June 1999 mysterydate Gershom Bazerman |
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"The End of the Line"
All I knew was that three days ago, a friend of mine clued me into a
job opportunity. I arrived at ten in the morning, passing first through
a broad swath of industrial Oakland. I hadn't thought the address would be
so close to the marina, and exited at the wrong stop. I walked two miles
before deciding that I'd rather take a bus. Running parallel to the Bay, the street
divided warehouses, loading docks, cranes, plants on one
side -- names and purposes unclear -- from houses that stretched out over
what must have once been a flood plain. Now it was spilled with single
story die cast roofs that tumbled in dirt muted stucco pastels.
I walked, and it might have meant more had either side been
mine. Properly, there were four elements that intersected about the road,
because there was the ocean brooding beyond the docks,
and the sky cast above in the same darkened
grey, with perhaps fewer whitecaps, and serving nothing but my taste for
scenic flourish. It was four mechanisms then, view chopped by occasional
billboards, which from all sides propelled the eventual bus toward Jack
London Square.
I hadn't expected to go so far, because we all know that if anywhere in
the city, it is those five or so blocks, with their marina and downtown
hotels and pedestrian mall -- all that was yuppie in Oakland.
No, not yuppie. White. The shock was all the greater to find the
line. Walking blocks without seeing it, in a single moment it appeared to be
everywhere. First the cops, then the news crew, and then
the line everywhere Stretching on both sides of me, but not tight or
impenetrable or imposing ... just there. People behind
people behind people in front of people -- black Oakland had reclaimed
the marina. Of course they hadn't. They were just there for the job.
Clear that we didn't belong as a unit in that part of town,
I watched the line down the block, and saw it cease. I said to myself,
"oh, that's not too long," and then I saw that it did not cease, but
turned right into the mall, and snaked around back to the next block, and
again, and again. I walked and they were still not a sea, or a wall,
but all there discrete. Everyone had stories, or rather told
stories, I mean, what else do you do in line?
I started hearing the stories when I found the end of the line. The man there said this was his third time in this line. In this line?
What was the deal? No longer at the end of the line (I was now
behind him, and ten others were behind me. Not seeming to move,
but oh! how it grew.) he was stocky, but not fat or short.
The man in front of me answered my questions pleasantly. He did not tell me
the deal. That came from the man with the bullhorn, who walked by and
spoke. Those waiting would run up to him and ask him questions, the same
ones each time. He would move on, and eventually he too reached the
end of the line. He told me, and I repeat this now to you.
The Deal
To work you must have a social security card and a driver's
license. You show them to the office and they give you a
post card. You fill out the card and mail it in. If you are
lucky (they have 300 jobs, and there are now a thousand in this
line) then you will get a reply and then you are hired. You
are not hired by an employer. You are hired by a union named
the ILWU and you are a casual. A casual works maybe seven
days a week, maybe two days a week. Maybe none. When they want
you, you are notified, and then you go to the place that
they tell you to. You move things from ships, and then you
get paid.
After hearing The Deal, I understand the man's in front of me's story. He was not
one of the lucky ones. But The Deal was also a story, and I hear other
stories too. As soon as the man with the
bullhorn spoke, people came to him and asked several variations of the
same question. "What do I do? What do I do if I do not have my
social security card? If I do not have my license?." " You say to go to the
social security administration, but where is it?" He didn't know where it
was. Like I said, it wasn't the Real Deal. Only a story. People all
around me left. Of those that stayed, and there were enough so that the
line moved only slightly, another told me that there had been a line there
all night.
The people running the line are efficient, taking the line quickly
because they only check for the cards and issue the cards; by the end
of the day, the line is gone. If it is not, it is closed and processed.
The people running the line understand what it is to be fair. Still
people in line understand what it is like to be poor, and camped the night.
One man worked at the
TOSCO oil plant -- now shut down for safety. He explained the work
paid well, but it was not a longterm prospect. Longshore was.
That was all part of the Real Completely True Deal, which was not the same
as the Deal the bullhorn had announced. I caught no more than a glimpse of
the Real Deal that day, from overheard fragments. I heard that today
everything is intermodal meaning there are
containers all the same size and they are not moved by
people, but by cranes, which I had seen earlier. All the cranes are
run by A-men but the A-men do not solely run cranes. They are the
highest paid. There are the B-men who are not the same, and then
there are casuals which is what I might be. The ILWU runs hiring,
but it really doesn't because the employer may hire you away and then
you're a steady-man with a guaranteed gig. The A-men oppose
training the B-men and the casuals, and there is no longer a larger unity.
The real deal is that twenty dollars an hour is nothing when there are machines
instead of work. In the real deal a thousand of us still wait. In the real
deal, the man two more people in front of me had worked every machining
plant in town, and now he just wanted to be a casual. There are as many
casuals as A-men. These are the ranks referenced in "the rank and file."
There was talk of social security cards, because so many had
gone to get them. The administration was full, and a special queue
formed there too, where you took numbers. A quantity of people had
banded together in common need, overrunning the city. I stayed in the line and
slowly traversed four
city blocks with it. Listening and watching pleasure boats skimming through
the bay that would not return with cargo. People in the queue would
compare experiences and wait. At the front they saw my credentials and
gave me my postcard. The next day, I would send it in, registered US mail.
in the junk drawer
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