The View From Scranton

Water & Paper

(Note: This post was supposed to post last eve. I had it all verbed out. Then the 30-minute timer on the Northern Light computer cut me off. Guess it wasn't meant to be. Then. Call me adamant -- relentless? -- but I still hate taking No for any answer. So I go again. And, if I have to, again and again and again. No cotton-picking time frame's gonna keep this Good Hood quiet.)


It did not rain on me today. I wanted it to, but it didn't. It spit a bit. Shed a few tears. Drooled. Then spit some more. One big glop of tease to the forehead. A smattering of dribble on the day's Times. That's it. And I did so wanna get wet. I wanted sheets, buckets, torrents. A deluge. Something to remember. Something to recall. Something to to wash that gray right outta my mind.

The walk to the job is like any walk to a place where you don't belong. A gangplank, with no refreshing end. I'd take an ocean full o' sharks before a factory full of hill people. Here comes the flatlander they say as I trod up the last crest. Here comes the man who's been everywhere but here.

I read as I walk, keeping up with the events of the world. The pullout in Gaza. The magnetifications of the MRI. The rebirthing of William Weld. Keeps me kinda in touch. Even if it's only pretend touch. Keeps me occupied while I slog past projects and used car lots and houses older than the hills upon which they perch. Keeps me elsewhere. I mean, it's not as if I gotta watch for traffic.

Just once did I run into a cross. Some drab lady in a stupid bronze SUV honked and hollered: Why don't you watch where you going, asshole! I think it was a question. A little hypotheticity that came over her in a sudden rush to some dumb judgement. I can't be sure. And since I wasn't sure I said simply: Thank you very much.

Was that wrong?

At the job I revel in the cigarette. There are two scheduled ten-minute breaks -- at 10 and 2:30 -- plus a half-hour lunch at noon. On every hour in between though one of the line workers spells another in turn till everyone gets their nic fit fixed. Yes, despite the hazardous chemicals and the toxic dust and the dizzying exhaust from the battalion of forklifts, everybody smokes.

On my 9am smoke break a torn and yellowed slice of newspaper kept me company. A sliver of the classifieds. Left to do no good. I watched it smack around the alcove, buffeted about by both wind and noise, and I knew what it held. Job listings for short order cooks, warehouse workers, nurses for a few of the many assisted-living facilities that dot the region, a mechanic, a janitor, a CDL-licensed driver. I wondered who'd take these jobs, what their lives were like before, what they'd be like after. Would any of these bring them closer to fulfillment. And I wondered about those they'd be replacing. How long they stayed. Why they left. Where they went. Did they have some way of knowing when leaving or staying was the right thing to do.

I pictured a man, four payments behind on his ten year-old truck, a wife at Wal-Mart, two kids in cradles, another on child support, with rent overdue and cupboards sorely lacking. He once worked at the foundry, a union shop, his father once worked in the mines that made the union. He made a living wage. I picture this man, trucker cap in hand, applying for a job that couldn't feed one let alone four and a half. I picture him having little choice in the matter. Someone somewhere somehow decided that this is how too many, many people will live. How they will die. I don't have the courage to ask why.

posted by John Hood. @ 4:03 PM