We’d gone several weeks at Greenstar without a serious breakdown. We’d had the little, uncertain ones where they keep us around while they fix things. But yesterday we had the kind where they throw up their hands and say, “Send everyone home!” I was home and cleaned up by noon, and I put the day to very good use, running errands that had to be run during business hours. Among other things, I finally have toner in my printer’s cartridge again!

Today in that final two-hour stretch after lunch, everything went down, and an eerie silence settled over the behemoths. Ralph and I busied ourselves with scooping overflow debris off the floor onto the belt and sorting it out. But the belt wasn’t moving. Then Punkin got the word on the radio clipped to his shirt — down. “We’re down. We’re down.” The universal long-distance hand signal for this is the thumbs-down — you know, like for killing a defeated gladiator. That gesture. The universal symbol for break time is to mimic breaking a stick in two. We always look to Punkin for these signals that govern our days. At cleanup time, he always orders two temps to follow me to the clutter-catching chamber beneath our deck — always the same, but he always gives the order, and we don’t leave the deck until he gives it.

Well, when the “down” signal came today, Punkin sent Ralph and me over the rails to clean the catwalks — yes! I love the catwalks.

Dan (the awesome line boss from the other line) had just handed me a broom from the gantry above for no reason that I could fathom. Since I work in the front position below that catwalk, guys are often handing me things from the upper realm, and sometimes it’s a real challenge figuring out what I’m supposed to do with them. I’ll be working, and I’ll hear a loud “YO!” Someone is there, wanting to hand me something. So I’ll clamber up onto the rails and receive it. If it’s a tool, usually there’s a reason, and someone is waiting for it. Sometimes it’s a porno magazine, in which case I dutifully receive it, hand it across to Ralph, and he passes it on to Yum-Yum — who sometimes waves it away. Interestingly, I’ve heard guys refer to such magazines as “books.” They’ll say, “Hand me those books!”

So anyway, I had this broom from Dan, so I handed it to Ralph, and I grabbed a shovel off the wall — it was the only tool. We each have a catwalk on our own side, always smothered in the trash that falls from the feed chute. I clambered down onto mine with my shovel, and I noticed there was another temp working at the far end. I was just freely shoveling the stuff down into the chamber below (making sure no one was working below me), since I figured we’d be cleaning that out later. Gravity is our partner: we clean what’s high, then we clean what’s low.

The other temp came up to me with a nervous air and said, “They told me to throw the stuff onto that belt.” He pointed to the belt below us, on Dan’s side of the wall. I cheerfully said, “Okay,” and began directing my shovelfuls onto that belt. The guy looked relieved. I don’t know why, but many of the temps are like that — they seem to think I’m some sort of boss, like they’re afraid I’m going to yell at them.

When the catwalks were done, Ralph and I descended and cleaned out the debris chamber. We still had about an hour to go to the end of the shift. He went out front, and I knew it was time to look for Gizmo.

Gizmo was actively seeking me out. He plucked the shovel from my hands, leaned it against a wall, and said, “I have the perfect job for you. You’re the guy for this. I told ’em I’d send ’em the best.” He urgently beckoned me to follow, and I wondered what it could be that involved no tools. But he was fairly hopping with excitement. Back we went, through the catacombs, and he pointed up a long yellow stairway to a yellow bridge that crossed before a gray fuse box to a battered hopper, high and remote. He gave me my instructions. When I got up there, he said, I’d see a maintenance man. (They wear red hardhats.) Then I’d know what to do.

I went up the stairs, and at the landing, I met Howard coming down. “How’s it going?” he asked, looking kind of dazed.

When I got up there, I realized the enormity of where I’d been sent. This was the Event Threshold . . . Ground Zero. The point of the breakdown, where things had gone foul and brought “Texas-based giant Greenstar” to a standstill. I always wondered where and how this happens. Now I was seeing it.

I was face-to-face with the Greater Boss, John. I should have said, “Hello, Mr. R___!” but instead, what came out was a surprised, merry, “Oh, hi!” He didn’t seem to mind. He greeted me in much the same way. The red hat was inside the hopper, digging out cans and bottles with his hands. Gizmo had told me to help him, but there was no way to get inside the space with a guy already in there.

I looked questioningly at John. “He’ll get tired soon,” he said with a grin, meaning that then I could go in and spell him. So there I was, standing next to John, doing absolutely no work at all, waiting. It felt weird. John will fire guys for standing and leaning on their brooms. He fired three temps this week for not wearing ear plugs — they got sent home with DNRs — “Do Not Return”s. The red hat didn’t seem to be getting tired. I wondered if I was really supposed to be there, at the center of things. Then the awesome line boss Dan appeared in the narrow space behind the machine. He’d been trying to drag junk out from the back of it. Now John turned to me and said, “Take that broom and clear all that stuff out.” I should have said, “Yes, sir!” but what I said was a bright, “Okay!”

I’m a doofus when it comes to protocol. I once rubbed elbows in a cafeteria line with the President of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod — the top man of our international church body. I confess that I did not have a clue who he was — just some distinguished Lutheran guy at the International Center in St. Louis. He said, “Hi!” in a way that seemed to suggest, “If you would like to say something to me or ask a question, this is your chance!” I asked, “Is this decaf coffee?” (In retrospect, I don’t know why on Earth I asked that. I’ll drink either, decaf or caf.) He looked a little puzzled and said, “Yes. Yes, it is.” That’s probably one question that no gung-ho young missionary had yet asked him.

Dan told me to hold off a minute while he used the broom handle to knock trash out from the back end of the machine. This was all very close quarters — not enough room to pick up a cat, let alone swing one.

Then Spider looked around the corner of the hood. I was up there at the Event Threshold with John, Spider, and Dan. You simply do not get any closer to the crucial center of things. “All right,” Dan said, thrusting the broom into my hands. “Pull all this sh** out of here and push it down those stairs.”

I nodded and jumped to it.

Do you have any idea how satisfying it is to shove great waves of cans and bottles down a metal access stairway?! Crash! Rooarrr! Clatter, clatter, clatter! Grrr-rrooaarrr, clatter, clatter! Straight down the stairs, while Gizmo, at the bottom, nodded approvingly. Spider appeared down there with him in the next second. He truly lives up to his name. I think the only way he could have gotten down there that fast was to skitter down a web.

Another red hat materialized beside me, wading through the trash, working on fixing the breakage to the machine. I tried to clear him a foothold while staying out of his way.

Then Spider — up with us again! — said, “Fred, you have to sign out at 2:00. And it’s about five minutes till.” All temps were being released.

I’d gotten the bulk of the trash — maybe three-fourths of it.

“Come on down!” called Gizmo.

I used those five minutes to help Gizmo clear the stairs. He pulled with his broom from below; I pushed from above. With my feet, I shoved cans and bottles out through the open risers as he hollered encouragement. When we were done, I joined him below and said, “I didn’t get it all, but I didn’t want to get in that guy’s way.” Gizmo said, “You did great, brother! Sign out! I’ve got all this. I told ’em I was sending up the best. They wanted the best, and I sent up the best. Thank you!” I said, “Any time!” He laughed and said, “I know!”

I met Ralph at the sign-out sheet. He said, “I guess we’re out of here.” I said, “Yep.” We talked as we headed for the punch-out trailer, then all the way out to our cars. It wasn’t much of a loss in pay — just an hour early. And getting off an hour early makes for a pleasant day. Catwalks, the Event Threshold, and being sent up to John, Spider, and Dan as “the best” Gizmo has to offer: not a bad day!

What makes me happiest is that when Gizmo needs something dramatic done, he thinks of me. Soli Deo Gloria!