Burn, Burn, Burn

Hundreds of bars of steel.  Huge, 15' sections of them all needing to be cut in half, then into 5" lengths.

All with an oxy-acetylene torch.

God, he made it look so EASY! Just heat up the metal til it's red hot and hit the lever. Sparks will fly, slag will fall and you just slowly move across the steel.  Cut right through.  The piece will fall.  Ta-da!

Not once did he say that you will make squiggly lines, you might extinguish the flame accidentally. you'll hit the knobs with your chest if you're not careful.  If you don't cut fast enough, your piece will cool and won't cut.  If you cut too fast you won't clear the slag and it will just weld itself back together.

Keep fucking it up, keep fucking it up, keep fucking it up.  

My partner Mike gets the hang of it fast.  His cuts are a little messed up, but fairly clean.  They're quick, he's efficient.  I'm jealous.

Slag slag slag, sticking the pieces back together.  Fuck.  The little bits just won't fall off. FUCK! I'm shaking my head, I can't see through the shitty scratched goggles I pulled out of the bin. My hair won't stay tied up.  It's in my face.  Mike is patient.  He's not sure why I can't do it either, it LOOKS like we're doing the same thing.  His pieces fall, mine catch and hang by the edges that have fused back together.  It takes me FOREVER to complete a cut.

Then all of a sudden it happens.  One, long clean cut.  No wobbles, no fusion, nothing.  CLANG.  The piece hits the floor.  "NICE!" said Mike.. "Do more!"

Heat, burn, drag, CLANG.  Heat, burn, drag, CLANG.  It smells like sparklers.  It smells like fireworks.  CLANG.  Crackle, sizzle, CLANG.  It's the smell of success. 

Then Mike started fucking up.  It was pretty funny, and we agreed that only one of us can be good at a time.  We finished our cutting and dragged the huge bars back to the rack.  It felt good. It felt like work.  REAL work. Honest work.

It felt like the kind of work I could do forever.