The Way We Speak

The warehouse is alive and hectic with midday noise. The sound of trucks unloading echoes throughout the building. Some one shouts my name. I do not listen. I sort through torn pallet tags and scribbled notes, and continue writing down product transfers. The bright light of a flourescent bulb shines down. I cap my pen and put it in my pocket. A forklift pulls up. I'm tired, and I don't want to talk, but I turn anyway.

"What's up?" Kevin S. asks from the perch of his lift.

"Not much. I was really busy there for awhile," I reply tossing several papers into a recycling tote.

"You see the crowd out front for the hiring fair?"

"No. A good crew?"

"Let me put it this way: No white people."

"Oh."

Kevin S. nods and then steps on the dead man pedal. The forklift comes alive.

"It's going to be a fun Christmas," He putting the lift in reverse and speeding off.

* * * * *

"What's that Russian word Sergei that means a dirty dick that has fucked every dirty fucking hole known to man?" Todd asks.

Sergei smiles and laughs and tells us the word. I lean down onto the counter of the shipping office. I scribble my weekly hours onto the timesheet.

"And what's that other word you told me? That means son-of-a-bitch?" Todd continues.

Sergei repeats the word for Todd.

"That's it! Does it mean son-of-a-bitch?"

"No. It means asshole, son-of-a-bitch, and nigger all rolled into one," says Sergei.

Todd laughs. I hand the timesheet pencil to Sergei. He begins filling in his hours.

"I love the Russian language," says Todd.

* * * * *

John pushes the cart. He pushes hard, and then lets go. The cart crashes into some empty racking. I walk over, and look at the cart. Several boxes of product lay stacked haphazardly upon it.

"What's up with this?" I ask pointing toward the cart.

"That's the online store's product," John replies taking hold of the power jack.

"Are they returning it? When did they order it? Yesterday?"

"Yep, they ordered it yesterday, and now they're returning it today. A complete fucking waste of my time!"

John steers the power jack into the back of his truck. I walk toward the cart and steer it into a corner under the racking. John comes out pulling a skid of boxes.

"Does Sergio still run the online store?" I ask.

"Yes, he does," John answers.

"That guy's a fool. I don't know why they have him running it. He's a complete fuck-up. He's always ordering product, and then returning it the next day."

John stops the power jack.

"Yeah I know. It's because the guy's a 'Can," he says.

"A 'Can? What the hell is a 'Can?"

"A Puerto Ri-Can, A Mexi-Can. The guy's a fuckin' wetback."

"Well, he's definitely an incompetent ass."

John nods, steers the power jack into his truck and continues unloading.

Codes

Boxes of chocolate, spaced evenly on a conveyor belt move slowly along, and enter the mouth of a long complicated machine. The machine hisses. Gears clang together. A box is spit out, then another. Both are freshly wrapped in golden paper. A woman at the end of the line, takes the box, and places it inside a poly lined case. I walk up to her.

"How are things going?" I ask her.

"Fine," she replies with a curious smile.

Another woman, putting together cases and lining them looks up at me. Another wrapped box of chocolates is spit out, followed quickly by another. The woman packing the case continues doing so without even looking up. She's a white woman in her 40s, with deep tanned skin, and red hair.

"You guys wanna hear something funny?" I ask.

"Okay," she replies, "what?"

"You know the code on these cases you're packing? Well it's designated Mail-Order by the 'M' at the end of the code number this year, but it's a product that has and was only made for Mail-Order, so creating a new code for it, and printing thousands of new labels was completely redundant."

The two women say nothing and continue packing and lining the cases.

"Just thought it was kinda funny," I tell them.

"You know what Nelson?" says the red haired lady, "after 15 years here, you just don't give a shit anymore. If they want to change codes let them. I don't care. They'll change them again."

The woman putting the cases together laughs aloud. Both women smile at each other.

"Oh," I reply.

"Oh Nelson," says the other lady, "we're sorry. Do you want us to care about your codes?"

"You know what? You girls are always picking on me. I think I'm gonna grieve this."

"Oh no!" she says, "don't do that!"

"Well, you should have thought of that before you started making fun of me."

Both women laugh. I begin to walk away.

"We're sorry Nelson!" one of the ladies shouts after me.

I wave my hand and continue moving.

Morning Meeting

Todd steps out from the lockers. He has a cup of coffee in his hand. He walks up to a forklift parked beneath the racking, leans against it, takes a sip.

"You might want to hide that coffee once the meeting begins," I say stepping toward him.

Todd rolls his eyes. He has been reprimanded before for drinking coffee during morning meetings.

"Yeah, don't I know it," he replies hiding his cup within the well of the forklift's gearshift, "wouldn't want to piss off the union."

I look up at the warehouse clock. Red digital numerals read 7:29. Several employees mill around quietly waiting. Bruce stands amongst the racking with his hands in his pockets. He looks eager. The clock changes; 7:30. Rob steps out of his office.

"Morning Rob," says Bruce.

"Morning Bruce," Rob replies.

Rob lowers his glasses, and surveys the small gathering before him.

"Everyone here?" Rob asks.

"Full crew today," Bruce replies.

"Looks smaller than usual."

Rob shrugs, and begins reading from his notes.

"Okay, good morning everybody," he says, "it's Tuesday. At 9am we have a truck coming in from..."

I look around at the group of employees gathered. Todd has his baseball cap removed. His messy, slept in hair sticks straight up. He has his glasses in his hands. He carefully cleans them with his t-shirt. Bruce stands with a clipboard in his hands. He watches Rob speak, and nods insipidly to his words.

"...Just an FYI for everybody - maintainence will be working on the alarm system today, so the alarm system..."

I lean back against the racking, and fold my arms. I find it hard to follow along. I begin to zone out.

"...A lab tech will be in today to test the cherries that came in yesterday..."

Sunlight shines in through the shipping office window. I study it for a few minutes. It begins to look really good to me, almost emancipating. I focus on it. My eyelids become heavy.

"...And as most of you already know by now, Ron resigned from the company last Friday..."

"Resigned?" whispers Glen while leaning in close to me, "what the fuck? Was he the vice president? More like quit!"

I wake from my reverie, and laugh a little bit.

"Okay that's it folks," says Rob, "take it away Bruce."

Bruce smiles deferentially at Rob and holds up the receiving report. He's not wearing his glasses. he struggles for a few seconds to see the words printed upon the page.

"Okay, yesterday we received 5 totes of sugar from..."

"Fuck," says Todd quietly, "I'm barely awake here."

"Hold on," I tell him, "it's going to get good in a couple minutes. I added something to the report this morning."

Todd grins.

"Yeah?" he says.

"Yeah."

Bruce draws the clipboard closer to his face, strains his eyes and then pulls it away.

"And uh, from KFC, we received 3 buckets of original recipe," he says.

All of the warehouse employees laugh heartily.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" exclaims Bruce.

Rob smiles, chuckles to himself.

"This isn't a joke sheet guys!" Bruce continues.

"Who would write such a thing?" I ask him.

"I don't know Nelson," says Bruce, "sure has nice handwriting though."

The laughter begins to settle down.

"Okay, that's it," says Rob.

The group starts to disperse. I begin to walk in the direction of the shipping dock. Todd catches up and walks alongside of me. He has his coffee in one hand, and his cigarettes in the other.

"You write that?" he asks.

"Yeah," I reply.

"That was great."

"I thought you'd like that."

Todd stops at a garbage can, finishes his coffee, and throws the cup out. He tucks his cigarettes into his jacket pocket.

"I did," he says.

Whistler

I remove my backpack from the locker, and place it on a pallet. I take my utility knife out of my pocket. I place it down beside my backpack. I unzip the front pocket of my backpack, and remove my bus pass. I take the knife and tuck it inside.

"Hi Mike," says a woman with a Scottish accent, "gosh love, I haven't seen you in so long."

I look up. An older woman with short gray hair walks down on of the warehouse aisles.

"Hello Thelma," says a man in jeans and a workshirt walking toward her.

"How you been?"

Mike strokes his face.

"I'm getting old," he replies.

"Oh no," says Thelma.

"Yep. Getting old, and getting tired."

"Ah, but we all are Mike."

Mike puts his hand on his hip. Attached to his belt is a walkie-talkie. A voice speaks through it. He turns down the volume.

"You know what," says Mike, "to hell with it. Let's get out of here."

"Get out of here?" says Thelma, "where are we going?"

"Whistler. Let's get out here, and head for the Chateau Whistler! Let's forget it all and see where life takes us."

Thelma laughs, obviously charmed. A forklift drives by. The noise of trucks being unloaded echoes throughout the warehouse.

"Okay Mike," she replies, "let's go, let's get out of here."

"I've got my truck out back. We'll go right now."

"Okay, but can we bring A.? She's real fun. A nice girl too!"

"Yeah, bring her too."

"Sounds delightful!"

They walk to the shipping doors. The noise of the warehouse drowns out their voices. They step outside together. I lose sight of them after they leave the building. I pull my back pack over my shoulders. I step between the pallets, and begin walking toward the doors. Some one shouts my name as I walk down the aisle. It's Kevin S. He shouts some more words. I don't hear him, but I wave in reply, and then leave the building.