Three
Craig
Hands clasped together in my lap, I nervously rubbed my thumb across the spidery white mess of scars across the back of my hand.
Fresh wood splinters can be so sharp, and it’s always when you think you don’t need a pair of gloves that you actually do.
There were four pairs in my truck right now, but none in my back pocket.
Watching my vocational counselor suck on a papercut, I wondered if I’d ever need the gloves again.
“I applied there, too,” I answered her.
“How long ago?”
“Three weeks. No call back and I followed up by phone on Thursday.”
Scrolling through the same jobs I’d found online myself, the state placement counselor hmm’d, as she sucked at her index finger. “Well, I am sure we will find you something before the placement period runs out.”
“Something that doesn’t require a person to stand or sit? Cause I haven’t found something that is going to let me move around whenever I need to. At least without a degree.” The words were a mouthful of splinters.
“Craig.” She liked to use my first name. I’m sure it was part of her training to put hopeless guys like me at ease. “We need to focus on the skills you have and emphasize those. That is what is going to get you back out there. Not the stuff that is difficult.”
But difficult is what I did. Keeping long heavy trailers from jackknifing or rolling on twisty mountain roads, or running the chain thrower for the logging winch.
Do it wrong and you died, or someone else did.
But there are definitely worse things than dying.
Like listening to someone who just got out of college try and figure out where you still fit in the world now that you can’t run a truck anymore.
“Usually when folks get hurt we look at getting them a CDL.” She might remember my name but I never remembered hers. I just called her Glasses because she had a pair of thick black plastic frames that matched her hair. And she was way too young. “But that’s out if you can’t sit.”
“Depends on the day,” I mumbled, shifting in my chair. And I already had a commercial driving license. That’s how I’d made my living.
“Well, the trouble with short loads is that you have to unload them, which your lifting limitations say you can’t do, and you can’t sit for long haul which means that most driving jobs are out, and the lumber mills are really tight with placements right now.”
“I get it.” And I did. She wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t already figured. I was here looking for an angle that I hadn’t already calculated.
“You’ve got a lot of specific experience but your transferable skills just don’t apply well to less physical jobs. Have you tried retail, home improvement or construction stores?”
“Both orange and blue.” Filing out those applications was like asking to die.
They took you to a dark back room to a computer and you had to fill out the application there.
Keyboarding was not a big deal, but knowing you were applying for a job pacing a floor that paid a third of what you made before was infuriating. But I’d done it.
“Well shoot. Oh.”
Oh, can be good. “What?”
“You ran a crew when you were logging right?”
“On the mountain side I’ve done it all. Cut, haul, load, drive.”
“But you were in charge right? Training and stuff.”
I thought about that kid with the crappy mustache and how it took him days to get the back cuts and wedges right. Or how that tiny Latina could put the skid steer right where I’d asked when no one else could. “Yea. I did training and stuff.”
“Safety stuff?”
“On the mountain everything is safety stuff. Do it wrong, somebody gets hurt, so every time you tell someone how to do it, it’s about how to do it safe and right.
” Until something unexpected happens, like a link of chain popping.
Safety is about risk management, because nothing in life is really safe.
“Well, there is a worksite safety job here, requires a CDL and experience. But I think you would be competitive.” She scrolled down farther. “Duties including training on safe loading of trucks and operations, inspecting job sites, and equipment.”
This was why I came. Who better to look out for someone’s safety than someone who knew what getting hurt cost. And I’d paid that cost.
“Oh.”
That was not a good, oh. “What?”
“Are you CPR and First–Aid Certified?”
“Uh, what? No.”
“It’s just a one– or two–day class and a test. You could handle that right?”
I was a solid B–plus student and probably could have done college.
Working in the trees was just much more interesting than pushing papers.
And the smell of fresh cut pine or the roar of the wind through the branches was more fulfilling than reading crap off a screen for someone else.
I wasn’t dumb, it wasn’t classwork or tests I had a problem with.
“I can handle that,” I said finally, swallowing the five other things I should have said about her judgments.
“Well, hmm,” Glasses kept scrolling. Most of our sessions were like this, she hmmed, and scrolled, and clicked, and at the end of forty-five minutes, printed out a few pages for me.
“Looks like the next class opening I can get you in is in eight weeks. Which is after the opening closes. That’s not going to help you. ”
“Print the details,” I grunted, standing up to shake out my bad leg. “I’ll find another class. Has to be more than just the one place doing them.”
“I can do that but you’ll have to pay the class fee on your own.”
“I’ll figure it out,” I said. I was really tired of looking at the cartoon duck pictures on the walls of her office. “Just print out the details.”
Leaving the Department of Labor office I worked to keep that hopeful bubbly feeling tamped down.
I’d felt it before but so far nothing had panned out.
I’d weathered layoffs before. The timber business was boom and bust by nature, but with these screws in my back now things had changed.
People who’d had side jobs for me in the off times weren’t interested anymore, and even though it wasn’t my fault, word traveled that I’d had surgery from a work injury.
But safety inspector, maybe I could do that.
I just needed anything to get some cash flow so I could get out of my sister’s place.
I looked at my watch while I thought about where the best place to find a CPR class would be.
My Timex didn’t have the answer but I really didn’t expect it to.
It’s just a place you can look and think and people won’t consider you weird for standing around.
Lukas might know. He ran a business, and at this hour I might catch Kathy at the store.
Lukas liked to brag that if it wasn’t at Mace and Maize Nursery and Supply you didn’t need it.
When I pointed out they didn’t carry TP he said I could use the leaf bags if I was that chapped about it.
Lukas and I got along like that. The store parking lot looked plowed and Lukas was a stickler for salting the walks so I chanced leaving my cane in the truck.
I waved hello in passing to the college kid at the register.
She recognized me but I still didn’t know her name, even with the gold name tag pinned to her chest. Lukas was in the back office but Kathy was already gone, running kids.
Looking up from typing some email thing Lukas smiled at me.
Maybe it was indigestion but I think it was a smile.
“Hey Craig, how’s it going?”
“Kathy in?” I knew she wasn’t but we both knew it was the right way to start a conversation between us. Living in another man’s house is like having two bears in one den, neither really knows where they belong. Having a go–between like Kathy made things more understandable for us both.
“No, she’s gone. Anything I can help you with?”
“Maybe. I got a line on some work but I need a training class.”
“Well, that’s good.” Lukas was a motivated guy, he wouldn’t be running a store if he wasn’t, but he was really motivated to help me find a job. “What kind of training?”
“CPR. First Aid. It’s a safety job.”
A genuine smile brightened Lukas’s face. “That’s actually something right up your skill set. That’s a good idea.”
“My voc counselor thought so too. She just couldn’t find a state-run class opening.”
“And wouldn’t look up anything that wasn’t in her system already. So typical.” If there was one thing Lukas and I agreed on it was how useful my counselors had been. “I bet I can find something.”
I’d been standing a while so I sat down on the folding chair in the closet sized office. Clattering away at the keyboard, Lukas hmmed as he navigated through a few web pages.
“I’m seeing some classes through the Heart Foundation, and a few more through something called Health Training Specialties.” He hmm’d some more, and then read off some dates to me, the soonest five weeks out.
“That’s a bit better but after the closing date.”
“Yea that’s not going to work then.” After a few more minutes Lukas threw his hands up. “I found a few more but they are even further out. Who knew there was such a need? Sorry. Maybe ask Kathy tonight if she has a better idea.”
“Sure.” I stood up to go. Not ready to throw in the towel I conceded Kathy might know another angle to try.
Lukas replied, “I may manage this place, but if something smart is happening here I am man enough to say it’s probably because she had the idea.
” Swiveling his chair, my brother-in-law leaned back to look up at me.
“Look. You know tools, you know trees and plants. You’re a hard worker, and you’ve always been a guy who can get stuff done.
” That last hurt, because it used to be true.
Now I can’t even get myself signed up for a stupid class.
Lukas continued, “I can always use a guy like that. I’m sure there is something here for you if you want it. ”
Mumbling a thanks I tried to keep my leg from shaking. “You know how we are together,” I managed. “But I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Okay. We’ll see you later, Craig.”
“Thanks for checking.”
“Any time.”