Red Jackalope Diary
A VIEW FROM HOWARD STREET STATION (DECEMBER 2021)
I AM a city boy, from my forehead down to my feet. A lifelong resident of Rogers Park, a neighborhood on Chicago’s Far North Side, I never imagined I’d live anywhere else. Yet, for the past two years, I’ve been staying at my wife’s family home in Morton Grove, a suburb just outside the city.
I have reasons. My wife and I married in September of 2019. The last large gathering we enjoyed together was my stepdaughter’s 24th birthday party. That was in early March. We celebrated at the All In tavern on Dempster, in Morton Grove. We ate food. We drank booze. We sang karaoke. At one point, me and every other male guest at the party climbed on stage and sang Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town,” off-key and in unison, to a bar full of drunks who had no idea who any of us were. It was amazing, Then, less than two weeks later, Covid-19 hit, and the whole world split sideways.
My wife, a medical credentialing specialist, started having to work from home. She now works from home permanently. Her late father’s former bedroom is now her office. After my pre-pandemic job disappeared, I became, at age 50, a package handler for FedEx Ground. The hub I report is just a few minutes’ drive away. My stepdaughter and her boyfriend live in the in-law apartment on the second floor. He works at the same FedEx Ground hub I do. He rides a motorcycle, which he stores in the garage out back. My stepdaughter handles social media for the Skokie Park District and plans to return to school in January. She is also an artist, and an avid photographer. My brother, a builder, recently converted a disused room in the basement into a studio space for her. My little one-bedroom condo in Rogers Park couldn’t possibly accommodate so many people, so much life. For all these reasons, Morton Grove works for us. Rogers Park simply doesn’t. I love my wife. I love my stepdaughter. I love the new life I’ve found with them. But I would be lying if I didn’t admit feeling homesick from time to time. In early December, I stopped by my now-vacant one-bedroom condo in the 626 (aka Rogers Park). My wife was away for the day, visiting her sister in Wisconsin. She drove, so I made the trip back to the old neighborhood by L. I checked my mailbox, stopped by my regular barber on Clark Street for a haircut, and grabbed an Italian beef sandwich (extra hot peppers, not dipped) at Parkside Gyros. The weather was wet and unseasonably warm. Fog crept along the streets and the sidewalks. It filled the alleyways and shrouded the upper stories of the neighborhood’s tallest buildings, obscuring them from view. It was while I was standing on the Howard Street L platform, waiting to head back to Morton Grove, that I felt the familiar rhythm of my old life, my city life, return. It warmed me like a cozy fire on a cold winter day. For me, life in the city was, in some ways, more immediate and alive than my current life in the suburbs. The best part of my old life was almost never having to drive. I walked to the grocery store, to the pharmacy, to the barber shop. I walked pretty much everywhere. I would nod to people I recognized along the way. The pace of my life was slower, more human in scale. I felt a part of my environment, immersed in it. Now, I need to climb into a car to go just about anywhere. I no longer feel part of the spaces I inhabit. There is no opportunity to time to take in sights, or sounds, or smells. There is certainly no one to nod to as I pass. We are all locked in cages of steel and glass, hurling down highways at impossible speeds, closed off from one another. I miss the days when I could stand on an L platform, gaze out across the neighborhood from on high, feel the wind touch my face, and watch raindrops glitter as they passed through the headlights of an oncoming L train…
I AM ABSOLUTELY GUTTED BY THIS NEWS... (JANUARY 15, 2021)
IN A triumph for scientific illiteracy, right-wing conspiracy-mongering, and pure social psychopathy, the US Supreme Court has stopped the Biden administration from mandating that private employers with 100 or more workers require COVID-19 vaccinations (the Court did uphold the mandate for health care workers).
I am absolutely gutted by this news. My own workplace--I am a package handler for FedEx Ground--is full of jackasses who refuse to get vaccinated. One of my closest friends at work, a guy my wife and I go bowling with at least once a month, has sworn up and down for nearly two years that Covid-19 mitigation measures are bullshit and that the whole thing is a giant liberal hoax. He tested positive last Thursday. Dumbass. I love you, Tommy, but yes, with regards to this issue, at least, you are a dumbass.
He’s far from the only one:
“I won’t get it unless I know what’s in it!”
“I don’t trust the government!”
“I don’t trust Big Pharma!”
“It needs to be tested more!”
“It should be left up to individual choice!
This is kind of crap I listen to, day and day out. From people who have no medical training, no scientific background, no relevant expertise whatsoever. If these goofs needed their roof fixed, their houses rewired, a heart valve replaced, you bet your ass they’d call up an expert and defer to their judgment. But because they don’t want to do what they need to do to help slow the spread of Covid, they suddenly feel qualified to “debate” epidemiologists with decades of field experience. I am so fed up with this shit.
You can’t fix stupid. At least, not fast enough to stop the pandemic. You can’t reason with people who think Anthony Fauci is some kind of sinister Bond Villain, but that Joe Rogan is a credible source of scientific information. This mandate was my last hope, and now it is GONE. I am sick of working a physically demanding job while wearing a face cover. I am sick of having to worry about bringing omicron home to my diabetic wife, to my 86-year-old father, to my 73-year-old mother living with COPD (all are fully vaccinated, of course, but still). Living in America these days feels like living in a zoo where the monkeys are in charge…
CHALLENGING THE SHENANIGANS AT FEDEX GROUND… (JANUARY 21, 2021)
I WORK as a package handler at FedEx Ground. A few nights ago, a floor manager walked up handed me some papers to sign. He said it was to affirm I had attended the latest safety meeting. “What safety meeting?” I asked. “I didn’t go to any safety meeting.” “Oh, okay. Well, just read through the papers and sign.” He said. I read through the papers and shook my head. “I’m not signing this,” I said. “You guys are always telling us to sign papers saying we’ve attended meetings that never even happened. That’s stupid. I’m not signing that.” He said nothing and stalked off. This happens all the time at my job. Most of the time, if someone questions signing the papers—which is rare—the floor manager will just bark a few words about whatever the relevant safety topic is, then ask them to sign. That, technically, is considered a “safety meeting.” I just decided I wasn’t going along with it this time. And it is not just safety meetings, either. Once a year, all FedEx Ground employees are required to review company polices concerning sexual harassment. This year, my day to review the policies happened to fall during peak season. A manager I’ll call Cindy—because that is her real name!—walked up to me while I was heaving boxes onto a conveyor belt. “Hey, it’s time for your sexual harassment review.” She said. “Okay,” I said. “Where do I need to go?” Last year, the review was held in a small meeting room and consisted of watching a video and filling out a questionnaire. She shrugged. “You already know the drill. Keep your hands to yourself. Don’t say gross stuff. Don’t be a problem, and there won’t be a problem. Just sign this.” She handed me some papers. I confess, at that moment, I was busier than an elf in Santa’s workshop. It was peak season, just before Christmas, and I didn’t want to be bothered. So, I just signed the damned thing to get it over with. But, looking back, that was a mistake.
Most FedEx Ground floor managers seem to think that what constitutes sexual harassment is just common sense, and that no one really needs to be educated about it. This is incredibly naïve. Lots of guys—and let’s be honest, we are talking mostly about cis hetero guys here—are just flat out clueless. When it comes to trying to get laid, their motto is, “anytime, anywhere.” They treat their workplace as their own personal Playboy Club, and imagine they are Hugh Hefner. Moreover, sexual harassment involves more than just unwanted sexual advances. It also means harassing people for their sexual orientation and/or gender presentation. It is a complicated issue, and not at all intuitive for many people. By signing that paper without insisting on an actual meeting, I was enabling FedEx Ground to gloss over the whole issue. I won’t be making that mistake again...
A NIGHT IN THE LIFE OF RED JACKALOPE (MARCH 16, 2021)
2:40AM. TIME TO go to work. As I walk out to the Jeep, I spot a coyote ambling down Dempster Street, less than fifty yards away. I freeze. The coyote stops in its tracks and turns towards me. It just stands there for several seconds, staring. I think, is it coming towards me? I think, do I have time to climb into the Jeep? I know it sees me. I begin to sweat a little. But then it turns around and keeps heading down Dempster. I scramble into the Jeep and drive off into the darkness. 2:50AM. When I arrive at work, I realize I have forgotten my gloves. Fuck me dead. I feel naked working without my gloves. I begin walking towards the main building, cursing. I worry about broken glass fragments. I worry about hazmat spills. I stop for a moment, consider heading back home to get the gloves. But in the end, I just swipe in and decide to work without them. 3:35AM. A bottle of Pine Sol, or some similar-smelling household solvent, breaks open as it passes across a conveyor belt above my head. It misses me by inches. A giant puddle spills from overhead and down onto the floor just inches away from me. My coworkers and I cover it with kitty litter. I wish again that I hadn’t forgotten my gloves. 4:20AM. I’m pulling bags of smalls off the IC belt when one of my coworkers sidles up next to me. He is young, maybe 25, red-haired and thin as an exclamation point. He tells me he believes that when the end of the world comes, after the 7-year Tribulation period ends and Jesus establishes peace on earth, God will wipe the earth of all living things and a new civilization will begin. Then he stalks off. I am used to this. He does it all the time. The first time he did it, he explained that in Star Wars, it was really the Jedi who were the bad guys. His girlfriend is a tough little Polish girl I used to work with on the OTP shift sometimes. She is a Jehovah’s Witness. They live together in section 8 housing. She makes him go to prayer meetings with him every week. I know this because he told me once while I was sitting on the toilet in the men’s room, taking a dump. He just shouted it over the stall. I didn’t like this kid when I first met him. I once yelled at him for being lazy. Later, I felt bad and apologized. He said no worries. He said that back when his dad was on drugs, he used to yell at him like that all the time, so he was used to it. Great, I thought. I remind this kid of his dad, who used to yell at him as a child while he was high on drugs. I never yelled at the kid again after that. Over time, he sort of grew on me. 8:05AM. I swipe out and head back to the parking lot. A Jaguar with Texas plates is parked next to the Jeep. I wonder why anyone who drives a Jaguar would need to work at FedEx Ground. But I am too tired to think about it, so I just get in the Jeep and head home…
Red Jackapole is a Chicago logistics worker.