Earth vs. Everybody Read Free Page B

time. Even with
the legal trickery I had going for me, I still should have been locked up for
good after awhile, because I got caught so many times. But I was saved by the
city’s controversial “3 Strikes And You’re Free” law.
    Finally I was
informed that I was being demoted from bank robber to thug. My superiors were a
little embarrassed about it. They blamed themselves for starting me up too high
on the ladder in the first place. They felt it was their mistake that I
couldn’t succeed at such a high level right away, not mine. I agreed. C’mon,
everybody, I thought, let’s get our acts together here. I can’t run this place
by myself.
    They started me
off, as usual, at the highest tier—1 st Thug. And, as usual, this was a mistake.
    The 1 st Thug is the guy who stands closest to
the boss at all times. He’s the one who says things like: “You better listen to
what the boss is saying” and “You’re just not getting it, are you, pal?” That
part of the job was no problem for me. I can stand next to people. Easy. And I
can talk tough with the best of them. But a 1 st Thug also has to know when to act—when the time for talking is over and the
time for action has arrived. I couldn’t tell the difference. Still can’t. So I
would suddenly start hitting the guy the boss was talking to while the boss was
still talking to him. Or I’d hit the guy when he had just agreed to do what we
wanted. Or I’d hit the wrong person, like the boss.
    Because of this
inability to think on my feet, I was quickly demoted to 2 nd and then 3 rd , or Buck, Thug. The 3 rd Thug is the one who piles on after the first two classes of thugs have already
gone to work and it’s certain that this is the guy to hit, and this is the time
to hit him. No thinking required for us 3 rd thugs. And you never have to decide when to stop pounding on the guy either.
The boss will tell you that. “Okay, that’s enough,” he’ll say, or “hey, knock
it off stupid, he’s dead”, something like that. That’s when you stop.
    When you’re not
actually pounding on somebody, 3 rd Thugs are supposed to stand in the back looking tough and kind of chewing
something. Gum, most guys used. Sometimes I forgot my gum, so I’d just chew my
shirt tail. That worked just as well, though I guess it didn’t look as
professional.
    I thought I was
basically doing a pretty good job, but one morning when I showed up for work I
was told to report to the boss’s office to meet with the higher-ups. I knew
what that meant. There weren’t any jobs in the Organization lower than the one
I had now. And evidently I had blown it again. I was going to be fired.
    I had learned from
being fired from other jobs that times like this are your last chance to stand
up for yourself and have some self respect. Show some backbone. As soon as you
find another job somewhere else people will start walking all over you again.
The only time a person ever gets a chance to have any self-respect is when he’s
being fired. That’s when you can stand tall and be a man. That few seconds
there. So from the moment I walked into the boss’s office I was my own man
again.
    “Take a seat, Mr.
Burly,” said one of the bosses.
    “Take it
yourself, asshole.”
    I leaned up
against the water cooler and glared at everybody.
    “This meeting…”
began the personnel manager…
    “Shove this
meeting up your ass.”
    “Er… yes… would
you like some coffee, Burly?”
    “In your ass I
would. Along with the meeting and the chair.”
    My supervisor,
Mr. Knuckles, cleared his throat. “I think we’re straying from the point of
this meeting. Perhaps if Mr. Burly would stop telling us what to shove up our
asses, we could…”
    “Screw you,
boss.”
    “Hey look, Burly…”
    “No, you look!
I’ve been taking crap from you big-shots for weeks now. And now it’s my turn to
tell you a thing or two.” I pointed to each in turn: “You’re incompetent,
you’re stupid, you don’t like