"Mick the Unready" (story 3, mini-shop)

Matt Carney
Dr. Tony Barnstone
Mick the Unready



My hands are cracked and blistered, and it’s not just from the work— that goddamned industrial strength soap is what’ll kill you. I’d take the grime and the grease any day of the week, Monday through Friday, and sometimes the Saturday if the director says so, over washing the grease off with that industry soap. He never makes you work Sunday, and I wouldn’t, of course. Don’t get me wrong, ‘cause if I had to work Sunday—though I wouldn’t— I’d scrub my hands clean. It’s just that I never work Sunday so I don’t need to.
We also don’t smoke anymore. I’ll tell you what, I’ve been at the facility, let’s say… who knows, 15 years? 15 to 20? It gives you plenty time to think. And it used to be that on the line, we’d smoke, and that was all set. Honest to God, I still smoke, but not on the line, of course. You’ll wait for the whistle for that and take it out on the deck out back. Lots of guys tell me I ought to quit, saying “Mick, see your sons graduate” and all that. And I will, see the graduation and stop smoking I mean. I can do that when it needs doing, just not at the moment, ‘cause I’ve got lunch coming up as soon as the whistle blows.
We also used to have the twelve hour day. That was fine, if you ask me. Especially when we could smoke. Typically, it would be… I reckon, 5 to 8 cigarettes leading to a break. You could take a break and enjoy your smoke then, not doing it to just pass the time, and talk with the other gents. Things are changing.
They’ve really changed, I mean, big stuff. Losing the smokes was big, but there’s more too. I’m all about progress— it’s the manifestation of our destiny, this great nation and all that. But those guys have their heads way up, honest to God. We used to rotate stations and everything, mostly me and Jim moving back and forth from the interior installations to setting in headlights and all that. Now I’m on headlights all the time, Monday through Saturday, sometimes the goddamn Saturday too, and I can’t smoke.
And then there was the bit with the earphones. For our safety, workplace safety, they set all the gents up with these earphones, for our hearing, of course. But now I can’t hear goddamn anything! I remember I’d usually be on the line with Phil and other times with Jim— mostly Saturday with Jim, when I had to come in Saturday— and Phil was great. We’d been on a couple of camping trips and everything. That was good— I mean, we had enough fun. He was a real guy, you know… he was a dude, like in that tune Mott the Hopple did, All the Young Dudes. Now, somebody said along the line “Mick, Bowie wrote that tune.” And that’s true, but honest to God, he was a strange one. He was a real freak. And I like his version all right, ‘cause it’s a rockin’ number, but I’m not gonna be influenced by a cake like him— that’s the God given truth. Anyway, we liked Phil but after the earphones, he couldn’t hear a word I said, and I’d wait till goddamn lunch to see or talk to Phil, and I had to cram it all in half an hour.
Without the smokes, though, I’m always fixin’ for the next one on my break. I see Phil and Jim out there on the deck sometimes, but we don’t talk anymore. I can’t. All I can do is sit and crave my smoke, and stare out past them, and forget what I’d wanted to say about anything. I see them and the family at church from time to time, but nobody talks in church. I just sit and stare, listen to the Word and everything, and I can smell all that industry soap on my hands, all cracked and goddamn dry and flaky. I don’t ask for much. I’m just tryin’ to make my way.


I tried to do this one as a "stream of consciousness" or whatever, writing it all at once, quickly and as I thought of it. It was fun but by the end, I felt I ran out of places to go. I don't like Mick, and I hope nobody does.