ONCE AGAIN EDITED FOR ME BY THE INCOMPARABLE "WIRES" WITHOUT WHOSE HELP THIS WOULD BE A FAR, FAR POORER STORY. I TWEAKED IT A LITTLE AFTER HE RETURNED THE DOCUMENT TO ME SO, AS ALWAYS, ANY ERRORS ARE WHOLELY MINE.
Kyle Williams had a dream. It was a simple dream as many are, but like many dreams it required something of an effort to make it come true. Oh, sure, Kyle and many like him spent many hours dreaming of the end result and saying things like "If I was", or "it would be great if" or "when I win the Powerball I'll" but for the most part that was as far as the dreamers went to achieve their dream. Oh, sure, many people in the world went part way down the path that led them to achieving at least a portion of their dream. Kyle was a different type of dreamer though. He spent many hours on his dream and, truthfully, didn't spend much time planning how to achieve it. He just went out and did whatever he had to do to make ends meet. This is common, of course. More people than we want to admit just muddle through life and get by. Kyle set out to be the same. Somehow, something happened, though.
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Kyle shot upright in his bed when he heard the loud banging. Over the dong, dong, dong of the wooden spoon hitting the bottom of the aluminum dishpan held in his mother's hands he heard her screeching voice. She yelled as his bedroom door slammed open and bounced off the doorstop. "Kyle, get your lazy ass outta that bed right now. If you don't get dressed and downstairs in five minutes you'll have to leave without your breakfast. Your Daddy's already outside checking the truck. Now come on."
Kyle groaned and fell back onto his mussed bed. He was weak. He was shaking and had trouble standing he was so dizzy. Some of his problem may have been all the beer he drank the night before but most of it was the violent wakeup call he just endured. You would think an eighteen-year-old man, as he liked to think of himself, could expect some consideration from his family on the day after his high school graduation and the party that came after. Kyle looked at the clock and grimaced. He had gotten a whole two and a half hours of sleep. No wonder he still felt unsteady on his feet. He was probably still legally drunk and he was definitely still exhausted.
Kyle remembered staggering into the house the night before giggling and shushing his friends as they tried to help him inside. He especially remembered Gloria's help. She had her blouse unbuttoned almost to her navel and her gloriously unencumbered breasts and pebble hard nipples were open to his view in the porch light his parent's left on for him. She was walking alongside him with her arm wrapped around his waist while his friend Bruce steadied them both from time to time as he more or less guided them onto the porch and opened the door.
Kyle wasn't sure how he hooked up with Gloria. Oh, sure, he knew her. After all, she was one of the 47 graduating seniors in his class and was at the party on the riverbank. What he didn't know is how she came to be with him and Bruce when they headed home. He remembered all three of them were in the cab of Bruce's truck, Gloria in the middle. He remembered seeing her get back into the truck and sit beside the passenger door when they left him inside his living room. Hell, he even remembered flashes of the events at the party. He couldn't remember Gloria being with Bruce and her sitting by the door when they left seemed to indicate she wasn't with Bruce. He even thought he remembered watching her button her top before she got into the truck with Bruce.
Kyle staggered slowly down the stairs and into the too bright kitchen. His mother had his fried eggs, potatoes, sausage patties and toast on a plate at his spot at the table. He sat down and started to eat when his father came into the house and yelled, "Damn it Kyle we don't have time for you to lay around and lollygag. Get yore ass up and let's go. We have a long day ahead of us."
Kyle looked up at his father and started to take another bite. His father yelled again, "I said ya don't have time for that. If ya wanted ta eat ya shoulda got up when we called ya the first time. Now come on."
Kyle frowned. He had absolutely no memory of being awakened that morning before his mother came into his room beating on the dishpan. He glared at his father then put his two eggs and sausage on a piece of toast. He slopped ketchup on top and covered it with his other piece of toast then wrapped the sandwich in a paper towel. Kyle followed his father out the kitchen door and got into their old rattletrap F350 dually. Kyle's father climbed into the driver's seat, slipped the 17-year-old truck into gear and rattled down their dirt driveway. Kyle tried to eat his breakfast while he bounced in the seat. He sure wished he could have eaten the potatoes also. He really liked fried potatoes with his eggs and sausage. The old truck was rocking and bouncing because of the deep potholes in the red clay soil driveway.
Kyle barely got his sandwich eaten before his father pulled up at the first stop. Kyle got out of the truck and began pitching the garbage bags found along the street into the back of the old truck. He hated this job but it was what his family did to make ends meet. Everyone did some kind of work and added their meager pay to the family coffers. His mother and two sisters worked in the diner and Dairy King at town. His younger brother mowed lawns for some of the people in town using the same push mower Kyle used when he did the same thing. Now Kyle had to help his father run the privately operated trash service in their small town and the surrounding communities.
After a backbreaking 11-hour day Kyle and his father returned to their home. Kyle had no idea how many bags of trash he loaded into the truck and threw out of it when they were full and went to the county landfill. He was hot, tired, filthy, hungry and thirsty. He also hated what he did but he couldn't see any choice except to continue. There was no money for college even if he wanted to further his education. Of course with his grades no college would look twice at him either. He had a 2.1 out of a possible 4.0 grade point average when he graduated. Trash was in his future, or if he was exceptionally lucky and managed to escape his father's clutches he could work as a blue-collar factory worker. It didn't matter how many dreams he had of being rich and wearing nice clothes and driving fancy new vehicles. The reality was he was poor, poorly educated, and headed for a life of manual labor.
The summer progressed and Kyle lifted a never-ending volume of trash bags and larger items. Six days a week Kyle labored. One day in the fall Kyle's father's truck broke down. They could not run the route and Kyle had the day off. He went to town and hit the local Dairy King where his friends hung out. Bruce was there bragging about his new job working nights at the local La Z Boy chair plant. When Kyle asked about it Bruce said it was long hours but good money. He worked four ten-hour shifts and even got some overtime. After he got better and could work faster he could even make more money than he was currently because of piecework rates.
Kyle didn't even think about what he was doing. He turned and got onto his small older 150cc motorcycle. He rode to the Lazy Boy plant and applied for a job. To his surprise when he turned his application in he was asked to wait. A man in a suit came out of an office and asked him to come in and "visit".
While they were talking, the man wrote notes in the margins of his application. After a few moments the man leaned back in his chair and said, "Ok, I think we'll give you a try. We need a couple more men on nights. When can you start?"
Kyle was almost speechless. He stammered and finally said, "I guess I could start Monday. I help my Daddy on his trash route right now and I oughtta give him a couple of days to replace me."
"OK. Come in about 2:30 Monday afternoon and see Miss Jensen in my outer office. She'll get you through all the paperwork and introduce you to your foreman. He'll get you started. Here's our policy manual. You need to read it and become familiar with the rules. You will be on three months probation. If you work out you'll be permanent after that time. Any questions?"
Kyle shook his head no and said, "No, Sir. I'll be here Monday. Thank you Sir."
Kyle's father was furious when he told him and his mother he would be working at the plant beginning Monday. Kyle knew most of his father's anger came because he would have to do more, if not all, of the work on the route when Kyle went to work at the plant. His father had done all the work before Kyle got out of school except on school holidays and weekends when he made Kyle help. He suspected his younger brother would now have the pleasure of helping his father after school and weekends. Kyle didn't care. In his mind he would now be well on his way to a life of riches and luxury. He would start work at almost $7.00 per hour. Imagine, he would make almost $260.00 per week without overtime. He could make even more if he worked faster because the plant worked on piecework. The base pay could be almost doubled if he worked fast and put out a quality product. Why he could even buy a used truck and have wheels!
Life did look brighter and Kyle did have a small amount of spending money but for some reason he didn't feel rich. Of course, the $100 a week his father demanded for room and board took much of his take home pay. Who would have thought taxes and insurance would take over $100 a week out of his pay. In fact, it took $118 a week out of his base pay. That only left him $52 a week for spending money plus whatever overtime he made. Most weeks he barely made rate but he was getting faster so still had hopes of doing better. Kyle was pissed. He was making what, to him, was good money and still didn't have any more to spend than when he helped his father on the trash route.
Like many lower paid blue-collar workers Kyle spent every penny he made. Sometimes he didn't even have enough left over to buy clothes. He had to force himself to cut back on his beer and running around to buy shoes or clothes to wear to work. He saved every penny he could and finally managed to get enough ahead to make a down payment on a used F150 at a "buy here, pay here" lot. That took another $25.00 per week for almost forever. He had the truck on a four-year note and if he missed a payment the truck had an electronic cut off switch the company could activate to keep it from starting until he was paid up and paid the reactivation fee. Where the hell was the good life, Kyle wondered.
One evening Kyle and his team ran out of parts. The supervisor gave them the choice of either clocking out and going home early (without pay and incentives) or staying and doing casual work for their base pay. Everyone but Kyle left, but he needed the money badly enough he stayed. Kyle was put to work carrying trash out of the factory and putting it into the proper receptacles. All the bins were full so Kyle went back into the plant and found the foreman.
Kyle said, "Jack, the bins are full and there aren't any empty ones in the storage area so I can't take any more scrap out. What do you want me to do instead?"
Jack, the foreman, stomped outside and looked at the bins and began cussing. He said, "God Damn it. We pay those assholes good money to pick this shit up and get rid of it. This is the third time this month they have let the containers overflow. This shit's gotta stop. I'm gonna raise enough hell this time they lose their contract. Hell, even the area for used pallets is almost full. Carry out what pallets you can and stack them then come find me again."
"Jack, how much do we pay them to take this stuff off?"
"Huh? Oh. They get $2.00 per pallet and $10 for each barrel of metal scraps. The wood scrap is paid by the truckload but it goes to another company. I think they sell it to a charcoal kiln if it's hardwood. I don't know what they do with the soft wood scraps."
