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Workers -written by Mcarthy Joseph.
(Excert from his latest novel-Melting)
(C) Copyright Hotday 1999
As a boy he worshipped the men in his family, envying their
lives and wishing away the years so he could be like them:
work, drink, swear, smoke, fuck do all the things they did without
getting slapped.
Two years later a brutal reality wrenched open Veeson's eyes
to the real lives of the men he had admired for so
long: vicious wife beaters, child abusers, gutless alcoholics,
who allowed themselves to be deceived and spat upon day after
day after day. The insight punctured his heart, with the fatal
blow being struck, when,
as a birthday treat, his male kin took him to seek work with them.
He'd watched, shocked and baffled, as those he considered fearless,buckled
into simpering beggars,
hanging onto the foreman's heel and shamelessly pleading for a
day's work.
Through disbelieving eyes he watched as his uncles and father:
gratefully accepted any conditions,
under cut each other by scabbing, ran to wipe the agent's arse
with their tongues.......
From dawn to dusk they begged and grovelled until the klaxon
signalled the end of the working day.
The peasants faced the inside of the gutter once again.
And the cycle went on.
Every morning, when the streets were cold and empty, groups
of tired,hungry peasants began to assemble.
Waiting irritably to find out which depot the latest cargo was
to be unloaded at. The information was brought to them
by agents, who charged 20% of their earnings, leaving the peasants
with barely enough money to feed their families for one
maybe two days.
As well as the agents, an army of Sellers attached themselves
to the Peasants, offering cut price bargains on anything
from diluted narcotics to edible, pornographic playing cards.
The peasants who could not afford to eat or get buzzed out,
may have been lucky enough to taste a cup of watery soup donated
by the nuns who preached to the peasants though usually they
stayed hungry.
The foremen would arrive around an hour later, ignore the impatient
horde, eat breakfast, smoke, read the paper
and scratch their balls. The peasants empty bellied and frozen,
look on enviously.
"I tell ya man one day I'm genna drag one of those wankers out here and bust his fuckin face."
"Stamp on the fat cunt's head good and proper."
"I'm gonna slice up tha cocksucka."
Veeson heard the threats throughout the day and was confused
when the peasants did nothing except of course kiss the
foreman's arse and call him
sir at every opportunity.
The foreman and the agents abused the men without mercy or
conscience, getting them to shine their shoes or wash
their trucks down. The rate for the lackey service was less than
the wage for a day's unloading. But if the foreman liked
you it could become regular work. Some of the peasants even
offered more personal favours. Anything to avoid a hungry gut.
When the breakfast ritual was over, the foremen clambered on
top of their truck's and a klaxon sounded,
signalling the beginning of the labour selection process.
In their thousands they poured onto the depot; a mass of jostling
limbs and wide desperate eyes.
Viscous fights flared as Collaborators hired by the agents attacked
sections of the crowd and set the peasants at each others
throats. In a frenzy of knives, boots and fists they swirled,
cutting each other down while foreman and agents took bets on
who would survive. A cordon of guards armed with steel pipes,
protected the foreman from being over run by the peasants,
and throughout the morning pipes cracked heads, agents touted
tickets, foreman employed peasants,
Sellers sold and the whole circle turned again.
As Veeson watched the events unfold, he saw how his own life
could slip from his grasp and disappear into the
nebula forever swirling around him: the school, the teachers,
the cops furtively masturbating in private booths,
as housewives, bored out of their skulls, gyrate and hope their
pimp won't take all their money.
She wants to cry out and tell the guy who is groping her arse
to get his fuckin hands off her.
But how is she supposed to explain to her two daughters why mummy
hasn't brought any food home?
A man beat the shit outta me and took my money. It was the same
man who hires out
mummies' cunt as fucking machine.
The strip club manager goes over the rules and regulations with a couple of new punters.
"The red head is a top grade porno queen. Treat her with respect. No touching unless she says so."
"What about the other one," asks the other punter, pointing at the impoverished mother.
Contempt glazes the club owner's eyes and his jaw stiffens with vexation.
"Oh her. She's just a common street slut. Make her cunt eat glass for all I care......"
The local radio driven by financial reports, traffic information,
news every half hour with recipes from the suburbs
every fifteen minutes. Teeming rain, teeming commuters, grey camouflaged
against the monolithic domes; rushing,
head down. Dead sockets; snakes spit venom through vampire eyes.
In the morning judges cage impoverished mothers for
stealing food to feed their hungry children. In the afternoon
they tear out the cunts of impoverished teenage prostitutes.
On and on the nebula swirls.
Veeson saw how the whole set up was a snare to trap him. He
was poor.Poor need money, options are few,
desperation makes you do things you would never consider doing.
I have to feed my baby what do you think?
I won a prize on tv; five hundred notes and they stopped my
welfare. Shit when the money was gone they r
efused to accept I had nothing the welfare agent behind the bullet
proof glass sneered and said, perhaps you
should try going on TV again. Some of us have to work you know.
It's alright for you rubbing shoulders with
celebrities and wining loads of money. Acting like a queen in
your new outfit and what about the jewellery must have cost
a months wages.....
The critic on the radio rambling on and on. Analyzing music in fluent tripe....
Meanwhile in the next street a black child is ripped from her
mother's arms and deported to a country she has
never seen before. In a few days she was set to graduate from
school with glowing reports.
Immigration agents thought they'd ruined her future. Little do
they know one day she will come again and destroy them.
Desperate families, begging sharks to give them a few more weeks to settle up their debts.
"My child is sick and needs medication. Please understand," pleads the mother.
The shark views the dying child with unsympathetic eyes and
tells the couple to use contraception.
No better still have the wife sterilised. In response the wife
pierces the shark's, eyes with red hot sowing needles.
On and on the nebula swirls.......
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