DAY 74: Monday, December 21, 2009: Did you hear the wolves running a poor moose last night? Hey . . . how did your pants get ripped?
TIME TO PAY THE FIDDLER (HIS JUST DUES)
THE FIDDLER
More often than not, a threat is all about the people you work with. Where I worked, surveyors messed with your life, family, and career. In our field crews, two guys would be together every single day, all day long. One was designated crew chief for whatever reason, and the other was trying like hell to become a crew chief, unless he was a temp or intern. There can be a large pay gap between the crew chief and his partner, and if they don’t play nice, it makes for a very long life. On top of this, the engineers, drafters, and office guys have a nasty habit of looking down on field crews, pushing them hard for field data, or just pushing them around. I remember one engineer absolutely stunned that I had a BA from the University of Rhode Island, until he heard it was in English and Anthropology. “Good for waiting tables,” he said. “Or gunner on a lousy survey crew.”
That bastard waddled laps around the office all day, driving everyone crazy until his manager started laying down the law, and he blew a few major projects, lost clients, and left to work for a competitor.
Uncle Fiddles the pervert had taken drafting classes while riding security desks with Mark, and eventually started riding a desk in the office. He wasn’t a very effective drafter, but out in the field he would stare at young kids way too long, and became a serious liability.
He loved to call field crews on stormy days and ask how hard it was raining, then harass people about something they may have missed on a previous job, when it usually turned out to be his own sloppy drafting skills. When caller ID became available on cell phones, he could call for days and never get an answer. The crews were done with him, and the managers planned his demise. I’ve got some more crazy-ass stories about this freak, but we’ll get to him later. NO! QUICK STORY!
Down in New Haven, working a bad neighborhood near some projects and crack houses, where Uncle Fiddles was suddenly confronted, then surrounded by a gang of very pissed-off drug dealers.
I was at the survey gun laughing my ass off, watching Fiddles turn pale and fearful, backing up as a big dealer pointed angrily toward me.
The 32X power scope showed how – every time his loose camp shirt lifted up – a small revolver was tucked into a broad belt, so this was getting better than cable television.
“Shoot him.” I said to the gun. “Right in the uglies.”
You have to understand Uncle Fiddles. This is a guy who spent most of his waking hours trying to make you look stupid, from planting drugs to throwing your ass under the bus at every opportunity. The rest of the time, he was thinking about things that made Hannibal Lector look like Beany the Baby Bunny Rabbit. I’m talking pedophile stuff that made you want to vomit, and kill his sorry ass a thousand ways to Sunday. I’m going to open up some big guns on this freakish creature later, but I just wanted you to understand my bottomless, cruel desire to see him gang raped by large drug dealers and sold as shark chum.
Sometimes the dealers thought we were cops. They usually sent a mule (young kid who delivers the drugs) to ask why I was taking pictures, and I always explained the survey instruments in vast detail, how the “camera” was actually an electronic measuring device (EDM), or total station (never say “gun” to a mule); how it sent a beam of light, recording distance and angle as the light returned, and blah blah blah blah blah, so that he quickly got bored and tried to sell me some crack. When Uncle Fiddles was running things, I should’ve asked for something a thousand times stronger than street drugs, but they haven’t been invented yet.
The point is, Uncle Fiddles knew we could handle anybody and was coming completely unglued, or just looking for an excuse not to work. The hulking freak spent four years in the army and sixteen in reserves, and liked to think he was the second coming of Rambo, “accidentally” leaving M-16 banana magazines in the van, or calling Ali a “draft dodging pussy.” He couldn’t even handle a few lousy street dealers, and while asking him to let me talk over the two-way, he switched his radio off and begged for his life, then came back and said we were done for the day.
I should’ve ignored him and walked over there, because in two minutes I can bore the most hardened drug dealers to tears, showing them how we are way too interested in computerized instruments to ever be real cops, who would shoot a data collector on sight, just for assaulting them with extreme and deadly boredom.
But hey! Fiddles was the crew chief, and you’re never supposed to go against their decision, so it was going to be a very short day, which is a good day when stuck with the creepy Uncle.
Uncle Fiddles was likely to tell the boss you were scared, and that he had to “back some people down,” and comfort you on the way home, which is a creepy thought when dealing with the Fids, but that’s what usually transpired. I’m just glad to get that gem out of my hellish closet of collectable memories, and move on.
I was very lucky, because the gun was like a kid playing video games all day. It also became a kind of sick addiction (like a kid playing videos all day), and they used it to full advantage. Sometimes I pulled a thousand shots in six hours of work (subtracting a couple for lunch, travel time, setup, etc.), that’s a shot and typed description, completed every 21.6 seconds, with the rod man walking to each target.
“I would blow my brains out, doing what you do,” Randy the crew chief said one day, after 800 shots.
“I would blow my brains out just being you,” I retorted. “Except I couldn’t find the fucking target.”
Needless to say, Randy and I never quite bonded. I really don’t miss that place.
Although I eventually clawed my way upward to the Environmental Department like a buried miner seeking light, most of the last decade was spent behind that gun on a survey crew, taking shots at the rod man’s prism. None of that is a sexual metaphor, so please try to focus. All things considered, the gun made me somewhat valuable, and in the end, it was the gun that killed me (no pun intended – whoa! — let me think about it).
My sick little addiction was a great talent when speed was required, and I could stand all day at the video game-like instrument and blaze away at the prism under grueling conditions, until the sky darkened. There were actually crosshairs in the powerful 32X zoom lenses, like in a riflescope, or on the upper lip of certain Sicilian women.[1] I somehow convinced myself that the little round prism on a telescoping rod was a fleeing target trying to get away, and my survival depended on hitting it dead center very fast, OR ELSE.
I never could quite figure out OR ELSE, but I’m sure it had something to do with horrible pain and death, falling behind schedule, or very high octane coffee, jagging my system to shoot that little glowing bastard one more time, one more time, one more time . . . and like anything, it got pretty old after awhile. Sadly enough, the doors to career advancement in Survey were firmly closed in my face, after wasting time and money on a drafting course.
Rick the Survey Manager tested me with drafting questions, and when I passed in flying colors he let me spend one day on the computer, tutored by Mark, a very giggly guy[2] who promptly sabotaged the living hell out of me, leaving a thousand different layers of work on the plan, and changing directions every hour, before “losing” all my edits in a system that has more backup than Gladys Knight. In short, he was the kind of person who – if he detected even the remotest threat of competition – would kill it before it could grow. All things considered, after spending one day in a claustrophobic cube, completely surrounded by people distracting me more than whistling prairie dogs, maybe it was a good thing.
“Be honest,” I told Rick, knowing the chance for truth was always less than 50%. “You’ve got very fast, competent, and experienced people drafting already, so with my field experience, and the computer skills of a small sea anemone, it doesn’t make any sense for me to try and advance, coming into the office.”
He admitted that I had been buffaloed, which is more than I expected. I would be in the field until grizzly death occurred, killed by bands of rabid llamas or irritated landowners. My future in Survey was looking pretty bleak.
When an opening came-up in the Environmental Department, I couldn’t run over there fast enough, inspired by great people, great work, great beer, and truly great . . . beer. I was also very proud to be playing a small role in cleaning up the planet, while saving the lives of certain vital and vulnerable species. No . . . really. Life was good until the beer (and work) finally slowed down, and it was back to Survey, with a very large target on my back.[3]
“They hate you for jumping ship to the tree huggers,” I was told. “Oh . . . turn around and let me get that knife.”
Environmental was a dream come true, and I miss that crowd.
Uncle Fiddles and the creep crew? According to my little program, they’re stalking this blog.
Hope they enjoyed the trip down memory lane, but it won’t flush ‘em out. When they stalk, it’s never in a good way.
[1] Please do not send dead fish in the mail, as a Sicilian death threat. A cougar will eat the mailman.
[2] I snuck up on him with a big honkin’ snapping turtle, when he was in his cude. He leaped up on his chair and screamed like a little girl.
[3] Environmental people do not drink beer like football fans. They sip exclusive “snob brews” in “taste gatherings”, while listening to obscure musical artists named Falifia or Connor’s Lament. Despite rumors, smoking herb is never permitted unless it’s during work hours or after, when they leave.
“God I’m lonely,” said the tiny pine tree.