the car parts assembler

in the assembly of cars parts

by various companies

there are those that deal specifically with

pieces that are encased within the doors

(holding the wires that bring electricity to the

gadgets which inevitably

cost you more money

depending on what kind of gas-guzzling,

environment-killing,

reason-that-the-empire-uses-to

make-war-upon

everyone-it-can

that you buy).

 

there are those individuals,

particularly in small,

midwestern towns,

who may not even own a car---

but they drag themselves to work

everyday

in order to put together these machines,

bit by bit.

 

they are working on parts that have been

shipped from china & mexico---

as the united states still

assembles

some of the pieces made

elsewhere---

&

the trip which the cargo takes from

a to

b

must be one in which everything under the

sun

is encountered.

 

if you are lucky enough to work there,

you will be trained for every job,

primarily because the turnover rate

in a little college town

is so high

(because the majority of workers are kids

working a few shifts for beer money),

that you may come in one morning and

half your line is gone---

needless to say,

you may have to

fill in

wherever you are needed. 

 

you may be even be lucky enough

to work in a warehouse that has no

air-conditioning,

in the middle of august---

with black fly season just finishing out

(with the windows all wide open you might even be

lucky enough to take a pulpy chewed-up neck home,

to scratch bloody all night long)

 

and you may even be so very lucky (in fact, maybe

even the luckiest of the lucky that day!),

that you get to be the one assigned to

the large black rubber pieces---

the C-94’s,

which have been brought from somewhere else,

but which are

covered in

urine.

 

and though you wonder what kind of urine it is,

whether a few cats took their turns throughout the voyage of the

piece

to do their business all over them,

or whether you feel that there is a greater culprit out there---

one who knew exactly where these pieces were going,

and whose buddies as well,

found it amusing to rain golden showers down upon

the pieces (for quite a bit of time)---

you will never really know.

 

it is your job,

however,

as an assembler of said parts

to reach into the large cage of black rubber pieces

and pull from the pile

the urine soaked units

one by one

and to work with them---

all the time

wondering again

(as with the pungent odor invading your head, you can’t really think of anything else)

whose urine it is that now fills your

world---and you need to wait until

the end of your shift to wash it all off

with that special orange soap in the plant

bathroom

located way out in the back of the garage,

which has no door to boot. 

 

and you can’t help but be angry

as you didn’t ask for this special bonus today---

instead,

it was handed to you,

much like the wondrous cards of life---

and while so much of you wants to pick up the

nearest

crowbar

and begin destroying everything in sight,

you know that you are impotent & unable to do so,

because tomorrow

you

need

to come back and do it all over again---

so you be a good little american worker

and walk home.

 

when you get home

you turn on the television, and

click to the local news channel.

 

and when they read the unemployment stats for the week,

you think how lucky you are

to still smell that urine (in those hard-to-get places you couldn’t

reach in that quick bathroom wash),

& to still have a job---

and we stay that way

don’t we,

until our temp agency calls and says that they no longer need us---

or

until we are “let go”

just in time so that the employer doesn’t have to

shell out those crumbs (benefits)

to us.

 

ah yes, the land of the free.