by Robin Lamont
Today’s nightmare, thought Emmet. I gotta get Vernon back in the box. Only yesterday, he’d reassigned Tim Vernon to the loading pens. Complaints had come in that the long-time stunner was toying with the equipment and threatening to electrocute anyone who looked cross-eyed at him. The others were scared of him. And rightly so. Emmet didn’t know how much longer the guy could even stay employed; Vernon’s wire thin composure was stretched to the breaking point. But his replacement wasn’t handling the job and had already asked to be moved. It took a certain type of sociopath to drop forty-six hundred hogs a day.
As he headed out to the pens, Emmet heard a couple of the men whistle and from the corner of his eye saw a few quick hand movements. He knew what some of the signals meant and could count on the fact that right now metal pipes were getting kicked under the walls of the chute, electric prods getting holstered. Don’t know what you’re talking about, ain’t no USDA violations here. As many years as he had been working with these guys, however, Emmet still didn’t understand all the signals. The Latinos worked better if they were kept together and they’d developed a kind of unspoken language between them. Sometimes it was the barest movement of a head that told the other workers who was coming onto the floor or what was happening at the other end of the line. And the damndest thing was, it seemed to be a universal language. Hell, they had about ninety percent turnover a year. Guys quitting, new ones coming in all the time – and no matter where they came from they all knew the code. Sure enough, when Emmet looked behind him, he saw an inspector not far behind.
At the head of the chute, the men had gotten the message that Emmet was on his way, and they weren’t happy. They were trying to move the hogs along with just their hands and plastic paddles. It wasn’t easy. There was one balking at the entrance, holding up everything. Emmet barked out a command for someone to get him moving and in response, Vernon whipped out an electric prod and jammed it into the hog’s rear end. The pig screamed and leapt forward, barreling into the one in front of him.
“Goddamn it, Vernon,” shouted Emmet. “Put that away!”
Vernon grinned back at him, a wild look in his eyes.
“What are you going to do, Chapel, write him up?” This from the kid known as Crank, who had walked up next to him. “If we don’t use the prods, we don’t get ’em set up fast enough, and if we do use the prods, we get written up,” he complained. “It’s fucked.”
“Just do the best you can,” said Emmet.
“Best don’t cut it,” complained Crank. “Warshauer was by earlier and reamed us good.”
“What’d he say?”
“He’s screaming at us that the Mexicans down the line are waiting around with their thumbs up their asses.”
A few of Crank’s fellow workers grumbled their agreement, giving the kid courage. He stepped up in Emmet’s face. “We can’t fuckin’ keep up and if you won’t do something about it, we will.”
“Oh, yeah?” responded Emmet angrily. “What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know, maybe we’ll talk to the animal rights lady.”
“Then you’re lookin’ for another job.”
“Word’s getting around, you know. I hear she come down here on account of Marino. At least he was trying to do something.”
“No one talks to her, Crank. This is D&M business, and D&M pays your rent, your gas money, and your drugs. You know damn well you won’t get anything else around here that pays a decent wage.”
“Decent? You call eleven bucks an hour decent? And we get nuthin’ unless the chain’s running. If the inspectors shut it down, we stand around and don’t get paid squat!”
The muscles over Emmet’s cheekbones clenched. “I can’t change that. You don’t like it, leave.”
“Just might, Chapel. I thought maybe you was gonna actually give a crap like Marino did, but you’re just another one of Warshauer’s whores.”
Emmet spun on his heels and walked away to keep from hauling off and decking the kid. But for the rest of the morning, his hands twitched with a need to make contact with something hard.
At noon, he steered clear of the parking lot where most of the men ate their lunch and instead went to the separate break room for management. Patrick LaBrie was at a table near the vending machine eating some kind of instant soup he’d heated in the microwave. Emmet pulled out the paper bag meal that Alice had prepared – a bologna sandwich, a bag of tortilla chips and an apple.
He worked on his sandwich in silence, then tore open the bag of chips with his teeth and commented, “Warshauer’s been driving the line pretty hard today.”
“Uh yunh,” mumbled LaBrie.
“Out in loading, they’re using the prods and making the hogs jumpy. You know, Pat, we can do, like, eight or nine a minute, but it gets going faster’n that and it causes big problems inside on the kill floor.”
LaBrie didn’t even look up from his soup.
“You ought to come by and take a look,” suggested Emmet.
“That’s not my job, Chapel.”
“The hell it isn’t. You’re USDA, it’s your job to make sure there’s compliance with The Humane Slaughter Act.”
Waving him off with his plastic spoon, LaBrie said, “Don’t start with me, Emmet. I’m on the other side the building looking at organs. I can’t leave my station.”
“Then send one of the other inspectors, and for Christ’s sake, don’t announce it ahead of time.”
“I don’t tell anyone else what to do.”
“Jesus, Pat. There’s shit goin’ on over there.”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” said LaBrie, closing his eyes behind his big glasses.
“Well, somebody’s got to do something. And if I start writing up violations that go in their file, I can’t get the men to work with me,” said Emmet, exasperated.
“Bullshit,” said LaBrie, wiping his mouth. “If you start writing up violations, Warshauer will fire your ass. That’s what’s bothering you.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do? I got a scared kid stunning the hogs because I had to take that psycho Vernon out and put him in loading, and now he’s out there ramming prods up the hogs’ asses. It’s not right.”
“Talk to Cimino.”
Emmet said hotly, “Cimino’s useless. He just wants to lay low until he retires with a big ole pension. Asking him to do something is like pissing in the wind. He never comes out to lairage to look at sick hogs, and he says he doesn’t control what happens on the kill floor. He’s a vet, for Christ’s sake, but he doesn’t give a crap about the animals.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” said LaBrie stiffly, getting up to clear his place. “I have to get back to work. We’re all just trying to survive, you know?”
Emmet had a reply on the tip of his tongue, but when he looked up, Lawrence Cimino was standing in the doorway. Tension crackled between them as it became clear that the senior USDA man had overheard the last of the conversation. Emmet dumped the rest of his lunch in the garbage before brushing past him.
Throughout the afternoon, Emmet’s frustration built. There were no major mishaps, but the sight and sound of the hog screaming when Vernon jammed him … for some reason that stayed with him. The plain truth was that animals were being abused – beaten, prodded, stabbed – just to get them to slaughter. He kept picturing Jude Brannock and the way she squared off against him at the trailer park, the angle of her chin catching in his headlights, her eyes alight with a fierce determination to fight for something she believed in. But that image, however alluring, also reminded him of her purpose here in Bragg Falls. If Brannock got hold of proof of what was happening at the plant, he could lose his job. His car needed a new transmission, and just yesterday, he’d written a check for Caroline’s meds, which meant they’d have to shut off the cable TV and Will wouldn’t be able to watch his favorite shows.
La
Brie was right. The name of the game was survival and Brannock was putting everything he had worked for in jeopardy. The truth might be plain to see, but it wasn’t a simple truth.
By quitting time, the pressure on the floor had given Emmet a brutal headache and the pint of vodka in his glove compartment was the only release valve he had. Sometimes after work, he and Frank would sit in the parking lot at the Lazy Cat and finish off a bottle in the car before they ever went inside. Frank preferred his Jim Beam, but Emmet was convinced that vodka was less obvious on his breath when he got home. As the last of the day shift exited, he unscrewed the cap and with the bottle still in the paper bag, he drank deeply. The alcohol was smooth going down his throat, then followed with its comforting burn. He took another swallow and waited for the buzz, the release, the anesthesia that would deaden the pain.
He was down to a third of a bottle and still hadn’t started the car when he heard tapping on the driver’s window. He looked up and saw a familiar face.
“You’re Caroline’s dad, right?” asked the man.
Emmet slowly got out of the car. “Yeah, hi...”
“Vince Guarino. My daughter Rosie goes to school with Caroline.”
“Oh sure,” said Emmet. As he stood up, feeling the full brunt of the vodka, he had a vague memory of sitting next to Guarino at a track meet the year before.
“I just got a job on the cleaning crew,” said Vince. “My wife got laid off and I figured I could pull in a little extra income … working a second job at night.”
“Well, uh, glad it fits your schedule.”
“So, your family’s well?”
“Yup, and you?”
“Good, good. How’s your daughter doing in school? Junior year’s a tough one.”
“She’s fine.” Emmet forced a chuckle. “Could improve her grades some.”
“Tell me about it.”
Warming slightly to a fellow parent with a seemingly underachieving child, Emmet said, “Yeah, she could get straight A’s if she wanted, but she’s lazy. The only thing she seems interested in is her Italian class.”
“Italian?”
“Yeah, she’s taking first year Italian. Always lugging around her text book and talking to her little brother in Italian.”
Guarino frowned. “Maybe you mean Spanish? Because they don’t teach Italian at the high school.”
Chapter 18
Caroline sat cross-legged on the floor, her back against the bed, her headphones clamped to her ears to keep her mom and younger brother at a distance. The music and the book in her hands were transporting her to another place and time. She got the travel book from the school library because of its vivid color photographs of Italy. She lingered at one particular picture – an early evening at the Piazza de Spagna in Rome. The sky was a silky blue and a gold, setting sun shone on a crowd of young people who milled about the steps of the Trinità dei Monti church. The scene was vibrant, yet peaceful, and even though the anti-anxiety medication was making Caroline nauseous, a sweet warmth moved through her as she pictured herself sitting on those same steps. In her imagination, her hair was grown out, long and luxurious; she wore a string of fake pearls and a flowing white skirt. She was sitting next to a handsome, funny Italian boy and they were laughing. Matteo maybe, or Bertrando. He was one of the group of friends she’d made in that glorious summer – the last summer.
The fantasy dissolved, as it invariably did, into the final scene. This time she was floating face down in the murky water of a canal, her skirt billowing out around her like a sail. Her friends clung to one another and wept on the embankment. Caroline closed her eyes and tried to feel what it would be like to be dead. Could she see what her friends were doing? Her parents? Would she be lonely?
Without warning, her father burst into the room, bringing with him the heat of fury. Her guard should have been up right away, but the medication had made her foggy; she merely raised her eyes without taking off her headphones.
“I swear to God, you will not lie to me again, Caroline,” he growled.
“What?” she asked, her mouth dry.
“Take those things off!”
Oh yeah. He hated when she kept her earplugs in when he was talking. She pulled them out of her ears and the present came back into focus. “What is it now?” she asked.
“Your Italian course,” he said darkly. “The one that takes all your time from your other work.”
“Oh.” She paled.
“You lied to me and you lied to your mother.”
“Well, I don’t think I actually told you–”
“Goddamn it, Caroline. You told us that you were studying Italian in school, and now I find out that they don’t teach Italian. Meanwhile, your other grades are going down the toilet. What the hell is going on?”
“I’m not going to fail anything, Dad,” she said peevishly.
“Don’t take that tone with me. According to your last report card, you’re damn close. You don’t get it. Life is hard. It’s not some gondola trip in Venice. It’s time you shape up, young lady.”
“I’m not going to fail. Get a life, Dad.”
His daughter’s petulance made Emmet angrier. He strode the few short steps across the room and snatched the book from her hand. “I’m sick to death of your lies and your morbid fantasies,” he snapped.
It was as if he had struck her.
“You call me morbid? What about you? You kill pigs all day and come home reeking of blood and guts.”
“It pays for the roof over your head and the food on your table,” fumed Emmet.
Caroline thrust out her chin. “And is that the kind of life I have to look forward to? Live in Bragg Falls like you and eat fucking Hamburger Helper every night? If I work really hard, is that what I get? I get to work in a hellhole like you?”
Emmet pulled his hand back to slap her across the face. But he couldn’t do it. With no other place for his fury to go, in one quick motion he ripped the travel book in half. Caroline gasped.
“Don’t … ever … lie to me … again,” he said, tossing the mutilated book into the corner. He wheeled around and stormed out of the room.
Caroline crawled over to the book and tried to piece the two ragged halves together with trembling hands. Desolate tears fell on the happy tourists of the Piazza De Spagna, and where each tear landed, a tiny buckle appeared on the paper until the photo was unrecognizable.
***
When Jude arrived at the Lazy Cat, a small cluster of men hanging around the entrance were watching the red bubble lights of a Deputy Sheriff’s car pull out of the driveway and disappear down the road. Whatever had happened to warrant the arrival of the cops, however, seemed to give rise to more amusement than distress. The men parted to let her pass and she overheard a few of them still laughing about the incident as they got in their cars to go home.
Tonight she’d decided to take another crack at the Lazy Cat where alcohol might loosen some tongues. But the place was nearly empty. A few half-filled glasses sat abandoned on tables and the music was barely audible. Howard Bisbee was at the bar, examining his arm and dabbing at it with a wet cloth smeared with blood. The bartender, Nick, was on a hunt for a first aid kit.
Jude walked over towards Bisbee and saw a nasty red slice running across his forearm. “What happened here?” she asked, frowning.
Bisbee glanced at her, but didn’t respond. The first aid box appeared on the bar and Nick began to scavenge its contents. “Just your ordinary bar fight,” he said. “Some drunk says the wrong thing to a paranoid moron with a hunting knife. Happens all the time.”
“Oh, dear,” exclaimed Jude, then with a half smile turned to Bisbee. “Were you the drunk or the paranoid moron?”
“Neither,” he informed her.
“I’ve been expecting this for a while,” said Nick. “Vernon is a walking IED and I hope the
y lock his ass up for a long time. You going to press charges?”
“No,” said Bisbee.
Nick produced some gauze along with a roll of surgical tape and began to peel off a long strip. He looked around for a way to cut the tape and as he did, it became stuck to itself in several places.
Jude said, “Here, let me do that.” She took the stool next to Bisbee, who hesitated for a moment before surrendering his arm. “You probably could use some stitches,” she advised.
“I’ve had worse. It’ll heal up.”
“Your call.” Jude pulled the first aid kit over and found a tube of antibiotic ointment. She dressed Bisbee’s wound, tearing the sticky tape expertly with her teeth and using it to hold the gauze in place.
Nick leaned on the bar and watched. “You’re lucky he didn’t cut off a couple of fingers,” he commented. “That’s one big knife Vernon was whipping around. I sure wouldn’t have gotten in the middle.”
“I’m used to knives,” Bisbee shrugged.
“Guess working at D&M will do that for you,” Nick commented.
“The first thing you learn there is the value of a good knife.”
“Yeah, what’s the second thing?”
“You don’t want to work with a knife.”
Jude smoothed the last piece of tape over the gauze. “There, that ought to hold you.”
Meanwhile, Nick had disappeared into the back. He came out with three long neck beers, popped the tops, and slid two of them down the counter to Bisbee and Jude. Then he lifted his own. “Cheers.”
While he went off to clear the tables, Jude and Bisbee drank in silence. After a moment, Bisbee lifted his bandaged arm in acknowledgment. “Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
“No talking about D&M, okay?”
“I wasn’t even going to ask,” Jude smiled. “We’ll talk about something else. So, where do you live?”
“Here in town,” said Bisbee.
“You married?”
