Death by turkey steak - Chapter eight

Wednesday June 9th

The benefit of the previous day’s reallocation was that not only did I have another chance to tempt Lee into a positive conversation, but I was re-united with Olwen and company. Jeanine re-engaged with her well intentioned, yet insanely annoying habit of conversation from a distance, which again meant ear plug removal and shouting.’ What were my hopes and dreams? Where did I go to school? Was Australia hot? What was the value of C if M equalled Q?’ The raw tissue and sinew steadily grew.

“Do you have a girlfriend, Tom?” I removed an ear plug. “Do you have a GIRLFRIEND!?”

“NO! DO YOU?”

“I’M NOT A LESBIAN!” she shrilled. “I’M MARRIED! EMILY IS SINGLE THOUGH!”

Colour flushed Emily’s complexion. Over the next hour Jeanine nudged Emily further down the line so that she ended up opposite me. This seemed the most unlikely place to match-make.

When their eyes went down to concentrate on a tray of meat, I gently edged down the line. No matter, Jeanine just nudged her friend further on. The game of cat and mouse continued until I stood opposite Vicky, who in turn successfully blocked off any further movement by Emily. Vicky winked at me and I mouthed, “Help me!” She shook her head slowly and smiled.

Blossom

Vicky was a rare commodity in the T.F.L. jungle. Not only was she the sole black worker in the entire factory, but she was beautiful. She was possibly the only woman who could wear a green plastic apron covered in turkey by-product and look totally smoldering. She had clear shining eyes and pillowed lips and was a welcome sight to gaze upon other than a blank white wall. Her long blackcurrant hair was braided and streaked with multi-colours. Her lashes were long and her cheek bones prominent. Such were the robust frames of the majority of the women in the factory that the cords to their aprons were tied behind their back. Not Vicky’s. Her waist line was so minuscule that the cords went once around and were tied on her stomach. This in turn accentuated her boobs. Her coat was not done up to the chin, but open two metal poppers from the collar, hence exposing her collar bone and the v of her vest. When we ran out of trays she turned around, took a few paces forward and bent over to take some from a new package. Her buttocks were as tight and rounded as two turkey breasts in a vacuum packed bag. The netting machine then started up and I pressed my waist firmly against the metal sides of the rampant belt.

My gaze became so fixed on her that she routinely caught me spying, I’d abruptly look away, but when I looked back she was smiling.

Break arrived quicker than it ever had before, but I didn’t show the eagerness to leave the floor as I had done in the previous weeks, I remained pressed to the conveyor belt for a full minute as everyone else exited. When the blood relented, I calmly walked towards the door. Eyeing me from the doorway of her office was Butch Sue, as incognito as a Hereford bull in a handbag.

Breakfast

Capital Punishment

I drifted among the tables with an exemplary Full English. Vicky was sitting with her back to me and a spare seat at her side, but such was the animation from Timmy to join him at his table, I begrudgingly accepted.

“Hey Delilah! You snuck off without sayin’ goodbye.”

“I didn’t know that was protocol.”

“Gobby twat.” He sneered and shot his grubby fingers across to pilfer a hash brown from my plate.

He ate it with an open mouth whilst glaring at the queuing diners, then blurted, “’ave you met The Professor yet?”

“I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”

“Prof!” he yelled to a bespectacled man standing in the queue. The man acknowledged Timmy and made a gesture to confirm that he’d join us.

“You are goin’ to fuckin’ love The Prof!” Timmy said, jostling like a ferret in a sack.

The Professor weaved among the tables and plonked himself down.

“It’s not unusual!” The Professor exclaimed, “Tom Jones. Priceless.”

“Innit though, Prof?” Timmy barked. “Delilah, this is Jamie, we call him The Professor.” Jamie was totally at home with himself. A long black ponytail trailing down his back was restrained with elastic bands. Although unseen, I guessed his legs were akimbo under the table. He wore a satisfied grin that suggested he was the self styled intellectual in the group. Timmy stared at me and nodded. He looked at Professor Jamie, then back to me and nodded again. To Jamie. To me. Nod. He repeated the actions until I asked the question he was desperate to hear.

“Why do you call him The Professor?” Timmy shifted about in his seat as if he meant to quell some worms wriggling in his colon. Jamie sunk lower into his and cracked open a Vimto.

“Give me a capital,” he asked. I looked beyond them and out to the horizon where my oak tree stood. Brilliant sunshine created a halo around its top.

“Come on Delilah,” Timmy urged.

“He’s nervous,” The Professor added.

“’e should be, Prof, you ‘aven’t been stumped yet."

“A capital?” I confirmed.

“Anyone you like.”

“Lisbon.” 
Timmy shot a worried glance to Jamie and then looked at me as if I had urinated on the table. Jamie wore a look of utter disgust.

“Capital letter, you dick’ead,” he bit with distain.

“Right. You want me to say a letter?”

“CAPITAL letter,” they said in tandem.

“J.” The Professor snapped his head to the side, thought awhile and draped his ponytail over his shoulder.

“January,” he said with an eddy of his head.

“You got ‘im Prof, you got ‘im!”

“What?”

“No matter where it comes in a sentence, beginning, end or middle, January always starts with a capital,” The Professor revealed and wound a finger round his ponytail. I’d found the brains trust, laid out in all its glory. No need to go to University then.

“Another, another!” Timmy goaded.

“M.” 
Open mouthed and in love, Timmy looked to The Professor. Jamie stared at the ceiling to buy some time.

“Madame. No matter where she comes, she always starts with a capital M,” Jamie lectured. Timmy could not have experienced more pleasure if he had sat on a pencil.

“No one ‘as got ‘im yet!” he roared and high fived The Professor. 
“Keep ‘em coming Delilah!” Legions of workers had passed through this canteen and none had had the level of perceived intelligence of this man.

“S.”

“I knows what you’re thinkin’!” Timmy exclaimed, but looked crestfallen when Jamie dredged up,

“Satan.”

“I’m glad you brought him up,” I said, thinking that he must be employed somewhere in the factory. I worked as steadily through my breakfast as The Professor did through the alphabet.

Timmy looked to the clock. “Shit, we better get back to work. One more Delilah! One more!”

Jamie was the kind of species that would argue his point until the other party was too exhausted to care and hence claim victory. He was the last man at a party, the argumentative knob at the end of the bar and when he spoke I wanted to climb into his mouth, close his lips and make sure no one ever heard him utter another word again.

“X.”

The Prof. looked startled. Timmy sensed his unease and searched his lap for an answer. Streams of workers flowed passed us, called to arms by the minute hand that said they should be re-employed. The Professor was lost. Someone had mentioned a letter of the alphabet which had not been previously flagged. He fidgeted and stalled until the entire canteen was empty, but for us three hapless souls. He then struck gold. Relief was etched across his smart arse. He composed himself, lent forward and triumphantly said, “Your – Excellency.”

Thursday June 10^th

33,600 minutes left.

Something wasn’t right. Death by turkey steak had not troubled my sleep and I arrived early for work. The familiar sickness in my stomach had been replaced by butterflies.

William was slumped on a bench in the changing room slowly screwing the top off a litre bottle of very thin orange juice. His eyes hung in their sockets. He coughed heavily into the tail of his coat before sinking the entire bottle of liquid in a gagging, lurching manner with sluices of the liquid escaping his mouth and staining his shirt.

“No better a way to start the day,” he drearily added without engaging with anyone.

Olwen and co. were already standing to attention at the turkey steak line. Vicky stood towards the end of the line with a vacant space opposite. It seemed as good as any place to stand.

“Morning.” she said.

“Oh, hello. Didn’t see you there. Morning. Are you ok?”

“I’m fine.”

Lee appeared with a trolley of steaks and the day commenced. Vicky wore a blue shirt under her work clothes, undone to the third button. A green stone hung around her neck. Lee emptied a crate of steaks as another male worker walked passed and said something. Lee looked down at his boots and let the crate fall to his side. Olwen’s face was a storm of constant thunder, but when I caught her eye a ray of sunshine shone through. When she looked down to pack, the clouds rolled back in. It wasn't easy to see her as a fairy Godmother. Jeanine was chatting merrily at an orange hatted worker opposite and as the morning fleeted past the orange hat lent further and further across the belt.

Vicky wore purple eye liner that accentuated the brightness of her eyes. She caught me peeking again.

“Can I help?” she asked.

“I...... was just looking at your stone. It’s pretty.”

“Thank you,” she smiled. 
Butch Sue appeared behind Vicky and glared at me momentarily before exiting through the plastic strips. “My husband gave it to me.”

“Oh. Oh!”

A male manager buzzed around the gorging machine at the end of the steak line with an assortment of tools clipped to his side. A few coloured lights flashed on the machine and the manger pressed a button. He stood back, hands on hips, sleeves rolled to the elbows and nodded. Stefan was leaning off his forklift trolley. They caught each other’s eye and nodded together.

“Ex,” Vicky added and The Professor popped into my head before I realised she was talking past tense.

“Oh. Oh! Oh, dear.”

“Hey, it’s fine, it was a while ago.” 
Emily was looking down the line at us. We packed on in silence. 
“I wear it because it is pretty.”

We chatted on in broken staccato sentences as the din of the machines grew louder and, due to her refusal of ear plug removal, most of what I asked went uncaught and drifted to collect on the ceiling with so many other redundant words. When I asked her where she came from, she replied, “Madonna” as ‘Beautiful Stranger’ played out. I repeated, she understood, leaned across and touched my arm then laughed softly, acknowledging her mistake. She told me of a failed marriage and fresh beginnings.

“In here?”

“For now, not forever.” She was a budding beautician and hoped to open her own salon in Hereford. She’d have plenty of customers if she opened one inside T.F.L. She said her husband had treated her badly after a heady episode of young love.

“I can’t imagine anyone wanting to treat you badly.” It just slipped out. I mean, she was a very pleasant person. Very, nice. She blushed. Emily and Jeanine were watching, so too was Butch Sue.

Friday, June 11th

Early again. How is this possible? I’d driven at a snail’s pace.

Olwen was leaning on the conveyor belt waiting for Lee to arrive with the meat. Two male workers hung around the area where he would deposit the meat. One was sticking some sellotape to a polystyrene tray. Jeanine was standing opposite Vicky, with Emily to her side so that Vicky was hemmed in. No matter. I took up a position at the head of the line, away from the cluster of workers and near the depositing area. From here I could attempt to converse with Lee.

“Morning, love!” Olwen said with a wide smile. “You sleep well?”

“I did for once thanks. No meat in my dreams last night.”

“Don’t start! I’ve been counting chickens in my sleep for almost eighteen years,” she said and the clouds gathered. I wonder if she sleeps on her front to stop her wings from getting crushed? Jeanine, Emily and Vicky were giggling. Jeanine was acting out an elaborate mime and Emily looked towards me. I looked away, then back and Vicky caught my eye.

She mouthed ‘Morning’. The two male workers were now leaning on the machine, it was clear that they, like us, were waiting for Lee. The ‘Street Boys’ were back....

‘You are my fire. My one desire.......’ Emily was looking at me and swaying. The song serenaded the appearance of Lee.

“Hooray!” the workers cheered, though seemingly without irony. Lee paused when he saw the two workers in his path. They were saying something to him, but it didn’t seem like he could hear them over the machines. Then one jabbed him in his shoulder while the other leaned into him. Lee pushed between them with a crate and emptied the contents. While his back was presented the worker with the polystyrene tray stuck it onto him and they calmly walked away. Lee stood watching the steaks whizz up into the machine, then turned round to collect another crate. ‘Im a t-t-t-twat’ was scrawled across the tray. Butch Sue was watching from the doorway of her office. When the tray became unstuck and drifted to the floor, she snuck inside and closed the door. Lee picked it up and read it. He stared at it for a while before tearing it in two and placing it in a bin. He turned back for another crate, but didn’t pick it up. The line was once again a flurry of hands and trays and stunted chat. Lee was stock still with his head bowed. He raised a sleeve up to his face then picked up another crate. His eyes were red when he eventually turned round.

William turned up an hour and forty minutes after his shift had started. He had forgotten to put his wellington boots on and splashed around in the foot bath in his trainers. He neglected to wash his hands and marched purposefully over to the conveyor belt. He settled next to me; the reek of ‘orange juice’ was intense.

“How do?” he asked. His face was the colour of Lee’s eyes.

“Alright Wills? Working a later shift today?”

He looked quizzically at me. “No, no. Two until ten. As usual.”

The clock ticked onto twenty minutes to eight and Shania made her second appearance of the day. Just before breakfast William peeled away from the conveyor belt, walked the length of the room and disappeared through a doorway.

Breakfast

A few minutes after we had all returned Butch Sue approached and cherry picked half a dozen workers from the line. Olwen, Jeanine and Emily among them. It was the usual sign that a big order had been placed and it would be all hands to the plastic, elsewhere. Savage Ann and a crony appeared to plug the gaps and stood either side of me. I placed a tray on the belt and Savage Ann intercepted. She held it out in front of me to show her friend, who tutted and whinged, re-packed it exactly as before and placed it back on the line. Vicky was looking towards me. She nodded at the vacant space opposite and I ran the gauntlet.

“What is their problem?”

“It is a mystery to me.”

“Thank you for saving me.”

“My pleasure.”

Savage Ann and sidekick glared at us as we chatted through the morning. Most of what was said was inconsequential, but it was a relief not to have someone degrade my ability to lay six pieces of meat in a tray.

At one moment we both went for the same tray and her hand rested on top of mine.

“Please, after you, Mr. Jones,” she said and gently squeezed my hand.

“Why, thank you, Miss......”

She smiled and widen her eyes, “Jones. As well.”

“Ha! Vicky Jones, what a coincidence.” Vicky Jones. It had a nice ring to it.

During the afternoon, Savage Ann and sidekick were plucked from harm’s way and I edged closer towards the deposit area. There was no one between me and Lee-centred chat. After a few minutes, he stuck his head through the plastic strips, registered a clear path and barrelled through with his trolley. He tipped four crates until the meat banked up then stole a quick lean against the trolley.

“Hey Lee!” I yelled, but he didn’t respond. My shout was probably lost to the machine. I edged closer. “Oi, Lee!” but again he stared straight ahead. I edged as far as the belt would allow and yelled, “Lee!” waving a hand to attract him. He shot an exasperated look and barked, “d-d-d-d-d-d-d-don’t you f-f-f-f-f-fuckin’ s-s-s-start!” spun on his heels and slapped through the plastic strips. I looked towards Vicky, but she hadn’t seen. Someone else had, however.

“My office. Now.” Butch Sue said. She didn’t bother to close the door. “You are an evil little boy, aren’t you?”

“You what?”

“It is exactly your level is it?”

“What is?”

“Getting your kicks out of teasing someone.”

“You have to be joking. Right?” she remained unmoved. “You watched two blokes shove him around and post a label on his back and.....”

“DON’T TELL ME WHAT I SAW!” Wow, it wasn’t only her tattoo that had teeth. She stood as strong as a Gladiator gripping her clipboard. Her blubbery lips glistened with saliva. “Any more of that and you will be severely disciplined. DO YOU HEAR ME?!”

“Yes.”

“Get out.”

Death by turkey steak - Chapter seven

Monday June 7th

Sometime in Summer.

Rescued miners who had been trapped underground have no idea how many days they were imprisoned. Monotony, coupled with dredging the depths of their soul, robs them of all comprehension of time. Similarly I had no idea how long I spent in the cutting room, but I was sure that Timmy sung Delilah into my face for at least half of my tenure.

            Sometime in June, Butch Sue pulled me from the line of fire. No ceremony, no questionnaire, just a simple, “Tom could you go to netted turkeys. Thank you.” I think it was still June, possibly the second week, though life could have easily snuck into July without my notice. The problem was that Butch Sue had yanked me from the septic tank of fulfilment before I had had chance to count the tally marks I’d scored with a blunt compass on my forearm....

Alas I left the cell without saying goodbye to Timmy and I’d been so close to coaxing Lee into a conversation. The Gods, however, would conspire to have back in the cutting room before too long.

Super duper Para-trooper

            If ‘I couldn’t give a fuck’ had a league structure Russ made Timmy look like he was fighting off relegation in division one, while Russ had a fourteen point cushion at the top of the carefree Premier. Mind you, he had killed people. The first time he came to my attention was when he asked a fellow worker to ‘go long’ then he lobbed a whole chicken the length of the room. It splattered against the wall.

“Whoops,” he’d casually added. Hmmmm, perhaps Russ had missed the missive about the severity of throwing food in the factory, an instantly sackable offense I seemed to recall Butch Sue insisting during the induction week. Luckily or otherwise for Russ, Butch Sue was absent during the incident, perhaps admiring her howling wolf tattoo in the mirror in the ladies. Madonna was once again searching for a Beautiful Stranger as Russ informed me of his military service as we passed whole turkey breasts through netting.

            As MacDonald’s were celebrating the loss of Timmy, it would seem that the Parachute Regiment were equally buoyant about Russ’ departure. He claimed he was the only Para to have taken to the skies and forgotten his ‘chute.

“Pretty vital part of the kit, you see,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Pretty vital. The Flight Sergeant said he’d push me out, but I said I’d jump anyway. And did.” I’m supposing Russ knew he was over water and that the plane wasn’t very high up, but then he gave off the air of someone who’d jump off the moon with an umbrella. “Broke both my ankles. That’s why I’m here.”

“Double whammy. Must have hurt.”

“Nothing matches the pain of United ending up in the conference.” He’s right, I’d be hobbled any day of the week to see Hereford retain their league status. Working opposite us was a sixteen year old boy who looked out from under his hat like a blue tit chick from a bird box. The hat told us he was called Jon. Jon, for all his might, hadn’t achieved any GCSE’s. He couldn’t even hold onto the ‘H’ in his name. He questioned Russ continually in an ever decreasing meek voice about the action he’d seen, causing Russ to remove an earplug and ask him to repeat over the droning machines. This went on and on, over and over, meek question, followed by “Huh?!” followed by slightly louder repeat, followed by “Iraq”, followed by another meek question, followed by “Speak up!” followed by an intentionally quieter question....... Eventually Russ gained a tight grip on a huge turkey breast and slapped it clean across Jon’s face. It was the clap of a ‘chuteless Para meeting the water. Jon spun round as his hat careered across the floor and bounced off the wall and he eventually stumbled over. And damn me if Butch Sue didn’t see the whole thing and casually disappeared out of harm’s way. Another one : nil home win. Russ really was untouchable in his league.

            The red and white netting used to secure the turkey’s from flying away came in huge rolls. The net was one long sock and so elastic that you could barely force your hand into an end. Subsequently the roll was placed on a clamp in a machine and an arm thrust up and down forcing the netting over a metal tube. Up, down, up, down, thrusting away, arm over tube, tube into crevice. The moment the machine was turned on it slowed the workforce. The male workforce. Light starved, sex starved men within witness range looked over. In, out, in, out, back, forth, back, forth, up, down, up, down; the naughty netting even looked like a lady’s stocking.

            From what I was to learn of him it was completely natural that this innuendo would draw Neil Preece out from under his stone. Ben and Arnan had already alluded to the myth and I’d seen him from afar running his hand over the chicken breasts and between workers buttocks, but here came the legend as horny as a Manx sheep. He moved over to us and pursed his lips.

“I might ask ‘er for ‘er number if she keeps that up." As with Nigel and the vac packer, this machine was again labelled a she. "I’ve got a tube she could fit a stockin’ over. Fuckin’ ‘ell. What you say Russ? She’d be kept busy in the regiment?” He came between us (moved between us) and flipped a few breasts over. “Good meat is it boys?” He could ask you for the time and it would have a sexual connotation.

“Wouldn’t have a clue,” Russ said feeding a breast through a tube and into some netting. A group of workers returned from a break. One of them, whose face was hidden inside a snood, waved to Neil.

“There she is. All of ‘er,” ‘she’ remained ambiguous no longer. I had seen on several occasions Neil running his sweaty hands all over her, but because of her square shoulders and height I wasn’t completely sure if she hadn’t been a he.  She was a foot taller than Neil and turned out to be called Siobhan. Neil, with his stare fixed on her all the while, leaned closer.

“Hell, she’s got a set of gnashers on ‘er!” he said licking his lips and rattling the metal table with his knuckles. “Arsenal are at ‘ome last night so we ‘ad to settle with the obvious. I’m surprized she didn’t bite the bugger right off!” he hooted. Jeanine, stood opposite, looked physically sick. “I’ll tell you what, if I meet a sticky end they won’t ‘ave any trouble identifyin’ me, but it won’t be from my dental records,” he grabbed his penis through his trousers, “but by ‘er’s!” He paused as Russ remained unmoved and I felt my breakfast creep slowly up my windpipe. “Ah, tidy bit of meat ‘ere.” He moved slowly round the table looking at the meat, at the female workers boobs and bottoms, over at Siobhan, at the machine; his eyes hovering over everything like a wasp over a fallen pear. His head moved with the rhythm of the netting machine until he could take it no longer. He placed the clipboard under his arm and proclaimed without any fuss to both sexes within earshot, “she’s got the better of me. I’m off for a wank.”

Wet

During our ‘wet’ Russ divulged the intricacies of Neil’s life balance. Siobhan was his ‘mistress’.

“Well his bit of rough shag, in his words,” he said breaking into a Yazoo.

“Ah, that must mean....”

“He has a wife. Who works here.”

“All happily under one roof?”

“She doesn’t know. She works nights on hygiene, sanitising the factory. Ironic, really.”

“The perfect crime.”

“Yep. His missus walks in here as Siobhan walks in the back door back at home and Neil walks straight into her back door. Symmetry.” On the table next to us Emily was learning the extremely valuable lesson. Never sit on your own, but if you must sit at the end of the table. Joy and Karl were jammed in either side.

“Got a boyfriend Em?” Joy asked, already lacing the conversation.

“Uh, not at the moment,” she replied, staring longingly at the exit and the wall mounted clock.

“STAY SINGLE!” Joy and Karl said together, seemingly the only thing they had ever agreed on.

“I had a boyfriend once,” Joy continued, Karl curled his top lip, “quite liked him at the time, but then something weird happened, can’t quite recall exactly what happened, but there was a gathering of people, a bloke in a dress, some words uttered and bang! He turned into a troll over night.”

“Did he Joy?” Karl asked and abruptly stood up and marched away. Emily saw her opportunity and started to edge away, but Joy grabbed her arm. It was the first time I noticed she wore her wedding ring. She drew Emily closer and whispered vitriol into her ear.

“He goes dogging every Thursday up at Queenswood,” Russ said. I assumed we were still talking about Neil.

“How do you know that?” Russ didn’t look up and slowly shook his head. It turns out that Russ had bought a car from Neil.

“We met at his house, the car was parked outside. A Mazda, it’s a tidy car. He came out and insisted we take it for a test drive, which I had already done the week previous. Before I know it he’s in the passenger seat, then Gwenda, that’s his missus, comes out of the house in a long mac and gets in the back. I think nothing of it. ‘Drive on’ he says and so we set off. ‘We’ll take her to the high road’ he says ‘you can give her some welly up there’. We get to the high road, out in the country and I give her some gas. It can shift, mind. We did about half a mile and I said I was happy with it and went to turn round. ‘No, no, just a bit further we can turn round at the top of the hill’. We get up there and he tells me to turn in between two trees and drive on a bit. ‘Dip the headlights’ he says. We drive on, then up ahead there are a few parked cars, sidelights on, men stood about. ‘Slow down by here’ he says with this bloody grin on his face. ‘Stop here a minute.’ There’s a tap on my window and stood there is a great big bearded bastard. ‘Wind your window down’ Neil says ‘just an inch’. Which I do and this big bastard says ‘Good evening, either of you want to fuck my missus?’”

Russ took a glug of his Yazoo as Karl returned carrying a little dictionary with a finger stuck in the middle.

“Oh your boyfriend turned into a troll did he?” Karl cleared his throat and read, “noun. a friendly or mischievous character in Scandinavian mythology. Well I don’t know about you Joy but he sounds like an adorable chap.” Joy quietly turned her ring around the finger. “And as a complete coincidence, troll is proceeded by Trollope, which is exactly what a girlfriend I had turned into.” Emily suddenly became engrossed in the ingredient information on the back of her Wotsits.

“The problem with you, shithead, is that you have never given a compliment in your entire life.” Not wanting to be out done Karl thought long and hard, the cogs almost audible as he wracked his brain. He paused, smiled, leaned across Emily and said,

“You remember when we moved into MY mother’s house and you said you needed some shelves in the front room? I didn’t think we needed them, but still I spent all of that Saturday, when the bulls were at home and all, fixing them up and when I had finished I stood back and said ‘Bloody good job you’ve gone there Karl.’ Can’t give a compliment, my arse.”

“’Fancy a swap’ Neil says,” Russ continued the story, “the big bugger looks in the back at Gwenda and says ‘aye alright’. So Neil starts to get out. ‘We can’t use this car, I sold it half an hour ago.' 'No problem’ the big bugger says, ‘my seats are leather. Wipe off.’”

“So what did you do?”

Russ picked up a sausage and bit the end off, “what’s that saying? When in Rome?”

Dog

Two extremely exciting things happened after break. Firstly The Back Street Boys broke the Shania-Britney-Ricky-Madonna-Lou Bega strangle hold with their instant classic ‘I Want It That Way’. I for one was over-joyed. Musical amnesia had set in long ago, but here on their white steeds rode the boys to continually ask the question ‘tell me why?’ The only vehicle for light relief was questioning the existence of my life.

The second sensationally exciting thing was that for the first time in a month I spied Sandra Mousey. From the corner of my eye I thought I saw her shoot out from a hole in the wall, nab a chicken wing then dart back to safety to nibble it in the darkness. She came and went in a blink. I remained vigilant and eventually she reappeared. So she hadn’t been eaten by a cat. Or maybe she had, but had been so small she’d made it all the way through puss’ digestion system. She looked tired and petrified all at once and when she moved along the factory floor she hugged the walls lest something go bang or snap and she could flit into a pencil hole at its base.

Like so many people at T.F.L. it was impossible to see what she did. She carried a clipboard, but only for a means to hide behind, she stopped briefly to studying a chart on a wall, but with no end product. I guessed she was a ‘manager’ of some kind but she was genuinely scared rigid when another ‘manager’ engaged her in conversation. Did she have it in her to administer a sacking or have it in her to grab the bull by the horns if Tesco’s demanded an extra tonne of chicken bits?

She had scurried three quarters of the length along the factory floor (an achievement she wore across her whiskers) when Butch Sue steamed through a doorway. Whether Butch Sue tied Mousey to a pole and used her for sexual pleasure or to satisfy that tricksy itch between the shoulder blades, it was unclear, but Mousey in petrified over-load spun on her tiny claws and scampered back from whence she came. Like so many one hit workers, I never, ever saw her again.

“I didn’t fuck anyone. Just watched,” Russ said a good hour after he had begun the dogging conversation in the canteen.

            (Chat ran that way at T.F.L.. I imagined the same conversations had been running for years and years between some of the most permanent workers....

“You remember that question you asked me in June, 1984?”

“Oh aye.”

“Well the answer’s no. Maybe.”

“Tidy.”)

“Did you enjoy it?” I asked.

“It was alright, problem is when they get really in stuck the windows steam up and you’ve got a real job to see in.”

“Occupational hazard.”

“Yeah, but it usually sorts itself out when an arse wipes across the glass and you can see all in an instant.”

Ever since I was eight years old I had dreamt of being an actor; of holding an audience in awe with my poise on stage or transfixing cinema goers with my on-screen presence. Hopefully, five years on from receiving my equity card, I’d receive my first nomination then two years later win a big award at a ceremony in the United States. Alas, here I was with ex-Paratrooper Russell discussing the pitfalls of dogger’s condensation on car windows, whilst stuffing dead birds into netting which had been manipulated by a machine that provoked some men into instant masturbation.

 “But you stayed for the entire show?”

 “I couldn’t just drive off, how would they get home?”

“You were contractually obligated I suppose? I bet the ride home was funky.”

“Shit, you’re telling me. It stank like someone had left a radiator on in a butchers shop. Neil chatted all the way home as if we’d merely been to spot badgers.

It was that night that the dream I was to have for the next two months started. I was stood at a conveyor belt as streams of turkey steaks sped passed. The belt sped quicker and quicker and in a flash I am at the end of it with the raw steaks pouring into my mouth. I began choking. Various characters popped into the dream for a cameo, but all saw the same result: death by turkey steak.

Tuesday June 8th

It was an unexpected joy to work alongside Russ. He had impeccable timing of relieving the slow cold pain of boredom either with a pin point hit on a colleague with a piece of meat or an active service story. He had also discovered the hydraulic door, that Lee had lost a finger to, down by the loading bay. When the factory floor was absent of Butch Sue, he’d beckon me down to the bay and we’d re-enact the moment in Star Wars – Phantom Menace when young Obi Wan and Gon Wi are confronted by Darth Maul. Over time we had constructed light sabres by winding lengths and lengths of sellotape round cardboard tubes. Russ would stand one side of the door as Darth Maul and I would assume the role of a Jedi on the other. He’d hit the button, the door would rise up, we’d eye each other and battle would commence. At first they were frenetic bouts of up to a minute, but as the day wore on our duels could last for five or ten minutes totally oblivious to the trolleys and men that skirted by with another pallet for a supermarket.

During one of our epic scenes Obi-Wan scored a direct hit on Darth Maul and Russ elaborately dived head long into a neatly constructed pile of cardboard boxes completely obliterating someone’s handy work. He crushed the lot, scattering boxes all over the alleyway and climbed out of the pile with his customary, ‘whoops’.

It was the word that seemed to sum up his life. I imagined him bobbing up and down in the North Sea with two broken ankles and the realisation that he had just jumped himself out of the regiment and simply remarking, ‘whoops’.

After a marathon battle, during which Lee had been a passive spectator, we returned to find Butch Sue with hands on hips.

“Where on earth have you been?!”

“Constructing boxes,” I offered.

“Fret not young Paduwen,” Russ said to me, holding up his hand and then held Butch Sue’s stare, “we have not been on earth, but to a galaxy far, far away defending the universe against the threat of evil.”

Our reward for such heroism was to see me re-deployed to turkey steaks and Russ lost to the abyss of barbequed chicken thighs.

Butch Sue’s irritation of me had been growing by the day. The kind of irritation that Bugs Bunny used to extract from Elma Fud. She stood behind me at the turkey steak conveyor belt for an age and watched attentively as I weaved my magic. She stood right on my shoulder like my own personal moon and orbited me at will. Eventually she caught my eye shook her head in disappointment and wandered away. It was going to be a game of wills to see who would break first.

Death by turkey steak - chapter six

Friday, May 28^th

 

After the fourth day of solitary confinement I began to miss Shania, Ricky, Britney, Lou and Madge. I whittled away the hours wondering what they might be doing. Probably driving around Beverley Hills in chrome fronted Jeeps or flying over Europe en route to Japan for a sell out tour. Do they ever spare a thought for people like me, Timmy and Gar feeding the British economy as they lay out in their private jets and sip champagne? Yeah, probably. I’m sure they spend endless phone calls spelling out their admiration of people like us. Maybe right then as I fed the machine with hunks of dead bird Britney was telling a lad’s mag reporter that she’d love to date a turkey slicer or cop a feel behind the chicken Kiev breading machine.

Maybe, possibly, Shania was right that minute donning a hairnet and tabard in the women’s changing room upstairs before she went on a meet and greet walkabout of the factory floor. She’d beam with pride as, during the tour, her track would be heard at least six times and as she entered the cutting room she’d laugh with joy as Timmy would regale her with a story of how he bottled some ‘twat’ outside the Manhattans nightclub and urinated on his prone body. Then, as she tossed her head back, she’d catch my eye and float over. I’d hit her with a plum opening line about how I found a chicken head amongst the turkey breasts and her lips would gently part showing her pearl white teeth. She’d ask to be ‘shown the turkey slicing ropes’ and stand in front of me as I cozied up behind her and fed the breasts through her hands: a very similar scene to one in Ghost.

She’d ask me what I was doing tonight and I’d take her out into town for a pound a pint in Marilyn’s and we’d dance to Lou Bega on the sugar sticky carpets. She’d take exception to a sixteen stone she-wolf in Ugg boots and smack her with her Smirinoff Ice. There’d be blue language and fists and nails and when it would all calm down she’d whisper to me that she thought I was ‘lush’, wedge me between two fruit machines and make my eyes spin. Then, after another brawl in the girls bogs, we’d skip out into the warm evening and I’d buy her a pickled egg from Mr. Chips. She’d swallow it in one, lead me into the shadows of the graveyard behind Jewson’s and let me take her from behind over a gravestone. Hereford-in-a-night.

Probably not, but I can dream. It was twenty seven minutes passed nine.

Tuesday June 1st

Delilah

It took longer than expected. Although looking back there were no imminent clues as to my full name. I was ‘Tom’ for everyone to see, but the ‘Jones’ had had no reason to surface. Only Luke had felt compelled to ask, ‘What’s new Pussycat?’ EVERY time he saw me and it said as much for Ben and Arnan’s foresight that they guessed, as I bore the same name as an internationally famous Welsh singer, that I’d probably had plenty of stick for it throughout my life. So they left it alone. Timmy, however, was a different kind of beast.

            It had taken Timmy a week to garner the information from someone; perhaps Butch Sue had tipped him off. She was, after all, keen to break me. It was clearly the finest moment of his career.

The afternoon shift started as usual. Regret, remorse, sickness, fear and self loathing: all those vital emotions one should feel at the start of a brand new day. I had kitted myself out for war, sidled along the factory floor, clocked in and set off for the cutting room. I saw Gar up ahead stood on centenary duty quickly dash inside and shut the door. Nothing seemed amiss. I paused to thank God for life’s opportunities and entered the cell. I was alone. Gar was nowhere to be seen, Timmy either, or the other man who I had recently learnt was called Sid. Full name Sidney: nickname Syst. That’s strange.

            I selected a glove, squeezed in behind the machine and started another eight hours of hate. At the completion of the first crate I had the sensation that I wasn’t alone. Over on the far wall was a big square machine on legs and visible beneath were six boots. What now? What practical joke hell is this? The machines growled on. The clock ticked forth. The breasts became steaks, but still boots did not move. I had gone through two crates of breast before, amid much fanfare, Timmy, Gar and Syst appeared with what looked like underpants whittled out of polystyrene.

“MY, MY, MY, DELILAH, WHY, WHY, WHY, DELILAH!” Timmy mimed a trumpet, “.... I JUST COULDN’T TAKE ANYMORE!” On the cue of the crescendo the door opened and more men poured through, most of which I’d never seen........ “MY, MY, MY, DELILAH......” On and on the chorus went. They, ten of them in all, sung the whole fucking song and then when they finished they threw the imitation knickers at me. Great.

            Hysterical laughter, merriment, finger pointing and then...... ‘The Green, Green grass of home.’ Not a word missed out.

“I can’t believe it!” Timmy proclaimed, “that you’re called Tom Jones! Classic! An absolute classic! Your face!” He genuinely believed, bless his eyebrows, that he was the first person to ever make the link.

“You what?” I said with utter mock confusion, “what do you mean?”

“Tom Jones?! The Welsh singer!”

“OH MY GOD!” I yelled, “why has NO ONE ever said that to me before?”

Timmy was as stunned as a floating turd. “You what? No fucker’s ever realised that?!”

“NO!”

“Boys! D’you ‘ear that?” Cue ‘Delilah’. Again. Every word.

            It took twenty minutes for the choir to calm down and exit.

(I waited a few minutes for Timmy to finish ending himself with fake laughter. I beckoned him over and stabbed him with a knife. Not to kill him; not yet. I stuffed him into the slicing machine. As his skull splintered and blood oozed along the conveyor belt, his smelly boots thrashed and kicked. His arms wouldn’t fit in so I just slammed the lid down onto them until they hacked off. His arse jammed against the wire string slicers so I used his right arm to force it through. I then rammed his left arm down Gar’s throat as he stood stock still unable to flinch through sheer bewilderment. I then calmly walked down to Butch Sue’s office and choked her with her own knickers....)

            Nah, but the thought crossed my mind every minute for the next two hours. It is the thought that counts after all.

Death by turkey steak - chapter five

Tuesday, May 25^th

My life this Tuesday morning was to take on a new experience. I had barely sanitized my dirty self when Butch Sue approached like a reversing truck.

“Could I borrow you please?” Like a floundering Gnu calf I had been singled out from the herd by the predatory lion(ess) and we advanced towards the mysterious plastic strips. What horror was I about to greet? Was I being led into the dungeon where light starved forgotten men lick blood that streamed down the walls? Had Butch Sue been studying my lax performance and now deemed that I was nothing better than to become a new product for Lee to tip onto the conveyor belt? She burst through the strips and was gone. This was it. I was never going to realise my dream of making it to machine manager....

Just another bland room. Phew. Less machines and workers but still windowless. She kept going. On and on to the far end. Workers I had never seen before stopped momentarily to eye my orange status. They nudged each other and whispered. They had seen the slaughter many times before. Butch Sue sucked through another set of strips and I followed.

Beyond was a loading bay of pallets and trolleys and men and clipboards. Far away on a distant wall was a tiny window. Illusive daylight shone through. Should I make a run for it, for freedom? Smash the glass and gasp at the fragile air. They’d chase me but surely I’d make it to the fence. They’d pursue with knives and carrier bags full of chicken heads, but I bet I could make it. I might slice my arms as I’d clamber over the barbed wire but I’d make it, I’d be free....

None of it. Butch Sue was waiting by the door to a side room adorning a sign that said ‘Cutting Room’. So this was to be my end. Sliced open and butchered in the dark. I hoped my final image as the knives tore through my flesh would be the setting sun on the Perth coast. Should I fight or succumb? I’d find out soon enough. She opened the door and I disappeared to my fate.

Three men were inside and Butch Sue was bigger than all of them put together. She went over to a pencil limbed lad sporting bushy eyebrows and a huge carving knife. They consulted, he turned and approached. His chain mail apron slapped against his gum boots as he strode forward. A sheen of poultry juice across his chest caught the light. This is what it must have felt like to be a victim on the battle fields of the ancient crusades, hewn to pieces by a chain mailed Knight. Butch Sue stood and watched, of course she would, keen to see the bloodshed and eager to see that the job was done.

“Alright, shag? I’m Timmy. Timmo for short, Timothy for long. I’ll show you how to slice a turkey.”

Damn you Sue and your mind games.

Timmy was everything a young man should be: confident, fearless and stinking like a badger in a boiler suit. He gave me a chain mail glove and showed me round to a stainless steel boxed machine.

“Stand there, shag,” he said deciding my name was redundant. To the side of my position was a table with a crate of turkey breasts on top. “The machine runs all the time, but when you lifts the lid, it stops. Put a breast in and shut the lid. That starts the machine and it slices the breast. When she comes out the other end, repeat. I’m going for a crap, if you have any problems, see Gar.” Gar was either of the two other men left in the room as Timmy vacated. Neither looked over. The heave of machinery was louder than I was used to. The noise rendered the ear plugs useless. Shania was nowhere to be heard.

It was now or never, the moment of truth. I had gone from being the slaughtered to the slaughterer. I opened the lid and placed a breast in. In one arm movement I had sliced my first turkey breast and boy did it feel good. Real good.

Timmy must have eaten an entire raw turkey because he was gone for an hour.

“Got the hang of it?” he asked on his return. I opened the lid, placed a breast inside and sliced it. “Ah, you’ll get there. Took me a week to master it.” I’ve no doubt. “Why they call you Tom then?”

“Because it’s my name.”

“I see.” He stood there for an age looking at the wall, my boots, the edges of the machine, his future, perhaps, and then he was gone again.

Two more hours went by, slower than they ever had. Lee appeared every so often to take my art down to where I had originally packed it. He greeted me with a nod and left me with a touch of the peak of his hat, which over the two hours built up a steady residue of turkey snot. He didn’t seem to mind. Each time he appeared he came a little closer. And closer. Like a timid squirrel learning that the outstretched arm was to be trusted. It must have been a new world of hope that a person he had constant contact with wasn’t asking him questions and then going on to call him a ‘fucking spastic’ when he tried to answer. I never saw him voluntarily approach anyone to speak, he was always beckoned for differing reasons. He knew his job and stuck to it and because there was no change in his routine and those above spoke in demands, he never had to find himself in a discussion. No one ever consulted him. But the boy wanted to talk...

Breakfast

‘The Tweenies’ theme music is allegedly played (on loop) to prisoners of war in order to break them and gain secrets, though I think I had found a new weapon in torture. After two hours of this I was ready to tell all. I was so comatose that Timmy had to tell me it was break time. Perhaps when I returned I could climb into the machine and end it all. Options, options.

For all Graham’s utter bullshit about being liable for nature and his new fangled stories about health and safety irregularity, he was something of a saviour. His top notch breakfasts could possibly be responsible for stemming the suicide rate. It may have been a total disaster to get into a conversation with him, but I’d have gone to bed with his hash browns.

Ben and Arnan were in residence. Their machine had broken down and were on leave until further notice. They were fascinated by my morning’s experience.

“Luke?” I asked as a matter of course.

“He reckon’s he has found this amazing hiding place and to be fair it must be good because we haven’t seen him for a week.”

“He clocks in, reappears after eight hours and clocks out.”

“How was your weekend?”

Ben grinned. “Snogged Jess in Mazzers. Got her tits out as well in the bus station. You should have come out.”

“I had to stay in and work on my packing skills.”

“You keep that dedication up my boy and you’ll be set for life.” We laughed and then fell into silence, each contemplating a life at T.F.L. Three tables away Joy and Karl were playing out their problems with poor old Tinker wedged in between. Note to self: if ever dining alone pick a seat at the end of the table. Karl mimed the loading of a gun and subsequent brain blowing. Joy mouthed ‘Wish you would’ and Tinker sunk lower into his paper.

Snip

Unfortunately the cutting room hadn’t been sucked into a vortex. Timmy was banishing a knife in Lee’s direction, though he must have been regaling a story because unflustered Lee leaned against his trolley and nodded along. Lee spared a nod for me. He was warming. Timmy parried and thrust his boning knife with aplomb. A few left hand jabs confirmed that he was playing out a Saturday night High Town scrap. Lee remained unmoved only occasionally to glance over to monitor the progress of the crates of sliced turkey that stacked up. Relief was evident when I added the final crate to the trolley. He pointed at the full quota, Timmy paused and Lee marched over. He nodded, exited and Timmy approached.

“He’s a lucky fucker,” Timmy began, but failed to continue.

“Oh yeah, why is that?”

“He cut the top of his finger off back in February. He gets all the fuckin’ luck.”

Hmmmm. “And why is that lucky?”

“You got a lot to learn around here mate.” That I had. “Got five grand didn’t he? And paid time off. I’d give my right arm to lose a finger.”

“Would you? What’s stopping you then?” I advised nodding towards the knife that always remained point forward and in constant movement.

“Nah ya dull fucker, it has to be an accident, you can’t just wap a fucker off. Not covered that way. Oh aye I could slice a couple of fingers off, not the useful ones mind, I ain’t shy of doing that. Gar!” Timmy swivelled and beckoned Gar who looked utterly thrilled to have been spoken to. Gar, or Gareth as his hat proclaimed, turned out to be the shorter of the other two ambiguous men in the room. “I was just telling shag, ‘ere, that Scatman is a lucky fucker.” Gar nodded vigorously. “Down by the loading bay there’s a hydraulic door what goes across up and down like, it’s automatic like, anyway he’s going under it when Jeff Dean, who works on the kiev’s walks through. Deano stops him for a chat right under the door. Scatman's hand is on top of the crates on his trolley as they are chatting and of course the sensor can’t pick him up when he’s stood there and after twenty seconds it comes down.”

“Across?”

“You got him! Snip. The fuckers off. He was unlucky not to lose the hand.” Timmy mimed, Gar nodded, I considered climbing into the machine. “Half a foot back along and he’d have been set up for life. Mind you I says to him afterwards that he’d be out of a job if he lost his hand......” the wide smile and eyes told me there was a joke behind those teeth...... “because he’s a professional wanker!” Gar laughed and tossed his head to a gag he must have heard countlessly over the last few months.

Timmy talked on and on while Gar stared straight at me. He recalled the story he had just bestowed on Lee and as I suspected it surrounded an inebriated fight in Hereford High Town on the weekend.

            Apparently, some ‘twat’ who ‘had had it coming’ subsequently ‘had it’. He (Timmy) had heard that ‘this twat’ had been ‘gobbin’ off about him (Timmy). And he (Timmy) wasn’t having it. So ‘this twat’ (remaining unnamed) ‘had to have it’. ‘It’ involved him (Timmy) hitting him (the twat) when he (the twat) wasn’t looking. Then he (Timmy) laid into ‘the gobby twat’ while he (the twat) languished (not Timmy’s word) on the paving stones of our fair city’s promenade. The plot thickened when Timmy revealed that he (the twat) was his darts partner and in the process of he (the twat) getting ‘it’ Timmy had broken a finger on his (the twat’s) throwing hand. And so he began a new story about the headache he now had about an upcoming darts match....

My turkey breast supply had long run out while Timmy talked on and on, Gar remained rooted, eyes fixed on me. Lee appeared, noted the absence of turkey steaks and disappeared. Timmy prattled on totally oblivious until the plastic strips fanned apart and Butch Sue appeared puce to the hairline, as if she had spent her morning masturbating furiously in the office with a chicken drumstick. Butch Sue lived for moments like this.

Gar spotted her and dropped his head, but Timmy never drew breath. Butch Sue surveyed the scene selecting her favoured put down, then approached.

“Uh, Timothy, what is going on here? Meat pack F are crying out for turkey.”

“Sorry Sue, Gar is distractin’ us.

“Gareth what is that knife for?”

“Boning turkey’s Sue.”

“Uh, Gareth!”

“Sorry Mrs Jaques,” Sue raised her eyebrows, “Sorry Ms Jaques.”

“Does this look like a bus stop to you Gareth?”

Gar slowly looked around, paused, prepared to answer, took another quick look then confirmed, “nope.”

“Well does it?”

“Nope.”

“I believe I’ve said my piece. I want to see breasts.” She paused long enough to look me up and down as to tar me with the same brush, then exited satisfied with the only thing she’d do that week; but she wasn’t finished and returned.

“Timmy? Do you want to go back to MacDonald’s?”

“No, Sue.”

“Then you’d better pull your socks up.” Triumphant, witty and self important Butch Sue re-exited stage right.

Timmy looked to Gar. “D’you ‘ear what she said?”

“She wants to see tits.”

“That’s priceless.” Timmy saw fit to finish his story before he added, “anyway best get a move on before I ‘ave to save your arse again. Get crackin’. I’m going to thump Scatman for snitchin’ on you.”

“Cheers Timmy.” Gar said and Timmy disappeared.

Death by turkey steak - chapter four

Monday, 17^th May

Afternoon

I saw it as some form of achievement to have seen out my first full week at T.F.L. without throwing myself under a large vehicle like a lorry or a train or Butch Sue. The second week began with the more social able start of two in the afternoon, but it took a Monday morning of being wide eyed and aware of the impending doom to figure out that the early shift was going to be preferable. Nobody wants to be told of their execution; it is better for the soul if your head is wapped off from behind, unknowingly. Sulking around hoping that two o’clock in the afternoon would never come is not a good look. Wide awake and terrified? Na, I’ll take asleep on your feet, only coming round with the first break. And so I longed for the early shift when I resembled a slumbering, frozen lobster lowered into a bubbling pot.

By the time I’d start work at two in afternoon, the lad trio of law-unto-himself Luke, Big Dick Ben and ‘Captain America’ would only have two hours left of their day. Bastards. It was all the more apparent that without them I’d have to up my quest for new companions.

Britney did it again and again and again all day, but not without the help of Madge’s ‘Beautiful Stranger’ and Lou Vega’s host of wanton women. Sluts the lot of them. Probably sipping champagne pool side bolstered from the royalties of endless factory play while I stank of meat and hoped the end was nigh.

I packed all day with faceless white topped workers who wouldn’t dare be seen looking an orange hat in the eye. A time ravaged woman, BitchDeVill, saw fit to make a non-existent point of repacking one of my so-called attempts as it whizzed past her on the conveyor belt. She looked at me as if I’d wriggled out of a week old chicken carcass. She tutted to a colleague, Bitchzilla, who shook her head in abhorrent disgust.

No ladies, you are right, tut away. I am scum.

I had spent all morning loose in civilisation hoping for time to stand still, now here I was fielding the savage looks of people who could align meat better than me, hoping for the end of time. Tick...... tock........ tick....... tock......tick.......... Hey! It stopped! The clock stopped! For a few seconds, I’m sure, it stopped! Butch Sue! Call the Prime Minister! It is an injustice.......!

Shania popped in for three minutes and twenty five seconds to proclaim that she felt like a transvestite. Again. Bitch. The white windowless walls crept closer and closer. Those not rooted to the spot wandered hither and thither looking at clipboards whose non-existent information told them nothing about everything and nothing. Butch Sue appeared, then vanished and then reappeared to tick boxes and scour the factory floor for a problem she could doubtlessly ignore. In, out, in, out, tick, tock, tick box, tock, tick, tock, in, out, suck, exhale, suck, exhale, thigh, breast, leg, tick, box, tock, orange, white, fade to black.

Three pounds and ninety four pence an hour? Sign me up for life.

Wet

Afternoon’s at T.F.L. were less populated than the mornings and I couldn’t care less why, it just meant that there were fewer people to call me a ‘twat’ in the canteen. At least Olwen and Co. were in residence. Emily smiled at me as I sat down. I think she was, as it is in known in the trade, taking a shine to me.

“What are you having?” she asked looking at my plate of sausage and chips.

“Smoked haddock and green beans.”

“You’re funny,” she smiled. Our high level flirtation was curtailed when Olwen beckoned over a man with a face like the inside of a poacher’s satchel.

“Hiya Karl love. Alright?”

“Breathin’. Just.”

“This is Tom.”

“You on sweet an’ sour Ol?” he asked, refusing to acknowledge my existence.

“We all are,” Jeanine said brightly.

“I’m on Thai chicken. Can ‘ardly get the machine to pack this afternoon. I’d ‘ave taken a metal bar to it. In another life.”

Silence. A scowling woman cradling a Ribena bee-lined for our table and sat opposite me, two seats down from Karl with Olwen wedged between.

“’Ow are ya, Joy, love?”

“Alive. An’ not just from the waist up.” Karl winced and took it into his tea.

“Nice weekend?”

“Not really Ol. ‘Ad a fuckin’ pain in my ‘ead for fourty eight hours.” Karl squashed an escapee pea on the table with a fist.

“My sister gets migraines. Lavender tea is the only thing that smoothes it. Some days she just has to lie in a darkened room for hours,” Jeanine said.

“It’ll take more than that, love,” Joy bit, stabbing the foil straw cover of the carton, “I’ve ‘ad it constant for twenty two years.”

“That’s a long time Joy. You should see a doctor.”

“A lawyer an’ a piece of paper would take it away.” Olwen looked forlornly for a Jaffa cake, but she’d vacuumed them all. She looked to Karl, but he stared straight ahead. “Problem with the pain in my ‘ead is that it makes a dull, repetitive noise, a bit like a castrated bear fumblin’ for ‘is forgotten balls.” Karl slowly closed his eyes. Olwen looked desperate to depart, but she was hemmed in.

“I’ve ‘ad pain in my groin for the last twenty two years an’ all,” Karl reported.

“Maybe you should see a doctor too?”Jeanine continued. Olwen was trying in vain to lasso her eye.

“That wouldn’t help. It’s external. Got a pair of claws in my wallet.” Joy sucked the carton dry as Karl continued, “I’ll tell you what I did at the weekend. I went to see a marriage councillor.” Jeanine caught the lasso and said nothing.

“Any good, Karl?” Joy asked, indenting her fingernails into the cardboard.

“A complete waste of fuckin’ money as it goes, Joy.” Silence. “Although there was one moment of revelation.” Silence. “The councillor wouldn’t ‘ave it that we ‘ad nothing in common an’ asked us to think long an’ ‘ard to find somethin’,” Joy had reduced the carton to a mere ball, squeezing forth little drops of purple to join the pea green squish, “’I got one’ I said eventually. ‘Neither of us like givin’ blow jobs.’” Olwen was gazing so far into her lap that her forehead was almost on the table. Jeanine swallowed a laugh, but it got stuck and struggled back up so she morphed it into a cough. Joy, with eyebrows raised and eyes closed, slowly got to her feet and leant over Olwen towards Karl.

“Go fuck yourself, you twat.”

Headless pecking order

Christina Aguilera was warbling something about wanting a genie in a bottle or that she had had sex with a genie in a bottle or that she’d built a ship in a bottle and a genie had sat on it: or something. I prayed that Butch Sue would intercept and whisk me away to another task, but she was snowed under with continuously flicking back and forth the same piece of paper on her clipboard and so I rejoined the turkey steak line. BitchDeVill and her sidekick Bitchzilla shook heads in tandem, “Yes ladies, I’m back and hopefully more retarded than ever before.” Bitchzilla intercepted my first tray of turkey and the tone was set. Are these the women who write into points of view to object that a presenter’s smile was too intrusive or offensive? Or pen a letter to the Sun entitled ‘It’s the youth what is ruining the country’? Do they pace their front room ruing all those trays that were a tenth of a fraction off a perfect formation and spend weekends prowling supermarket aisles buying up rejects that slipped the net? Very easily so.

The character assassination continued as one in four of my trays were intercepted and corrected when, like a Knight in oddly assembled clothing, William turned up as drunk as a grouse. He absorbed some of the silent bullying as he arranged steaks in a care free fashion then dumped them onto the belt, steadying himself after each one by clinging to the stainless steel shelving. The Bitch sisters were inconsolable to the point where, after a monosyllabic conflab, Bitchzilla huffed away to tell tales to Butch Sue. She nodded sagely and was about to intervene when a clipboard must have called her in the office, because she disappeared and was not seen again for an hour.

Eat and be eaten

Will’s, myself and our orange hatted kind were the lowest on the T.F.L. hierarchy food chain. Savage Ann and the Bitch sisters had done everything in their power to suggest that a new worker was in fact lower than the poultry. After this the pecking order was somewhat blurred. Everyone wore a white hat, red if employed in hygiene, but workers were set aside by varying levels of ‘skill’. Lee, it would seem, as a meat man was higher up than Savage Ann and co. because he bore more responsibility. If he was tardy with a delivery, then it affected those packing below him, but if the machine broke down, then Lee, like the workers was instantly hamstrung. Therefore the ‘machine managers’ had many below them by the collective goolies. And they knew it.

They were the chest out, strutting, spanner tinkers who firmly believed they were the heartbeat of the factory. Despite all machines being relatively fool proof to operate and maintain they still postured as if they were bomb disposal experts placing themselves between life and death. When a product backed up and armfuls of plastic bound inside its guts, they’d spring into action, tighten a few screws, tweek a bunch of bolts or just clout the stainless flanks and hope for the best. Though like any blagger worth their salt they toiled in such a way as to suggest to the on looking packers that their job required an engineering degree from Havard and not, as the case maybe, a 75% attendance record from the technical college, Hereford.

It was difficult to ascertain if the ‘trolley boys’ were above or below the machine managers. These guys were the wheels of the operation. They transported the goods to the departure bay. Although their skill was effectively mastering the art of walking, they too treated their position with a high calibre. They may not have been rooted to the growling machines, but they were in charge of large hydraulic trolleys decorated with a dashboard of multi coloured buttons, although they only ever pressed two: up and down. They impressed that the trolleys were ‘not toys’ and in fact, as Stefan told me, far more serious than that. He caught me looking, tethered up his steed and strode over.

“Impressive bit of kit, innit?”

“I suppose, but it’s affectively a piece of metal on wheels isn’t it?”

Stefan was offended. “Oh, reckon you could ‘andle ten ‘orses do you?”

“I thought we were talking about trolleys?”

“Over ten ‘orse power in that bastard.” I looked blank, “ah yeah, not too cocky now then? She could do some serious damage. In the wrong ‘ands.” And what hands would they be then? ETA? The IRA? The Herefordian’s Independence party? “You orange ‘ats are all the same. You get good at pickin’ up a box an’ think you can drive a forklift.”

“But that is not a forklift.”

Stefan was getting restless, “might as well be,” and he stomped away to restrain his ten horse drawn forklift trolley.

I see; the forklift was the holy grail. I bet the trolley boy pretenders paused down at the departure bay and stared in awe at the whizzing professionals loaded with gas canisters picking up tonnes of bird in one stab. I imagined that the forklift operatives parked up to break open a Yorkie and smirk over to their lower placed colleges who could stomach nothing more than a Twirl. I would have to tread carefully in here. I could see a lot of nerves to be touched.

So: orange hat – meat – white hat worker – meat man – machine manager/trolley boy – forklift driver - .........

So where did that leave Butch Sue then? The fact that she didn’t do anything made it difficult to place her. Actually, hang on, of course: the fact that she didn’t do anything made it easy to place her. Human Resources. Way above everyone else: on level par with a Colonel. The hirer and firer, the eat or be eaten and, judging by her size, she’d consumed a fair few workers. There was no one to touch her. She came and went, ticked the boxes she had drawn herself and all she had to do was bollock someone once in a solar eclipse and that kept her head above water. Good old Butch Sue, one of life’s barnacles.

All is Rosey

Destiny’s Child were being obsessive about ‘Bills, Bills, Bills’ when the mother of the food chain approached.

“Could I borrow you, please?” It was one of the phrases that Butch Sue used continually. It only ever meant that I was being deployed elsewhere, but I feared for the day when she meant it literally and used me like a towel to dry between her legs. I was led into an adjacent room and the obligatory glaring commenced. The room was full of orange ladies both in spray tan and sauce as they stood around tables covering non descript meat in barbeque flavouring.

“Michael,” Butch Sue said and vanished. Michael Rose, our box lifting Jedi, approached.

“Turkey thigh in container, sauce on turkey, container in machine. If you can’t master that I’d ‘ang yourself tonight.” There endth the lesson. I joined a table and commenced my task in hand. Rosey was managing the production line, but was also getting his hands saucey. The flavouring was gag inducing. It was the kind of sickly sweet gunge that Mr. Blobby would yak up after a night on the tiles. It came in industrial tubs and was the same colour as my hat. A thigh was dumped into a container, embalmed with a ladle of Blobby vomit and placed on a conveyor belt that zipped it along to be sealed by a guzzling machine. A long streak of sauce down the back of one of the male workers suggested that it sometimes got ‘spilt’. Rosey came and stood next to me.

“You’re a rare breed,” he stated. Here we go again, a set up line to be followed by, “a lesbian without a fanny,” I suppose, but Rosey, to his credit, was not of that ilk.

“And what is that then?”

“You survived the first week. It’s like the Grand National on induction week. Many start the race, but only a few fuckers finish it.” A peculiar sense of pride and shame washed over me.

“And how long have you been here?”

“Too fuckin’ long, shag. Too fuckin’ long, but I’m ‘atchin’ my escape plan.”

Rosey was a rare breed himself. Some loved T.F.L. like a forever giving pet, most used it like a self help manual to make themselves feel special and the rest were just happy to use it as a shield against the outer world, until the security of death saved them; but Rosey saw it as a ploughed field, with the grass being greener on the other side.

I received his life story condensed into five minutes. He’d been a jockey, but, by his own admittance, a pretty bad one. No kidding. He was about six foot three and probably fourteen stone in just bone and sinew. He wanted to get back into horse racing – one way or another. He and his mate Millsy were attempting to become race horse owners. He looked up at the clock.

“I’ve got a meetin’ with ‘im anytime now.”

We were glared at all the while by a woman who had mugged a clown and made off with his make-up box. She waited for Rosey to march off and check the machine and then decided I was ripe to be picked on.

“Orange hat?” that was me, “you’ll find that break time is for talking.” A standard worker punching well above her substantial weight. Human Resources material right there. Rosey returned and Mrs. Happy crawled back into her shell and scowled out from under its lip.

“I’ve got a fuckin’ stellar plan,” he continued then returned to the machine that started to bleep and flash.

“Uh, what did I say orange hat?” Mrs. Happy asked.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You cheeky little bastard.” She looked horrified, set aside her container and marched off in the possible direction of Butch Sue. Rosey returned.

“What’s her problem?” I asked as she disappeared through the plastic strips.

“Ronnie? Take no fuckin’ notice. She makes my shit itch. ‘Ere ‘e is.”

Millsy was very much the same as Rosey in build and posture. Another bubbling volcano of ideas and I don’ts.

“You rang my lord,” he said in a mock posh tone, “what’s the Jackie?”

“Well there’s..... the what?”

“What’s the Jackie?”

Rosey looked perplexed. “Onnasis?”

“Plan.”

“What’s the Jackie Plan? What the fuck you on about?”

“Chan.”

“What’s a Plan Chan?”

“No you dull fucker. Jackie Chan – Plan. What’s the plan? Cockney rhymey slang innit, mate? You’d ‘ave been no good in the war.”

The meeting was off to a flyer.

Rosey looked around and lowered his voice. “I’ve been thinkin’.”

“Oh aye, thought I could smell summut burnin’,” Millsy winked at me.

Rosey pulled a folded glossy pamphlet out of his pocket and handed it to Millsy. “Read that.” It was the T.F.L. newsletter.

“All of it?”

“’Eadline.”

Millsy unfolded it and took a step away from splashes of Blobby puke. “Chicken outwits worker?”

“Otherside.”

“Maxman makes it nine in a row?” he read aloud. Rosey nodded slowly. “Who the fuck is ‘e?”

“Chief exec of T.F.L. in ‘e? Got this mint ‘orse, a stallion, been winnin’ all before ‘im, most successful thing on four legs since The Pet Shop boys.”

“An’ what? We put some money on it?”

“No. You remember what we were on about yesterday?” Millsy cast his mind back as Mrs. Happy re-entered the room, shortly followed by Butch Sue. She took up her previous position and wore the smug grin of a playground snitch. Butch Sue hovered dangerously by the doorway. Millsy was struggling to remember what he had had for breakfast, so Rosey recalled their conversation.

I ladled sauce as Rosey broke away from the thighs. It would seem that Millsy’s father had recently died, which had upset Millsy greatly, though not through grief; rather the paltry offerings of his Will. Millsy’s father had lived as hard and as fast as the racehorses he had owned and had nothing to show for it. Millsy had inherited nothing, except a retired mare.

Butch Sue surveyed the entire work shy conversation as I eavesdropped and continued marinating and then intervened.

“Could I have a word please?” she asked and I looked up expecting the meeting to have been interrupted, but Rosey wasn’t drawing breath. I glanced towards her and it was me she was fingering.

“Me?”

“Who else?” Mrs. Happy was smouldering with satisfaction. Butch Sue guided me over to a wall. “What is T.F.L.?” She wasn’t there on the first day of the induction so perhaps she didn’t know.

“Uh, a poultry processing factory?” she was un-moved. “Am I in the right area?”

She leaned into me. “DO NOT get cocky with me.” Butch Sue was fairly humming with contentment. “It has come to my attention, that your attention,” pause for double word use recognition, “span has a habit of wavering.” Rosey and Millsy were now leant on a table away from the production line, deep in meat unrelated conversation. “We are all here to work and not play. Now you start doing some work and think about that. In silence.” Good work Butch Sue, well done. Find something that isn’t broken and sit right on it. She waited for me to return and vanished. Mrs. Happy broke away from her own conversation to eyeball me.

Rosey and Millsy chattered on for twenty minutes and the meeting was only halted when the forever gorging, never hungry machine bleeped and flashed. Millsy bid farewell and Rosey marched over. He pushed some buttons, yanked at some plastic, it started all over again and he returned to the table.

“Michael?” Mrs. Happy asked fluttering her clogged eyelashes.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Ronnie’s absolutely gasping for a tinkle. Do you mind?”

“Piss yourself dry for all I care,” he bit.

“Thank you Michael,” she purred, eyeballed me and minced away.

“So, put the world right?” I asked.

“The wheels are in motion. We’re gonna wank off a ‘orse.”

Baste

In the hour up to lunch Mrs. Happy never returned and Rosey foretold of his path to Gold Cup glory. Millsy’s father’s mare had been an above average steeplechaser, winning more races than it had lost. It was now to be converted into an incubator for a potentially promising foal. Maxman’s farm was a twenty minute ride out of Hereford and under the cover of darkness Rosey and Millsy were going to sneak into the stable, bring the stallion to climax into a bucket and then artificially inseminate the mare.

“Have you ever basted an animal before?”

“Eh?”

“It’s the technical term for masturbating a creature.”

“Bastin’, wankin’, don’t matter what you call it as long as we get some seed out of the fucker.” You had to admire him.

“So whose drawn the basting short straw?”

“Dunno yet. We’re gonna ‘ave to toss for it,” he said then marched off to beat the bleeping machine. I assumed he meant flip a coin, though with these lads you were never too sure of their intentions.

He returned and continued. “We’ve already got the name an’ all,” he looked around and whispered, “Sir Winalot.” A touch premature; let us hope the Stallion is as well.

“What is the gestation period of a foal?”

“You’re speakin’ in fuckin’ tongues now mate.”

“How long until you get the foal out of the mare?”

“As quickly as fuckin’ possible.” Excellent. The plan to take the National Hunt community by the mane was finalised to the enth detail.

“When is the night of love?”

“This Saturday. We’ll go down Edgar Street first to watch the bulls, have a couple of looseners at the final whistle and then make our way there. Stop off for a couple more pints on the way, bit of Dutch courage y’know?”

A drunk fondle under the stars? Rosey really knew how to approach a date.

Lunch

There were six cubicles in the men’s toilets and six sinks. A tall, bony man was shaving in front of a mirror. A steadily drawn out snore was reverberating around the room from behind the closed door of one of the cubicles. As I washed my hands the snore morphed into a series of rapid snorts, something was muttered and a tapping noise sounded. An empty orange juice bottle slowly rolled out and the snoring continued.

The two vending machines in the canteen were crammed with salt and sugar and were never without business for long. Only a small percentage of the work force queued for a square meal, though still enough to keep Graham the chef busy with pan and tongue.

I selected a table in the far corner bathed in sunshine. The view was of pre-fabricated offices housing the intelligence of the T.F.L. company.

Two men wearing ties and blue shirts stood at a window overlooking the canteen. One nursed a coffee, while the other looked as if he were kneading something inside his trouser pocket. The coffee drinker nodded towards the canteen and the other laughed. Behind them desks were laid out in parallel lines. Erratic plants lay dotted around the floor illuminated by the strip lights above. A short, rotund lady waddled towards them and spoke as she passed. The coffee drinker smiled and replied. He watched her go, looked back at the canteen and spoke. The other tie shook his head, folded his arms and screwed up his face. A svelte lady in a bottom hugging skirt approached from the other direction carrying a file. Her ponytail bobbed with her stride. She acknowledged both men and continued on through a doorway. Both watched her all the way. The man unfolded his arms, clenched his fists and thrust his pelvis twice towards the window. The coffee drinker nodded slowly.

Tuesday, 18^th May

Time did not pass at T.F.L.; it collected. It banked up around the machines and wedged itself under the roofs. Tonnes of poultry entered the factory naked and exited at the other end dressed in plastic; but time never went anywhere.

Wednesday, 19^th May

During an exhilarating period on chicken drumsticks I worked out that I could swim the English Channel eight thousand, eight hundred and forty five times during the rest of time at T.F.L..

Lunch

I returned to the table in the corner on the canteen, but without the sheen of sunshine. It was a grey day. The trouser kneader was at the window leaning on a water cooler. He waved a plastic cup elaborately as he engaged the svelte lady in conversation. She twirled the ponytail around a finger and nodded. He rose up on tip toe and mimed a flamboyant square cut cricket shot. She released her hair and placed her hands together.

A young lady took up a seat next to my table. She sipped some tea and wiped her eyes. Tears were a common occurrence at T.F.L.. Somebody was forever snivelling on the factory floor, in the departure day, by the taps or here in the canteen. A female colleague joined her.

“Just ignore them,” she said and ran her hand along her friends arm. A broad, older woman steamed between the tables and joined them.

“What’s on go ‘er?” she demanded to know, stirring her coffee round and round and round and round.

“They just won’t leave her alone,” the counselling friend said and the girl cried harder.

“Now you listen to me,” the broad woman snapped causing the girl to look up, “while they’re botherin’ you, they’re leavin’ everyone else alone. Now you take solace from that,” she said with a defiant nod. The shock of the sage advice momentarily halted the girl’s tears. Back over in the office the man’s trousers and shirt were a much darker shade and the water cooler lay on its side. The svelte lady’s back was arched in merriment.

Friday, 21^st May

On the tiles

Excitement had built steadily throughout the week and now on this glorious day it reached a crescendo. The factory floor was a hub of smiles and laughter. Monday’s were a stark contrast of bagged eyes and low brows, but Friday’s signalled the start of the weekend. All talk was about getting drunker than had been achieved the weekend before. The week’s pressure was going to be relieved all over town and in its gutters.

“My liver ain’t goin’ to wish it were born!” Stefan declared to Eddy, a machine manager, as they postured around his hydraulic trolley.

“We’re you startin’?” Eddy asked.

“I’ve got a couple of cans in me locker an’ I’ll bury them before I leave.”

“Me too.”

“Then I’ll ‘ave a look in at the karaoke an’ bury a couple in there.”

“Tidy.”

“I’ll sink a super turbo shandy in the Oxford en route to the Oak where I’ll smash a double gin.”

“See you in there.”

“I’ll ‘ave a Strongbow in Jake’s.”

“Yep.”

“A Smirnoff Ice in the Newmarket.”

“I’ve read you.”

“A WKD, no two, in the Imperial.”

“I knows.”

“Then into Mazzer’s an’ drink all the fuckin’ lager they’ve got.”

“Not if I beat you to it.”

Stefan lowered his voice. “You got any marchin’ powder to get you round the circuit?”

“Sam’s got plenty. She’ll sport you some.”

“Cock on, shag. Drug takin’ WILL be tolerated on THESE premises!” Stefan declared pointing to his face. “I don’t want to remember a thing about tonight, mind. Not a thing.”

Even when time was of their own the workers meant to disappear it as quickly as their bodies would allow.

The only worker not to show the same enthusiasm for oblivion was Butch Sue. She was as unanimated as usual. She’d probably already planned a night in whispering suggestively to a spreadsheet over a chilled bottle of gravel.

Lunch

It took some acute soul searching whilst on turkey thighs to work out why I didn’t share the same want for self destruction as the rest of them; because after the completion of my second whole week of employment I had been rendered sufficiently immune to enjoyment.