FLUORESCENT SPOTLIGHT, darkness casting from the edges out,
sticky, grimy floors and the strong smell of solvent were my sensory introductions to the world of vampires. It is dangerous to be a sixteenyear-old child thrown in with an ageless clan of vampires. Creatures who lurk in the shadows, very real, yet unseen by almost all the other humans on the planet. Traveling empty highways, drinking in the neighborhood bars that barely close, where beer is cheap and no one asks questions. Vampires are easy to find, but no one hunts them like in the movies. They aren’t rich or sexy. You wouldn’t look at them twice at Wal-Mart, which is probably the single place your paths have crossed. These people are known as the workers of the third shift. My dad got my brother and me jobs as pressman’s assistants during the summer when we were 16 on the third-shift. Being a pressman’s assistant at the time meant that we worked on a printing press that made little labels for the post office to go on stacks of mail. We worked on a machine that OSHA has totally re-designed because of the open blades, gears and other cutting and crushing metal. We printed labels by the millions, all the same, fast and boring all night long. We worked with dangerous chemicals barehanded around open blades barehanded with whirling dangerous equipment barehanded. It paid a buck an hour more than all of the other jobs that were available, so we took it. We would stick our hands up to the elbow in an acetone-type solvent call Barasol at the end of each shift to wash off the ink and adhesive. This was corrosive and explosive stuff
that at the end of the summer had left our skin death-white and the nails bleeding. The job was a bit toxic. We weren’t spit-siphoning jet fuel from one tank to another, but it was still pretty nasty. As a sixteen-year-old young man, I was confident that I knew how to swear. I had no idea. My first night, a forty-year-old woman looked at me and said, “You have the brain of pigeon cum. I’d fuck you, light a cigarette, and finish you off before the cigarette started smoking.” Wow! I hadn’t even done anything or said anything. I was already scared to death. She was just saying hi! She laughed and looked around at all of her crew, and they laughed. “I’m just givin’ ya shit. I like ya. Who knows, I may fuck ya anyways!” and they all laughed again. People who work during the first and second shift, mostly in the light, work under managerial observation. Many more people watching, checking, curious and comparing rules against behaviors. Third shift is about what the remnants of second shift see as they are leaving and first shift see as they are arriving. What happens in between makes up the vampire hours. Watching vampires move into a worksite at the 10:45 pm hour is like watching the annual regulars setting up for a week at Burning Man. They come with 64oz or 128oz soda barrels that you used to be able to buy at the gas station. Small coolers of food for lunch and breaks were hauled in the other hand and each of them wore a second shirt, vest, blouse or something to store cigarettes, lighter, and enough odds and ends to win every round of Let’s Make a Deal. There are other bags, sacks, and locked items. It’s after 11:00 pm, so no one is enforcing the “all items must be placed in locker” policy. Vampires smoke. It’s an absolute. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of having a smoke break? Duh. (This was explained to me my first night shift.) Vampires travel in packs of three to six because they carpool. If one is not able to make the shift, four people can tell you why not, when the person who missed will be able to make up the shift and that you should just be glad that the rest of the group was able to make it. Vampires protect their packs.
W ork in g wi t h Vampi r e s
The shift has a rhythm. It runs this way: 11:00 pm–12:30 am
Hard work, gossip, drinking from the jugs of “soda,” and swearing.
12:30 am–12:45 am
Smoke break, gossip, swearing.
12:45 am–2:30 am
Work medium, yell at the supervisor and each other, swearing, drink more “soda,” swear, and advise each other on problems.
2:30 am–3:15 am
Lunch, supervisor yelling for them to get back to work, swearing, smoking, gossip.
3:15 am–6:30 am
Rinse and repeat previous patterns.
6:30 am–6:45 am
Disappearance of all evidence.
7:00 am
Clock out.
As the first light of day hits the open truck shipping door, there is an invisible transformation on the work floor. One moment I turn my eyes to the press to do my work, the next moment I turn back to the pick/pack/ ship vampire crew and every bit of detritus they had brought with them at shift start was gone. Soda barrels, half-eaten cracker bags, lit cigarettes including the smoke in the air, cookie crumbs, and other bits of refuse had evaporated. They were not in the trash bags or on the floor. They were just gone. The team had not changed or moved. The first shift’s entry fifteen minutes later came upon a view of a serene and policy-following work crew, tired but ready to finish their shift. They pack up, grab their things and head into the carpools. Some will make breakfast for spouses who worked third shift somewhere else. Some run errands, others smoke a few bowls and watch TV. What they do individually varies, but what they do every day, not much. There is a W o r k i n g w i t h Va mpi res
rhythm. I once asked someone if they were going to college, because that was what I was going to do. He looked at me, and it was the first time I had ever seen eyes of pure anger from any of the vampires. He said, “Nobody in this building’s going to college but you.” TAKE-AWAY #1 Third-Shift Choice. We may all live on the same world,
but we don’t live in the same world. They believe that they live in the creases around the edges, trying to do what they want and not getting caught by the other 90% of the people on the planet. TAKE-AWAY #2 No Careers. Vampires have lifestyles, not career paths.
Their desires are to live with their people, according to their rules, and not be bothered. They are not looking to go up the ladder, just stay on the ladder.
W ork in g wi t h Vampi r e s