The Lady or The Tiger

 For many people, the big takeaway from the "Godfather" was Don Corleone's advice to youngest son, Michael, to "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer". It might be brilliant on paper or in the film, but it has never worked for me. Oddly enough, I was thinking about this last night while watching "Single White Female" (1992 with Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh). Well, that's how my mind works, I reckon. 

On a new job years ago, I actually consciously made the decision to make an obvious enemy closer to me. It didn't work. 

Enemies are enemies for good reasons. They should never be your friends. A better quote that we can all relate to is: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" We have all been there! Admittedly, it's a different dynamic to have a friend turn on you and become an enemy, but that is more emotionally palatable and common than being so fucking stupid as to purposefully provide care and feeding to someone who you already fucking know wants to destroy you. It is like the recent trope for women about choosing the bear or the man in the woods. I get it, but the bear is going to eat you. The random guy could kill you too, but probably not. Of all the chances in life that could be either/or, this is one of the dumbest ones to ponder because you could either stay home and not go into the woods alone, or you could pack bear spray and a .44, both of which will take care of man or beast. You would be fine with either decision. 

But life today is a series of hypotheticals. We are at the mercy of who is asking the hypothetical questions and the parameters they set to get the answers they want to hear. I fucking hate either/or because it shouldn't have to be that way, even though it often seems like it is. The bear hypothetical is an update on the classic tale of "The Lady or the Tiger". You think you have a 50/50 shot, but do you? 

Anyways, when I worked at Delta years ago and opted to take my enemy under my wing to benefit me, it didn't work out. I was this girl's enemy. She wasn't mine. I had been brought into the company to run work, and I was being paid at or above that of existing crew members. I was a marked man. I had been there before at other paint companies though, so no biggie. It is the way things are in every aspect of the business world, even if it seemed to be as simple as putting paint on walls. Men in construction are worse than women in any sewing circle anywhere. I still think I could make a network show called "The Real Painters of Memphis Tennessee" and show what backstabbing, gossipy bitches us fellas really are, but who would watch it? That would be unreality TV to the viewing public even though it would have the typical elements of drinking, table overturning and cat fights that those "Real Housewives" have. But no facelifts and boob jobs. I've never actually seen those shows, so tell me if I'm close. They all seem like they could be cast from Mar Lago and Fox news Central Casting. 

So, I come to the job as many people's enemy. Nice work if you can get it, eh? I sure didn't help things by being very fucking good at what I do. I was a combat ready painter with pretty damn good leadership skills. For the first time in my commercial painting career, I was being financially rewarded for it. Even better, I was being acknowledged for my skill. In a lot of jobs, the office marvels in private about how wonderful an employee is because it's cheaper that way. Best to keep the employees barefoot and pregnant. Delta was appreciative of my work though and told me so. I thought I had found a home- a dysfunctional family, to be sure- but a home, just the same. The Bush recession of 2008 happened and killed construction and any future I had in their house. 

It has occurred to me that the point of this was to illustrate how taking the lesbian painter, *Alicea* under my wing was a bad idea. I was her enemy, and I wanted her nearby so as to make it harder for her to lead a coup against me. That's the part that didn't work. I had also done it to assure I got work out of her and the others. I'll say this about Alicea: I've got no truck with lesbians. I prefer the lipstick variety for purely male, selfish reasons. But I simply do not like women who make the truly dumb mistake of choosing to act like men. This goes for straight women too. Acting tough and predatory is a sad way to go through life, with or without a dick. This girl thought she could beat me up! Her ridiculous backstory had her white, female self being a member of the Black Gangster Disciples. She had a Devil tattoo on her ankle, but I rather doubted the GD's had a DEI policy in their HR Department, or that they even had an HR Department. You hear a lot of cheap shit from men every day, everywhere, and you hate it, but it's worse when it comes from a woman- even one who looks like a boy- because they are supposed to know better. Women study us. We are nothing to aspire to be. The smart ones know that. A truly strong woman doesn't act like a B-movie man. Compare Kamala Harris to Kristie Noem. Who is the strong woman there? 

Now, like the Jennifer Jason Leigh character in SWF, Alicea was fucking batshit crazy. I knew that right off. Problem was, I'm dumb enough to think there are limits to people's craziness. there aren't. Trump's a good example. For ten years we have heard the experts say, "Well, he's not going to do that..." Then, he does that and everyone is still shocked. Unbelievable. Trump, by the way, is nothing to aspire to either. You probably knew that. Alicea wound up running about the jobsite telling people she was in charge. Well, fuck me a-runnin', I never saw that coming! A couple guys believed it, because what do they know, and several others knew better, but didn't want to get involved. I got that! Those guys just came to me on the side and asked what my plans were. We're mostly talking other trades here. Part of my success was coordinating with other trades to make sure we weren't working on top of each other. I don't want to repaint a room because electricians or carpet guys fucked it up. On a big job like the FedEx HQ expansion there was always something else to do when something wasn't ready. We were more often than not caught up on this one, much to the delight of the General Contractor and my own bosses. 

Marcus D, a 6'6" ex-Marine, was my real righthand man on this FedEx job. That guy could work! I favored him for that, but also because, like me, he was an outsider in the company. He was black and I was Yankee, two things that the midsouth only grudgingly accept even today. It was Marcus that came to me and told me, "The girl is running around telling people it's her job now." With that revelation, all of the oddities of the recent days had suddenly made *sense*. She hadn't gone through the shop to get that promotion, but she sure had gone to the shop! Alicea had been calling our supervisor on the regular telling him I was fucking the job up, goofing off, shit like that. I'm still kinda pissed that the boss had never shared that with me, but you can't spend a lot of time in life trying to figure out stupid people without becoming one yourself. Forrest Gump's mama was right.  

The upshot of it all was that, on Day I when by boss and I first walked the job, I asked him who I had for labor. William replied, "You've got the black guy and the girl...and I want you to fire them both." I indulged him for a moment and said, "OK. Who do I have then?" His reply, "Nobody." Another big job- a church- was so deep in the hole that God himself couldn't save it. Same for the job downtown. There was no one to spare. I told William that I couldn't do this FedEx one by myself and he thought about that as if it were the first time. Really, he did. I never told either one of the two that. It's not in my job description to hurt people, when I can help it.

Friends close- enemies closer. Fuck that. We are all just winging it in life. If you are lucky to fly with the good people, embrace it. Just watch out for the predators. They are watching out for you.