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Mack the Knife
(Blue-Collar Fiction)

Kirk Alex

(excerpt from “You’re Gonna Have Trouble”)

    The alarm clock goes off at 3:30 a.m. I reach over with my right arm and shut it off. Sit up. Sit on the edge of the futon for a minute, I need a minute, then seeing and accepting I have no choice, slide my feet into the slippers there on the carpeting, and stagger to the shower. Showering is the key. It’s the shower that makes it possible to wake up and get on with the rest of the day.
    I slip into a pair of clean boxers, get into a clean (hopefully) T-shirt, and take it in to the tiny kitchen. Grab a couple of 12-ounce bottles of BodyArmor: Orange Mango, Blue raspberry (packed with electrolytes, antioxidants: Vitamins A, C & E; B vitamins: B3, B5, B6, B9, B12). I do what I can to stay hydrated. With a job like this it’s crucial. Besides, these drinks only pack 90 calories, with minimum sugar; no colors added from artificial sources. Gluten-FREE. NO caffeine.

    I stuff them inside the Igloo cooler I have sitting on the stand by the front door, then I prepare the two turkey sandwiches: one for the first break at 9 a.m., and one for the 11:45 break later. I use thin buns, apply mustard, couple of thin-slices of turkey, slip the sandwiches inside a baggy each, and jam that inside the cooler. This is all I have to eat for the entire day. Don’t need or crave anything else, really. Not even during the entire ten or twelve hour gift.
    It’s a mystery to me that I can go this long without wanting anything additional, other than perhaps some water, which I get at work.
    And yet, when at home, when not working, during the three days am off, I eat out of boredom, eat even though am not hungry. This was the reason for the fast weight gain and gut.
    Am doing good, though, far as that. Weight down to about 181, give or take.

    I dress: get into the walking shorts; add a shirt, clean socks, and slip into the $70 black sneakers (with the thick soles that are required for this kind of job, of standing on your feet and walking the entire time).

    I lock my front door, get in the Toyota. Turn the CD player on, and Frank Sinatra Live From Las Vegas––19 Previously Unreleased Live Hits & Signature Songs lifts me as I take it down the gravel lot toward the exit. I drive south on Alvernon Way, pass Irvington Road, get on the I-10 East, with Sinatra’s incredible voice in fine form making the drive, this drive that I have made many times in the past, a lot easier. The man, this gifted artist sounds better than ever. In fact, it’s just plain unbelievable that anyone could be so gifted. What a voice. My god, what a voice.
    I reach my Rita offramp, take it. Short while later, head north for a bit, then make a right past the hotel. Outside the gated warehouse parking lot is a stretch of road where we’re allowed to wait until 5:25 (the time the parking lot arm goes up).
    I kill the engine, sit there across the shuttle bus stop and bench, where a few years back I used to do this route as a shuttle driver and picked up folks who worked at the warehouse, exhausted/tired/weary folks who had endured the night shift. And here I am now, one of those warehouse employees. Things never change. Just the way it is for so many working stiffs like us. But we do it. Whatever it is we have to to put food on the table/pay the auto insurance/mortgage/credit card companies (to whom I owe plenty).
    Welcome to America, amigo. Life for millions like me. But we do it. Without complaint. We manage. While we are still able.

    But Mr. S. is on, singing his heart out. And I listen, in awe of this exceptionally talented crooner as he belts out song after song to the Vegas audience, then banters with them a bit. Discovers that a couple sitting in the front have been married fifty-years and he and the audience applaud them.
    Mr. S. is in fine form, and then he goes into his version of Mack the Knife. The orchestra is one of the finest I have ever heard, perhaps even surpassing the Buddy Rich Band. Sinatra is belting the number out, and begins improvising lyrics and sounds just about incredible. This is genius at work; a phenomenal talent at its breathtaking best.
    He starts giving props to late greats like Luis Armstrong, Bobby Darin and Lady Ella––Mr. Sinatra, all the while belting out this terrific, high-energy version informs the audience that there isn’t anything he can do with the Broadway show tune to improve on what the heretofore talents mentioned have done with it, but then points out that with the likes of conductor Bill Miller, drummer Irving Cottler, and the amazing Golden Nugget Band bringing up the rear, there is no way he can lose.
    And he’s right. This version tops them all. This is the best version I have ever heard.

    The vocalist stays with the powerful beat and amazing orchestra . . . and it can’t be helped, my eyes begin to well. This rendition is that awesome. Music this phenomenal is like a gift from Mount Olympus to the rest of us.
    How great is Sinatra? Second-to-none. That’s how great. Just as Elvis was/is second-to-none; just as James Brown is second-to-none; just as Roy Orbison is second-to-none; just as B.B. King is as well; just as Janis Joplin is another, and a few others in their league. The music, Sinatra’s voice, just about takes your breath away. Am sitting here, thinking: How can anyone––ANYONE––be this good?

    It’s time. Gate-arm goes up and stays up, the ten-foot wrought iron gate crawls to the left. I wait for it to open wide enough, and drive into the vast lot. Find a spot to park, go in. Wait in the lobby for Jeremiah to appear with his laptop. Area to the left contains an ATM, counter with three computers, chairs. The stretch along the right is where the admissions peeps with a scanner are located for the Tangent regular employees.
    Across the way from them is the small office where the temp officers stay during the day, while peeps like me toil away inside the warehouse. Other temp workers appear, like my friend Mel, others; a few women. Others still that I know, but are Tangent regulars: Luis, Jeppers; others. We greet one another. Fellow blue-collar wage slaves. The way it is. We got this in common: poor peeps. From the cradle to the grave. The way it is. Unless you’re a certain type of clever career criminal, or else in politics. How and why so many politicians enter the arena: way to get rich, without having to work. Corruption? Why not? Here? You got it. Here/there/everywhere.
    Corruption reigns. Don’t matter if you’re in some fourth-world hades, totalitarian hellhole, or right here in this so-called republic. Peeps in the game have a system. Not only that, they have each other’s back. You bet. The only way to get away with breaking the law big-time: you protect and cover for one another. Fellow thieves? Yes. Sorry to disappoint; but the way it is. The higher up, the greater the thievery. In fact, those rarely if ever, get nailed and are taken to task.
    It’s the lowly bank-robber/car-thief/mugger/dope-pusher who gets the book tossed at him (or her). Don’t believe it? Don’t have to. Get this: billions, supposedly, go to countries as so-called financial aide; but then somehow, a billion or two or three simply vanish. How’s that? How can it be? It be. And where does it end up? Your guess is as good as mine. Bank accounts. Off-shore. Where? You do the work, because I ain’t goin’ there. Won’t get you or me anywhere. This is how certain operators get over. And then get on the idiot box and chirp their BS to get elected: We’re going to do this for the working poor across the board, and especially them other folks over there in the inner city, etc., etc. Meanwhile we got people: white/Hispanic/black sleeping in cardboard coffins next to City Hall in downtown LA and other towns in this great nation.
    Saw it, plenty of it, all those years I drove a cab for my bread and butter. It sickened me, and it sickened me. Nuff said.
    Instead of helping out the needy, you got the ones with the fat bank accounts getting fatter. World we live in. Creatures are called homo-sapiens. Never heard of ‘em? Anyway. . . . There’s kindness out there, no doubt; yet. . . .

    The late Tom Kromer’s great blue collar masterpiece entitled Waiting for Nothing was published back in 1935 and deals with what it’s like to be down and out; starving, dressed in rags, no place to sleep (other than some flea-infested flophouse) because jobs were scarce and work was just about impossible to find. The thing was written damned near one hundred years ago and, sadly, things aren’t much different for millions. Folks are struggling. This is what I’m talking about.
    I love the flag, have tremendous respect for the Constitution, but man, some of the poverty that’s out there is heartbreaking, tough to ignore, and yet, just is: ignored plenty by those with the ability to do something about it.

    Jeremiah emerges, sets up the laptop; plugs in the thumb-drive, starts assigning us. Some go to Stock Select, others go somewhere else. Others still, like me, go to Inbound. Am good with it. Happy to be away from the box-turning for a while. Am assigned to unload trailers. Gives me the dock number. I thank the dude, and walk up to the counter on the right, where my ID is scanned by the Tangent lady with hair the color of jade.
    “Good-morning!”
    “Good-morning”
    “Thank you.”
    “Thank you.”
    I enter the break room door on my left. Jam my earplugs in, and move off down the short corridor to another door, and enter the noisy warehouse.

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