Nate Briggs's Blog - Posts Tagged "night"
Sunday Literary Life: May 21
Sunday Literary Life: May 21
During my blue-collar life I had a colleague who gushed brightly about his time on the “graveyard” shift – in this case, 9PM-6AM: “So few people working that time of night, it’s almost like a family! And all that free time! You go home, sleep for a couple of hours, and then have almost the whole day!”
Perhaps a case of making lemonade out of lemons. When a day shift became available he snapped it right up: reminding all of us that the late-late shift had been destroying his social life.
So much for "family".
Returning this week to Duncan Duste, and his fall from grace after his initial success in a Fortune 500 job, he finds himself in the position of beginning again on the late-late shift. Described in this way:
“After six months of sending out beautifully crafted résumé packets that went into HR file cabinets, never to be seen again, Duncan had wearily accepted Patel’s offer of paid employment at the Pump’n’Dump. It was the graveyard shift, and Patel had been candid: ‘The rest of my family either can’t stay awake all night, or they’re scared shitless.’
“Duncan had spent the first few weeks both sleepy, and scared. But now he was used to it: the “simple life” he’d been thinking about when his life was more complicated.
“Don’t open the register.” “Don’t leave the counter.” “Keep an eye on the closed circuit monitors.” “Call 911 if there’s trouble...don’t be a hero.” “Keep track of anything you eat from stock...but coffee is free, help yourself.”
“The simple life.
“No question about that.
“As the official clock on the wall circled around toward two on the night of Bib Kornpest’s retirement, Duncan did walk away from the counter, momentarily, to observe a woman at one of the pumps. He knew there had to be a story behind her journey out into the night dressed in just a pink “baby doll” nightie and fuzzy slippers — her hair a rat’s nest of curls—and what he fervently hoped was an unlit cigarette in her mouth.
“Startled by seeing someone inside the store looking at her, the woman turned away self-consciously, and maybe didn’t buy as much fuel as she was planning. It was cold outside, she was cold, and showing a lot of skin. After just a couple of bucks, she crammed the nozzle back into the pump, and scampered back into the car.
“The nozzle fell out of the pump as she was leaving the driveway, and Duncan violated all of his basic instructions by trotting out to put it where it belonged.
“He hoped there wouldn’t be a lot of trouble about it. But he couldn’t just leave it lying there.
“Then he hurried back to the barstool near the cigarettes — the spot where he spent most of his time—where he noticed that Bib’s memoir was waiting for him.”
My own memories of the graveyard tend to support the strangeness of trying to be alert when everyone else is trying to be just the opposite. The dreamlike quality of that hollow silent part of the night – when eccentric things happen with so few people awake to see them happen.
During my blue-collar life I had a colleague who gushed brightly about his time on the “graveyard” shift – in this case, 9PM-6AM: “So few people working that time of night, it’s almost like a family! And all that free time! You go home, sleep for a couple of hours, and then have almost the whole day!”
Perhaps a case of making lemonade out of lemons. When a day shift became available he snapped it right up: reminding all of us that the late-late shift had been destroying his social life.
So much for "family".
Returning this week to Duncan Duste, and his fall from grace after his initial success in a Fortune 500 job, he finds himself in the position of beginning again on the late-late shift. Described in this way:
“After six months of sending out beautifully crafted résumé packets that went into HR file cabinets, never to be seen again, Duncan had wearily accepted Patel’s offer of paid employment at the Pump’n’Dump. It was the graveyard shift, and Patel had been candid: ‘The rest of my family either can’t stay awake all night, or they’re scared shitless.’
“Duncan had spent the first few weeks both sleepy, and scared. But now he was used to it: the “simple life” he’d been thinking about when his life was more complicated.
“Don’t open the register.” “Don’t leave the counter.” “Keep an eye on the closed circuit monitors.” “Call 911 if there’s trouble...don’t be a hero.” “Keep track of anything you eat from stock...but coffee is free, help yourself.”
“The simple life.
“No question about that.
“As the official clock on the wall circled around toward two on the night of Bib Kornpest’s retirement, Duncan did walk away from the counter, momentarily, to observe a woman at one of the pumps. He knew there had to be a story behind her journey out into the night dressed in just a pink “baby doll” nightie and fuzzy slippers — her hair a rat’s nest of curls—and what he fervently hoped was an unlit cigarette in her mouth.
“Startled by seeing someone inside the store looking at her, the woman turned away self-consciously, and maybe didn’t buy as much fuel as she was planning. It was cold outside, she was cold, and showing a lot of skin. After just a couple of bucks, she crammed the nozzle back into the pump, and scampered back into the car.
“The nozzle fell out of the pump as she was leaving the driveway, and Duncan violated all of his basic instructions by trotting out to put it where it belonged.
“He hoped there wouldn’t be a lot of trouble about it. But he couldn’t just leave it lying there.
“Then he hurried back to the barstool near the cigarettes — the spot where he spent most of his time—where he noticed that Bib’s memoir was waiting for him.”
My own memories of the graveyard tend to support the strangeness of trying to be alert when everyone else is trying to be just the opposite. The dreamlike quality of that hollow silent part of the night – when eccentric things happen with so few people awake to see them happen.
