Never the Same #48 Near Death

Kirk moved up in the plant’s hierarchy and almost out, completely out.

 

            Kirk headed home Sunday afternoon with Chuck’s words rolling over in his mind. Saying that Kirk had skills out there on the track really struck him with surprise. And that he showed a talent as a driver. Kirk couldn’t believe that those observations could possibly be true. He was sure that Chuck just wanted to boost Kirk’s self-esteem because he had sensed people doing this around him before. But then again, was what Chuck had said true? Kirk asked himself. He was unsure as always of himself. With a vastly underpowered car, not the best handling car driven by a rookie first year driver how did he stack up? Kirk couldn’t come up with a definitive answer. He let it go for the time as it was Sunday evening after all.

            Like his school days, all the way through grammar, junior high, and high school Kirk remained a victim of the “Sunday dreads.” The dreads continued right into his college days and then into his days of working at the dealership. Now working at the gypsum wall board plant, Kirk still would encounter a flash of the dreads, but then realizing where he worked now he let the dreads just flow past and out of his conscious mind. Yeah, the difficultly of rolling out of bed on Monday morning remained, but not because he dreaded facing the work ahead of him.

            Of course being a day laborer at the plant was the least prestigious job that anyone could hold albeit maybe a janitor or sewer cleaner so it wasn’t a pressure cooker job by any means. You get the gist. Anyway, Kirk actually enjoyed the low stress, manual labor while accessing the entire plant where he and his crew did odd jobs that amounted to mostly clean up and minor, untechnical repair. He enjoyed the work with the one exception: Cleaning out the hot, dusty, dark, claustrophobic kilns where Kirk felt the most fearful he had ever been before. Well, maybe he was even more fearful in junior high swim class where the boys had to swim nude in a pool filled with, gasp! water. The combination of Kirk’s terror of water, total inability to swim even a good dog paddle, and being nude to boot in front of other boys! Terrifying to the bottom of his soul. Sorry, I digress.  

            Anyway, the laborer crew led by Jimbo (Jim’s nickname once you got to know him) was four guys of lesser intelligence and greater back strength. Kirk fit in the middle being a bit more smarter than the usual guys but not as strong even though for his slim physique he could hold his own. Some guys who came after Kirk, quit work after being submitted to the loathsome kiln cleaning torture. Yeah, it was pretty much as Kirk figured out the first time he did the cleaning job, even though it was hot, hard, strenuous labor it undoubtedly weeded out the weaklings. Jimbo probably thought it was a hoot to put the new guys through the torture though he never let on, but Kirk always knew better.  

            Kirk gradually found out about how to get higher paying jobs at the plant. He had thought that maybe you had to work hard and maybe after a year a guy could ask for a raise and with it a better job. Well, from our experience with Kirk, we know that theory sure didn’t pan out for him at his dealership job, did it? So, even though guys came and quit the laborer job that Kirk continued to do, he found out that with time spent at the plant you could move on to other jobs that might be better or at least pay better.

Whenever a position came open a sheet would be posted about the job on the bulletin boards at the time clock and in the breakroom. You could bid on any job that come open, but you had to have the most seniority, time in the plant, to get the job if more than one person wanted said job. With Kirk’s short time there at the plant, he didn’t even bother bidding on positions that came and went. He found that the posted jobs didn’t stay open for too long, apparently management demanded work to continue unabated. Like said before Kirk didn’t mind the laborer job and a couple guys he worked with said they’d prefer to be laborers “forever.” Whatever floats your boat guys, but Kirk always kept his eyes out for more money which meant a job that wasn’t occasionally in the cold, unheated sections of the plant. 

***

            The winter dragged on into colder and snowier conditions. Kirk and Sarah Elizabeth went out on dates on a regular basis or just hung out at her house to watch TV. As those of you who has been reading this account about Kirk would remember that winter was his time for parking lot fun. As mentioned before his pink van did all right in the snow conditions because it kind of had a mid-mounted engine so it wasn’t so light in the back end an important consideration when needing traction in the snow.

            Anyway, the huge parking lot at the mall remained a playground for Kirk’s shenanigans no matter what vehicle he drove in the wintertime. Going to see a movie at the mall with Sarah E. perched on the van’s engine cover, Kirk would often or was it always a time to have some fun.  Kirk would cruise the back snow-covered parking lot that was well lit with overhead lights mounted on tall, substantial poles. Picking up speed after picking out his chosen victim, he’d aim for a pole, then he‘d swerve to the right away from said pole. As he got closer, he swerved to the left toward the pole again. The first time he did this with Sarah along she let out a shriek right about then. With a foot-operated parking brake, he’d push the clutch in and mash the parking brake with the other while turning the steering wheel hard. He immediately pulled the brake release, let out the clutch and stepped on the gas. At that moment, the van neatly slid sideways for several feet with the front of the van just missing the pole. He kept working the throttle up and down checking the traction as the van’s back end swung around and its headlights remaining aimed at the pole. The van would continue around and around with the back end going wide and the headlights centered on the pole. Kirk would at first have that look of his of grim determination and would then let out a whoop as the van went into the second donut around the pole.

Kirk did this maneuver so often to the point where Sarah just rode along expecting it and just hung on while giving him a thoroughly perturbed expression. Surprisingly Kirk never got caught and jacked up by the police for reckless driving, even though he wasn’t driving recklessly at all but just having cool, calm and controlled crazy fun. Just a little fun for an otherwise grim and boring guy. No one ever called him the donut king, but he wished that someone had just once. At least he was the Ultimate Parking Lot Donut King in his own mind. Sarah Elizabeth just thought of him in another way at time like that. As they say, “Some men are wise, some otherwise.”

***

As New England slipped farther into a freezing cold winter, Kirk kept working as a day laborer at the drywall plant. The laborers didn’t spend whole days in the unheated areas of plant, but just a couple hours meant cold fingers and toes if not dressed for it. The thing about being a laborer, a guy could work in freezing cold area for a while only to do manual labor later in overheated areas like near the kilns. Kirk detested the production line especially with the hot steamy gypsum goop making the place smell yucky like old wet rags and forced the workers to work in shirtsleeves. Kirk tried to avoid the area especially if his father worked at that particular time.

With Kirk working about three months, a work position came open for a kiln monitor. Kirk had no idea what the job entailed. Jimbo filled him in. It was a one-man position on the deck above the kilns. The position monitors the flow of dry powdered gypsum in and out of the kilns. Jimbo told him that a guy sure wouldn’t want the job in the summertime because all that heat from the kilns rose up into that area and it became stifling in hot weather. Kirk thought he shouldn’t even bother bidding on any position because of his short time working there but then again, it meant twenty cents an hour raise. Kirk shrugged to himself and pondered if he should bid. It wouldn’t be the first time Kirk missed out on something because he had decided to excessively ponder the decision. And he pondered anyway for a couple days, a week.

With that sheet staring at him everyday when he punched in and out, he wondered why it hadn’t been filled yet. He had seen in the past that as soon they filled an open position the sheets disappeared, so he assumed the position remained open and available. A week passed and he wondered why still no one wanted to take the job. The week for him seemed worse as most. Lots of heavy lifting, lots of working in the cold and the hot, too much sweeping wore him and his resolve down. He didn’t know for sure, but he wondered also that perhaps most of the other plant’s positions paid more so no one would take a cut in pay. Of course. Finally, he filled out the sheet to bid on the position. He didn’t know the procedure so he asked Jimbo who told Kirk that he’d take the sheet and pass it along for approval by management. Yeah, the mysterious management. Kirk had no idea who he/she/they were. He hung in there a week until the answer came back that Jimbo conveyed. It meant Kirk would have a new job. A higher paying job. How grand! He began his move up the pay ladder. Who knew what his future might unfold for him? Was his future bright enough for the need for sunglasses? We’ll see.

***

            Kirk began a new week at his new position. He met Stan up on the kiln deck that morning. Stan was a middle-aged man who Kirk had seen around before but had never spoke to personally. Stan kind of gave Kirk the once over like he wasn’t sure if Kirk was up to the task. From what Stan let on, he rather reluctantly filled in the position until someone took over and that someone happened to Kirk.

            Kirk found out rather quickly that the bottom line of his new job was to make sure the gypsum kept flowing. He thought this concept sounded similar to what the royal family Atreides had to do in Kirk’s favorite science fiction book, Dune. They had to maintain the flow of mélange or spice for the universe. In Kirk’s universe he had to maintain the flow of gypsum into the kilns.

            Even in the dead, coldest part of the winter, it got hot up there. Kirk could fasten the filthy industrial windows open to allow the cold air inside. Besides the heat, it ended up being a dusty, smelly atmosphere mainly because of the oil-fired burners that baked the gypsum. With the job, he controlled the flow of gypsum into the kilns by regulating the conveyors that moved said product. He only had to make sure the kilns remained over half full at all times and make sure nothing jammed up. He also had to man the long handled, long being about twelve feet long, which he used to break up the clogs of powdered gypsum that seemed to happen quite often. This he did through open square holes in the steel diamond plated floor. The holes had hinged covers that could be closed. He found himself poking at the piles most of the time so the covers remained open unless the kilns were not in operation and as he found as a laborer at least one was out of operation being cleaned or repaired. His position being a one-man job meant he was the only guy within the area. He got spelled by someone from down below every two hours for a break. It didn’t take long for him to find out the job sucked the big one, but being the persevering sort, he stuck with it. For weeks.

            The turning point came about for Kirk on one night.  Most workers, excluding Kirk’s ex-workmates the laborers, work rotating shifts. Invariably, Kirk had to work the night shifts on his new position. He was never a night owl, even earlier in his life two years ago, when he prowled the night clubs, finding it exceedingly difficult to sleep once the sun came up. So, working the night shift, Kirk didn’t get much sleep during the day, causing him to live with the debilitating grogs. He generally operated fully aware for the first few days of the week, but after those couple days he’d start to drag.

            One night, a Friday night, Kirk went about his business of watching the flow of “gyp” into the kilns. Part of the job meant walking up a couple steps and back down across a short bridge over the conveyor that moved the product from the grinder to the kilns. Over the weeks by this point, it was all a matter of routine to watch the flow, to turn up or down the flow and just make sure everything went as it should. This particular night just dragged on, Kirk found himself tripping on the couple steps of the bridge. It became increasing difficult to remain aware and physically attuned to what he had to do. The routine every night continued to be up and over the bridge, check the gypsum down through the trapdoors and poke the piles as necessary.

            His mind wandering to a blissful sleep in his comfy bed, Kirk moved back and forth to his different stations just operating on autopilot. Next thing he knew, BANG! he dropped down. His heart spiked in his chest. His right knee instantly shot a horrendous pain through his body and his arms went out and jammed. With adrenaline in full force, Kirk looked down below his dangling feet at the ground gypsum being sucked out of the hoppers by an unseen angry auger underneath. He hung from his arms in the trapdoor. Working one arm up on the door’s edge at a time he slowly lifted himself up chest high, then waist high until he could get his left knee up on the sharp metal door edge. Leaning to one side, he pushed up with his good knee while levering himself up with his arms. He sat on the edge of the hole, swung his legs out and sat there. He looked down as the gypsum continued to flow out the bottom. It needed poking, but he knew it could wait. Getting to his feet, with a couple limping steps he sat on the bridge step. His right knee’s pantleg had ripped and had already started to soak up the blood from his cut knee. He didn’t want to look, but he moved the rip so he could look at his knee without touching it. It had a hard-line gash in it with blood oozing out, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as he suffered.

            After a couple minutes, Kirk got to his feet and hobbled to the trapdoor. Looking down into the pit, he saw the level of gypsum appeared pretty low. He wondered how long it would take for someone to find out he fell in. Maybe when the gypsum ran out or started coming out pink mixed with his blood? Kirk shivered. He didn’t tell anyone, he didn’t fill out an accident report like he knew he should have because he felt so ashamed.

Honestly, Kirk was Never the Same after seeing his life flash before his eyes.