138 lines
6.6 KiB
Plaintext
138 lines
6.6 KiB
Plaintext
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Underground eXperts United
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Presents...
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[ Jack & The Reformatory ] [ By Eric Chaet ]
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____________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________
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JACK & THE REFORMATORY
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(c) 2002 by Eric Chaet
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Jack says he used to work at the reformatory. It's a big, 19th century
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brick building at the edge of town, with lots of lawn & trees keeping it
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low-profile from the cars on the roads--except on one side, where its yard's
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high cement wall is right at the curb of Washington Boulevard--which is
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heavily trafficked, rush-hours.
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Jack is broad-chested, stubby legs, nearly bald, tired eyes with bags
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under them--but he'll look right into your eyes. I've seen him take &
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swallow pills from a vial, where he's eating eggs & potatoes--it's obvious
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he enjoys eating--& drinking coffee at the corner of the counter of the
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Farmer's Friend, & talking with a couple of guys about car parts, or about
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finding responsible tenants for the four apartments he rents out, &
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convincing employees of various state agencies that doing so isn't
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discrimination against any set of people--except irresponsible ones--&, so,
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illegal.
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Jack has told me that, these days, his job is buying used cars--he
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studies a book of prices, & looks for weaknesses he's learned to spot, which
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are carefully hidden by the sellers--at auction in Milwaukee; & driving them
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up here, for the weekly auction along the Highway.
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Before the referendum, when the voters of the county were asked to vote
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to tax themselves, an additional .5% sales tax, to subsidize the
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refurbishing of & adding on to Force Field (home of our sometime champion,
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shareholder-owned, professional football team, the Wolves--the least well
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paid of whom earns $550,000/year, & the ones who make the most getting many
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millions/year, for playing 20 ball-games)--Jack & I talked a lot about fair
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& unfair & wise & unwise taxation.
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Even before the Wolves tax, Jack & I found common ground, groaning
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about the county's spending binge, building arenas with borrowed money. The
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county executive--who likes to appear on TV & on the front page of
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newspapers, & is quick to attribute base motives to anyone who criticizes
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what she is doing--keeps telling us how it will bring in conventioneers, who
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will spend lots of money.
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Jack was giving away bumper-stickers for people against the Wolves tax:
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"Go, Wolves, Go--But No Tax, No!"--red & black, the Wolves' colors, that you
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see everywhere around here.
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The well-paid management of the Wolves & their allies--several
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companies & unions are in line for big contracts, doing the refurbishing &
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building the additions--spent between half a million & a million dollars
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persuading county supervisors & the public at large. Thousands of people
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around here are more dedicated to the Wolves than to the Virgin Mary,
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statues of whom are sprinkled among lawns, frequently sheltered by partially
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buried old bath-tubs. People paid to do so rallied the fans least
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politically awake--or absolutely awake but utterly cynical that anything for
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the good of all could ever come of politics, so why not get what you can for
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what you want yourself for a change?--to vote to tax themselves & the rest
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of us, too, for the glory of the team.
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Opponents spent ten to fifteen thousand dollars.
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The measure passed by about 53% to 47% of the voters who were eligible
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to vote, & voted.
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Or so we were told in the papers, on the radio, & on TV.
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When Jack worked in the reformatory, a big black guy approached him,
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Jacks says--relaxing now that we have agreed so much--& asked Jack if he
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could work for him. No one else would let this guy work for them--they were
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all afraid of him.
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"'Sure, I'll give anyone a chance. But if you screw up, you're out.'
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"Anything you told him to do," Jack says, "wash the walls or floor,
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whatever, he took the time, & did a good job. Most of the other guys
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wouldn't.
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"A couple of black guys & 3 white guys were going at it in a hall, &
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all of a sudden, one of them says, 'Get the guard,' & comes after me. This
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black guy pops up from the side, & just NAILS this white guy. 'You gotta go
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thru me, first!' he says.
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"I felt sorry for some of those guys. Some of them could do
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anything--draw, build anything. I was running the carpentry shop. But some
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of them, no matter how many times they tried, couldn't saw a board the right
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length.
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"Eli and Blake used to work there, too," Jack says. He's talking about
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two other guys about his--& my--age, who come to the Farmer's Friend
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regularly, too. Eli did some work as an electrician, an independent
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contractor, til recently--he had some surgery, &, once he healed, he didn't
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take up the work again. I don't know what kind of work Blake does--he seems
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to have done some coaching of high school ball teams at one time or another,
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& is frequently about to attend a high school or college game.
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Most of the people who come to the Farmer's Friend are among the small
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dairy farmers who haven't yet been driven out of business, & who are taking
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a break after milking, & sometimes smell of the barn; or mill-workers from
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the paper factories that haven't shut down yet, getting ready to punch in
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for their shifts.
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"Once there was a big riot, & one of the captains was beat up so bad
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that me & another guy had to drag him out," Jack says.
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"I got beat on pretty bad, too, but I could still move. My back's been
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bad ever since. They let me retire with full benefits after 24 years, even
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tho the rule was 25 years."
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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uXu #602 Underground eXperts United 2002 uXu #602
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ftp://ftp.etext.org/pub/Zines/uXu/
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