Fume Life
My arms don’t itch anymore, my hands aren’t cracked and bleeding, my lungs aren’t wheezing, and I’m not coming down from an angry high on my way home from work. Sounds peachy, but I am lost. I miss my friends and the family I built over six years working in a surfboard factory.
My room: not the one I sleep in, but it may as well be, seeing as I’ll be there for the next 12 to 14 hours. I see my art in the corner, my tools, my mask (unfortunately for my lungs, untouched), and my friends blasting their music over mine since apparently no one likes Shawn Mendes or Ed Sheeran here.
First things first, I stand in the doorway of my boss’s office and ask, “Whatcha got for me today, boss?” I say it hesitantly - praying it won’t be 15 or 16 boards with deep channels and colored bottoms.
My boss: a late 60s, scrawny, half-Asian little man with the temper of an erratic three-year-old whose toy just got taken. His feet are on the counter, a fan blasting him, cold ice water in hand and a bag of Doritos on his lap. He looks at me as if to say, “What do you want again?” Then he replies:
“Eight.”
I take a breath and head to my room.
I walk past the art room with enough paint on the walls they look like they’re bleeding. My boss had clearly had an episode. I keep moving. I pass the sander, who already has a beer open in front of his roaring, dust-filled sanding room. A strip of bright yellow INDASA tape covers the lid so no toxic fiberglass falls into his cold Corona at 11 a.m.
I keep going until I reach my room. Inside, I find my best friend, Castle - the homeless guy living in the shop’s parking lot - yelling at the “Brazilian,” who is so afraid of fumes, that he made his own space suit, and can be heard mumbling through thick plexiglass.
“Hi, sweetheart!” Castle exclaims, trying to hide the fact that they were just about to throw scissors at each other.
“Hey guys, can I have eight racks?”
Everyone scatters. Even though at 18 I am the youngest, the only girl among 40- to 60-year-old factory workers, and by far the least experienced, I am the laminator. No boards are made unless I’m working. They clear the room and tape my racks while I set up.
I go to the compressor and switch it on, listening to its roar. I reach for my resin-caked pants and my USC hoodie, practically indistinguishable from the muddy floor - thick with resin and fallen glass. I cut my hand, as always, while changing in a storage closet the size of a porta-potty, filled with stray razors, fiberglass, toxic dust, and expired chemicals.
To me, this is home. It’s a shock to the parents of a once–straight-A, swim captain, ASB president daughter - now a factory worker who ditched USC for a life of factory work - coming home with scissors the size of her head in her pockets and bags.
“A disappointment.”
Not to me. I see the opposite of who I was in high school, and anything is better than the brain I lived with back then.
A paradox to the OCD-stricken kid who couldn’t help but wash her hands every 10 minutes and hold her breath in the presence of donuts or pizza. In a factory, I can breathe. For some reason, the sticky texture of resin or the dusty particles in its “kicked” stage don’t trigger the need to wash - as if there was even an opportunity.
Our boss kept the bathroom keys and would only let us in if we were “dusted off - and not Castle.” As the only girl, I got special treatment. I could use the bathroom as long as I wasn’t “bleeding.”
Seems like a place I shouldn’t be bragging about, but to me, it was home. It felt more like home than any other of my childhood ones, which I had to bounce between every two days per the divorce agreement.
Sitting in fumes, surrounded by factory men and a homeless guy who had become my best friend - I felt seen. I was happy. I couldn’t have been happier.
I begin to work: I grab my eight boards, laying each gently on the racks. Shaped blanks are just foam - carved symmetrically by hand or machine. Within a few hours, I will have laminated them - wrapped them in fiberglass and resin - and they’ll be ready to take on XXX-pound waves at the Wedge. Until then, a slightly too-hard grab could cause a dent, a tear, a scuff, or worse - a break.
In this industry, if you break a board, “you eat it.” Getting paid $18 per board doesn’t quite make up for a $400 blank taken out of your next paycheck.
I’m inexperienced. I’m slow. I take my sweet time to make sure everything goes well. I pull my cloth from giant rolls on the wall. I take those large scissors - the ones the size of my head - and begin to cut each board perfectly. I use templates for the add-ons. I double-check. Triple check. I even have Castle put his eyes on every board before I start the hard part.
What people don’t understand is that it takes me, on average, 6 minutes to do the one thing I’m actually paid for. But I am unpaid for the hours of prep. Cutting fiberglass to wrap both sides, taping gaps or fin boxes, making sure each corner overlaps, that’s the time-consuming part. But I’m paid to laminate. That’s what I am, a laminator.
“Looks great, Sweetie,” Castle says, chowing on his Froot Loops using an unused waxy resin bucket as a bowl. I smile, nerves showing through my teeth.
“Will you stick around one more time? Just in case I mess up, I want you here.”
Silence. Castle looks like I’ve got a ghost behind me. I turn to see my boss in the doorframe, “Fumelife” spray-painted on the beam overhead.
“You got this. You don’t need help.”
As scary, demeaning, and intimidating as my boss was, he was like a father to me - unlike the others he fired for negligence or, like Castle, bullied into silence, especially since my boss was his only paycheck - my boss was a caring hardass to me.
My boss trained me, coached me and built me. He is why I am who I am today even if by the end I didn't follow the path he had carved for me.
Early on he gave me an option, “College or this.” Shocked by having an adult - a successful one, urging his children to go to college - in front of me telling me to leave USC and focus all my efforts on laminating, I believed him. I trusted that if I dropped out of USC I would find a better life building surfboards for olympians and being paid cash under the table every Friday. Castle did not.
From the start Castle told me to leave. With love, tears and anger Castle would yell at me every day, “Sweetie what the fuck are you doing here. Leave! Go to school. You are better than this, I am stuck and you are not! I never want to see you again.” What he didn't understand was although I wasn't “stuck” as he was, I would be stuck in a cycle of OCD and anxiety if I went back. I loved being in that room with him every day at 5am. I loved surfing with my boss everyday after work. I loved the yelling and screaming and throwing of materials that came when I messed up, because I knew I would never do it again.
Castle was a sweet old man. Struggling with addiction and bad luck, he lived in the back lot. He’d worked with the company for over 20 years. His kids even went to school with my boss’ kids. But my boss had little respect for him, saying he was a drug addict and told me to stay away. I don’t know if that was true. To me, Castle was the kindest, most thoughtful man I’ve ever met.
I showed up every morning at 5 a.m. I wanted time to mess up, fix it, and hide it before my boss got there. Some didn’t get it, but I loved my boss. He was harsh and intimidating, but the best in the business. I was grateful every single day for the chance to work with him and I miss it every single day.
He taught me everything. He was eager to teach. And as harsh as he was, I needed it. I needed someone to whip me into shape if I slacked off or lost focus. I was 18, fresh out of high school, burned out from 6 AP classes, swim team, club team, extracurriculars, and jobs. I was at USC but it had gone online and I was not doing well. I needed a break - and somehow, manual labor, the last place people think to take a break, became my salvation.
My boss used to take me surfing. His wife would make me breakfast. Their dog was my surrogate pup. I had never lived in Orange County, but I moved for this. I left my dad’s house and packed a bag - didn’t even tell my parents until the day I moved. I ended up living with a surf “dude” I met in the water. Luckily, it worked out. I shared a home with a fireman, a lifeguard, and a real estate developer (the surf dude), all at least four years older. It was my version of New Girl and I reveled in it.
I woke up early enough every morning to catch the sunrise at the beach, then grabbed two coffees - one for me, one for Castle - and headed to work. From 5am to 11am, 6 days a week, Castle and I would talk. We’d swap stories from our past, gossip about shop drama, and more. I couldn’t wait for my “Castle hour.”
Then I’d hear my boss’s gorgeous E30 pull into the lot. I was met with excitement seeing as I loved my boss and my boss loved me, but Castle was not. Castle would look at me, smile, and leave in a silent haste. He’d sleep in his truck - the car he parked there 15 years ago and could never afford to start again. Eventually, it became his storage unit, then his home. I'd give a hug to Castle and wait for my boss to come in before I left - hoping for a thumbs-up or, if not, some feedback. Usually, he’d offer pointers.
Then I’d change back into clean clothes and spend the rest of the day hovering near him, vying for a new lesson or skill. I followed him around like a puppy until he’d finally say, “Wanna help?”
I’d do anything for one of those experiences today.
Sitting here now, I am a full time student at USC. I left the industry apart from small commissions I do on the side for my own enjoyment. Castle passed away a year ago which marks the day I rejoined USC and came back to my true self. The political minded, book worm who loves to learn. I yearn to be in a classroom but not nearly as much as I cherished my times in a factory.
Castle passed away never having completed his truck. After I left Inertia he continued to be my best friend for two years until I got the call that he was gone. We spoke every week for at least three hours. He knew about my boyfriend, my home and all my prospects. But he never knew that I went back to USC. I like to think he's smiling.