Yeah, I was on the road again. The name "Vanderbilt" had come up on the detail roster. Unlike the usual sentencing to Turkey Ridge, that hemorrhoid on the ass of the universe, I'd actually been sent to a decent location. Not that many postings were decent in Western Illinois. Certainly the town wasn't. Dutchman's Knoll was a little town of less than a thousand people. It had a couple bars though, and a grocery store, and a clean little motel, so it was livable for a week. What made this posting desirable was the fact that I was going to be working in an egg plant.
Egg Inspection is a gravy job. it's usually a one inspector plant, so you don't have office politics or the one or two intolerable co-workers that any office has to contend with. You don't have a supervisor either. It's easy work too. You go out a few times during the day and monitor the process, observe the company's inspectors to make certain that they're doing a good job, check some gauges, cooler temperatures, and occasionally put a USDA seal on a truck. Most of the day one can spend in the tiny USDA Office, watching television, reading or occasionally, sneaking a nap in. There's an opportunity for a good chunk of overtime too, since most egg plants run ten to twelve hours a day and law mandates that a USDA inspector be on premises during hours of operation.
It was Thursday afternoon, and I was waiting for my replacement, who would arrive at 3:30. The sole window in the Government office faced the parking lot, so Lloyd would be easy to spot as he pulled in. I was already dressed in his street clothes and looking forward to a couple beers after my shift was done. It had been a productive week. I had read an interesting biography of Daniel Boone. Jennifer Dubois' A Brief History of Lost Causes, and had just about finished galloping through Sarah Vowell's enjoyable Assassination Vacation. I enjoyed the luxury of leisurely watching Sports Center in the morning and having the time to turn on the Jerry Springer show to watch less than stellar representatives of redneck America air their dirty laundry.
As I sat looking out the window waiting for Lloyd's black SUV to arrive, a battered tan Ford Taurus careened into the parking lot and pulled to a stop just inches from the office window. I had sprang from my chair and stepped back, fearing at first that the car would hit the building. Out of the car lunged an obese young woman with wiry uncombed blonde hair and a look on her face that clearly said that "someone is going to die." She pulled open the front door of the plant, and shoving her way past the plant Manager, who had risen from his desk to greet the visitor, she strode up to one of the gals who had just arrived to work the second shift, another obese honey, about 5'2'' and pushing 250 lbs.
"Stay away from my husband, you goddamned slut," she bellowed, "or I'll rip your crappy dye-job hair right off your scalp, you fuckin skank."
"Then tell your whore-dog of a husband to quit calling me, you stupid cow," she snarled back.
The two of them glared at each other for a few moments, like WWE wrestlers strutting their machismo before the bell rings, but then the aggrieved party backed off, another thought forming in her agitated mind.
She ran up the stairs and began pounding on the door of the transfer room, where eggs cartons are stacked on to pallets in preparation to being shipped to grocery warehouses. That's where her philandering husband worked.
By this time the plant manager realized that he had a problem to address. He grabbed the woman by a shoulder, turned her toward him and said, in a voice that he was striving to but noticeably failing to keep calm.
"If you don't leave the premises immediately, I'm going to call the police."
She stepped back and glared at him for a few moments, her right leg back and taut as though she was considering kicking him. The word "Police" though, had evidently permeated her consciousness. She snarled "Fuck You!" and turned and flounced out the door.
I saw Lloyd coming in, so I grabbed my book and jacket, exited the office, and moved toward the front door to leave. Behind me were some of the plant's employees who had finished their shift as well. One of them must have been her husband, because next view I had was of the pissed off wife coming at me looking like an NFL lineman wanting to take off my head. Yeah, I admit it. I panicked. I whipped out my government badge as though it were a cross held up to ward off the fury of a vampire, and said,
"I'm USDA. If you touch me you'll go to jail forever." Looking back on it, it comes across as a pretty stupid and cowardly thing to say, but it actually worked. She backed off, but crouched in an attack mode looking like a tiger waiting to pounce on its prey.
The prey was her husband. As I passed her and headed to my car, he came out. She gave out a banshee yell and launched a ferocious assault upon him, her fists balled and her arms flailing. This guy was close to six feet tall, and weighed about 160 lbs, but the ferocity of her attack had knocked him down. For a time had all he could do to fend her off as she did her best to wallop the cheating devil out of him.
By this time all of the first shift employees who hadn't left yet, and a good share of the second had stepped outside to enjoy the show. Her husband eventually fought his way back to his feet, then hit her one...two...three times in the face as hard as he could. Shaking off his punches, like a boxer used to absorbing punishment, turned, ran toward her car, got in and locked the door. She had outmaneuvered him, and he was not at all happy about it.
"Let me in, you fucking bitch," he yelled, pounding on the door. "Let me in. NOW!"
I know it probably wasn't the most professional thing to do, but there are times when professionalism is overrated. This was one of those times. The scene was so reminiscent of one of Springer's productions. I couldn't resist. I tossed any pretense of professionalism out the window and began to loudly chant "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!"
A number of the plant employees immediately joined in on the raucous "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!"refrain as well. Yeah, I'd nailed it.
His old lady listened to him bellow as he pulled futilely on the door handle for awhile, then finally stepped on the gas, fishtailed away, and sped out of the driveway and down the road, leaving her husband standing in the parking lot. Frustrated, he shot me and his chanting co-workers a furious look, then ran to his car to take off after her, leaving a laughing and cheering parking lot behind him.
I heard the following morning that his old lady was waiting for him with a baseball bat when he got home. He must have been able to wrest it away from her though, because he was at work the next morning. He must have not used it on her, because she wasn't in jail. Who knows. Maybe they each realized what a prize they have in each other, and reconciled. For a while, anyway.
At any rate, just a couple days before I had been telling Lloyd what a boring job he had. Not anymore. Not in Dutchman's Knoll at least. Not here in Springerville.
