catfish 12

Evolutionary progess is a dubious term.  We can look at the slime molds and then look at us Cro Magnum men and women and certainly we are taller and smarter, and what the hell, better looking, and it looks like progress, but it is all just happenstance, a mutation here, a mutation there, a good break here, a bad break there, we could have been just taller, smarter slime molds, though probably not as good looking.  

And of course it wouldn't be us, but that's kind of the way we talk isn't it?  If that meteor hadn't hit at that time we would all be taller smarter, and likely pretty attractive, dinosaurs.  I guess we just identify more with smarter beings, even from other planets, possibly even non carbon based than we do with say, mammals.

I don't know about this social evolution thing, like it's a step in a better direction like Marx, and the wiki version of Hobbes says.  Not sure where I am going with this, so I am going to let it sit for awhile.

In the meantime we are only about a third of the way through Catfish so here is another installment.

That nuclear plant thing, where I thought I might be getting up my grubstake to push on to California, well it was just something that came up sometimes in the bar back before I'd left Champaign, but now that I came back it turned out that it was really happening, they were really hiring, and they were hiring just about anybody, and they were paying big bucks. 

 Big bucks.  I came back to the bunkhouse early one night.  I was kind of chasing after that Tammy from my first night back, not so much because I was crazy about her because I wasn't, but I wanted a rematch, a chance to show her the real Catfish, okay and because pickings were getting a little slim for me.  Catfish was still big with my old buddies, a lot of har hars and slapping on the back and buying of rounds, and a lot of talk about the good old days.  Way too much talk about the good old days, and it was comfortable you know, but then it got into chasing chicks time.  And a lot of the chicks I'd chased after before had like gotten married and were off the shelf.  And this particular night there was Tammy, an empty bar stool on either side of her, like a bullseye on a target and I slipped right in on the left with a mouthful of smooth talk, and things looked like they were going just fine and then Ron slipped into the barstool on the right, and the next thing you knew all I was seeing was the back of her head.

 So I kind of left early, left the Great Wall with a sour taste in my mouth, walked straight past Carmen's which had been closed hours by this time.  Have to say paused at the plate glass window, could hardly see into it except for the little light from the streetlights, empty tables with catsup and mustard bottles lonely on the table tops, felt a little sorry for myself.  Suddenly noticed that my hands were pressed against the glass, my nose was making little clouds, shoved off quickly, ah it was that Tammy stuff, what was she doing with that Ron?

 So it was early in the bunkhouse, nobody was curled up in their sofa, and they were talking about the big job which was the Clinton power plant.  All you had to do was pay some union dues, get your card and show up at the union hall, and when the big job guys showed up off you went.

 That's what had happened with Ted, which is why it's what they were talking about back at the bunkhouse.  Man it's like crazy is what he was saying.  It's like being in the army he is saying which he had been.  They get you out there, and then they line you up, and then the foremen come by, kind of like sergeants, all swagger and sneers, and look at you like you are the lowliest of the low, and then they pick who they want, and you are whatever t shirt you happen to be wearing.  If you are wearing a Stroh's t shirt you're Stroh's, and if you're wearing just a yellow t shirt you're Yellow Guy, and that's who you are for the day, like Hey, Yellow Guy grab this shovel and come over here and start digging.  And that's what it mostly was, digging, you and your shovel and this place they put you and just start digging, and basically do that all day.  A half hour for lunch and two fifteen minute breaks, and other than that you're just digging.

 Didn't sound so hot to me, sounded terrible, but then Ted pulled out his pay stub from the last week, and holy shit, that was big bucks.

 Ted sure looked worn out though.  Normally around ten we did the beer run.  Whoever had any money put some into the hat, and Ted who had a car would drive us out to Al's Liquor Store, and we'd get whatever was cheapest, usually Meister Brau quarts, and we'd have our own little party in the bunkhouse until the beer ran out.  But Ted, this night even though he started out all enthusiastic talking about the big job, faded fast, and even though he had put five fat ones into the hat, curled up into that sweet green couch and was gone, sawing big logs.  And so we had to walk it, which wasn't that big a deal, only about four blocks.  And all the talk, on the way to Al's and back was about the big job, that big stub tucked into our newly fat wallets, and all you had to do was pay some union dues, which okay weren't all that cheap, but nothing that you couldn't scruff up, and you know I still had a little bankroll, and then you just show up, okay awfully early, five in the morning, geez, but you know you just have to show up and do whatever they tell you to do, how hard could that be?  All that digging sounded a little rough, but once we were back in the bunkhouse pulling those big brown bottles out of the paper bags it didn't sound so rough at all.

 Seemed a little rougher at five in the morning, especially for me who had got stuck with that crappy red couch which I probably wouldn't have slept much at all in except I got pretty drunk, there being a little more beer than usual since Ted, knocked out on the red couch didn't rouse at all.

 But he got up at five, rousted us up off our couches, piled us into his car and dropped us off at the union hall and drove out to his big job at the big job.  A sorry lot we were sitting there in the union hall, half wanting to get picked and half just watching that big clock for nine o'clock, after that there was no more picking, so we could get back to the bunkhouse and hit the sofas, and I didn't feel half bad when the little hand was on the nine and the big hand came up and rang the bell at twelve.  Ah no digging for Catfish that day, just digging into that sweet couch.  And then as we were leaving there was talk about tomorrow, well better luck tomorrow then, and I'm thinking tomorrow, five in the morning, and the day after five in the morning, and the day after that, oh I just didn't know.