Labor has changed so much for me over the last decade. It’s been that common journey that so many of us feel, where parts of the decade acted as trial and error. What did I want to do? How do I want to labor? I read Bread by @ladylily this week, a great reflection on that same journey and it stoked a gratitude in me for the jobs that came before writing and teaching. I’ve worked as a TA, in a library, corporate building maintenance, as a welder, equipment operator, dishwasher, bartender, waiter, estate caretaker (fired lolz), delivery driver, substitute teacher, and now as a writer, educator, and editor. Below is an auto-fic piece about one of those jobs that I read this summer at an NDA Reading put on by Caitlin Forst from Archway editions. Enjoy!

Canal

The Imperial Valley lies at the southern edge of the Salton Sea and stretches flat and fertile to the arid border of Mexico. The flatlands are a veined expanse of canals, fields of onion, alfalfa, and lettuce in the winter. The asphalt roads bridging ranch to farm shake like the hand of withdrawal in the summertime, the noon day temperature pushin’ the mercury to over 120. Last trip I made down there the little Deere kept shortin’ out while workin’ a cleanup at Klaus’s. The particulate from the alfalfa pelletization plant lodgin’ itself everywhere under God’s dominion, the old German that runs the rat trap has hands stained a perpetual chartreuse. I watched from my truck, the A/C drippin’ a steady stream of condensate into the parched earth below while a 20-something-mechanic worked in the open heat. Never once did he let the pearl snaps outta his denim uniform, you could see the gel in his 20 dollar fade melt and thin, the product firin’ off and spittin’ its fragrance inna-the-air ‘round his head like Pigpen from Peanuts as the sweat from his forehead hit the wires he stripped-n-replaced.

This year though, it was my turn to play mechanic jus’ outside of Westmoreland, and that’s when the trip went south. Most people have no reason to go to this corner of the state other than its proximity to the polo fields of Coachella, where in a heat of its own makin’, one of pulsin’ rhythm and lines of baby-laxative cocaine, a world is created that is the antithesis to the farmland of the valley.

But here I was, limpin’ my busted rig to Carsin Kalins ranch, to a steel shop turned convection oven. I worked under the paltry breeze of a worthless box fan in the afternoon heat. The front implement on the bigger Deere, patinated through use and abuse, was a twisted mess, somethin’ I’d already repaired the week before but the Kid don’t know how to operate fer shit yet insists on sittin’ in the cab, but who wouldn’t when yer working like a dog, with the air ride seat, radio, and half decent A/C that needs to run at full blast despite the fact the crew works nights from 9 to 9 processing drip tape to send to Taiwan, where its washed and chopped, pelletized and sent back to the Israelis out in Fresno to start the process all over again. Our job ain’t nothing but a tangled mass of polyethylene and I guess that mirrors the world at large. The alfalfa gets sent out too, crosses paths with the oil tankers coming outta the UAE, you wanna see a man talk ‘imself red, ask ole’ Carson ‘bout that whole deal, or maybe don’t.

With the tractor down, I sent the crew back to the Brawley Inn to rest, where they all engorged their sweat-empty bodies on Carl’s Jr. and then stood around the parkin’ lot of the hotel hopin’ some erotic adventure would visit the blue collar boy “just-in town fer the week” but it ain’t that kind-a place, too hot to fuck, so the denizens crawl outta their homes in the evening to cruise mainstreet or sit in the plaza, silently watchin’ as another dust soaked sunset eases the heat to jus’ below triple digits.

On the crew I had two Peruvians, coffee farmers from the Amazon that all chain migrated to Visalia where we’re based out of. They’ve never taken a day off and I find myself fightin’ back tears whenever they talk about the farm they left back home. I had the Skinhead, I’da fired him before the trip but the guy can bench 400 pounds and the month before he used the Luger in his Harley’s saddle bag to empty some Portague guys guts into a casino parkin’ lot outside Lemoore. Figure it’s only a matter-a time before the fates or the state solves that problem for me. And then there’s the Kid, who I can’t fire either, though he drives me up a goddamn wall because, well, we went through grade school and 4-H together, and he’s still a kid to me, yeah, only three years younger ‘an me but he never quite developed into the body of a man, like a soft egg in Wranglers. He used to tuck his sweatshirt into his pants when we were kids, don’t think I need to explain it much more than that.

I’d been runnin’ beads of 8010 rod over the implement for an hour and I stripped off my leathers cause I ran outta water and after a while you don’t notice the slag meltin’ yer skin back to a soft pink. The drone of the arc sang a sweet harmony with the trickle of the Tamarack canal runnin’ along the edge of the property callin’ me like a siren song to drop my body in and let it carry me away. Don’t care much that it’d be sure to gimme cancer on account of the fertilizers but I feel like the sun on my neck is gonna win that race, so what would be the harm in gettin’ some relief in the moment?

Right before things really kicked off I was smokin’ a grit in the shade when two Duramax Chevys and a 7-3 Ford came screamin’ into the equipment yard fronting the shop, blowin’ coal, and leavin’ a cloud of dust to float in my face. Some country boy, who I presumed to be the foreman that lived there, came fallin’ outta the cab screamin’ and askin’ “who the fuck” I was. He got close enough that as he was talkin’, spittin’ really, I got to cravin’ some Coors to choke down the dust he jus’ sent my way. As soon as I mentioned that Carson let me use the shop his tone changed and him and his crew slinked into the house jus’ across the lot, a sunburnt posse of hillbilly kids skunked on sun and beer, the front door slammed shut leavin’ me to myself until the subwoofer resurrected the ghost-a Skynyrd screaming in the spackle-shack they called a home. That shoulda been my que to leave.

An hour passed and they started spillin’ outta the house like a trail of methed-out ants. The kind of crew hung up on “heritage” with cockeyed Resistols and American flag board shorts exposin’ lilly white legs slipped into square toe Justins. They kept pokin’ round my welds, tellin’ ME how they “woulda done it”. They flaunted a vernacular that woulda put them in favor with the Skinhead and saddened the Peruvians so I started to rush the job. And the girls, lazy eyed, not from anatomic affliction but ones chemically imposed, they swayed into a few foldin’ chairs scattered through the shop and sat grindin’ their teeth while I worked. One of ‘em kept cooing at me, she had the sad affect of a girl plannin’ a romance in a loveless world and finally asked if I had me a girlfriend. Told ‘er I was happily married and I could see the air drop outta ‘er, her baby fat gut eatin’ up the zirconia stud lodged in ‘er belly button, she soured quick and burned eyes in the back of my head like I should have waited for her and her alone. Eventually, she shuffled out with the rest of them in her Adidas slides and ragged plaid pajama pants and I was alone for a time. That was until I heard the first shot, on the second shot I started to pack up my tools, and the third I just threw ‘em all into the bed ‘a my truck but before I could get to the cab the foreman came out, rackin’ his Weatherby, one of the girls was cryin’ and tuggin’ at him before he turned ‘round an’ smacked the shit outta her, one of ‘er fake eyelashes hanging on her swellin’ cheek. Despite his shirt exclaimin’ “these colors don’t run” the cryin’ girl’s boyfriend scooped her up and sent his Chevy outta the gravel lot, the all-terrains chirpin’ when they hit the asphalt. Amidst the bedlam I couldn’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout that canal water. All the way there from the Colorado, what it woulda been like to swim in it, I woulda given anythin’ to drop my body in, a baptism in all that depravity, lowered to relief like a weld in a coolin’ tank, but as soon as I took a step thatta way the foreman turned and stared me down with the cold eyes of the damned, he paused, spit viscous tobacco juice into the dirt and then asked me “where the fuck you goin?”