Eddie's Shorts - Volume 4

by M. Edward McNally

Eddie’s Shorts

  Volume IV:

  *

  Flipper the Stripper

  Justice in Ireland

  *

  By M. Edward McNally

  Copyright 2011 M. Edward McNally

  Flipper the Stripper

  There are a good four things wrong with this Monday morning.

  First and foremost is just that: It's Monday. First day of the work week, though of course everything you earn today is going to the government. Which begs the question; why the hell show up for work?

  But like a putz I do, and so there I am smack dab in the midsection of the second reason this is shaping up to be a truly lousy day, which is the work itself. See, I'm a stripper.

  No, no, no, not one of those. I don't shake my money-maker for anything but purely recreational purposes, not that Chip'n'Dales or whoever has been beating my door down. No, what I do to pay the rent is strip photo-reagent off panels of little metal parts that go into pacemakers and computers and missile guidance systems and God-knows-what-all. The photo-reagent is this grapefruit-juice colored goo that goes all over the panels when the parts are laminated and etched out, and you get it off with a line of tanks full of Pratta brand “hot stripper.” Then weak hydrochloric acid, then alcohol, with rinse tanks in between. Then you dry the panels in ovens, or blot ‘em gently with towels for the smaller, more delicate stuff. That's what I do: Soak and rinse and dry these panels, for ten hours a day, four days a week. Or five, on glorious time-and-a-half, if we're behind. And we are pretty much always behind.

  I'm a stripper, and as such, my Monday's are lousy from the get-go. This particular one I'm talking about now doesn't stop there, of course. It's also raining out, which is hardly rare for Tacoma, but it means that on cigarette breaks everybody will have to huddle against the wall out by the loading dock, like we're all guests at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Really blows dog, as the kids are wont to say.

  Fourth and finally, something is up. Up as in jammed up, screwed up, or the explicative of your choice, up. I know this because I've been doing my little strip gig here at Kirkson Parts Inc. for some years now, and after that long I can read the signs. No, not the ones that say don't drink the hydrochloric, I could read those when I got here. I mean the signs that say the shit is starting to circle in the air, looking for a fan.

  One end of the long room where the Strip and Prep decks are located gives into the front offices, and all morning there's been quite the hub-bub going on out there. People keep scurrying by past the door talking real fast (though I can't make out what they've been saying from my deck, not over the country music on the radio), and about twenty some-odd minutes ago the Lord of the Manor, Wayne Kirkson himself, went barreling through here heading for Inspection, with his tie and two supervisors, Bruce and Sharon, flapping behind him. Wayne is the owner of our fine establishment and he's usually only in here once or twice a week (providing he's not in Barbados, or some-damn-wheres), and even then, it's never at 8:30 in the morning. I don't know what it is yet, but something, sports fans, is most definitely up.

  Besides keeping half an eye and ear on the door up front, I've spent the last hour-and-a-half since I rolled in doing the Monday morning change on my strip and hydro tanks. The line is ready to go, except for strip tank two, which is stuck at 114 degrees. So I'm stirring it around with a sawed-off broom handle, trying to coax it up to 130, when from behind me I hear somebody start singing, softly.

  "They call him...Flipper...Flipper. Flipper the..." a longer pause. "Stripper."

  I look away from the steaming Pratta, over my shoulder. Geraldine Fenwyk is standing on the floor, leaning with her forearms against one of my drying tables, and a sneaker dotted with orange stains from the etchers tapping against the deck (the purple goo dries orange). She's pointing at me, and from the end of her extended finger, in a yellow rubber glove, a circular part hangs from a wire hook.

  "For me?" I ask, and Geri nods.

  "Don't say I never gave you anything," she says, and manages a smack from her nicotine gum. Geri's one of half dozen college kids Wayne takes on through a temp service, just for the summer. They do most of the grunt/scurrying work over the heavy months, Geri for instance is a runner. She takes parts from Cutting to Prep to Printing to Lamination to Etching to Stripping to Inspection to Packing, and back and forth and in between and all over the damn place. We tend to get a real high turnover among the college kids, and there will probably be twenty of them through here for the six openings in the next three months. Turns out that Philosophy and what-not majors can only stand feeding rolls of metal sheets into a cutter for just so long, before they bolt for a bar, or a library, or whatever.

  Geri might hold out, though. She's got a decent attitude and seems to keep herself amused, running around all day. She's maybe a bit too chipper in the morning, but that can be forgiven as she is definitely easy on the eyes. Right now she looks pretty with her hair bunched back in a loose pony-tail, and across the room on the Prep deck I can see that Cowboy Doug is enjoying the view in jeans from behind.

  "So you going to strip for me or not?" Geri waggles the part around over the table and tilts her head. I've got to grin at that. I take the stirrer out of number two and set it aside, then take the part by the hook. It's a circle of metal about four inches across, and a fraction of a fraction of an inch thick. It has been etched already, so the fine, spidery design is covered with purple mucous.

  I hook the wire over another sawed-off broom stick and then set that lengthwise across the top of tank one, with the part hanging down into the Pratta, and hit the timer above it. Seconds start clicking off, and I notice Geri is still hanging around at the drying table, looking at the smoke coming off the stripper. The Pratta stripper, not me.

  "So what is this?" I nod towards the submerged part. "First sample of an Eagle order?"

  Geri nods. "Yeah, Len wants it back when it's clean." Len is the head etcher, king of his domain, like I am of mine.

  "I thought we were going to finish that Honeywell order this morning."

  Geri shakes her head. The radio is over on Doug's Prep deck and he's got it tuned to a country station. Some twangy, whiny thing is on. Geri rocks back and forth on her heels in time and starts making little rumbling Elvis-y noises in the back of her throat, too quiet for Doug to hear.

  "No can do, Stripper man. Etcher one is down, so Len's trying to get two going on the Eagle order."

  "Down and out?" I ask. Geri shrugs.

  "Don't know, but it sure sounds pretty sickly. A lot like this song." She glances behind her over at Doug, who is rinsing a plastic bucket full of pacemaker battery cases out at the sink with his back to us, and humming along with the radio. Geri looks back at me and rolls her eyes. "Don't you usually have that radio?"

  "He got here first," I say. The Eagle sample has been in the stripper for a minute and a half now, which is long enough for a single part. I take the hook off the stick and lift the part out. The goo has dropped off and left it shiny silver. I rinse it in two water tanks, shaking it out good between, and hang it into a tank of diluted hydrochloric acid for another ninety second soak. I turn back to Geri, who has walked along at the base of the deck. The deck is actually just a step up from the ground, but it runs about forty feet along the tanks and the white fume hood that hangs over them.

  "So is that why Wayne is running around here?" I ask. "Because of the etcher?"

  Geri raises an eyebrow. "Wayne's here? Monday morning? What, is the building on fire?"

  "You haven't seen him in etching?" I ask. Geri shakes her head.

  "Huh," I say, and look back towards the door to the front.

  We make a little more small talk about the weekend, t
hough neither of us did much of anything. After the part comes out of the hydro, it gets another rinse, then goes just briefly through two alcohol baths. I always thought it was kind of funny that here at this high tech company making parts where .001 inch can ruin a whole run, an important stage in the process is sticking them in alcohol and "jiggling" them around. How's that for precision?

  I could put the Eagle part in the oven, but it's just as easy to hand-dry it by itself. I do that, laying it down careful between spotless white cloths, and blotting gently over it with a balled-up towel, both sides, then put it back on the hook and hand the shining silver circle back to Geri.

  "Right then, off I go!" she says, and turns back for the door to etching, "And hey, I'll see if I can't get the skinny on why the boss-man cometh."

  "You do that," I nod. Then I notice that Doug has ducked out for a pee break, so I go steal back the radio.

  *

  The Eagle run apparently looks good to the naked eye, so Len starts sending whole panels of eight through his etcher. Geri starts bringing them over by sets of four, carrying them on upside-down plastic lids, like they were pizzas. Soaking wet, reagent stained, micro-thin, pizzas. After I've stripped the first twelve panels she takes them over to Ving in inspection. It'll be at least ten or twenty minutes until he gets them under the mag and sends the official okay or nay back to Len, so I take the opportunity to peel off my gloves and duck out the back.

  Len had the same idea. He is already out by the dock, pressed up against the wall with rain coming down in a drizzle over the edge of the roof, just about two inches beyond the tip of his cigarette. Len's a thick set little guy, and his eyes are close together so he looks like he's glaring at something even when he's not, though he usually is. I light a cigarette myself and scoot out next to him.

  "Hey Flip," he says. He still has his rubber apron on and it's getting a little wet. Old orange etcher fluid is starting to drip to the asphalt from the bottom. I've got my apron on too, but it's nowhere near as gooed up as his. "How's your wife and my kids?" Len asks me.

  "We sold those ugly idjits years ago," I say back, and lean against the wall next to him. Me and Len have worked here the same amount of time, so by now we probably have a couple of months in mutual cigarette breaks built up. I point at the orange ring forming in front of Len's stained shoes. "What the hell have you been doing over there? Looks like you ran yourself through an etcher."

  "You're not far off," Len sneers. "I've been hip deep in number one's guts for the better part of an hour. Flipper, I think she's had it for good this time." Len crosses himself with his cigarette butt, then flicks it away into the rain.

  "That why Wayne's here today?" I ask, but Len shakes his head.

  "Not so far as I know. Geri said you saw him in here this morning, but we ain't seen him in Etching yet. Lucky for him, too." Len turns so he can gesture without sticking an arm out in the rain. "You know, we never had this kind of shit, everything falling apart, 'til Wayne cut out the contractors and tried to do all the upkeep protocols in-house. Not to mention the damn cleaning. Have you gone in the john over by Cutting for a while? Christ, it's like the end of the goddam world in there!"

  That 's all true, of course. Heck, up to three years ago we were running two stripper lines with four guys full-time, and now it's just me and a temp kid two or three days a week. Things are tough all over, and I'm about tell Len as much, but get interrupted by a long roll of thunder. Not from the weather, from a plane. Kirkson Inc. is positioned right in the flight path for SeaTac, and all day the big planes are coming in low on their final approach, gear down, looking so big like you could stand on your tippy-toes on the roof and reach right up and grab a wing. Me and Len turn and look up as this one comes in through the rain, shaking the whole dock.

  "Hope he slides into the Sound," Don narrows his eyes at the jet as it disappears behind the warehouses across the way.

  "Powell! Gant!" a woman's voice barks out right beside us. It sounds just like Sharon Granger, the front office supervisor, and both me and Len jump and look guiltily in her direction. It's not like it's a big deal that we're grabbing a quick smoke or anything, it just doesn't look good on a day when Wayne is here.

  But it's not Sharon, it's Geri again. She snuck up on us along the wall while the plane was going over, and now she puts her hands behind her back and blinks innocently.

  "Goddammit!" Len snaps. Geri gives a little laugh and ducks out into the rain, then squeezes against the wall between us. She usually sidles up next to somebody on a smoke break. She says she quit a month ago, but still needs the smell now and again. She also tends to break down and hit somebody up for one by midafternoon on real slow days, while still claiming she no longer smokes (she says they don't count if you bum them).

  Geri closes her eyes and inhales deep through her nose. "Ah," she sighs, "I love the smell of wet tobacco in the morning. It smells like...wet tobacco in the morning."

  "Don't you have any work to do?" Len says. Not like he himself is hurrying back inside.

  "Not at present, Ving's still looking at the panels." Geri opens her eyes and looks from Len to me. "Anything else on your mind?"

  "You find out why Wayne's here?" I ask.

  "I did indeed." Geri nods. "He and the supe's were ransacking the crates in Inspection for a good part of the morning. Ving was, of course, naturally curious."

  "What are they looking for?" I ask. Len is looking curious too, and Geri's clearly enjoying dragging us along.

  "Well, Wayne was apparently rather tight-lipped about the whole thing, didn't want to say. But Ving cornered Bruce a little later..."

  "Would you cut to the damn chase already?" Len snaps. Geri looks at him and smiles.

  "Gimme a cigarette."

  Len grumbles, but does, and Geri sticks it in her back pocket for later.

  "Well?" Len demands.

  Geri's grin widens. "They're looking for gold."

  *

  "Gold," Ving confirms. "Whole big-ass crate of it."

  The three of us, Len, Geri, and me, are in Inspection, standing in a semicircle around Ving's table. There are eight of the tables, high things with dense plastic tops, lit from inside. The whole area is kept just real clean and precision looking, even though there's generally several crates of parts and battery cases piled around on the carpet. Ving is the only one here this morning, and when we came in he was hunched over the first few panels of the Eagle run, sliding the parts under a wide magnifying glass attached by a multi-jointed black arm to the table-side. Now he has pulled off his silk gloves and is giving us the low-down.

  "Bruce says he checked Plating before he locked up Friday night, and it was still there. This morning, poof!"

  "Hang on," Len says. "What the hell was it doing here? We haven't gold-plated anything in more than a month!"

  "Got an Ambrecht order next week," Ving says. "Gold's been here since Thursday."

  "I didn't see it."

  "Len, they don't write 'Gold' on the side of the crate," I tell him myself. "If you didn't go hide in the crapper every time a truck comes in, you'd know that."

  Geri snorts at him. "I always wondered why I never see you helping unload."

  Ving shakes a scornful finger Len's way, and calls him a "Razy American." That’s a running joke, as Ving's family is Thai or something, even though they've been in the states since like, well forever.

  "So why was Wayne looking for it in here?" I ask.

  "He wasn't, they were going through Packing," Ving jerks a thumb at the back door of the room. "We're talking about a whole damn crate here, you know how much those bastards weigh. Wayne, in some fit of self-delusion, apparently hoped nobody could get it out easy and was going to try and ship it out with the regular orders. They were opening up everything we've got waiting."

  "No dice?" Len asks.

  "Nor gold, neither."

  "So where are Wayne and his lackeys now?" Geri asks.

  "Back up front, figuring out what the h
ell to do now, I 'magine."

  We all sort of nod and look thoughtful. Then a thought occurs to me, and to Len at the same time, Our heads both jerk and we look at each other.

  "Uh-oh," Len says, and Ving nods at us.

  "What?" Geri says. "I can see the light bulbs over your heads."

  "So it got nicked over the weekend," Len says.

  Ving nods.

  "And nobody busted in here, that they can tell, right?" I add.

  Ving shakes his head.

  "So it was an inside job..." Geri prompts us.

  "Somebody with a key," Ving finally voices what we're thinking.

  Geri looks at the three of us. "Okay, so that's Wayne, Sharon and Bruce,"

  "And the area heads," Len mutters, and the three of us each get our key rings out of back- and shirt pockets. We hold them in front of us like we're going to knock them together and activate our Wonder Triplet powers.

  We just stand there for a minute, until Len finally sighs and says, "Crap." Then he looks around and gives us a tired smile. "Anybody wanna guess who's up first?"

  *

  Cowboy Doug snagged the radio again while I was in Inspection, and it's twanging away over on his Prep line again. I've been watching him for a bit, thinking that technically he is the head of the Prep area (he's also the only one that works over there), though I'm not sure if he has a key or not. Only one's I'm sure about are me, Len and Ving, Arnie in Cutting, Flo in Lamination, and Dorothy in Printing. While I'm trying to think if anybody else might have one, Geri steps up on the deck next to me and says, "Looks like Etching's closed down for a while."

  I look at her. She's been running panels over here for about an hour, but now her hands are empty.

  "Len in the office?" I ask, and she nods.

  "Bruce came and got him just now, said that Wayne would like to speak with him. How'd Len know they were going to talk to him first?" Geri asks.

  I sigh. "Len has a record. Kid stuff really, cars and what-not. He did a couple years, though. For theft."

  Geri opens her eyes wider. "Really?"

  I suppose I frown at her. "Look, Len wouldn't have stolen anything from here. I mean sure, he bitches constantly about the place, but so do we all. It's not all that bad a job though, and Len's not going to work it for twelve years and then all-of-a-sudden decide to boost a box of gold."