(no subject)
i got to the yard at 11:00 with red bulls, a subway sandwich for later, and a bunch of bananas (for banana boats). i was on truck 45, the bigger truck. the one that makes me motion sick like a boat. i usually wind up taking dramamine to get through the day with it. there were two guys working on the ice cream machine. 'how long do you guys think you're gonna be?' 'two hours.' 'two hours!' 'you're boss, peter, he's a fucking asshole, he was supposed to get me all these parts last week, now i gotta replace all this.'
it didn't take two hours, and i was out soon enough. pete had already made out my order for supplies before i got there and i just had to put everything away. 'listen dana,' pete said to me, 'you just gotta stop at the tire place.'
the tire place was new and i'd never been there before, i got there and it looked completely desolate, and situated in the ghetto of wyandanch. i walked behind the building looking for signs of life and found myself in a tiny alleyway overgrown with plants. i was stopped by a fence and when i looked through i saw a little hut with cases of heinekens stacked up, dim lighting, and soft music playing. no people though. i walked back around and then i saw a sign that said, 'be back in fifteen minutes.' five minutes later, the tire guy came back and began changing the front right tire. as he worked, some locals on bicycles stood outside the serving window. i asked them what they wanted and the one in front said, 'naw i'm just playing.'
that's when the tire guy began talking to me. 'don't worry about those idiots. they won't bother you. they're around here 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. are you japanese? i'm tony by the way.' 'no, i'm korean.' 'oh, my wife's japanese. or i should say half japanese. the other half's jewish. her mom looks like a white girl and her dad's 100% japanese. it makes her look kinda spanish, the mix ya know?' 'i'm sure she's very pretty.'
people love to talk. i've learned from being a quiet person around strangers, that with simply a few prompts at the right moments, people will reveal many unusual things to you.
i got to adp in heartland a little after 12:30. that's this company who told me that i should be there at that time because they get their break then. no one was there. i played the music for a few cycles and turned it off, moved the truck around a bit, played the music some more, still no sales. so i went to a few more dependable places and they were quiet too. finally i went to this one row of businesses and they all came out. i'm used to seeing them now. this one loud lady yelled at me for going by there too fast earlier that week. 'so you remembered to stop today!' she said in her screechy voice. business was booming from there. a lot of people came out at some company called cosmedix. i decided to go back to adp and sold a few banana boats.
at around 2:30ish i went to west islip and business was great there. a lot of little kids were out of school and i was getting stopped by the good kind of sales where four or five little kids and a mom all want ice cream. at one street, some kid in a bike pulled up to me and said, 'if you come to center chicot there's a lot of kids there who want ice cream. follow me!' he hopped on his bike and i followed him a few slow blocks even though he was pedaling like the wind.
at 4:15 i stopped and ate half of my subway sandwich and some salt and vinegar chips. it was the first and only thing i would eat until 1:45 am.
at 4:30 i was on my way to this carnival. i had not been told what town it was in. pete had dictated directions on the truck in the morning as i wrote. they sounded like, 'you go all the way around 25A and there's a 7-11 and then uhhh, i'm not sure, you gotta call matilda for better directions from there and she'll tell you where to park. she was there yesterday.' matilda's instructions were, 'you go under a little trestle, there's a 7-11 on your left and then you make a right. 25A turns into something country road, i can't remember, but don't worry it's still 25.'
i was driving and driving and driving. traffic on the l.i.e. was bad. the sun was in my eyes and i broke my sunglasses last week. it was hot and the air wasn't doing anything. i began feeling sleepy somewhere inside that hour drive. i believed that i was on the verge of sun stroke. and then i got lost. everything said 25. the sreet signs said middle country road. i seemed to be doing everything right. i called matilda and told her my plight. her response was, 'look for the trestle...i dunno, just keep driving.'
i finally saw a 7-11 so i made a right and there was no carnival and i was on the narrowest of streets. some kids in cutoffs and bare feet stopped me and wanted jawbreakers. 'no candy.' they stood there in silence for a good 30 seconds and then walked away. i turned the truck around and went to that 7-11. as i walked in, some jock-like twenty somethings who thought they were being cute yelled, 'how's that mister softee going?' so that everyone stared at me. the 7-11 guy said, 'you're not on 25A, you're on 25. there's no other 7-11 back there.'
i left very confused. i drove to the next 7-11 and made a right and asked some people who told me that the only carnivals that they could think of were at the smithhaven mall. i began to backtrack. it would've helped if i had road names or at least a town name. very frustrated, i called pete who put me on the phone with lennie, his partner in the go-kart business he's opening. lennie's a nice guy and a lot calmer than pete. he told me to go back and make a right at a carvel in st. james. he said i made a common mistake because i got onto route 25 instead of 25A after i crossed over 347.
it was stressful. to be on the phone with pete and lennie yelling directions over the noise by them and i'm yelling over the whir of the machines, and signs for 111, 347, 454, numbers on top of numbers flying by, and i'm in traffic, and every two seconds i think i'm on the verge of finding my path only to hit a red light-i was going crazy.
with lennie's help i found the carnival, but my troubles were only just beginning. to park i had to move some roadblocks. i was near some picnic tables with old people sitting down and eating. i was like their afternoon entertainment. i ran to a nearby food vendor and asked them how softee was set up yesterday. when i was on a sufficient angle, i opened the back of the truck up and followed the written instructions on how to connect to the generator at the fair. i dragged the thick black cable over and plugged in the matching colors. the generator switches were a 45 second run away from the truck. i'm trying to work on this and the old ladies are complaining at me. 'you're not gonna leave that truck on are you? it smells.'
i couldn't figure out if the machines were working correctly because i was on a different truck than the last one that i learned how to connect at the fair with. i tried calling pete but i had no phone service, so i had to keep borrowing cell phones from strangers. i tried changing the colors of the wires which meant running back and forth to the switches some more times. it wasn't working properly. sweaty and tired at this point and on the phone with pete and bad cell phone service, we were both getting frustrated. he was yelling at me to press different switches on the ice cream machines, and the level that his voice raised to was uncalled for. finally newton jr. the son of the owner of the carnival came over to help. his dad, the owner, is this guy that my dad goes golfing with. newton jr. said that the blue wire was supposed to go in the black and the black was supposed to go in the green. it did not say this on my instructions.
the machines began to work! and good thing because throughout all of this frustration-running from inside the truck to the generator to the back of the truck a million times-people kept coming up to the truck for ice cream. and these people were pissing me off. i had the window closed and i was yelling on the cell phone and running around, and they couldn't tell that i wasn't serving? 'so you want chocolate or vanilla...' they'd be in the middle of asking their kids, when i'd fling open the window and bark, 'come back later!' and my bark unfortunately sounds like a whisper compared to most barks.
as soon as i began serving the line barely ever stopped. when it slowed i was cleaning various things i spilled. until 10:30, they were lining up and even as i drove away, teenagers caught up in the excitement of the carnival would yell 'i want ice cream!' at me. by that point i didn't even look at them and just drove away. they were pissing me off too. as i tried to back the truck up and turn it around so i could get out of there, they wouldn't even move out of my fucking way. they were giggling and oblivious.
as i drove back on the expressway, i called pete. 'dana!' he yelled, 'it's so funny because you know what i said two minutes ago?' 'what?' i asked. silence. 'what?' i yelled louder, 'pete what did you say?!' 'you know what i said two minutes ago...' he repeated. then lennie came on the line, 'pete just said to me that he should really call dana and apologize when you called!' then pete came back on the line and if i didn't recognize the slight depth change of their voices, i easily could've thought the same person was on the line the whole time. 'i was just saying i should call dana and apologize for how i spoke to her earlier.' and the little prepared speech i had for pete about how i'm trying my best and i don't have fifteen years of experience with ice cream machines, flew out the window. 'oh it's ok,' i said instead.
i had to stop for gas at this exxon station before the expressway. it was one of those high tech, shiny, oases. in and out i ran to pre-pay and then get some money back because the truck didn't take that much. i was used to running at this point. my already stained hands from stubborn fudge and cherry dip grease turned black just from touching the cover to the diesel tank.
on the road again, i felt relieved to be heading back, but at 11:00 i was still looking at about an hour of work ahead of me. the truck needed to be cleaned. when i hooked the truck up back at the yard to take it off the generator power and plug it in to the yard's power, it didn't turn back on. at this point i was at the end of my wire. i thought i was home free and i was facing yet another problem now. i panicked and imagined that i broke the entire generator which would cost thousands of dollars to replace. i must have flipped a wrong switch, or done something out of the procedure order, or plugged in the wrong thing, were all thoughts i was dealing with. another call to pete. an old guy named tom was around the yard and i had him on the phone with pete trying to help me. we flipped a bunch of breakers and did all this shit and we realized that i had come unplugged. something so rudimentary that i overlooked in my panic. 'pete i'm sorry, i'm really frustrated right now...'
i cleaned the truck and as the time flew by, i was the only person in the yard. in the ghetto of wyandanch. at midnight. with truckers next door driving by occasionally. i began to have visions of being raped, stabbed, shot, etc. my sister called to see if i was going to be home soon. my family was worried about me and mike was worried about me. as i went to the back of the truck to retrieve the hose to wash the floor, i suddenly paused. fuck this, i thought at the height of my rape fear panic. i closed the truck, swept the floor as fast as i could, and went to leave, when i came across the final wall.
while i had been cleaning, someone locked me in the yard. i had not noticed this and had already locked the keys in the back of the truck. therefore i did not have the key to open the barb-wired fence. i walked around the yard looking for another opening and not finding one, began to panic. i estimated the gap where the two fences meet and the chain and lock connnected them. it would be a tight squeeze. lifing my leg as high as it would go over the chain, i managed to just barely squeeze through. my tote bag got stuck and i had to pull it through with a hard tug.
i called mike when i got in my car as he had instructed, so he could make sure i was safe. i couldn't talk long though because i was on the verge of tears. when i got home i took a hot shower and ate a cup of instant soup before bed. it was 1 am when i arrived. i worked a fourteen hour day yesterday and only ate half a sandwich, and it was hell. the only reason i wrote this whole sordid tale out is because i need to get it out of my head so i can enjoy these three days off. last night i was even having trouble sleeping because all i could think about was ice cream cones. as i tried to fall asleep every half-awake dream turned into something ice cream related. i can safely say that i've never worked this hard in my life. the money's great, but i wonder every day i work if it's worth it. plus there's the moral dilemma. as a vegan, i don't feel comfortable selling dairy products, and i had overlooked that issue when i signed up for the job under the delusion of making great money and being the highlight of every kid on long island's summer.
now, i need to decide whether i continue with this and finish what i started, which feels like the right thing to do in some aspects, or undo everything as fast as possible to not only disentangle myself from this working class life, but also undo the damage i feel that i'm wreaking upon my karma by being a terribly hypocritical vegan. the other option also feels like the right thing to do in some aspects. it's like the ultimate lose-lose situation.