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.