Steer

Normalized.  They've put me in a box so that I think what I need to think.  My imaginative thinking, the thing that marked me as different from the herd, is shrinking.  I am scared.

I had to do evaluations of my employees.  I am generous for a reason.  I want them to like working.  But the new boss brought the evaluations back to me.

"I want you to take another look at these," he said.  "Some of the scores seem too high.  They are out of line with what the other foremen are giving."

"Really.  What do you want me to give."

"The other's ranged between threes and fours."

The evaluation system is a sham, but employees raises are based on it.

"The system is bullshit, you know."

He shook his head sympathetically.  "I know."

In the past, I would have gone apeshit, but I said tersely, "Alright."

There should be a class action lawsuit.  But there won't be.  The workers are too timid.  And I'm tired of leading a charge that others will abandon as soon as the going gets rough.  I've lost two colleagues just this way.  Nope.  I'm normalized.

But why, I ask myself?  Because I want the money.  I am getting old.  I need money to live.  I've been underpaid all my life, and now I make a living wage.  Etc.

My balls shrivel.  My energy wanes.  Younger workers smell this and are ready to take advantage.  The only thing stopping them is the fear that I may have one more killing left in me.  Broken but dangerous like a wounded lion.

They probably never think that, but I must believe it to keep some shreds of what self-esteem I can still muster.

I grow old, I grow old / Shall I wear my trousers rolled?

Now that I am not shooting in the studio at night, I have gotten lazy.  I get home after the gym, cook, and watch something on television.  I keep telling myself it is the new art form.  If that is true, I should be trying to make a series rather than consuming them.  I tell myself it is a time of quiet and waiting.  

Because really, I feel good.  I am going to bed early and eating well, and soon I will cut back on my drinking.  I will.  I think I have, but not enough to notice.  I shall halve it, then halve it again.  And soon, I'll be just like all the other boys and girls at the YMCA, healthful, quiet, and conservative.  No more tits and ass for me, mmm mmm.  Children and flowers and people in uniforms.  Everyone can look at that and I won't run afoul of The Feminine Mystique.  Wives won't cringe at the mention of my name.  The righteous will cheer me in the streets.  I will be part of the reformation.

Or I will normalized and scared but safe within the herd knowing that some will be sacrificed to save the many.  I will hide my twisted Bohemian Bolshevik heart.