I
couldn’t remember how many days I’d been at T.F.L.. I knew it was a Thursday, I
was aware I had started on a Monday, but somewhere in between could have easily
taken a month. Maybe it had been a year and three days. Maybe I’d joined the
ranks of all of those who could boast that they’d been a T.F.L. loyalist for
fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years and was totally unaware I had wasted half my
life bent over a turkey. The colour of my hat was enough to remind me of my
status. The same colour as the ochre outback in the heat of the setting sun.
Dusty Morning
Three
more new workers had bitten the dust. Hadn’t even seen it through to Thursday.
I felt filthier and filthier with every employee that went down. At least
Shania wasn’t going to do a runner on me. As I clocked in she serenaded some
particularly electric news from Butch Sue. I wouldn’t be vac packing with
Nigel, but dusting turkey thighs with mixed herb with Aaron. As Butch Sue led
me into a new and exciting world I couldn’t work out whether she felt like a
man or a woman or both or neither. Neither could I pin point what she actually
did.
Various
workers were at different stages in their poultry packing careers. There was
Savage Ann and Tinker and Olwen who had been at T.F.L. since trees were
invented and were just part of the furniture and then there was Aaron’s blend.
Luckily his name was on his head, because he wasn’t going to offer that up to
me, instead his opening salvo was,
“I’m
a qualified lumberjack, so there.” By the time I’d mastered the art of covering
the skin side up of a thigh with a compound of dried parsley, basil and thyme I
knew more about Aaron than I did myself. “I can fall a tree, don’t worry about
that, don’t think I’m in ‘ere because I can’t do that. I’m just considerin’ my
options.” I was later informed by his mate, Kenno, that he been considering his
options whilst at T.F.L. for seven years. Aaron took exception.
“At
least I’m not a failed mechanic like some I could mention.”
“Yeah,
but you’re ‘ardly pullin’ up any trees in ‘ere are ya?” The pun went unchecked.
“You
sayin’ I can’t fell a tree? You show me any tree in ‘ere an’ I’ll bring the
fucker down.”
“You
show me a carburettor, anyone mind, an’ I’ll clean the fucker out.” And so it
went on. Well, if either of them tackled their chosen trade as well as they
dust thigh then no wonder they’re bickering in snoods in a windowless factory.
Bloody hell, four days in and I was starting to think like Savage Ann. In the
first hour Aaron hadn’t even sprinkled a pinch of herbs. He lent and pointed
and listed his top five trees and chipped away at Kenno until it all became too
much and he disappeared off to ‘bread and batter’ with the parting line, “I’m
bloody wasted on thighs.”
Kenno
and I dusted to the Ricky Martin classic ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’.
“Don’t
mind Ar, ‘e’s got issues. ‘E felled a thirty foot Spruce right through a
fuckin’ bungalow an’ ‘e ant picked up a chainsaw since. Except for the mornin’
‘e caught ‘is bird suckin’ off the postie.” Ricky Martin sung on about dancing
in the rain. “I ain’t fussed to be a mechanic again. Don’t take me up tha wrong
‘un, I refitted my sister’s Vauxhall with an Audi engine last easter, but I’m
‘appy doing this, ‘til, well.....” he stopped and stared at the opposite wall.
“Until
when?”
Kenno
shrugged, “’til I die,” and continued.
T.F.L.
‘til I die, I’m T.F.L. ‘til I die, I know I am, I’m sure I am, I’m T.F.L. ‘til
I die.
At
what age does someone stop learning? When does someone reach a point when they
no longer look at the present or look to the future, but continually look to
the past for their answers? Why can’t you teach an old dog new tricks? And when
did the dog become old enough not to bother advancing its knowledge? I mused on
this, and many other philosophical matters, as I lost hunks of turkey in a herb
storm, because Kenno wore an expression of numbness while I pouted and winced
and sighed and glanced endlessly at the slow motion clock. In contrast Kenno’s
eyes seldom left the task. I was sure that the entire work force could sneak
away and he’d never notice; magnetized to the bird in hand. I was interested to
know when my facial expression would be one uniform vision, but the chances are
I would never realise the transition, because my brain would have caught fire
by then and be nothing more than a small heap of carbon.
There
was utter pandemonium at about a quarter past ten. A large order of chicken
thighs destined for one of the big five (supermarkets) was way behind schedule
and so Butch Sue gathered a crack team to join the line and pack for England.
Olwen and Savage Ann were among those called to duty, which left a gaping hole
in our turkey thigh section. They moved in with seamless transition and it was
clear to see that they lived for moments liked this. They were the special
service branch of packing. Women like these propped up many industries in
Britain.
To
plug the gap in our line Butch Sue soon found some familiar faces. Ben, Arnan
and Luke appeared from nowhere.
“What’s
new pussycat?” Luke asked and stared blankly at the banking boxes of thigh.
“Fuck this,” he declared and wandered off.
“This
is too technical for Luke,” Arnan informed.
“Have
you met Neil yet?” Ben asked, “we’ve just spent an hour with him on sweet and
sour chicken.” It turned out Neil was the owner of the stretched face and
greying ponytail. “He goes to Bradford every weekend....”
“To
be led round a room by his cock,” Arnan rounded.
“All
the way for that?”
“Best
whore house in England apparently, and he should know because he’s been to all
of them.”
“Nice.”
“He’s
got a dilemma next weekend, because he has to look after his kids,” Ben said as
matter of fact.
“Why
doesn’t he take them with him?” I joked. It turned out to be quite an intuitive
suggestion.
“You
got it. He’s planning to leave them in the car while he gets wanked off in a
wedding dress,” Ben said. He paused, placed his hands on the stainless steel
edge of the conveyor belt and said with mock conviction, “if we stick at this
boys who knows? In three to five years, we could be living that dream,” and
suddenly my life seemed as regimented as the identikit boxes that flitted by.
Butch
Sue appeared like a taxiing airplane.
“Could
I have someone to make boxes?”
Luke
popped up as if he had always been there, “I’m on it!”
“Bastard,”
Ben spat. I didn’t realise it was such a plum job. “That’s him done until lunch.”
Our
training had stopped at picking up boxes and so I was apprehensive as to
whether Luke’s natural skills extended to constructing them as well. I needn’t
have worried. Over the course of the next two hours, as the hour hand wheezed
round to lunch, Luke fashioned boxes in the corner of the vast room. A pallet
was set down for him to stack the boxes on after he had shaped and fastened
them with a burst of sellotape from a gun, but no box made it onto the pallet;
only a steady wall gradually formed. In time, when the wall was high enough,
Luke disappeared.
“Where’s
he gone now?” Ben asked.
Lunch
A
jibe-less lunch suggested that the bullies had bored themselves to silence. I
had dreamt of an all day breakfast all morning. The worker in front of me ordered
a plate of beans, neat, and something to wash it down.
“I’ll
‘ave a can of coke as well, mate.”
“I
don’t sell cans in ‘ere mate,” Graham the chef informed.
“A
bottle will do, I ain’t fussed.”
“I
don’t sell cans in ‘ere, mate.”
“I
knows, I’ll just ‘ave a bottle.”
“Ask
me why I don’t sell cans.”
“Why
not?”
“Cos
you open one up, right, an’ a wasp gets in there, attracted by the sugar see,
you sting your lip an’ I’m liable.”
“For
a wasp?”
“Might
as well be.”
“Political
correctness gone mad, that,” the worker concluded and smoothed away to eat
beans and smoke and drink coke.
“Hi
Graham. Can I get bacon, sausage, hash browns, mushrooms, tomato and a scoop of
beans, please.”
“I
don’t sell cans in ‘ere mate....”
I
had a prime view of my lone tree on the green horizon that seemed a middle
earth away, until Emily plonked herself in my eye line.
“Hi
Tom.”
“Hi
Emily,” I assumed she was looking at me.
“What
you doing?”
“Screaming
in a vacuum. You?”
Afternoon
I
arrived back in hell to find Butch Sue lecturing Luke. Ben informed me that
Luke had built the wall for the purpose of a screen which he had successfully
used to sleep behind for the last hour.
“I
bet she’s got a tattoo of T.F.L. on her upper arm,” Ben said. We looked on as
she was telling Luke to look at her as she spoke.
“Along
with a wolf howling at the moon on her inner thigh,” Arnan added.
“That’s
his fifth warning in three days.” Luke, arms outstretched, looked like he was
pleading diminished responsibility.
Butch
Sue, immensely satisfied with her smack down, shepherded us over to the turkey
steak belt. At the head of the line a narrow shouldered worker brought crates
of meat from beyond the fabled plastic strips. He was nothing more than a boy.
His piercing eyes stabbed the space within the snood. He listened, but did not
speak; tipped deluges of bird, watched the hypnotic machine for a while and
then disappeared to trawl more steaks. Every time he reappeared he looked at
total command of his position, wielding his hydraulic trolley like the car he
was years away from owning. For one golden moment he got close enough for his
hat to reveal he was called Lee. Lee: the meekest meat man at T.F.L.. Lee came
and went with clockwork regularity. Managers intercepted him occasionally and
he listened, but never spoke.
“Ask
him a question,” Luke, newly restored after his Butch Sue bullocking, said with
a grin.
“About
what?”
“Anything,
just ask him a question.” When he was close enough I merely inquired if Lee was
‘ok?’ his eyes pierced me as he nodded.
“No!”
Luke cried, “ask him something so he replies.” Oh god, what trap was being set
for me now? I just want to pack turkey steaks in silence, mind my own business
and hopefully still be stood here when I’m sixty five; I don’t want to be part
of these funny games. When Luke could see that I wasn’t going to be part of his
ritual he satisfied himself.
“Scatman!”
he yelled, “how long are we going to be packing these steaks?” Lee paused and
looked nervously at him, Ben and Arnan who were wide eyed to a reply. They were
hanging on his answer, but an audible one never came as Lee just held up a
finger, presumably to represent an hour, then turned swiftly and strutted away.
“Ahhh!”
Ben called out, “he got you there. You gotta ask him something he can’t answer
with hands. You owe us a jug of snake bite.”
“Alright,
your go.” Is this what T.F.L. does to you? Have these seemingly intelligent
boys already become broken and passive enough to while away their lives by
getting a timid boy to utter a certain word?
“What
word are you hoping he’ll say?”
“Just
one would be enough,” Luke said. Ten minutes later Lee reappeared.
“Now,
now!” Luke egged.
“Lee!”
Lee looked up and Ben gestured for him to join us, which be obliged. “Why do
some of these steaks have a flat side and some a bulbous side? Should we throw
them out?” Lee’s eyes skirted and he searched his hands for an answer.
“Yeah
it’s weird, we can’t work it out,” Luke said presenting a mis-shapened slice of
turkey and they kept elaborating on the theme until Lee pulled his snood down
and spoke.
“I-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-t’s
b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-because w-w-w-w-wh-wh-wh-wh-,”
“Speak
up I can’t hear you, mate?” Luke said leaning in.
“Wh-wh-wh-wh,”
Lee struggled.
“Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-what?”
Arnan asked.
Lee
stopped, breathed deep and tried to catch himself unaware, “It’s because when
the t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-tur-tur-“
“You
don’t have to do a rap, Lee, just tell us,” Ben said in his most helpful voice.
I wished Lee would answer to an unheard call and turn on his heel, but he
desperately wanted to see this one through. Two uncomfortable minutes passed as
he got as far as the word ‘b-b-b-breast’ then despondently drew the snood over
his malfunctioning lips and meandered away.
“Fucking
prick,” Luke laughed.
It
was two in the afternoon.
Friday 14th
May
With
exactly four months to go, as I watched established white hat workers
transfixed with sticking polystyrene trays to a new workers hat on the adjacent
packing line, I worked out how many hours I would be working at T.F.L.. 90 days
between now and liberty. Eight hour shifts equals 720 hours. Sickness bubbled.
Forty three thousand and two hundred minutes: sounds better. Two million, five
hundred and ninety two thousand seconds: sounds achievable. Or seven thousand,
nine hundred and twenty five continuous plays of ‘Man, I feel like a Woman’:
spells insanity.
