Moving ©

Beaten, battered, and cut up but still kicking.
That was what it was like for the 3 days I worked so far.
Forget the age factor the kid, as I called him was 20 and he looks like he went through a hamburger machine. Mind you he is so skinny he could probably slip through the hole.
There were times where death was seconds away.
The warehouse was put together in a hurry 10 years ago and all the screws were NOT USED.
There were 32 metal shelves, 10 feet high, 4 feet wide and 2 feet deep. You are supposed to use 64 screws to build them and they had used 32 and in some places less. They relied on screwing them all together to shore them up.
Did they care that they used fewer screws 10 years ago?
HELL NO!!!!!!!!
They knew they would not have to take them down and just find some suicide junkies to do the work.
I worked with this kid most of the time and he was a little shit who thought he knew everything and knew little. He spent more time on the fucken phone looking for his girl friend than he did working. He suspected she was getting fucked every time she didn’t answer the phone which was every 30 fucken minutes.
His girl friend is 18 and I told him the chances of him spending the rest of his life with her were slim because I was going to kill the little fucker if he didn’t help me.
We started by empting the shelves, and they were loaded with heaps of heavy boxes. Forget furniture that was moved by professionals that were to smart to do what we were doing. No sir this was a job for the brave, the broke and the brainless few. The ones without a vehicle to sneak back home from the boonies when the guy that hired us wasn’t looking.
After the shelves were emptied they were still rigid because they were screwed to one another so now we had to separate them. The first one told the tale of what was to come for the next 2 days. When we loosened one from the rest, the thing swayed like a tree in the wind. It looked like a tall saw blade waiting to slice down and turn us into beef stew meat.

“Ok kid this is what we do, we’ll slowly tilt it towards us and put it on the floor and then turn it on its side. You got that?”
“Yeah yeah, I got it, don’t worry”
Slowly we start lowering the shelves; they looked like 8 guillotine blades coming down towards us.
DO DO DODDILY DO BUZZZZZZZZZZ BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
WTF is that?
“Hello, hi babe, yeah I’m here working with Walker”
FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CRASH BANG SMASH
SHIT SHIT FUCK SHIT SON OF A BITCH COCK SUCKER
“Um babe I got to go, I’ll see you later.
You ok Walker?”
“Your going to DIE you little FUCK. I think I broke my foot.
Why did you let the shelf go you moron?”
”Well the phone rang man, I had to answer it”
“Start running now if you know what’s good for you”
“SHUT IT OFF NOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!!!!!”

The shelf that landed on the floor and my foot was now flat as a pancake. It folded up like and accordion.
“That should be easy to carry like that” says the kid
“No it won’t because it is heavy and we have to open it. The thing is like a loaded spring now, twit”
I had to go into the back and help the boss with something so I told the kid to empty the next shelf but not to unscrew it from the other shelves until I got there to hold it.
I was in the back with the boss bringing down a huge map of Canada off the wall.
SLAMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BANG…………OMG!!!!!
“What was that” asked the boss?
“That was the kid fucking up and not listening to what I said”
We went into the ware house and the kid was in a chair, his shoe and sock on the floor and his foot bleeding like a water tap runs water and a big shelf lying next to him on the floor folded like the other one.
“Look at my foot” cried the kid”
“Do I have too?” I asked.
His toe was smashed and his nail was just dangling there.
I walked over to the tool chest and got him a pair of needle nose pliers and tossed them to him
“What are these for?” he asked
“Pull the rest of the toe nail off and let’s get back to work,” I said.
“WHAT!?!” I can’t do that it hurts, I should go to the hospital.”
I just looked at him and then he picked up the pliers and yanked it off.
He went kinda white for a second or two but was fine.
He got some duct tape and taped up his toe and we went back to work.
The kid is slow in the brain I think.
When we had reached the last shelf of the first row, the shelf was screwed into the concrete wall. I got on the ladder and unscrewed it.
I had left him holding it up against the wall.
No great feat, but this is the kid remember?
I pulled the last bolt out and now the unit was free standing.
I started climbing down and I say,” are you holding it?
“I don’t need too it’s standing on its own.”
I get off of the ladder and the kid is lighting a smoke with his back to the shelf. I grab him by the shirt and pull him next to me And BANG goes the shelf on the floor where he was standing.
I look at him with this desire to throw him under the shelf and jump up amd down on it and he has this Don Knotts look on his face, you know his lips are puckered and his eyes are bulging and almost falling out of his head.

I get on the ladder at the next shelf and start lowering the boxes. Most of these were light so the kid says “these are light just drop them to me.”
"Naw We better do it this way, I don’t want you to get hurt”.
I won’t just drop it.”
I drop the box and he caught it and came back for another.
“See he says now just drop them down to me”.
Ok, I dropped the next one and it went through his hands and slammed down on his smashed up toe. He spent the next minute doing some hillbilly jig all around the ware house floor.

To be continued

Walker