Voices filled up the cold air outside the boiler room.
There were a couple guys out on night-duty, one of them quickly put out a smoke, rubbing it with the sole of his boots, he slid his red-wool scarf a little over his face, he looked out to the distance then back at the warehouse, I had to go to that guy to get my nickel.
The truck's headlights made these wide bright stripes as it rolled right in, the engine gave out a couple hardy sputters from the journey it'd gone through. Snow had caked up on the roof, a little snippet of the mounds of snow outdoors.
A couple guys unveiled the back tarp, those heaps of snow got all over the floor. Not that they cared, it was quarter past, they went straight with the opening of the crates, looked inside and once they were satisfied, as satisfied as they could be, they put the lids back on and got to carrying.
"Careful with that one," Brody snapped, voice sharp with a faint Irish lilt in his voice. "This's got the wrong label—I swear to God, Nolan if you drop this."
Another muttered something I couldn't catch, mild exasperation and humour slept through his breath.
"What the hell? I packed this right, check the receipts." The driver scratched his neck, his other hand reached into his wool overcoat's pocket, a couple items clacked against the floor, he was more focused on the paper he unraveled.
The men argued over labels, missing goods, and where each crate had to go like it weren't engraved in all of them. It was a tiresome, endless chat that wrapped around my head as I desperately waited for my nickel.
"Get on with it!" A raspy woman barked from outside. "We're behind schedule!"
Arlo grabbed the crate they'd just inspected from the ground, started to move it down where the main storage bay was; the scraped off red paint served as an empty reminder of how behind everybody was.
Not me though, I could never be behind. I was empty-handed though.
"The whole schedule be damned," someone else grimaced under their breath, "I swear, if another one of 'em crates are mismatched…"
"Hey, hey, I told you that one was bad, just leave it there!"
"Should we just wait until the inspector comes in?" A smaller voice sounded out, the raspy woman replied, her eyes wandered up the catwalk. "That isn't for another hour, just finish the shipment."
They laughed nervously under the air brimming with tension, the crates slid around the ground with gentle precision and inspection, carried off one by one by, what, nine or ten people?
I wandered around the moving shadows of everybody like a ghost reaping reward, their wandering shapes dancing around the walls in front of those headlights. I crouched down on the stairs, settling to just watch through the railings that barely hung over the steps.
I was all alone in a place that was filled with bodies.
I watched, there were two new faces, I wasn't surprised.
After Laurent died and people left like fleas going from one cattle to another, it's not like they really cared about the new hands they got.
Their hands were young and barely cracked, their minds easy to mold; and nobody would miss 'em if they made a mistake.
I looked at my hands.
"From the last time I'd been there, which, mind you, was a long time before." I prodded the lines on my hands, tracing the fine edges like remembering a story with each one. "There were a couple of new kids, then Brody, which I'm guessing you already filed the report on. The one who was wearing that dark blue scarf, the long brown coat… He also wore green trousers, I think."
Kuroda looked through his notes, scribbling things down in jumbles with a pen. "He was unidentifiable, I'll look again then notify his family."
The crates were heavy, each one making a distinct rattling sound of glass clanking together so hard it makes you wonder how the boxes weren't leaking in that liquid.
They took out some of those bottles; clanking against the damp concrete ground, wet from all the soles that came from outside and the snow that blissfully rained down inside those open doors.
I perked my head over to the car.
Scratch that, a couple were definitely broken. They just weren't leaking because they were all frozen, only glass shards filled up the box, that, and the frozen pool of brown ice.
One of the guys from outside came inside, took off his gloves and started murmuring some things I couldn't hear over to the driver, the driver shook his head, started explaining things with his hands.
Probably something about his reckless driving, I figured.
"Brody was the first, then Carter—Carter wore this brown hat that extended over his ears, don't know if it was still on him after everything all happened, he was wearing these black pants with a long black coat. He's one of the ones who kept watch outside, you've seen him a couple of times, he's kinda hard to miss."
"Hey, kid!" A gruffy voice different from the rest called out from far away, he always sounded like he spoke through his teeth, I loved hearing that voice. "C'mere."
I got up from that metal staircase. Finally, I thought. The stocky man tossed a nickel my way with a lazy arc, I caught it in the air like it was a trickshot.
"Thanks." He nodded in reply.
I liked the thought of money before it was even mine, but the weight of it in my hands felt so much better.
I smiled and put it in my pocket, I'd be back the following week to get their boiler to not explode.
After hearing some unpleasant voices coming from up the catwalk in dismissal, their long fancy coats and hats pulled low. Nobody was shouting, but pieces of their conversation sliced through the tense air.
I figured I'd better start making my way out. As soon as I'd reached those open doors and could feel that cold, harsh air on my face, I could hear the clanks and groans of a man who despised winters.
Carter was wearing these thick gloves with a scarf wrapped around his head like a mummy, even with all that his skin was bright red. His wrapped up fingers fiddled with a crowbar he was using to pry some frozen rope off.
"This shit's frozen stuck," Carter brought down his scarf like I wouldn't have been able to hear his voice through it. "Ruthie, how 'bout it. You got nimble fingers don't ya, wanna earn another penny?"
I frowned and grabbed the crowbar from his hands.
"The hell'dya keep it outside in this weather?" I got into a perfect whacking position, the type that shattered stuff. There was a problem though, the damn thing didn't wanna budge at all, it was like I was barely scraping off the layers.
Kuroda's voice shattered the sensation of the cold metal against my hands as I lowered the crowbar over and over again.
"The explosion—everything that happened, do you think it was orchestrated, like some typa plan they made?"
I scrunched up the thin hospital blanket under my fists.
"I don't know."
"Did you see anyone near the hood, maybe, messing with the engine, or messing with any of the equipment near it?"
"No, or, I don't know—-maybe?"
"The foremen, you said you saw a couple of them… Did you hear any of them arguing with each other? Maybe some raised voices?"
"No, nobody was yelling. It was just… tense."
His eyebrows clenched, his gaze shot down and he scribbled it in his notebook.
"How about the pipes, were they hissing before or after you heard the first pop?"
"I…I don't know."
"Did you smell anything odd? Like gas, gunpowder, maybe oil leaking?"
"No. No, I was outside."
He paused briefly, watching me.
"...Was he the reason?"
I looked away, he continued.
"Arlo. Did Arlo do something he shouldn't have?"
I knew he didn't, I know he didn't.
"I don't know." The small voice whispered out of me.
The blanket over me turned into waves of creases and dents as my fingers clenched tighter and tighter.
Kuroda leaned in closer, his voice was soft; almost like a whisper in the grand scheme of things.
"When the factory was put ablaze, where was he?" The sun shone through the window brighter than before. "Who was he looking at?"
I looked back up, I looked at Kuroda with a face I couldn't control.
"I don't know."