End of the Season
Marge shoved the door closed on angry protesting winds. Another spring rain was beginning. She ignored the barely there smell of pine in the air inside and walked over to the hall table.
She removed her black hat; her funeral hat she and Charles had named it; and looked at her pale image in the mirror anchored to the wall and shook her head. This time it was Aunt Clara. Who will be next? She wondered. Hat still in her hand, she plopped into the chair beside the table.
This trio: chair, table and mirror, were her first purchases after she and Charles married; and the cause of their first argument. How he had ranted the day the furniture arrived.
"Marge, have you lost your mind?" He had roared. "The little money we have and you spent it for these?" She thought he was going to throw the furniture out of the tiny apartment they were living in then.
She sighed. She hadn't been able to explain her actions ten years ago and she still couldn't. She didn't know why she bought these instead of the sofa they had agreed to get first. Enough.
She couldn’t change the past no matter how much she wanted to. She stood.
As she walked past the living room, she refused to look in.
She didn't want to face the accusing sparkling thing in front of the window. Why did people put lights on a tree when the tinsel itself was so bright?
Here it was spring and she still hadn't taken down the Christmas tree. In all its splendor, it glared at her each time she passed the living room. The middle of April and the angel still perched on top of the tree with its trumpet poised for proclaiming.
Marge went into the too-large kitchen and put the kettle on. She thought of her life with Charles. Charles. Always Charles; never Charlie.
"Our first home," he had said as he carried her over the threshold of this apartment and into their new life.
"It's perfect." Her wide smile had beamed on him.
"Just like the rest of our lives together," Charles had said. The kiss that followed sealed the statement.
The years that came later were like a strange country road: sometimes smooth and straight and sometimes rocky and unpredictable. But that was life. Their life. Together. And they were happy, weren't they? Then why did he leave her?
The kettle demanded her attention. She filled a dainty English china cup, a gift from Aunt Clara. The aroma of Earl Grey tea, Aunt Clara's favorite, filled the air. Fitting, Marge thought. Aunt Clara. She had understood about the tree.
Aunt Clara had spent ten years waiting for Uncle Henry to return after he walked out on her. Every night she set the table for two and cooked for two. Every night she washed two place settings: one dirty and one still clean.
Marge had seen her aunt change the clothes in Uncle Henry's closet with the seasons.
"So it will be right when he comes back," she had told Marge. Aunt Clara talked about him as if he would be home any minute. Even when days turned to months and months to years, she had waited for him to return. He never did. What a waste. Marge shook her head and took a sip of tea.
Was what she was doing so different? Yes, she answered her own question. Aunt Clara never gave up. And, by some miracle, Uncle Henry could have returned. He still could. But Marge knew Charlie would never be back. She had a little white card with stark black letters telling her where he was: the location of the granite headstone marking the place. As if she would forget; as if she could forget.
She sighed. Even the mountains must change with time.
She stood and went into the living room. For a few seconds she stared at the tree. Stubborn needles still clung along the branches. The tree was still dressed in holiday finery. Still ready for the celebration. The celebration that never happened. Charles would have loved the way the tree looked if he had come home that day. He would have loved the gifts still waiting in their bright wrappings under the tree.
Marge stared at the scene for a long while. Then she took a deep breath, walked over to the tree and reached for the angel.
Just a Job
The SH Bus was crowded like usual for 8:30 in the morning. I have no problem to find a seat, though. I never do. It’s like I’m surrounded by a glass shield a many yards all around me. I don’t even notice much any more that folks act like I’m carrying an epidemic worse than the plague.
Every night I shower, soak in the tub, and shower again. My water bill looks like I am paying for the whole city. Still I can not get rid of the smell that seems to ooze out of my skin instead of being poured into it. (At the slaughterhouse we call it the ‘aroma’, but changing what we call it don’t change what it is: the smell of death.)
I get off at my stop and I swear I hear the whole busload inhaling like a blue light just flashed a special price on air.
I walk through crowds that part like Moses’ Red Sea. I don’t care. They are all a bunch of losers. Five years from now they will still be going to their same-no-way-to-move-up jobs while I will have it made.
I have been working at the plant for twelve years, and I swear, at the end of a busy day, when the scales are weary and blood shines on the pens like a fresh paint job on a fire engine; I swear I can see that death cloud hanging up at the rafter waiting like, if there was not more pigs, it would settle for a man instead.
My Uncle Valagda got me this job. I got tired of hanging around school so I quit going.
Papa said, "You don’t go to school you get a job. What you think? This is back in Rigova? Here, everybody works."
After he hears Papa, Uncle Valagda, he tells me he has job for me.
"Good money," he says. "All you got to do is whack the dumb pigs in the head. They come to you hanging on a hoist. The hardest thing you have to do is lift the heavy kill-stick and keeping it from knocking you into the slime on the floor when it kicks back. You ain’t gonna find no better paying job nowheres."
"I’ll take it," I say, "but just until I find better. I ain’t spending my life whacking pigs. I got bigger ambitions."
It took twelve years but today I get my chance at better.
I walk into the plant and the smell hits me like a wave in rough surf. It always does. I know that death cloud is up there, just waiting. I change my clothes. Today I ain’t gonna look up.
I ain’t gonna see the blood or the death. Today I think only of the man I will meet after I finish my day’s killing. He will help me so I won’t have to spend the rest of my life turning pigs into pork. He has a job for me.
My cousin, Chonsev, he come to my house Friday and tell me this man was looking for somebody to do an important job.
"You crazy or something?" Papa roared at me when I told him I am quitting here. "You give up a good job for something you don’t know nothing about?"
I try to explain how I want to better myself, but Papa, he don’t want to hear it.
"Where you learn to give up a good job for a ‘maybe’? You don’t hear it from me. I teach you better."
Papa, he keep yelling and all I can do is stand and take it like I ain’t got no words to throw back at him. I don’t throw words or nothing at Papa. I ain’t ready to die yet, so I just take it ‘til he gets tired and goes downstairs to watch the game.
When we were sure he couldn’t hear us, Chonsev, he goes back to talking about the man with my new job.
"You do real good," he says, "and it could lead to something permanent. It takes a special talent to do the work the man has," Chonsev told me. "You got that talent. You can do it."
Tonight I meet with Mr. Smith for myself. I do not care if it is his real name or not. I will convince him I can do this thing he wants done.
Today the pigs come in, I hit them a shot to the head and they hang like sacks of potatoes. It goes perfect today__ like a dance after it is practiced over and over. (I lose count of how many hits I have since I come here.) I am in a rhythm a drummer would be proud of. Each pig takes me one closer to the last one I have to do.
At last lunchtime comes. Before I pull out my roast beef hoagie, I put bits of last night’s dinner in an old pan for the one-eared tabby that adopted us about a month ago. We thought she’d help keep the place clean, but she only eats cooked meat. Who will feed her after today? I’ll ask Jake. He sometimes brings her scraps from home.
The first month I work here, I cannot eat. Every bite tasted like the pig’s fear was mixed with their blood and poured over my lunch like oil. I tried going outside to eat, but the morning’s smell was all over me. I do not remember when it happened, but now I can eat like my nose is missing. Funny how you get used to something. I guess you get used to anything if you have to.
For once I am glad when lunch is over. I am closer to the end of the day. As I meet each pig in turn, I think of how I will spend the money from my new job.
I always wanted a cabin at the edge of the woods on a lake. It will be quiet there. The only sounds will come from birds and fish jumping to grab insects that fly too close. Deer will tiptoe from the woods. I’ll sit on my porch and watch them. Maybe in the winter I’ll put out hay for them. Other animals will be there, too, but never pigs.
I go back to work and find my rhythm like it was waiting for me. I feel like a pendulum on a big clock.
Chonsev says the money is good. I believe him. Look how good he lives. I plan my house as the pigs swing up, I hit them and they swing away.
The quitting bell clangs. I have my plastic breeches off before the sound is swallowed by the air. I hose them down and hang them in my locker like I will wear them again. Then I leave without looking back.
I catch the L 20 to Second Street and the D 10 after that. I walk three blocks to Fleming Street and go to the end of a row of what used to be houses. Plywood covers some windows like it is keeping something from escaping. The street is filled with silence so loud it hurts my ears.
Any minute I expect somebody to spring from one of the hollows that used to have doors, and jump on me. If I thought pigs could feel, I’d think this is how they felt riding the hoist chain coming to me.
I walk faster like, maybe, if I go fast enough, I can become invisible. I pass a man leaning against the steps nodding, although I know he ain’t sleep. Nothing else moves on the whole street that feels as long as the beach at Margate. I stop at 1726 painted in yellow on a wall that looks like paint is all that’s holding the bricks in place.
When a black car pulls to a slow stop I hold my breath. I don’t let it go until the window rolls down and a voice escapes.
"You Jack Hunisko?" I am glad the answer is ‘yes’. "Come here," he says. I go. "Take this." He hands me an envelope poked out on the sides like a lady’s stuffed purse. "Mr. Smith says to tell you, you do this right and he’ll have a lot more business for you. Screw up…." He shrugged. "You don’t want me to tell you what happens if you screw up. Just don’t. You understand?"
"Yes, sir." I nod.
I want to look in the envelope, but I know to wait until the car disappears. Quiet as the street is, the car still seems to glide on air. It melts around the corner.
I wait five minutes like he told me, then I rip the top off and turn the envelope upside down.
A plastic bag falls into my hand. The gun inside is heavy, but not as heavy as the stick I used on the job. I rip it from the plastic and put it into my pocket. The street seems friendlier now. I reach back into the envelope and pull out a paper. I read the directions and then tear them up.
I pull out a picture of some man. I look at it and imagine a red circle with a line through it drawn over him. I slide the picture back inside the envelope and tug out the packet hiding way at the end like it’s shy.
Beautiful green greets me. Government ink has a better smell than stinking, squealing pigs.
I walk back to civilization. I’ll get used to following orders from somebody else like I did the foreman on the pig job.
I wonder how long it will take the death smell to leave me if I don’t keep adding new layers? I don’t want to stink up the new car I’m going to get. I want a red convertible, but I guess I’d better settle for something plain black; one of those ‘you know, it was just an ordinary black car I saw’ deals.
I pass the guy still nodding like that’s his job. I don’t look back as I go to get started on my new job.
