A Working Stiff's Manifesto by Iain Levison

Author:Iain Levison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2002-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

Topside there is fresh air and none of the factory noise—the air compressors, the forklifts, the constant whirring of the hydraulic lifts. It is actually a nice day, I am surprised to see. Working down in the hold and sleeping down below decks, it is possible to go for days without seeing sunlight. We are allowed to leave the ship when we are not on shift, but no one really has the energy. Straight to the mess and then straight to bed.

Hale and Jeff greet me on the foredeck. “What’s going on, man?”

“Not much. What’s going on up here?”

“Taking a break,” Hale laughs. He and Jeff have just been sitting on the rigging, listening to the sounds of the bay, with the factory noise filtering up from below. “Hang out with us a little while.”

I sit on a pile of boxes and look out at the bay, hundreds of seagulls flying around, pecking the water for the waste products of crab processing.

“Watch the seagulls,” Hale says, pointing. So I stare at a crowd of seagulls milling around on the surface, picking bits of waste out of the water with quick head thrusts. I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Suddenly, a sea lion silently shoots up from below, grabs one, and submerges again before I am really sure what I have just seen.

“Whoa,” I say.

“Isn’t that cool?” Hale and Jeff are alive with excitement.

“That fucker must have eaten about ten of them so far. And they just sit there and take it.”

The rest are down below, sweating, chafing, ready to kill each other, splashed with water, inhaling crab steam, while these two jokers hang out on the deck and watch wildlife. “Is this what you guys do all day?”

“Naw, man. We’re gettin’ busy in a bit. We gotta load that freighter.” Hale points to an ancient Korean rust bucket pulling up alongside. “Wanna help?”

“Sure.”

“We’ll be ready to go in about an hour. In the meantime, just hang out.”

I sit on the deck for a few minutes, and guilt starts to set in. Those guys are down there, begging for a break, their feet soaking, their knees pain wracked from standing still for hours on end. Who am I to have been rescued from it? Who are these two, to never have been through it at all? The Filipino woman I spoke to before break will work her whole contract without getting an easy shift. Her English is no good and she isn’t big enough to work an off-load.

But for now, it feels too good to be dry, and topside. I lean back in the rigging, which is as comfortable as a hammock, and begin to doze. On the clock.

After an hour or two, I am woken up and we start loading. The stacked pallets of fresh, boxed, and frozen crab are taken up to the foredeck on a hydraulic lift. There I attach a rope around the pallet and hook it to the crane from the Korean ship. Then it is hoisted over to their deck, where it is unhooked, and the crane comes back.

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