MAGIC         PORK

In a previous post, I mentioned a time that someone said something very racist to me and implied that it’s entirely possible that I didn’t correct him on the matter so as not to cause myself discomfort for the remainder of the summer. Mind you, it’s also possible that I did confront him on the matter in dramatic fashion. It was one of those two - my memory’s a little spotty. But just in case you’re inclined to believe the former, I’m going to share with you a story that should redeem myself.

A friend from college was getting married in Arizona. So my other college friends and I were planning the trip out to the wedding. We booked some hotel rooms and later on, I was looking at the hotel’s website. One of the pictures showed a young black couple in a hotel room. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but I noticed the filename. I think there was some mouse-over text or something. The filename was “room-with-black-people.jpg”.

I thought that was horrible. I understood that they probably had a bunch of different pictures to appeal to various demographics and that they had just named the files in a way that they could identify them. In some ways, it’s good that at least they were showing different races. But I don’t care, you don’t need to be a PR expert to know that’s not a good way to name your files.

There was a link to email the hotel so I sent them this angry email about how offensive that was and when I looked at the picture I saw a young, attractive, professional-looking couple and why does it matter that they’re black, etc. I was hoping that they’d offer me a free room to make up for it but they didn’t. It would have been perfect if we arrived at the hotel and some manager wanted to apologize to me in person - only to notice I was just some white dude.

I don’t think I even got an apology email, but I checked back on the website later and the file had been renamed to “room-with-people.jpg” which is of course ridiculous. That gave me a huge laugh.

I’m not so sure this was a redeeming story after all considering my main motivation was getting a free room. OK, I admit it, I got nothing.

Finally the conclusion of this topic. Read parts one, two, three, and four first. Or don’t. Hell you can go for a whole Memento experience and read them backwards if you’d prefer. Knock yourself out.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a couple of other characters that were part of the crew that summer.

Mary Jean

I made that name up. I have no idea what her name was, but I remember it was one of those two-first-name deals. She was a secretary that would hang out in the garage during her smoke breaks. She liked to hang out with the boys and talk crap about the other people she worked with - in particular that secretary that I had to fix the file cabinets for. (For those of you reading them backwards, this is where you wonder “Who’s this other secretary he’s mentioning? What happened to the filing cabinets?!”)

She was a nice woman, but I really don’t have anything interesting to say about her. Just felt she should get a mention.

Dale

Dale was the dogcatcher and would often hang out in the garage. I liked Dale a lot. He was a really funny guy and was always fun to have around. He was middle-aged, tall and thin, bald on top and had glasses. He was always complaining about things but in a funny way.

Dale was going through a divorce at the time. The story Jim told me was that he had been dating this woman, who I think was younger than him, for a while and she would bug him about getting married. Then he finally got married to her and then soon after that she said she wasn’t happy any more and wanted a divorce. And of course wanted her half of everything. I imagine there’s another side to that story but that’s the only side I got to hear, and second-hand at that.

Speaking of divorce, I just finished this book by Donald Trump called Think Big and Kick Ass. I saw it in the store and the cover cracked me up. My friend saw me thumbing through it and got it for me for Christmas. It’s a quick read, and there’s not a whole lot of eye-opening advice in it, but some of the stories Trump tells make me laugh. The reason I bring it up is that he has a chapter called “I Love You, Sign This” all about the importance of getting a prenup. He just drills it into you. Here’s a quote:

In all honesty, it is not pretty. A prenuptial agreement is a horrible instrument. I met Melania, and we fell in love and decided to get married. I said, “Melania, you are so beautiful, I love you so much, and we’re going to have the greatest marriage ever. It’s going to be unbelievable. Listen, just in case it doesn’t work, sign on the dotted line.” It is not exactly the most romantic thing to do, but you really, really need it.

Advice that came much too late for poor Dale.

Dale was buddies with Jim & Shaky but he also knew that they were a little crazy. There was once that Dale asked me where Jim was and I thought Jim had left with the truck somewhere. Then Dale went off on how no one cares about Jim’s stories. Shaky and Mary Beth were there too. I just looked back and realize I had used the name Mary Jean but I like Mary Beth better so I’ll keep that one. After Dale and Mary Beth had left, Shaky was standing around and there came a sneeze from the other room, where they keep the road signs and equipment. Shaky said “f*** you” and I realized that Jim had been in the other room taking a nap the whole time. He never mentioned anything about that incident, and he certainly kept telling his stories, so I think he really was sleeping through it. I felt bad that he might have heard that though, and guilty that I had mistakenly told Dale he was gone.

Dale considered himself a dogcatcher. According to him, he was only supposed to be dealing with dogs but they’d have him handle cats, raccoons, and so on. If that’s true, I think he had a reasonable complaint. I can imagine there’s different types of training that would go into handling other types of animals. The summer I was there, he had a small truck with the words “Animal Control Specialist” on the side. Jim said when that vehicle had been painted, the people had deliberately put that slogan on the side to annoy him.

I had to take a day off for some reason, so I came in on a Saturday to make up for it. I was in charge of washing the trucks and some of the cop cars that day. I showed up to work and one of the garage doors had police “Do Not Cross” tape all across it. The door was shut but it’s set back a couple feet from the edge of the building so there was a little space between the tape and the door. And in that space there was a little cage with a cat in it. I was told the cat had rabies so it makes sense they’d want to warn people - but I think the cops overdid the tape just to make it look funny and sort of pick fun at Dale.

Dale wanted to treat me to a fun day once so he asked the captain if I could come along with him on a trip he had to make to an animal shelter in a nearby city. He didn’t need my help at all, and the captain probably knew that, but he let me go. Dale needed to deliver some dead cats to the shelter. I’m a little fuzzy on the details but I want to say the cats were in a bucket. Perhaps it was just a garbage bag. Regardless, off we went with the cats in the back.

It was a beautiful day and I was glad to be away from the normal routine with Jim & Shaky. It honestly was the most fun day I had on that job, and it was really cool of Dale to do that for me. We stopped at a Dunkin Donuts along the way and Dale bought me a donut. That was quite a treat too because I never used to go to Dunkin Donuts.

I was talking to my mom about that recently and she told me that I had said the cats smelled really bad. I don’t remember it smelling bad, but that certainly sounds reasonable so I’ll go with her recollection of my earlier recollection on this one. When we got to the shelter, he had to put the cats in some big barrel with formaldehyde or some such chemicals in it.

The next summer, I got a job at a Burger King right down the street. So one day I decided I’d walk over during my lunch break and see how everyone was doing. When I got there, Dale was hanging out in the other room by himself. I said hi and asked where Jim & Shaky were. They were out doing work or lunch or something. But the way Dale looked at me, he obviously didn’t remember who the heck I was. That felt a little weird. It was just a year ago and I saw him all the time.

I asked Dale how the street painting was going this summer and he said they were all done. I was shocked. This was late June or early July and the summer I worked there they hadn’t finished it by the time I left at the end of August. I asked about the guy they got to work for them this summer and Dale said he was working out well. He was retarded but a good kid. I feel bad for saying this but I have to be honest… that stung a little. I’m sure it was a combination of better weather and the equipment actually working that allowed them to get the roads done that quickly, but… it didn’t change the fact that a retarded person could do my job better than me.

I told Dale to say hi to Jim and Shaky for me and that was the last I saw of any of them. And with that… I’m finally done with this story. If you actually read through the whole thing, I hope you found it worthwhile.

To catch up on the story, refer to parts one, two, and three.

Before I get back to Jim, I sneezed the other day and remembered something funny about Shaky. Whenever someone sneezed, instead of saying “bless you” he’d say “f*** you”. But he’d say it with the same tone of voice as if he was saying “bless you” so you’d start to say “thank you” before it even sunk in what he had just said.

Back to Jim and his stories… There were certain topics Jim knew a lot about, or at least knew enough to make it sound like he knew a lot about. It’s almost like he had seen a History Channel special on those topics, but the History Channel wasn’t around back then so I can’t accuse him of that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had learned about them back in high school but had repeated the stories so much it was still fresh in his mind.

Here’s just some of the stories he’d tell. I know there were more but this is all I can remember at the moment:

• Civil War. In particular, Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman’s march to the sea.
• FDR’s fireside chat. How he got on the radio and calmed everyone by saying “I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking”. (I looked up the speech online here. It’s hard to believe that the president once used to talk to the American people like they were intelligent adults, and that our leaders’ speeches weren’t just a series of sound bites.)
• Some ship that sunk. I don’t remember which ship it was - I should, considering he told me about it multiple times. But I remember that during that summer, I was watching Jeopardy one night and it was one of the questions on the show. I was like “Hey I know that!! Jim talks about it all the time!”.
• Hitler.

I wish I could remember the rest, but maybe I blocked it from my memory. He’d also tell personal stories, about Shaky or others he had worked with. He told a story about some retirement celebration the cops were having, and how a call came in for some theft so they all jumped into their cars drunk and drove around the city aimlessly even though they had no information to go on to identify the person. I don’t have a hard time believing that story at all.

Somehow Jim would always steer the conversation towards one of these topics. We’d be talking about something completely unrelated and I’d think there’s no way he could end up launching into one of these stories I’ve heard multiple times before… but somehow he’d find some link to the Civil War in what we were talking about.

I brought my lunch every day and would eat it by myself in the garage while I read a book. It was the best part of the day. Jim and Shaky would both go out to lunch - separately of course, since they hated each other. I was always welcome to go with Jim but I established early on that I bring my lunch every day so I dodged that one and got to have some time to myself.

But every morning, I would go to breakfast with Jim. They were entitled to a morning break, which I think is supposed to be 15 minutes, but Jim would use it to go to a diner down the street and have breakfast. Since he came right to work from the corn fields, he must have skipped breakfast along with the shower and change of clothes. Occasionally I would eat something too but usually I had some cereal before work and would just sit there watching him eat. And smoke of course. We’d get the same waitress every day. She was a very friendly woman who I’m sure felt sorry for me. She’d give Jim his menu and coffee and every day Jim would open up the menu and look at it, and then when she came back to take his order, he’d say “I think I’ll have the pancakes”. Every day. The guy must have had some sort of memory disorder. I mean every day he would act as if he didn’t know what he was going to have and then order the same thing.

He’d have a big stack of pancakes and shovel them into his mouth. He’d chew, and talk, with his mouth open which I don’t have to tell you was pretty disgusting. It was during one of these breakfast sessions that he was talking to me about his son, who was studying mechanical engineering at RIT. That’s where I was going to start in the fall, and also the major I was going into. (I didn’t switch to computer science until after my first year.) His son apparently played basketball but couldn’t get on the RIT team, or was on the team but didn’t get to play much… or something. I don’t remember and it’s not important. But during this conversation, he said “You know about those black guys, right?” (pause in which I didn’t respond) “They’re liars.” *DING* You’ve finally reached the point in the story that explains why I don’t care that I’m trashing Jim online.

I was a little surprised and confused by that statement. Surprised because it was so blatantly racist, and confused because that wasn’t even a racial stereotype that I had heard associated with black men. I mean is it too much to ask that if you’re going to be racist you at least propagate the right stereotypes? He might as well have said “You know about those black guys right? They never know how to use the triple word score in Scrabble to its best effect!”

After my initial shock wore off, I stood up from the table and said “I won’t sit here while you spew such racist crap out of your mouth!!” Then I started toward the door. But towards the back of the room I heard a sound that made me pause. I turned around, and saw a little blonde girl in pigtails and a red dress… slowly… clapping. Soon others joined her and the place erupted in cheers. A black busboy smiled at me and gave a wink as if to say “you’re alright, white boy”. As tears welled up in my eyes, I turned and walked out the door, my head held high.

At least that’s how it will play when someday a movie is made of my life story. But it’s very possible I just said “uh huh” and let him keep talking. I had to work the rest of the summer with this guy!

That’s about all I have to say about Jim. But in honor of Jim, I’m going to keep talking your ear off for yet another post. You thought I was done didn’t you? Now you’re getting a hint of what it was like for me. In the next (and hopefully final) installment, I’ll tell you about Dale the dogcatcher.