3.01.2006

same as it ever was

The morning comes around pretty fast.
Last night, Billy was meditating with his Buddha buddies and you would have found me at the bar of Johnny’s Grandstand Grill, worshipping at a different kind of altar.
By the time we drive up to the yard, men are already standing in the circle of light outside the foreman’s trailer, stamping their feet against the cold. You can see their breath rising into the air.
After a while the foreman steps out with a clipboard and begins reading off names. One by one each man heads off to his assigned job until it’s just me and Billy standing there. Now the sun is beginning to poke through the smoky dawn.
“I don’t have anything for you boys today, try again tomorrow,” the foreman tells us. We climb back into the truck but it won’t start.
I sit slumped in the passenger seat with my hat pulled down over my eyes while Billy fiddles under the hood. Before I even realize it, he hops in behind the wheel - the engine turns over once, twice, three times, and then it fires up with a roar.
I ask him how he did that, where he learned how to fix motors and stuff.
“When I was living on this big commune in Tennessee,” says Billy, “we had these tractors and farm trucks and old school buses that we needed to keep running. We used to say that you have to be yin to figure out what’s wrong, yang to fix it, and unattached to the results.”
Billy turns out of the yard and heads up Canal street while this Talking Heads song I like is playing on the radio. The sun has fully broken out of the clouds by now and is flooding the alleys and back yards with a clean, bright light.
“Let's go get some breakfast,” I say. “I have a feeling this is going to be a good day.”