My first ever job - the mangler

well, as soon as I start thinking about telling this story the guilt starts rushing in

Cause I stole my first job.

I was a thirteen year old, bright, happy, (as I recall) even if unusual, kid.

I had a lot of casual friends, but having only moved to this town the year before, I, as usual, didn't have any real friends.

But I suppose Matey and The Thing were the closest to it. At least for a few years.
(I actually can remember their real names too, surprisingly for me. Main Grainceller
and Simon Superful, if my memory isn't fooling me)(edit: see end)

childhood sketchbook page by @spaingaroo

Matey later died in a motorcycle accident, almost as soon as we got our licenses. (we had both been dirt-biking for years before that)
He was wearing my borrowed motorcycle boots at the time.
I couldn't decide what upset me more.

I had bought a Yamaha RD 350 LC and he an unusual looking three cylinder Honda, the model later recalled and withdrawn from sale.
I suppose his accident had something to do with that.

I can't recall what they were called, although saint google would surely tell me.

(I have looked and can't find as of this moment. Don't want to spend any more time down that particular memory lane. If anyone can recall the model name I would feel more complete)

Matey's death and the loss of my (fully plastic) motorcycle boots. I can't remember what these were called either (Ok, this time I have no trouble googling, my prized Vendriminis)

Both things marked me.

I have had the (not unusual I suppose) circumstance of having known an really large number of people who have ceased to be.
And yet nobody of family or similar close, apart from both grandmothers, both many years ago.
Both long telegraphed too.
(and my sister died virtually, by running away from home and not coming back, but that's another story)

And Matey of course, although we were not so close, as we were so very different.
I think one of our main friendship rituals was throwing rocks at each other at the bus-stop for school.

And I am forgetting how hard it was for me to learn that my closest ever friend for several years, Andy Love, was dead, and worse, never reconciled to me after a spat drove us apart. (this could be told in a long post too, so won't go into it here)

But I have lost about half or more than half of people who had some significant role in my life.
Almost every ex-boss for example.
Keep that in mind if you employ me!
I'm a little surprised that I never emerged as a person of interest.

Anyhow, this was about my first job.

feeding the mangler!

A childhood Steven King fan too, I read one of his stories "the Mangler" and that's where my name comes from too, no doubt. But well deserved.

I had to feed newspapers onto a two-tined prong which then would, with great violence and a tremendous noise, spin on its axis and in one swift moment roll the newspaper into a tight cylinder and put a gummed paper tape around same.
It could even wrap the paper in a plastic film if it was a rainy day.

In my memory it then spat the paper out, but, thinking through how it must have been, I must have had to pull the now solid cylinder of falsehoods off the prong, throw it in a pile and feed the next one on.
There may have been a foot operated lever to send the beast into action, but maybe it just violently did its bit every few seconds.

I can't fully remember, although I seem to recall the pedal now.
I did this job for years, but I don't know how awake I was.

The boss, Molehilly (Mick Mountain RIP) would come by the house in the car on the way to work and pick me up.

One of my tasks was to ring his house, if he wasn't at my house at 2:30 am
This is every Saturday and every Sunday morning of the year, except if Good Friday or Christmas day fell on one of those days.

I think I only failed once.

Also having drifted off while waiting on the couch, and we were so late that it was terribly traumatic for the good citizens of Buderim, Queensland.
They were accustomed to wake and go retrieve the paper from the front yard or porch where it landed as Hilly drove around the village throwing papers from his modified mini-moke.
(I remember he threw one right through the plate glass front door of our house once.
If it was a big news day, or any Saturday and Sunday, they were hefty objects.)

However, normally he would be at my house around 2:00 am and we would be opening the room where the mangler stood silently brooding at 2:15 or so, and start bringing in the bundles (or bales) of papers that had already been deposited on the footpath by the delivery truck.

The physical amount varied, although the number of copies was fairly stable.
But on a day when there wasn't much to the paper, there might be thirty or even forty copies in a bale, but on a big Saturday, with a lot of advertising for the sales or whatever, each bale might be straining it's bailing wire with only twelve copies. So maybe we only had to bring in twenty or thirty bales, or maybe seventy or eighty!

And then get the mangler roaring. Mick would often feed the machine with a practised hand while I finished bringing in the bales, and then when he had enough done to do a first run in the mini-moke, we would load him up, and then I faced the mangler alone.

But it wasn't really so malevolent as Mr King's invention, and I came out of it with all my fingers and toes.

however it must of been one of my first sources of hearing loss.

Anyhow, I haven't actually satisfied either your good selves, my beloved readers, if indeed you exist, or my need for confession.

Not that I have that, but it's a good story.

Be easier if I was recounting it in the third person, so I didn't have to take responsibility for my actions, but that would lose this second function then.

I mentioned two people before, as "friends" of mine. Matey, long deceased, dog bless his soul, and the Thing. The Thing's current status and location are a mystery to me.

the Thing was a big lad, real big.
Tall, strong and also well overweight.
I don't know exactly why we hit it off, as I was a skinny long distance runner, but we did for a while.
Maybe I was a bit cruel to him, and maybe he liked it.
I can remember doing several cruel things to him when we hung around together, just for laughs.

I am a very flawed human being.
I am now quite aware of that, so that's a big part of the battle won.

I rolled a skateboard in front of his bike on day causing him to have a tremendous stack, but another day I had a far worse one at his hands so it all works out.

But the Thing had something that I didn't have.

And I wanted it.

The Thing had a job!

He was up there every weekend morning feeding the mangler.

And he was always whining and griping about it.

and I knew he was taking stuff from Molehilly, cause he was sharing it with me.

So, as hard as it seems to believe that I did it from here, I went and dobbed him in to Molehilly and offered to take the job over.

I didn't tell the Thing I had done that, I don't think, but he must have suspected.

I think we hung around less after that.

---

seems like a good place to finish up this confessional trip down memory lane.

I worked for Molehilly for years, and even though I might have ended taking a few magazines from the bin too, it was only copyright crime, as Molehilly had already written them off, and I know that Molehilly died still believing in me as a person.

He ended good friends with my father.
(or maybe he already was)
(I wasn't so can't say)
We tried to visit him together the last time I was in Australia, in 2010, but somehow we couldn't coincide and I lost the opportunity as he died only the next year, I think it was.

But I worked hard and reliably for him the years I did and I know that Molehilly was always happy about what had taken place.

So Simon, if you are reading this, I'm sorry man.
I would like the chance to make it up to you, so get in contact.

and anyone else who has gotten this far, why not leave me a comment with your confession and I'll keep it to my chest, here on the blockchain.

have a fine day.

EDIT

edit: Ok, my (very) slow thinking brain has decided that it was incredibly insensitive of me to post the real names of my old friends in this story, so today I have taken their names out and put in other pseudonyms.

I am fully aware that this is the blockchain, and now published are forever knowable.

I ask that respect my edit though and accept my humble apologies for this rather crass error.

I am not going to try and retract anything, as it is a true statement of the story as I remember it.

I however realise, that once again in life I have tripped over the same stone, of not being able to think through the consequences of my actions on other people.

So, hoping that this hasn't caused undue distress to the families or persons of my old friends and supposing that it has fallen into the blockchain without a ripple.

I have shared on facebook though, so maybe it's an international scandal already.

If it is necessary or requested, I will claim it to be a lie.
I had no intention or causing harm or distress, but just thinking it through I realise that I may well have done so.

Once again, I apologise for my crass error and ask for your understanding and help.

Don't let the fact that I am some sort of obtuse psychopath put you off.

I hope to continue to entertain you with my true stories, but without involving the other persons involuntarily, ie. without their permission.
Which they won't want to give me, so I hereby announce that future characters that appear will have an invented name.

thanks for your understanding.

---

_another page from the same childhood sketchbook _ by (baby) @spaingaroo in pencil

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If you would like to see other posts try these;

Art posts

• BoBruC Oil drawing
• Plasticine is cool
• one work
• five works
• My successful post :)
• truth shady
• blue dog calls himself indigo

what does an artist do, part one

Or my life story posts

Only part one so far

Or my poems, laddie thinks himself a poet all of a sudden.

first poem ever
second poem
third poem

They are all about my steemit experience and I have a post for that too, with my experience after a fortnight.

and my contest posts too, M.O.L.A.A. Make Out Like An Artist come make something, anything

day four almost closed
day five
day six
day seven
day eight
day nine
day ten, today