Divorce papers waited for him at home. He wasn’t going to be dramatic; he’d sign what had to be signed. He never thought he’d deserved Annette, and over time he guessed she’d discovered this truth as well.
From the time he was seventeen until he was twenty-seven, he’d worked as a sticker. Then he got married and knew that had to change. He got a management job at the frozen onion factory, worked there until he was thirty-one. Five years ago he’d had a plan. He would become a treatment plant operator at Fabulous Onion Foods and take management courses, work up that chain, save money, open a blood sausage facility someday, since there was a surprising demand in the industry. After a paperwork mishap though, the CEO of Fabulous Onion, Trevor Milstead, was the asteroid that destroyed that prospective world and others.
The unemployment wasn’t enough to sustain his household. The Sticker refused to let their underwater mortgage go into default for the sake of some out-of-state jobs Annette found online. Leaving his trusted territory in the Inland Empire made him uncomfortable, but he didn't appreciate how much Annette despised that discomfort until it was already too late.
He went back to his old line of work at a new slaughterhouse, which was a pay cut of twenty-five grand — but he knew this kind of work and he trusted this kind of work. Even if he could hardly afford his dumpy apartment.
There was nothing else for Annette to admire in a man so quickly neutered. Her husband was a failure, and an ugly failure at that. The Sticker’s crooked teeth were not only unsightly for their angles, but coffee stained. He had bad skin begging for skin cancer, courtesy of his Irish father. And just last week he noticed a small barren spot forming in his otherwise thick blond hair. He’d always called it a cowlick before, but now, no such delusions could be made in earnest. So this was how the hill looked, just as you went down the other side. So much of his life had already passed and yet he’d never felt like it had begun.
The Sticker’s gaze drifted outside to the long, winding corral where the cows marched. The bends in the line were so they wouldn’t see what they were directly headed for, to keep them tranquil. It was probably the first time the Sticker felt envious of the poor animals.
Lunchtime wasn’t a refreshing occasion. Despite the sterile interior and air conditioning of the admin building, the walls hummed with the odor of cattle and dirt. The Sticker sat at the plastic table in a daze. He tried to will himself to open his brown sack lunch; he knew he’d be hungry later if he skipped, but with Annette lounging over his brain, always in his thoughts, forever and ever there, with him, it was impossible to think about eating. He could only glance around at the various groups of workers: the steamers, the singers, shavers, the splitters, shacklers, stunners… it was like a conspiracy of language used to reinforce the idea that all jobs here were created equal. And that wasn’t the case. Just ask the shavers and splitters about that.
Personally, he had always been happiest as a sticker (the term bleeder was frowned upon by the management), because his job involved no heavy machinery or lifting. His body was torn up by now anyway, but more from shoveling waste chambers at the onion plant. The rest of these guys, these younger men, they were popping Advils and Tylenols (Vicodin secretly) and some had bandages chronically appearing on different parts of their body. No way of denying it; the crew was a gruesome lot by day’s end.
The Sticker noticed an employment agency’s flyer hanging from the cork board. Limbus, Inc. read the top banner, and beneath it, a picture of a globe glowed with needles of light. None of the phone number tags had been ripped from the bottom.
Funny thing to see in this place. Could have used them when I got canned.
Jackson and Carl rambled on about the immortal cow from earlier. Every now and then they would involve the Sticker in the conversation and he would nod with their assessments. Jackson, right as rain now, had a gash in his forehead like a miniature crimson hockey stick. He was lucky he’d backed up when that hoof lashed out, or he’d probably be on permanent break-time right about now.
The room went silent suddenly. Gerald Bailey, facility manager, came through the door. The man never visited unless he wanted to ream someone out. Despite not having a manual job, he was always oily. He lived an air-conditioned existence but kept his blue collared shirt open at the top, where puffs of hoary chest hair sprung free. Seeing as everybody had to wear a hairnet and beard-nets, it was a disconcerting sight to say the least.
“Anybody know why there’s a product with three bolt holes in its brain?” he demanded of the entire room. His eyes roved to Jackson. “How’d you get that forehead smile, Action Jackson?”
Jackson stammered. “Shackles struck me in the face… on accident. Got it documented.”
“Be the hell more careful.” Gerald seemed to grow less agitated and his posture slackened. “So nobody knows about the bolts? Any stunners in here?”
Carl began to stand.
“Sit son, you’re still on break. I’m just getting details here.”
Carl lowered back down but his eyes didn’t move from Bailey. “The first two didn’t do the trick, boss.”
“Didn’t do the trick? Is that your excuse?”
Carl frowned. “You counseling me in front of everyone, boss?”
Bailey turned away, muttering something tired and vicious, and his tremendous gut bumped into the Sticker. “Oh pardon — hey you’re the new hot shot that upped productivity that one week.”
“Two weeks,” the Sticker replied.
Bailey’s mangy brown eyebrows hauled his weasel eyes up with them. “I know you, don’t I? Yeah. You used to work at the Fabulous Onion, on the cutting floor.”
“Small world.”
“It is. You know Trevor Milstead? Hell of a guy.”
“I know him.”
Bailey, noticing the conversation’s one-sided tilt, went to leave. He halted at the sight of the Limbus flyer and promptly ripped it off the board. “I don’t know who keeps putting these up, but they’ll likely need to apply at this Limbus place if they keep at it. Any ideas?”
Nobody said anything. After a moment Bailey marched off like a crestfallen general going to war alone.
Somebody whispered, “Why does it matter, one bolt, two or three?”
“Some of the meat is ruint,” another replied.
“Inhumane,” another guy added.
Leaving his lunch unopened, the Sticker slid out from the table and tapped Carl’s shoulder. “You still smoke?”
“Like a chimney.”
“Good, I want one.”
“Since when?”
The Sticker left the break room and a moment later heard Carl push out his chair.
He admittedly didn’t like the taste, but the lightheaded sensation was welcome right now. In the time it took the Sticker to finish one, Carl had smoked two cigarettes and mistook this as a chance to catch up. The Sticker just wanted to stare off into the trees that lined the parking lot outside the processing plant. Just watch their leaves shake with the occasionally breeze… drift… forget this place… forget her.
Carl ground the butt of his second smoke like he was doing some 50s dance move. “All right then, Mister Talkative, I’ll see you on the floor.”
He didn’t notice as Carl left. These days he didn’t notice anybody around him. People were just like those brain-dead cows that came swinging up to him. Substantial only that they took up space and had to be addressed in the moment.