The cubicle is a free country. The rumble of machinery is far away. Whatever device makes that sound cannot see him. Donald imagines that this what the Frank family heard each day, the low growl of mechanical wolves hunting for them on the ground, never looking up.

He reads the graffiti on the walls and door of the toilet.

Trap2 boyz rule

Narko is a bender.

U’re here to have a dump not pull on U’re love pump.
He is fallen beneath the approach of the philistines. Not the mass of sea people washing over the plains beyond the Nile but the offspring of Seymour Glass’s mother in law. How did Salinger put it now..A person deprived, for life, ….and then what was it no understanding or taste for the ….poetry that flows through things.
Maybe it is time revisit the humanity of JD Salinger.
He fumbles inside his wallet and finds the cool face upon which he has poured his sanity. He turns the school library card over and over like a rosary. The expiry date faded over many years, a relic of a previous world. He remembers the touch when she handed him the card.
There you go sir.
Thank you, Celeste. His thumb traces over the place where she held the card.
What book have you got there?
Tender is the night, F Scott Fitzgerald.
Wait, that’s the Great Gatsby writer, isn’t he? My mum has that on DVD. She likes Robert Redford.
Do you know that it was a critical failure until after the war…..
Uh. No. Excuse me sir, I need to see what Jolly is up to back there, he is probably trying to nick some more books.
..…And that I would love to teach more pre-war American literature to you. His words stay in the air, where her shadow had been. At the curve of her hip, a ruffle of blouse is crimped exposing a patch of skin that winks briefly. Donald watches hoping to decipher the code until Celeste disappears between the bookshelves.
Oi Jolly what you up to?
Donald places a hand against the grain of the library desk, no sounds reach him. He looks toward the bookshelves, then his hand, then the door. It is time to leave. What can he do to make this right? There is no one he can ask.
The cubicle is cooler now and Donald feels a twinge in his leg, a muscle shrinks below his bum and pain follows. It always does.
**
Wilky’s fingers crack like walnuts at Christmas, the fatigue of repetition escapes from his bones. The healing will be undone by the finish of the next shift and he will need to leave another open door to the lingering spectre of arthritis.

How many have we done? he says to Ioan.

Me back aches like buggery winces Ioan. He clinches the small of his back as if he is wringing out a wet towel. All morning he has bent over the pallet, digging and sifting like a mole, searching for failed parts, then piling up the suspect packets on a bench next to the pallet. Grey plastic bubbles sprawl across the bench like mutated frog spawn. Ioan studies the pile.

About ‘undred and fifty or sixty I reckon.

Yer man ain’t gonna be happy, Wilky says. He nods toward the thin faced man standing near Hoppy.

Hoppy or that Darren bloke?

Who do’ya think, not Hoppy, although he can’t stand Darren. Too much of the big time Charlie is Hoppy.

Don’t be reminding me ! All that My name is Mr. Hopwood, now then boyo. When I first joined, remember that?

He does it to us all.

Not you though mate.

Dunno, can’t think if he did.

Darren walks over to them. His neck is raw and splotchy red, a frayed polo shirt collar leaves fleas of cotton and fluff on his skin. The hi-viz jacket he wears is a size too big, it flaps open as he walks.

How we doing lads?

Not bad, but there is a lot of suspect parts, Wilky says.

Fucking loads. Ioan decides to add.

Darren picks up a few packets and examines them like Indiana Jones before an idol. The work here is more difficult than he or anyone imagined. Each packet is not just a loss, it is pebble rolling down the mountain. Pebble upon pebble until the word becomes torrent and then avalanche. A disaster that will break the company he works for.

Good work so far, I need to see what we can salvage from this pile. You know make up good kits from various parts. Darren turns to Hoppy; I’ll do this but I need you to get on with that box that’s come back from America.

I thought Wilky and Ioan could do that one.

They are stuck into this one. And besides they have a rhythm going.

Well you know best, I suppose

No, just what works right now.

Oh well, here comes Donald from his wandering. Oi Mr Chips come on we got us a job to be getting on with.


**

The cubicle is a free country. No smoke alarms patrol the sky. Ioan takes a drag from his cigarette. He then sits back, arms raised in victory like a gorilla in the zoo. Slowly the ash is revealed and he takes in each breath and inside his brain blood whispers thank you. Of all the relationships he has known of ever will have this is the one that will endure every crisis and every infidelity.

When only the dog end remains, he discards it to the bleached water of the pan. It joins soggy brethren of other butts that float before the onset of a tidal wave flush.

He reads the graffiti on the walls and door of the toilet.

Trap2 boyz rule

Narko is a bender.

U’re here to have a dump not pull on U’re love pump.

That’s a good one, have to save that for the local. Hey what’s this in the corner?

Nita sucked me off…(scribble) Jammy git.

I’ll remember that name. Nita the nosher, that’s a good un. Yeah, I’ll have to find out who she is.

An Oasis song, Layla, rumbles into the air; it is an old ring tone. The display on the phone says Mam calling.

Hello?

Alright love, are you settling in ok?

Mam you should’nt call me at work.

Sorry love. What’s the B & B like? Is it nice?

We ain’t been there yet. Got to finish work today first.

Are you sharing a room?

Mam, I just said I don’t know. Anyway, have to get back to work. I’ll phone tonight or send you a text.

Ok love, bye then.

Right-O

Ioan puts his phone away before flushing the toilet. A few stubborn cigarette butts survive the cascade of water. So what, it ain’t his bog to clean, some Polish or Albainian wanker will be around to do that. It’s all they’re good for. At least that’s what he tells his friends in the pub. They work for crap wages and do crap work.
But your job isn’t so hot, his friends say.

Means to an end. Do this get some brass and then I’m off. America. I know a lad who bought a house in Florida, runs a speedboat taxi. That’s the plan.

Yeah but you ain’t no different than yer man from effing Poland. Looking for work in an easy country.

Bollocks, man, I am different. I have a plan, I have ambition. They are just conning, lazy bastards. Me, I am the real deal.

If he did not owe so much, he might have been in Florida by now.

**

Hoppy tells Donald that some paperwork needs checking and so he leaves the old man to carry on burrowing through the packets in the American box.

Try not to be long, Donald says, he rubs the small of his back as he speaks. We could get this finished before five if we knuckled down.

So what, look now we’ll get it done, I just need to double check some figures. There should be another six pallets out there for us.

A thousand registration classes and a thousand detentions have ingrained the skin of Donald with a mutant skill of knowing what he used to call chicanery. Hopwood is a shirker and a poor worker. Taking orders from a younger man is eating away at the bubble of superiority he likes other people to see. Malice forms the ink in any pen he uses but Donald does not really care if Hopwood tries to belittle or prove wrong the young man from Kamasuki.

Hoppy pats Donald on the back. Carry on fella.

Away in the distance he sees Wilky and Ioan share a joke with Darren. What are they laughing at? Bastards. Don’t they know who the boss is? Bloody hell they should know better.

Hoppy believes himself to be an arrow, smooth, direct and for one purpose only, leaving his mark. Life has not always allowed him to do that. An arrow needs a good bow and a better archer. All the archers he has known have been weak and poor of aim. With this job he was becoming his own bowman and fuck anyone that stood in the way. His first job as a boss and he was good at it, the eyes of his workers told him all he needed to know how good a job he was doing.

And now his chance to impress on a foreign field, show good away form is in jeopardy. There is something about that Darren, something not right. He gets on too well with the lads and he has only been with them one day. What’s all that about, eh?

Hoppy had plans to siphon off some of the parts and make a few bob here and there. Now a snooper is on the prowl, well it just makes things harder. A chance for Hoppy to prove how smart he is.

Yeah that’s the challenge. Fuck him, it’ll be sweet to pull one over him.

Hoppy develops the smile that he thinks is like George Clooney. It stays with him when times are hard. No one disarms him when he smiles.

**

Wilky relaxes in the toilet cubicle. He has a nagging pain that curls across his back and stomach. The winces come harder and more frequent now and air feels flat inside his chest, as if he is being squeezed by a giant rolling pin. Too much activity is like a starting pistol and the soreness he feels suddenly races throughout the weary parts of his body. Thankful that the race is a sprint and not a marathon, Wilky accepts all of this. He has faced worse conditions in his life, this is just another inconvenient moment that he must let pass.

He reads the graffiti on the walls and door of the toilet.

Trap2 boyz rule

Narko is a bender.

U’re here to have a dump not pull on U’re love pump.

A chuckle rattles in his throat. If only he could pull on his love pump! At least the others do not know about that, especially that little gobshite Ioan.

God, how long has it been since he could rise to the occasion? Not even in that lap dancing club on a long weekend in Blackpool. Christ, what was her name, Kika, Kinky, something like that. It was the very least she deserved, to see a reaction. The look on her face was pitying and piss-taking both at once.

The memory took pole position in his brain whenever the world went quiet. After so much time it did not seem as bad anymore.