Couldn’t sleep much on the cot in E’s room last night, plus had been going in harder than I had in years, so was irritable sorta.

The gay jokes were fun and all, but to a point.

And D, D was my guy; we’d gone in tandeming a whole bunch of shit this morning.

But my brain was accustomed to nocturnal solitude and half-hourly cigs and IV-rate coffee all waking hours.

This was a lot. Was why I wasn’t cut out for steady work like these guys. Like all these Intel fucks everywhere, making plans on their tablets fkng networking.

Tough realization pills to swallow.

So when I was swallowing a big-ass hunk of bratwurst they’d served up, just tryna re-up the energy reserves in peace, and D tried to say some shit like “Oh how’s that sausage taste, I bet you love that sausage deep down your throat—” I snapped and went “Dude are you ever gonna say anything that actually means anything or are you just gonna keep spewing fuckshit.”

E and W looked up from their plates.

D mumbled something about just messing around.

E laughed.

W went “Well damn. This nigga ain’t playin.”

•

We got a couple more reinforcements that afternoon, since we were on a time crunch to get things done by night.

At this point mostly cosmetic stuff.

Mounting TVs, ensuring they all had power. Concealing electrical cords. Putting up signs and stickers directing folks where to go and what brands were selling what.

The signs we read and followed daily were just things people with money typed up and printed out and displayed strategically.

Nothing printed and elevated was sacred.

These weren’t new insights. But putting the signs up myself made them tangible.

One of the guys who got called in was a 30s or 40s Black dude decked out in John Deere. Ex–Special Forces.

Had two kids.

Had driven here from somewhere far but somewhere not that far to have been able to drive here just for the afternoon.

Part of what we were getting paid for, I realized, was our availability.

I felt like this dude should have gotten the call I got, what if he needed the bands more than me, given the kids.

Although I don’t know how he could’ve needed them more than me bc I had literally zero.

Negative 7, counting credit card debt.

We worked on applying embossed fabrics onto and elevating these huge like 30-foot panels.

The panels had the Intel logo and images of differently raced and gendered folks smiling, holding Intel gadgets.

He said this type of work was all he’d done since his last deployment, although usually not with this type day rate.

Freelance hourly handyman stuff, unless one of these gigs came up.

We were like two dads assembling an IKEA crib, tryna figure out what screwed into where, consulting the assembly instructions.