Life On the Line

It was another carefree day of playing catch and playing cards outside the mill gates. Seems like everybody who is not working full-time elsewhere has a side job to bolster their strike pay or is happy letting their wife work while they practice being retired. A few of us on the line today all have the same side job and we do not have to pay any taxes on our wages, if you get my drift. It is like Rollie told me in Ma Kelly's before we got started today, "We got it made Beer. We are on the Anarchist Highway. We don't pay taxes on our strike pay and we don't pay taxes on our side jobs. Makes a man wonder why the fuck he holds down a real job in the first place."

To which I answered, "So we can keep our houses instead of having them confiscated as proceeds of crime if the bulls ever bust our doors down?"

We are on the best kind of strike. A strike long anticipated due to the collusion between the motherfucking boss and their fascist government shithead buddies who stuck us with a contract that has had us pissed off for good reason for a good long time. We are on strike because we are really, really pissed off. And we are getting more and more pissed off by the day.

It is like the strikes that took place to create the eight hour day decades ago.

Ma Kelly is pissed off too by the way. "How come you no work? Lazy. I go broke you no work too much longer. What I supposed to do? Maybe I close restaurant grow dope like everybody."

On my way home from the silenced mill I had a surprise waiting for me. As I drove through an intersection I noticed a bicycle on its side and a dump truck stopped nearby. Beside the bike a young woman was on the ground. I had not been drinking too much so I stopped my car and put my head into first aid gear. The girl was crying as I introduced myself. "I'm Beer. I'm a first aid motherfucker. Mind if I check you over?" She consented.

I asked her what her head and back felt like. She cried, "My head is just a little sore and my back feels ok. It's my arm."

Sure enough she a had a couple red patches of road rash around one of her elbows and the beginnings of a lot of bruising. I told her, "I'm going to poke around your arm. You tell me if it hurts when I press anywhere." She started balling as soon as I started palpating her arm so I stopped. (If it was a workplace accident I would have poked my patient a little more. The guys at work like to know for sure if they are going to be off work a while.) She had a broken arm, possibly a couple fractures from what I could see.

I turned my attention to the truck driver who was on his cell phone beside us. I asked him, "You have called an ambulance, haven't you?" Turns out he was challenged by the English language. But he knew enough English to tell me he was talking to his wife on the phone. I took his phone and told her her husband was going to hang up so he could phone 911 for me. The 911 dispatcher sent an ambulance based on what information I could give her but one happened to be driving by and they got out, took charge and were soon joined by a few firemen. If there was one thing that might make the girl feel a little better it would be the sight of firemen. Those fuckers get more pussy than anybody.

The girl got splinted up by the ambulance crew and is hopefully having a few beer and admiring her fancy fibreglass cast by now. I took off as soon as the ambulance crew started to lead her to their vehicle; the Cadillac was in the way of traffic and I did not want to prolong the possibility of it getting slammed from behind.

If you have ever thought about getting some first aid training stop fucking around and sign up for a course. It is hard to beat being some small help to a crying young person at the side of the road.