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.