I got a job digging at the Old Capitol. It was OPS. Other professional services.
That is, temporary. That is, no benefits. It was a salvage job sinking potholes in
the courtyard. Whenever there is federal construction so much money is set aside for
archeology. Historic preservation. It was a makework job. Spending the money.
They were tearing down two wings of the Old Capitol. They called this restoring it to
a former baseline configuration. They called it Historic Preservation. To me, it was
a shibboleth. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.
Demolition is preservation. If you wanted to get on permanent with the state,
you had to call demolition preservation. You had to call sinking potholes in
the courtyard scientific research. You had to call a sow’s ear a silk purse.
Would you? That was the test. If you wouldn’t, you weren’t blacklisted,
they just didn’t hire you. They didn’t like the cut of your jib.
You weren’t built right. You wouldn’t form your mouth around
that essential yes, as John Dos Passos said of Thorstein Veblen.
How could you respect the ones who could? The ones who did?
Your stiff-necked intransigence would intimidate them.
You would make them nervous. You would make them feel bad.
You had an attitude. Short for shitty attitude.
I had an attitude. We wore white bossman hardhats.
I called myself a demolition laborer, because an archeologist
made less than a green helper on a construction crew
throwing scrap into a front end loader to put in a dump truck
and carry it to a construction debris landfill owned by the
or one of the Bush brothers. Frank Zappa said in every town
there is a creep who knows what’s going on.
I was the town creep of