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Speaker 1: Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,

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Speaker 1: your host, narrator, and author. We hear at the ten

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Speaker 1: Minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or

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Speaker 1: rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to

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Speaker 1: pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human

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Speaker 1: condition as ten minutes will permit. Mini novels on steroids.

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Speaker 1: This week we meet Gordon, or Gordo as he prefers

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Speaker 1: to be called. Gordo has a cushy job with the

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Speaker 1: old man's construction company, record keeper for a big port

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Speaker 1: authority job at the passenger ship terminals, plenty of time

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Speaker 1: to do his two favorite things, read and write. Porto

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Speaker 1: wants to be a writer, wants to be a novelist

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Speaker 1: of import a Twain, a Melville, a Marquez. But can

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Speaker 1: he withstand the pressures, the family pressures, peer pressures, financial pressures,

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Speaker 1: the twin pressures of desire and consumption. It's all a

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Speaker 1: tall order, a tough task. Porto likes to think he'd

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Speaker 1: rather be dead than give in to these pressures. Dead

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Speaker 1: guys don't write. He only has the job because his

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Speaker 1: old man owns the company. And a cushy job. It

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Speaker 1: is toughest part is getting his butt out of bed

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Speaker 1: at four point thirty in the morning in his parents'

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Speaker 1: swanky house in the Leafy Burbs and making the hour

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Speaker 1: and a half drive to the passenger ship terminal in Midtown.

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Speaker 1: Getting homes no picnic either. He usually pulls out around

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Speaker 1: three o'clock, but even by then the Lincoln Tunnel is

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Speaker 1: all jammed up with commuters who are ticked off and irritated,

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Speaker 1: and it can take two hours or more to get home.

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Speaker 1: But hey, no problem. He has a good relationship with

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Speaker 1: time and a very mellow disposition. He smokes a joint

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Speaker 1: and pops in some Credence or some Van Morrison or

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Speaker 1: maybe some Bob Marley. He's just starting to get into

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Speaker 1: Bob the whole laid back, spiritual reggae vibe. Now, Gordon

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Speaker 1: doesn't want to hassle anyone. He really really doesn't want

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Speaker 1: to hassle anyone ever, and he's sure as hell doesn't

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Speaker 1: want anyone hassling him. Gordo jokes around with the guys

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Speaker 1: on the job, you know, the crew, the laborers, the

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Speaker 1: dock builders, and the operating engineers. He buys coffee and

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Speaker 1: donuts and buttered roll, and most of the time doesn't

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Speaker 1: collect any dough for it. But it makes no difference.

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Speaker 1: They don't like him.

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Speaker 2: I mean, come on, he's the boss's kid, a spoiled,

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Speaker 2: rich kid with the cushy job. A good part of

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Speaker 2: the day he sits up in the empty lounges overlooking

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Speaker 2: the docks and the Hudson River and New York Bay.

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Speaker 2: Sits up in the posh cool in summer, warm in

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Speaker 2: winter lounges, reading the one hundred greatest novels ever written,

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Speaker 2: Done Quixote, The Charterhouse of Parma, Huck Finn, Moby Dick,

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Speaker 2: one hundred years of Solitude, and of course writing, scribbling madly,

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Speaker 2: filling notebook after notebook with story ideas, characters, plots, themes,

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Speaker 2: the whole. Shebet Gordo really has just one overriding ambition

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Speaker 2: in life to become a novelist, and not just any

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Speaker 2: run of the mill noist, but a novelist of import,

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Speaker 2: a novelist in search of the great American novel, the

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Speaker 2: one novel that will once and for all define the

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Speaker 2: American experience. It recently occurred to him, however, that he

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Speaker 2: might need three novels to accomplish this a trilogy broken

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Speaker 2: down by space and time. North American magical realism, a

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Speaker 2: dream like Protestantism, consumed by greed and violence and the

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Speaker 2: all encompassing illusion that we Americans are the chosen people,

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Speaker 2: good and great and of course benign, despite all of

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Speaker 2: the evidence to the contrary that we were and still

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Speaker 2: are a bunch of bloodthirsty racists hell bent on manifest destiny.

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Speaker 2: He dropped out of college, such a waste, he insisted,

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Speaker 2: of my precious time. Hey, that's all we got to.

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Speaker 2: That's all we got, He'll tell anyone who will listen.

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Speaker 2: Time and it ain't on our side rushes past like

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Speaker 2: a full force gale. He works for the family engineering

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Speaker 2: and construction company, saves his dough, and then takes off

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Speaker 2: on solo rampages around the world in search of meaning

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Speaker 2: and to ask Brits and Colombians and New Zealanders and

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Speaker 2: Hungarians and Kenyons what they think of America and of Americans.

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Speaker 2: He listens closely to what they tell him, and he

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Speaker 2: writes it all down in his notebooks. Every word, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: the job, Okay, it's a piece of cake. It's cushy,

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Speaker 2: but Christ, somebody's got to do it. A multi million

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Speaker 2: dollar contract between the family Biz and the Port Authority

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Speaker 2: of New York and New Jersey repair and rehabilitation of

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Speaker 2: the passenger ship terminal on the Hudson River in Manhattan

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Speaker 2: Peers eighty eight and ninety so says the contract all work,

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Speaker 2: build time, and material, which means both the company and

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Speaker 2: the Poort Authority need to keep accurate records of man hours,

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Speaker 2: time and everything used to make repairs material. Every morning

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Speaker 2: and every afternoon, he records who's on the job and

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Speaker 2: what function they perform. This includes dock builders, laborers, operating engineers, oilers, gophers, foremen, superintendents,

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Speaker 2: and of course record keepers like yours. Truly throughout the day,

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Speaker 2: Gordo needs to record every pile driven, every creosoded piece

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Speaker 2: of timber bolted to the pier, every nut, every bolt,

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Speaker 2: every spool of wire used to wrap a pile cluster,

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Speaker 2: Every man and every item has monetary value.

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Speaker 1: His job is to quote, keep a close eye and

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Speaker 1: don't miss a goddamn thing, so instructed his father, a

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Speaker 1: great lover of money and authority. Miss anything, boy, anything

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Speaker 1: at all, and it's going to be money out of

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Speaker 1: my pocket.

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Speaker 2: At first it it had kind of been a burden.

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Speaker 2: Gordo felt like he had to hang around on the

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Speaker 2: barge or even down on the float stages and watch

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Speaker 2: like an eagle waiting for its prey. But after a

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Speaker 2: while he realized this was ridiculous. A head count of

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Speaker 2: the crew and a thorough accounting of all materials first

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Speaker 2: thing in the morning, then a quick visit every couple hours,

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Speaker 2: and another thorough accounting at the end of the day

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Speaker 2: was all he needed to keep perfect records the rest

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Speaker 2: of the day. The rest of the time on the

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Speaker 2: job was his own to read and to write. It

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Speaker 2: was absolutely perfect, the perfect job for a guy with

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Speaker 2: so intense an ambition. And in a couple months, if

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Speaker 2: he saves most of his paycheck, which he will, which

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Speaker 2: he always does, he can take off this time for

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Speaker 2: the Far East for at least a few months, maybe

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Speaker 2: six months. If he lives like a peasant. Nothing so

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Speaker 2: grand as living like a peasant. Give it up, the

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Speaker 2: old man recently advised, give it up. Kid.

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Speaker 1: Every idiot with a pencil and a pad thinks he's

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Speaker 1: a writer.

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Speaker 2: I tell you, son, I gotta.

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Speaker 1: Tell you you're wasting your time, waste in your life. Join

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Speaker 1: the company full time, get to work, buy a house,

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Speaker 1: get married and have some kids, and buy a bunch

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Speaker 1: of crap you can spend the rest of your life

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Speaker 1: paying for. Come on, be a man, be an American. Yep,

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Speaker 1: that's what the old man told him. In fact, that's

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Speaker 1: about what the old man tells him almost every goddamn day.

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Speaker 1: Gordo thinks, but doesn't say, I'd just as soon be dead.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, what the hell's wrong with a good, healthy,

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Speaker 1: formidable ambition, And fuck them all who think he's a

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Speaker 1: near do well, a do nothing. Nothing he can do

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Speaker 1: about the flocks of sheep bleeding into the wind trying

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Speaker 1: to change their minds as a fool's errand and a

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Speaker 1: wasted time. Even as a young whipper snapper, he knew

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Speaker 1: the only thing that mattered was the chaos swirling around

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Speaker 1: in his head. But hey, okay, he does think about it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he is getting older, his old buds from

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Speaker 1: middle school, in high school. You know, they're starting to

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Speaker 1: pull down some big bucks, they're starting to have some

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Speaker 1: financial security. And then, of course there's some stuff that

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Speaker 1: he wants, stuff he desires, maybe a little British racing

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Speaker 1: green spitfire, a turntable in preamp, at dirt bike, maybe

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Speaker 1: an electric guitar.

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Speaker 2: Shit, he had to on a Wednesday, the workday over.

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Speaker 2: He says, so long to the dock builders, laborers and engineers.

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Speaker 2: Dead of winter, now cold and raw, blustery wind blowing

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Speaker 2: down the river, sun already low in the western sky corrido.

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Speaker 2: He takes a picture of that sun with his brain

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Speaker 2: and knows one day he'll put that sun into words,

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Speaker 2: use it in a story. It's all every thought, every encounter,

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Speaker 2: every breath, every pain, every ounce of doubt, fodder for

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Speaker 2: his stories. He crosses the barge and climbs down the

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Speaker 2: ladder to the float stage. He counts, piles, records, numbers

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Speaker 2: in his ledger. He does his job. Something they're floating

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Speaker 2: in the water. What the hell is that? Is that

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Speaker 2: a body?

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Speaker 1: Hole?

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Speaker 2: He christ it's a body, a dead body, bloated and

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Speaker 2: smelling like death. He grabs the pipe pole off the

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Speaker 2: stage and uses it to snag the dead guy's jacket.

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Speaker 2: His heart races as he pulls the body alongside the stage.

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Speaker 2: He thinks, he thinks he'll secure the body to the

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Speaker 2: stage with a length of rope, and then and then

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Speaker 2: he'll go and call the cops. He he has to

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Speaker 2: call the cops, but just as he squats and leans over,

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Speaker 2: a bow wave from a passing tugboat slams against the

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Speaker 2: float stage and knocks him into the river. He lands

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Speaker 2: on the dead guy, screams, panics, swallows a bunch of

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Speaker 2: river water. The water is bitter cold, just a few

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Speaker 2: degrees above freezing. He slashes at the water, tries to

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Speaker 2: pull himself up onto the stage. But no good. It's

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Speaker 2: no good. It's too high, it's too damn slippery. He

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Speaker 2: screams again, hollers at the top of his lungs, but

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Speaker 2: no one's around, no one hears. He's all alone. Another

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Speaker 2: bow wave strikes the float stage. The stage sways and

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Speaker 2: strikes him on the side of the head. He sees stars,

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Speaker 2: but recovers. His body bobs on the surface like a booie.

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Speaker 2: Another bow wave, Another blow to the head. This blow

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Speaker 2: knocks him out, knocks him cold. If you enjoy today's story,

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Speaker 2: please take a few seconds to rate, review, and subscribe

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Speaker 2: to this podcast, and then go to Thomas William Simpson

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Speaker 2: dot com for additional information about the author and to

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Speaker 2: view his extensive cannon The Ten Minute Storyteller is produced

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Speaker 2: by Andrew Pliglici and Josh Colotney and as part of

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Speaker 2: the Elvis Duran podcast Network in partnership with iHeart Productions.

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Speaker 2: Until next Time, This is Bill Simpson, your ten Minute Storyteller,