One night in the Nautilus Marine break room, a tall, bearded, drunken hillbilly staggered into the break room one night to buy something from a vending machine. He was dressed in a camouflaged jacket and rubber boots. He claimed the change machine short-changed him 25 cents which triggered what can only be described as a complete reversion to savagery.
I recorded his comments in a journal I was keeping at the time:
"A tall bearded hillbilly...claims the dollar bill changer only gave him 75 cents back for his dollar. His initial comment was, 'Hey!...It only gave me 75 cents!! But, hey!...That's all I need!' After he finished his snack though, he started beating on the change machine and yelling for somebody to 'Call the fuckin' cops'.
He tried to write on the wall that the machine owed him money, but his pen was dry; so he hurled it against a nearby table and sat down with his face in his hands. Soon, he started to demand that somebody, 'Call the fuckin' cops'!!"
"He says, 'If I robbed a liquor store, they'd call the cops on me; but this machine can rip me off a quarter and the cops don't even care.'"
"Now he's swaying a lot. He can barely hold his head up straight. He's saying, 'Fuck America' and 'God Damn America' over and over and over again. Now he just added, 'God Bless Alaska'!! He'll be asleep soon."
"Oh! He got a second wind. He's raving (to nobody in particular, just in case anybody's listening) - 'I live like an animal!...I'm a savage!!...If you don't believe me, if you think I'm full of shit, just live with me for a year - I'll show you how an animal lives'!!! ... 'I've been sleeping by railroad tracks and under trucks for years, usually with no heat"! [Jonnie comments: "ha ha, "usually"?] 'We're living in the end times...and when the cities fall, I'll be thriving'!!"
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| Packing Crew, Nautilus Marine; Valdez AK, 1991. |
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