There no answer in the sand, or in the waves that
rushes up at my feet as I walk. But I've come here to breathe salty air and seek
the comfort of the ocean. In the early morning hours Ocean City
I nearly quit my job yesterday, just another
slave among slaves, punching in and out, sweating my brains away for an hourly
wage. We grumble in the lunch room about the boss, blaming him for all of our
ills: he keeps us down, we say with all the heartened vigor of budding
communists, though I have seen my bosses face at the end of day, and his sore
eyes searching out our faces as we leave. It can't be easy for him. He knows we
plot against him, and yet he struggles to keep his face unmoved. He knows we
have nothing to lose. We can't be ruined by rumor. We haven't staked our lives
out in this place. Even when its permanent, it is only a temporary job, one
from which we plan to move the moment a better opportunity comes along.
This is a ladder to him. He climbs us and this
place like rungs, gambling that we will hold him until he can reach the next
and the next, each step requiring his total concentration. I imagine him as I
walk here, at home curled up on his coach, stomach aching with worry over what
Monday will bring, and Tuesday, and whether he can weather us to get himself
promoted, his resume full of blank lines waiting to be filled, each representing
faces like ours, an ocean of workers waiting to mock him and plot against him.
How can that be fun?
I bend,
pick up a piece of sea shell and toss it back to the sea, half wishing I had
asked him to come south with us to enjoy the sun and water, the other half of
me glad I hadn't. Let him suffer. Maybe the next boss will be better or less
hungry to move on.
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