Snow Monkies
At 7:49pm you'll park your car outside the high white walls of the factory. You'll carry your bag through the door marked STAFF, clock-in and go into the changing rooms where men from the day shift will be laughing and showering. You'll put on overalls, gumboots, a hat and ear muffs. At 7:57pm you'll cross the factory floor and walk to your place on the line.
10 hours later, as the machines go quiet, your last chicken will arrive. Black eyes, torn throat. A fresh hole drilled in its arse. The silence will slap your brain awake and in the pink of the wound you'll see faces in a poster, then your wife's laughter and her words. 'That's us Gary, that's our family. Warm, together and bloody ugly!'
You'll wake up around 5am. The television will be on and you'll hear a car reversing down the driveway next to your house. You'll get out of the chair, pull on your shoes and walk out to collect the newspaper. At the letter-box you'll stare at the sky and at the planes making slow circles over the airport, then you'll go back inside, put the paper on the bench, drink a glass of milk and sleep again.
You'll wake at midday and eat soup, then either sleep some more or else kill the afternoon changing channels and drinking cups of tea. At 6pm the alarm on your watch will go off. You'll eat more soup, putting two sachets in your work bag with a packet of biscuits and bread. Sometimes you'll look through a crack in the curtains to see what the sky is doing, and you'll see the neighbour's children riding up and down the drive, playing soldiers, or digging holes in the lawn.
At 7:45pm you'll leave the house and drive to the factory.
You'll have a beard. Some time after the funerals it will get so long that a manager at the factory will call you into his office and say, "look Gary, we know you've had a hard time, but you've got to trim that beard. You look like a fuckin' hippy."
You'll nod, and the following morning when your shift is over, you'll stand in front of a mirror and start cutting the hairs that grow about your throat. You'll be trimming around your mouth when you'll see your daughter, then further up your face, your son. You'll put the scissors back in the drawer, take the mirror off the wall and put it under the sink.
From then on you'll visit the barber each month, he'll cut your hair with clippers and tidy your beard. You'll never look in another mirror again.
You'll be scrawny. Your wife will have called you rangy, but after she dies, and when most of what you eat will be bread and soup in a cup, people will say, "Gary, you know? Skinny guy, works at the factory. His family was killed in a car accident." You'll work six nights a week scooping the guts out of chickens. It'll start as a way to bring the mortgage down by getting double time on the night shift. Then they'll die and you'll stay, because you can sleep away the days, and because the lurid tang of innards is so overwhelming that while there your brain doesn't have the sense to remember.
And you'll there for so long that those who knew you will joke, "Old Gary, they should have buried him with that gutting fork."
***
Ahead, an older man from the factory will be leaning over a fence with a cigarette in his mouth.
"Gidday Gary, off to get your tea?"
"Yeah," you'll say, raising your hand in greeting.
It will be a Sunday in May and you'll watch your breath leave your mouth as you walk.
You'll cross the car park, the green and red neon of the bottle store burning in the dusk.
The pub will be warm from an open fire and all but empty. Gambling machines jingling against a wall; news and horse racing on the televisions.
"Gary, how are ya?" Shireen the bartender will ask.
You'll nod and smile.
"The usual?" she'll ask, taking a handle from the shelf and gesturing at the beer taps.
"Yeah, thanks, and the fish and chips."
You'll walk to the window with your beer and bend your knees; thin clouds will glow in the sky as the sun slips below the earth.
At the table you'll sip your beer and watch the sports then the weather. Your meal will arrive and you'll eat, listening to Shireen and an elderly patron.
"It's not the same beer as it used to be Rodg'. We've got a new supplier."
"Eh? Not beer? What are you on about?"
A woman will enter the pub. She'll have long blonde hair that will lift with the draught. She'll be holding a full sports bag and she'll look at you as she walks to the bar.
After you have eaten you'll take your empty glass to the bar. "I always get the bottled stuff," the blonde will say. "It's better for you, you know."Deep wrinkles will surround her mouth and nose. You'll nod and watch your beer filling the glass.
"So you live around here?" she'll ask, starting to cough and relighting a cigarette all at once. She'll have a large wart on the side of her nose and a smaller one on her cheek.
You'll nod again and take your beer from the bar. As you walk away you'll hear her say,
"Doesn't have much to say for himself does he?"
You'll watch highlights of the weekend's rugby, then you'll turn in your seat and look at the night.
"Mind if I sit down?"
The blonde woman will be holding a bottle and a glass of beer. She'll have a cigarette burning in an ashtray and the sports bag over her shoulder. She'll be swaying slightly. Behind her at the bar Shireen will be smiling at you and drying a wine glass with a cloth.
"I'm taking off soon," you'll say. Clearing your throat and wishing you were at home.
She'll put her drinks and the ashtray on the table and hold out her hand. The bag will slip from her shoulder and down into her elbow. "I'm Darlene, my friends call me Darl'," she'll say, dropping the bag to the floor.
"Gary," you'll say giving her your hand,
"Gaz? Gazza?"
"Usually Gary."
"So you work around here then Gary?" She'll say your name with a little sneer.
"At the chicken factory," you'll say, finishing your beer.
"I used to work in a factory up north. The Healthy Store factory. They do pills and stuff. My job was to glue toothpaste boxes. Boring fuckin' job that was."
You'll nod, smile, and then stand up.
"You off?" She'll say.
"Yeah, I got work."
"Get another beer, come on! My shout."
"Thanks, but I have to go."
"Oh fu-uck, what's wrong with this place?" she'll say, standing up and walking to the bar.
"You forgot your bag." you'll say, pointing at her sports bag on the floor.
"Oh piss off will ya?" she'll say, turning unsteadily on her feet.
"I'm sorry", you'll say, walking to the door and pushing hard at it. The sign by the handle will say pull, eventually you'll drag it open and step clumsily into the night. The quiet will make you even more uncomfortable and you'll shove your hands into your pockets and stride home.
In your la-z-boy with the television on, you'll be staring at the ceiling and cradling a cup of tea when you'll hear hard breathing and the plastic rustle of a shopping bag. Then there will be a knock.
"Gary? Gary? It's Dariene, that Shireen at the pub gave me directions, she reckoned you could do with the company. I've got beer?"
You'll go to the door. Her face will be red, she'll have an unlit cigarette clamped in the corner of her mouth.
"Fuck it's cold," she'll say, smiling. "Well come on, can I come in? I know you haven't got a wife, I asked at the pub."
You'll open the door and move to the side. She'll walk into the kitchen. "Got a bottle opener?"
She'll take a lighter from a jacket. She'll smell musty, like rotten wood. Her hands will shake when she lights the cigarette.
You'll open the cupboard under the sink and get the opener. It will be hanging with other kitchen tools. "A woman needs order in the kitchen," your wife used to say, her pale forearms on your shoulders.
"Hey, hello! Earth to Gary. Do want a beer or not?"
She'll be holding two beers, pushing one at you.
You'll take it and watch her as she walks into the lounge, carrying the bag of beer and the can opener. She'll drop them noisily on the floor and sit in your seat.
"Got any music?" she'll say. Looking at the television.
You'll shake your head as you carry a chair from the kitchen.
"What about kids, got any of those?"
"No."
"No kids, no music. No noise eh?" She'll laugh, rocking back in the chair, slopping a little other beer on the arm rest. "I got kids. Up North. I tell ya what, I wouldn't have had them if I'd known. Pain in the arse, and in the front if you know what I mean."
You'll sit forward, your elbows on your knees, cupping the beer in your hands. You'll watch the floor and try to remember the last time you had a visitor.
"I was saying to the doc', 'give me the gas.' Christ I was in pain. I had my legs in these stirrups what came down from the ceiling. It was a bloody breach, and you know what my doctor said when I got my legs into the stirrup things? 'Reminds me of a deer I ran over once.' That's what he said, no shit, and there was students and other doctors in there. The bastard. He wouldn't get away with that these days." She'll finish her beer, drop the butt of her cigarette into the empty and pick up her tobacco pouch.You'll watch television. A crime show with bullets entering flesh in slow motion.
"I don't mind this place," she'll say when the ads come on. "It's bloody cold enough though isn't it? But the people I've met so far seem all right. " She'll be opening another beer and you'll think that she winks at you as the cap drops onto the floor. "So how long you been here Gary?"
"Twenty years," you'll say, feeling tired from the talking.
"Ever get married?"
"Once," you'll say.
"What happened? Divorce? Did she run off with the milkman?"
"She died."
"Oh, oh well." She'll relight her cigarette and after a moment start humming along to a jingle on the television.
"Shit happens eh? That's what I reckon."
The show will start again.
"Well," you'll say when the credits appear. "I'm working tomorrow, I need to get to sleep."
"Eh? It's only ten o'clock. There's still beer left. Come on, I'm new to town, let's finish these off."
You'll shrug your shoulders. "Sorry. I have to be up in the morning."
"It's the warts isn't it?" She'll say in a rush. "It's these bloody warts. You shouldn't have let me come in if you didn't want me." Her breathing will get noisy, you'll see little spots of saliva at the comers of her mouth.
"Look," you'll say, lifting up your arms. But you won't know what to say.
"Look at what Gary? At you? You're not much of any fuckin' thing are ya? Living here all alone, working at some bloody factory. You hardly fuckin' drink. You a churchy? Is that it Gary? You a fuckin' religo?"
You'll stand up and walk down the hallway, then sit down on the toilet hoping she will leave.
When you go back she'll be crying
"You want me to rip the fuckin' things off? Is that what you want, will you let me stay then? If I don't have no warts." She'll have a long dirty nail resting on the wart on her nose.
You'll stand with your hands in your pockets. You'll think of how your wife was, how her body matched yours, the shape of her nostrils when she was on top of you.
"I don't want any sex. From anyone. I slept with my wife, a few girls before her. But I don't have sex. That's it, it's nothing to do with warts."
"I will you know, I done it before. Walked right up to this guy and ripped the fucking thing off."
She'll drink from her bottle. Her face will have gone red again. On the television a man will be reading the news.
She'll stand and take quick small steps to get her balance.
"You know what I think of you Gary? Nothing, I don't think fuckin' nothing."
She'll pick up her beer from the floor and pour it onto the la-z-boy. "I don't think nothing."
She'll walk past you and start to head down the hallway.
"Well how the fuck do I get out of here?" she'll say from down by the toilet.
You'll walk to the front door and open it.
"Fucking loser", she'll say, leaving your house.
You'll put towels on the chair and then sit down. On the television a music video will be playing.
You'll think of your wife and your family, then of the blonde woman's children. Eventually you'll sleep.
You'll wake to a tapping. For a moment you'll think it’s the wind or the television. But it will be persistent and rhythmic, it will be coming from down the hallway. You'll get out of your chair and walk through the house. The tapping will be coming from your children's room. You'll push at the door, it will be jammed and you'll have to use your shoulder to get it open. You'll turn the light on.
"Gary?"
You'll see her forehead, her blonde fringe and her knuckles on the window. "Gary? Gary?"
Thick dust will cover the children's toys that scatter the floor. Unmade beds, underwear. A photograph of your parents. The snow monkey poster.
"Come on Gary, can you let me in. I won't be any trouble."
You won't listen, you'll be watching the monkeys. Two adults and two children. Pink faces surrounded by thick fur, shrouded with the steam of the hot pool, surrounded by snow. You'll buy it for twenty cents at a garage sale, the corners will be ripped and worn and your wife will rebuild them with sellotape. You'll watch, listen to her breathe and you'll know you'll love her for ever when she laughs and says, "that's us Gary, that's our family. Warm, together and bloody ugly!"
You'll walk away from the poster and the tapping at the window, you'll get back into your chair.
You'll make the television as loud as possible.
If only I'd known you'll think to yourself. If only I'd known.
(c) Breton Dukes. All rights reserved.
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