Across the Canal
It wasn’t 10:00 in the morning, but the sun was already baking the back of my neck, its glare off the canal cutting into my eyes. I set my wheelbarrow back up and kept sweeping the dirt out of the half-paved parking lot towards it. It was quiet, mostly, besides my own thoughts and the highway overpass that brought cars through, never into, town. I’d left my broom and shovel leaning against the short concrete wall between the lot and the canal. Across the canal was a series of abandoned buildings. Factories that left or failed. Same as on my side of the canal, except we were still in business.
If you looked closely, maybe not even closely, you could tell it used to be beautiful here. Ornate details framed broken windows as stone cut gutters crumbled away. Decorative stones lined the canal with the red brick factories, missing some bricks now, above them like a boxer who should’ve retired a few fights ago but needed the cash. At some point, when all the factories ran and the tenements were full, not crumbling down, this might even have been a pretty view.
In the factory directly across from where I was working, they had put up a construction fence. Police were ushering the homeless and the strung out and the rest from the building. They’d have to go somewhere else.
I looked back at the doors to my factory, but no one was around or looking out, so I decided to take a quick break, sitting on the short wall. It would have to be quick. I couldn’t have anyone seeing me or they’d say I’m lazy. They already do, even though I’m not. Not that it mattered.
The canal smelt like liquid garbage in the heat. I laughed to myself. At least I was only sweeping the parking lot. Someone had to drain these things every now and again, and they usually found every bit of nastiness you can imagine down there. They say there’s usually a couple of bodies, even. Well, at least whoever cleaned that out got a city pension. That’s more than I had. Imagine, that dirty water used to power all of this. I wondered what happened to all that power now. Was it gone, not being produced? Or was it still being produced and stored or used? It didn’t matter.
I got bored of sitting, so I got up and started sweeping again. I used a push broom to create large pile of dirt. Then, I’d use a snow shovel to fill the wheelbarrow. I figured all the dirt on the concrete must’ve come from the unpaved parts of the lot. I wasn’t allowed to sweep near the cars, to keep them from getting damaged or dirty or anything like that. People wanted to keep their Beemers and Benzes pristine.
It was dull. I’d done this the day before too, but it had rained overnight and undone all the work that I’d done. At least that’s what my boss had said. I hadn’t noticed any rain and the dirt was dry, so it must’ve been a brief storm. That was fine, though. I liked working outside. Even when it was so hot that you could hardly stand it outside, it was hotter inside. Between those damned machines that heat up, and the lack of windows so that bugs and pollen don’t get in to contaminate anything, it was Hell. Inside, I’d get dirty looks. On a busy day they’d sit there, staring at their machines for hours, only looking up to roll their eyes at me as I walked by, on my way to sweep whatever abandoned room I could find. You had to be careful, though. Some of those rooms were missing or had rotten floorboards that you could easily fall through. It was better outside. Besides, there was never any supervision out here.
Some of the machinists threw a factory door open and huddled up to smoke. Only a couple of them smoked, but the others would hold onto one to make it look like they did. It was the only way to grab extra breaks. One of them, a shorter bald guy with a beer gut and dirty jeans that didn’t fit called me over. I decided another quick break wouldn’t hurt.
“What the fuck are you doing out here?” The one who called me over snorted.
“They’ve got me sweeping the parking lot.”
“What for?”
I shrugged my shoulders, pretending like I didn’t know why. The story my boss had fed to me was that there was going to be some potential new customer touring the factory at the end of the week and they wanted the outside to look good to make a good first impression. At least, that’s the story my boss had fed me.
This lanky guy I hardly recognized, with long greasy hair and a ripped t-shirt on, laughed out, “Come on. We all know why you’re out here.”
I ignored him, asking to bum a smoke from one of them instead. All I got back was a grunt, “You don’t smoke.”
The lanky guy kept going, sneering, “Come on. Don’t you have a degree? Come on. What the fuck are you doing here?” I don’t know how he knew that. It’s not like I talked about it much. I could feel myself shifting weight, subconsciously. They kept going, getting loud and laughing, asking me about what I studied and what the fuck happened and why was I here?
Film. I studied film. Not that I was going to tell them that. They didn’t need to know. I also wasn’t going to tell them I was here because I needed money. My girlfriend was pregnant and that was that. No dream of something bigger. Maybe I should have left her. It would’ve been easier, and I could’ve kept the dream. Plenty of guys do it anyways. No one would’ve blamed me, right? I hated myself for the thought. I had loved her before and I love her now. I could never. Why would I even think like that?
Their laughing snapped me out of it. One of them grunted at me, “We’d all be better off if you went somewhere else. You and us.” I was about to snap back at him when my boss came out the door to have a smoke himself. He looked me up and down and said, “What’re you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be sweeping?”
I gave a half smile and just turned around to go back to my broom. I heard the lanky one hiss at my back, “Have fun, now.”
As I got back to sweeping, I tried to ignore the men laughing and my embarrassment about my own thoughts. I tried to think about baseball, to put myself into a daydream where I had been decent enough to play past high school, but I couldn’t focus. All I could think about was the way the machinists look at me when I walk by them. All I could think about was a buddy of mine letting me now that they thought I was depressing to look at when I walked around inside.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told myself. I wasn’t working there for them. I wasn’t working there for me. Why should I pretend to be happy when I wasn’t? Walking around that dimly lit oven, with half the rooms empty, why would that make me happy? That I get to sweep rooms no one even goes into? Was I supposed to enjoy mindlessly doing the same thing every day? Did they? It didn’t matter.
My wheelbarrow was full again, so I started pushing it around to the back. I took it the long way to kill some extra time. The only downside was I’d have to pass the dumpster going this way. Normally, this wasn’t so bad, unless it was wet, but in this heat it would be worse than normal. It didn’t help that someone had dumped a type of chemical in them. It was a dye of some kind. It smelt like the air was poisoned. From there, it was just around the docks, where trucks were loaded, and I’d be around the building. Once I got to the back of the old factory, I went over to my dirt pile. It was in this little courtyard that no one used anymore. On the walls behind my dirt pile were these vines, wrapping their way up and around the building, like they were trying to choke it.
I’d overheard my boss saying that he’d have me cut these vines down next. I had gone to check the vines out earlier. They were strong and wouldn’t let go when I tried to pull them off the wall. I had no idea how I was going to deal with that. Looking at my dirty pile now, I figured I’d also have to move that again, if only to get to the whole wall. That didn’t matter, though. For now, I just had to move the dirt here, which I did, dumping my wheelbarrow next to the pile.
I had to laugh. Then shout, “I am Sisyphus.”
Looking around, no one was looking at me at all. I doubted anyone ever bothered to come back here for anything. It was just shrubs and a small path back here anyways. So, I sprinted to the top of the dirty mound. I knocked some of the dirt off the pile, but that didn’t matter. My smile left, as I muttered, “But, I’m not in Hell, yet. Apparently.”
I slid back down the hill and went back to the parking lot to sweep some more. Then men were still there, laughing and shouting. None of them were smoking anymore. The one who originally called me over squealed, “How’s it going, Scissor Fist?” They all howled, trying to find a way to turn scissor fist into a sexual hand sign, eventually taking the easy route.
I ignored them as they howled and shouted. A car whipped under the overpass and into the lot. A Cadillac. It kicked up dirt all over the pavement I’d already swept. The factory owner popped out of the front seat, ready for work just after 11:00 in the morning. He was always smiling, and I didn’t want to deal with that, so I put my head down and ignored him. Glancing back towards the door, I noticed that everyone had scattered from their smoke break. That made me smile. I spent the rest of the day sweeping up all I could from the parking lot.
* * *
The next day, I parked and listened to the radio for a little bit, still waking up. They were talking about the Celtics. Apparently, they were a bunch of overpaid bums, but I didn’t care much about basketball. When they cut to commercial, I got out to go and clock in. There was a commotion on the other side of the canal. I stopped for a moment to see what they were doing.
The brick factory was framed by the orange sunrise, making it look like a large black shadow, not that I could see much of that shadow. The reflection from the canal was piercing. It was so piercing that I could hardly see the implosion. I could hardly see the explosions on the floor level that had that old red brick collapsing on top of itself. Dust kicked up, blocking out the sun, leaving only rubble. I was surprised how quickly it was over. I wondered how long it would be until they put something new there, or if they’d just leave the brick or an empty lot for a few years, until they figured out what to do.
By now, I was running late, so I tried to hustle in. The radio outside our breakroom was on the same channel I listened to in my car, and they were back from commercial. Apparently, the Red Sox were overpaid bums too. That mattered to me, not that I’m sure it should. I clocked in quickly, when my boss shouted to me from his office. I went in and he told me off for running late. I was glad he didn’t know I had been sitting outside for a solid fifteen minutes, or was it a half hour? It didn’t matter. I apologized and said there was bad traffic. An accident. He didn’t care. As I started to walk away, he stopped me, smirking. I’d have to re-sweep the parking lot today. Apparently, there was still dust and dirty everywhere.
Dan Morrison is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, where he earned a B.A. in English and a Letter of Specialization in Creative Writing. In the past, He’s been published in journals such as The Green Light and 50 Word Short Stories. He has also won the Class of 1940 Prize for Literature.