The New Guy

Edso Valena

What’s with the fuckin’ hammerin’? Will ya’ knock it off already? Like I ain’t got enough to think about crawling through this ventilation shaft – made outta wicked thin tinfoil –with a wire coil running through it – like a giant Slinky wrapped up like a baked potato – and trying not to rip it all up, for chrissakes? Listen, I’ve had enough bad luck – I don’t need any more. They tell me there’s a filter at the end of the line – I gotta clean it out – for somethin’ called a ionic scrubber, or some such shit. Can’t be any worse than da ones in the kitchen – in the hoods – the greasy ones – the real greasy ones. So how bad can this one be?

They were sure making a big deal about it in the maintenance office. Those crazy guys. Like “Ain’t it time we checked them scrubber filters?” and “Doan lookit me – I was up dere last time.” and “Nah. Give it to the new guy – that’s a good job for the new guy. What’s he up to? Where’s he hidin’? And where’s his hat?” Ya see, they got this hat rack down that back tiled hallway next to the shitter. All these different kinda hats – and oh yeah, masks – like the blue stripe paper hat – you know, like for kitchen workers – like for when scrubbin’ pots – or a hair net, or a sock hat, or a plastic face shield, or a gas mask, or even a fireman’s helmet, if you can believe it. All these different hats and masks – and they all say “The New Guy” in black ink – with all kinds of different handwriting – but always with the black ink. This one they give me when they tell me about the filter is a kinda hardhat – like the wildcatters in the oil fields wear. This one’s seen its better days – like it’s been through a war or sumpin’ – “The New Guy” scrawled across the front. If there’s a shitty job to do, give it to the fuckin’ new guy. That’s me.

Where the fuck is this filter? They’re tellin’ me it’s wedged in the ass end of a big steel cowl up on the surface – at the end of the Slinky – some big steel cowl like you’d see on the deck of a fuckin’ battleship. Ya see, they tell me the filter s’posed to be wedged in with some special little metal clip that’s a real pain-in-da-ass to deal with – like it’s all bent up like a paperclip spring and if you don’t click it just right it might just go – BOING! – and go flyin’ off like nutso – and of course it’s the same color as the tinfoil. That goes without sayin’. You can’t make this shit up!

Everythin’ was making all kind of sense for a while. It all started with Bob and me meeting up again after a couple of years of goin’ our separate ways. We both had our ups and downs, but nothing was comin’ up roses – you know – for the long term. So, we gets talking and Bob’s got this friend, see, who’d been working in the oil fields and then got caught up in some kinda hard rock minin’ – rare metals, gold, whatnot. Anyways, this guy hears about this new thing goin’ on in Antarctica of all da fuckin’ places. Cold, right? Well, it seems that it’s cold, but not that cold, I guess – well, not as cold as it used to be. Everything’s warmin’ up down there big time, they’re saying. Big fucking chunks of ice bustin’ off – chunks of ice the size of Rhode Island for chrissakes. Anyways, with the ice bustin’ off – and even meltin’ in some places – what’d they find but a whole shitload of somethin’ called lithium, or some such fuck, underneath that ice – some fancy rock – like the biggest fuckin’ pile of these fancy rocks on the whole planet. Ya see, they grind it up and use it for batteries – you know, for tools and phones and for all these electric cars and trucks they’re gonna be making. Don’t ask me how it works – but they use it for a lotta stuff – like for everything. And ya see, this lithium’s different down there in Antarctica according to Bob’s buddy – ‘cause like in South America and Australia they got this lithium, like a shitload of it, but it’s all mixed up with all kinds of other crap – other kind of rocks and, what was it, oh yeah, salts. But this Antarctica lithium – it’s like pure – you just dig it out of the ground, shove it in a battery, and hit the switch. So this guy, this friend of Bob’s, is getting in early with a mining crew – it’s like a gold rush – and he says there’s room for more. The more, the merrier he says. Even for know-nothing guys like us.

So, Bob and me, we gets to talkin’ – ya know, over a few brewskis. Like we could use a good score, we could – like it’s almost like our turn with all the young guys comin’ up behind us. So what the hell – it could be like the old days – we build up a little stash, pool our money, and this time, maybe there’d be enough – we could open up that roadhouse like we always talked about. Nothing fancy – just a nice, clean little joint where a guy could go to unwind. Everything legal and upfront. Bob – he takes care of the front of the house, ya know the bar and the music and all. And me – I take care of everything out back – like the kitchen, and the books, and all that shit. A real partnership. Anyways, it all seemed to make sense. Just like the old days.

So, we make some calls, and just like that – Bam! – we’re off. The rush is on and we’re in early – before it’s hit the papers. Of course, we gotta fork a little cash up front for what they call – what was it? – oh, yeah – “personal investment”. Like some gear – you know, gloves, coveralls, parkas – mostly because of all that cold weather– crap like that. And before you know it, we’re on a boat and on our way.

I ain’t gonna bullshit ya – the trip down was rough, really rough. Big waves, high winds – it was a big fuckin’ boat and we got tossed around like a little bathtub toy. No fuckin’ party. I threw up insides I didn’t know I had – Bob too. I gotta be honest – I started thinking right then “Whadda fuck am I getting’ myself into?” But then things cleared out after a while and the sky turned all kinds of beautiful colors – really beautiful – like an oil painting. Not like we were standing around topside admiring the view – it was fuckin’ cold out there. We just kept our heads low, Bob and me – ya know – and talked about the roadhouse.

Pretty quick we pulled into this harbor, and honest to God, it was like a fucking city. Big boats, little boats – trucks runnin’ every which way – land-moving equipment and cranes – new dock space – new everything. Even a new airport. Big lights set up everywhere – not like they needed them ‘cause it’s like daylight even in the middle of the night. Of course, they tell us, that’s the summertime – what would be our wintertime – everything’s ass backwards down here. Anyways, in wintertime – our summer – it’s all dark all the time – and that’s when it gets really cold, they said. I couldn’t believe it could get any colder, but I wasn’t gonna fuckin’ argue.

We settle in good, Bob and me. We find some good bunks, and the food’s pretty damn good considerin’ we’re out in the middle of like nowhere. These guys definitely have their shit together. Bob gets in on a lead mining crew – they kinda get in there, sniff it out, and open up new sections for the mining – then once they figure out what they got, they move on to the next area, and then the next, and so on. Always one step ahead. Then the big mining operation comes in behind ‘em and strips all that lithium rock out. Everybody’s in a rush all the time, Bob says, cause they gotta get the claims in before some other assholes get in there. Not that we’re assholes, says Bob – we’re the good guys. And me, I get put to driving all kinds of vehicles – big and small. Moving equipment around, building roads, whatnot. If it’s got four wheels (or six or eight) just point me in the right direction and I’ll pull it, push it, or carry it whatever, wherever. I liked it – not a bad job.

And so we went for a while – things goin’ smooth and makin’ pretty good money that we could all sock away. Course, we had our snags. As if it’s a big surprise, Bob likes to gamble – cards, dice, whatever – shit, I’ve seen him bet an over-and-under on how many friggin’ penguins were hangin’ out on a fuckin’ iceberg once. Me, I don’t bet on crapola. My ol’ man used to play the numbers with some mob guys and I saw what’ll it do to ya. But anyways, Bob ran into some bad luck for a while that emptied his grubstake and even put a dent into mine for chrissakes. Things straightened up again after a while, but it wasn’t the same. All of a sudden, the whole world felt a little shaky – a little uneasy.

And then about a month ago you could feel a really big change coming over the whole operation – like a big wind blowing through everything. There was less jokin’ around – like everybody was all of a sudden real serious like. There was a big push to get more done – like it didn’t matter what you were doin’, just do, like, more of it. And like where we used to work eight to ten to twelve hours a day, we started to work fourteen – and sometimes double shifting up to sixteen. Guys were getting tired – and ya’ know – kinda cranky – irritable. Pretty soon I didn’t like anything that got thrown my way – definitely walkin’ around with the “go fuck yourself” kinda attitude. And I wasn’t alone.

Then that Tuesday came around – turned out to be a bad day – a real bad day. Everything started out pretty much okay – not awful in the weather department, though pretty fuckin’ cold if you want my opinion. Bob and me, we had breakfast together for the first time in weeks, what with the crazy hours we were punching in and all. Of course, he had a few funny stories – but not as many as usual. Mostly it was him bitchin’ about this boss or that boss – how they were working too fast on this claim and not taking care of business before they moved to the next one. He definitely wasn’t happy about it, but hey, the money was still good so what da fuck. And he was on a winning streak with the card games which he always seemed to find time for no matter how busy everything got.

Anyways, he goes his way and I go mine. Me, I’m part of a big push to finish a highway from the coast deep into the interior – some kinda supply route back and forth – building materials going out – truckloads and truckloads of lithium comin’ back. I’m talkin’ big fuckin’ truckloads. We were goin’ at it pretty good on the road – cuttin’ off the high spots and fillin’ in low areas – doin’ the best with what we had. Anyways, word starts coming down the line that there was like some kinda accident in the claiming mines – you know, like out where Bob works. Course I get all nervous at first, but then I’m back on the job – doin’ what I do – and kinda put it in the back of my mind.

Dinnertime seemed quieter that night – like something’s missin’. I poke my nose in where I can, but everything is like hush-hush. No one’s sayin’ anything – but like when you step back, all you hear is a lot of whispering – like “What’d you hear?” “Nothing.” Yeah, I’m hearin’ nothin’ too.” So, I get back out there to the worksite to do a little late-night clean-up on this exit ramp I was workin’ on earlier when I see this guy I know who’s pretty connected with the know-it-all types. So I says to ‘im – “Hey, what’s goin’ on with that claiming crew – I hear something happened and a good buddy of mine is with that crew.” And I give him Bob’s name. So he gets on his cell and makes some calls – you know, cuts through some of the bullshit – and I can see him with the light glowing behind him – you know, like some kind of silhouette – with his head down and shaking it. And he comes over and tells me that my buddy Bob didn’t make it – that some kind of temporary roof in the claiming mine collapsed – you know, some kind of half-assed rush job – and who knows how many fuckin’ tons of rock and ice came down and killed practically the entire crew with Bob being one of ‘em. “Too bad” the guy says – “That’s really gonna set us back.” And off he goes.

I can’t believe it – I mean Bob and me, we were like brothers – closer than brothers, we were partners. We looked out for each other – we were going to open a business together. All that shit is swimmin’ around my head like a big bowl of sloppy soup. I couldn’t fuckin’ believe it. I couldn’t get my brain around it.

So, I don’t sleep so good that night – I mean, I’m tossin’ and turnin’ – and, I can’t get pictures of Bob out of my head with that big goofy grin of his. And how he used to talk real loud-like – like how he filled the room. And you know, thinkin’ about the roadhouse and all. And the next morning, when I get up, I could see it in the faces of some of the other guys too. You know, a partner here or there of one of those thirty or so poor sons-of-bitches still lying under that pile of frozen crap. It was something in their eyes – you could tell who they were. Like their buddy died – and with them, somethin’ inside them died too. Like a dream, like some kind of hope.

I knew I was goin’ to be worth shit for work that day after that first cup of coffee – but it’s not the kind of job where you can bring a note in from your Mommie saying “Johnnie will have to stay home today and do a little me time”. So nah, I get out there and pretty soon I’m almost like in a trance cuttin’ in roadbed and doin’ what I do – though not like with it, if you know what I mean. Anyways, late that morning, almost noontime, I’m levelin’ out that roadbed and this guy I’m piggy backin’ with is having trouble with some of his equipment. You see, he’s got this rock grinder that’s crushing stone for leveling the roadbed – ya know, fillin’ in the potholes – and it’s all jammed up. Like we’re at a fuckin’ standstill. So, to a make a long, painful story as short as I can – so maybe it won’t hurt so much that way – I’m fishin’ around in this conveyor with a shovel to try to free shit up, but nothings movin’ – but everything’s runnin’ – and then the fuckin’ shovel gets stuck on top of everything else. So, me, like the brainless idiot I am, reach in and, sure as shit, everything like a fuckin’ miracle starts movin’ again – except the only thing not moving is my fuckin’ hand which is stuck inside about a half-inch thick wad of polar glove jammed in that conveyor. I get pulled away, alright – screaming – but not before feeding two and a half of my fingers to that fuckin’ machine for my troubles.

So that’s how quick life can change. After I’m all sewn up and somewhat healed, my bosses figure maybe they shouldn’t trust me with all that expensive equipment anymore given that I would stick my fuckin’ hand into a rock crusher, for chrissakes – while it’s fuckin’ runnin’, mind you. Not exactly the brightest fuckin’ bulb. But hey, I got a good work ethic – I shown that. So what the hell – the maintenance department could always use a new guy. Sure, the money’s not as good – but what the hell, it’s a job.

That’s that. So, a little work here cleanin’ this up. A little work in the kitchen, preppin’ somethin’ or cleanin’ somethin’ else up. Or unloadin’ somethin’. Or movin’ a pile of crap over here, and puttin’ it over there. The only good thing is that almost everything is inside and undercover – some days I forget how cold it is out there.

Oh yeah, of course I think about Bob once in a while. They had a little ceremony a couple of days after everything got cleaned up. There wasn’t a whole lot of cryin’, but there was some – hidden like. After they were done with that, it was back to the nose to the grindstone. Pretty much back to the way things were with the get-it-done-yesterday kinda thing. And yeah, somedays I got to thinking about that roadhouse and, ya’ know, thinkin’ about what coulda been.

So where’s that fuckin’ filter clip? Oh – I see it. They were right – same color as the tin foil Slinky. Ya know – ya just can’t make this shit up.

Interview by C. VanWinkle

Can we begin by having you describe what it was that you responded to?

It looked like a photographic collage. There were two images superimposed over each other, one positive and one negative, of what looked to be a man crawling through some sort of ventilation shaft. And that image was superimposed over what looked to be a bottom of a globe, showing the outlines of Antarctica in black and white. Originally when I saw it, it struck me as being very sci-fi, maybe because I thought the man was some sort of military person. That was my first impression. But then I looked at it more and it didn’t seem military-looking, but more industrial to me.

I definitely see that influence in the piece that you wrote. What happened next? How did you get started?

Well, it kind of came along in a bunch of different ways. One was that I recently saw some gas utility work being done out in front of our house and it was a pretty good-sized crew. There were probably 10 guys working on it. There were a number of jobs which I consider to be the crappy jobs, you know, like one guy had this handheld tamper that he had to hold to tamp down dirt. But you had to hold it! It would be like holding a giant eggbeater that just wanted to take off, but you had to hold it down. I was looking at him doing that and thinking, Well, he must be the new guy, because some veteran on this job site would not be doing that job. So that was floating around in my head when I got this. That’s what prompted the whole “new guy” thing.

You have to understand that I hadn’t written a short story since I was in college, which was 50 years ago. So I really wasn’t prepared to write a story, but I spent the last 20 years of my life writing appraisals for commercial real estate, very detailed reports that were about a hundred pages long. Every story has a beginning, middle, and end, and I carried that with me into dealing with this.

Was it intimidating to write a short story after so long?

No, because I do write parody songs and I just finished writing and cleaning up a full-length musical comedy. So I’m not intimidated by the writing process, but it was just something that I normally don’t do. But it seemed like that would be a logical thing to do. Toward the beginning, I actually thought, Can I turn this into some sort of musical comedy? But it just didn’t lend itself to that marriage, did it? It would have been kind of stupid.

I’m really impressed that you were able to use your experience writing appraisals to write a short story.

Well, when you write an appraisal, you tell a story about a piece of property. And I used to appraise very complex property, so there was a lot of explanation. You don’t want to get caught up in the weeds as in a short story, I guess. You’ve got to balance the details and the big picture.

Is any part of this story autobiographical?

Not at all. I have appraised a lot of industrial properties and I have appraised concrete plants and steel fabrication plants, where I would see and listen to people that do this kind of work. So that’s as close as I get to that.

Did you have to do much special research, just for this project?

When I saw Antarctica, I wondered about global warming and news about lithium and batteries for cars and all. I did look up lithium and I found that most of the lithium on the planet is found in South America and in Australia. So I looked at the globe and thought, Well, it might be reasonable that underneath all that ice, there’s this huge vein of lithium. I researched lithium and came up with some of that hard rock mining description, just to make it seem more reasonable.

I was pretty struck by the voice of the narrator. You wrote in a dialect that is not how you normally speak.

No. Fuck no.

Was it kind of a slog to write that way or was it really fun? How did you feel about it?

It was easy as pie, unfortunately. I wish it wasn’t! I felt really comfortable with that voice. And that whole concept of having a partner, too. A long, long time ago, I had a partner and we had a fish business. A friend and I owned a fish truck that we sold lobsters off of, up in New Hampshire. So I had that relationship of having a partner, almost like something from Steinbeck, you know. In our fish business we made no money, so I had that sort of relationship where you depend on your partner, but shit happens.

I imagine that the fish business was not as stressful or possibly dangerous as the business in your story.

Well, you would be surprised.

One detail that I really liked was near the beginning of the story, when you described all the hats and masks that all say, “The New Guy”. The new guy that you saw working outside of your house was not labeled “The New Guy”, was he?

No. Well, he might be, back at the shop. But they would never do that to him out there in public. That would be cruel.

Is it hard to be the new guy?

I think it is. And I think it’s extra hard in this guy’s case because he’s older. You know, they’re talking about how this is their last shot at getting together this grubstake. So he’s no spring chicken, as they say; the guy is probably in his early 50s. I think that would be like hell. Or actually more like purgatory, anyways. It would be tough to start a whole new thing when you’re that age.

Actually, I did that! I guess that IS biographical! We had a factory that went out of business when a lot of manufacturing went over to Asia. You were being born when all that happened. So I got into being a real estate appraiser with absolutely no background in finance. I mean none. So I was the new guy. In that sense, yeah, I have that in my background, looking back now. I guess that’s somewhat biographical.

I suppose everyone has been the new guy in some capacity somewhere. I think that’s what makes this story relatable. How does this piece fit with the rest of your work? You mentioned that you recently finished a musical comedy and you’ve got all these different kinds of writing you’ve done. Is this similar to any of it?

No, I would call this “out there”. The musical I wrote is called “How To Be a Dog: A Steaming Pile of Song and Dance”. I have a song in it that says, “Lick ‘Em If You Got ‘Em”. I’m much more comfortable writing that kind of stuff! So yeah, this is a little out there for me.

One of the main takeaways of this story, for me, was that it’s about manly dudes going out and doing macho, manly dude stuff, and then there’s a price they pay for not dealing with their feelings. Is that something you generally think about or write about?

No. I guess I did allude to that, but it was nothing that I was really focused on. I think that’s probably true, though, of situations like that. I was never in the military or something like this sort of thing. I’ve never been on sports teams, but you know, I can imagine that there are relationships that have formed, some of them really deep and some of them shallow. And some of them are like these guys. But at the same time, it was all screwed up, like with the guy gambling the money and then hitting on the other guy. It almost broke my heart when I wrote that. I mean I really felt bad for this guy because he’s stuck. He’s got his partner. He’s got to stand up for him. He’s got a pay it up, you know. That’s why I had his luck change.

Could this story be part of a larger piece? Could this become part of a play or something?

It wouldn’t be anything I would be interested in, but I’m sure you could look at that and turn it into all sorts of stories. I think a story about mining in Antarctica could be a hell of a story, especially with the motivation with the push.

Our contributors have to determine how much they want to lean on the original prompt and how much they want to depart from it and create something fresh. Was it hard for you to make that call?

I used that as a jumping-off point. I wrote that first page without even knowing where the rest of it was going to go. In fact, I thought for a while of just throwing out that whole first page and not even talking about the new guy. But that was the reference to the prompt, and I wanted to show more respect to the artist who gave me the prompt.

I use the prompt as a jumping-off point, too, and sometimes I jump way off.

Do you write something when you do yours?

I wrote something once, but all the rest have been visual art. I wrote my first poem! I don’t know if I will ever write a second one. Maybe.

I might write a second short story because I actually had fun doing this. Since the pandemic started, we bought this big old house in Worcester and we’ve been renovating it. The house is the size of a barn. It’s a big house and it’s needed a lot of work. So this has been a nice reprieve.

Do you have any advice for someone else who might be doing this project for the first time?

Don’t take it too seriously.

Was that something you learned the hard way? Were you in danger of taking it too seriously?

No, but I can imagine how some people could. You know, I really enjoyed this. I wrote this during that real hot spell and, you know, it was an excellent use of my time. I appreciate that because I wouldn’t have done it without the prompt. I wouldn’t have done it.

Call Number: C50VA | C51PP.vaNe

Edso Valena: I am a jack of many trades and a master of few and have tackled a number of jobs in my years (some of which being the “new guy” played a role). My current artistic endeavor is trying to find an adoptive home for a musical-comedy that very much celebrates the lives of four well-meaning dogs. I’ve recently relocated to Worcester, MA with my wife.