Rust Belt Tails: Different Strings
#4 of Rust Belt Tails
The auto plant in Flint, Michigan had lost two of its greatest employees, the supervisor Tarik Abdul-Aziz, the lion from Beirut who left the Detroit metropolitan area with Justin Essenza, a wolf for whom generations of men in his family had manned the assembly line. And they had gone to Abdul-Aziz's home country of Lebanon to work on rebuilding the architecture, houses, and offices in the city of Beirut after its lengthy and bloody series of wars. What on earth had caused them to leave- they were the greatest employees that the plant had seen in decades?
The short, jocular answer was that to get out of Detroit with its urban blight, poverty, harsh winters and harsher crime, one would do anything. In honesty, the workers on the assembly line who knew the two men were leaving secretly entertained fantasies of leaving this chronically-poor city. And yet the day the wolf and the lion asked voluntarily for resignation and were summarily approved by the management, they had far greater things on their mind than fulfilling orders of this number of automobiles or receiving the brunt of this consumer complaint. Another country, one for whom jobs in construction were always available, in contrast to the rapidly-degenerating American auto industry, so poor that the owners of the Big Three needed to ask for yet another bailout from the U.S. government, was calling the both of them.
Tarik had spoken of returning home for the longest time but did not have the money until his promotion ot supervisor. His last day of work he gave a teary-eyed speech thanking his co-workers for the warmth and hospitality he had enjoyed during his years in America but circumstances in his homeland, particularly with his ailing father prompted him to return home. It was assumed that when Justin resigned that same day that he too was leaving for Lebanon, a move which many of the auto workers viewed as detrimental.
"It's a terrorist country," a particularly-uneducated fox would say, before hand-wringing and profuse apologies on his account.
"We'll hear the name Justin Essenza after the next strike of militants in that country", another would say, this time a coyote whose parents came from Mexico would say. No one, except for the auto workers who were from Lebanon (and were good friends with Abdul-Aziz dared to comment about what his motivation. Obviously, his father had requested his presence for years and he had ignored it for some time but to give in to his demands now with no explanation why. And what of Justin Essenza, the wolf who was as American as they could come and did not have a drop of Middle Eastern blood in him, leave so suddenly? What good could come of him in Lebanon? There was nothing binding him to the city of Detroit, except for his mother but now some of Justin's brothers had arrived to take care of her needs. The workers had many questions but no answers to what had just happened in the past few weeks.
All anyone knew was that there was a gigantic feeling of emptiness without the two skilled workers. It was as though all the air had been let out of the building upon their loss. All the workers could do was shake their heads at the tragedy of losing a member of what seemed and might have actually been an extended family of blue-collar workers. But life just staggered on and the stars would look down on whatever they were doing, working hard from dawn to dusk on building automobiles and render as insignificant as the spinning of a hamster's wheel. In short, the only thing these auto workers had was each other, all members of a fraternity of blue-collar laborers, all working under the clock and trying to remain productive when the entire region around them was caught in a permanent economic slump.
And the wolf and lion moved on to someplace warmer and better, that proverbial place where the grass was greener. This was a place for sadness and the overwhelming feeling that whatever the workers were trying to do was ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of things. If the best employees were leaving, what did that say to the scrubs and temporary laborers who were working hard on the assembly line? But how could they honestly scorn those two? It was unanimous amongst the workers that if they were given the same chance they would leave Detroit in a heartbeat for someplace else- whether that led them out of the coutnry or not.
Half the world away, a plane from Athens was landing in Beirut, Lebanon, that capitol city which had seen so much destruction and upheaval in the past twenty years. Throughout the city, one could find buildings which were in the process of being repaired, scar tissue from a civil war, skirmishes with Israel and anti-Syrian riots. And yet the people of Lebanon embraced their damaged home with an enthusiasm to repair it. They had their work cut out for them- case in point, the flourishing construction trade in the country where many cities had been leveled by these wars and uprisings.
"Now, you must stay by my side for a few months because I know you never learned French or Arabic. You can live near the U.S. Embassy and they will help you become a dual citizen if you can pass a French literary test and know some of our history", Tarik spoke to the wolf, a tortured soul who thought to himself 'What have I gotten myself into?' After spending so much money and time, there would be no returning and why would he want to go back to the poverty and blight of his hometown. He remembered the promise he made when he returned home in Flint, how he would save the city, how he would save Detroit, how he would save Michigan from the economic catastrophe.
Justin had fallen far short of everything he promised himself- all he had now was a workers' permit to repair homes and offices broken by the constant wars to begin his new life. And for the first time in his life, Justin, who was taught by his father to be a man and keep his emotions bottled up, cried. It was not an outburst nor a temper tantrum but it was audible and visible. When the flight attendant came and asked him what was wrong, Justin spoke of broken dreams and incomplete promises. Perhaps he would find his true purpose in life but now he was just the Essenza who was the black sheep of the entire family, the one who had fallen astray and been swept by the wind to someplace else.