Chapter 1

John woke up looked around the room, the clock said 6:00am, what a way to start a day off. John didn't need an alarm clock as he had not slept past 6:00 since he was in high school. Well better get up and make some coffee, the same start to every day.

John stretched, scratched his nuts and then went to wrestle with his morning hard on and relieve his full bladder. After washing up he then made coffee and started to reflect on his life so far.

Let's see as of today I am 26 years old, what have I accomplished. Well once I finished High School with a solid C average what happened?

A week after Graduation I was sitting around doing nothing thinking that I was going to need to find a job and make at least enough money to keep my car running, it was a shit box a 23 year old Ford Maverick, yes that's right a '73 Ford Maverick with a 302 engine. An oil-leaking, gas-guzzling 302 with 240,000 miles on it. I had kept that car running all the way through the 2 years I had my license. Well with that car I at least got to learn a lot about the "modern" combustion engine and all the things required to keep it running.

Anyway back to what happened I was looking through the paper and saw an ad on the page across from the comics that caught my eye, "Wanted Labourers", it was an ad for the local lumber mill looking for a Millwright helper, a job that would last 2 months.

At the job interview I was less than stellar. I had a hangover and was operating on 3 hrs. sleep. I don't think they would have hired me but I was the only that came in to apply for the job. Small town, Alberta, Canada, who wants a job that paid minimum wage and no promise of any future what so ever. ME, that's who! Not interested in doing anything for the rest of my life.

Monday morning promptly at 7:45am I was there ready to go to work, I don't think they could believe I actually showed up much less 15 minutes early. The Millwright I would be helping was an older man in his late 50's. It took me all day to find out his name was Howard. He would just point at things and with a heavy lisp tell me to move it to where he wanted it. He was not very talkative at all and I believe he had some major problems with his speech as only half of his mouth seemed to move when he spoke. Man I couldn't believe how unlucky I was, all the other millwrights seemed like they were having a good time and there was lots of horse play. Here I was with a mean old man that thought I was a complete idiot. I was 17 years old and much smarter that any of the other people around me.

Tuesday I showed up at 7:40am ready to endure another day of misery, I only had to do this for 2 months then I should have enough money to travel across the country doing nothing but sell drugs and drink beer. Howard came into the lunchroom at 7:50 and saw me sitting there, He said, "ready to start, all we have to do today is take all the things we assembled yesterday apart and get it all moved up to the Debarker". (What is a Debarker? I thought).

"OK I said what should I take apart first?" I asked.

"Oh you don't have to take anything apart, you are here to carry all the parts up the stairs to the Debarker, the other guys will take it apart", Howard answered.

"OK well then I will go down and see what is ready to go", I replied.

I got up and walked past him with my shoulders held high as if to say I don't care what you think I am just here to get a pay check. I felt as if I was a little kid just told that I don't get to play on the slide with the other kids, I get to clean the playground.

When I got downstairs there was no one there so I looked this weird machine over and decided that the best thing to do would be to get all the tools we would need ready for the millwrights when they got here. I went over to the toolbox corral (a fenced area where all the toolboxes were kept after the millwright completed their shift) and pulled over the same toolbox that Howard was using the day before. When I got back to the machine Howard was telling a group of men what they were supposed to do. He saw me coming and asked "where are you taking my tool box?"

"I figured you would want it over here to take this thing apart", I said.

"This thing is a new in-feed drive for a 2500 Debarker", he spat out.

He continued with "I thought I told you that these guys would be taking it apart."

I couldn't really understand what his problem was so I sputtered, "I guess I am taking this to where ever you need it then."

"Over there is where I will be working", he pointed and grimaced almost a smile as I turned and saw he was pointing 3 stories up to a catwalk.

"OK", I said and turned the toolbox around thinking there has to be a better way to earn a living.

He went back to telling everyone else what to do.

I saw a crane on the fourth floor and decided that would be the way to get this toolbox up there, I rolled the toolbox over to the hook and started putting slings around the box thinking this should only take a few minutes when some asshole yelled, "Hey what are you doing with that crane."

I turned just in time to see this overweight short ugly guy trotting over to me.

"I need to take this toolbox up there", I turned and pointed.

"I run the crane, no one else has the proper training to operate this equipment", he shouted.

Just as I was about to say something for which I am sure would have gotten me fired; Rick one of the millwrights started to speak, "Howard wants his toolbox up there and he was only getting it ready for you so you could just lift it up there IF you ever got out here to do some work".

"Oh it's Howard's tools, well why didn't you say so", he said, obviously scared to piss Rick or maybe Howard off.

Rick just looked at me and smiled, "I will go up stairs and take the slings off, you go and see if Howard needs anything else done."

"OK thanks", I replied.