Linh Dinh — Those Laboring Days

In 2021, it came to our attention that the featured writer, Linh Dinh, has expressed anti-Black, anit-Semitic, and overall harmful views since the publication of this post. Linh Dinh’s views do not reflect the values of diaCRITICS. This post will remain available for archival purposes.

McGlinchey’s in 2011, by Linh Dinh

How often does one remember a former boss, their assault weaponry, their potential flashbacks to Nam—yet still somehow linger longest on the generous hiring practices possible before the economic downturn in 2008 left many overqualified people out of work? We’ve got some witty economic and cultural commentary on our hands here, courtesy of Linh Dinh. Born in 1963 in Sài Gòn, Linh Dinh (Đinh Linh) is a widely-published Vietnamese-American poet, fiction writer, translator, and photographer. We’ve previously printed his commentaries on American corruption and on the absence of poetry in American society. He’s tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog, State of the Union, where the following essay previously appeared.

In the 1980’s and 90’s, even a klutz like me could find work as a manual laborer. I painted houses, washed windows and cleaned apartments and offices. At my first house painting job, I propped a ladder upside down against the wall, don’t laugh, and was not let go. Once I was so hungover, I had to climb down from the ladder five or six times to throw up, and still wasn’t fired. My boss, Joe LeBlanc, just laughed it off. In fact, he even paid me a full day’s wage, and told me to go home. When times were good, everyone made out OK, and was more generous towards each other. They drank more, and tipped more at the bar. After work, we often ducked into The Office, a rather skanky strip joint, and certainly no “gentlemen’s club,” before heading to McGlinchey’s for Rolling Rock and Jameson. At The Office, a black chick grinned, “I’ve heard you Chinese guys can have sex, like, a hundred times in a row?” I didn’t have the heart to disabuse her of that invigorating and lovely notion.

Joe was a Canadian who had gone South to join the US Army. He fought in Vietnam, was dishonorably discharged, then just ended up living here, illegally. Days removed from the war zone, Joe shot at an Oakland street light. “Why?” I asked. “I don’t know. I was just fucked up.” A gun freak, Joe was erecting a dome dwelling in an all-white Kentucky county. He gave me an open invitation to come down and try his large assortment of assault rifles, but shit, man, I didn’t want Joe to have some nasty flashback. Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! He might finish me off if he saw me with an AK-47 in the middle of them woods, you know what I mean?

Like us all, Joe had his rough spots, but he was a very good man, I’m convinced, because he treated his workers well, and was willing to hire goofs or even fuckups. When work was scarce during winter, Joe lent me money, in envelopes stuffed through my mail slot, and twice he even said, “Forget about it,” when I tried to pay him back. Joe hired an old guy, because he knew grandpa was hurting. Laura was rather large, so he had her paint first floor windows, to spare her from climbing up ladders. Joe employed a guy who was so slow, he was nicknamed “Smooth.” It was like seeing Marcel Marceau with a piece of sand paper. A chemist of sort, maybe even an alchemist, Smooth was hooked to a special cocktail of pharmaceuticals, and actually died at the sink, standing up, before he reached 30. Tony had served 13 months for drug dealing. He and his brother had taken Amtrak for their monthly Philly to Miami run, but business got so good, they decided to buy an asskicking muscle car. They were busted after a stupid traffic stop. Tony died at 35. Tony said that some of the prettier dudes in prison had their assholes slit with a razor, not voluntarily, of course, to make them more penetrable. I incorporated this detail into a short story in my collection, Fake House.

Any man who’s willing to be boss to such a lame roster is OK in my book, but like I said, times were good then, and everyone could find work. I also knew Tumi, a German drifter who traveled strictly by Greyhound, and could be on the bus for three days at a time. When not in Philly or rain dancing in North Dakota, he was often in Santa Monica, where he slept on the beach. Out of cash, all Tumi had to do was stand in front of a paint store, and a contractor would hire him before too long. Tumi needed just enough for his daily all-you-can-eat buffet meal, then lager in the evening. His real name was Ludwig, by the way, with Tumi adopted because he was somehow Muslim. No genius, Tumi educated me, “An olive, my friend, has as much protein as a steak.” Also, “A bone must take so long to make. So long!” Joe also hired Tumi.

Now, Joe wasn’t running a charity, but a regular business, and we didn’t loaf and do drugs on the job. We actually worked our tails off, when we weren’t throwing up, that is. Joe hired us because there was actually a shortage of labor, at least for the kind of grunt work we were doing, but now, you’ll need a college degree just to serve latte or park cars. With legions diving after so few jobs, soon we’ll have PhD’s chirping, “Original recipe or spicy, Sir?” Or, “Would you like a Holiday Mint McFlurry with that?” Recent majors in Postmodern Linked Verse Deconstruction will be pole dancing, then asking, “I’ve heard you Chinese guys can have sex, like, a hundred times in a row?” You must flatter the clientele if you want a decent tip, capisce?

Last week, I popped into McGlinchey’s just before noon, and found it nearly empty. If lowlifes can’t even drink a cheap beer for lunch, you know the economy is nosediving. “Where’s everybody, Ronnie?” I asked the owner.

“Well, you’re here!”

“But this ain’t right, Ronnie. Where’s everybody?!”

“I think people’s drinking habits have changed, that’s all.”

“You sure it ain’t the economy?”

“No, no. People just don’t drink as much as they used to. Before, you never had people come into a bar and not drink, but now you do.”

“What do you mean not drink? You can’t come in here and not drink!”

“Well, you might have a table of four people, and one or maybe even two might not drink at all.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Or people will just buy beer from a store, then drink at their apartments. That way, they can also smoke.”

“Oh, come on, Ronnie, people have always smoked weed!”

“I guess you’re right. Maybe it does have something to do with the economy.”

Of course, it is the imploding economy. One of Ronnie’s bartenders, Alia, told me that business was down by about a third. Many regulars who had come in daily, she now saw maybe once a month. Alia herself was cutting back, by eating out less. There was nothing positive about this economic mess.

For some business owners, it may be too painful to admit the obvious. They will latch onto “recovery” even as they sink and their neighbors go belly up. As a downtown dive bar, however, McGlinchey’s may be resilient. When swankier pubs go bust, their ex clientele, now not so flushed either, yet still parched, throatwise, will drift over to settle into these cushionless booths, and onto these ratty and leaning stools. “What’s the beer special today? What’s the cheapest you have on tap?”

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Linh Dinh

Linh Dinh was born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1963, came to the U.S. in 1975, and has also lived in Italy and England. He is the author of two collections of stories, Fake House (Seven Stories Press 2000) and Blood and Soap (Seven Stories Press 2004), five books of poems, All Around What Empties Out (Tinfish 2003), American Tatts (Chax 2005), Borderless Bodies (Factory School 2006), Jam Alerts (Chax 2007), and Some Kind of Cheese Orgy (Chax Press 2009) with a novel, Love Like Hate, released in 2008 by Seven Stories Press. His work has been anthologized in several editions of Best American Poetry and Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, among other places. Linh Dinh is also the editor of the anthologies Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (Seven Stories Press 1996) and Three Vietnamese Poets (Tinfish 2001), and translator of Night, Fish and Charlie Parker, the poetry of Phan Nhien Hao (Tupelo 2006). He has also published widely in Vietnamese.

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3 COMMENTS

  1. What a compelling essay, filled with crushing truths leavened with humor. The economy indeed does suck. I’ve been spending time in Orange County and getting to know the community there a bit more than simply a weekender. Gotta say: the people who are hit worst by the economy are the poorest–not just white laborers but also Vietnamese, Latinos. Of course, the doctors and lawyers and professionals are buffered (until they lose their jobs) but it’s those who are most vulnerable–recent immigrants with limited language skills–who are especially screwed. You can really see it. Bummer.

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