Lazy Man
Monday, April 6th, 2009
He knew one kind of man and that kind was lazy. So he followed the only example he had and worked seldom, He took a job every few years when he needed the insurance to cover a doctor’s visit – worked for a few months and worked hard – but would come home and collapse in bed or on the furniture, legs and arms draped over the pieces, nursing his shoulder or knee or whatever was sore, and he would complain until he finally talked himself into a depression each day or night on the loading dock or in the office cubicles would begin to wear on him until the pressure was his greatest task.
He would dream about the job and those would turn to nightmares, then he’d fantasize about quitting and those would never interfere too severely with his performance, but they would be the root for long daydreams in which he’d mark his steps to the boss’ office to tell him off or for measuring his steps from his work space to the front door and onto the street, into the night – the clear, wide open night, the street lamps keeping the industrial streets warm even on the coldest nights with tropical orange circles coloring the sidewalks and streets. He would earn praise from his bosses, though, no matter what he thought about. He would earn a reputation through the organization as a hard worker despite the limited time he planned to put in. He worked as a sorter for the postal office on the long conveyor belts that spun mail day and night for eternity, neverending piles rolling toward him, and he only quit there when the night shift made it too hard for him to sleep during daylight hours and when lesser workers who were tenured and made more than he did would relax their efforts. He had picked up the slack for them to no avail – in fact, to the same paycheck. He quit a job that he’d begun for a telecommuncaitions company as a temp staff person. He’d been considered for full-time work and when he’d learned that he’d been bypassed, he walked out though he had a full summer to work before the job’s completion.
Another place, he served Mexican food, still another he parked cars in airport lot, and at one more he loaded heavy hardware into a warehouse. There, he doted over a woman who was his ideal female. She was red-headed, pale-skinnned and her hair was bobbed at the shoulder, and she was intelligent and pretty, a mother, a good one that always talked positively. He’d befriended her on a few lonely nights in the stock room, while she was actually sorting and stacking boxes for the first of the spring shipments and he’d saw something gentle in her. She was confused about her husband, who seemed a good man, she showed him a photo from her wallet one night with a couple, their children, all in matching red and black, two girls with big ribbons – one with faint hair the other a toddler and bald – and all sitting on folded legs, looking into oblivion. They were splitting up. Her husband was never home and when he was, he was lazy.
One night, he walked up through the uneven stacked boxes dull in the back warehouse light and asked her if she wanted to go out after work for drink. “No, nah … No, I have to be home.” He heard the next day that she’d been surprised and unflattered by the offer and he heard on the way into work, he didn’t even clock in. He just set his broom down and walked away. This had been his last job and the blow to his ego had left and even bigger dent in his psyche. He didn’t go outside for weeks except to pick up the morning paper, and by the time he’d taken it, it was already sun-bleached, the cover photos faded, and the newsprint syrupy brown. He brought the paper back to his chair and read the entire edition, including the classifieds (he took no action on them) and he read while spinning from his music collection and sipping coffee. He never left the block for weeks. He just perused the paper, tracked the statistics on the sports pages, and moved his foot nervosuly while he read. He never thought about her again. She was a reason to quit more than she was a love interest.
He read in the same chair and occasionally put the paper down to look at the sky, a high blue place from the angle he could see and daydreasmed good thoughts about what the world must look like from so high above, how strange his house in the neighborhood must seem and how small a matter it must be in the world for one man not to find work or to labor that particular day.
This was his work history and it was too much to fit on a resume.
