Johnny... Johnny the Norwegian

Johnny... Johnny the Norwegian

            Motto: Any resemblance to some real characters is not accidental at all!

   Johnny was a „boy's boy”, in the current sense of the expression. In fact, he was a man in the prime of his life, struggling with all his might to make his way in life.

   Married young, he already had a child a few months old, which motivated him, once again, to fight for the well-being of his family.

    Being among the best welders in the shipyard, he worked almost non-stop in the dry dock, assembling the ships, in shifts that could last, most of the time, well over twelve hours.
    Maybe the money he earned as a result of this inhuman effort mattered, although he did not have the materially necessary time to spend it, ever, but for him it was much more important to be appreciated as a good professional and to be respected as such.
    According to the legislation of those years, he received from the Communist State, based on the recommendations of the trade union organization he was part of, and based on the approvals received from the Workers' Committee on the construction site, an apartment from the state property fund, in which he lived on rent.
    After the popular Revolution anti-Ceauşescu's communist dictatorship of December 22, 1989, followed by the military putsch organized by the Secret Services and the military conspirators, Johnny saw his life and that of his family, in the same parameters marked by common sense and the ancestral metronome of his nation.
    After the collapse of the national economy and, by implication, the shipbuilding industry, he sat quietly under his welder's mask and apron, working whenever and wherever professional welders of the skill level he had reached after thousands upon thousands of hours were needed, working as a convict.
    Fourteen years of a man's life, spent in the time tunnel, for some people can mean a disaster, as for others can mean "what do you want me to do, this is the life!"
    I can't put my hand in the fire that for Johnny that period was not a disaster at all.
    Regardless of the economic situation of the shipyard, the „tick companies” established by the executive directors, through their intermediaries - the foremen from the vital sectors of the shipyard, had permanently work. The „good guys” also had permanently work. Well, moreover, in addition to the fact that they were always „well-seen”, they were also beneficiaries of unexpected „bonuses”.
    But the time does not stand still; the Wheel of Destiny is constantly turning and people face, again and again, new more unpredictable and more challenging situations.
   Yesterday's „facade patrons” become today's „straw patrons”. Coaxed by the secret security -communist structures of a future „parallel state”, they become the pioneers of the export of cheap and super-qualified man power.
    Integrated into a „mafia” system built by the Eastern European secret services, these „scumbag bosses” do nothing but collect the most qualified people, luring them with promises that even the most radical „red Unions” would have been ashamed of.
    But, as is well known, human nature is perfectly predictable.
    People „bite” to the most aberrant promises, and even they no longer understand why they revolt when they grasp that they have been pulled on a string!
    Companies that „send” people „outside” are enormously successful. Thousands of skilled workers, including welders, sign up to catch a place on the departure lists for work „outside”.
    As we know him, Johnny focuses on his work, detached from all the madness around him.
    However, the „safety bubble” that each person projects is not the safest refuge in a society in full transformation.
    Johnny's foreman, who became, overnight, "straw patron", lures him to the „advantages” of working abroad. He spoke with his wife, weighing all the pluses and minuses of such an adventure, and they concluded, by mutual agreement, that going to work outside the country's borders would only bring them benefits.
                                                                           *
    On that morning of March 2007, Johnny, together with several colleagues from the shipyard's new buildings factory, was quietly waiting in the „Departures” terminal Bucharest International Airport for the time to board the plane that was going to take them to Amsterdam Schipol Airport.    
    There, he was to board a SAS flight on the Amsterdam - Oslo route and, after a good few hours' wait at Gardermeon Airport in Oslo, they had to board a domestic flight on the Oslo - Haugesund route.
    At Haugesund Airport, located, in fact, on the island of Karmøy, a minibus of the Norwegian company that was the beneficiary of labor imported from Romania was waiting for them.
    Climbed over each other, into the cramped minibus, with the voluminous luggage held in their arms, our Romanians were in a state of general euphoria.
    We cannot be certain whether this condition was due only to the numerous Bacchic libations, made along that endless road, or to that boundless joys given by the hopes of a new beginning.
    The two-lane road, on which the speed outside the towns was limited to 70 km/h, the small urban agglomerations with their wooden houses, almost standard, painted white, the sea suddenly appearing on their right, biting the rocky and fringed shore, gave them the feeling that they had stepped into another world.
    They had already passed Kopervik, then through Åkra, Stol, Ferkingstad and Sandve, when they saw the IKA market on the right and, immediately on the left, the Skudenes campsite which was already announcing the entrance to Skudeneshavn.
    The minibus driver had a list received from the employing company, which provided all the accommodations, on which were listed the houses where each of the sixteen Romanian workers were to be camped, identified by the names of the Norwegian owners, as well as the names of those who were to live in they.
    Randomly, Johnny get off the minibus with the last group to be accommodated. We can say that it was lucky, because the minibus stops were made, in order, from the outskirts of the small town towards its center.
    Thus, Johnny began his Norwegian „adventure” by settling in an elegant and comfortable house in the central area of ​​the small town of Skudeneshavn.
                                                                              *
    In just a few days, the Romanians who had arrived at Haugesund Airport with only some more or less voluminous suitcases, were flying around the town on bikes that were more and more "eye -catching". In just a few weeks, some of these bicycles, dismantled and ingeniously packed, would arrive in Romania by plane!
    The hot season was already approaching and, in a little while, it was going to start the exterior painting campaign of Norwegian wooden houses, so that our boys went into „trepidation” to get at least a „job” at one of the houses that negotiated „black work”.
    But Johnny, as we know him, cares about his own life. The only one and the big one passion of him being the fishing, he could not be separated from it for anything in the world.
    Every day he was at the wharf where the ferry boats that made regular runs between Stavanger and Skudeneshavn docked, with all his fishing equipment rigged up.
    In the mornings, when he worked the night shift, or in the afternoons, when he had worked the day shift, he sat „with his stick in the puddle”, waiting for the big catch.
                                                                           *
    On that beautiful day in May, engineer Ady Mitru woke up a little after lunchtime. He had worked, as usual, as a supervisor on the night shift and was going to start his preparations for going to work and taking over a new shift.
    He was just about to go upstairs, where the living room and kitchen were, when he heard the doorbell ring. He thought that perhaps the Norwegian owner had come in contact with some problem related to the management of the respectable house.
 
    But... surprise!
    In front of the entrance, leaning on the bicycle that had just come down, Johnny the welder was smiling at him with his whole big and round face.
    - Hello, Mr. engineer! How are you? - he approaches him, jovially.
    - Hello Johnny! What's up with you here?
    - It's okay, what could it be?! Look, I just came from fishing. Today I had an amazing day! I caught about five „dragons”, you won't believe it!... And he shows the engineer the trunk of the bike, on which they barely sat to prevent five huge fish, about two meters long, each.
    - Well done, Johnny! Congratulations! Sorry, but I cannot invite you to serve something because I'm getting ready to enter the night shift!
    - Please relax! Thanks! This is not what I came for! I came to leave you these „dragons”.
    - Hey, are you crazy? What the hell am I supposed to do with these „monsters”? Especially since I don't even like fish!
    - Come on, Mr. engineer! It's not fair! How can you refuse such beauty of a fish?! - exclaimed Johnny, smacking her fat lips, with a lust that actually made her mouth to salivate!
    The engineer was so impressed by the pathos with which Johnny praised his "booty" that he gave in, with a shrug and a long sigh:
    - Ok, Johnny! Come let me show you where to put them... and he opened an outer door, immediately to his right, which led to the fish store on the ground floor of the house. On the opposite side was the double door that led to the wharf where the Norwegians moored with their boats full of fish. The warehouse was equipped with ultra-modern refrigerated boxes, which were used to store fish caught in the Norwegian Sea.
    Johnny found an empty freezer chest, very clean, on the bottom of which he placed the first fish, about two meters long. He returned to the bicycle and grabbed another one, something over five feet long, which he placed on the bottom of the freezer case, next to the other one.
    Just as he was about to take the third one, the engineer cut off his moose.
    - Stop! It is enough! These two are enough! You know that I'm not going to use them... I'm going to leave them to my colleague who is coming to replace me at the beginning of next month.
    - Come on, Mr. engineer! It's not fair! Can't you see?! I carried these „dragons” especially for you! And now... what are you doing to me? Are you sending me back with the loot?!
    - Leave it, Johnny, because even if you leave them here, you leave them for nothing! Better get those three back and call the boys over for a barbecue on Sunday. Tell them it's my honor! Look, I'll give you two hundred crowns to buy a beer shuttle.
    - Aaa... well, if that's the case, you have thousands of thanks from us. You can't even imagine how happy the boys will be!
    Done, I'm off! Thank you very much!
    - And I thank you for the „dragons” - said Ady, as returned to the house to resume his daily routine of preparing for the night shift.
                                                                            *
    The years passed and Johnny got a job, „directly”, as welder at one of the Norwegian companies in Haugesund.
    He rented a house right at the entrance to Skudeneshavn, next to the ICA store, opposite the Skudenes campsite. Shortly after that, he brought his wife with him and, a little later, his only son, after he had finished his studies in Romania.
    Shortly after the installation of Lora, Johnny's wife, in her new home, Greg the Fisherman asked him:
    - Do you hear Johnny? Does Lora know that the house where you live now is haunted by the ghost of hanged old Hank?
    - Come on Greg! - replied Johnny, red in the face like a boiled crab. God damn it if Lora finds out from any of you that I rented the house haunted by the ghost of hanged old Hank! She will kill me!
 
    Not long after, he bought his own house, located on Vardenvegen, increasing the community of Romanians in Skudeneshavn alongside Greg the Fisherman, Costy the Fireman and all the other work colleagues settled there two or three years before him.
                                                                            *
    It was around August 2014 when Ady Mitru's phone rang early in the morning.
    - Hello... yes, it's me... who am I talking to?
    - Good morning Mr. engineer, it's me, Stephen the welder, your neighbor on the B floor!
    - Hello Steph! Good morning! How are you?
    - Ok, Mr. engineer! Look, I called to invite you for a beer this afternoon, together with Johnny. He's now in Romania, on vacation.
    - Johnny? Which Johnny?
    - Come on! How "which Johnny?" The welder, our neighbor! Johnny... Johnny the Norwegian!