The lens of memory blurs images and names. It does not blur feelings.
He must have been at least 16. If he was, it was 1962. You couldn't get a real job, summertime or not, under that age.
What was the job, though? In his mind now, he can see some sort of construction site, some kind of truck trailer which served as a repository for tools and supplies of some kind.
Nails? Screws? Metal objects? Rough older men?
He wasn't rough. No one had ever taught him about nails, screws or anything related to them.He had essentially been raised by women.
He didn't relate to older rough men. His parents were divorced when he was five and aside from an unpleasant non-relationship with his father, for whom he had no respect, and considered stupid from age 9, the only males in his life were henpecked men like his uncle Bunk.
Around age 10, his mother's boyfriend made her choose between him and her son. She chose her son which unleashed guilt in him and regret and venom in her in ways he did not understand. She didn't understand. Understanding was not part of family life.
There was little or no understanding or communication in that family. That he was an only child who shared his bedroom with his mother didn't help. Lack of privacy did not mean increased intimacy. At least not a healthy intimacy.
He thinks the job was to work in the back of the trailer, deliver and put away various construction tools and objects. He had never worked away from home. These men were strangers to him. Maybe one of them knew his mother. Maybe she met him at her job and said her son needed some work. It's possible.
He had no idea what function these objects had in construction, or in the world.He can't feel the objects in his hand now, but he can still feel the fear and disorientation as he delivered these objects to men at the open end of the trailer. He isn't sure what caused it. Something about this job shattered his solitary existence as an only-child.
Shattered was how he felt, he thinks as he writes. Was it? He didn't tell anyone, though.
He hated the job. He hated the men. He hated every nail. He didn't know what he was doing. It made him sick to his stomach.
He is not sure why.
Did his boss pick him up every morning? Maybe. What did they talk about? No clue. The job site was somewhere he had never been before. Was the boss nice to him? Hard to say. He was freaked out by this experience and his own naivete.
Writing about it is frustrating because he can't seem to bring up details.
Writing about it is disturbing because even though he can't seem to bring up details, writing about it makes him sick to his stomach.
It was a nightmare, although he has never dreamed about it since. Might have thought he would, but he didn't. It remains stuck somewhere beneath memory, in a place of horror that he does not understand.
Why did it effect him so much? Was it his own fault for not being strong? Did it make him stronger later? He is ruling that out. He doesn't know what made him strong. He doesn't know if he ever was strong, but he knew how to act strong.
Did he learn that working at the trailer? Doubtful.
After about a week, he thinks, after getting sick to his stomach every day working in the trailer, he stopped working there. He doesn't know if he asked to quit. He might have. He doesn't know how it really ended. But he can feel the relief as he writes, knowing that he would never have to go back there.
Knowing that he can stop writing about it. Knowing that not knowing will never go away, especially now that he has written about it.
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