Long Tale Press

CHAPTER 1—GEORGE

It’s almost four a.m. Three hours of clean up left to go. Lunch time’s about to end, but I can't eat. I’m totally exhausted, covered with white flour dust and stink of lard that we’ve been wiping off the ovens, duct-work, and conveyors. It was a mistake to take this temp job—act of desperation, but who knew? It’s hard to find a decent job at my age. I turned fifty-three last April and regaining my once middle class existence won’t be easy, but I will. I’ve got to. I slug down another cup of weak, machine-made coffee.

Roger pokes his head into the bleak white latex lunchroom flooded with fluorescent light. “Yoh! George Hampton, Mister Brenner! Time for blow-down. Fun, fun, fun!” Roger’s the senior baker here at Grannies’ Cookies. Grannies’ is a part of the much larger Endorf Corporation. I once held some Endorf stock. Life is ironic.

I suspect that Roger isn’t happy I am so much older than the other temporary workers. Probably worried I won’t work as hard or fast as other employees. He’s probably right. I’ve got a masters—engineering. Roger might have graduated high school . . . might have.

Now the temp that I’ve been paired with, George, is struggling to his feet. We get along okay. He’s an old hand at this—a big dude, taller than my own six-feet, an African American, well muscled, and quite possibly on drugs. He won't stop talking. I suspect he’s using uppers of some kind. Working with him is like having a transistor radio beside me. There's no way to turn George off, but I don't mind. We follow Roger to another section of the building, passing by a white board listing lost-time accident reports: one fractured arm, a broken toe. George sees me looking.

“Got to watch your ass in here,” he says. “Shit happens.”

There's a stretcher fastened to the wall beside the board. My empty stomach feels a little queasy—should have eaten something.

We step through a metal door that opens to a storage bin some thirty-five or forty feet across, about three times as high—stainless steel cylinder of open space. We stand in shallow, flat-white drifts of flour dust below a spider web of catwalks, pipes, and duct-work also covered with a layer of white powder. I begin to sneeze and wipe my nose onto a lard-stained sleeve. It’s warm and humid with an overpowering smell of flour, lard, and something I cannot identify.

Octavio shows up with yellow plastic raincoats. “Put these on,” he says. Octavio is one of five Hispanic “sanitarians.” That's what they call the permanent employees working here as janitors. The sanitarians wear dark green coveralls with name tags sewn on. Now another of them brings us matching hoods with plastic windows to look through; air filter cartridges have been attached, one on each side. I put it on. The inside of my rig has been wiped down with disinfectant of some kind that kills the greasy odor of the cookie hell outside, replacing it with its own antiseptic scent. The hood and raincoat feel uncomfortable and claustrophobic.

I’m already sweating as we’re given shiny, flat-blade shovels and a pile of plastic garbage bags to fill. There’s lots of bags. I watch four sanitarians climb ladders to a maze of narrow metal-grating platforms high above us, squinting through my scuffed-up face plate. From my point of view they look like figures in an Escher drawing.

“Ready?” one of them calls down.

“We ready!” George calls back. “But you be—”

George's voice is drowned out by the hiss of compressed air hoses that start to blow down flour that’s settled on the maze of ducts and girders high above. A blizzard of white powder swirls around us and the inside of my mask steams up. Sweat burns my eyes, but I can only blink. No way to get my hands inside this hood. I start to shovel the accumulation from the floor and bag it. Six bucks & ninety cents an hour for this.

I see a blurry image that is George inside his yellow raincoat, shoveling hard and fast. It’s hard to breathe inside this hood. No way I’m ever coming back to this. I’ve got to find a steady job.

Some twenty-five or thirty minutes pass before I hear a muted shout from high above us, then a shrill, metallic clatter and a crash that’s followed by a shriek of pain. A spray of red splatters the window of my hood. George screams a stream of muffled words from underneath his hood. I drop my shovel and run toward him, stumbling on a sheet of metal partly hidden by the flour dust floating down. Swaths of his blood begin to darken as they soak into the snow-white blanket that surrounds us.

I yank off my hood and yell into the chalky haze above us, “Stop the air!” Dust quickly clogs my nostrils. Shit! I doubt the Mexicans above can hear or see me. Christ! It's hard to breathe. George’s left arm is spewing blood from where one of his hands should be. I’m frozen for a moment, stunned by this surrealistic horror.

“George!” I grab him by the shoulders, lose my grip then grab again. He's big and heavy, slippery with blood and on his knees now, the grotesque appendage flailing, slinging plasma as I try to drag him to the exit.

“No!” he protests—wants to go the other way. His bloody stump beats on my legs.

“My hand!” he screams, but I ignore his protest and with strength I didn’t know I had, manage to haul him back outside the bin. My sight is blurred from sweat and flour dust accumulated in my eyes. “We need some help!” I yell. “Godammit, HELP!” Blood’s spurting from the arm where George's left hand used to be. I tear his hood off. Jesus, God . . . what can I do? His mouth’s wide open with a gold tooth gleaming as he howls and writhes on the now blood-slicked concrete floor.

“Hold still!” I rip the raincoat from his body, then remove my own. “We've got to stop the bleeding!”

Someone dressed in white comes running as George moans. “Ohhhh God.”

A pool of blood expands around us.

“Christ! What happened?” asks a baker who stays back a yard or two from where we are—afraid of AIDS, I guess.

“He's lost his hand! Call 911!”

The baker takes a cell phone from his pocket and a moment later red lights spin and flash above us; now a siren wails. The air compressor shuts down leaving us in eerie silence as a crowd of voyeurs gather; most are dressed in baker’s uniforms. I drag George to a concrete column and then lean him up against it.

“Shit!” I don't know what to do. Nobody's offering to help. I look at George. His face has turned an ashen gray as tears clean narrow trails through flour dust on his face.

“My hand,” he moans. “You got to find my hand! Go find my hand!”

“Lay him down flat!” one of the female bakers shouts. “I've had first-aid,” she says. “Make him lay down.”

“Okay.” I make a pillow for him with our raincoats.

“Find my hand,” George moans as I take off my belt and make a noose around his injured forearm. “Hold this tight.” I shove the end in his right hand. “You've got to stop the bleeding!”

“Yeah. I got it, man. Go find my fuckin’ hand.”

I run back into the bin and see more clearly now. The dust has settled—ankle-deep . . . blood spattered everywhere. I find a soft depression where we struggled, and a broken shovel handle. I rake through the accumulated flour with my hands, no luck. A nightmare. I begin to work my way out in concentric circles. Here! The hand is cool and clammy, lifeless meat. I start to leave and trip on something. Damn! The shovel I was using. I get back onto to my feet and run outside to George.

“Get us some ice!” I'm yelling at a group of bakers who have gathered, gawking at us. “And a plastic bag!”

I kneel at George's side to show his severed hand. I don't know what to do with it.

“Good man,” George says. “You okay, Willie.”

“They can put you back together, George.” His right hand’s shaking but still holds the belt tight as two guys in green come with a stretcher, and Octavio has brought a plastic sandwich bag filled with crushed ice. I take it from him, but the flour-encrusted hand won't fit. George’s long fingers are protruding from the bag, but it's the best I can do. The Mexicans get George onto the stretcher and I put the ice-bagged hand between his knees as they take off with him. I'm shaking . . . dizzy, nauseated—maybe a good thing I didn’t eat.

“You better get yourself cleaned up,” one of the bakers tells me. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I'm okay.”

But I don't look okay inside the restroom as I stand before a full-length mirror. I look like something from a horror film. Soap and warm water wash blood from my face and hands without much trouble, but my pants and shirt are caked with lard-soaked flour dust and dark red stains.

I leave the restroom heading for the cafeteria and find George laid out on a table. There’s a pair of medics with him. They’ve brought first-aid cases and a gurney. One puts George’s severed hand into a Styrofoam container as the other sticks an IV in his arm and then another in his right hand's index finger. Something's draining into him from two clear plastic bags he holds. My belt has been replaced with a white cloth they’ve tightened near his elbow. The two medics hoist him up and plop him on the gurney. One asks questions. “What's your name?”

“George Ham . . . pphhh . . . .”

“Hampton,” Roger tells them.

“What's your name?” the medic asks again. I guess he's trying to see if George is conscious, or to keep him that way as the other medic turns to Roger. “Is this guy on any kind of medication?”

“I don't know. He's just a temp.”

I wonder if I ought to tell them I suspect that George is on amphetamines . . . might be important. I decide against it.

Roger sends the vultures who have come to watch back to their jobs. Myself, the medics, and Octavio remain.

“What's your address?” the medic asks George.

“Ummm . . . Seattuuul . . . uh. . . .”

“Wake up! What's your address?”

There’s no response. The medic looks to Roger for an answer.

“I don't know.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“You should call Max,” Octavio suggests.

“Already have. He’s on his way.”

A paramedic turns George on his side and rifles through a billfold found in one of his hip pockets. “2215 South Yesler.”

“Good enough.” The other medic writes it down, then makes a cell phone call. “Give me the trauma doctor,” he commands. “Yes . . . Dr. Harwood? This is EM-405. We're on our way in with a severed hand. Our ETA is fifteen minutes . . . right.” He puts the phone back in his pocket.

“We are good to go,” he tells us. “Taking him to Harborview.”

They wheel George out and as they leave, a man I haven't seen before appears in street clothes, clean white shirt and tie. He's got a clipboard in one hand.

“I'm Maxwell Evens, night-shift manager.” He peers at me, but doesn't get too close. “Who saw the accident?” he asks.

Octavio just shrugs.

I tell Max, “I was with him when it happened.”

“And your name is . . . ?”

“Brenner. William Brenner.”

He writes down my name and address.

“Brenner's temping here,” says Roger. “His first night.”

“Okay then. Roger, you can go. I only need the people who were on the scene.” He turns to me. “What happened?”

“We were inside a bin, shoveling flour dust into bags.”

“Es blow-down,” says Octavio.

“Then something fell, a sheet of metal tore through his left forearm—broke the shovel he was using.”

“Did you have protective gear on?”

“Yes. We both did.”

“Umm.” He thinks about it for a moment. “Guess you really couldn't see too well then, could you? So much dust, the mask and all?”

“I could see George in his yellow raincoat. And I saw the silver flash of something coming down.” I lie. I'm pretty sure George Hampton’s going to need a witness . . . if he lives through this. I tell Max how I got George out and found the hand.

“Were any others there?” he asks.

“The bakers came, but they just stood around. The sanitarians brought us a stretcher and a plastic bag of ice to put the hand in.”

“Right.” He jots down the information as Octavio steps forward.

“I should go back now?”

“No, not yet. I need to get your statement.

“Mr. Brenner, you can leave. Go home and get yourself cleaned up. We’ll be in touch. You’ll need to sign an accident report.”

Five minutes later I step out into the cool, pre-dawn fresh air of this October morning—almost six a.m. My pants are falling off. Forgot to get my belt, but I’m not going back. I need a drink, but only have three dollars with me and I can't go anywhere dressed in these blood- and grease-stained clothes. I climb into my van and start the engine, roll the window down, and breathe in deeply, savoring a breeze that sweeps away the sickeningly sweet smell of Grannies’ baking chambers. I'm completely wired and wide awake. What now?

I cross my arms on top the steering wheel and rest my head on them a moment before trying to find a station on the radio. Nothing but early morning news and silly wake-up broadcast shows. Some moron and his moronette trade banter. Might as well go home, clean up, and try to get some sleep. I’m missing Laurie, my ex-wife, and having someone I could talk to. I’ve a daughter, Mary, who’s ensconced herself within an obscure Buddhist monastery up in Nova Scotia. She’ll turn twenty-three in June; been there almost four years now, doesn’t write or call. I miss her too.

'Lonely as God', an army buddy once remarked. We were in basic training, his first time away from home. I didn’t understand the comment then. But I do now.

CHAPTER 2—FIVE CONVERSATIONS

Phone rings. It’s my mother.

“Wallace?”

“Yes. It’s William, Mother.” Wallace was my father’s name.

“I know,” she says. “I called you.”

“Good. How are you? Are they treating you okay?”

“Okay, I guess. . . . “When am I coming home?”

“It won't be long.” I lie. Mom’s almost eighty and has Alzheimer’s. She’s lived at Foxes Acres for the last five years. Leaving her there has been an endless source of guilt—endless expense. I can’t afford to keep her there much longer—maybe five or six more months. I’ve got to find a job.

Mom asks, “How is Gucci doing?”

“She got killed. A garbage truck ran over her.”

That happened two months after my divorce from Laurie . . . fitting end to my collapsing house of cards.

“She's such a good dog.”

“Yes, she was. I miss her.”

Gucci was a cocker spaniel—fur the color of a golden sunset. God, I loved that dog. She used to wait outside in the front yard to meet me coming home from work, tail wagging madly, barking, overcome with joy at my arrival. Laurie gave him to me on my forty-seventh birthday. Gucci was a puppy then . . . six years ago. I had a good job and a nice house, two and one-half baths . . . a cared-for lawn in Walnut Creek, a forty-minute drive from San Francisco. All that’s gone now.

“How are things at work?” Mom asks me.

“I'm still looking for a job.”

“That’s wonderful,” she says. “What kind of movie is it? If the scenery is heavy, let the script boys do the moving, son. You’ve got to watch your back.”

Mom always wanted me to be involved with movies. In her youth she planned to be an actress, but then gave it up to marry Dad. I'm trying to think of what to say as she goes on.

“I love you, son.”

“I love you, too.”

“What's Laurie up to?” she inquires. “You made a good choice there. She’s so good-looking . . . smart too.”

“We're divorced . . . two years ago. Remember?”

“Oh, divorced. . . .”

“Laurie moved back to San Francisco and we haven’t kept in touch that much.”

“You’re better off,” Mom tells me.

“Yeah, I guess.” I hate these conversations.

“How is Gucci doing?” Mom asks.

“She’s still dead.”

“What else is new?” she asks.

“Not much. Most my time’s spent looking for a job.”

It’s been three years since I was laid off . . . just one year after 9/11. I was downsized and compressed into a mass of high anxiety and loss, a sort of black hole feeding only on myself, I guess, until there’s nothing left.

“A job in Hollywood?” Mom asks.

“No, in Seattle. Washington.”

“That's wonderful. I’ve always thought that you should be a set designer.”

“Yes, I know.”

“How’s Gucci, Will?”

My stomach tightens with frustration. Mother was quick-witted, with a sense of humor . . . fun to be with. She’s read all of Shakespeare’s plays and could quote lines.

I rap my knuckles on the desk beside the phone. “Somebody’s at the door.” A trick I learned from her when I was in my teens. “I’ve got to go. I’ll write you later on today.”

“That would be wonderful. You never write me anymore.”

“I wrote you just last week. Didn’t you get my letter?”

“No.”

“You must have. Let me talk to Sam. Is Sam around? Put Sam on.”

Sam is an attendant there at Foxes Acres—on line now.

“Mr. Brenner. How's it going?”

“Not too bad, Sam. Did mother get a letter from me this week?”

“Yeah, she got it and I read it to her, but she hid it someplace. You know how she is.”

“I know.”

“She bit my hand,” he tells me. “I was trying to take her teeth out. She don’t want to have me clean them sometimes. She's still got her sense of humor though, and she remembers who you are.”

“Yoh! Ms. Brenner!” Sam yells. “Faith! Come back!

“Your mom’s gone out the door,” he says. “Got to go find her. She keeps trying to get away from us and ends up lost.”

“I understand. And thanks for all you’re doing, Sam. I know it isn’t easy.”

“Well, that’s what I’m paid for, Mr. Brenner. By the way, Ms. Faubert wants to talk with you.”

Faubert's the manager at Foxes Acres.

“Some kind of statement they sent you has been returned.”

“Tell her I moved again. I’ll call tomorrow with my new address.”

“Okay. I’ve got to run,” Sam says. “You take it easy.”

There's not much I can do but take it easy, but it isn’t easy. I still have my Sony laptop and a printer, but I can’t afford an Internet connection. I re-write failed resumes when inspirations come to mind. If I don’t find a job soon I’ll be living on the street and Mom will end up in some hell-hole where nobody gives a damn about her. Christ, I’ve got to find a job.

I shake my head, get up, and make some stale-bread toast, then move into the living room. I turn on the TV—nothing but soaps and game shows. I can only get five channels with no cable. Used to own a flat screen . . . thirty-seven-inch, but I let Laurie take it when we sold the house. I live in Georgetown now, a marginal Seattle suburb, post-industrial and almost treeless, laced with rusting railroad tracks. It sprawls between an eight-lane freeway (I-5) and the toxic, serpentine, Duwamish River. I decide to drown my worries in a cup of coffee at The Grind, a little place adjacent to my building, next door to a custom motorcycle shop.

Two plate glass windows look out on the sidewalk like square eyes revealing emptiness behind—no customers this warm September afternoon. It might have been a grocery store back in the days when cups of coffee cost a dime. A clanging cow bell set off by the door announces my arrival. I’m confronted with a massive chunk of ugly metal hanging on one wall inside the place, flat squares of torch-cut steel welded together at odd angles and projecting outward from a common center. Ficus plants occupy three corners of the place. There’s one long, hand-made table and some smaller ones located by the windows. A guitar leans up against a battered bookcase near a table that displays a ready chess board; both are waiting to be played.

The chess board brings back memories of Laurie, games we used to play . . . the winner dragging off the loser to the bedroom as a sex slave to fulfill erotic predilections—contest without losers. Saddens me to think about it now, but there’s a gorgeous female with a friendly smile behind the counter.

“Hi! You new around here or just on your way to somewhere else?” she asks. “I saw you pass by yesterday, and once before.”

She's got a rack men dream about beneath her T-shirt and no bra. She’s in her early thirties, brilliant green eyes, red hair done up in a ponytail that ends between her shoulder blades, a trail of burnished copper. Does she play chess?

“I just moved in, across the street,” I tell her.

“That old building used to be a factory,” she says, “made parts for tanks when World War II was going on. It was abandoned for a long time after that. Some local artists wrote a grant to get the money for a lease and subdivided it into three floors of studios and small apartments.”

I try hard to keep from staring at her luscious bosom, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

“Most people living in this neighborhood are artists now,” she says. “Except for the astrologer around the corner, and Big Jim. Jim owns the motorcycle shop next door. I guess you could say Jim’s an artist. He builds Harley choppers; some of them are works of art—chrome sculptures.”

“I agree. I saw one parked outside the other day. A beauty . . . so, are you an artist?”

“I do sculpture, metal mostly. That one's mine.” Her breasts create a cotton ridgeline between nipples as she points toward the iron monstrosity hung on the wall.

“That's really great,” I tell her. “Looks like an explosion.”

“Yes!” Her face lights up.

“What do you call it?”

“Orgasm in Iron,” she says. “What would you like?”

An orgasm with you. How long’s it been since I’ve had sex?

“Uhh . . . coffee, black. To go,” I tell her.

She turns to get a paper cup . . . nice ass. I search for clever words, an opening gambit, but come up with nothing. After more than twenty years of marriage, I’ve forgotten how to play the game. The odds are all against me . . . must be close to twenty years between our ages.

“Cream or sugar?”

“No.”

She fills the cup and places it before me on the serving counter. “That's two-fifty.”

I put three one-dollar bills I can’t afford to spend on top the counter, but it's worth it just to talk . . . and look. “Do you live here?” I ask her. “In this building?” It’s a dismal gray frame place that covers half the block.

“No. Over there.” She nods toward a rundown, red brick structure that directly faces mine. A time-worn, yellowed marble slab between the first and second floor reads Hamilton Hotel. “I've got a live-in studio . . . a loft,” she says. “I'm Alice.”

“Willie.” I extend my hand and find hers warm and soft.

She gives me an uncomplicated smile that seems to light her eyes. She knows I want her. Women sense these things, whether the feeling's mutual or not. It's in their genes.

“Are you an artist, Willie?”

“No. Well, yes—a writer.” I adjust my mental résumé. It’s sort of true; I've done tech writing and created more than forty variations of a resume these last three years, some quite creative.

“Oh? What kind of writing?”

“I've been working on a novel.” Christ.

“Have you been published?”

“No. Not yet. Not really. I would like to see more of your sculptures sometime.” Good line. I congratulate myself.

“Yeah, sure,” she says offhandedly. “But you would have to show me some of what you're working on. Don't think I've ever met a writer. What's your book about?”

“Uhh . . . there's a woman who has Alzheimer's. She's in a mental ward and doesn't understand why she's been put there. Thinks that she's been kidnapped.”

Two new customers come in. A big guy with a beer gut, long hair, heavily tattooed. A black ink chain surrounds one massive bicep just above a heart with faded words I can’t make out. A string of barbed wire decorates both wrists. His friend is slender, tousled blond hair; fair skinned . . . looks somewhat effeminate although he’s wearing camouflage fatigues. A “U.S. Army” name tag has been sewn above one pocket of his shirt, another spells out, “Morris Denton,” and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him in the hallway of my building.

“So, what's up with you today?” the army guy asks Alice.

“Not too much. Been slow this afternoon.” She turns to face the illustrated man. “Still got that leak,” she says. “There was a puddle on the floor when I came in this morning.”

“I’ll a look at it tomorrow,” he replies.

His army buddy stares at me. “Is your name Brenner?”

“Yes.”

“I thought it might be. You moved in a couple weeks ago,” says Morris. Glad to meet you.” We shake hands.

Big Jim ignores me, focusing on Alice. Funny how sometimes you can dislike a person without really having met, or knowing anything about them. Time to leave.

“I'll see you later, Alice.”

“Yeah, don’t be a stranger,” Alice says as I go out the door. The cowbell jangles.

I decide to drink my coffee in the van—go see how George is doing. Harborview, the city's major trauma center, is a massive, sprawling structure on a high hill overlooking the Seattle skyline, the Columbia Center and its neighbors, glass and steel grey fingers that allow a view of Puget Sound beyond. It takes me fifteen minutes to find Unit D on the fourth floor. I wonder if there might be friends and family with him. Will I be intruding?

A young, pert, nurse emerging from two swinging doors reminds me of my ex.

“Good morning.” She asks, “Are you looking for a patient?”

“Yes, a guy named George. He got his hand cut off last night. He's African-American. Last name is Hampton.”

“Oh. Go through these doors and then turn right—room forty-two,” she tells me.

I peek through a narrow window in the door that’s numbered forty-two and see George and an empty bed beside the one he’s occupied. I step inside, inhale the scent of rubbing alcohol and something else I can’t identify—hospital smells. George is surrounded by the glittering array of stainless steel high-tech equipment—IVs draining into him. He seems unconscious—might be sleeping.

“George . . .?”

His eyes come halfway open with what seems to be an effort.

“Willie,” he breathes deeply. “Didn't think I would be seeing you again.”

“I wondered how you were.” His left arm has been mummified with bandages. Looks like they’ve put his hand back on. I shake my head. “A lousy break,” I tell him.

“Might be for the best, you know? When I get done with Grannie, I be goin' to have some money. And they tell me there's a good chance I can keep the hand.”

“That's great. You got a lawyer?”

“Yeah. Name’s Higgins. Kept me out of jail a couple times.”

“It's good you know someone.”

I wonder what he did. Nothing too bad I guess.

“Yeah. Higgins say the Endorf people sure to get in touch with you.”

“They said they would, but haven't yet, and I’m not going back to Grannies’. If they want anything from me they’ll have to come and get it.”

“Um. Earl say they prob'ly will. That's Higgins' first name, Earl.”

“You can depend on me to back you up, George, but it's hard to see how they could fight your claim.”

“Well, you know how it is. Nobody carin' too damn much about the working man.”

“Yeah, you got that right.”

“Hey, look at this.” He reaches for a small black box at his right side and pushes a red button. “Instant drugs.” He sighs. “Sweet mama! Gonna get me one of these at home.”

“You having lots of pain?”

His eyes roll up behind two half-closed lids. “This thing’s like smack. Same kind of feelin' . . . warm and cozy. Ummm.”

I worry he will get addicted.

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