The Kerr Construction Company by Larry Farmer Page B

drive.”
    “I don’t know how to get back.”
    “I’ll get you on the highway,” Jose instructed. “Then follow it to town. Wake me up when we get there. I’ll tell you how to get the rest of the way.”
    I’ve been in college too long. Some idealistic notion told me to be patient, but my instincts said to tell this joker where to go. Wake him up, indeed. But in some ways I liked him doing that. Being new, I was anxious and feeling out of place. Go ahead, piss me off. It settles the nerves.
    Jose needed a ride home when we got back to town. Good. I needed a shower. His wife and new baby boy were in bed when we got there. I wasn’t just dirty and grimy, I had this mud stuff on me, too. On my hands and face and on my clothes. Goo. I felt plastic-coated. Jose wasn’t pleased, but he let me in. I didn’t bother with the shower but washed at his sink.
    I found a city park after leaving Jose’s and drove to the curb, changed clothes in the back of the truck, unrolled my sleeping bag, meditated, and went to sleep.
    My Marine days weren’t that far behind. Though I wasn’t a combat veteran, every Marine is a rifleman first, no matter what military job they get assigned. That means a lot of drilling, firing, running, marching, and camping out. We camped out at Camp Pendleton in a desert environment like this, and it was so cold at night we had to sleep in full combat gear, including boots, and with two blankets. Coyotes would raid our grounds looking for scraps. So, in spite of getting soft in college lately, what I was doing now was really a step up.
    ****
    I got up with the sun. Once at work, they put me to laying irrigation pipes. That beat the hell out of mixing mud. I used to lay pipes with my daddy on our farm, except the pipes at Kerr Construction were more permanent, and we bolted the joints together instead of just hooking them.
    People still weren’t friendly. Up to now I was one of two whites, not counting the ones who owned and ran the company. But that had nothing to do with the competition going on among the workers. Not to see who won but who was tough and competent enough to keep from getting fired. Three dollars an hour, bottom-of-the-barrel work, and you had to hustle to keep from losing your job.
    “Hey, College,” Doug shouted from his pickup. “What’s your name again?” I looked up after placing a pipe down. “Come here a minute,” he barked.
    There was another guy in the pickup too. A huge, reddish-brown-skinned guy with the high cheekbones of a Navajo. He wore a red bandana tied around his head like some Geronimo character. His biceps were as big as my thighs.
    “You’re going to be here all day,” Doug instructed me. “We’re bringing you some more pipe and will place them about a quarter mile down the road. You’re going to lay these out all the way till you get to that electric post back there on that hill.” He pointed behind me. “That’s about a mile. I want them in a straight line. You got thirty minutes for your lunch break, then get everybody going again.” Before I thought of any questions, he drove away.
    “Hey,” I shouted, “you just ran over my lunch box.”
    “What’s it doing in the road?” he shouted back. The rest of the crew, behind me, snickered.
    “There’s no road,” I yelled, managing to not shout the four-letter words that came to mind. “I had it out of the way.” I knew he didn’t hear me.
    My salami sandwich now had tire-tread marks on it, and what was left of the bread was black and caked with dirt. My Mounds bar was flat as a penny on a railroad track. I picked up the sandwich, threw away the bread, dusted off the salami the best I could, and ate it.
    I seemed to be in charge. It must be my college degree, but I only just got here. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. I don’t want to be in charge. It doesn’t take college to do construction, I whined inside. It takes knowing how. I don’t know how, I whined further.
    We quit at