“That’s enough of that,” said Cathryn sternly. “I don’t want to hear any disrespect for your father. Michelle’s illness has upset him terribly.”
Cathryn directed her attention to the broken dish. Was Charles having a nervous breakdown? Cathryn decided she’d discuss the possibility with Dr. Wiley in the morning. It was a terrifying thought.
Gingerly crossing the partially frozen mud, Charles approached the water’s edge, then filled the jar. He screwed the cap on tightly before running back to the house.
Although the suddenness of his arrival surprised Cathryn, it had nowhere near the effect of his previous entrance. By the time Charles got to the refrigerator, Cathryn could react, and she reached out and grasped his arm.
“Charles, tell me what you are doing.”
“There’s benzene in the pond,” hissed Charles, shaking off her grasp. He put the jar of pond water in the refrigerator. “And you can smell it in the playhouse.”
Charles whirled back to the door. Cathryn ran after him, managing to get hold of his coat. “Charles, where are you going? What’s the matter with you?”
With unnecessary force, Charles wrenched his coat free. “I’m going to Recycle, Ltd. That’s where the goddamn benzene is coming from. I’m sure of it.”
Seven
Charles pulled the red Pinto off Main Street and stopped in front of the gate in the hurricane fence surrounding Recycle, Ltd. The gate was unlocked and opened easily. He stepped back into his car and drove into the factory’s parking area.
The evening shift couldn’t have been too large because there were only a half dozen or so beat-up cars near the entrance to the old brick mill building. To the left of the factory, the huge piles of discarded tires rose up like miniature snowcapped mountains. Between the used tires and the building were smaller heaps of plastic and vinyl debris. To the right of the factory was a rubbish-strewn, empty lot bisected by the hurricane fence that ran down to the Pawtomack River. Beyond the fence the deserted mill buildings stretched for a quarter of a mile to the north.
As soon as Charles got out of his car, he was enveloped by the same stench that had assaulted his house that morning. It amazed him that people could live to the immediate west of town, the direction of the prevailing winds. Locking the car, he started toward the entrance, an unimposing aluminum storm door. Above it,
was written in block letters. Taped to the inside of the glass was a cardboard sign which said: INQUIRIES, followed by a local telephone number.
Charles tried the door, which was unlocked. If he had thought the odor bad outside, inside it was far worse. He found himself choking on the heavy, chemical-laden air in a small office of sorts. It was a plywood-veneer paneled room with a beat-up Formica counter that held a wire letter basket and a stainless steel bell, the kind you hit with the palm of your hand. Charles did just that, but the noise was swallowed up by the hisses and rumbles coming from within the factory proper.
Charles decided to try the inner door. At first it wouldn’t open but when he pulled more forcibly it swung inward. As soon as it opened, Charles saw why it was insulated. It was as if it were a portal into hell itself. The combination of stench and noise was overpowering.
Charles entered a huge two-story-high room, poorly lit and dominated by a row of gigantic pressure-cooker-type apparatus. Metal ladders and catwalks ascended and crisscrossed in bewildering confusion. Large, clanking conveyor belts brought in piles of plastic and vinyl debris mixed with all sorts of disagreeable trash. The first people Charles saw were a pair of sweating men in sleeveless undershirts, with black-smudged faces like coal miners, sorting out the glass, wooden objects, and empty cans from the plastic.
“Is there a manager here?” yelled Charles, trying to be heard over the din.
One of the men looked up for an instant, indicated that he couldn’t hear, then went back to his sorting. Apparently the conveyor belt didn’t stop and they had to keep up with it. At the end of the belt was a large hopper which, when full, would rise up, position itself over an available pressure cooker, and dump its contents of plastic scrap. Charles saw a man with a large, scimitarlike knife up on the catwalk slit open two bags of chemicals, one white, the other black. With what appeared like great effort he dumped the two bags into the ovens in a great cloud of dust. For a moment the man disappeared from view. When he reappeared, he had closed the hatch and activated the steam, sending a fresh mixture of smoke, odor, and noise into the room.
Although Charles couldn’t get anyone’s attention, no one asked him to leave, either. Boldly he skirted the conveyor belts, keeping his eyes on the floor which was strewn with trash and puddles of oil and grease. He passed a cinder-block wall housing the automated machinery bringing in the tires to be melted down. It was from this area that the smell that Charles associated with the factory originated. Up close it was far more powerful.
Just beyond the wall, Charles found a large wire cage secured with a stout padlock. It was obviously a storeroom because Charles could see shelving with spare parts, tools, and containers of industrial chemicals. The walls were made of the same material that formed the hurricane fence outside. Charles put his fingers through the mesh to support himself while he scanned the labels on the containers. He found what he was looking for directly in front of him. There were two steel drums with benzene stenciled on the sides. There were also the familiar skull and crossbone decals warning that the contents were poisonous. As he looked at the drums, Charles was shaken by a new wave of rage.
A hand gripped Charles’s shoulder and he spun about, flattening himself against the wire mesh.
“What can I do for you?” yelled a huge man trying to be heard over the thunderous din of the machinery. But the instant he spoke, a whistle blew above one of the plastic pressure cookers as it completed its cycle, making further conversation impossible. It burst open and belched forth an enormous amount of black, viscous, depolymerized plastic. The hot liquid was poured into cooling vats sending up billows of acrid vapors.
Charles looked at the man in front of him. He was a full head taller than Charles. His perspiring face was so pudgy that his eyes were mere slits. He was dressed like the other men Charles had seen. His sleeveless undershirt was stretched over a beer belly of awesome dimensions. The man was supporting a dolly, and Charles noticed his massive forearms were professionally tattooed with hula dancers. On the back of his left hand was a swastika that he had apparently done himself.
As soon as the noise level sank to its usual deafening pitch, the worker tried again. “You checking our chemicals?” He had to shout.
Charles nodded.
“I think we need more carbon black,” yelled the man.
Charles realized that the man thought he belonged there.
“What about the benzene?” yelled Charles.
“We got plenty of benzene. That comes in the hundred-gallon drums.”
“What do you do with it after you use it?”
“You mean the ‘spent’ benzene? C’mere, I’ll show you.”
The man leaned his dolly against the wire cage and led Charles across the main room, between two of the rubber ovens where the radiant heat was intense. They ducked under an overhang and entered a hallway that led to a lunch room where the noise was somewhat less. There were two picnic tables, a soda dispenser, and a cigarette machine. Between the soda dispenser and the cigarette machine was a window. The man brought Charles over to it and pointed outside. “See those tanks out there?”
Charles cupped his hands around his eyes and peered out. About fifty feet away and quite close to the riverbank were two cylindrical tanks. Even with the bright moon, he couldn’t see any details.