Bryan Stories, Part 3 [Bryan]

Here is the third installment of my personal quest to better know myself by telling myself stories about myself.

It was something of a family tradition in my family to work at a place called Christensen Heating and Air Conditioning. The boss of the company, Walt, was a good man and a longtime family friend. Both of my older brothers had worked for Walt. He paid well and was generous with time off. I would hear stories from my brothers, though, about a man named Lee who was a foreman there. Apparently he had a foul disposition and a hot temper. I didn't pay much heed to these warnings, however, and the summer after I graduated from high school it was my turn to work at Walt's. It was then that I first met Lee in person. He was a small man, with a high-pitched voice and streaks of gray running through his hair. He always wore overalls.

I was assigned to be Lee's "grunt," meaning that he and I would go out to the job site and work all day together. After working with Lee for a few days, I came to understand what it meant to be degraded. The man was brutal. If the work was not performed up to his expectations -- if it was imperfect, or done too slowly, or simply not done his way -- he would make a public spectacle of you. He would criticize you in front of whomever happened to be around, be they plumbers, electricians, or homeowners. He took to calling me "Bry-guy" -- and that was the most respectful of the long list of nicknames he developed for me. "Moron" was actually much more common. Sometimes, he would combine the nicknames. For example, he would combine "moron" with "Bry-guy" and turn it into a little chant. "Moron! Moron! Bry-guy is a moron!" he would sing over and over again. When I made I mistake, he would yell "OOOOPS!" at the top of his lungs for the rest of the day. He was never pleased. At the slightest provocation, he would turn into a raging, overall-clad ball of sarcastic, dehumanizing furry. The worst part was that I had to ride in the truck with him for hours each day. Each moment featured a long list of insults and criticisms. Silence was even worse, because that's when I knew he was really seething.

Needless to say, I hated the man. At several points, I was nearly reduced to tears of rage and frustration. I was continually tempted to shake my hammer at him and scream the most vile curses upon him and his posterity.

In truth, I was just the sort of person Lee despised. He would see me reading Freud at lunch and laugh hysterically. I would tell him about my research at the University of Utah and he instantly declared it an "enormous waste of time." He mocked "self-proclaimed intellectuals" who, for all their theories and flowery rhetoric, had nothing important to say. What he valued was action over reflection, practice over theory.

But there are other things you should also know about Lee. First, the man was a true craftsman. He had the soul of an artist whose medium was ductwork and refrigerant lines. What marble was to Michelangelo, sheet metal was to Lee. Merely getting things to work right was not enough, it had to look right. The lines had to be straight, the curves pleasing, the design geometrically precise. The large houses we worked on were his canvas; his tools were the means of gaining human validation. It was his way of asserting himself in a world that was otherwise indifferent to a small, working man's existence.

The other thing to know about Lee was that, in fact, he would drop everything to help somebody who really needed it. Walt would tell me stories of Lee's generosity and I was floored. You really can't judge a book by its cover.

I decided that I wanted to be an artist in the same way that Lee was an artist. I doubled my efforts at learning the work I was supposed to do. I tried to discover the secrets that transformed something from a "good enough" job into a "work of art" job. I turned the seams of my roundpipe upward so as to be hidden out of sight. I tried to drill my holes neatly. I tried to line up my paneling so it would look like one long piece of sheet metal. I would ask him questions about how stuff would work. And I would work hard. The amount you could get done in a day was also a source of pride for Lee, and I tried to respect that.

Granted, I never did get to be an artist. My work was always a little rough around the edges. One day, though, Walt assigned me my own truck and, with this new independence, I tried to take pride in how the job looked after a long day of work. Over time, I believe this all gradually began to earn Lee's respect. He would still lash out occasionally with a vicious dehumanizing tirade. The nicknames would continue. But he began to talk with me, even sometimes to philosophize with me. I still remember him saying, "so here's a thought..." which meant he wanted to bounce and idea off me. We became friends, although I'm fairly sure he would deny that today if asked. I guess I know he thought of me as a friend because, when I got married, he gave me a wedding present. The present was this: a pencil sharpener and a toilet plunger.