WORK IS WHAT IT IS (FOR PHILIP LEVINE)
BY NIC CUSTER
Work is when and if you can get it.
When the petitioner slinging 4 clipboards for a dollar a signature can articulate why I should let the voters decide better than its author and when the party store hustler vends a Venn Diagram of fevers and chills for sweaty $20 bills through car windows, what work is is non-existent.
When the wealthy land developer wants you to work under the table for less than minimum wage and expects you to be grateful (because you don’t have to pay taxes) but also expects you to purchase your own dust masks…
Or when you put the key into the ignition and pray the lucky lemon that lets you deliver pizzas X-mas eve will get you to your destination but also pray gangster wannabes don’t get trigger-happy when they rob you for initiation, what it is is a form of resistance and a revelation.
Captive audience forced to pay for the privilege, maxed out on tax mileages, the bills still said to instill discipline. Work is wearing sweaters from October to April, keeping the thermostat just high enough so the pipes don’t freeze. Short showers to save dollars, knowing when to leave on porch lights to keep away window peekers. Some might call it an art to eek by but it takes work to master.
Parking lot BBQ stands under popup tents employ entrepreneur chefs lounging with pockets full of ones and fives; confident in the work they invested in their secret sauce and the neighborhood bull market that spends evenings buying stock in rib tips, white bread, aluminum foil and extra BBQ sauce to top it off.
Invisible billboards adorn nondescript houses where dealers buy gold and liberated bicycles, copper pipes, aluminum siding and weed whackers. Summer heat lines dance seductively in the street, a flash of mystery, distortion, sweat beading across the sun. High school graduates work hard as hunter-gatherers foraging for a future in shop floor ruins.
A car drove through the front of the Red Ribbon Bar, a southside dive famous for cheap domestics and a metal ring tied to a long string that patrons sent hurling towards a hook on the wall next to the entrance. The same spot that the car detoured through and beat the game for good. Working on a gamble to snatch the ATM and winning early retirement for long-time owners. Work can involve sticking it out until the lottery tickets pay out or the sports injuries throw a retirement party. Work is finally
having the time to finish your degree at 53. Work is adults shoveling snow door to door or dragging a lawnmower down a State Street, cigarette dangling from pale lips, the wind writing determination in smoke.
It is work to harvest what shouldn’t be left to rot on the vine. A lack of work is what it is, which is hard to improve. A dollar here, a few there, a cardboard sign’s elevator pitch speaking luminous volumes at highway exits as battalions of blistered fingers dig through ashen walls, working hard for a handout — finding only newspaper clippings warning of a Great Depression.
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Nic Custer is a poet and playwright from Flint, Michigan. He has contributed to verbatim and site-specific performances about arson, Emergency Managers, a farmer’s market, and a concrete park.