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PART 2 Today there are only seven to choose from and he’s angling for least four. Thing is, four of the seven could use more meat on their bones. He picks the three beefiest grunts, then what he reckons to be the least of the runts. He motions for them to get in and they come running. As soon as the door slams shut again, he toggles on the child safety locks. Child safety isn’t standard for the year, make, and model of the van. Neither is the airtight inch-thick bulletproof plexiglass separating the cabin from the cargo. Skinner pulls away from the curb and steers toward the nearest parking lot exit. He steals a glance at the wrangled grunts in the rearview. Sees they’ve noticed he’s separated from them by the plexi and that there’s not much else in the back of the van. A tool box and some loose tools, sure. But it’s all for show. Enough to suggest legitimacy. To get them in the van. To keep them guessing just long enough. But nothing that could be used to get out or get to him. Skinner cranks up the radio and punches the dial to a station saved especially for the ride back. 96.6 XIPE. To his ears, it sounds like non-stop Chicken Dance, but Mexican polka is supposed to keep the grunts docile. Soon enough, the van is back on the highway. Soon after, one of the brown faces appears behind the plexiglass over his shoulder. “Excuse, señor?” Skinner acts like he doesn’t understand. “No hablo Mexicano.” “Señor? We go where?” “Takin’ you to work,” says Skinner. “Señor? Work where?” “House is over in Hinkley. But we gotta go to the warehouse and pick up some…” Skinner tilts his head just enough to catch his cap in the rearview and remind himself of who he’s supposed to be today. “… vinyl flooring.” Uncertainty lingers in the Mexican’s eyes, even as he gives a slow nod. Seems like he wants to ask something else, but then he turns from the plexiglass and goes to report back to the other grunts. Skinner turns up the radio a bit more and pretends to hum along. A few more miles down the highway and he checks the rearview again. Now the grunts are stealing glances at him, too. They’ve lowered their voices. Getting nervous. Skinner figures they’re close enough anyway, so he reaches under the steering column and flips the little non-standard switch mounted and hidden there. There’s barely a hiss as scentless invisible gas starts flooding the cargo area. Skinner doesn’t think it’s funny, or doesn’t think he thinks it’s funny, but he feels his lips peel back and hears himself snicker. It’s too soon for anything to have taken effect, but the chatty brown face reappears in the plexiglass. “Excuse, señor?” Skinner scoffs through a spiteful smile and shakes his head and glares into the grunt’s earnest brown eyes. “No hablo retardo,” he says. “Señor, this no feel right! We get off now, please!” Here’s a rare opportunity for Skinner to correct someone’s English, but he can’t keep a straight face. For an instant, he imagines he has friends he can tell this story. “‘We get off now, please!’” His mangled hand slaps his good knee. In his mind, he even sees the Knocker laughing. But that can’t be right. They’re not friends. (Are they?) “Please, señor!” The demanding grunt starts pounding on the plexiglass, which sends the other three into a panic. Of course one goes to open the side door only to discover there’s no inside handle. Another tries and learns the back door tells the same story. The fourth flips open a phone and tries to find reception that doesn’t exist, thanks to the signal jammer and conductive materials lining the cargo area. Within seconds, all four men go woozy. The CO2 is really kicking in. Skinner punches the radio back to his 78.9 Breeze FM soft rock. “I don’t wanna wait for this life to be over…” One of the Mexicans grabs his chest, then collapses. Then the other three fall. Their bodies thrash and grovel at first, then their movements get smaller and smaller until only their chests are heaving in time to their rasping breath. The beautiful thing about CO2 is that it doesn’t poison the meat. Skinner pulls the gassing van up to the gate and rolls his window down so the security guard can ID him. Randall is a big guy, though not quite as big as the Knocker. He is one of the only men at Mann’s who can kill someone from a distance, theoretically, as the guards are the only ones with firearms, least as far as Skinner knows. Randall’s always resting his palm on the grip of his holstered pistol, like he expects he’ll be shooting someone any second now. Recognizing Skinner, Randall nods in a way that flashes the black-on-black American flag on his all-black ball cap. One of his forearm tattoos, which isn’t in color either, shows an American flag with the words “These colors never run!” The stripes bleed straight into the long teeth of an unlicensed Punisher skull flanked by “ACAB” and an AR-15. His other forearm is tattooed with what looks like a beefy Jesus nailed to a funhouse swastika and a rattlesnake coiled over the slogan “Don’t tread on me!” Skinner sees lots of men like Randall around. Always armed and always aiming to intimidate. They patrol for illegals, too, but he’s not sure what they do with them. He thinks of how people always say it was okay for the Indians to kill because they used every part of the animal, even the scalp. Under the tattooed memes and skin, Skinner isn’t sure Randall would look any different than any of the grunts. He watches as Randall punches in a code that only he and the other guards and the boss know. The gate rolls open, doubling back over a section of the 15’ privacy fence crowned in electrified razor wire. Skinner backs the gassing van up the ramp into the loading bay between two other vans. A fourth and fifth sit parked on the opposite sides of those while a sixth spot sits empty next to an idling unmarked refrigerated truck. Manslaughterhouse runs six vans a day, with the goal of rounding up as many grunts as possible each morning, generally between twenty-five and thirty, which is nothing really. In the old days, instead of vans, there’d be eighteen-wheelers, each with hundreds of frightened and live crying animals packed like sardines. Back then, slaughterhouse work meant the same miserable task all day, hours on end stunning or beheading or skinning or disemboweling or deboning or cutting up one body after another after another after another, as quickly as possible, just keep the line moving, ideally without hurting yourself or a coworker, but no big loss either way. And forget breaks. That’s what adult diapers are for. Nowadays, without livestock, you don’t have butchers shitting themselves as they lose their minds to repetitive violence. That might mean the toilets have to be cleaned more often, sure, but the men’s room is a welcome change of scenery. A reprieve. The work is still repetitive but on a bigger loop. Most butchers get to spend their mornings watching the sun come up on a relatively scenic drive, then perform public service by rounding up free-range illegals. The grunts want to be useful anyway. They want to serve. They want purpose. Things don’t really get ugly until— Skinner hears someone trying the van’s rear doors from outside. The handles keeps jiggling until he toggles off the child safety locks. Then the doors spring wide to reveal a pair of blood splattered butchers, Pratt and Kabuga. Pratt looks like any other slob with a combover and potbelly. He pales next to Kabuga, who’s the only colored coworker left. Kabuga says he has nowhere else to go. Says his grandfather is in prison for genocide. Says he just wants to make his family proud. Despite a history of hardships, he’s always upbeat and beaming. “Skinner man!,” Kabuga shouts like they go way back. He smiles over the gassed grunts like they’re what he always wanted. “Oh, man, you shouldn’t have!” Pratt and Kabuga have barely made room when the Knocker comes barging between them. Of course he’s already covered in blood. The Knocker dons a butcher’s smock and no visible pants, thick varicose legs jammed into reddened rubber boots. He never wears anything underneath. Likes the feel of rubber on his blubber, so they say. Not that the Knocker is morbidly obese. He’s big, sure, but like a yesteryear sideshow wrestler. Fat but strong. Meaty. His sledgehammer is meant to be swung with two hands, but the Knocker sawed the handle short so he can wield it in one clammy hamfist. Which is what he’s doing now. He readies his sledge and watches the grunts for movement. For better or worse, hardly anyone ever wakes up, least not right away. If Skinner had to guess, this is a sore spot for the lumbering sociopath.