DRYDOCK Part 7

This piece is among the best writing i’ve ever done (says the writer), as the wind power pioneer goes to work in the Shipyards. Real life doesn’t get any better, or more painfully brilliant.

SHIPYARDS

Wake too early, shipwrecked, too soon to be hung over, can’t sleep and nearly flying, woozy from whatever happened last night. Distant fear, lightly floating under Image... floating beneath water-logged brain... it’s me, filling out accounting forms in some converted trailer? What? Another slimy wave breaks over my head, me gasping for breath... dog-paddling towards the trailer... Shit! Eye Remember! That’s Dante’s Human Inferno Services trailer at the fuckin’ Drydock. Hell me supposed to finish application for the shipyards job today, be responsible early like a normal seeker of fiduciary stability, closing the deal on some kind of hard-labor-for-rent negotiation. Can the Idiot actually go through with this? Feel like a washed out derelict, though my light-headedness might be mistaken for naive optimism. Or complete ritual disconnection from reality. What a strange feeling to think the washed-out Windpower Wizard’s about to get a job at San Francisco Drydock, as a shipwright, as a paid derelict.

Almost every day and night for the ten years i’ve lived in this cool writer’s loft i climb up to the roof deck and take in the shining full circle vista of humming dot.com central San Francisco, highlighted on the Bay side three blocks east by rusting dockyard cranes and melting piers, looking like a seaside retirement home for invalid Imperial Walkers long past their Lucasfilm prime. Honking horns and booming bass assault the ears, giant rusting docks fill the Bayside viewshed, and the horizon holds whatever ship tanker freighter happens to be in for refitting. Never fathomed what actually went on down there, much less how one actually raised a ship out of the water. Remember, though me good writer drafting a feature film script on the shipyards, eye didn’t never no shipyards work, much less labor.

But here i am, full of alcohol, ready for refitting, nearly completing the application process, telling them i’ve been referred by the shipwright’s union, Carpenters Local 2236. Devil’s Circle: Can’t get the job if you’re not in the union, can’t join the union unless you have a job. But somehow i already know, since the union hall’s just a block away, and the shipyards two, this is going to work, me industrial sector shuttle diplomat at the end of his rope, kissinger my ass. Feel like an idiot filling out the form. Gone from a hundred forty dollar an hour wind power pioneer to a fifteen dollar an hour supplicant, and i have to pass a piss test.

How the hell can i ever pass a drug test? Perhaps the alcohol destroys any possibility of validity? Why would i ever allow some beyond democracy corporation to intrude into my sacred body, my inviolable private life? i’d always sworn i would never consent to such intrusion.

But here i am, nearing the moment of piss and vinegar.

Literally. i began drinking the tarragon vinegar last night, thankfully though i’ve had little food over the past months i never seem to deplete the empty refrigerator stash of fine vinegars left over from a previous life with live women. The Pixar Animator had told me of a time when he used vinegar to pass a test, but me having trouble believing that such a common technique hadn’t been incorporated into the scanning methodology, or whatever’s done to analyze the finer chemical elements of my pristine, genetically-neutral piss. There certainly weren’t funds enough to go out and buy one of those drug test kits that supposedly mask whatever you’re trying to keep secret, though that had been recommended to me, if you can believe this, by the shipyards emergency med tech as the surest way to pass the pervasive portals of piss persecution.

The surreal devolves into the ludicrous.

Sometime in the week around last Xmas a screenwriter friend of mine had visited from Austintacious; surprised me on his way to moving back to California. During a nice herb break, talking about the Drydock script amongst a scatter barrage of filmic and life topics, i decided to go for a walk to show him the distressed docks, and the sinking wreckage of the pre-WW II shipyard, fading paint, rusted steel and all fucked with age-patina’d bricks, this is the home for wayward industrial poisons. While passing the gate to the Drydock, i noticed the bearded security guard, tattoo’d of course, wearing a neon red Santa hat contrasting powerfully with his bright blue shipyard jumpsuit, making him look like a biker elf. We stopped to talk, staying an hour or more, listening to tales of life in the Drydock, interspersed with tips on how to get the job. Rest assured that the idea of taking a job there, though i acted like it was imminent, and truly had little other choice for food money, remained a romantic fantasy within me, for that responsible thread to reality did not exist in my writer’s head, and i hadn’t done physical labor for nearly twenty five years. But i played the romance for the benefit of the script.

Two of the workers came up to banter about some of their best bar fights, or about the restored cars that were either their sole worldly possessions or their home, or how much it sucked working there. The Emergency Medical Tech stated the opposite, that shipyard conditions are so good that if i went to work there, i’d never leave. Now there’s a thought. The EMT also assured me that he’d be the one processing my application, administering the drug test, and i understood that when the time came to get the job, i’d go out and buy one of these test beaters, from a head shop i guess, no problem.

Shipyard memories. Me too hung over to be angry i don’t qualify for a dot.com job, what with being over fifty, not all that literate, well, you knew that, but i mean not all that knowledgeable about computers, or html, or flash four; you’d think one of these content sites would hire me for my quick delivery, i even applied at iFilm, but what web-addled, IPO-frenzied snot.com who doesn’t realize he’s in the middle of a boom that could be weeks from bust would hire an overqualified, furry pickled idiot who has deer antlers glued to the top of his ancient CRT screen.

Piss or get off the pot, the time was now. Me go to the yards, wobbly.

I finish the application process, they tell me to go get my physical. Walking there, feel numb, still drunk. Timing’s bad, this wasn’t planned, i think there was a bowl or three of herb smoked last week, and i know from reading the fallen hair leaves on my pillow every morning it doesn’t leave your system for aeon. God knows what else they’ll find spectralyzing my wonderpiss, and we won’t contemplate whatever juice had been pickling me the past months. i began to be angry at myself, for i’d planned to make sure i would pass the test, and now i was caught in not having the Official US Right to Work Piss Test Prevention Kit. Here i am woozy boozy, and i’m drinking pints of vinegar to make my piss itch. Pints of vinegar! Just to mask my human right to ingest whatever i choose from the corporate intrusion that passes for capitalist democracy in the modern american hegemony. The combination of exotic, aromatic vinegars creates waves of serious nausea, something i’d never experienced after Frisco’s finest arrugala salads.

So the next phase of my life would be up to the fates and tarragon vinegar, with a little red wine vinegar thrown in for flavor, and i suppose some color.

Naturally a different EMT than i’m expecting is on duty at that moment, furthur proof that i’d fucked up the timing of this chance to get food money while researching my script. Into the little room at the back of the trailer, sweating like a drunk pig. christ, i was dehydrated from last night, last week, last life, even though i’d been drinking gallons of water to thin out the sample, so of course i had to relieve myself so often i could barely tinkle when the moment of truth came. The EMT seems to expect that, but he says i’ve given him enough to work with. Now i’m really encouraged.

Initial results are instantaneous, and i pass. Shows the validity of these tests, probably would’ve shown me pregnant too. The real results won’t be back until the end of next week, so me have this job for at least a week.

i need a nap, and my stomach pumped.

But no, i’ve got safety videos to watch. The first one is about the “etiquette” of going into enclosed spaces, or tanks. Make sure the Marine Chemist has checked it out, and make sure he’s certified the tank. What’s a tank, i keep asking myself? But i discover many poisonous chemicals abound in the tanks, lethal fuming, and often, poisonous inert gases take the place of the oxygen that most workers suck on for life with relish. Tanks need to be properly ventilated. Make sure the tank is certified. If there’s an accident, don’t go in to help a co-worker. One dead is better than two. If a worker is felled, go get help. Make sure the tank is certified. Don’t crawl in to check it out.

i don’t even know what a tank is. i’m a marine carpenter, or will be soon, i won’t be going inside enclosed spaces, right? Dawning on me that i don’t know the first thing about these queens of the ocean, but i’m beginning to understand that a tank is a ship’s hold, and i’ve heard of a hold, as my life is on one.

Next video is safety harnesses. i’m not really paying attention, for a) i won’t be using this stuff, will i?, and b) it’s all so obvious. They can’t be serious, this must be only to meet regulations. Besides, i’m hurting too much, and unable to keep my eyes open, drowsy’s just the fun part of my current psyche as i fall asleep.

Waking alone in the EMT trailer, i wander around checking out what’s in store for me. Then the realization jolts me, i’m getting paid for this application process, actually getting paid, me making money at the shipyards, going to eat soon, and perhaps even have a life... if working here is a life.

But the next video chills me. All those years of staring over the shipyards from my roof, wondering what kind of chemicals leak into the bay, and here i am watching a video about hazardous substances and rain runoff. There’s tons of this shit at a shipyard, and they care about protecting the bay so much that their lone copy of the video is so used it doesn’t play anymore, and i virtually have to run it manually like respooling an old cassette tape with your fingers, until the image becomes unwatcheable, if not unrecognizable. At least i don’t have to drink this stuff, do i?

i wander home with a strange sense of exhilaration, barely comprehending what’s taken place. But i know that i won’t pass the final drug test, so best soak up all i can this week. i am the screenwriter in the family, after all.

Can’t sleep brain full of the unknown, facing the completion of the Drydock application process in the morning. What’s in store for me, feeling both exhilaration and working man’s dread? Morning finally comes.

They wanted me at the docks early, as i learn now, but here i am just the same, several hours after the start of work. The final forms of accounting whatever, the assignment of my employee number, that’s me in the converted trailer hamming it up for my official dockyard badge photo, what a sight eye must be after weeks of despair and drinking, me still sweating out the Ketel One (Product Placement. Ed.) Nearly three weeks of goatee, when i began growing it there was no reason, just, what would i look like with my face having hair, no longer the clean shaven indian shouldabeen, no longer the man ten years younger than he is, now there’s a shipyard badge photo of me in my goatee, hey you dot.commers, i can grow a man’s goatee in two weeks. Me working at the fucking shipyards, with facial hair i haven’t seen in twenty five years. Grizzled dockworker photo indeed.

But here’s the photo, laminated right to my badge.

What do you mean, report to the foreman? You want me to start work today? Me did not count on this. Do you want to work? Yes, but... right, i’ll go see Boss in the carpentry shop. On me head a hard plastic protector against heavy things that fall, light brown like a bad shit, color coding me as a marine carpenter, but it’s mine, eye got a hard hat, actually going to do this work in the Shipyards. Hard hat village idiot.

So now i’m walking through the yards, an employee with a picture badge and a shit brown hard hat, for the first time. You could call it adrenaline, but for me it’s just me seeing the drydocks that i’d spent ten years overseeing from my roof, for the first time, i’m actually walking through the yards, heading to meet my boss, adrenaline strong enough to power past the vodka.

Four story green shed, two dilapidated stories per floor, resplendent in the shining sun, dripping Frisco maritme history and work too hard to imagine, but i’m not thinking about that. Up the stairs, knock on the door, hey, i’m supposed to start work today. He seems to like that i’m here, quizically checking me out, maybe he can see my intelligence shining through the despair. Am i crazy? Does it appear that he’s glad to have someone like me, who he doesn’t understand, he can tell i’m not the usual shipyard derelict, though on the surface he can’t quite put his finger on it. Or is he some never-sated Mephisto, adding another dredged up from bottom soul to caress with never-ending toil? i take comfort that after much rain, today’s full of sun, Hell be damned. And i’m walking with my boss towards the Mercy.

i first saw the Mercy invade my skyline several years ago, the last time she was in the Drydock. Ten stories of white sided, giant red-crossed hospital ship impact the skyline like no high rise ever could, because it’s still a high-rise even when lying on her side, and i’ve never forgotten her impression on my skyline. Now i’m walking toward the first ship i’ve ever seen in Drydock up close. Boss introduces me to the foreman, a black man of such radiating warmth, his weathered skin formed of years wrestling with the queens of the oceans. i’m stunned by his welcoming smile, you’ll love it here in Hades. Wink. Eye’m eaten. Small talk, come on, we’ve got to meet the crew.

Suddenly i’m face to rusting hull with a huge hospital ship in need of medical attention. There she is, mountain of steel sitting on hundreds of concrete and wood forms, shaped to her rounded hull, curves only a Michelangelo welder could have captured, but here’s giant curves captured on the deck of the Drydock, intensive care for twenty thousand tons of steel.

The length of the pier, Foreman on his bike, my god, all these Tour de France dockyard workers, to and fro on their stolen or cannibalized bicycles like biker elves of a derelict Santa’s workshop, and here i am drawing near to one of the most amazing sights i’ve ever seen, or at least one relating to ships and steel. We’re under the stern of the Mercy, only the propeller isn’t some giant version of a household four-bladed fan, it’s a five-bladed scimitar from the east, all sweeping sharpness of curves, blazing bronze for cutting through the salt water with little vibration. Di Suvero himself would be proud of this heavy metal grace, and i’m flayed into awe at the brilliant curve underlying the sharpness of this thing that moves the mass through the water. Twenty five feet of curved hydrodynamic scimitar, yellow gold in the sunlight, reflections powerful enough to cut through the thick fog of chemical pollution that attack my senses, scattered black detritus from the previous night’s arc-torch cutting all over the deck like the aftermath of a Baghdad precision bomb, and dozens of men in motion, doing something to look busy, yelling over the din, yelling.

Foreman calls his crew together, or rather, his very presence draws the crew from their desire to escape work but who waited for his call, assembling underneath the most imposing screw sculpture i’ve ever seen in my life.

Where do these guys come from? What makes them as much a part of the shipyards as the steel supporting the ship’s bulk above the bay waters?

Flashing bravado even on first notice, Big Earl’s big, and not shy about showing he can do the work, spewing a never ending banter which protects him from the pain of this vicious job. Tick’s insane willingness to be part of the show means he’ll forget any hint of safety so he’ll be appreciated, poor man must never have been appreciated in his life. Larry’s quiet intensity comes from the same place as Earl’s bravado, but because it’s quiet, contains a power that the man doesn’t realize he exudes.

i don’t know how i know this but i do, like i’ve been here before.

Cowed by the scimitar of the sea above my head, i realize i wrote this scene back in September, one of the first scenes in Drydock i wrote, where the Foreman calls his crew together underneath the propeller of a huge freighter up in drydock. “C’mon, ladies, we’ve got two weeks to get this mainshaft replaced, so let’s haul ass.” (Marine carpenters build staging, they don’t overhaul mainshafts. Ed.) And here i am underneath a propeller the likes of which i couldn’t possibly have imagined, with a crew of derelicts the likes of which i couldn’t possibly have imagined, but i didn’t imagine them, they’re real, and they’re here, wondering who the fuck this guy is who doesn’t have any coveralls, any tools, obviously a rookie, yet just like i’ve imagined them already, they recognize me as a brother, and we’re about to put our lives on the line for each other.

i couldn’t have known that.

But i did.

Can hardly breathe as i realize i’m living this scene i’d written months ago, but here’s the foreman asking us to be safe about going up into the stern of this huge hull, which has been my eastern horizon for months, and before that for months years ago when Mercy last needed refitting, and now the only thing separating me from absolute hunger and dissolution will be to enter her and go to work. There’s a rectangle cut into the hull above my head, and a twenty four foot ladder leaning from the drydeck, and we’re climbing. My heart’s in my throat. i haven’t done physical work in twenty five years, though my artful game convinced both the docks and the union that i was cool and competent, and more importantly there right then, but now the cards are on the gritty steel deck, and i have no choice but to climb.

Shit, that’s the deck down there.

This is really happening. A scene i wrote months ago takes place while i’m actually living it, a scene from the mind of the screenwriter being played out in real time, with all the nuance and detail... except for the amazement of the writer living it. Who am i who could precog such an event? (To precog, the verb stemming from the noun precognition, to foresee the future, Ed.)

Understand, Reader? Let me spell it out since you’re probably a propaganda-barraged american, i wrote a scene for my screenplay Drydock where in an opening scene the foreman greets his crew underneath the stern of a huge freighter’s propeller, and right at this moment, this moment!, i’m standing underneath the scimitar propeller of once a freighter but now an even huger hospital ship, and the foreman is telling me, and us, and US!, of our tasks to come, and i’m a shipyard worker for real at this moment, and i can’t believe how prescient i am. If i’m that prescient, how come i’m in such dissolute pain, how come my life sucks like i don’t have a clue, why me working in this yard?

Tha Oner? Won’t even attempt to remember my son, hurts so cod damn much.

But i have no time to think about that, i’ve got to follow the foreman’s orders, and climb the fucking ladder into the hull. My excitement supersedes all wandering thoughts, it’s been so long since i climbed something, all those years of climbing meteorology towers, no belt, whipping winds, climbing greasy turbine towers, all the heights i’ve scaled to make windpower happen, and here i’m in a fucking shipyard climbing to make not quite sixteen bucks an hour, and why am i excited?

Well after all i did write the scene months ago.

The opening in the endless steel of the hull is higher than i thought, i must be getting older. My body doesn’t respond the way it did when i was thirty. But i’m here, and there’s the fucking huge power train of the Mercy, HUGE, like no one who hasn’t clambored the innards of a queen of the ocean could ever know, so much steel, so much engineering, so much poison dirt begins to fill my nose. Everywhere is a walkway too small to do any real work, but upon which real work must be done. Looking down on the drydeck below, i’m delirious with the intensity of what i’m doing. We’ve got staging to remove. And we’re off along the narrow steel catwalks toward the engine room. The catwalks aren’t familiar, or i’m not as agile, or the loads are too heavy, but this up steep stairs and over shin-banging bulkheads and down slippery ladders is more than i bargained for, this shit’s heavy, and the air’s filled with the clanging sounds of missed corners on cold steel.

i can’t believe how hard it is to carry heavy planks, 12 x 2 x who knows how long, through these enclosed walkways, sweating like the pig i am. i can do this. This is my reality now, i can do this. But there’s something lethal about what covers every inch of everything i touch, so much oil, this is a dirty job. Guess that’s why they pay me the big bucks.

Carry, step, carry, step, lever, step, tie up, lower, gone, next. The staging is gone, we’ve done it, only a few hours, mostly long moments of waiting to work way too hard. Why don’t they use the elevator? But first work’s finished. Climb out, down, done, breathless.

Looking back up into the hole in the hull, jesus h. keerist, what am i doing here? Where is the love of my life, where is my life?

No time.

Haul more staging to the staging pile. Lunch.

i’m the only one who can walk home to lunch. i’ve got to get the tools i need, a ratchet, a hammer, some whatever you put on a ratchet, right, sockets, and the pliers that the rest of the crew has ready. Only ten minutes late after walking home, when all these guys drive an hour or likely more from the homes they have in the cheap zone. But i’m ready for the afternoon’s work.

Only our work isn’t work at all, it’s waiting for work.

Now i’m on the wing wall of a drydock. Imagine a huge U-shaped piece of steel, longer than a tanker, wider than a freighter, and i’m on the top of the side-walls, me spending hours waiting for the crane to bring us our load. Hours. Totally self-conscious at not having steel-toed boots. Being paid for hours, on my first day, where i’m just at the border between lounging on the piles of huge rope for what purpose i don’t know, and trying to look busy, focused on taking advantage of the strong sun on this winter’s day, while stunned by my beloved SF Bay view, with a new perspective from the wingwall. i’m learning who these guys are, what makes them tick, what stories they tell, what life at the drydock is about. i’ve entered another world.

Sun strong, me stronger, basking in the laziness of getting paid to learn about the shipyards, surrounded by grey steel and greyer guys, opening their humanity to the stranger in their midst, tale by tale. Yes, they can feel it, i’m not one of them, yet strangely accepted right from the gitgo, because i can work, and they see that. The writer still on the high of living his writing, this can’t be happening, this is happening. The patient, still in the depths of his illness, but ill in the world of cold steel and grunting, swearing humans, welcoming me to the depths of hell.

Me focused on facing the sun, surrounded by stories. Shipyard stories, stories from dissolute men, men who show up for work despite hangovers stronger than the hull’s steel, like you could never imagine, clanging steel inside their skulls. Hangover fruit from the effort to drive away the pain of working here in drydock.

All afternoon i wait, getting paid to wait for the crane to deliver our load. Of course, this is Murphy’s america, our load is delivered just before the end of the shift, so we’re asked to stay, my first day.

Overtime!

Hauling the staging up to the top of the wingwall crane ranks with the hardest work i’ve ever done. Coming after hours of lounging in the sun on the four foot coils of rope waiting for some unknown uncoiling, it’s brutal. Wire’s cutting right through my gloves. Everything pulled up to the crane bedplate level by rope, tied on the deck, and pulled up by hand, arm, thigh and back, up and over the rail. We’re building staging for a fucking crane, and we have to pull this shit up by hand. i love technology and advance planning. The heavy planks have to be levered up over the crane tower railing, the worst part, and my arms must exert so much force my breath is gone. Then further hauling up to the yaw bearing of the crane, where...

i’m out on the plate above the bearing, there’s no rail, nothing to stop me from diving, slipping, falling to painful unconscious splat on the drydeck so far below. And the five of us are supporting hundreds of pounds of rigging by ropes, me one rope over each shoulder, if one of us slips all of us go, there’s no room for error. Someone yells at me to pull harder, the foreman angrily responds that we’re all in this together, everybody pull together, no one will get down on another in my crew. Evidence of acceptance from our leader, molding the mind of his crew. An hour later the rigging’s in place, no one’s giving me any shit, and i hope they won’t notice the paralyzing fear sunk in my being from facing death by splat.

i’m on the team, even if i can no longer move my body back to the locker room. i’m dirty, and some of the dirt is poison. But i earn a day’s pay, and i do it in the shipyards. The crew will be working overtime tomorrow, Saturday, but there’s no work for me, rookie. But i’m to report Sunday. i’m on the crew.

Dragging my sore feet, legs, torso, shoulders like a wounded ape, my head counters with an angle of satisfaction as i limp slowly home. Only five blocks, but it feels like five slow, tortured miles. i can barely climb the stairs. Yet my brain’s on fire, exhilarated as if somebody i loved loved me. i manage to find the strength to turn the handle on the bathtub faucet, pull off what passes for work clothes, already scented with poison, fill with bath salts and herbs, and sink beneath the amniotic fluid of my rebirth.

i’m too tired to leave the tub.

And i won’t be paid for today’s effort for another twelve days.

But at least i’m working, and that’s progress, isn’t it?

Awake surrounded by the comforting leather and duct tape of my black recliner. All my limbs function, though not with authority. There’s nothing left inside me, and i can’t imagine another day like today. Eye remember my Navajo friend after his days at construction labor for nine dollars an hour, after years of being the Kurosawa-loving founder of the Native Producer’s Alliance, and the first Navajo language filmmaker, and how he always made it to the next day’s work, thanking me deeply for the charge from the Cliff bars i gave him that got him through the afternoon. He did it, i can do this too.

Though i’m nearly twenty years older than him.

But there’s no food. Head off to the famous Sri Lankan Salsa Bar across the parking lot, where i know there’ll be food and drink. i didn’t know there’d be a private party of black cops, soul police all tuxed and buffed, with their sweeties all satin and chiffon, cleavage spilling out in waves of voluptuous genetic packaging, long dark limbs kicking up the high life, shimmying their hips with enough swagger to get even their cop lovers into the rhythm. You wouldn’t see white cops move like that.

Always tense around the law, the vodka slides down my throat with the ease that only the laborer knows, washing away the poisons of the day. Man have i got a good story to tell. Not one of the women is single, though some of the wives flirt and dance with me, but mostly i’m digging the funk. Do i detect a lick of self-esteem bubbling under the poison? No matter, we can wash that down with another Ketel One.

Surprise! Local party promoters known for their mailing list begun with all the Bay Area ladies under thirty-three who’ve had plastic surgery, mostly of the saline persuasion, arrive at the private cop bash. High fives and long talk about the dance scene, everyone flying on several brain chemistry planes at once, surrounded by to the nines black cops and their slinky lovers, me after a day at the shipyards, them all hypercharged. Do they expect me to believe they lost $87K on their less than sublime Millennial blast? Tell me my friend Farina the famous SF DJ got paid less than $4K for his $8K gig, but they got him a limo for him and his friends, probably had a great time at least, me inside sad for missing my son the DJ, why can’t he be the one who’s got the great millennial gigs, having to settle for $4K with limo for the New Year’s night.

That the cop blast had fewer blasted cops than expected becomes a boon for me, leaving with a crate of soul food for my empty larder, after late night empanadas favored by my Sri Lankan hosts. Me filled with thanks for the Cocomo guys who support the only night life i can attend without money, they keep me in Ketel, and give me food! Food! (Trade it all for one of those fine ebony women, love to fuck the shit out of someone who loves cops.)

Loft, dreaming: huge hulls float like ice cubes in chilled vodka, rising out of the martini, always above the glistening surface, lubricated on a frozen sea.

Awake disbelieving. Yesterday i got my wish, i walked underneath a giant ship, underneath the sharp hull, underneath thousands of tons of steel, try to imagine this, Reader, walked underneath a ship, not enough space to stand up fully, tough as fuck, had a sixty pound fourteen footer on my shoulder. Walked under a ship’s hull. What if there was an earthquake? i could feel the weight above me, but that didn’t bother me at all, other than i couldn’t stand up. That first keel traverse was the crossing of some kind of border, and i’m on the other side.

If only Tha Oner could know.

More sleep in the Esprit Park sun, glad no work today, shit made more than a hundred yesterday. Walking back to the loft, there’s the Animator. Gushing adventurer, i’m spewing yesterday’s tales to him so much we’re tired of standing on the street.

This is better. Loft roof, lookout panorama over the shipyards, cranes high above Mercy’s hull, red crosses and shining white splashed with sun, and i notice the sounds, honking horns to warn of a cranes movement, deep-throated horns denoting the passage of time and shifts, familiar sounds that i’ve heard for years, but which took on new meaning yesterday, partly thanks to today’s tokes with the Animator.

At least there won’t be another drug test.

Horns for shifts, bells when the cranes move, horns for lunch, loudspeaker voices from command communication control, don’t be relaxing when a load’s overhead and moving, seagull punctuation like a cross between a hawk and a duck, forklift and truck motors, giant compressors, the constant rain of the sandblasters, heard them every day of the ten years i’ve been living in Dogpatch by the Bay, but they’re significant now. i know what those sounds mean, how they mark the progress of the workday, how their omnipresent oppresiveness drives away the horror of the job, delineates the horror of the job, punctuates the total disconnection from a healthy reality.

The Animator seems struck by my tales, swayed by the writer’s romance with his subject. I’m struck by someone caring what happens to me, a friend who sees a new spark rise from the dissolute disaster of my life. Low winter sharp sun beneath sky so blue, fresh wind, horns, bells and honking, he’s full of questions, some of which i can answer. But i still don’t know how the ship gets up on the blocks.

Come for dinner? (Sure, free dinner, now that i’ve got soul food.) Why don’t i bring some. Cool. i’m a rich man.

But a last glance over the loft skyline shows me the weather coming in.

Good dinner with friends, it almost seems as if i were a person. But i leave early, for i’ve got to be moving out on the docks at six-thirty morning, with paper bag packed for lunch, and i know it’s going to be raining, storm coming in, maybe there won’t be work, can’t take another hard-working day like yesterday for a few weeks at least, but shit i need the money, i’m actually going to have to get up god-awful AM and do this. Better get some sleep.

Too keyed to sleep, wracked like a freighter in a nor’easter, getting no rest. Wake before the alarm anyway, unable to move, how can people wake in the dark, plodding, lever arm espresso machine hisses black lightning, wish i had steel-toed boots, wish i had coveralls, wish i had rain gear, shit it’s raining already, i’m gonna die in this cold wet, jeans wet, boots wet, wind whipping the water right in my face.

Walk to the dock anyway, slightly downhill, easier to get to work, thank god i’ve got a hard hat, drum patter rain, raucous Sunday morning in the locker room. Never heard motherfucker used in so many connotations before, that’s connotations, motherfucker, Big Earl only says a few other words, but it fires him up enough to tackle the day’s poison shit, how can he yell so loud this early? Some guy i don’t know, sleeping folded in some chair stolen from three generations ago, morning coffee and somebody brought pound cake, no one wants to leave the room to enter the rain, shit we’re surrounded by water in all dimensions, and i’m wishing i was getting a hundred forty dollars an hour consulting behind a desk. And my legs hurt. Already wet, and i ain’t started yet. Horn blows, no one’s moving. This must be the drydock equivalent of Sunday mass. Even the preacher foreman’s just chalking up the motherfuckers. And who are all these guys in the other room?

They look like they’re more prepared. Everyone’s got rain gear but me, i don’t even have work clothes, ‘cept the ones i wore last time i was here, they even have tools and shit. They all look like bikers on the third morning of a weekend run, and last night’s alcohol. Somebody hands me the boss’s spare slicker, so now i have to work with the boss’s name on my back, a marked man, motherfucking rookie.

Like narcolyzed lemmings, heavy gait of workers weighed down with tools and steel-toed boots, Sunday shuffle off into the rain. Didn’t really notice that before, there’s an old ferry boat in the water, sides taken off, and most of the rain gear yellow clad bikers, they look like aging bikers, but they’re on bicycles, remember, veer along the pier where that ferry’s berthed. i’m off to the Mercy, far drydock, the big one, wetter than the bay.

Now getting paid to wait for the crane load, lounging in the sun, coiled on a rope is cool. But we’re waiting in the fucking rain, in the open, gusting wind, waiting, wet. Wish i were home. Got to rehang the stern curtain, it ain’t hung right, leaks poison, behind the awesome screw of the Mercy, blast of brass even in this storm. Someone up on the wing wall, winching down the curtain, thick black nylon, even heavier wet, strung with thick oily steel cable, sharp frays cutting through the gloves, rips in the nylon, lots of holes to let the wind through, how’s this supposed to keep the poisons from blowing into the Bay?

Heavy motherfucker, must weigh several tons, how we gonna move it, you motherfucker, we don’t move it, the forklift moves it, we just got to pack it, so where’s the forklift? Wind picking up, cables singing, stuff flying and flapping, rain changing angles, more insistent dripping down my back, fuck this, feet need to come into drydock, swimming in my boots, wind still picking up, harder to pull this damn curtain, curtain? Must weigh a fucking ton, how does nylon soak up so much water? Shouldn’t this dock have a curtain that fits, this is the main dock, they do this every day, what the fuck?

Wind really picking up, five story staging bending like a skyscraper in an earthquake, even the metal’s flying now. Steel catwalk banging, can’t hear over the wind, hard to make out the motherfuckers, somebody yelling hey that’s the crane operator, escaping the crane nest for safety of the deck, sliding down the catstairs, slipping on the steel, that’s it for work today, we can’t do nothing if there’s no crane, what, motherfucker, the operators can’t stay up there if the wind’s over thirty, or forty or some fucking speed, cut it, ain’t no work. Let’s get the fuck out of here. Lash those stages together so they won’t blow. i ain’t going up there. i’ll go. Sharp wire, glasses fogged, safety glasses doubly fogged, soaked, heavy, angled into the wind, the others leave, can’t even ride their bicycles, me and Larry, lashing, yelling to keep from blowing over, hurl voices back into the wind, back pressure, staging gonna crash any minute, wetter, wind still picking up, blowing down. Motherfucking drum beat gusty horizontal rain shit.

Hey i love the wind, it’s my life, but not when i’m so wet i can’t shiver.

Too wet to dry out in the locker room. This coffee’s worse than crank oil. Knock off, can’t work today. Fuck, i needed the motherfucking overtime. Two fucking hours, get up while the sky’s fucking black, for two motherfucking hours of not work, but stormy hell. And i’m gonna die of the chilblains, spillfrays, nil daze fill days, bloody hell. No sense drying out, i’ve got to walk home. Secretly glad, didn’t want to work in this weather, couldn’t work this weather, this wasn’t weather, this was motherfucking nature, fierce, violent beauty of raw power whipping away a day’s pay.

Loft, dripping, quickly naked chill, hang wet, bootsquish, bedsheet womb. Such a deep sleep.

Beep fuck alarm. Where eye? Dark, shift mind, hustle, espresso click on, bubbling, makealunch, best espresso in the world, pull on sameold wish they were proper work clothes, feet ache and blisters, change to other boots, shit, these are my buffalo boots, best boots with years of Sundance filmfest winter slogging, boots of buffalo, sacred beast of the plains people, don’t want to waste them on the docks, but feet hurt so much, comfort, worth the waste. Not my buffalo boots, No!, too sacred to waste in the shipyards, protect me, wish i had steel-toes, too dangerous to wear sneaker hiking boots, ain’t even leather, no choice but wear the buffalo.

Walking in the dark, sky feels like rain, cloud oppression feels like Monday, carrying tools in belt, 16 ounce hammer in cheap leather/steel clip hanging off belt, hardhat proud. They gave me a good one at the tool shop, brown for shipwright, with black plastic knob to control the head width, most of the others have clips, workers wondering yesterday how i rate, didn’t want to tell them it’s the fiery intelligence rocketing from my eyes, mesmerizing the tool shed guy like a flashburn. Aching, more wet, less wind, grab oatmeal cake, no, take two, another for lunch, at the Korean grocery established just to feed the drydock, past the abandoned asbestos-filled brick and stone, salute to the gate guard, slide the badge, badge with my picture, biker goatee, wasn’t no white hair last time beard seen, click i’m clocked, through the machine shop, steel, cranes, welding, presses, heavy machinery, cuttings everywhere, cold in the wet condensing, droplets of steel, smell of arc-torch, don’t like to breathe here but it’s dry, up the stairs of the carpentry shop, carpentry, this ain’t no carpentry.

This is hell being up so early, so wet, but me at shipyards, fucking writer in writer’s zone encompassing heaven and hell. My spirit so strong. How did i get here?

No Mercy today, off to small drydock, bow curtain take down. Waiting around looking busy, navigating drydock two haven’t seen before, everywhere deep pools of yesterday’s storm. Deep, there goes the buffaloes. Content to wander, two small ships here in one dock. Golden Bear, blue and gold like the Cal Berkeley colors, this beauty is the training ship for the Maritime College. Everything gleams, even in the gloom. Other ship ain’t a ship, it’s a barge or something, looks like a giant floating wheelbarrow, rusted, with no handles. Chemical stink, and everywhere pools of fetid water, deep.

Precarious perches over the end of the dock, waiting for the guy on the wingwall to man the winch. No place to stand, we’re right over the bay, looking down into water frankly more pleasant than the water covering my buffalo boots. Good thing i oiled them yesterday, sealed with beeswax, probably won’t do any good, already getting wet, but this is foul poison wet. Curtain coming down, collect it and fold it into the steel box, how could a curtain weigh so much, how come it doesn’t move when you put all your weight and leverage on it, and you’re hanging with one leg hooked around something which might or might not be solid enough to keep you from spilling into the bay, or worse into a oily pool with a steel floor six inches below the surface.

Fuck, boots leaking already, and dirty. This is what the creator wants for my sacred buffalo boots?

Huffing, this is work, got to show my stuff, don’t want to be outcast. Muscles screaming thanks you bastard. Hours, pissed, tired, wet, proud to be able to do this work, knowing i don’t have the strength of the lifers, but pleased that my years in the woods and on the farm gave me the base of a strong body.

Only six months ago i walked with director friend from Sundance, editor of Like Water for Chocolate, director of one of my favorite visionary films, stunning Bajo California, Carlos Bolado, with our producer friend Pryfogle, traipsing through the warehouses across the water from the docks, me leaning heavy on my walking stick, leg totally black and blue, torn calf in three places, trying to interest them in my film Drydock. Here i am able to work the docks, leg hurts but strong, but feet soaked. They were excited, but nothing came of it, else i wouldn’t be here in the docks. All seems so fated.

Why won’t they make Drydock?

So there was eye walking with my film friends, or rather, limping badly, but with vital verve and balanced walking stick turning rhythmically over in my hand, limping through the shipyards, rust everywhere, dozens of captured live-in vehicles in the tow-away city’s impound yard, fetid detritus leaking from every door, shorts, shit, shoes, last will and testament to a host of failed lives, pain shooting up my leg from the damn torn calf, at that point i hadn’t realized my limb was full-on black and blue, meye staring across to the drydock where i’m now putting more stress on my leg than ever in my life, trying to hump this monster curtain inside the too-damn-small curtain box, humping yards above the bay i might just as well fall into, wet as i am.

At least my leg’s working again, working, hell, i’m fucking strong, but it hurts. Eye turn to Crazy Tick and Big Earl, “So you go home at the end of the day and the wife says, Hi Honey, what’d you do today? Oh, just hung some curtains.” The entire crew splits their sides, which is bad since that exposes your internal organs to the poisons of the docks, but me feel good make them laugh, helps a bit to ease the day where eye don’t know sweat from industrial swamp water.

Horn announces the ten minutes we have to walk to the locker room for lunch. Not easy to lift arm carrying sandwich. Again there’s more motherfuckers than any other word, increasing in frequency as the cribbage game heats up, slam, motherfucker. Rookie i am, i don’t get this game, but it has something to do with motherfucking pussy, according to the chatter.

Greasy chair, 6 solid minutes of nap. Groggy, sodden, what does sodden mean, don’t know but i’m waterlogged enough to feel like it, heading off to hang curtains. Body beat up, but shipyards demand more. Give it. Feet hurt so much have to walk gingerly.

Welcome loft, more hot water soak, herbs and arnica, what am i doing?

Understand the heroin wonder of television.

Alarm too early, remember no dreams. Beginning to get this ritual down, paper bag lunch, fuck, gave my thermos to the Navajo bro, coffee at the yard sucks, tastes like roasted in the engine room. Another wet day, wish i was properly fitted out with the proper working man’s accouterments, but i guess that’s why i’m in Drydock, for refitting.

More curtains, or more staging, all afternoon, the monotonous pace of carrying planks and steel, stacking, packing, another curtain, how will i survive this numbing, brutal hole into which i’ve fallen.

Home, safe loft, too tired to be crestfallen, too tired to write. Both feet are bloody, i’ve been limping nearly every step since i began work, the bath feels great but my bloody feet hurt when i breathe.

Morning again, too early, barely conscious, can barely get my feet in my boots, how to face another spirit-killing day, but the familiar ring of Big Earl’s motherfucker of a voice prepares me properly for purgatory.

Yo! Summons from the boss.

First perk for the Rookie, boss asks me how’s yer carpenter skills, ready for anything but didn’t bring tools, foreman telling me to head out to that ferry boat, go work on the Eureka. Inner exultation, i’m with the shipwright crew. Down the pier to meye first view of the Eureka, fabled San Francisco Bay ferry now part of the National Maritime Museum, berthed at the yards for refitting. In her honor, the small Drydock One was christened the Eureka by a flurry of national wogs, including a female Senator with Vice Presidential aspirations, but she’s owned by the local utility company, so to hell with her, she couldn’t spell solar energy, wooden bitch poli-wog, so off i go to this wooden wonder girl of the Bay’s ferryboat history.

She sure looks like she needs refitting, like the ship’s melted into the water over the years, accentuated by the huge holes in her side where even the framing’s been removed, but she floats serenely, aged bay dame.

Vibes different here. This crew’s been drinking for thirty-five years.

These are the aging bikers from the other side of the lunchroom, who make up the most experienced shipwright crew in the Bay Area. They’re tearing the rot out of the Eureka, and rebuilding it pretty close to the original specs. Everyone gives me the evil-eye, my lack of coveralls or steel-toed boots a dead giveaway. Besides, my only tools are a wimpy 16 oz. hammer, a drydock issue pliers, and a ratchet and two sockets, bulging in my weighted pockets like Huck Finn selling crack.

The carpenteros from Central America, the only non-bikers i can see, have been laying floorboards, tongue and groove, how can you lay tongue and groove if you don’t speak the language, gently following the curve of the ship, and its my job to nail ‘em, and set ‘em. That should be easy. Think i’m doing great, even picking up speed, not missing nearly as many strokes as i was five minutes ago, like riding a bike skills return, knees hurt, stand and discover my nail pattern isn’t as even as i thought it was, or would like it to be. But i’m working, and there’s measurable progress on achieving my task, my goal, my punishment. Haven’t achieved anything but a halting start on this fuckin’ novel in so long, that even beginning to count my success in square feet is better than no progress at all, one nail at a time.

The Shipwright’s even beginning to catch up to the Carpenteros.

Not having coveralls, no pockets or built in tool belt, or even a hammer strap, i’m clumsy, weighed down with a ratchet hanging off my belt, and a piece of wire wrapped around my belt to hold the hammer, when it’s not slinging galvanized steel into the floorboards. Eye can tell the crew’s stealing glances at my work, wondering who the fuck’s this derelict. Made real progress convincing them i’m a shipwright carpenter until i knocked over the glue bucket. Hammer, nail, hammer, nail, hammer nail, set set set. Next board, scuff knees, toes hurt, crawl like a rookie, hammer, nail, set. Progress. There’s a glimmer of self-worth hidden here, i just know it. In the rhythm of the working man, repetition leads to lunch.

Tired hurt feet shuffling off to the lunchroom, banter interspersed with sleep, motherfuckin’ cribbage drowns out banter, staccato like hammering, no chance for a deep sleep, but it comes anyway, four minutes of bliss.

Reprieve! Execution commuted!

Drydock One’s going down, to unleash back into service that ugly barge piece of shit wheelbarrow shipping whatever chemical slop cargo poison its owners deem necessary to fund their dream houses, get your polluted ass out of my drydock. i’ve never seen one of these dock things go down, so today i’ll learn how they get the ships in and out, right, i get it, that’s why we had to take down the bow curtain, else how could that barge leave, the sooner the better for my immune system, and those of the neighbors in Dogpatch. As the drydock sinks into the bay, the ropes tying the ferry boat to the drydock will get slack and then taught, and we’ve got to keep tension even on both sides of the ferry, sounds like precision danger, cool, my job, saving the ferry from sinking extinction.

Exhilarating, and it’s meye job to watch the stern rope while the drydock submerges. Actually, apprentice watcher, with a more experienced minder to, ahem, show me the ropes. i’m paid to stand here and try to look busy, how does one look busy watching a rope barely uncoil, waiting hours for the ten minutes or so that the drydock will submerge, then more time while the barge leaves, then a few minutes while the drydock rises to bring the Golden Bear back out of the water, all the while watching rope uncoil at less than a few feet an hour. Doing your job right means you won’t have to coil the rope more than a turn or two. After some of the hardest work i’ve ever done, this is the easiest.

For several hours the Cultural Anthropologist’s ears fill with tales of the shipyards, and the tough, one step from derelict hard assed drinkers comprising the crew. Eye learn who rides home with the foreman, who’s related to the boss, who’s a meat-headed snitch, who knows how to measure and cut angles, who can scarf a joint and who can’t, who understands the politics of the drydock, how to pace oneself, where to nap and when, and how to cover your ass. Good thing he doesn’t know i’m a writer.

Eyefeel like i’ve entered a private film. Despite doing nothing for three and half hours but surreptitiously surrender to the sun, my feet hurt too much to make the walk home a pleasure. But there’s few pleasures in life quite like the end of a work day.

Caskey.

Upholding tradition, decide to stop in a shipyard bar on the way home, probably because hours of watching rope not quite uncoil didn’t tax me physically, but me would’ve died of boredom if not for the banter. Used to be a real shipyards bar, Mucky Muck’s, can you believe that name? Now seems like an Irish bar, never been here, does seem cleaner, but still populated by those dock demons who were my mates just a few minutes ago. Have a drink, notice for the first time the bartender. Elegant carriage, tight tee, wild Grecian curls golden in the reflected sun (Last sun i’d see for a month, GVI.) High breasts, prominently displayed, and eyes sparkling like a welder’s torch. Mouth already dropping from too much cynicism, a touch weary, a touch warm. But smiling like the day.

At me.

Perhaps she can recognize i’m not like the rest of the dock beings. Perhaps me look intriguing, despite sour peppered goatee and dressed for failure work clothes, set against the spark in me eyes. Perhaps she can’t believe this mixed signal detritus, not quite derelict, not quite demon. Perhaps eye’m hallucinating, but i swear that’s a glint in her eye. Quickly stuff down the thought, Tha Oner, she’s got the same genes as my love! She’s got the same upper class carriage, slinking silky here in the shipyards. Caskey. When she reaches for a bottle her belly slides into glory, the kind of belly a man wants to fill with his seed. And laughter like a goddess on holiday, drinking with the dockers. Just as the owners probably intended, i stay for another, just to watch her move. The more we talk, the more she’s surprised i work at the yards. The dockworkers drift home, leaving us nearly alone. Her shift ends, and she slides beside me on my side of the bar. Too close for me to believe this.

The lead character in the Drydock script’s the estranged yuppie daughter of a drydock forman drunk, and there are scenes in the shipyard bars between father and daughter. Reversed synchro, Caskey’s the daughter of a noted SF businessman, now working at this shipyards liquid sustenance establishment, you can’t say that fast when you’re drinking here. But it’s so easy to slide into her company, me forget i’m thirty years her senior, with no life but the life of the docks, and nothing to offer but my indomitable spirit. Me pay no attention to the warning bells ringing in Tha belfry, we’re laughing like old friends, and the stories captivate us, at least within my delirium. Try to get her to go to dinner with me, forgetting that i have no money. Luckily, she’s busy, but she says we’ll go soon.

Time stops as i kiss her, my heart pounding like a young buck.

Walking home, unable to comprehend how ridiculous i look, more a derelict than any on the docks, yet she kissed me. Eye could imagine so many wondrous times with her, just to see that Mona Lisa smile. But the weight of losing Tha hits me before i hit the stairs.