there is
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
so what are you looking at?
What makes me happy
my wife
my son
writing
books
listening to music
comic books
movies
fantasy football
man's exploration of space
law & order
unemployment
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What I dislike
Working at uninteresting, unfulfilling, jobs
My wife on PMS (hey, at least I'm honest about it)
Ignorant people who are unwilling to learn
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One current obsession
Digital Video Creation
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Sequential artwork I've recently read
**** out of *****
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If I were single, here's who I'd like to ask out and inevitably be turned down by...
Sanaa Lathan
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Serialized television viewing
DEADWOOD
****1/2 out of *****
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Recent posts
Weird Home Stuff / More New Home Stuff / Lala.com
Sunday Morning Shuffle 6/25/2006: Ultimate Playlist
Graphic Novel Review: Blankets / Star / Octogenarian Murderess / Hump Me
African-Americans & A New Racism / Baseball iPods / Money & The Wife
Fight Club / Life Between Jobs / Homing In On Home
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Sites I visit regularly
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Reading or Read Recently
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Listening
***1/2 out of *****
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Cooler than a penguin's feet
Venus and Earth
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(most recent article on top, earlier articles on bottom)
July 11, 2006: 1106 hours
THE MUSLIM NEWSPAPER CARRIER
Over the past few months both local newspapers have offered me jobs as District Managers in their circulation departments, but I've declined those offers to date. I may get into the reasons in a later post, but if you're interested, I'm sure I've delved into them in an earlier post if you feel like searching the archives.
Anyway, what I'm getting to is that one of the newspapers is especially desperate for help. They are short on experienced manager-type personalities in the manager jobs, and the need more reliable carriers. I've been helping out on both fronts. Often, one of the current DMs will call me to assist with a route that is down. Being "down" means there is no carrier assigned to the route because the previous carrier quit without notice or was fired for being inept. This newspaper goes through spurts where five to eight routes are down for a few weeks. That's not good because the papers still have to be delivered to the customers who have subscribed, so that means the DMs have to join together to deliver the down routes until new carriers can be hired and trained.
Usually, I deliver a route until a new carrier is hired. Occasionally, I train the newly hired carrier and/or prep the route (preparing a route tape, route list, etc) for the new carrier. These are some of the duties of a District Manager. Last week, I was asked to train a new carrier.
His name was Don and he was a young light-skinned black guy who, a few weeks earlier, had moved to our fair city from Washington, D.C., where he was raised. He was a short, slim guy who spoke quiet, sometimes barely audible words. He had a full, bushy beard, of the sort worn by Muslim men, which was appropriate because he practiced the Muslim religion.
As we walked through the warehouse that serves as the distribution center, some of the other carriers would speak to Don and Don would answer back. I found this odd because being a new carrier who was also new to the area, I assumed he wouldn't know any of the other carriers. I couldn't hear exactly what was being said because they spoke in lowered voices, Don was walking a few paces behind me, and I was greeting other carriers and DMs as I walked.
What I didn't know, or more precisely what I didn't immediately pick up on, was that more than a few of the sixty or so carriers were practicing Muslims, and they immediately recognized Don as a fellow Muslim. I found it heartening that they would reach out to him that way, and I felt a little sad that none of them had ever reached out to me that way. Not a true sadness, but sort of a fleeting what's-wrong-with-me-that-they-didn't-greet-me sadness.
Anyway, we loaded the papers into the car, rolled papers, and drove to the throw area. All the while, I talked to him providing tips and answering questions. The first night/morning, trainees rode with trainers, so they can get a feel for the route. Before we got too far into it, Don asked me if it would be okay if we stopped shortly before sunrise so he could pray, as dictated by his beliefs. I said sure, figuring I would fill the time rolling papers.
Shortly before sunrise, I ran out of bagged papers and I turned to Don.
"Is now a good time for you to pray."
He looked skyward. "Sure."
"Okay, you pray and I'll bag." I pulled over to the side of the road and he got out of the car.
I hung the sleeve of bags from the rearview mirror and began rolling the remaining 75 or so papers that remained. While I rolled and bagged, I heard Don chanting behind the car. He wasn't very loud, but at 5:30 in the morning, he was loud enough to shatter the predawn silence.
I had assumed that "praying" meant he would sit on the ground and pray silently. Instead, he was chanting and singing and sometimes stomping or shuffling his feet loudly. Because we were parked on a neighborhood street in front of rows of homes, I considered asking him to keep it down.
I completed bagging the remaining papers before Don completed his prayers, and once I didn't have the shuffling of the papers and bags in my ears, I realized that Don was speaking even louder than I first thought. The last thing I needed was to have people calling the police because he was creating a disturbance in front of their homes. Actually, the last thing I needed was a nervous homeowner charging outside with a loaded gun. I weighed my options and held off on interrupting him, out of respect for his religious beliefs. Luckily, he soon completed his prayers and got back in the car.
We completed the route and I drove him to his apartment. He made some lame excuse for why he didn't drive his car to the distribution center which raised a red flag for me. Being a paper carrier means owning a reliable automobile. That Don didn't drive his car to the center indicated either his car was not reliable or that he shared a car with other people, or both. Worst of all, maybe he was planning on driving his roommate's unreliable car during the early AM hours when his roommate was sleep. That sort of tenuous arrangement was fraught with peril.
As we drove through his apartment complex we passed a tall young man with a full beard and Don leaned out the window and shouted to him. The tall man answered and waved a large hand.
"That your roommate?" I asked.
"Yeah."
I wondered that if his roommate didn't have the car, who did? Or maybe he had multiple roommates and one of the others had possession of the car that night? Or maybe none of them had a car and Don was planning on borrowing someone else's car? Or maybe Don really did have a car but didn't drive it to the center that night because it was unreliable?
The next night/morning, I met Don at the distribution center, we rolled and bagged the papers at the center, and loaded the bagged papers into his car this time around. It was an old, small rust-tinged Toyota. The windows were electric, and when I asked him to start the car so we could roll down the rear windows to toss in the papers he opened the rear passenger door, gripped the window on either side between his palms, and manually forced the window down in its housing. Something began to nag at the root of my skull.
We drove through the first half of the route without anything unusual occurring. Don was understandably slow in driving and throwing while listening to the tape. New carriers often are, so that didn't bug me. When I noticed the approach of sunrise, I began thinking of a good spot for him to pray. After the not-so-quiet prayer the morning before, I was on alert to choose a more out of the way location for him to pray this day. I found a suitable place on a gravel road off the main road. (note: DMs and carriers often refer to the main road of a route as the backbone of the route, off of which are located all the other streets and neighborhoods.) There was only one house within a hundred yards and there were no street lights. It was as private a locale as I was going to come across under the circumstances.
Don popped the trunk, got out of the car, and removed something from the trunk. I wasn't expecting this, because he didn't take anything out of the trunk the previous night. Then again we were in my car, not his. I couldn't see what he got out of the trunk because I was still in the car and the trunk lid was raised. With a loud thud, Don shut the trunk and I suddenly wished I had instructed him to stop during an earlier part of the route where we would have been more secluded. The closing of the trunk reverberated around us like a dull cannon shot.
What Don had removed from the trunk was a small thick rug, or a large thick mat, depending on how you want to view it. Don shook out the mat for what seemed like a few dozen times, loudly snapping it each time. He then placed the mat on the gravel behind the car, knelt on the mat and began chanting and praying, only he did so much louder than the night before, and it seemed to carry on for a longer period of time but perhaps it only seemed longer because I had nothing to keep me busy this time around.
After a while, he ceased chanting and, in the mirror, I saw him stand behind the car. He began grunting and shuffling his feet on the gravel, like a bull preparing to charge. It was all very loud. He began chanting again, only louder than before and he sporadically shuffled his feet on the gravel. When it was all over, he picked up the mat and shook it for what seemed nearly a minute, snapping the dust from it.
He got in the car and we completed the route, after which he took me to distribution center where I had left my car. By now the sun had risen and when I exited his car I looked down at the tires. I saw a small doughnut of a spare tire on the front driver side and realized we had driven an entire route, including quite a few highway miles, on a tire not suited for that sort of work. That was a disaster in the making, had the spare tire gone flat and Don not had another spare in the trunk.
I was suddenly very thankful that I would not have to ride with him the following night, Sunday morning's paper, as I was booked with a previously arranged gig. One of the DMs would have to ride with Don.
I left the tape and route list on the table designated for that route, and Don looked at me with question marks in his eyes. I told him that it's not wise to leave route tapes with trainees because they often fail to show up for the next day. He said he understood the logic, but that there was no risk with him because he really needed the money and he really liked the route. Despite his assurances, I insisted on leaving the tape at the center.
Late Sunday afternoon, I called Lamont, the DM of that route, to ask him how it went that morning with Don and if Lamont wanted me to continue training him for the early part of the week.
"About Don," Lamont said.
"Yeah?" I asked, leading him to continue.
"He didn't show up for Sunday's paper. He called me late Saturday afternoon, around five, and said he was having car trouble. He said he might have it fixed in time, but he might not."
"I'll be damned," I said.
"Me too," Lamont said. "I told him there was no need to come back out. If he's going to pull the car trouble line while he's still training, who knows what he's going to pull next month. I don't have time for that shit any more. I've got too many routes down right now."
"I understand," I said, and I really did.
It was frustrating as hell to go through the trouble of training someone only to see them bail out. I lost an hour each night training Don because I could have run the route much quicker without slowing down to explain everything to him, and it irked me that I'll never get those hours back and nothing was gained from their loss.
"We can cover the down routes for Monday and Tuesday," Lamont said. "I'll give you a call Tuesday afternoon and let you know what the rest of the week looks like."
"Cool," I said. "If I haven't picked up anything by then, I'll cover for you."
"Thanks."
"No problem, I can use the money. I'm just sorry Don didn't work out."
"Me, too," Lamont said. "I sorrier than you."
"I believe it. Hang in there, man."
"You, too."
Overworm is a writer available for work and/or agent representation. I write mysteries, tales of suspense, and African-American fiction. I also write articles for web and print, and marketing collateral.