The Apprentice

Not long ago, they sent us some apprentices on the job. Most of these were first-year; and most of the first-years, this was their very first day on the job. There’s one in particular, C., that I’ve seen grow into a good hand. He will do well.

I got paired with a second-year that no one would have wanted. An Iraq War veteran, he received credit for prior military experience. He’s been out at the facility for almost a year, but at another building there where they didn’t let him do much; really, they treated him like he was a joke, and they were pretty mean to him.

To his detriment, his manners earned him some enemies early on with our crew. He joked around too much. He didn’t seem to know how to act in an office environment. He would touch himself while he was talking to his immediate superior.

After he was assigned to me, I didn’t stand for it. “Get your hand off your d!ck. Get your hand off your d!ck.” I would say over and over until he did it, stepping on any conversation in which he might be engaged. He told me later that he didn’t realize that he was doing it; probably the best thing he could have said about it.

There was another fellow with us for a day, B. from Pennsylvania, and we talked to him quite a bit, trying to get through to him. I’ve worked with him for the past two days. There’s been a lot of instruction, a lot of personal talks, and a lot of hard work. I’ve only sworn at him once, when he was distracted by a few ill-timed words from a passer-by that should have known better (he said later that he thought it was me that spoke, and I apologized to him, but repeated the instructions).

In my trade, you’re responsible for your tool partner (we always work in pairs). I couldn’t say it any plainer. You’re responsible for that man, whether you like him or not, whatever else might be going on around you. You’re responsible for yourself and that one other person.

This kid is 21 years old, and he’s been through some hard knocks lately.

About two months ago, his sister killed herself. She was in an abusive relationship that had been going on for years. One night, during an argument, she went into the bedroom and shut the door, pulled out his pistol and shot herself in the head.

The next day, he left work early, and brought flowers to his live-in girlfriend, his high school sweetheart, only to find her in bed with another man.

I know that the single greatest indicator as to whether someone will commit suicide or not is a family history of suicide, and particularly in the immediate family. He’s in a perilous position.

He has quite a bit of anger about his sister’s death, and mixed feelings about his ex. Both of these things are useless, and the sooner he lets go, the better.

I’ve been through similar life experiences.

My dad died less than two months after my 17th birthday. I woke up early that day, and I was waiting for daylight to play my guitar. He knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to go quail hunting with him. I had little interest in hunting, but I wanted to go to be with my dad. I’m glad I did, because that morning on the San Miguel was the last day that I spent with him.

He had leg cramps, and he wanted to go home. I talked him into dropping me off at my grandparents’ house, where my older brother lived. The family would gather there on Sundays, and I could see everyone. He got a cup of coffee and left, then had a heart attack on the road to our place, the next town over.

For over ten years, I carried a lot of guilt because of that. I felt that I should have been with him, that if only I could have been there, I could have done something that would made him have live.

It took me many years to accept my human frailty.

I was only a kid. And there was nothing that could have been done, not even if the heart attack would have occurred in a hospital with a team of cardiologists at hand.

But knowing that didn’t stop me from feeling differently for many, many years.

These days, I can look back and be thankful that I wasn’t there when it happened. That would probably have really screwed me up.

Once, there was a woman that I cherished and adored; the most perfect and beautiful woman that I could ever think of. But her character was lacking, and her affections were cheap.

On January the 7th, she told me of how I was the greatest love of her life. In September of that year, she filed charges on me for harassment, for having sent her flowers on her birthday the previous year; some 8 1/2 months to go from the one extreme to the other— the very definition of “cheap affections.”

If a woman is going to sell the farm as soon as you ride out into town, she’s not worth having; plain and simple.

This was a woman perfectly incapable (and perhaps quite literally) of remembering what man she was involved with, other than any man that might happen to be standing in front of her at the time. You can’t build on that. There’s no foundation there. Where the foundation is always subject to revision, it is impossible for any structure to stand (much less to get insurance on it).

There’s a lot that I have to teach my apprentice. I didn’t take him on because I wanted to. It was an obligation to the men of his local that I took him on. I swore an oath.

I know that he’s not going to be there to watch me back. But I’m strong enough to carry him. And carry him I will, whenever I need to. That’s my tool partner.

He’s done more and learned more over the past three days that he has over the last eleven months. I’m not done with him yet, but I know my time is short. There will be another journeyman that comes after me that will take up where I left off. I have to ensure that he is accessible at that time. I just happened to be the right teacher at the right time.

It’s so much easier to shine someone’s spirit that to tear them down, and much more rewarding.

I don’t see why people don’t do it more often.