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Tooter was a shit disturber.
A big buy, he fabricated himself a weight bench for his welding booth in the shop and would crush out a set of lifts while the riggers took completed pieces out of his booth and loaded his booth with new welds. He seldomly helped them out.
There were plenty of guys in the shop that were bigger than Tooter, but they were all as scared of him as the rest of us were. He gave off the air of a guy who grew up fighting for fun and never grew out of it. He shoplifted his lunch every morning from whatever convenience store he drove by in the morning. His whole existence seemed like a challenge: “What are you going to do about it, pussy?”
Tooter was confrontational and did not take instruction or criticism well.
Unsatisfied with his performance, his foreman, one of those smaller guys who thought his physical stature was as big as his belt buckle, rolled into Tooter’s booth with disciplinary action papers. He was going to go where brave men don’t go. He was going to write up Tooter.
It did not go well. Tooter put his welder down, took his helmet off, and grabbed the foreman, manhandling him like a ragdoll. Once he grabbed onto the foreman’s coveralls, it was all over. He bent the foreman over a workbench and dry-humped him while everyone watched, for a good three minutes, more than enough time to make everything very awkward.
Tooter never did get that write-up, and everyone gave him a wide berth after that. I did not have that luxury.
One morning I strolled into the locker room to get changed and Tooter was in there. His locker was behind mine at the end of the same row. No one else was there at that time, it was just him and I. My coffee and newspaper were set down on the bench behind me as I changed into my coveralls. When I turned around to grab my paper and coffee, my newspaper was gone. There was Tooter, just going about his business as if nothing had happened.
I went downstairs with no newspaper that morning, slightly bummed, I paid another fifty cents to pick one up off of the coffee truck at the first break.
At the end of the day, as we were all taking off our coveralls, Tooter confessed to me, “Hey bro, I took your paper this morning.”
“I know,” I said.
“How did you know?” Tooter asked.
“You and I were the only two people here,” I smiled back as I replied, hoping that nothing I said would set him off, “I figured that you were hoping for a fight, and I didn’t think I could take you, so I bought another paper at coffee break”.
Tooter laughed. Thank Christ.
“Bro, you might be the only smart guy here!” he shot back as he handed me my newspaper. He hadn’t even read it, it had sat in his locker all day.
Eventually, someone had another issue with Tooter. I never did get the details, but all the way across the shop you could hear the screams of Tooter’s lead-hand as Tooter chased him through the shop. Eventually, it was followed by the distinct aluminum “TINK! TINK!” as the lead hand hit Tooter with a stray aluminum scaffold tube. Tooter kept coming like The Terminator. I was nowhere near the action, but I heard it took around six people to subdue Tooter and hold him down until the police arrived.
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