Heat Wave

Vanderbilt was walking down the cinder block and cement hallway that lead to the Kill Floor.  He obstinately still referred to it as "The Kill Floor" despite Canterbury Meat's recent memo that went out to everyone in the plant, including his USDA Office, advising that from this point on the decision has been made to refer to the center of slaughter operations as "The Harvest Floor," and that any in-plant correspondence should refer to Kill Floor by its new designation.  Some''Suit;" some shithead of a marketing major who'd never set foot in a packing house had no doubt come up with this semantic brainstorm.  Vanderbilt could just imagine the unctuous asshole presenting his suggestion during a brainstorming session in some boardroom.

"We're dealing with an image problem in this aspect of the meat industry.  It's easy for enviro-nut groups such as PETA to label us as the bad guys when they can dump a bucket of blood and offal on us in the eyes of the public.  The term "slaughter' has such negative connotations.  Same with "Kill Floor."  Why don't we begin to refer to a "Kill Floor" as "The Harvest Floor," from now on.  When John Q Grocery Shopper thinks of harvest, in his mind he conjures up shocks of wheat, images of trees resplendent in their Fall colors; a Thanksgiving feast of turkey, ham, apples, squash and corn;  the rich harvest of a land laden with bountiful crops; a cornucopia of plenty resting upon a table."  These are the kind of images we want the term "Harvest Floor" to engender."

 He smiled, extended his arms, and puctuated his suggestion with...
"We'll be feeding them wholesome family-friendly, industry-friendly images."

This was the kind of suggestion the CEO of Canterbury Meats liked.  It cost nothing and it could be easily implemented with a memo.  "Make it so," he ordered, relishing the opportunity to use the catch phrase that he'd stolen from Star Trek's Captain Piccard.

 Such was the dialogue Vanderbilt imagined in his dark anti-capitalist musings.  "And so it went." Vanderbilt mused sourly.  "Corporate America is as adept at double-speak as any of the politicians that they own."

Hearing some loud voices ahead of him, Vanderbilt was roused from his bitter reverie by the sight of one of the Medical Management staff and a Kill Floor foreman pushing a wheelchair down the hall.  The employee slumped in the chair, a young Hispanic woman, looked as though she had just woken up from a hundred year Rip Van Winkle slumber.  She was still visibly groggy. 

Ebeneezer Orness met Vanderbilt in the hallway a few seconds after the wheelchair and company had moved on.  Vanderbilt normally had to behave professionally and keep his pro-union, anti-capitalism sympathies to himself, but "Eb" was one of the few people who worked in the plant that he trusted enough to allow himself to vent his thoughts to.  A vocal critic of his employer, and a staunch union advocate, Eb would have been handed his walking papers a long time ago, except that he was good at his job.  His precise cuts as a backsaw operator ensured that the company would maximize their yield on carcasses that he split.  To put it in layman's terms, he made them enough money to where they could overlook his heretical views.

Eb wiped the sweat from his forehead and muttered, "it's a god-damned blast furnace out there today.  It's pushing 100 degrees already and it's only a little past eleven."  He motioned down the hall in the direction of the wheelchair and observed "that's the 6th goddamned person that's collapsed on the Kill Floor today." 

It's the same every summer," Vanderbilt responded, hardly the type of commiserating comment that Eb was looking for.  The back-saw man mopped his brow again, then pointed upstairs and snorted contemptuously.

"Corporate don't care.  They sit in their comfortable little air-conditioned cubicles.  The only time we see any of them is if they join us for a smoke out in the Cancer Shack, (Canterbury, citing a rare concern for the health and well-being of its employees, confined smoking to a tin-roofed area outside the plant).  We grunts down here are as disposable as Bic lighters.  If enough  of us break down physically, or have the balls to walk away from these brutal working conditions in this economy, they'll just send another bus down to Mexico to bring up another load of warm bodies."

"Mexico, my ass," Vanderbilt retorted.  "You're behind the times.  The flavor of the month now is refugees from Myanmar.  I'm sure you've noticed all the little Asians that have been coming in with the recent crops of new hires.  They're allowed to emigrate here because of their status as "oppressed Christians."  Our government, in its infinite wisdom, even pays half their wages in order to help them ease their way into settling into a new culture.  It's a win-win situation for the big packing houses.  The Feds pick up half their wages and the new hires are too damn scared to even listen to any talk about joining a union.'

"Yeah," Eb growled, I'm not surprised.  I remember it used to be the Mexicans who were the ones who would come around with stunned, frightened expressions on their faces.  They used to respond "no habla Union" when I'd approach them about getting one in the plant here.  Not anymore.  Now they're approaching me.  They've been in this country long enough to know that management isn't supposed to treat them like dogs.  Now some of them are coming up to me and asking me about a union.  Things are heating up."

Has management noticed any changes in their change of attitude?  Are they getting nervous?" Vanderbilt asked.

"Damn right management's worried," Eb admitted, looking in both directions before he began to speak again.  "Talking about forming a Union is the road some of the smarter Mexicans are starting to travel down now. The boys upstairs are starting to feel the heat.  Now they've got the foremen putting down the Hispanic workers every chance they get.  I heard one of them, you know, the greasy Frenchman we all call "Butt Fuck Chuck," yell at Roberto the other day when he let an abscessed head get past him.  He said something to the effect that "You goddamned Mexicans aren't worth a shit.  These little Asian kids are working circles around you."

"Divide and conquer," Vanderbilt muttered grimly. "One of the World's oldest management tools."

"Yeah," Eb agreed.  "It's all about "team" when they want us to add to our work load or take a hit on one of our benefits.  When the weather warms up though and tempers smolder, and resentment flares up among the slaughter employees like so may small prairie fires, they'll start bulldozing firewalls between the races to keep the conflagration from spreading.  Goddamned conniving greedy sons of bitches.   All this talk about cultural diversity, acceptance and toleration gets flushed down the toilet when it stands in the way of the corporate bottom line."  Eb looked both directions down the hall again, then whispered, "a few of us are meeting with the Meat Packers Union this evening to see if they'll invest money or manpower in a drive to get the Union recognized here.  They're reluctant to help us though.  The votes gone have gone against them too many times in this plant."

"Yeah, I've witnessed a few of those former campaigns.  The same corporate whores who whittle away at their wages and benefits constantly; the same assholes who are constantly running time/study job reports to see how much more labor they can squeeze out of every job, are now calling every employee into an office individually to stress how important they are to the team and how letting the "god damned Union thugs" in would be the death of the company.  Ofttimes you'll see the employee exiting with the corporate cheerleaders arm around him or her, actually beaming because they've been made so much of.  Another holy warrior enlisted to smite the evil union by being cajoled into refusing to sign a union card."

"Things are heating up though," Eb insisted.  "Maybe this will be the summer.  We've got to get someone in that can talk to the Nigerians.  We've no one right now who can speak their language, yet you can bet the company has interpreters who can.  You can bet you'll know what message they'll be hearing and how they'll vote."

"Yeah, they still haven't assimilated yet," Vanderbilt observed.  The company has built a little community for them just to the east of the plant.  It also serves to isolate them from the community a bit so that the locals don't realize just how many black non-English speaking employees they're bringing in.  The fulfillment of every greedy capitalist's dream from the West Virginia coal barons to George Pullman's community in Chicago.  Workers shackled to a company town.  Remember the old song by Tennessee Ernie Ford?

         Sixteen tons..what do you get
         Another day older and deeper in debt.
         Saint Peter don't you call me cause I can't go
         I owe my soul to the company store.
     
" You don't have much of a singing voice, Vanderbilt, but that song is just what we're up against," Eb complained, the anger boiling just beneath the surface of his conversation.  "Wherever there's poverty in the world now, the big packers send out recruiters to exploit it.  How the hell can we fight an economy that's gone global?  An economy run by greedy corporations who callously recruit from war zones and disaster devastated populations such as Haiti in order to use these people looking to better themselves to beat down the wage scales and break the Unions in this country?  I don't know how the hell we can fight them within the system when they pay lobbyists to make certain the laws are written for their benefit."

Eb looked down both directions of the hall again.  To Vanderbilt it almost seemed a paranoid reaction, but then Eb lowered his voice and when he spoke, Vanderbilt realized why Eb didn't want anyone to overhear him.

"Union membership is down to ten percent of the workers in this country, after a high of thirty five percent sometime after World War Two.  Corporate America and their political toadies still think that's too threatening a number though.  They won't rest until the Union label goes the way of the dinosaur.  Let's face it.  The system's broken.  We need to take the battle to the streets; tar and feather or hang a few CEOs, torch a few factories.  It's a war and they're showing us and our families no mercy as they beat us down.  It's time we start fighting back."

"Ssssh," Vanderbilt cautioned him.  "I don't care how good a worker you are.  That kind of talk will get you fired."

"I don't care anymore," Eb said defiantly.  "I really don't.  I just don't know if I can handle another summer in this hellhole."

"You will, "  Vanderbilt assured him, trying to settle him down a bit.  "You've only got a few more years until you retire with full benefits.  Curb your tongue or it will get you into trouble.  You can still work for change.  Just be discreet about it."

Both men turned.  The supervisor of the head-boning table was steadying a groggy employee, a wizened little caucasian gentleman in his 60s whom everyone called Tattoo Tommy because of the profusion of body art that he sported.

"Here comes another one.  Things are really heating up out there," Vanderbilt observed, dreading the thought that he'd soon have to head back to that hot, humid blast furnace of a Kill Floor

"Things are going to be heating up a lot more," Eb assured him.  "Just wait and see."

Wellness Training

“You’ll never guess where you’re going next week,” Harley chortled, smug in his possession of information that he knew would be as unwelcome to me as the flashing lights of a cop car would be to a hard working guy; the kind of everyday joe who had stopped for a few beers on a Friday evening and might now be looking at a DUI.

By his shit-eating grin and his mocking tone of voice, I had a pretty good idea where I

was being detailed to.  Turkey Ridge.

“The Ridge?” I moaned disgustedly.

Harley’s snicker at the grimace on my face confirmed my fear.  Just another case of “no sympathy in a packing house.”  We labor in an environment where a disability becomes

a derisive nickname, or a run-in with the law  elicits laughter instead of pity.  In fact, the

usual callous packing house response is…”Don’t come to me looking for any sympathy.

Look it up in the dictionary.  You’ll find it tucked in there somewhere between ‘shit’ and

‘syphilis.’”

“Yeah,” Harley gloated, savoring my situation as though it was a tumbler of Jack and Coke.  “You’re on the night shift, too.  You really got screwed over, dude.”

His obvious pleasure at my predicament grated on my mood, which had instantly plunged

to an anti-establishment attitude worthy of the most radical member of the Michigan
Militia.  I gave him a look of utter contempt and growled “How’s your love life, you pathetic turd?”

He walked away smiling.  His quest to find his ideal soul-mate, (I mean, we’re talking

a submissive and docile young lady with huge hooters and nymphomaniac tendencies who also just happens to be a superb cook and housekeeper) had been unsuccessful up to this point.  In fact, his latest object of adoration had recently spurned him to enter into a lesbian relationship.  Normally his lack of success with women was a sensitive subject that could plunge him into depression and morose responses of grunts and monosyllables.  It was a pretty cheap shot on my part, but it had glanced off the obese biker as though it was an arrow tipped with a rubber suction cup.  He realized that my response was just a spear thrust compared to the tac-nuke news of the Turkey Ridge detail that he had just dropped on me.

Turkey Ridge is a decrepit little river town, a community built on a swamp, a river rat sanctuary devoid enough of beauty to actually deserve to have a packing plant as its major industry.  If you walk into one of the town’s restaurants, an appetite-killing exercise in itself, you’ll soon discover that the main topics of conversation always revolve around guns and “dawgs” and women, the only variable being the order in which they’re brought up.  During my second night detail there, I finally, in exasperation, asked one of the gut-pullers what people did for entertainment in Turkey Ridge.

“Drink,” was his succinct reply.

My experiences have since proven him right.  Turkey Ridge is worse than hell; it’s a hemorrhoid on the ass of the universe.

I’m not really certain if it’s the water or just generations of inbreeding, but even the USDA inspection crew at Turkey Ridge borders on the sociopathic.  Especially the women.  Don’t take me wrong.  There are a lot of fine women working in the USDA, and Dorothy Collins is still the benchmark that I measure all slaughter inspectors by.  Turkey Ridge, however, has spawned its own unique breed of womanhood.  I mean, these charmers are just out and out “psycho-babes.”  You know the type; the “Fatal Attraction” broad on steroids and amphetamines.  Downright scary to have to work next to.

I was sitting in the break room at the Turkey Ridge plant on Monday afternoon, when Dr. Dorkman walked in.  Dr. D. is our regional supervisor.  He’s an up and coming young suck-ass with his gaze firmly fastened on one of the cushy Washington DC political jobs.  He usually doesn’t have much to say to us peons who work the line on the Kill Floor.  He’s a geek evolved to bureaucrat who has little in the line of “people skills” but who is adept at paper shuffling.  To him we’re not individuals, just Social Security numbers.  Usually this personality-deprived dweeb walks past us with his head down to avoid eye contact with us and huddles behind a locked door with our plant supervisor to go over paperwork.  Given that this is government, he’s got to make certain that the plants in his region keep a steady torrent of dead trees running smoothly into the sea of agencies in Washington.  He’s plotting his career course down this swollen stream of paper, and like so many soulless bureaucrats he’s become an adept navigator.  Like all bureaucrats on the make for a promotion, he’s as trustworthy as a crack dealer.  He no doubt wouldn’t hesitate to sell his children’s souls to Satan and his wife into white slavery if such deeds could earn him his coveted sinecure in the city on the Potomac.

Dr. Dorkman and the supervisor at the Turkey Ridge plant have a good working relationship though.  The supervisor, Dr. Asskissir, is a little Pakistani fascist who detests everything about Western civilization but the paychecks. He’s got both his hands attached firmly to the rungs of the promotion ladder as well.  Needless to say, he’s also got his lips as firmly attached to Dr. D’s ass as a Cardinal’s are to the ring of the Pope.  The first thing these two Washington wannabes do when they hook up is to lock themselves in the office for awhile to plot how to put one over on us.  We expected no good when they emerged in typical buddy-buddy form just before the night shift was to begin.

“I’ve called in three intermittents tonight,” Dr. Asskissir announced, looking to Dr. Dorkman for his approval.  “Dr. Dorkman and I will be taking you off the line, three at a time, to give you a course on Wellness Training.”

“Wellness Training,” I muttered sarcastically.  “What’s the government going to waste money trying to teach us next?  Fiscal responsibility?”

I suppose that I should know by now that I ought to keep my mouth shut.  I detest bureaucratic phonies though, and the contemplation of those two assholes attempting to shovel some bullshit government course like that at us pissed me off as much as a matador’s red cape would a bull.

Drs. Dorkman and Asskissir both poured sour looks my way, but otherwise ignored me.  It was just Vanderbilt waxing cynical again.  They’d become used to it.

I didn’t draw the first opportunity to sit in the office, slug down massive amounts of caffeine and listen to their banal presentation.  My turn would come later.  Right now I was working on the viscera table across from Jeff Paniagua, one of the intermittents, and next to “The Amazon,” one of the USDA’s most infamous “psycho babes.”  She was in a foul mood because she’d lost the draw too and now would have to wait for her Wellness Training until after supper.  Wanting to flaunt her foul mood for everyone to notice, she moved down the line away from us to sulk in silence.  The Amazon wasn’t to be trifled with when she was wearing a chip on her shoulder, which was most of the time, so her voluntary choice to shun us didn’t bother me in the least.  I mean, this is the psycho-babe who once volunteered to clean her sister-in-law’s house while she was being hospitalized after a caesarian delivery.  During the course of her housecleaning, she got it into her mind that the family’s new baby would be better off without their two cats around.  She bragged later in the office of how she thrust each of the family pets into an empty potato sack.  One at a time she carried each agitated, caterwauling sack out to the highway.  Then she’d wait for an approach of a semi.  As it neared she gleefully hurled the bag into the air in front of the oncoming truck, then took off and ran into the woods.  To have done this, not once, but twice, is an indication that I’d better be wary of this individual when she’s working with a knife next to me.  I mean, we’re obviously not talking about a mentally well-adjusted human being here.

“Where’s Lady tonight?” I asked Jeff.  “Our Lady of the Perpetual Illness” was another reason that we had to be grateful for the Government’s gender hiring quotas.  She’d earned her nickname due to the many illnesses she’s used as excuses to miss work.  From beriberi to a reaction to a brown recluse spider’s bite, to work-related mental stress, her sick leave documentation has ranged from the imaginative to downright ludicrous.  Last time I’d been in Turkey Ridge, she’d called in unable to make it to work because the oil light in her car had come on, and she didn’t have enough money to buy a quart of oil.  I was curious to find out why she was missing today.

“You mean you haven’t heard?” Jeff laughed bitterly.  “She was gone all last week.  Sounds like she’ll be gone for awhile.”

“What’s wrong with that flighty broad now?” I asked disgustedly.

“You’ve heard, of course, that’s she’s pregnant,” he began.  I nodded.  USDA employees are supposed to distance themselves from company personnel so as in theory not to compromise enforcement of the regulations.  Our Lady though, had gotten herself a bellyful of child by one of the bung-droppers.

“So,” I responded.  “She’s not due for a few months yet.”

“Let’s pretend that I’m Paul Harvey providing you with ‘The Rest of the Story’,” Jeff laughed.  “It seems that she’d scratched a winning lottery ticket, so she decided to invest in another tattoo.  Something really tasteful.  A strand of a barbed wire fence around her left tit to match the one already wrapped around her right one.”

“That’s a set of breastworks that you’d have to be one brave soldier to storm,” I observed.  “I mean, that kind of an artful image has about as much sex appeal as a pig with the dry heaves.”

I firmly believe that nothing defaces a beautiful female more than a tattoo.  It’s like spraying gang graffiti on the Venus de Milo.  Given Our Lady’s emaciated looks and Marlboro-honed voice however, the image of the tattooed breasts that I had conjured up in my mind was more gut wrenchingly repulsive than aesthetically offensive.

“Now she’s come down with hepatitis,” Jeff continued, after a short pause for effect.  “The tattoo artist’s needle was tainted, probably.” 

“Jesus Christ!”  I gasped, shuddering.  “That shit can be contagious.  Have you guys been tested yet?  How long has she been working with the product since she’s been infected?”

“Who knows,” Jeff shrugged, rolling his eyes disgustedly.  “The Little Fascist won’t tell us anything.”

"Think Doctor Dorkman knows?"

“Yeah,” Jeff replied, in the same bitter disgusted voice.  “We jumped his ass about it earlier this week and he got real defensive.  He assured us that he was aware of the problem and would handle it.”

“What has he done?”

“Far as I know… nothing.”

“Any of you guys been tested yet?”  I asked him.  “If it’s Hepatitis A, that shit can ravage your liver, your kidneys; it can even kill you.”

“As far as we know, our fearless leaders are trying to keep a lid on the problem.  Dorkman doesn’t want a story to break about a Hepatitis scare in a plant in his region.  Not only would the publicity be devastating for the plant’s potential sales, but it might possibly have an adverse effect on Dorkman’s promotion chances.  You know that’s what he’s most concerned about.”’

“I’ll bet,” I agreed.  “But if the disease spreads from the plant here, it could be his career on the line.  Especially if the word got out and he didn’t do anything about it.” 

“It’s got everyone scared,” Jeff continued, having looked over his shoulder before he commenced speaking again.  “Mike, on the day shift, he’s got a youngster with kidney problems already.  He went out and got himself inoculated after work yesterday.  He was that afraid of bringing anything home.  So did Davey Fillmore.  His wife just had a baby and when she heard about Lady, she ordered him to go to the doctor, NOW!  Lady gets to wallow at home in front of the TV while all this is brewing, which doesn’t help our morale any.”  He looked around again to make certain that none of the company employees had come within earshot, and then continued. 

“I guess we’ll just wait to see what happens,” he sighed dejectedly.  “Maybe we’ll find out more when we get our turn to do the Wellness Training.”

Our time arrived later that evening.  Jeff, the Amazon, Whitey McConnell and I were reminded that we needed to remain in the office after lunch.  I mouthed another sarcastic comment about the absurdity of the government wasting money on a “Wellness” course. 

“I’ll bet it did wonders for Ted Kennedy.”  I was ignored, as usual, so I shrugged and went over to pour myself another cup of coffee.  It was going to be a long, boring evening.

Dr. Dorkman and Dr. Asskissir came into the break room and gazed down upon us with the patronizing looks that supervisors bestow upon underlings. 

“Are you ready to learn how to live a more satisfying and healthful life?” Dr. Asskissir asked.  It was obviously the lead-in question from the teaching program.  It had the phony aura of faked spontaneity that only a clueless bureaucrat would attempt to pass off with feigned enthusiasm as his own words. 

“Before we get started, perhaps we’d better address the issue of Our Lady’s hepatitis,” Jeff Paniagua broke in abruptly. 

“It’s under control,” Dr. Dorkman insisted defensively, glaring at Jeff for daring to bring up the subject.  “It’s not the dangerous hepatitis.  None of you have anything to worry about.”

“That’s what they told the peasants during the Black Plague,” I muttered.  Then the absurdity of the scene registered in my mind and I broke in with a Monty Python routine. 

“Bring out your dead.  Bring out your dead.” 

My attempt at humor was lost on both Asskissir and Dorkman.  They looked at me as though I was a leper.

“Let’s get down to business,” Dr. Dorkman finally sighed.  “Open your notebook to page one.”

Dr. Asskissir was passing out expensive-looking binders that no doubt cost the USDA $15-$20 apiece.  Expensive clothing for a doll made of garbage, I mused to myself.  Then I spoke my next thought aloud. 

“I’ll bet one of Dubya's Texas cronies made a killing on this contract,” I observed sarcastically as I held up one of the expensive green binders.  “My God, there’s even a cassette tape in here.”

Whitey McConnell brought us back to Our Lady’s hepatitis when he asked, “As Union Rep, may I have some written assurance that we employees and that the company product are at no risk from hepatitis?”

“That’s enough,” said Dr. Dorkman sternly.  “I don’t want to hear any more speculation about a supposed hepatitis panic.”

“That’s enough,” chimed in Dr. Asskissir, attempting to sound just as authoritative.  “We have everything under control.”

“That’s what Captain Smith, the master of the Titanic said,” I observed, brandishing my wit again.  “Can we say, ‘Iceberg ahead?”

“Can we say ‘insubordination?’ countered Dr. Dorkman, looking at me in exasperation.  “Dr. Asskissir and I have a course to teach.”

I mouthed an obscenity under my breath that addressed his relationship with his mother,

 but I realized that I’d pushed the two sanctimonious assholes to the limit of their patience.  Recognizing my silence as submission to their authority, the Gods condescended to smile upon us peasants again.

“Now, as Dr. Dorkman suggested a few moments ago, let’s turn to page one in our Wellness Training manual,” Dr. Asskissir intoned in his irritatingly officious voice.  “How you choose to live your life and what hazards and abuses you choose to subject your body to can drastically alter your physical and mental well-being.”

He paused…. for dramatic effect I assume; then resumed reading from his handbook.  “Let’s start with Chapter One.  ‘Coping with Stress in the Workplace.’”

Dreams Are Slaughtered Here Too

The fifteen minute morning break was almost over. I looked at the drawing of a
horse's head that I'd sketched on a notepad. It was pretty good. I'd
captured the flaring of the nostrils, and the stallion's eyes radiated a defiant, untamed
look. Not bad. Of course, I'd always been good at art. A guy has to
make a living pursuing something other than dreams though, so I ended up here, a foreman in a meat-packing plant. My artwork now is pretty much confined to doodling. Throwaway
art. A guy's got to have money in order to pursue an art career....money
and/or influential backers. I couldn't come up with either one.

A knock at my office door summoned me back to business. I slid a
slaughter report on top of my sketch just before the door opened. It
was Mickey Kincaide, a slender, blond hair kid whom I'd watched grow up
a couple doors down from me. He was holding his knives, scabbard, mesh
gloves, and apron.

"I just stopped in to thank you for giving me the chance to work here,"
he apologized, his head down to avoid looking at me. "But I just don't
think I can handle it anymore."

I looked at him, surprised. He was a damn good worker as far as I was
concerned. A good kid, too. A typical case of a nice kid whose hormones
had gotten him into trouble. His parents were from the rigid "Old School" morality.
You know, "You screw up and now you've got to make it right." Now the kid
is married to his 17-year old girlfriend and they have a young
daughter to take care of.

"What are you going to do, Mickey?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he replied dejectedly. "I'll find something else, I
guess."

"You know," I reminded him, "in this depressed economy, this plant is
one of the best paychecks in town."

"I know," he admitted, hanging his head a bit more. He pulled around a
chair with his foot and set his equipment on it. Then he dug into his
pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

"I showed this to my old man," he said. "He called me "a damn fool" and
told me to get my head on straight. He said "God damn it kid, you've
got responsibilities now. Buck up and be a man.""

I looked at the paper in astonishment. "You wrote a goddamned poem
about quitting your job?" I asked him.

He nodded, then whispered, "Yeah."

I stared at him, catching a hesitant note in his voice. It sounded like
he wanted to say more, but was gauging whether I'd be receptive or not.
Finally he blurted out, "I showed it to Sarah, and she
understood."

"Your wife," I reminded him sharply, "is a 17-1/2 year old girl who
reads romance novels and still feels bad about missing her senior prom.
My God, Mickey, you were an "A" student. You had a helluva future ahead
of you. What the hell, if the two of you were so bent on screwing
around, why the devil didn't you have enough sense to at least take
some precautions?"

He hung his head but handed me the paper. "I brought this because I
figured it might make you understand why I'm leaving. I watched you as
I grew up," he reminded me. "I know that you went to college and
majored in art. Here," he insisted. "Read it."

THE SLAUGHTER PLANT by Mickey Kincaide

Terrified, the dumb brutes panic at being driven
They smell and sense the death that lurks beyond the doorway.
Their only escape from the electric shock prod though,
Is that ominous exit. A madness born of the fear of pain
Drives the beasts into the mechanics of slaughter.

The thunderclap of a rifle shot rocks its bovine brain.
The animal drops. Its hind legs are then tightly shackled
And its body yanked ceilingward so the throat- slitter
Can pierce its jugular vein with barbarian finesse,
His rubber boots sloshing through a morass of blood.

At times the animal reaches the throat-slitter
Still weakly kicking, still clutching at existence
Through a panic of uncomprehending pain.
Its doom has been pre-ordained though as it meets
The remorseless attack of the God with a knife.

Two hundred and eight-five head of beef an hour
Will be processed with calculated precision.
That's the brutal, inexorable certainty
Beneath the din and the frenzied activity,
The callous constant movement of the chain of death.

The headers, bung-droppers, belly-openers, gut-snatchers,
Kidney-poppers, split saw operators, shavers, lard pullers,
Hock cutters, skinners, hide pullers, bone-grinders, luggers,
The blood-dryers, the cookers, the gang in offal pack,
All move in like jackals to devour the corpse.

They all participate in the rendering of life
Into lard, table cuts, boneless trim, fertilizer,
Gelatin and hides. All are hardened to the horror,
Helmeted like the SS Guards who took a smug pride
In their processing of so many "sub-humans" an hour.

"Good God!" I growled, half astonished and half-angry that he could
portray my livelihood in such a manner. "Is that all you see these guys I work with
as, a bunch of goddamned Nazis?"

"Don't misunderstand me," Mickey protested. "It's not the people that
work here that bother me. It's what they become. Am I the only one here
who sees the horror in what we are doing?  The mind-numbing despair of a man who has to snatch the guts out of each carcass that moves past him and toss them into a pan.  What kind of life is that?  Or worse, what does Jenny Hodges think of day after day as she cuts the jugular vein of each neck that moves past her and watches the blood gush from it?  Have the rest of you become
so hardened? Don't you see that dreams are being slaughtered here, too?"

"It's not a matter of being callous, or hard," I explained. I had to
pause and grope for the right words. What I came up with sounded rather banal. 
"It's just doing what has to be done."

Mickey gazed at me with a look that mingled disappointment and
contempt. I was failing to get through to him. Somehow I had to
convince him that his feelings were something to be overcome. They were
almost "unmanly."

"You know, Mickey, in all your experience with them, have you ever had
a kid tell you "I want to work in a packing house when I grow
up?""

"I didn't realize there was such a thing when I was a kid," Mickey
admitted. "I guess I just thought that steaks were always
steaks."

"I didn't know anything about packing houses either," I reassured him.
"But there came a time in my life when I had to knuckle down and get a job to
support myself and my family. A guy with a family learns to do what has to be done in
order to survive. Even if you don't like it at first."

Mickey shrugged. "Why don't you read the rest of it?" he suggested. I
could tell that he was uncomfortable with being preached to. He had
probably heard similar raised-voice rhetoric from his father. Why
should he stand here and take it from me? I did as he suggested and
began to read from where I had left off.

Their scabbards clanging against their bloody chain belts,
The helmeted Kill-floor crew files out for lunch,
Removing their mesh gloves, their wrist guards, their ear plugs
And their aprons before they wash the blood from their hands.
Fragments of their conversation reverberate through the cafeteria.

They talk of sports...
"Think the Bucks have a chance against the Bulls tonight?"
They talk of women...
"I met this gorgeous bitch last night at Callahan's... man..."
They talk of money...
"I put 18 hours of overtime in so far this week."

Apparitions of the men who pulled the gold teeth,
Led victims to the showers, stoked the ovens, took head count
Of the trainloads of frightened humanity being herded into camp;
They gaze upon the lunchroom scene and knowingly smile
With an understanding rooted in their death-camp kinship.

It was thus at Auschwitz, Ravensbruck and Dachau.
Carloads of human cattle were ruthlessly dispatched
With a businesslike Aryan efficiency, as blithely
As we kill now to placate a growling stomach.

So it will be in the next war to come as well.
The mechanics of slaughter that we serve, win or lose,
Will be paid for in souls that have atrophied;
That have shriveled into a hardness that feels no pity,
That grants no mercy; that no longer knows
Or cares anymore about examining their actions;
Men that have forgotten how to love or forgive.

I don't wish to become a man like that.


I handed the paper back to Mickey who took it from me without
comment.

"You've got a gift for language, kid. You probably don't belong here,"
I told him, putting my hand on his shoulder as a gesture of friendship.
More or less, I was trying to tell him that I didn't take offense at
what he wrote and that I appreciated his honesty. I wanted to leave the
door open, in case he would reconsider and decide to stay on.

"I've seen your sketches," he said, lifting up the slaughter report to
show me my notepad beneath it. "You don't belong here either."

"It pays the bills. What will you do to live?" I asked him.

"I'll give McDonalds a try. Maybe Pizza Hut," he said hopefully. "I'm
young enough to work my way up to be a manager someday."

"You could do the same thing here," I reminded him.

"No, I can't," Mickey said. "I just don't think that I belong here." He
made a move toward the door as if he were a feral cat accidently trapped
in someone's garage.  Every nuance of his demeanor seemed focused on "escape."

"You'll be back," I said sternly. "You'll get tired of flipping burgers for
$8.50 an hour when you can make twice that much here."

Mickey turned toward me again, one hand still on the door handle and
said, "I won't be back. There's got to be more to life than this!"

His total rejection of my livelihood and the friendly advice that I'd
tried to give him finally got under my skin. I lost my temper.
"Why!" I yelled angrily. "Because you demand that there should be? You
haven't even begun to be disappointed, kid. You're just a kernel of
corn that the millstone of life is beginning to grind on. When your old
lady is bitching because she has no money to buy your daughter's
formula, or when she turns her back on you in bed at night because you
didn't bring home enough money to buy her that pair of new Reeboks she
wants, then you'll be back! And damned glad to be back!"

"I don't think so," Mickey said coldly, as he turned his back to me, pulled the door open and
slipped out of the office into the hallway.

Silently I wished him luck. He would need it.

My notepad with the head of the proud, untamed stallion, his nostrils
flaring, his indignation at my attempt to capture him in a sketch lay
on my desk still. Yeah, I maybe could have been a pretty decent artist,
given a few breaks, but...what the hell.  Who said life was fair?

I reached down, ripped the page from the notepad and crumpled it into a
neat little ball. From my desk it was just a short bank shot off the
cement brick wall into the wastepaper basket in the corner. Two points.
It was time to go back to work.