Originally published in Verbicide issue #9

Fred the janitor had thick, slimy skin like week-old turkey. He wasn’t really the janitor, he was more of a utility man who spent all of his time doing odd jobs at the plant. The boss usually told Fred to clean shit up to get him off his back.

James the rookie’s post was by the loading docks, where the doors were often open. He saw Fred standing there, looking out at the snow falling down, and the cranes across Route 128. There had always been a lot of construction around, as long as anybody cared to remember at least. He thought it was amazing how quickly buildings rose up. How you resent the fact that they tore down the old building, but then end up barely remembering what it was like when the decrepit piece of shite was still there. He took it for a good thing, though. The changes places went through; the improvements.

After a while, Fred came up the stairs to James’ post, and started chatting it up as if they were in a pub.

“Looks like another Nor’Easter!” Fred said.

“Yeah, sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Worst one of the year probably!”

“Aren’t they all?”

“You ever go to O’Riordan’s? You look familiar.”

James said no, he could only go to the pubs that serve younger guys since he was only twenty. Each time James turned around to move a stack of cases, which was the extent of his job, Fred would pause, sometimes mid-word, and continue talking as soon as James turned around again. Fred wore glasses with lenses bigger than his face that got all fogged up in the factory. He was the oldest guy in the place and still took on more overtime than anybody — hoarding his money as if a disaster was about to occur. He hunched over when he walked and wore thick suspenders that made a big X across his back. Even in a cold blizzard, Fred was sweating.

“O’Riordan’s — that place was my second home before I started here. Well, I guess it was my first home because my other one had no roof. Nobody went in there in the day except me and those construction workers over there.” He motioned across the street. “They drink when they’re on the clock, did you know that? Because the boss doesn’t speak no English! They have no respect for him. He’s never around anyway…”

James did his best to continue listening while working. He didn’t mind all the talking. Someday he might have a big X across his back, limping around telling stories. Fred continued, “What are they building? Do you know? No? It don’t matter. I was out of work for seven years before I got this job. I just started last week, just before you. I bet you thought an old guy like me had been here for decades! It was because of the economy, probably. It wasn’t my fault I lost my old job. I always worked hard. I’ll tell you what happened. There was one of those wretched pink slips in my locker one day. Nobody said shit to me, because just about everybody else got one too. There just wasn’t as much business as there used to be. You don’t really think about business when it’s alright, do you? Like here, I bet you haven’t once thought about bad business, because people always drink soda. They need to drink. But it’ll slow down, one day. Then you do less work…”

James continually nodded as he lowered an empty pallet to ground level, and brought up a full pallet of cases to take apart. He thought of how much time it must have taken to build the pallet of eight stacks, twenty-five cases each, and wrap it in plastic, only to have him cut the plastic off with his pocket knife, and de-stack the cases through the hartness in a matter of seconds. He didn’t know whether to respond or let the old man keep talking.

“…You do less work, and more dreaming, you know? You get paid the same, but people talk about the day that’ll come. Talk like that you don’t want to believe. Especially when you can’t do shit about it, right? Anyway, the factory I used to work in was down that way, where all them construction workers are. You probably don’t remember it. They imploded it, I watched them do it. We all watched, lost all our jobs and got a case to drink while they did it. It folded in like a piss-poor cake your wife tried to bake. They’ve been working on that new building off and on ever since. Well, you’d better keep them cases moving.”

Fred went down the stairs and scurried around the hartness, picking shit up. James looked out at the cranes spinning around the lot across the street, and at O’Riordan’s to the lot’s right. He folded his arms across his ribcage and wondered how old he’d be when they finished building whatever it was they were building, and if he’d be alive when that fell, too. Deconstruction takes a lot less time than construction.