15. Part-Time Job II
[Albert's flashback begins]
At the 3 PM site where the scorching sun seemed to melt bodies and bake the earth, rather than people working, thoughtless animals in human form were moving by inertia. While pushing a 500kg piece of equipment on a cart toward the cargo EV, no one cared what obstacles might be ahead. They just pushed and pushed, thinking if it was dangerous, things would get out of the way on their own. On site, carts hit walls or cars while dragging items, damaging equipment, and in severe cases, people's hands got caught between walls, crushing fingers, but no one could think about 'safety' in the face of such debilitating weather. Thick Lips, watching Albert staring blankly inside the EV waiting for items to come in, shouted at him.
"Hey! What are you doing! Equipment's coming in! Get out!"
Albert finally came to his senses at his shout and quickly got out of the EV.
"Got heat stroke?"
When he nodded at his colleague's words, Thick Lips shook his head as if he was pathetic.
'Building D EV worker.'
A voice calling Thick Lips came from the walkie-talkie. It was the afro.
"Worker here."
'Work safely.'
Thick Lips also repeated the same words into the walkie-talkie. Then he gestured to Albert and went out of the work area. For them, 'work safely' was a kind of code meaning let's take a break at the restaurant next to the camp. On large sites, all personal belongings were confiscated due to security issues, so the only tool for short-distance communication was the walkie-talkie. And since everyone from middle managers to employers listened to the walkie-talkie, they needed their own code to avoid people's attention.
Entering the restaurant with a blue slate roof, numerous workers were sitting there, resting in small groups and talking noisily. In the right corner seat, the afro had arrived first and was smoking. Two cold drinks were placed on the table.
"You. You bastard. Where did you go yesterday?"
The afro only smiled with his eyes without saying anything to Thick Lips's question.
"Did you succeed?"
Thick Lips looked at the afro with admiring eyes like a child. The afro told the story of what he talked about with a woman he met at the club yesterday and what happened when they went outside, for the sake of foolish sentient beings. Seeing his attitude of telling calmly without a trace of excitement about things they couldn't accomplish made it feel more true, and the two were angry.
"Not that instant stuff for me. I'm going to have real love."
"Idiot. Your love for life will be your right hand. Probably."
"Thanks for the good wishes. You son of a bitch."
While they were in the midst of conversation, three tall able-bodied men came and sat at a table behind them. Their hard hats had the headquarters direct management mark engraved on them. Soon a man came from the store carrying an armful of food, spreading it on the table. They began eating combatively and talking noisily.
"Ah, I don't want to work. Really. Do they have to make us work in this hot weather?"
"If you don't work? There's no daily wage either?"
"Damn. I won't take the daily wage, it's disgusting."
The afro looked at Thick Lips and shook his head as if pathetic. Albert was about to talk about the woman he met yesterday, but the man sitting behind him burst into laughter and leaned back, bumping into him. The man looked back once, made eye contact with the small-framed man, and without apologizing as if it was nothing, turned back around and rejoined the conversation.
"How long will construction here continue?"
"Well. I think they're planning about 10 years. Right now this is Line 5, but they're building 8 more next to it."
"The subcontractor bosses will stick here for 10 years without going anywhere, sucking it all up."
"Here, the site manager is king. I heard company presidents come to his house every night with bundles of money to get contracts. Just with the pocket change he's taken, he could have built several buildings in the suburbs, right?"
"Ah. Really, I wish someone would make me site manager for just one year. I'd go around collecting money every day."
The afro tried to continue speaking, but the conversation was cut off again as a big burst of laughter erupted from the group behind, pounding the table. The big man leaned back excessively again, bumping into Albert. But this time he didn't even look back. They felt displeased and left their seats.
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As dusk fell, the site had a long line of people leaving work. People headed silently toward the main gate security after a weary day. Some people walked around with their puttees that were worn in the morning sticking out of their safety shoes or completely missing, mismatched. Loosened safety vests and expressionless faces. No one had lived wrongly, but watching themselves and others gathered working at such a site, seeing that massive crowd of manpower, thoughts leaked out—thoughts of blaming one's own incompetence, or ensuring one's children wouldn't live the same life, or the absurd idea of not having children at all. In a world where no one illuminated their lives, they felt greater loneliness and misery.
Albert and the two men were caught for overtime and remained on site. That overtime was duct construction—headquarters had notified them that distribution work should be completed in advance as equipment was scheduled to arrive, and since the schedule was moved up earlier than expected, the cable duct had to be completed by today no matter what. They spent all morning drilling holes, driving in screws, and installing square ducts. Now they had to force a 120-meter cable over the ducts they had installed, but the duct location was so damn awkward that it was difficult to use a pulling machine, and they had no choice but to pull the cable all the way by human strength. Every time they pulled the cable, they made a 'heave-ho' sound to coordinate signals, reminiscent of childhood tug-of-war. They thought: because they had done tug-of-war half-heartedly as children, they were now doing an adult tug-of-war here. When the cable reached halfway to the target point, sweat poured from the workers' entire bodies. Someone couldn't understand why the cable was being moved so brutishly in bundles. But the site, as always, wanted quick work, and that quick work method was usually 'a lot at once.' And the share of high labor intensity went entirely to the workers.
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'Let's have a cup of coffee each.'
It was a radio call from a worker at Site A. All food and beverages were prohibited from being brought onto the site, but at night they didn't check and sanction coffee one by one. Albert walked 30 minutes to Site A to get coffee for 15 workers. He and a colleague carried four iced coffees in paper carriers in both hands and walked back to the workplace. The ice had shrunk considerably, as if they had bought the coffee long ago. Around the time they were about to receive the coffee, raindrops began falling from the sky one by one, then suddenly started pouring down when they were about halfway there. The two quickly bent down and ran to the entrance of a nearby building to avoid the rain. The building entrance was closed, but fortunately the rain fell honestly vertical, so they didn't get rained on at the entrance. However, their work clothes had already gotten wet here and there from the rain, and the colleague beside him kept cursing and shaking off his clothes. Albert stood at the entrance, raised his head, and looked at the black night sky. Over the temporary roof blocking the rain, white lighting brightly illuminated the falling rain. The rain falling from the night sky was barely visible until it received the lighting and fell like white light fragments. Watching the scene of countless light fragments pouring endlessly, he truly thought, isn't this what a work of art is? Listening to the refreshing sound of falling rain, he felt good and began to laugh. The colleague beside him shook his head watching him laugh while looking at the rain like a crazy person.
He liked the rain. The refreshing falling rainwater seemed to wash away the painful memories in his head.
[Albert's flashback ends]