real loser, a bum. And I wish I was dead.

But there's no danger of me jumping into that giant black pot of liquid aluminum over there. I'm afraid of death. Dad said suicide is the most cowardly and evil act a man could perform because you only make everyone around you pay for your own mistakes. Mom said hell awaits those who cop out to their fear and lack of faith. Maybe they're both right. I'll have to suffer here for a few more months. Maybe I'll get put back on first shift by the summer. I could fix things with my girlfriend then. Start playing softball some nights. Laverne promised me I'd get back on days eventually. But he hasn't mentioned it for a long time. He probably got drunk and forgot but I'll remind him. Maybe.

...

Tonight things are tense back in the rework department. There was nearly a fight and I, naturally was right in the middle of it all.

There are four people on second shift in rework and we're isolated from the rest of the plant in our own warehouse-type building that holds two sandblast machines and several small work benches with buffing tools and hammers and other little gadgets nobody ever uses. On the small sandblast machine tonight there's myself and Max Lacey working in tandem, loading and blasting.

Max is 40, blonde, powerfully-built, fast-talking and generally good natured. He sports prison tattoos and often tells tales of his seven year bid at Pendleton State Pen for burglary. But if you don't mind a constant diatribe of filthy jokes, he's actually quite funny.

"The other night," Max once said to me. "My old lady was givin' me some head and I looked down and said, 'Whadontcha suck on these balls, babe?'. So she went down there, lifted 'em up and I let out a big 'ol loud ass wet fart! Hahaha! I'm tellin' ya it was nasty, boy! Hahaha!"

"Did she keep sucking you off?" I asked, astonished.

"Hale naw! She was madder'n hell. Hahaha! She said, 'You sick motherfucker, Max! Ah hate yew!' Hahahaaaa!"

"So you didn't get your nut."

"Nope. But I got my jollies though! HAhahahahahaahahaaahaha!!!"

On the larger sandblast machine, the one that ran by itself with six wheels on an automatic carousel is Willie Cocherane, a tall, jive-speaking African-American in his mid-sixties. Willie is as cool as the other side of the pillow with his gold chain, gold watch and spotless red, white and blue Enkei uniform. 6-foot-3 and about 195 pounds, the light skinned, long limmed former street player from St. Louis drives a Lincoln Contiental. He walks and talks like a pimp in a blaxploitation flick.

"Bill, I bet you had some great broads when you were in your hayday," I once said, patronizing the old goat.

"Oh, yeah, Slick. I had more hoes than Superfly!"

"You ever play any basketball?"

"Well shitchyes. I's the best you ever seen."

Willie is actually the reason for my move to second shift. His long absence due to a hernia opened a hole on the night shift and Laverne made me fill it until Willie came back. Well, Willie's back now but Laverne hasn't put me back on days yet. Maybe he likes the production he gets out of Max and I working together at night. Slowing down won't help matters either. The workloads aren't dropping any and loafing could get me fired.

Then there's was Dennis Little, a short, hunched-over old white guy from Columbus. I don't know what his actual job is supposed to be. Maybe he's assigned to the gadgets that nobody ever uses. He's the defacto shift leader, not due to any seniority or rank he has on any of us. But because he has managed for years to keep his lips constantly attached to Laverne's ass. Dennis rarely speaks to the rest of us, but nothing ever happens in this shop at night without finding its way to Laverne's ears from Dennis' ratty little mouth. Tomorrow, Dennis and Laverne are sure to have one hell of a chat because before I went to lunch all hell about broke loose.

An hour ago I was sitting on my stool in front of my machine blasting away as I was supposed to, the other three members of my shift standing around behind me talking and laughing. Suddenly the laughing got loud enough that I could hear it over the deafening sandblasting and I heard Max yell at me.

"Hey! Hey! Bub! Hahahaa!"

Max reached down behind me and patted me hard on the ass, I felt a flash of heat and smelled smoke coming from my back pocket. Willie had stuck the end of a roll of toilet paper in there and unrolled it about ten feet before tearing the long strip off and lighting it on fire. The flame burned it's way up to my rear end and into my pants before Max put it out, saving me a possibly serious burn in a most inconvenient place.

They laughed heartily and I couldn't begrudge them that. It was pretty funny and nobody got hurt. I laughed along with them. What the hell. It was a long way from quitting time. But I was struck by the fact that Dennis thought this was all so funny himself. He rarely smiled let alone release a good ol guffaw and knee slap. Since he'd been a party to all this and looked on approvingly, he probably wouldn't mind seeing me retaliate too.

So I told Dennis and Max to watch as I took a little rubber bouncing ball used in the big sandblast machine to reduce damage from vibration. These things are often found on the shop floor here and I often pick them up and draw pictures of Laverne with his bald head, black glasses, beedy eyes and long dark mullet. This one, I dipped into a can of black grease and carried over toward Willie's machine. I called his name out. When he turned to me I lobbed the little ping-pong ball sized thing at him knowing he didn't see well enough or move quickly enough to catch it or get out of the way. It travelled eight feet through the air and hit him softly on the left breast. The ball bounced away leaving a heavy smudge of black grease on the work shirt Willie wears to load his filthy sandblast machine. He didn't like what I'd done one bit and just stood there staring angrily at this black smudge on his work shirt. You'd think it was his Sunday best.

I laughed hard and walked over to my machine where Max and Dennis were giggling and nodding approval. I turned around and saw Willie following me as quickly as I'd ever seen him move. I took another ball, dipped it in the grease and went into an exaggerated windup like an baseball player from Willie's generation - all arms and legs and a ridiculously high kick. Willie didn't stop walking until he was a foot away from me and made a fist.

"You throw another one a them sonsabitches at me & I'll knock the piss outta you!" he proclaimed.

"You sure about that, Willie?" I said, chuckling. "I mean it's just your work shirt, damn."

"I don't care what the fuck it is," he replied. "Enkei don't wash these clothes!"

"But, Willie, you tried to set me on fire and I didn't say anything, now you're gonna..."

Willie cut me off and reared back as if to throw a punch but he didn't follow through.

"God damnit! Quit mouthin' back to me!"

I figured Willie to have been a spry, wiry type of cat in his younger days. He probably saw his share of action on the mean inner city streets of St. Louis too. He wasn't to be taken lightly I decided. Even at his ripe old age, he might be capable of a decent punch or two, enough to break a nose or knock out a tooth. But he wouldn't be fast enough to block one. And what was worse, he was barely if at all recovered from that hernia. One quick shot to the groin would finish him. I didn't want to fight him. But if he hit me hard enough, I'd probably have to.

Suddenly, Max intervened.

"Now, Will," Max said sternly. "You just calm yourself down now. Don't go gettin' yourself hurt bad now."

"That little son of a bitch aint hurtin me."

"Now, Will," Max repeated. This time he stepped in front of him and put his finger up as if he was giving out a final warning.

Nobody in the entire plant wanted to fight Max. The rugged ex-con knew every dirty trick in the book. He had arms a neck like telephone poles besides.

Willie finally walked off in a huff, spitting on the ground as he headed toward the door. He was taking an early lunch. Dennis smirked and walked off to follow him. Max shook his head and looked at me.

"Shit, Bub," he said. "You oughta know better than to get a ni**er dirty like that."

"What?" I asked incredulously, not approving of the use of that word.

"Yeah, they don't like nobody to get 'em dirty. All they care about is their clothes and their cars and their jewels anyway. Especially a proud old coon like that."

"Look, Max I don't wanna hear any of that shit. All right? That old fucker's lucky I didn't kick him in his stomach and drop him for good."

"Shit, if you do that you might kill him. And if you didn't you best believe him or one of his sons would come up in here and do you."

"Oh, shit. For real?"

"Yep. Damn right. That's just how ni**ers are, Bub."

Now I was really depressed. I'd just been bailed out of a street war with an old black man by a racist redneck ex-con on a factory shop floor in the middle of nowhere. And to make it worse, I had to hear my ally in the altercation spout off ignoranta asinine stereotyes laced with unspeakable epithets regarding the other man's race.

I felt like shit. I wanted to apologize to Willie but knew he was still too pissed off for me to approach yet. I have at least a dozen black friends who would be furious if they'd seen and heard all this bullshit. And rightly so.

I wonder what they'd say about me if they had. What was my part in this all about? Could I be forgiven for what I'd done? Was it really that bad? Did I say enough to Max to express my disapproval of his bigotry? Should I even speak to Max anymore? Am I a hypocrite if I do?

I didn't say anything and just went back to work and then to lunch. Now that lunch is over I have to go back to the shop. God, this sucks. I really don't have anything to apologize for. This thing, hell, this whole place is so fucking stupid. I hate it here. God damnit, I hate my life! Fuck it. I don't want to do anything. I don't want to apologize. I don't want to work. I just... want to die. . .

I once heard a story bout a man named Jed...
But now Jed is dead
All his kids instead
Wanna kick rhymes of the top of they head!
Word! What goes around comes around I figure.
Now they got white kids callin' themselves ni**as
The tables turn, while the crosses burn.
Remember, YOU-MUST-LEARN...

~ KRS-ONE, MCs Act Like They Don't Know

...

A few weeks after that incident, Laverne moved me back to the day shift, presumably to keep Willie and I seperated. It felt good to be back on a normal schuedule but I was disappointed that Willie and I hadn't made amends. So one night I drove out to the shop at around 8 p.m. I walked in and said hi to Max and Dennis. Max waved back, Dennis just stared. I walked over to Willie's work station and saw him on a forklift. He looked back at me and smiled.

"Hey hey, Slick! Where you been hidin' at? We missed you back here."

"I'm on days now."

"Oh, I see you wanna be close to your buddy Laverne. Heh heh heh!"

"Not really man, I just like to see the sunshine from somewhere other than here once in a while."

"Ha ha! Shoot, I know that's right. How ya been doin'?"

"Not bad, man. How about you? How's the hernia?"

"Aw, shit it aint too bad. I can't complain. A couple more years and I'm outta this sonofabitch!"

"Yeah, I heard that."

We gave each other "dap" and laughed a bit.

"Well, listen, I gotta get goin' man you take care."

"Hey, alright I will. Come back and see us!"

And that was that.