THE RETIREMENT PARTY STORY
This is a MILL story.
People have asked me to write more of them, and I said I would, if they up-graded to paid…but no one would. So, as a result, ALL of my mill stories go up behind the PAYWALL. They are long, funny, and a little out there in left field; they are Politically Incorrect, have a lot of swearing, drugs, sex, and drinking on the job. They are not meant for a younger crowd.
I’m not writing a memoir. I write novellas and novelettes. I write serial novels. The mill stories are just a nostalgic look back at a youth I don’t really want to relive. I’ll write them for you, just not for FREE…
The Retirement Party Story
4:00 pm
Driving in on a lovely afternoon…
Driving out to Langley on the Freeway with the windows rolled down and the iPod blasting through the speakers is a pretty good way to travel. The sun was out, the sky a clear blue, and it was warm. You can see Mount Baker when you head east on the Freeway. It is an amazing sight, really. It’s snow covered year round. It’s like looking at Fuji, I imagine; but you take it for granted…like the rest of the scenery around here. When you grow up with mountains and the ocean, you just assume it’s the same everywhere else — all green grass with daffodils and dogwoods growing among the fir trees.
I’m sure Saskatoon is nice.
Anyway, I pull into the parking lot and the first person I see is Bernie. He’s happy to see me, but like almost everyone else, he doesn’t really know what to say, or how he should react. It’s the accident thing. We all loved Steve. He would’ve been here, but for that. In fact, we probably would have drove in together — him with his rum and coke between his legs while he’s driving. (He even taught his kid to drive with a rum and coke in his hand, but that’s another story, isn’t it?) But Bernie’s standing outside having a smoke. I asked him why he’s outside? Isn’t there anybody here? More importantly, is there any food? And then the big one…
>I guess you’re not working then, are you?<
“I just turned 55. I’m taking the Buy Out.”
>Are they still offering it?<
The “Buy out” is the BC Gov’t trying to encourage older workers in the labour market to retire, the logic being that way the younger generation can get into the work force. It’s a Gov’t thing, and has nothing to do with the Union, or the Company, except that the Company has the right to tell you when you can retire. It’s all based on the needs of the Company. I said congrats to him. He’s looking at making at least $75,000, or something like that. I was 65 when they offered it to me. I’d already told the company I was retiring at the end of 2022, and then, when the accident with Steve happened, I had the entire year off on Compensation. I applied and they offered me a substantial dollar amount, but not even close to what he was getting. I was already 65…ish.
And then Richard showed up. The first thing he said was happy belated birthday.
“I thought of it two days after,” he said with that lop-sided grin he has.
>Same with me man.< (His birthday is in January.) >I thought about it when it was Peter’s.< (He was my ex-brother-in-law/ex-roommate/Best Man/best friend. Yes, he died, too.)
Richard is pretty well the last of “our” generation. He’s 62. His body has gone through hell. It was not unusual to go down to the Boom Shack and find him laying on the floor trying to work out the kinks in his back. He was always in physio, or getting massage therapy, or trying acupuncture. Old age is not looking good for him, but we never thought about getting older when we were working, did we? We did things the Safety Committee balked at. That’s why I’m missing a fingertip and my fuck finger is at a 45º angle.
Rumour #1
“Burn that mother down!” (Disco Inferno.)
Let’s just say it. The mill burnt. I haven’t gone down there to take a look at what sort of damage was done, and to be honest, I don’t know if I will. I’m not saying that it “burnt down,” because it did that back in the 80’s. That’s when it burnt right down to the ground — melted, with yawning girders of steel looking like cold pasta — that type of damage. That could have been life changing, for me; it should have been. We’d just had our second child and were living in a basement suite. My wife said she’d go out and get a job if she had to. I think she was dying to get out of the house, to be honest. We were worried for a while because we didn’t know what was going on. But they decided to rebuild the mill, and once that happened, my wife said she’d go out and get a job. I could stay home and take car of the kids. Who’s gonna say no to that? I could collect unemployment and look after the kids? A new born and a two year old? That’s a no-brainer.
Anyway, they told me it was the Dry Shed. That’s a roofed in area where they take the kiln-dried lumber and stack the packages up, waiting to run it through the planer. The idea is to keep it out of the rain. No one would have thought anything of it, if not for the jerry cans they found after. Bernie told me they found fourteen different little fires all over the mill. Richard said it was nine. Bernie said one of the bosses was there, but no one seemed to back that up, so who knows. I think Richard told me they’d done it before, but it may have been someone else.
>So it’s arson?<
“Yeah, and they couldn’t even do that right.”
“But maybe we’ll get a severance package,” Bernie said. “Unless they fuck us out of that, too.”
He says that, because they’re the worst owners yet. We thought Interfor was bad because we were a little company and they were a big company and had no qualms about shutting the mill down for different reasons. But these guys? These guys weren’t paying their bills. When you buy logs, you actually have to pay for them. They were always late. They couldn’t sell the lumber. The mill went from making money, to shutting down for a week at a time, and then working four days a week, and then three days, and then down for three weeks and then work for three days. They once had a list of personnel that numbered in the hundreds. Now they were down to a list of about forty. Who can stay on a job that only runs 4-5 days a pay period?
So burning the mill down makes sense all around…from a business point of view — if you don’t get caught.
Into the Hall…
When you walk into the Hall, it’s big. It’s big and bright, and spacious. It’s where they hold all the Union Meetings. The only reason we were celebrating big events there is because of Covid. When Covid struck we were deemed an essential service. I know, right? A sawmill? But hey, we weren’t about to complain because we were working and other peoples’ lives were falling apart. My wife was still working because she’s the manager of a Gov’t liquor store. (And no, they don’t give you discounts, thank God! Then I’d be in re-hab, and God hates a quitter!) The Company wouldn’t let us meet in large groups in the lunchroom anymore. Only two people at a table; wipe everything down (as if that was going to happen!); partitions on every table.
As a result, no more pizza lunches when we broke a record; no more Union meetings to discuss strike options — those had to take place outside. So they just didn’t bother with the pizzas, and no more retirement farewells, either. They didn’t even bother taking collections. You work forty, forty-five years, and get nothing in the way of a thank you from either the Company, or the Crew. Wonderful. Thing about it, is that the Company was sold when I was on Compo. The new Company wouldn’t do anything for the Crew. So the Union stepped in. This was when the BC Gov’t said they were going to offer the Bridging deal to the Forestry Industry. I don’t even remember how many guys retired the first time that happened. No collection from the Crew; no farewell from the Company. And when you take a collection from the crew, the guys usually give generous amounts. You get anywhere from $20-$50 from each person. What kind of a collection are you going to get if there’s five guys retiring?
So the Union said they’d have a get together in the Hall and serve beer and wine, make burgers, and everybody could mingle. And we liked that. The Union President is an outsider. He came to us from Ontario. His biggest claim to fame as far as we were concerned is that he’s the father of a favourite Hockey Player for the local team here, our beloved Canucks. He’s a great guy. I’m not just saying that because the Union really stepped up to the plate with the accident — because so did the Company. And when the wife got Covid, picking it up from someone that came in from the Island as part of the Union’s investigating team, they left us alone. The wife just sort of fell in love with him because of all that the Union did for us.
I walked into the Hall, and everyone was happy to see me. Seeing some of them was a huge surprise. Some of those who were absent, just as much. I made it in through the door and said hello to a couple of the guys standing near by. Handshakes, back slaps, and even hugs, I quickly made my way to the bar because I thought a nice plastic cup of wine would do the trick. It’s easier to count your drinks that way, because you just collect the cups.
And there was Biesksa (the Union President) standing behind the bar. He’d signed up to my SUBSTACK back when I started and told me I’ve been very busy. He says he can’t keep up with everything I’m putting out. I reminded him that he’s supposed to up-grade. I have to use his last name because my buddy Al (now living on the Island) is quick to join me at the bar. He’s all smiles and laughing because he can see I’m surprised to see him. I asked him if he brought any prawns for me. He goes out every day and sets up his prawn traps and crab traps. He fishes and brings in huge salmons — he’s living the dream, him and his little speed boat. I mean, 120 Spot Prawns, on average, every time he pulls the trap up? That’s not bad. So I tell him to bring some prawns over and the wife will make him Jambalaya right on the spot. He’s says to bring her over and she can cook them at his house. Then we can go out on the boat and relax.
Then I turn and see Quentin. He told me a long time ago that if I ever wrote a story about the mill, I’d have to change his name to Marlon, because he liked Brando. Unfortunately, he doesn’t look like Brando in ON THE WATERFRONT, but more like Brando in APOCALYPSE NOW. But he’s the Class Clown. He’s the one with a file so big, it barely fits in the filing cabinet. We sit and chat.
He used to work on the boom with me. Well, he didn’t really work as much as he just got drunk a lot. He worked steady night shifts, brought his dog to work and took him for long walks of an hour or two, down at the dockyards. He made sure he had all his work done within the first hour of getting there. His nick name was basically just QJ. He used to get into trouble. A lot. He’s older now, and he millwrights now, but we worked on the boom together for years. He was crazy. He would walk down a boom stick that was half sunk and didn’t care if the water went into his boots. He had his pike pole, bent down, looked for the chain, then pulled up one, and then another, and another. The boom stick would rise up out of the water as he walked back to the boat with three or four chains in his hands. He would only do that in the summer time, though. And he would be wearing shorts.
Sometimes, he’d just dive into the river and go for a swim. The best one was when he used a sheet of plywood, grabbed the tow rope and went water skiing down the river. It would’ve been alright, except the Mill Manager was walking up the outside stairs with the Workers’ Compensation Inspector, and both of them stopped to watch him.
I told you all of that, so that you’d have an idea as to what this man is like. He had a partner on the boom with him. Another drunk, and even more of a fuck up, if that’s possible.
Iain. His nick name was Gilligan.
I mean it when I say a bigger fuck-up has yet to be born. He was Qj’s drinking partner; he was also what you might call the idea man. He fancied himself an “almost inventor,” because he was always coming up with ideas that needed things that he couldn’t find, and so he’d have to “make” them himself.
“I ran into Gilligan the other week. Hadn’t seen him for a while. He told me he was down in Mexico.”
>What was he doing there?<
“Well, his Dad died and left him and his sister the condo, so that’s about $300,000 each. So he’s thinking he wants to build houses.”
>Build houses? Like the one he used to own in Mission?<
“He did all his own Renos,” QJ nodded. “He came over to my place once, and spent the night. We were drinking. He went to sleep in the basement. In the morning, I had to go out. Wife wasn’t home either. He fucken goes into my garage and gets the skill saw. He cuts a fucken hole up in the ceiling, because he said there was something wrong with the fucken heater duct. He was gonna fucken fix it for me. Needless to say, that didn’t go over too well with the wife.
“He put a fireman’s pole in his house.”
>Why?<
“Because it was a fucken fireman’s pole. Why else would you want to put one in your fucking house?”
>So he’s got a fireman’s pole in his house?<
“Yep.”
“He used to do all his home Renos before she left him. He didn’t even ask the city if he could have a permit. He figured it’s his house, he could build on to it if he wanted. City didn’t seem to agree. He had to tear some of that shit down.”
>How the Hell could he afford to do all of that shit?<
“He used to take out mortgages. He must’ve fucken had about four of them by the time he sold that place.”
>What was he doing in Mexico?<
“I told you. He wants to start a fucken business buildin’ houses.”
>What? Does he speak Spanish?<
“Says he doesn’t have to.”
>Why?<
“I don’t know, anyway, he says he met this guy, and the guy was telling him about the World Championship Pussy Eating Contest. Says he came in second place.”
>Fuck off.<
“I know, that’s what I said. I looked it up. I couldn’t find it. Must be on the Dark Web.”
>How the fuck do you come in second place at a pussy eating contest?<
“I know! I know!” Ray-Ray says, and we all look at him. Ray-Ray is QJ’s little brother. We call him Ray-Ray because he doesn’t know when not to talk. You know, like he sees some guy’s daughter and asks who it is, and when the guy says, “That’s my daughter,” Ray says, “Wow, she’s got some pretty big tits.”
We’d just hang our heads and say, “Ray…Ray…What are you thinking?”
>So tell me, how do you come in second place, Ray?<
“Well, you have to eat it until she comes, then you move onto the next one. But the thing is, every pussy you eat, they get progressively worse.”
>What do you mean by worse?<
“Girls get uglier, and fatter, and stinkier.”
>Jesus Christ, Ray, really?<
“Last girl comes out, fucken five hundred pounds, second place guy throws up on her…the winner is the guy that cleans it up!”
“Oh for Fuck’s sake, Ray!” everyone at the table calls out.
“Where the fuck do you come up with these ideas?”
>So what’s Gilligan doin’ now? Is he still in Mexico?<
“No, he doesn’t know if he wants to go back. He can’t make up his mind.”
>Why not?<
“The guy that came in second place? He’s the body guard for one of the Cartel members.”
Four plastic cups of wine and two burgers later, I tell myself it’s time to go home.