Monday, April 14, 2008

Not On My Watch






Well, I'm at the new plant in the ghetto end of Oak Forest, I'm ready to get some 70#Litho cut down by Bob Urban, when he tells me to put the stack down, that some cops want to talk with me out back. I'm thinking, Bob is so serious, maybe he thought I was going to throw the paper at him as a dodge and run. But there's a story to this and it goes back a few weeks. Back when I was at the old plant, just me and Wilson the yellow roll of paper, Tommie Ashe came by and gave me the hang low on the new joint, on the crack house behind the parking lot and no lights. Well, its my watch now, being the idiot I always am, and so I go check the place out. I go past the bat-filled barn, walk up this little path towards the house and damn if there isn't the TINIEST trailer I have ever seen out of sight between trees. You can't see it in the crack house photo, but its there. As I'm walking past it to see if the house is really a haven of drug fiends, this guy comes out of the trailer, a TINY guy...with a TINY gun. Just asking why I was on his property, which I guess I was as I was on the dirt path. I made up a story that I was taking a short cut back to work, then I had to follow through, walk through the brambles (not the way past the barn), and promptly stepped into a knee high sinkhole. I looked like Tim Conway in those goofy tapes of him as a midget. I got out, all wet, but you dry off pretty quick in the plant. Back to the coppers, Tommie and I, along with Bob U, John R, and OJ the nosy guy, explained to the cops how there are no lights in the area at night and that people are seen going into that abandoned building. The cops didn't even know about the trailer. I swear its in that photo, like its a damn Navy SEAL or something. As an aside, Tommie told me if he honks his horn, bats fly from the barn. Yay. But I did my part, as Chrissy Snyder and the senoritas in bindery work until midnight. Its a big plant, and even I can be isolated for hours at a time. I did my job, I scoped the place out, since the management didn't seem to care. They leave at 5 PM. My watch is when the sun goes down. Maybe the cops will pay more attention, but I'd rather the owners simply put up lights! As it is, last Thursday I had my first encounter with a gun pulled on me in the misty afternoon with no one else knowing where I was. Bad move, that last part...Wayne