Dell Weeks’s habitual heavy drinking

Dell Weeks’s drinking is a recurring feature of his work life, not a single lapse: by the end of the week, alcohol can leave him too impaired to work, yet also governs when the crew may relax and what misconduct he chooses to overlook. His changing manner makes the crew’s workplace both permissive and unpredictable, especially for Thomas Birdsey, whom Dell singles out for humiliation.

Pattern and Workday

Dell’s drinking follows a recognizable weekly progression. He does not drink before noon and usually holds off until the middle of the week; by Thursday or Friday, he begins sipping from a pint bottle of Seagram’s at lunch and is often wasted by midafternoon. The detail that drinking starts during the workday matters: intoxication is woven into the crew’s routine rather than confined to private hours, and the afternoon’s pace comes to depend on whether Dell is still supervising or has drifted off.

On drinking afternoons, Dell may curl up to sleep in the shade of a tree, beside the city truck, or even beneath it. If the crew finishes early, he tells the workers to go elsewhere and leave him alone, except to alert him if Lou Clukey’s truck appears. His sleep gives the men periods of unmonitored time, but that latitude is conditional: the possibility of a supervisor arriving remains in the background, and Dell expects the crew to protect his rest as well as its own freedom.

A Volatile Manner

Alcohol does not produce one consistent version of Dell. Sometimes he becomes companionable, putting an arm around a worker’s shoulder and treating the low wages as a reason not to overexert oneself. At other times, he needles and harasses the crew, voicing racist and homophobic abuse about workers and college students. The contrast is not simply between a pleasant sober man and a cruel drunk: his drinking makes his conduct swing between camaraderie and contempt, leaving the men to work out which version they will encounter.

The volatility becomes especially consequential when Dell directs an insult at Thomas. During one confrontation, Thomas breaks down crying and responds by exposing himself in an attempt to make Dell stop. The scene registers the accumulated pressure of the harassment rather than an ordinary exchange of workplace banter. Dell’s conduct has turned a work relationship into a public humiliation, and Thomas’s response makes the harm visible to the crew.

Tolerance and Mutual Secrecy

Dell’s impairment also creates an informal bargain. He knows that the younger workers have been smoking marijuana during the summer, but says he has not reported them so long as they complete their jobs. He invokes the prospect that a report could bring both a police cruiser and a worker’s father to the job site, then frames the arrangement as reciprocal: the crew keeps quiet about his drinking, while he looks away from their smoking. His leniency therefore protects the workers, but it also depends on their silence about his own repeated intoxication.

The terms of that bargain become explicit when Leo Blood returns to confront Dell. Leo points out that the crew’s private conduct includes both smoking and Dell’s getting drunk on the job several days a week; he also connects Dell’s harassment of Thomas with the distress that has driven Thomas to tears. Dell does not answer that criticism by acknowledging the harm. Instead, he insults Thomas again, showing how readily the supposed workplace understanding gives way to the same cruelty it was meant to excuse.

Consequences and Significance

The arrangement helps explain why the crew can treat Dell’s drinking as both an open secret and a practical constraint. His naps allow stretches of free time, and his failure to report the workers shields them from discipline, but the bargain offers no protection when he chooses to target someone. His authority remains intact even when he is impaired: he can set the crew’s terms, tolerate some violations, and humiliate Thomas without resolving the contradiction between the two.

Dell’s habitual drinking thus organizes a small workplace through alternating indulgence and threat. The workers gain room to evade supervision, but the price is an expectation of mutual concealment, and the most vulnerable member of the crew remains exposed to Dell’s abuse. The pattern shows how intoxication can become part of a group’s daily rules without making the resulting power relations equal or harmless.