3. Real First Day

4. Six Days Straight

5. Dream of Li

6. Li's Last Day

7. Interlude

8. Revenge on Tweety

9. Tweety's End

10. The Deal

11. Grady Grunt

12. Hold Lot!

13. Grady & Lydia

14. Breath of Grady

15. Anna's Ass

16. Lost Finger

17. 100Kase Day

18. Corn Fever

19. Office Calls

20. Brought Up

21. Right Wrong Stuff

22. Turn

23. Intro to Recon

24. Recornditioning

25. What It Was Was

26. Row 111

27. The Grind

28. Too Much

29. Brief Death Ray

30. Ended

Prion: peon, freon, prison

pri·on \'prĭ-,än\ n [protinaceous + infectious + ²-on] (1982): a protein particle that lacks nucleic acid and is sometimes held to be the cause of various infectious diseases of the nervous system (as scrapie and Creutzfeldt-Jakob [mad cow] disease)

Growing up I'd often enough heard Grandpa's house referred to as posh. Even as a kid I knew that made no damn sense. Sure it was a nice old house, but even in its prime it never had much in the way of accoutrements. No fancy crown molding to gather dust. And as long as I'd known it, it'd been in a bit of disrepair. Eventually I'd come to understand that the term was a name, an acronym. Grandpa lived in POSH. Nobody ever told me what the letters spelled out, and never had I been fervently curious enough to bother to ask. What the fuck did it matter? I always figured it was something warm and cheery and religious, like Peace On Seventh Heaven or some nonsense. Piece Of Shit House. I was writing a novel: POSH DRUNK. Hell, at worst I was doing some pretty damn good research.

(1) Application

The ad in the paper said Come in and apply. Me, apply myself? But no, they meant fill out an application. Beggars can't be choosers, the old saw sawed. I wasn't quite begging yet, but the crappy little inch-and-a-half ad in the weekly Prion Standard did seem a bit of grace spat down from on high. I had about a month left to draw off the Unemployment well; if nothing else I needed to log an attempt.

What I read was a repeat of what I'd seen in the daily delivered down from Benburg.

I thought I'd been clever stealing the day's just-minted paper off a porch on my way home from the taverns Wednesday night. Or a Wednesday night that ended with a 4 a.m. toss-out technically the next day. But the bastards had fooled me, or else they were out of town. I fixed a quick pre-dawn snack to stay me through the paper. Having already wept my way down through the obituaries I was quick with drunken enthusiasm for the great wealth of a regular paycheck. Only then did I notice that I'd snagged Tuesday's edition.

That only served to steel my resolve. I'd have to be the early bird, seeing as I was already a day behind in getting the worm. I vowed to wake early and start the whole thinking-through process.

Thursday happened.

Friday I did wake before noon, but by the time I'd settled the previous night's accounts with several cups of coffee it was dangerously close to the time of both hands straight up in surrender, which I posited was a bad time to do anything but eat lunch yourself, a bad time to do business because everyone in the working world would be off eating their lunches.

Lunch killed me. I slacked out on the sofa to digest with the off-bits of Tuesday's paper; by the time I dragged myself awake it was late in the afternoon and the whole job-applying process was cruelly interrupted by the arrival of the weekend. Why bother going out when all those paycheck-makers would be off early to enjoy their voluptuous weekends? I made a vow for Monday, not so early in the morning as to disturb any lingering weekend hangovers.

Theirs, naturally, not mine.

Monday was already early afternoon before I remembered what I was supposed to do. My memory was nudged by the week-old paper still laying scattered around the livingroom. I was reading through it while drinking the last of the coffee. Everything was déjà vu--didn't that already happen last week? Once I understood that it had, I wondered with disgust why I hadn't tossed such old news.

The reason dawned with a chill up my spine. "Fuck!" I screamed, kicking at the broadsheets, knowing true disgust. I tried to pretend that again it was too late, but really it wasn't.

I went to the bathroom for a long piss. The mirror detained me as I considered a shower or simply washing my face, at least a quick shave, all of which I declined. Momentum with me I scrambled around, found and grabbed my keys. I was in the car and going before I could catch myself.

I got across town in about two minutes; it's that much of an effort. From there it was either take the county road straight into the cornfields, or hang a right onto the state highway straight into the cornfields. I knew the way well. Right went twenty minutes to Benburg, which was a real town compared to the starting line.

Halfway there was Plunk, a huddle of houses before a crossroad. An improbable branch of a bank. The co-op contained an enlarged convenience store with pumps, some stuff beside the railroad track involving industrial-sized propane tanks. Across the street, on the left, was the huge grey sprawl of the cannery. On the right was a slight roll, all green grass and trees, a triangle bounded by small roads. The only crop on the plot was the grey granite of headstones. I'd always assumed that the cemetery was where the worn-out workers went, where the cannery buried their dead slaves. Who could say for sure the ways of these country industries?

I wasn't sure I should be thinking this, but I was as I headed through the rest of the city. Out there, who was to hear you scream if your supervisors decided to take you out back and beat the shit out of you for something? They could shoot you and just plow you right on under. Or simply get you drunk as shit and lay you out on the trunk-line. At least the city industries had houses mostly all around them, ears inside the walls.

Still in town was the Hell Factory, to the right, these long perpendicular brick buildings abutting each other for several blocks. It looked like you just walked in one end a young buck and got spat out the other an old man.

The place couldn't be parallel to the road because it had to encase the rumple-bump of the rail-line. It was the birthplace of a brand of appliances. The founder had invented something like the Ur-fridge, a box that ran on ice. Or maybe it was a clothes washer that was a bucket modified with a ringer and washboard. A vacuum cleaner that came equipped with a leash. But they'd kept up with the times. The company was so old that they were even unionized. I'd never checked that hard, but I knew it was nearly impossible to get on there. You had to knock up and marry one of the managers' daughters, or else suck-off somebody's uncle who worked on the line. Reason for Referral: gives it all he gots.

And how!

Not that I'd bang the company's president's trophy-wife for a go at that place. I'd driven by it at night numerous times, bored and awake and behind the wheel. The bay doors open to the night glowed an unholy orange. Loud, painful material noises issued forth from the openings. There was no way not to describe them as portals to Hell; the whole being not so much a train station to the place as an aboveground way-station, a substation. I knew the effect to be the same during the day, only not so bright.

I'd kill myself with the drink if I worked at a place like that, so fuck 'em anyway.

And then nearly immediately the cracker factory where the workers wind up going crackers, becoming crackers, coming out after each shift sheathed in cracker crumbs, emerging ghostly pale, or vivid orange--depending on the line--not men but root crops; not women but gourds.

The houses around them really couldn't complain: the factories preceded the residential bosom. Some guys got to walk to work.

A blink past that came the laundromat and the entrance to the trailer park. The road continued through the trailer park to cliché hell--it was a popular idea at the time. I wasn't surprised that Prion had been like so many other shithole small towns in deciding they were important enough to develop an industrial park. That whole if we build, they will come bullshit. Field of weeds. I'd driven down in there. Even the infrastructure wasn't looking so nice these days.

But it wasn't a total loss. There was, implausibly, a different cracker factory. And some sort of place that did something with plastics. They extruded it, made shit. Containers for shit. Their main business, for my money, was in proving that prolonged exposure to the processes of plastic extrusion doesn't cause any form of cancer. Instead all the synapses in your brain sort of fossilize, the organic tendrils set to polystyrene threads. Looking sort of like string-cheese, though much less pliable--a phenomenon officially best described as delicious, not dangerous. The big bastards know how to put a good spin on everything, no doubt there.

And then for the privilege of that you first have to do a piss-on-command. From what I'd heard. Which nixed that from my list. If someone wants me to take a pee for them, my response is Okay, open wide and say please!

As well, I couldn't help but wonder about the housing issue. Was it a requirement that you live in the trailer park? Slave quarters, a company town, the analogies were all there but I guess these people were a bit better off. They had a laundromat right within walking distance, so they could save on washers and dryers and invest in satellite t.v. systems--in an aerial reconnaissance photo, the enemy would be sure to point there and say Bomb that! As well, they all sure had lots of cars!--in various stages of disrepair. Not that any of that kept it from being a snakepit of skags; the accoutrements really were all a part of the very definition.

I couldn't imagine how these people could live like that--the whole grind. Their lives as meat to the grinder. To have one's essence reduced to a bland sausage mixture.

I was of course on my way to offering myself up to the same tasteless sacrifice, selling myself equally short, but at least I'd have a nice little seven minute drive through the beautiful countryside to arrive at my personal hell. And I was attempting it with the knowledge that in a couple short months it'd be all over, now, wouldn't it? The fields would become bacillus-blackened, their faces scratchy with frost-chewed stubble.

All that rolled off me with one great big shudder.

There came the quirky five-way intersection, the gunshop in the narrowest of the V's. A moment past that I'd officially swept beyond the clutches of my fair city's limits. From there on out it was vast vistas of corn, fucking fields of it racing to the horizon. The only break in the scenery was for soybean. The original bastards had chopped down all the trees a century and a half ago and nobody'd bothered to plant any since. They were probably outlawed or something. One pathetic little apple orchard was all I could see.

The road thankfully twisted along ancient boundaries. Otherwise it would have been impassable; there wouldn't be a driver who could make it up to Benburg without falling asleep at the wheel. Not that that meant people weren't going off the road all the time. It made the drive more interesting, watching all the little white crosses and plastic flower memorials dotting the roadside. I often thought about collecting them.

I slowed as I recognized the sharp S-turn into Plunk. The curves were actually a set of tight right angles following property lines. There were no guardrails, though they were hardly needed given the cushiony thickets of those little white crosses. Both corners held field gates anyway, so guardrails would have been impossible. It was posted that you had to slow down once out of the curves anyway. What the hell if you go off anyway? Steer away from the gates and you'd just bust through wire into the field, right? Smooth landing. I slowed down for a different reason. Think: what was up with all the crosses? One night I'd been talking to some drunk who asserted that he was an auger man. He claimed to have done the very job on both gate-surrounds. "Sure the fencing wire's the same, but check out those posts. It's like iron rebar, except half-a-foot thick. And I sunk it in concrete six feet down."

I knew he was a motherfucking liar, but I wasn't going to test it. There was probably some kernel of truth to his story. Probably he'd once trashed his pickup against one of the gates, and he'd never been the same since.

Coasting on into town, I soon got the cannery from a different perspective. Always before I'd just dropped the speed enough so if I got popped, the damages would be under a hundred. Only the cross-traffic had to stop at the main juncture. I'd always sensed that it was big place, but that was always as I was punching the accelerator.

Instead I came to a full stop and signaled a left turn. With that success met, I was like a boat sailing an endless asphalt sea. It was a very hearty parking lot. All I could do was drive gawking.

The place was fucking vast; there seemed to be no end to it. It was motherfucking huge! The building defined the term sprawl. But it was patchwork, obviously cobbled together over more years than I cared to think about. It started with a brick structure that looked so old the mortar had no doubt turned to chalk. On and on, tacked on, cinder block, metal siding; the most modern end huge, as large as the rest combined, made of some weird-looking texturized concrete that looked like a stucco of cream-of-wheat slopped on the walls, dried and gone grey with mold.

I walked towards the structure slowly, thinking, trying to decide. There were about a million doors in sight. The wrong one would surely mean a bad choice. Finally I settled on an unimposing one--outside it was a bench where a handful of young and mean-looking migrants sat smoking and eating.

They ignored me as I approached, even when I came to a stop right in front of them.

"Hello," I mustered a cheery voice, "can you tell me where I'd find the office to apply for a job?"

They looked up at my words, but that was all. The fuckers! Most of them were young enough it would've been their parents who'd swum the river. Like they didn't teach English in the public schools in Laredo. Further north the schools had crammed a few years of Spanish in one of my ears but it'd mostly gone out the other. I couldn't remember any of those question words. Two things had stuck, emphasized by their presence in the taverns during the season: you could get a good guess with the name of things just by saying them slightly different and maybe adding a vowel at the end, but you had to be careful with the verbs because they had a million different endings and they could wind up not meaning at all what you thought. I'm going crazy suddenly becoming You're sister is cumming like crazy was not good odds.

I gave a full questioning lilt to my tone. "Oficina?" sounded right.

Finally one of them sort of looked over my shoulder past me. I glanced back, seeing the mobile. I'd totally misjudged that building, or else the guy was just shitting me. There was no choice but to turn and walk back in that direction. In turning, I nodded and spoke, "Gracias."

"You're welcome," a voice called back after I'd taken several steps. I didn't bother turning around.

I let myself worry about whether I should knock or not when I got to the door, but then when I did, it was propped open. I stepped into the darkness, my eyes adjusting to the bright florescent lighting. Immediately there were cheap chairs, a row of hooks for coats, and a bulky copier.

I advanced on a tall counter, drawn onward by a fuzzy vision in pink. The woman ignored me even as I slouched on my elbows still standing tall. "Hello," I greeted her, though apparently I forgot to open my mouth.

She was wearing a pink mohair sweater that looked like it took two spins through a hot dryer for every wash. There was no doubt she had achieved just the look she was wanting--well-shrunk and full of static clean. Not that she didn't play up her other attributes, but it was clear she considered her tits her finest feature. She did have big heaving breasts; they stuck out nearly as far as her stomach. When she turned to fetch some forms from a file cabinet, it was to treat me to the expansive sight of her bottom, where the sweater ended coyly just below the waist of a pair of black spandex. Terribly professional, the whole outfit. She had an ass built for her personal comfort. I couldn't imagine her finding any chair uncomfortable. Nearly as attractive was her face, that sheeny look of greasy flesh peeping through much make-up. The red of her lipstick really could hint at only the one thing, especially when every sentence she uttered somehow wound up with her lips pursing into an open oval. You could just picture your dick sliding in and out, in and out, though once sucked dry and other senses recovered you'd be left with no alternative but to turn the muzzle to your temple and pull the trigger. Shoot yourself in the head after your other head had shot itself. It'd be the decent thing to do.

She put the forms on a clipboard. "You can have a seat if you wish."

Who wouldn't wish to sit as far away from that sow as possible? If wishes were horses, what fucking beggar wouldn't ride the hell out of this place?--there was the major problem in that they kept their public pens like banks. Sort of. It was twine and duct tape keeping the cheap ballpoints attached to the counter. With a grand flourish I pulled a nice roller-ball out of my pocket, then picked up the clipboard to take a seat as indeed I did please.

"Ooh, an applicant with his own pen," she cooed, "now that's sexy."

She was mocking me, of course. "That's right, baby, not that I'd ever consider dipping my quill in your inkpot," I thought, but held my tongue. There wouldn't have been any point in filling out the forms if I'd said that, now would there? Put me straight into the old circular file, these few pages halved then quartered again.

Instead I turned with a shrug and went to sit down. Devoting myself to the great task of remembering my name and address and phone number. Work number--I briefly considered scribbling in the payphone at Mackey's. I knew it, having had people call me there before, but decided I didn't want these people calling me there. Knowing it was my second home. Especially not this woman with a nose nearly the same hue as her lipstick.

Previous Employment--professional bottle opener. Other related experience--pretty damn handy with a pop-top can. Reason for leaving Position: got caught pissin' on the boss's chair. Actually, my benefactor with the Unemployment wouldn't dare slander my name--I had the goods to fuck his life but good. And speaking of good goods, I adjusted the dates and responsibilities of prior menial stints to make myself look good, using the ones that were all long-distance calls away. As if they'd check, anyway. Christ, they weren't hiring rocket scientists; they weren't even hiring people who could spell rocket scientist.

Then there was a weird section asking what sort of office equipment I knew how to operate. I flushed with an odd pride, estimating my typing speed at a few beers in, when I really did go faster, but before the sloshy typos started dragging me down. But I couldn't leave it at that. I mean, like, you had to be one hell of a retard not to know how to use a photocopier. And then I thought to add Basic computer skills because, hell, what was a computer but a typewriter with a t.v. screen instead of sheets of paper? Plus I was pretty good at the video games at Mackey's--if someone else was paying--and wasn't that about the same thing?

I got back home and decided to fuck-off a late lunch. The stress of all that handwriting and form-filling made me want to take a nap. I decided the best thing was to flake out for an hour, and then call the shots.

I came awake growling and clawing in the dark. I was astonished by the first clock I came across: it was well after nine. That meant all the shots were already called. Struggling up, I eventually gathered my stuff, made it out the door, and started walking downtown. I made the A&W for a burger and fries with fifteen minutes to spare. At first they pretended they were already cleaned up for the night, which they were, but then I demanded and made them make me my day's meal. I ate and enjoyed and ignored their glares.

Topped up, I made my way to Mackey's. Once there I bellied up to the bar and loudly announced a round for all my sad old friends.

Last-call came, so I ordered up three rounds of a brand I didn't normally drink but that came only in twist-off bottles. It was one of my best old tricks. I didn't go to Mackey's--or anywhere else--without the mate of a few saved bottle caps of the same design jingling around with the change in my pocket. I drank off my last, recapped, then took my pleasures home.

There was minimal evidence that I was in my own bed when I awoke, but it was enough to convince me. A few brief flashes of memories like photographs. Walking a street home and deciding fuck all, and popping one to quench my thirst from the endless trek. And then I was home, forgetting that I was supposed to be finishing the bottle when I decided I would have to drink the other, having rediscovered its presence because the reason my leg was feeling so wet was because that bottle was still in my pocket and leaking a little.

There was the reassuring smell of my dirty hair that spelled my pillow as well.

I nearly cried when I rolled over and realized I was going to be having one of those mornings. In a sudden opening blink I was wide-eyed. The alarm clock read eight in the morning. I didn't have a hangover; I was still so drunk as to be hours away from any of that. But if I didn't sleep away those hours, it would be one wretched day. There'd be no chance of escaping the throbbing worst. And it wouldn't even be a hangover proper, more like I'd been buried alive, moving through the day a zombie with the spoiled flesh peeling off me like unstuck bandaids.

Fortunately I passed out again from fear of my fate. Only to be woken by the phone ringing forever. Once silence returned, I fell blessedly back asleep. Only to be woken by the phone ringing forever.

The cycle continued until I answered around ten.

"Hello?" I said, instantly realizing that the sound I made was more like gravel stirring underfoot than a real word.

The piece of plastic in my hand began barking at me. "If you want the job be here at eleven for orientation! We start canning at noon." I recognized the snarls as Miss Pink's. "Consider a meal; pack it or have the change for the machines in the breakroom." She was even nastier over the phone.

"But that's barely an hour from now!" I was clearly taken aback.

"I've been dialing this, the number you gave us and just now answered, for hours," came her caustic reply.

"You know, I uh, you know, I've a . . . I've got things I needed to get done today." The notion seemed entirely reasonable. "Can we make it for tomorrow?"

She ignored my question, my response for an extension. "Like what? Sleeping off your drunk? Think of it as a test. Practice. It's easy: either you pussy out and quit drinking, or you learn to deal with it like a man."

"Maybe that's your idea of a good night--" I lied, "but I don't know what you're talking about."

"What I'm talking about is that the job-offer ends at 11:01 a.m. today. Show up for work, or I'll personally dick you out of your Unemployment."

"Man!" I felt trapped.

"You're our slave now;" she gave a vicious laugh, "we bought you from the State, fair and square." She had me there.

I put on the clothes I'd been wearing, then stewed downstairs for about forty minutes. I drank a pot of coffee and ate a big bag of potato chips. Then I switched to cola-on-ice and swallowed some aspirin and vitamins. I bent over the bathroom sink basin and splashed water on my face; I didn't bother with soap. It was like I was trying to rehydrate my brain through osmosis. Take a century through my skull.

I opened a fresh soda and took it with me.

Less than five minutes doesn't count, so I did get there on time. Her Pinkness was nowhere to be seen. I just sat in the plastic chair closest to the counter. Men kept tripping over my feet as they went down a narrow hall to my right.

I'd discovered the private bathrooms!

That woman did come back eventually, her hands full of a diet soda and a pair of fat bags of snacks. She came, impatiently, bearing that incongruous couple. She really was wearing the same goddamn pink sweater. It looked slept in. Mohair, mohawk, it had some serious bed-head

So I sat a little longer, plugging my fingers in my ears like headsets. I couldn't bear to hear the sounds she made. She kept me set there, ignoring me completely. The room sounded of soggy crunchings.

The more I analyzed the situation, the more I realized that my best move would be to dart down that hall myself, and rid myself of the final gallons I'd drunk to bring me there--like a jet shedding the vapory remains of its fuel.

So I snuck down there, bolted the door, and peed for about forty minutes solid.

When I came back Pinky the Beast was more than noticing. At least that started the ball rolling. She ignored me for another fifteen minutes, then she suddenly stuck me in another room. It was like the kitchen or something. The telltale sink, the coffee maker; the counter and the cabinets. In the middle of this improbably small room was one of those standard fold-up tables, an island surrounded by an equally issued reef of metal folding chairs. The counter and shelves on the opposite side of the room were full of computery looking stuff. It was like being in the nerve center, the veritable cranium of the cannery. Poking around at stuff. There was a big t.v. at the other end of the counter from the sink. A dinky VCR perched on top of it--which was the Initiator, the Orientator.

I was just working up the nerve to pour myself a styrofoam cup of rancid old coffee when the door barked in. Lips, herself, escorted in the other two prisoners.

One was this skanky young migrant. He just melted into a chair. His name was like Juan or something. He didn't much open his mouth. He acknowledged the introductions with the barest of nod--but it could've been just his head bobbing, that jerk you give right when you start to doze off. He looked like he couldn't figure out whether he was awake or still asleep.

I pegged him as a local, an Ormo boy. Whether they were too lazy to go back or just couldn't bear the thought of that unending bus ride back to the poverty of the border, a small community had been overwintering a few years down the road in Ormo, staying on to work the root crops and Christmas trees. Just like us locals, padding in enough work time to draw the Unemployment.

The other guy was a little solid Asian dude, middle-aged, wearing a suit. He'd be down from Benburg, which recently began boasting several damn good Thai restaurants. The settlement up there was actually Hmong--I think they got automatic green cards or something for the way the C.I.A. had used then abandoned them to sure slaughter.

He kept introducing himself as Mr. Li. The way he beamed placed him as a living cliché. The smile came with the face; this guy's head never stopped nodding. He thought it masked the fact that he wasn't catching but half of what was being said. Becoming an American is damn hard work! It seemed like every morning he misread the directions. That come his coffee he kept getting his cups and quarts confused.

The Pink Lady quickly rejoined us, to lead us through the introduction to this wonderful world we'd volunteered to next enter. The bitch made us fill out about a billion forms. And they had to be done just so. Then she asked us if we had any questions. José there sort of reopened his eyes. Mr. Li kept right on a-nodding. I sat, impassive. So she reached over and shoved in a videotape, turned on the t.v.

"Someone get me when this one is over; I'll come shove in the next one."

She drew the shades and turned out the light. It was the motion of experience. The picture on the t.v. turned out to be pretty fucked up. Like the last time the heads had been cleaned someone had just reached into the slot and swiped at them with a used coffee filter. It was the sepia effect.

Given the atmosphere, there was nothing I wanted to do more than just kick back for a good nod out.

It sort of pissed me off. The tape ran through the usual boring overview, but then it set into an introductory history of the company. It was all cobbled together, weaving a little cannery into an international concern. All these places began as sort of suspect, doing the same sort of work as women, except sealing the vegetables in steel cans, and in such quantity as to fill grocers' shelves. All that done in the slide-show effect. Then came the black and white reels, happy footage feeding the Fifties canned peas.

I was mesmerized, too excited to ever fall asleep. Behind me the snores doubled. The kid had lasted about two seconds of darkness. I was shocked to turn my head and see that Mr. Li too had gone head-back, mouth rasped wide.

Then the tape turned to more serious stuff. I nearly cried that I was the sacrifice, the one doomed to stay awake. There were cool color clips of corn going into cans, but they barely lasted seconds, just long enough to keep you interested in all the boring shit they kept talking.

When it was all done, Mr. Li jerked strangely awake; he nodded and moved from the room to go fetch her for the next tape. The dude from Ormo never stirred. Until, the next tape shunted into the machine, she turned and kicked his chair. His eyelids fluttered like migrating butterflies. There was a rustling, then all went still. The lights dropped and then she was gone. He made guttural sounds like he was dying. Nearly immediately Mr. Li began again to snore. I'd never felt so goddamned cheated in my life.

Instead I watched some hopped-up android explaining the official Open Door policy. I felt like taking him right up on it. Damn straight I'd be sure not to let it hit me in the ass. Run screaming while I still had the chance.

The second movie was far shorter, so I never worked up the nerve. The lights flipped on and we were all handed back a bunch of our forms to correct. Then the lights didn't even down for a short on how all the hazardous chemicals in the workplace were labeled and how you were free to come up to the office to check out the big book of all the official forms. Right.

I was ready to nod from spite. All the information was spoiled by how they were just covering their asses. But it was so short even the other guys stayed awake. Then we had to sign a bunch of papers saying we'd been given all this information and et cetera, et cetera. You fucking bastards, I thought.

After that, though, we became part of the team. We were issued battered white bumphats and little baggies of sterile earplugs. Then we had to sign a form saying that if we bailed out they'd dock our sub-wage training pay for the stuff. Which did basically cancel out the check if you decided to ditch. The ear plugs were soaked in gold leaf, per the official price, instead of being about a penny's worth of yellow foam, halved, blue plastic cord included.

I examined my hardhat. It was just thin cheap white plastic, scuffed all around. Remembering the video, I corrected myself. I was examining my bumphat. They very explicitly excluded the notion that a bumphat was at all a hardhat. There were very logical and legal explanations behind the distinction, no doubt. We would be kept from bumping our heads. But in the case of a definite hardhat sort of situation, what we were being issued would be like an outer skull, except brittler and easier to break. There would be that first sharp crack before the everlasting crack. I fingered the thing, thinking of liquid detergent. It looked like its last occupant had perished in it.

Then she came back, collected the forms, and gave the Ormo dude a pair of rubber boots that probably were too big. Getting those, I realized, was getting the shoulder-tap from the death man himself.

"You're on green-ear," she pronounced, "you know where that means."

"Fuck!" he shook his head.

Me and the little Hmong man looked at each other. We weren't sure whether we'd each won a big prize, or we'd have to duke it out in some final round. Unless he knew some eastern arts, I'd kill Mr. Li to get to suck the plum. Probably he'd sucker-kick me in the nuts, then snap my neck, which would at least alleviate the pain.

But it didn't amount to that; it was the former. We were both lucky to be ordered down to the warehouse. I could see as much in the murderous gleam of Corn Shed Boy.

Having signed us off she swung back around her side of the high counter. We all stood, sort of milling around, waiting for what would happen next. My day was already ruined--why not waste it with work? Paid labor. Make some money off the shot time. That was what we were all there for.

The Pink had tons of official stuff to do. It was ages; I watched the clock. She took a full ten minutes to turn around and recognize us.

"That's it!" she shooed us away, suddenly afuss, "go away!" We stood there as a block, disbelieving.

"I thought," I twirled my hand, "I thought we were supposed to jump into the work today."

She replied with an ugly smile. "Welcome to Corn Pack. Start-up's been shifted to 6 a.m. tomorrow. Be there or be fired."

My nod was enthusiastic. I doubt that she really understood me. Mr. Li thought it smart to face me and echo my nod like crazy. The other guy still did not look very happy.

My point of view was that I suddenly had a huge chunk of the day suddenly free again. The reality was no different from any number of previous days. But it was the last of its kind. And it had been snatched back from the jaws of a job.

I immediately planned on going straight to Mackey's. For just a few. Then home for a long nap. And then before I went back down the opportunity for a meal different from whatever Mackey's happened to have to toss into their little broiler oven--pure poison in the offing, but so delicious going down.

Nothing was worse than a microwave cheeseburger brought back to life inappropriately. Besides pizza stuff sort of crap. That, or anything with breading, but done without benefit of fryer. Straight from the ancient deep-freeze, made warm, then crammed directly into your mouth. The sort of shit you have to be totally fucked up to enjoy, to be enjoyed in total desperation--that cheese sandwich twelve hours ago wasn't cutting it anymore.

It wasn't until I was well into the drive home, and then it hit me: I'd have to set my alarm for something fucking crazy like 4:30 a.m. I decided immediately it'd be best if I didn't wind up closing down Mackey's. It was a weeknight, so there'd be the early shutdown. But that best-case scenario left me with maybe two hours of sleep.

I cruised into town and went straight to the bar, as planned. The change of plans said that when I did leave, I wouldn't be back. I'd get tanked enough to wear off, go home and fake a meal, enjoy what sleep I wound up getting. It was an evening so unambitious that I didn't even bother to ditch the car at home.

The place was empty but for the usual handful of alkie old fucks. I still hadn't caught on to their powers of endurance. I suspected most of them had rooms upstairs, retiring on the slow hours for a fast bit of pass-out refreshment.

What I'd heard, and could still see, saw the original establishment as a fancy downtown hotel complete with bar and restaurant. You could see through a door into the old kitchen. The glance shimmered silver with shiny clean surfaces, huge pots hanging from ceiling hooks. But it was all for nothing. The old restaurant area was a storefront religious reading room forever. I'd visited the upstairs: they were cheap rooms for rent, weekly, bathrooms down the hall.

I slapped my hand down on the flat of the bar. Double-checking my pockets, I then bought a round for all to celebrate my newfound gainful employment.

Once I'd made mention of my fortune, they were on me like piranhas. They nibbled me away to my skeletal idiocy. It got to the point where I was constantly buying another round on me because everyone else was always empty. It took me awhile longer to realize that after every armspread of my far-flinging munificence the bartender used the diversion to put a fresh one in front of me. Which he was of course seen deducting from my till--just that piddly solitary amount. After several of these sad rounds I realized that my mound of money wasn't moving much. I managed an early count--I'd been surviving on four or five bucks of wadded up singles for ages! And then I understood. I was fucked up and fucking busted, and the fucking bastard was humoring me!

Then some old sharpie started giving me guff.

"So you started today, huh?"

"Well, sure, sorta. Did all the office stuff, then they cancelled the rest of the day."

"Which means you actually start when? tomorrow?"

"That's what they said."

The old sonuvabitch stopped to grunt, then sort of wagged his head for awhile.

I didn't give enough of a damn to care what he was after. I made no real movement.

He lifted his eyebrow in point. "Sure sounds like you haven't even started, then. Reckon what that amounts to is that you haven't started yet."

I was at the center of a circle of old men. I thought they were going to be considering me for a meal. All these fucking old men ragging on me for being an untried newbie--what did I have to celebrate yet?

"I've been up that road," he cackled. "It's the high road I hear." Then the old bastard just sort of stared at me, starting to snarl. "Why don't you come back by in a week or so when you've managed to stay long enough for a paycheck. Come back by then and offer to buy us some drinks."

There was really no way to stay there at Mackey's without an ultimate judgement of justifiable homicide. The urge was definitely there to throttle the old fucker's neck.

I was content to leave it like that, leave it at that.

But then some skanky old whore spoke up. "When a guy offers to buy a girl a drink," she just--really--rattled, "she generally doesn't expect to have to pay."

I looked down the rail at the face, finally identifying the rasping as coming from Mila. Mila, short i, Mila, rhymes with gorilla, short for Ludmilla, ready to spread her legs as naturally as any old barn critter--she was just a local farm-girl-gone-bad, then grown old. It was her favorite subject. She could bore you for hours telling how she grew up a country girl. I personally knew of no one who'd ever been desperate enough to actually buy more even an earful of that shit. One might say the preview was more than enough.

Some other ancient crutch took up her remark as a rallying cry. "That's right! How'd you like it if Mila threw you a freebie, but then when she put it right there in front of your face she suddenly told you that if you really wanted it you'd have to pay up? How'd you like that!? What would you do then?"

I was aghast at the mere mention, blanching at the suggestion. "I would probably throw up."

Some dynamic shifted with my remark. I mean, my intent wasn't to slag off an old drunk skag slut--there was no sport in that. But suddenly the room started buddying up and Mila was being defended like a queen. Indeed I began to understand that they were all partakers of her favors.

Through it all she kept up a smirk at me that I couldn't stand. As if she'd just used my sperm for lip-gloss. Finally I could take the old hag no longer.

"What exactly would I have to refund you, Miss Bed & Breakfast? I wouldn't even offer you a slice of dry toast. I'd pull my mattress out from under you." I paused to pull out the full scorn. "Certainly I'd never let you anywhere near my dick."

I could tell I'd committed a total breach. The name I'd invented and had been bringing up quite a bit--winning converts--but needless to say never spoken to her face. That would, in many eyes, dewhatever her too much.

The reference was to, of course, if not the price of the asking then certainly that of the fetching.

So there I stood, regretting everything. As usual. I couldn't say why I stayed, except to stress. My hard-wiring kept right on sizzling. I had to say something to end it all, so I did.

"Hey, it doesn't matter to me if you buy your beers with blow-jobs. That's a time-honored profession. Just don't ever expect to get one off me." I rather expected I'd said too much.

Of all the strange possibilities, one old coot up front just started laughing at me. I didn't give him the pleasure of an inquiry. Finally he shut the machine down. "You say all that, but boy I guarantee you if you ever got a gum-job off Mila you'd be whistling a different tune. Miss Bed & Breakfast, hah! One wad in her mouth, you'd be putting her up at the Ritz and feeding her steak and eggs in bed."

I stayed away from further words, but that didn't dissuade him from more. "Listen, hey. I'm feeling generous tonight. What say," he slapped the bar and nodded at the tender, "another tapper for the lady, on me. As for you," he stared me down, "why don't you go back there and hang out in the Ladies Room for a few minutes and wait for the lady to show you what the lady does best."

This was getting far too scary. It was like some spooky episode on t.v., like a spooky episode with the t.v., where you turn the t.v. off but the t.v. doesn't turn off, it starts speaking directly to you instead, shouting at you, "Quit trying to turn me off! You can never turn me off!!!"

The thing to do was to turn and walk away. Which is exactly what I did. I was just to the door when the first guy said good-bye. "See you in a week--if you last that long."

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