The Dock

By some back of the napkin math, I figure I was travelling roughly 67,007 miles per hour when I collided. I tried explained this to my boss, telling him it was fortunate the wooden pallet was all that was destroyed at such speeds. He gave me an oafish, slack-jawed stare for a few seconds before detailing how much would be taken from my paycheck and politely commanded me to return to work.

I didn’t bother to explain the joke. In my head I imagined his pupils dilating into the white and a trickle of blood seeping from his ear as I explained that the addition of the speed of the forklift plus the earth around the sun would come out to some 67,007 miles per hour. This humored me, but my math was probably wrong anyway. If I had been better at math this moon-faced goober probably would not be my boss.

Fifty dollars for a pallet. There’s some math. Some old wood that was rough-sawn and sprayed with noxious chemicals, tacked together by a robot, and beaten up for months on end by machines and humans (and machines driven by humans), and it was still worth $50. According to ANT, they all were. The new ones, the blue ones, the plastic ones, the white ones. The one missing four boards was $50. So was the one that collapsed under a bundle of fasteners, although I guess ANT had to write that one off.

I couldn’t write off the $50 I owed for the pallet I rolled the forklift over. I don’t even know what it means to write something off. When I filed my taxes I used the EZ form. Was there a line on the long form where you could write in items you had broken and had to pay for? It’s probably worth looking for that next April, because I’d like to see that $50 back.

It’s pretty fortunate that I haven’t done this before. I’m not exactly the best driver on the loading dock. I’m better than Brenda, who backed her pallet jack into a shelf hard enough to dislodge a bundle of paper towels three levels up. The towels landed four feet from the dock supervisor. And even though they were towels, the bundle weighed enough to crush his burly frame. He shit his pants. Brenda was asked not to return.

I guess having $50 taken from my paycheck is better than losing my job, but it still hurts. Those of us who work for ANT on the dock start above minimum wage, but only enough to make the corporate guys look as if they care about anyone in the lower class other than the au pair they’re sleeping with. That amount is 50 cents. This, of course, doesn’t include the gloves we’re required to have but have to pay for out of our pocket or paycheck. Ditto the safety glasses, box cutter (and blades), steel-toed boots, and lifting belt (if necessary).

I’ve been here for three years now, and I’ve seen a lot of Brendas come and go in that short time, but I’ve only managed to work my way up to $1.25 above minimum wage. So, I stewed on that $50 pallet I smashed for the rest of my shift. And the car ride home. And the three hours before Michaela came home.

“I have to pay $50 for breaking a pallet,” I said to her before she could hang her keys on the hook by the door.

“It’s nice to see you too,” she replied without smiling. “The hell?”

I nestled myself deeper into the couch cushion, hoping it might deflect some of her attitude. I had hoped she’d offer something more sympathetic. “Someone left a pallet out and I ran it over. I guess they cost $50. It’ll come out of my next paycheck.”

She rolled her eyes as she crossed the linoleum between the entrance and the refrigerator. As she ducked her head inside to look for a drink she said, “Well that’s great. I suppose that $50 will be on me when rent is due?”

I had no response for that. Well, that’s not true entirely, I did, but I didn’t want to share it. Two months ago a parking ticket--a severely overdue and long-forgotten parking ticket--had cost me $75 of my portion of the rent, which Michaela had covered not out of charity or goodwill or love, but more a sense of not wanting to get evicted.

“How was your day?” I deflected.

“Good enough, I suppose. James did some coke at lunch and came back with an erection.” She offered this nonchalantly. Not because it didn’t bother her, at least I think not, but because her boss had done this before. Several times.

Michaela worked as a receptionist at a downtown art gallery. It was small and white. There were never more than a dozen works on display. The walls around what passed for art in our town were pristine flat white. The ceilings were open to the rafters and ductwork, but all sprayed white. The floors were white marble. Her boss, James Bingham, a white guy with an Ivy League degree in art history, preferred Michaela wear white, but she only acquiesced during openings. Most days her floral tops or neon scarves were the only pops of color in the narrow space.

I think James accepted this because he was a letch and didn’t particularly care what she was wearing.

On the rare days our shifts diverged significantly, I’d take lunch to the art gallery for Michaela. We’d sit at her desk quietly and watch people walk past the window while downing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or lukewarm pizza rolls. When James would notice I was around, he would come in and deliberately flirt with Michaela. He’d compliment her skin and casually reach into his chino pockets and drop his money clip when he pulled his hand out. That kind of thing. When I wasn’t around he’d do coke and get an erection and she’d try to avert her eyes but would inevitably notice the little tent in his too-tight white pants.

So I wasn’t worried, I just put faith in the idea Michaela wanted nothing to do with whatever earned James all the money he had to spend on things like an art gallery. Or cocaine. Instead I was worried about a $50 pallet and how that money would be replaced.

“You should really quit ANT,” Michaela suggested as if it were a new idea. Then sauntered into the bedroom to toss her bag in the corner and swap shoes for slippers.

After getting her slippers, Michaela settled in on the couch and watched an episode of a network true crime show. Then she headed out to a bar to meet friends or something. I don’t know. I hadn’t been paying close attention to anything. My mind was only half there.

After she left I slinked to the return duct in the farthest corner of the bedroom of our one-bedroom apartment, where I kept a stash of personal belongings. Michaela and I had been together for two years and lived together for more than six months now, but I still didn’t feel comfortable sharing this stuff with her. Just behind the grate were only a few things: a journal, my father’s watch, an envelope with $273--my savings for a new laptop--and an old silver dollar I kept for good luck (and because it was presumably worth money).

I never dared opening removing any of these items while Michaela was around. When we moved in together she had made fun of the old Seiko diver’s watch with its tarnished metal band, so I put it away and stored with it anything else that might be the subject of derision. My journal was really nothing special, and probably not worth reading, but I kept notes of what happened each day dutifully. In my mind, this would be invaluable to my future biographer after I became president or developed some groundbreaking technology. Maybe a way to reconstruct broken pallets or something.

I had grabbed my screwdriver from the fix-it drawer in the kitchen, which held things like a small hammer, a pair of scissors, loose nails, and a clamp--everything the young handyman would need before deciding to call the landlord to have something fixed. In the bedroom I stood on the bed to reach the vent. I carefully unscrewed the vent and retrieved the journal. It was a dollar store spiral-wound notebook with a highlighter orange cover. The corners had been dulled and pulled up at the edges. Dust permanently speckled the cover by this point, giving it a heathered appearance. About 100 of the 300 pages had any writing on them, but this covered the last three years of my existence. Entries were short, usually no more than a paragraph. They detailed the big events of the day and an occasional comment. For example:

“Feb. 23, 2015 -- After work Michaela and I went ice skating. She had never been, so I had to show her how to skate. I don’t think she trusted me much, because she’d freak out whenever I tried to hold her hand. She fell many times and it’s hard to not laugh at someone who keeps wiping out. I think she liked it though.”

It was dull.

But, I faithfully inscribed the details of the incident on the loading dock out of obligation more than anything and then placed it back in the vent.