Point and Shoot, Florida (YU)--Heap and Brenda had a month until school started, so they both took temporary jobs.

Brenda worked at Waterbury's Pharmacy, on Canal Street, at Magazine. It was an easy bus ride, there and back.

She sold B vitamins and alarm clocks to winos. Also, sometimes she manned the lunch counter.

There was a PA system with a loudspeaker, outside, where people waited for the bus.

Brenda would announce, "Roach leg soup. Your diner is pleased to offer roach leg soup. Piping hot roach leg soup."

Heap walked up to St. Charles Avenue and caught the streetcar to Kelly Labor, on Carondelet.

He thought of Henry Chinaski and the black guy sharing the bottle inside the hiring hall, in Factotum.

They didn't allow that.

They didn't allow drinking in the hall, in the work van, or on the job.

If you broke the rule you would be 86ed. And casual laborer was the only job most of the men could get.

Mind you, men shared a bottle outside, after work, at the end of the day, when they got paid for the work they did the day before. They were on their own time, then.

They were off to have a drinking party.

Why else work?

Also, a minor point, but there weren't any casts, in the movie.

In real life one or two men would have a broken limb in a dirty cast.

Heap got to the hiring hall early and got on the list.

He usually got a job because he was big and strong and healthy and sober and sound of limb.

He had a hangover but his clothes were clean, and he wasn't drunk.

Most of the men were alcoholics. Were skid-row bums, in fact. Down and out. Homeless, or between residences.

Some weren't. One man worked for Kelly Labor because the van delivered him to the work site every morning. Kelly Labor was his permanent employer. He was dependable, and customers he worked for offered him a job, direct, but he turned them down. He worked for Kelly Labor.

A permanent employer would lay you off. Then you'd have to find a job.

Plus, at Kelly, he could take a day off whenever he felt like it.

He didn't take any days off, but he could. He had that flexibility.

They didn't own him.

When all you have to sell is your labor, dignity is important to you. Respect. These men might get in a fearsome fight over a petty slight. You learned to respect other men's boundaries pretty fast.

No, that's melodramatic. Heap never even saw a fistfight. He surmised the casts were evidence of fights. They might have been industrial accidents. Or household accidents. Perhaps an impromptu football match.

Mostly, it was boring.

You waited for a job. You rode to work in the van, dropping other men off first. You worked for 8 hours, or 10, or 12. You found your way back to the shop, and turned in your time card.

You didn't do the same thing every day, but you did the same thing all day long, and 12 hours of lifting, stooping, holding a posture, got monotonous. You got carpal tunnel syndrome of the brain.

Your brain goes to sleep.

Work makes you stupid. If you show any initiative, it's punished. Work makes you conformist, and servile. Obedient. Afraid.

Afraid of what?

Losing your job.

Being out of work.