The Kid


Palms without callous, shiny boots,
unstained jeans, arms without muscle,
a bologna sandwich bagged by Mom,
eighteen on the first day of my summer job back
when they called me the Kid.

Like my dad, his dad before him,
I labored for the Southern Pacific,
me on a gang out of L.A. erecting signals 
that dinged, wagged, and blinked in '64 
when they called me the Kid.

John and The Boss rode in the cab of the truck,
I sat in back with tools, a generator, a coil of wire,
Abie the Wop, Wally-Gator, an Indian named Chief.
War vets with stories to tell on freeway rides
when they called me the Kid.

Climbed wooden poles to hang wires.
swabbed signals with aluminum paint,
shoveled holes and trenches, scurried to the bin
for wrenches, wire cutters on sunburnt days 
when they called me the Kid.

They laughed when they’d tease me,
“You ain’t never been in the saddle, have ya, Kid?”
And “You’re a chest man now, but when you’re our age,
Kid, you’re gonna be an ass man like us.” I always blushed
when they called me the Kid.

The Chief told me about riding home drunk from a bar,
turning sober at the sight of a grinning Devil.
Abie described life in the tenements, stickball and craps.
They knew I’d respond with wide-eyed attention 
when they called me the Kid.

After carpooling home to a suburb, 
I’d shower away grit and paint, 
sit at my typewriter, listen to the Beach Boys,
carpenter the words of my first novel at a time
when they called me the Kid.

A confident swagger, sun-bleached hair,
money to pay for state college, buy Big Boys
and popcorn for freckled blind dates,
muscles to flex, dents in my naivete on the last day
when they called me the Kid.

If I worked on that crew now, they’d call me “Gramps,” 
and I’d lean on my shovel, ruing the dust 
that befell my novel about Abie, Wally and Chief,
heart-heavy remembering the hopes of that summer
when they called me the Kid.