Reach Truck

Part of my job is driving a reach truck. It's a large machine you pilot through the store, used for heavy lifting to and from overheads. You can always tell when one's being used because it emits a specific beeping that echoes through every aisle, incessant, triumphant, dangerous.

Last week I'm closing down my department. This is a monumental task, and it is only by the grace of Ken that it is accomplished each night. I'm in an Adderal-induced state of total focus, and I'm on a roll. I sweep. I pick up drywall. I knock out returns. I do not make eye contact with customers. They are but objects to me, floating objects with colorful clothing. I am a drone. I am a robot.

I am wearing a hat. It is baseball hat, with the brim facing forward. I don't usually wear hats, because everyone knows hats are stupid. But on this particular night, I am wearing a hat.

With an hour left to close, I get a guy. Comes in and says he wants a palette of concrete loaded onto the back of his truck. This is not a big deal, but it delays me. Stupid petty human filth, griping about this or that need, stupid, sweaty, heaving masses of drooling sheep, so self-centered, so egotistical... So I grab another drone in my department to spot me, and together, we load the concrete and bring it to the contractor door, where the customer sits in his truck, waiting.

I'm driving.

How you drive a reach truck is, in one hand is a knob. This is the steering mechanism. The other hand is on a kind of joystick, which controls a series of actions such as speed, forward/backward, fork tilt, fork extend/retract, raise/lower, etc, and of course, the horn. How I loved that horn. How I loved to honk it...

You stand on one foot inside a kind of vertical cage, while your other foot works the brake. The cage extends up and over your head a good two feet. This means you're using three of your four limbs, operating what is essentially a Mechwarrior robot, capable of large-scale destruction, but I'm getting to that. Needless to say, this is a hell of a lot of power in this thing; and as my uncle told me once, with great power comes great responsibility.

I'm standing there, waiting at the contractor doors: a huge sheet of heavy duty steel, like the kind used in warehouse operations. I'm inside the truck, a giant load of concrete behind me.

I am wearing my hat.

My spotter is in front of me, off to the right. A spotter is the guy whose job it is to make sure you don't fuck up. He protects you by waving a pair of bright flags around and quietly gesturing if a small child runs past. While I'm standing there in the truck, my spotter, he strolls over to the contractor doors button and hits in. There's a loud screeching sound, and the door begins to roll up and open.

It's just then that I start hearing the cashiers laughter. I look at them and they're gesturing at something behind me. I look back and am surprised to see a trail of concrete leading from me all the way back through the store. One of the bags had been torn, and had leaked its sharp, sandy contents in a misery path which led right back to my ass.

The door is still rolling up, the gears screaming.

My robot brain starts processing information. "Giant mess. Means trouble. Damage control. Blame Spotter? Later. Immediate needs: Minimize mess. Load palette. Load palette. LOAD PALETTE."

The door is rolling up.

As my brain works, all the while, I swear, I am singing the Little Mermaid at the top of my lungs, word for word, except for where it goes "Poor Unfortunate Ken."

"LOAD PALETTE."

I better load this here palette.

I look ahead of me, and because of my hat, I don't see the door. It's out of my peripheral vision. I can't see it. It looks clear.

It looks clear.

Not many people get to know the sound metal makes as it shrieks in pain, bending and contorting, pulling at the metal chains which have suddenly fallen loose. It's not every day you steer a vehicle at full speed into what is essentially a non-moveable object. There's a strange kind of awe. It's one thing to see it, to watch the mayhem happen... But to stand there, looking up, knowing that YOU are responsible, and knowing the chain reaction of crap that YOU have just set off...

I get off the truck. One of the cashiers, she can't stop laughing, and she's saying the word "Sheeeit" over and over again.

I'm staring up at this door, this great shield we all depend on, torn at its frame, wrecked. The cashier pats me on the shoulder. "You don't smoke, do you?"

"What?"

"Smoke." She makes a gesture, sucking in air between her fingers. "You know, smoke, smoke."

"What?"

"Cuz they gon' drug test you. Fo' DAT shit? Hell yeah, you goan' to the clinic, boy."

I look at my spotter. He shrugs. He's trying real hard not to smile.

It's one week later now, and I'm not fired, thank Ken. I've been waiting all week for it, but it looks like I'll be alright. I was very lucky not to be fired, and I'm grateful for that... I believe that from this, I can recover. But I can't drive reach trucks anymore. I can't drive HiLos. They pulled my license. No more vehicles. No more robots.

Never, not ever again.

I'll only be a spotter, now. Waving my little flags.

But the point that I'm trying to make here is, stay away from hats. They are dangerous. They will fuck with you.