Nights

It is my wife who always gets the phone. When she is not in, I just let it ring until it stops.

“It is Paula,” she said as she slapped the receiver into my hand, and then, “Leo, who the fuck is Paula?”

*

This was nearly four years ago and she was very tense back then. We had recently moved into the tower block and she said she did not feel safe here. She missed country life. The lift smelt of piss and sometimes worse things but it was better than going past the kids that blocked the stairs. She started work at 5am and at that time of the night they were pretty wild. She said I had no idea of the perverts and freaks who sat behind her on the bus and would sometimes even follow her to work. On the farm, her father would have used his shotgun but here, she said, I did nothing to protect her. I asked if she had spoken to Fabio who lived down the corridor — Fabio was a cop. What can he do, she said, he is in the fraud department. He carries a gun, I said, but she laughed at me.

“Get a job,” she said. “You can look after me that way.”

*

I had no idea who Paula was. It had been way back in the new year that I registered with the City Employment Agency, and so, when they had called five months later with a job, of course I had forgotten about them.

It was about the time of the St Juan festival, when the city suddenly becomes too hot and the air is still sweltering at midnight. I look back on it as an auspicious time of year; it was the same time the following year that our boy was born.

The job was to work the night shifts at a beer and wine distribution centre — with the festival there was greater demand and then with the hot weather I was lucky and they kept me on.

*

The pay was OK and the hours were good — 8pm until whenever we finished the orders for the night. The working week was from Sunday night to Thursday night.

I had to take two buses to get there: one south from the tower blocks into the city, then another out again, eastwards to the industrial region. Then it was a twenty-minute walk along the highway to the gates.

You entered the warehouse from the portacabins in front of it. The first cabin was lined with lockers with spare boots for temporary workers; here were the cards and machine where we clocked on and off. The second cabin was the office. This is where the night boss sat with the computer and the phone. When the phone went, a loud bell rang through the whole warehouse, which seemed unnecessary as I never saw him leave the office once. Everyone seemed to like the boss; he was fat but mostly OK — he could take a joke.

Another good thing about the job was that no one noticed if you took a case of beer home once a week. It is a perk of the job, the older workers told me. Just make sure the boss doesn’t see you. He probably wouldn’t mind, they said, you just don’t want to put him in that position.

At the end of the week the boss handed out the pay packets. They were prepared in central office and handed out each Friday mornings as we clocked off. That first week I put the packet out on the sideboard before I’d even taken my boots off. I did it every week and it became something like a private ritual.

During the festival we worked until 5am but in the weeks after we could finish any time between 3am or 4am. I would take the two buses home as the sun came up, the streets getting hot already. 

In that first year of the job, until Juan was born, I would get back before my wife left for work and make myself something to eat. She would come into the kitchen, sit silently in her vest and pick at things from my plate. But after Juan was born she stayed asleep and I would go and eat in his room; in the winter I would listen to the snuffling noise of his sleeping; in the summer when it was lighter, he would wake and watch me from between the bars of his cot — sometimes looking like me, sometimes like his mother.

*

This last year, she managed to get better hours at the hotel — Juan was old enough for the municipal kindergarten and she said she wanted to drop him off. Now he could talk I was too tired after work for all his questions. I would eat in front of the TV and he would come in half-asleep in his pyjamas and watch cartoons on the sofa next to me.

Since Christmas there have been rumours at work. People said the company were moving all distribution to the new industrial city; they had built a huge warehouse there that will process orders for the whole state. The rumours got worse when our union guy was fired a few months ago.

They sacked him for stealing alcohol. It always goes like this, the older workers said. When someone is sacked for stealing alcohol, it is a sign there are going to be changes: the blind eye we thought they had turned to our thievery was actually very watchful.

*

I tried to tell my wife about this one lunchtime but I don’t think she heard me. She was in the middle of dishing up something from the oven. The thing looked heavy and she had oven gloves on. She half-nodded in my direction, half-blew hair from her face. Then the boy came in with all his questions and we didn’t talk about it again.

*

This was about the time that the army were out again. It must be a sign of my age but this year the patrols at the street corners looked like high school kids. They laughed and smoked in their little groups but never went far from their armoured jeeps. One carried a machine gun almost as big as him.

Some of the guys at work think the army may be connected to the sacking of the union member but it is not election time. I told them I would ask Fabio if he knew anything. We became silent for a bit and then the phone rang out through the warehouse, which made me jump.

*

At work a few weeks ago, someone said their brother had driven past the new warehouse. It was enormous, he said. It was just the metal frame there now but he said he was driving on the highway and it took a whole thirty seconds to drive past. We scoffed. How fast had your brother been driving? He didn’t know, but it was the highway though. So it was a kilometre long? His brother was not a slow driver. So yes, a kilometre? He didn’t know. It was funny and we looked around at us all, watching as each realised what it meant and the smiles fell from our faces. 

*

Nothing happened for a long time, then the changes all came this last week. The orders are sent through from the liquor shops as they close, the printer paper jerking out loudly in the office to fold into the tray below. Usually at the start of the shift a whole block of paper has been deposited there, but this Sunday the boss said there were only ten orders. Go slow tonight, he said, I’m sacking anyone I see with a sweat. That guy.

But he had had to let the two new men go home already. Said he would call them when he knew more, but I think they knew already. The rest of us, from the older guys, veterans of 12 and 14 years, down to me with not yet four, were allowed to do the ten jobs and then sit around the rest of the night in the canteen.

I sat and agonised — if they were letting people go by the years they had worked, I looked around and saw I would be next. It could not have come at a worse time. I was afraid for Juan. My wife said when she had tried to drop him off at kindergarten he had hugged her leg and cried. Don’t leave me here, he had said. He had a burn on his arm that the workers did not know anything about. My wife said Fabio knew someone who could get us a place in the private kindergarten. She had worked out the finances and we could just afford to pay the fees.

Maybe the boy needs toughening up, I said. He’s four already. I was resentful. I was imagining how easy life was for a cop. How much more money he had without a wife or a child to pay for. Plus the extras a cop made. I think I wished she was more concerned about my situation at work.

*

Monday night I went in and one whole aisle in the warehouse — all the imported wines and sherries — was empty. That was strange, seeing that.

There were only three jobs that night. The boss said it was fine, there were only three of us to do the work. He could find the joke in anything. It was me and the two old guys, the others all sacked already, so we all did an order each and then went to the canteen. I sat opposite them and felt I should explain why I had been kept on but could not think of any reason. I wondered if they suspected me of having unfair influence with the management. When the phone went after midnight, the bell echoed strangely through the emptier warehouse and seemed to give us all a shock. Then the boss came into the canteen and told us to go home: everyone except me, who should stay on in case of any emergency orders. I said goodbye to the two of them but they did not reply. I got another coffee from the machine and settled in.

*

I woke at 11:00 the next day with the sound of gunshots. I lay in bed and listened to brief bursts of popping, on and off for a few minutes.

*

On my way to work that night I went past Fabio in his police uniform. He was just coming in. He was taller and lighter-skinned than me. I nodded at him and hoped everything was OK. He smiled and said things were always OK if you looked at them in the right way. Then he wished me good luck and I went to the bus stop.

*

It was just me and the 14-year veteran at work that Tuesday night. The boss showed us the only paper in the tray was from a printer test.  Nothing wrong with the printer, he said and got in his car and drove off. In the warehouse another two aisles had been cleared: all the wine and the expensive beers from the USA (the ones we preferred to steal out of a sense of national pride). Even through my anxiety, I felt how sad it was for the old guy to see it like this. In the canteen I bought him a coffee from the machine but from his expression I realised this gesture had made me seem too assured.

I did not feel assured though. I could not think why I was still there. I was nervous that the other old guy would show up and accuse me of taking his job. In the dead of night with only the two workers, was there anything that would stop them killing me? This one seemed like he would not have minded. I even picked up my coffee and moved to face the door.

When I got home I stayed up to see my wife. I sat on the bed as she got ready and tried to explain it, but she was very busy and when I could get her to concentrate, she asked all the wrong questions. I walked through the house behind her as she got Juan dressed and made breakfast, but coming at it from the different ends of our days, I wasn’t able to explain.

*

When summer approaches, it is hard to sleep in the daytime in our apartment. We live on the top floor of the tower block and the sun beats down on the roof and into the flat. When I stretch my arm up I can feel the heat against my hand as if from an open oven. At this time of year, I go to bed with a bucket of water. I throw half over the floor tiles, the other half on the bed, and sleep in a kind of marsh.

*

I had not heard anything that day, so I went into work Wednesday night. I did not want to think about it too much but I did have a distant sense that if I kept clocking in and out maybe I would still get paid. Maybe there was a computer at central office that counted my shifts? Maybe the day team were still keeping a record? Sometimes I could persuade myself they would keep me on. Even if there were no more orders, they would need a night watchman or a cleaner — I would do anything to be kept on there.

*

That night, my bus into the city went past an army roadblock. At the second one, on the way to the warehouse, we were stopped and the soldiers got on the bus. They went up and down the bus, their automatic rifles strapped diagonally across them so they could fit up the aisle. They demanded the papers of a few people, me included. One adolescent looked from me to my picture a few times, seeming to dislike what he saw. I looked at his acne with blank innocence. Just then there was shouting from the front of the bus. Hey little boy, an old man was shouting, careful where you’re jabbing that thing. The soldier he was talking to was shorter and broader than mine and burning red with humiliation. He punched the old man repeatedly and my soldier came down to help him drag him off the bus. I saw them go, fleetingly illuminated in the bus headlights. For a bit there was only the sound of cicadas along the roadside; then, the inspection apparently over, the bus began to move off.

*

Mine was the only punch card in the slots that night. In the next-door cabin, the office was dark and locked up. I got my boots from the locker and went through the warehouse. To my right there were only four aisles with anything on them — just the cheaper local beers. The other side, along the left wall, all the pallets had been stacked in four very tall piles, reaching up almost as high as the ceiling of the warehouse.

In the canteen I sat drinking coffees, going through the old newspaper cartoons and looking out of the window at the half-empty warehouse until, after three, I ran out of change for the coffee machine and went home.

*

I could not face cooking when I got home so I went straight to bed. But it was impossible to sleep. Juan was already up. Through the wall I could hear the cartoons on the TV and the sound of him weeping, sniffling for a bit, then weeping again. My wife did not seem to hear him. She was still getting ready and came in and out, opening and shutting drawers. I had my eyes shut and pretended to sleep whenever she came in. When it went silent, I opened my eyes and was surprised to see her there, at the foot of the bed. She smiled at me. I blinked and smiled at her, slightly taken aback.

“Don’t worry, baby,” she said and left.

*

On Thursday I went in again.

 “Any road blocks on the route?” I asked the bus driver when I got on that night. He shrugged. It struck me that maybe he was not allowed to say. Maybe I should not have asked. I thought I saw him later talking into his CB radio.

*

In the portacabin my card was still the only one there. Out of force of habit, I changed into boots and clocked on. The office next door was still dark and locked, as it had been the previous night. But it was as I opened the door to the warehouse that I saw what I suppose I should have expected. Here there was only a single row of lights on, illuminating a strip of the central aisle and fading each side to darkness within metres so that the vast stretches of the warehouse that I knew were there were now invisible. For the short distance I could see, I made out just the empty bays and a few scraps of things on the floor. The light switches were on the left wall and I did not want to go into the dark to try and find them. I don’t mind saying I hurried, nearly ran through the warehouse to the canteen.

I had bought a newspaper on the way in and sat in the canteen trying to read it with my hands holding my face.

At 2:40 the phone rang out through the warehouse and the shock stabbed at my chest. I looked around despite myself. The bell rang over and over again in the dark warehouse. The vast nothingness made me think of death. Riiiiiing. Riiiiiing. I think I was shaking the whole time the phone rang. I did not want to leave the canteen and, even if I could move, the office would still be locked.

When I had calmed down a bit I wondered if the phone had been for me, the call finally come in that I was to be fired. Just then I think I would have preferred not to come back, forgetting for that moment how much we needed the money.

Eventually, after maybe a minute, maybe an hour, the phone stopped. I looked back down at my newspaper but was not able to read anything else that night.

*

I left the canteen later than usual, at 4:15, once it had got light. I hurried over the warehouse floor, dawn streaking through the high windows. In my locker I got my coat but something slipped out and clinked on the floor. It was a brown envelope with my name on it. It had a familiar feel and weight to it. It was my pay, all correct to the exact cent, the chit signed by the boss, on the pink copy of office wage slips — all as usual. I turned. The office was still locked. There were no signs of entry or anything disturbed in there. But, even in the light, I did not go back to check the warehouse.  

*

I did not mention any of this to my wife when I got home. Juan rubbed his eyes when I went into his room and, being so much bigger than him, my hug was clumsy and I kissed his ear. I put my pay out on the sideboard, went straight to bed again, and this time I was able to sleep right away.

Saturday morning we sat up in bed and talked until Juan came in — we made plans, the three of us. My wife would ask Fabio about the place at the private kindergarten. Playfighting with Juan, I found a yellow bruise on his shoulder but she shushed me when I tried to ask about it. It was a good day. We did very little and I felt happier than I had in ages.

*

Saturday nights I am usually not able to sleep until well after my wife has gone to sleep but that night we went to bed together. I think I dreamt about the soldier from the bus. He was in the house, going through all our things. They all had price tags on them and he went around picking up each item to see the price of each thing. I really wanted him to stop, I wanted the price of all our things to be a secret and yet I also needed him to continue so he did not turn and notice my pay packet out on the sideboard.

I woke suddenly at a noise in the house. My wife was asleep next to me. It was 3:20. I listened to the noise and realised it was the TV. Why was Juan up at this time? I went through but it was not him. There was a policeman sat in our living room watching Jerry Springer. He was reclined on the sofa, holding a can of imported beer on his knee.

Fabio turned to see me and slid up the sofa.

“Leo,” he said to me. “Come.”

He patted the cushion for me to sit. I came forward into the lamplight. I blinked and scratched at my t-shirt like Juan does when he wakes up.

“How are you, my friend?”

“Fabio. What are you doing here?”

He smiled and closed his eyes. As well as feeling scared, I was also a little worried for him.

There was sudden applause on the TV.

I sat next to him and he put his arm along the top of the sofa, behind me. Jerry Springer was holding a microphone out to an audience member so she could make her point.

Fabio shook his head. “What are we going to do with you, eh?”

Sagging on the sofa around him were his handcuffs, his night stick, his pepper spray, his revolver.

He looked around the room with a sad smile. I did not know how much was drunkenness, how much was a real sadness.

“I’ve never liked this room,” he said.

The TV show had finished or gone to a commercial break.

I did not say anything but breathed in, tensed. I don’t know if it was just coming out from the nightmare but I felt a grand sense of threat. I had the image of someone like Fabio or the soldier from the bus taking up the fabric of my family as if ready to rip it. I hoped Juan would sleep quietly and not snuffle as sometimes he did.

Fabio turned to me but could not seem to open his eyes fully. “Can I get you a beer from the fridge?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“I got Juan into the good kindergarten.”

“Oh,” was all I could say initially. It sounded weird, my son’s name in this stranger’s mouth. “Really? Thank you.”

He shrugged and then seemed to be looking behind me. There was my wife, leaning in the doorway from the bedroom.

“What do you want?” she said, her eyes closed against the sudden light.

“I was just going. I wanted to talk to Leo.”

“You’re pathetic.”

Fabio ignored her and leant over to me.

“She’s a good woman, you know.”

“I know.”

“She does it all for you.”

He stretched and rubbed at one eye and then said to no one in particular, “The warehouse is going to keep you on. Just don’t mention it to anyone.”

My wife approached. She seemed angry with me.

“Can you go to bed, please?”

I stared back at her, confused.

Slowly she said, “Leo. Please can you go to bed?”

I was mostly very pleased to follow her instructions. I got up and went past her, back into the dark bedroom. I was careful to keep to my side of the bed.

I don’t know how long they stayed out there. I was aware of the light from the living room that cut across our bed and the noise of their arguing so I put the pillow over my head.

After a long time there was the sound of a door being slammed and shortly afterwards I felt my wife’s warmth. She put an arm over me and seemed to go to sleep immediately.

I had to be back at the warehouse the following night, so I was careful to fall asleep also.

Tom Conaghan has published short stories in MIR Online and the STORGY fiction prize anthology 2019. He teaches English and edits for Bandit Fiction magazine. He is working on a novel about an eighteenth century imposter. Twitter: @tomconagh.