Today is Yesterday's Song

John hadn't much to say when his assembly line boss at the factory, a cocky evil-eyed misanthrope named Goody, hollered at him from across the fast moving compressor-shaft belt to speed up or find another job. John's role in putting together air conditioners for Hellions Inc. was to reach into a 700 degree electric oven thirty times per minute to extract expanded compressor rotors with over-sized channel-lock pliers, and to drop them onto the itinerant shafts which, like erect penises, moved in front of him anxiously awaiting their steel condoms. Even with a protective leather glove that extended to the middle of John's right forearm, a heat rash had erupted suddenly on his upper arm a week after beginning the job, which had subsequently spread to speckle his shoulder and chest. The job was the only one he'd been offered by Hellions as a recently discharged Marine Corps vet, and it was the worst one that any able bodied man in the company could be asked to do. The rash was severe enough to make him think poignantly about the choice he'd made to accept the hourly position a month after leaving the Corps with