The Hippie

What I did required no skill set at all.  The work wasn't difficult.  I mostly picked things up and swept.  Most of the time, I tried to look busy so that I wasn't asked to do something else.  It wasn't just me.  There were periods when there was work to do, but most of the time we were just trying to look employed.  I walked around a lot.  

I began learning the mythology of the working world.  For instance, excessively fat guys were usually named Tiny, as was the big fellow who ran one of the cranes.  He was so fat he barely fit in the lift's cab.  Short guys were always named Shorty, as was the fellow who operated the elevator.

I found out that I was called The Hippie.  I had been seeing messages written on plywood walls and chalked on cement pillars that said, "Fri. at 5 we kill the hippie."  

"Who's the hippie?" I asked one of the other workers on my floor.  

"You are," he said.  "You're the only one with long hair."

It was true.  I worked with rednecks and hillbillies and they all had short hair.  After high school, I swore I would never cut my hair again.  I was amazed that no one ever sent me home and told me not to come back until I got a hair cut.  At other jobs, they might have.  I wasn't sure because this was my first.  But they didn't here.  I was a Union Man.  And so every week, my hair hung a little further out of my hard hat.  

I found out, too, that they thought I was a drug addict.  It was my hair, of course, but it was also that I wore long sleeved shirts tucked in and buttoned at the wrists in the middle of the summer.  I only did this to keep from itching from the fiberglass that was used everywhere for insulation, but Tommy told me that he heard some fellows talking who said I was a junky and that is why I kept my sleeves down.  He said that they were afraid of me for this reason.  But they didn't like me.  

One day, Tommy and I got on the open lift that Shorty operated. It was a big box that could carry equipment, but just then it was crammed shoulder to shoulder with workers.  Shorty knew everyone and everything that was going on.  All he did all day was stand and work the elevator and listen to people talk.  He was a bit of a wise cracker, too, a personality of sorts.  

And so we were standing all together when Shorty said, "Man, your hair sure is pretty.  How do you keep it so pretty?"  Everybody in the elevator looked at me and began to laugh.  I guess they'd all been wanting to say the same thing.  I could feel the blood rising up my neck.  Feeling emboldened, Shorty went on.  "I might just have to come over there and fuck you."  With that, the crowd exploded with hoots and hollers.  I was stymied.  I didn't know what to do.  But quick as thought, Tommy said, "Shit, Shorty, if you fucked him you'd never go back to fucking dogs."  

Tommy's retort got an even bigger laugh, and just then, the elevator stopped and we got out.  Shorty looked as if he'd stepped in shit on a first date.  

"Man, that was quick," I said to Tommy who couldn't stop laughing at his own joke.  "What the fuck caused that?"  

"Shit," he said looking at me shaking his head like I was a special needs kid.  I guessed that I would avoid taking Shorty's elevator for awhile.  I was lucky I was only working on the forth floor.