The Cerebral Catalyst

The worst five days of my life were spent in a box factory. I was unemployed that summer, and couldn't afford to be too picky because I only had a high school diploma and no experience besides a couple years of retail work. Because it was August, most businesses were already fully staffed, so I decided to join a temp agency since I desperately needed the money. For some reason, I neglected to take the computer test and thus was relegated to the manual labor division, which basically guaranteed I'd be handed a tedious, boring job.

I started work at the box factory at 7:30 a.m. on a Wednesday. Another temp, who I would come to know as Louis, and I learned we were only making $6 an hour — way less than the regular employees — but we decided to stick around and make the best of it. After all, we both were lacking in funds. The supervisor led us to our station, and explained what we were to do. We were to stack air filter boxes, which were flat pieces of cardboard that had yet to be filled with the air filter itself, on top of each other.

"You two — grab a pallet from over there," she said, pointing to the tower of pallets across the room. The building we were in was huge and open — like a warehouse —though decades earlier it had functioned as a high school. "Then stack the pallet on the platform. Raise the platform with the lever, and start stacking the boxes from this pallet on top of the other as neatly as you can. Once it's chest-high, roll the pallet to the dock and they'll wrap it in cellophane before it gets shipped off." Though there were several people in our area, Louis and I partnered up because we were temps and the unfolded boxes were too long and heavy to lift alone, so we each grabbed one end of a stack from the messy pallet and carted it to the other in an attempt to straighten the boxes as much as possible.

A bell sounded at 10:30, which signaled the first break. All of us workers walked outside to smoke, eat, sit around, or engage in any combination of said activities. I sat at a picnic table and ate a sandwich I bought from the sandwich cart. Smoking across from me was a Hispanic, who I talked to only once.

"Where are you from?" I asked.

"San Diego," he said.

"I like San Diego. I think I'd like to move there."

"It's a nice place to live, but there's a lot of crime."

Louis would always lean against the tree that cast shade onto the picnic table. Louis and I were completely different from one another. He was black, in his '60s, and didn't seem to be too educated. I was a white teenager with a couple years of college under my belt, with the intent to finish. Despite our backgrounds, he was better at the job than I was, which started to bother me. His side of the pallet was always more smooth, and I could never duplicate his results. In the end it didn't matter. Still, I couldn't help but think I was superior to most people working there, and also couldn't face the fact that they were just better at some things.

The bell rang again at noon, and we were free to eat lunch until 12:30. I, oftentimes, went and sat in my car. I'd open the driver's side door to let some of the heat escape and munch on whatever I'd brought for lunch that day — never anything that had to stay refrigerated or frozen. Right in front of the building was a Taco Bell, and a McDonald's was just down the road, so most people ate at one or the other. I always tagged along with Louis, who always complained about the pay being so low, except during lunchtime. I didn't know where he went or what he did for lunch, and he didn't know where I went or what I did either. We talked on break, but rarely talked while we worked because it was too loud to talk without having to shout over the machines.

Eventually, perhaps I was being paranoid, I thought I heard some of the other guys making jokes about Louis and me being gay, but I tried to ignore them as best I could, plus I wasn't 100% convinced they actually said that stuff. Most of the manual laborers were white trash anyway, and weren't worth anyone's time. Our differences were many, and for those I felt isolated, though part of the isolation was my own fault since I preferred solitude — not that I would ever come to regret it later on.

We went back to work until 2:30, and after the second break, continued working until 4:30. At 4:30 it was time to go home for the day. After only one day there, I knew I had to get out of that job as soon as possible. I was never the type of person who could ditch a job, or anything like that, so I worked up the nerve and turned in my two-day notice on Friday, which made my last day the following Tuesday. The temp agency sounded apathetic, and didn't try to dissuade me from quitting. I knew they'd be able to fill the position, and, I was convinced, already had people lined up for it.

It was strange finally entering a place I'd passed so many times during my childhood and adolescence. Though it was on the town's main thoroughfare, it set back from the road some, and I'd always wondered about what was inside that yellow-brick building with the dilapidated windows. A few weeks after I quit the box factory, a local bank hired me for part-time work while I attended college full-time. Still, even though it's been years, sometimes when I pass the place — driving to wherever I'm going — I scan the parking lot for Louis's car. It was a rundown, beat-up gray piece of shit, but I can't ever tell if it's there. No, not for sure. After I look for his car, I think about what he's up to. If he's not at the box factory, where is he? What is he doing? Does he have it better?

______________________________________
Jason Jordan is a 23-year-old writer from New Albany, Indiana who always says he's from Louisville, Kentucky because people actually know where that is. He's been published in The Edward Society, RAGAD, decomP, the2ndhand, and others, and his debut is entitled Powering the Devil's Circus, which can be ordered through his official website: poweringthedevilscircus.com.

posted 01.29.07.

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