The caller ID looked familiar. The man on the other side offered me a job. I’d been unemployed for months.
“Sixteen dollars an hour. Out-of-town work. Electrical. Ten hours a day, seven days a week, for six weeks.”
“You interested?”
I did the math.
Overtime. Double time.
I didn’t have anything tying me down.
“Sure.”
I started on Monday.
~
The first break felt quieter than it should have.
A man with prison tattoos carefully folded the second half of his burrito back into the wrapper for later.
The oldest guy coughed through every cigarette he smoked, then apologized before borrowing a lighter.
The tattooed man obliged.
A younger guy with bags under his eyes kept checking his phone between bites, smiling once at a picture before slipping it back into his pocket.
The older man nudged him.
“Your daughter make it home yet?”
“Yesterday,” he said, first in Ukrainian. “She’s good.”
The mood in the room lightened the first time all morning.
Then the foreman interrupted us.
“As you know, we have another shift to cover. That’s where I hope you come in, but we need to cut lunch short today.”
He pointed at me.
I flinched.
“Me? What happened?”
The man with tattoos leaned over and pretended to whisper.
“He finally got caught up on child support.”
A nervous chuckle filled the room.
The foreman raised his hand and it when silent again.
“What matters is… he didn’t come in yesterday.”
“But yesterday was a holiday.” I said. “Didn’t he get it off?”
The foreman looked at me for a second.
“Holiday? From whose perspective? I sure didn’t get paid.”
Nobody moved or even looked up.
“Wait!” I said after a pause.
“What about the ten-hour days? The seventy-hour weeks?”
He shrugged, then looked right at me.
“Just … put forty on your time sheet. That’s what we all do.”
I stood as he turned to leave.
“That’s not legal. You can sue.”
He shrugged again.
“Is payday still Friday?”
~
I was working with the older man the next day.
We were digging ditches outside.
The dirt clung to my boots, my pants, and my pickaxe.
“My old boss called,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I used to work for a furniture company. He moved to Modesto. I didn’t want to follow, so I stayed here.”
He stopped swinging and took off his hard hat to wipe his brow. His hair was gray, his face, wrinkled. I couldn’t tell if he was forty-five or seventy.
“Boss man says I can have my old job back. Twelve dollars an hour, yessir. Best money of I ever made.”
I set my pickaxe down, and clenched my fists.
Took a breath and relaxed.
“You gotta follow your heart, man.”
Then I lifted my pick and heaved it at the next section of ground.
We worked in silence the rest of the day. I didn’t see him after that.
~
I finished the week out.
On Sunday, I entered 70 on my time card, and hit submit.
The foreman found me during our morning safety briefing the next day.
“Everyone, today, we’re staying till seven.” He said. “Caleb, you go home at three. Oh, and… don’t come back tomorrow.”
I looked around.
No one said anything.
They just picked up their tools.