Half-Man
By
JD Painter
His name was Matt, and he was all grins, and sneakers and shuffles, attired in soiled white and gray painter’s livery.
At least that was my general first impression of him before my conscious mind had time to develop a more elaborate appraisal.
And, upon further consideration, he didn't seem to be a terribly bad fellow overall; and he seemed to make an effort, towards me at least, at being polite. After all, he was a young man. 25 or 26. Also, he was somewhat short—about five foot six or seven, I would again guess.
I believe that was why the Irish foreman saw fit to bestow upon him the nickname “Half Man” and, being a deal taller--about six foot two, and also ten years older,the Irish Foreman even went so far as to regularly call him “Half- man” to his face and quite often, in the form of a muttered order or a shouted command. As in:
"Half-Man! Go grab the shop vacuum!"
Or: "Half-Man! Suck my dick while we're waiting."
(None of this had anything to do with painting Henry Ford’s House of course.)
It was all done, ostensibly, in the name of good, though admittedly tasteless humor. And Matt, the younger man with the diminutive title would return the playful insult from the Foreman with insults of his own, particularly with regard to the Irish Foreman’s wife. This in turn would cause the foreman to draw upon his imagination with a retort or a sexual nature about Matt’s girlfriend, and the mother of Matt’s two children.
And thereof a sort of crude banter would take place, occasioned most often when a mood of mean-spiritedness would steal upon the Irish Foreman.
But that was not my problem. And it had little to do with the application of paint to a house as I say. All I wanted to do was put paint on a house and earn a wage thereby.
But there were always the trips back to the Train station parking lot. I came to loathe the Train station parking lot after a time. It had become the official meeting place of the Painting Company in the mornings. All the trucks and the cars of the crew would meet up there at six-thirty AM Monday through Saturday. It was the policy of the company that no one would go to the jobsite in their own car. Everyone had to ride to the job in one of five painting trucks.
At the time I worked for the Company, there were usually two or three painting projects going on at once, so I would park my car at the train station parking lot, and leave it there all day.
And so while riding in one of the trucks or vans, both to and from work, I was a true Captive Audience, and had to listen to the talk or “Banter” as the Irish foreman liked to characterize it.
And again, for instance, as we drove West in the evenings along Montauk Highway, the Irish Foreman would say something vile to Matt, and then Matt would retort with a statement about how, during the previous evening, his balls were slapping against the chin of the Irish Foreman’s wife.
The Irish Foreman would act surprised to hear such disrespect, and then reply in kind.
Stuff like that. Over and over and over.
At times like this, I had vague thoughts about law school and how super sensitive the people were in that place, way back then. But that was another life—almost a dream—like it never happened.
Maybe it never did.
*I should really work this into my Allstate Interview Story here:
BTW, this story is a re-run, and will add to this post tonight. One aspect of the blue collar working world of today that I haven't really covered in any of my writing, is how the crude heterosexual banter is oftentimes laced with crude homoerotic content.
For instance, I cannot count how many times I have heard one man jokingly request a blowjob from another man.
Not everyone talks like that of course, but there is a certain "type" that does.
However, now that I live closer in to NY city, I find that I hear much less of this sort of talk, perhaps due to a much greater middle class population as opposed to the East End of Long Island, namely the Hamptons, where the middle class is comparatively smaller in proportion to the Upper to upper middle Class tourists and the working class "Trade Parade" mostly from the middle of Long Island.
Gotta go paint.
