I took a job as laborer in a feldspar mine.
The bossman was always hiring because he was
so mean he ran help off. His nickname was Crock,
because he got his head caught in a pickle crock
when young. The crockhead son of a bitch.
One day I laid out of work to apply for a college-degree job
as alcoholism counselor in an adjoining county. The next day
he asked me where I’d been the day before, and I said, “Out looking
for a better job.” He said, “You’d better go look today, too—I don’t have
any work for you today.” I wasn’t fired. But he never again had any work.
I wasn’t busted, I was reverted to my permanent rank: yardbird.
The lowest rank. Buck private. Bucking for private.
Beneath the underdog.
Beneath Charles Mingus.
Beneath the jazz musician.