Step Over Dollars

This was an observation essay for a writing class that I got an A- in.  The teacher harassed me to take more classes with her until I left the Theater Arts Major and moved on to Psychology.

11^th November 2007

Observation 2

Feeder gate: you could call it a public place because is normally bustling with activity just not at 2 a.m. on a holiday morning. To appraise it now in its stillness you would never believe that Saturday morning I was sealing truck after truck here with perspiration stinging my eyes. Every were you look this place is gray, the walls, the fences, the ground, even the trailers parked in there rows are painted the color of concrete.

Concrete, concrete, concrete! The word echoes off the building and comes back at me as if the property were laughing. Concrete to keep the boxes in, concrete to keep the thieves out, and a contract to keep me here when I should be out enjoying the rest of my youth.  Hideous slabs of concrete in every direction punctuated by graying colors in the moon light, black, green, brown, rust, as if they were unconsumed islands in the sea of gray. The trailers themselves are like massive gray termites with detachable head sleeping in their hive until they awakened to shuttle packages to the business world and expand other hives until all the world is covered with the gray resin of humanity.

The mosquitoes are keeping me company seeking me out by the smell of my breath over the honeysuckle. One good thing about the trucks during the week is that they keep these miniature vampires off me. I strike another from mid air with my hands and immediately wish I hadn’t bothered to move. The combination of eight hours truck fumes and a workout directly proceeding has left me in a state of misery.

I press up against the plaster walls of the guardhouse and look out at the trailers blocking the gate. Iron isn’t enough to keep the freight safe but a ten-dollar an hour guard is. Fools don’t know that they step over dollars to pick up dimes. Then one of the managers comes out here, a walking penis with its foreskin held down by a tie, I just nod and smile and hope they don’t let loose with me around. Can’t complain much, though, I make out better than most guards.    

In the shack the sound of that piss-poor old-ass air unit breathing its dying breath and the fan punctuate the still of the outside.  It’s too cold in here, but the cold keeps me from nodding off.

I get up and walk out the door for more of my typical pacing but find myself to feeble and sit on the hot concrete island. It’s cracked and pitted with deep gores were the truck hit it. I lean against the phone tower and look at the overflowing trash cans. It’s like they’ve vomited out the litter of truck drivers. They see the can is bursting and still they stuff and stuff. The drivers are all at home sleeping or having fun leaving their mess to be endured by the less fortunate. It’s like a metaphor for the world we have inherited we know what the problems are and we don’t actually do anything about them. Not enough anyway.

If there is one thing that is good about the feeder gate: Landscaping. Flowers and trees that look almost natural if they were not so well kept clash with the industrial nightmare of this massive automated dock. If I weren’t on duty and being watched by cameras I’d go sit in the grass and smell the aroma of the plants. I had never seen honeysuckle before I came here or at least never noticed the white and yellow flowers that smell like a subtler version of jasmine. It’s a good contrast to the eucalyptus and mingles growing with the other plants.

If you sat in the trees and looked to the sky you could forget that this place is what it is, but if you looked during the week the soot from the trucks would blot out the stars. It’s strange how quickly the world can heal.

                                         

The phone rings: “feeder gate, Officer Neal speaking.”  It’s the guard over at the front gate and she has never spent the night out here alone. I don’t blame you for being afraid little sister I’m not happy about working at this place without the right equipment either. I won’t walk this place at night without something to protect myself with.

I bet you’re all wondering why I work here if I don’t like it so much. Well, you’ll find out soon enough because I’ve devoted now some forty pages of one-act plays to the subject. Three total and counting and one of my smaller goals is to have two hours of my life as a security guard woven into the world of plays. However, a friend of mine ditched this type of work for Iraq so, yea, it’s pretty bad.