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.