Rash

by Hautman, Pete

  “Hey, Dodo, I’m waitin’ on you, droog.”

  “Bleed on it, Red-Ass.”

  “Make it white, Cheese Boy.”

  “Shoot you meat, Dog.”

  One week into the job and we were already the fastest team at the 3-8-7. We turned out 280 pizzas an hour, or more than 4,000 in a sixteen-hour shift.

  Leave it to McDonald’s to figure out how to create a handcrafted superdeluxe gourmet pizza in less time than it takes to run 100 meters.

  You would think that after a sixteen-hour shift a guy would sleep like the dead, but at night I dreamed.

  Maybe it was the lack of drugs in my system. They took us all off the Levulor the day we arrived at the 3-8-7. Workers on Levulor slow down the production line.

  So I dreamed. Maddy, Karlohs, and pizza showed up repeatedly: Karlohs tossing pizzas; Maddy and Karlohs eating pizza; Karlohs shooting me with my pepperoni gun; Karlohs and Maddy in Rhino’s bunk.

  Every morning I woke up tired and angry.

  On the way to the mess hall Rhino said, “You were making weird noises in your sleep again.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Who’s Carlos?”

  “Just this guy I’d like to kill.”

  “Well, I wish you’d hurry up and do it. He’s interfering with my beauty sleep.”

  Hi Mom,

  Finally got my turn at the WindO. They only have one per unit, and there are forty of us, so you have to sign up a few days in advance to use it. Also, there is seniority, which I don’t have any of. Anyway, I finally got my ten minutes, so here’s the news.

  Next time you go to a McDonald’s restaurant, order a pepperoni pizza. Chances are it was made by me. That’s right. I’m a pepperoni shooter. Top Gun at the 3-8-7.

  It’s not so bad here. Most of the other “pizza-cons” are okay, with a few exceptions. I’ve made a few friends already, and I haven’t gotten in trouble. The worst part is the food. All they give us to eat is reject pizzas and Pepsi. Did you know pizza contains all the nutrients a person needs to survive? That’s what they tell us, anyway.

  Time’s up. Hi to Gramps. Take care.

  Love,

  Bo

  I didn’t mind the all-pizza diet at first. Some of the guys on the line would deliberately add a bunch of extra topping to some of the pizzas. The overloaded pizzas would then be rejected by the autospec unit because they weighed too much, and that night they’d turn up in the mess hall. But after the first week of eating pizza three times a day, it got old fast. I won’t eat another slice of pizza as long as I live.

  Mess hall was about the only time I got to meet the guys who weren’t on my pizza team. It was scary, though. Imagine 300 teenage boys, all imprisoned for unsafe or antisocial acts, tired and cranky after a sixteen-hour shift, all jammed into the same room eating pizza for the umpteenth meal in a row. Just about every day, something nasty happened.

  The 3-8-7 had plenty of cameras, mikes, and sensors—just like a public school. Any infraction of the rules could mean another month added to your sentence, so we were all pretty careful about things like stealing, damaging corporate property, falling short of our quotas, or injuring another worker. Most of us tried to behave. It was a don’t-do-unto-others-or-they-might-do-it-back-to-you situation.

  But the rules, I quickly learned, did not apply to all. There was one group of about twenty guys called Goldshirts. For some reason they didn’t have to wear white paper coveralls like the rest of us. They were issued blue denim pants and gold-colored T-shirts.

  I asked Dodo, our dough tosser, about the Goldshirts.

  “You just gotta stay out of their way,” Dodo said. Dodo was a good guy. He’d been sent up for hacking and didn’t have a violent bone in his skinny little body. “They’re Hammer’s boys.”

  The Goldshirts were the elite of the 3-8-7. They were big, they were confident, they did whatever they wanted, and they got special treatment from the mess hall staff. While the rest of us stood in line for pizza, the Goldshirts ate Frazzies®, krill cakes, fish wraps, and all sorts of other good stuff.

  “They get special privileges,” Dodo said. “They get the good food. And they only work forty hours a week.”

  Fragger Bruste was the worst of the Goldshirts. He looked like the nicest guy in the world, vid-star handsome with a big friendly smile, but Fragger had a devil inside him. The first day I was there we were eating dinner in the dining hall—pizza, of course—and I saw Fragger walk up to this kid, a saucer named Alex. Fragger had a big grin on his face, as if he were going to give Alex a big hug. Instead, for no reason at all, he stuck a plastic fork in Alex’s head.

  Alex was too stunned to do anything—not that there was anything he could do. He just sat there with the tines of the fork jammed in his skull, the white handle standing straight up like an antenna.

  Fragger thought that was hilarious.

  The kid sitting next to Alex reached over and yanked the fork out of Alex’s skull. Almost immediately, blood started running down his neck. They say scalp wounds bleed a lot. It’s true.

  I expected the blueshirts—that’s what we called the guards—to come rushing in and haul Fragger off to some horrendous punishment, but nothing like that happened. Fragger, once he recovered from his laughing fit, offered to take Alex down to the infirmary. Alex, wiping blood from his eyes, refused. Time spent in the infirmary did not get credited to time served. The next day both Alex and Fragger acted as if nothing had happened.

  At first this didn’t make sense to me. Why would McDonald’s let their workers injure one another? But after I thought about it awhile, I could see the logic of it, sort of. Hammer had told us the day we arrived that he had more workers than he needed. We had to take care of ourselves. Nobody was going to do it for us. If I wasn’t careful, one day I’d end up with a plastic fork stuck in my skull. Or worse.

  A lot of the guys formed small gangs for protection. There were a couple dozen afro kids who always ate together and stuck up for one another. There were the Koreans, the Thais, the Indians, and a gang we called the Swedes—all blue-eyed and blond-haired. Most of the rest of us were half-this and half-that, and it was tougher to figure out who to bunch with.

  Dodo and I hung close to Rhino, who was big enough to deter even Fragger.

  I watched one of the Goldshirts munching on a hot Frazzie. My mouth watered. Frazzies had always been one of my favorites, especially the tofu and bacon variety. But I was surprised to see them served here, in a McDonald’s facility. Frazzies were made by Coke, McDonald’s biggest competitor.

  “How do you get to be a Goldshirt?” I asked.

  “You make the team,” Dodo said.

  “Team? What team? How do you make the team?” I asked.

  “Tryouts are every couple weeks,” Dodo said. “You’re probably too skinny, though. You gotta be big, like Rhino here.”

  “I am definitely big,” Rhino said as he inhaled his sixth slice of pizza.

  The noisy clatter of the mess hall was interrupted by a shriek. I looked over to see Fragger doubled over laughing and some poor kid on the floor, holding his crotch and writhing in pain.

  “Can anybody try out?” I asked.

  Dodo laughed. “You got no choice, Dog. Only I wouldn’t look forward to it if I was you.”

  Dodo was right. A few days later a bunch of blueshirts herded all of the new inmates out of the building. We gathered in a ragged group at one end of the fenced-in field, a chill wind rattling our paper coveralls.

  I was exhausted. I’d had a long night of sleeplessness interrupted by nightmares. Maddy tossing pizzas; Karlohs brandishing a plastic fork.

  A few minutes later Hammer made his appearance, rolling up in his atv like before. A half-dozen Goldshirts were sitting in the back.

  Hammer and the Goldshirts climbed out. Hammer looked pretty much the same, except he was holding a brownish object, about a foot long, roughly cylindrical, pointed at both ends. He tossed it up in the air, caught it, tossed it up again, and
caught it again.

  “So how do you nails like the three-eight-seven?” he asked us.

  Nobody said anything.

  “Y’all getting tired of pizza?”

  Several of us nodded.

  “Well, nails, here’s your chance to expand your culinary horizons. Anybody know what this here is?” He tossed the brown object from hand to hand.

  We stared back at him, teeth chattering.

  “None of you boys ever saw one before?”

  “It looks like a football,” I said.

  “That’s right, nail,” he said. “You ever play any football?”

  “No, sir. Football is illegal.”

  He threw back his head and laughed.

  “Any of the rest of you pansy-asses ever play?” he asked.

  We all stared back at him, wondering what sort of insane asylum we’d ended up in.

  “You!” he shouted, pointing a thick finger at me. “Run out for a pass.”

  “A pass? I—uh—what do you mean?”

  “Run, boy!” He pointed to the far end of the field.

  “But . . . I don’t have my running gear.”

  “Run!” he shouted.

  I started jogging in the direction he was pointing, feeling naked without my pads and braces, looking back at him nervously.

  “Run, nail, run!”

  I broke into a trot, still looking back. I was about ten yards away when the man brought his arm back and hurled the football straight at me.

  It was the last thing I expected. The ball came at me with incredible speed and force. I tried to raise my hands to fend it off but was too late. The point of the ball smashed into my chest, knocking the air from my lungs. I fell backward onto the packed brown turf.

  I heard Hammer’s gravelly voice shout out, “Damnation, boy, you’re supposed to catch the ball, not let it bounce off you!”

  I sat up, gasping for air, clutching my chest where the ball had smashed into my ribs. The Goldshirts were grinning at me.

  “Good one,” said Fragger, grinning.

  “Don’t just stand there,” Hammer yelled. “Pick it up!”

  The football had bounced a few yards away, up against the fence. I climbed painfully to my feet, grabbed the ball, and started walking back toward Hammer.

  “Throw it to me,” Hammer shouted.

  I felt myself getting mad. He was holding his hands out, asking for it. I focused all my anger into my arm, brought it back, and fired the football at him as hard as I could.

  The ball wobbled weakly through the air, fell a few feet short, and rolled up to Hammer’s feet. The Goldshirts all broke up laughing.

  “Is that all you got in you, nail? I sure hope you like eating pizza.” Hammer scooped up the ball with one hand. “Go sit over there, nail. You’re worthless.”

  I walked over to the side of the building and sat with my back against the cold metal wall, feeling angry and defeated.

  “Okay, which one a you pansy-assed criminal masterminds wants to go next?”

  One by one Hammer sent each kid out for a pass, then had them throw the ball back to him. Only a few actually caught it. Rhino didn’t even make an effort—he just let the ball bounce off him as if it were a balled-up wad of paper. And nobody knew how to throw the thing. Pretty soon all of us were sitting with our backs to the metal wall.

  “You boys are a real disappointment to me,” Hammer said, shaking his head. “I was hoping at least a few of you would have what it takes, but frankly, you all ain’t lookin’ so good.”

  Holding the ball out in front of him, he took two steps forward and kicked it. It rolled to a stop near the far end of the field.

  “You!” He jabbed his thick finger at me. “I know you can’t catch, nail, but let’s see how good you carry.”

  I got up slowly, not sure what he wanted.

  “Get your ass in gear, nail! Run down there and get that damn ball!”

  I jogged down the field.

  “Run, boy!”

  I ran a little faster. I wasn’t sure what was about to happen, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it. I picked up the ball and turned around.

  Halfway down the field three Goldshirts were crouched with their hands braced on their knees, grinning at me, waiting.

  “Bring me that ball, nail!” Hammer shouted.

  I took a few tentative steps. The Goldshirts started toward me. I moved left, toward the building, to go around them. They moved in the same direction, blocking me.

  “Don’t just stand there, nail! Bring me that damn ball!” Hammer yelled.

  They had me covered. There were only three of them, but it looked to me like a solid wall of gold. I backpedaled to give myself room to maneuver. The biggest one, a kid they called Gorp, broke formation and came at me. I sprinted toward the fence and, with a fear-driven burst of speed, got around him—but found my way blocked by another Goldshirt. I zigged, then zagged. He made a dive at my legs. I tried to jump over him but didn’t quite make it—my knee crashed into his face and I fell forward into a high-speed somersault. In an instant I was back on my feet, legs churning, ball still tucked under my arm, the two remaining Goldshirts pounding in my wake. I ran. I ran like I had never run before, the turf a brown blur beneath my feet. I didn’t look back until I had delivered the football to Hammer.

  “Not bad, nail,” he said. “Looks like you took out Rogers.”

  Back in midfield the Goldshirt I’d kneed was holding his hand to his nose. The front of his shirt was bright red with blood.

  “It was an accident,” I said, my heart pounding not from fear or exertion but with exhilaration.

  Hammer kicked the football back downfield.

  “Do it again, Marsten,” he said. “Go have another accident.”

  I trotted down the field to the ball. I’d gotten past them once. I could do it again. And Hammer had called me by name. That had to be good, right?

  I picked up the football and turned around, feeling cocky, but the rules had changed. It wasn’t just three Goldshirts this time. It was all six of them, Fragger in the lead, grinning, running straight at me.

  I came to looking straight up at a patch of bright blue sky framed by a ring of faces staring down at me. It would not be the last time.

  “His eyes are open,” somebody said.

  “I must’ve not hit him hard enough,” Fragger said.

  “Hey!” He toed my shoulder. “You awake?”

  My mouth moved, and something that might have been a sound came out of it.

  “I think he said something,” said Rogers, his nose stuffed with bloody tissue paper.

  Hammer’s face appeared in the center of the patch of blue.

  “Talk to me, kid,” he said.

  “Get bonked,” said my mouth.

  Silence. Hammer blinked and stared down at me for a few seconds. “You’re shook up, kid, so I’ll give you that one for free. Can you stand up?”

  I tried. I tried again. On the third attempt I managed to roll over onto my hands and knees.

  “All the way, kid. I want to see you on your feet.”

  I got my feet under me and stood up. Everything seemed to work.

  “Your legs feel okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Good.” He pointed toward my fellow inmates sitting against the side of the building. “Use ’em to walk over there and sit down.”

  I wobbled across the field in my shredded and soiled paper coverall.

  Hammer kicked the ball back down the field.

  “Okay, nails,” he said. “Who’s next?”

  I saw more brutality and violence in that next half hour than I had ever seen in my life. Of course, I’ve seen much worse since.

  In the end only two of us succeeded in running the ball past three Goldshirts: me and Rhino. By the time the tryouts were over, there were six kids in the infirmary—including three Goldshirts.

  Rhino was the reason those three Goldshirts got bonked. When it was his turn to run the ball, he
strolled down the field ignoring Hammer, who was yelling at him to “Get a move on, Lardass!” Rhino picked up the ball and turned to face the three Goldshirts.

  “C’mon, Lardass, bring me the ball!” Hammer shouted.

  Rhino tucked the ball under his right armpit—it disappeared beneath folds of flesh—and began to run. At first it looked as though he were walking, but within a few yards we could see that he was slowly picking up speed, like a freight train starting from a dead stop. His feet thumped the packed turf, thick arms pumping, his entire upper body sloshing and jiggling with each footfall. He looked like a running sack of Jell-O. The three Goldshirts were laughing. I’d have been laughing too, if I hadn’t thought that Rhino was about to get slaughtered.

  By the time Rhino reached midfield, he had reached the blistering velocity of maybe five miles per hour, or as fast as your average grandma runs to catch a transport. The first Goldshirt to meet him, a guy named Bullet, was moving twice as fast. They hit head-on, Bullet’s broad shoulder driving straight into Rhino’s gut.

  Bullet bounced.

  Rhino didn’t even slow down. If anything, he sped up. Bullet tumbled head over ass, ending up flat on his back, senseless.

  Gorp, the second Goldshirt to make contact, employed a different strategy. He circled around and leaped on Rhino’s back. His idea was to use his weight and momentum to send Rhino face-first into the dirt. It should have worked. Gorp was a big guy, maybe 250 pounds. But Rhino just reached up with his left hand, grabbed the back of Gorp’s shirt, and flung him.

  When Gorp hit, we all heard his collarbone snap.

  The third Goldshirt, a red-faced kid named Rush, was a relative midget at only 200 pounds. He tried to tackle Rhino by diving into the back of his knee and wrapping his arms around one of Rhino’s massive legs. It almost worked. Rhino kept moving forward, but he was seriously slowed down by the kid attached to his left leg. After dragging Rush about ten yards, Rhino stopped, reached down, peeled him off like a dirty sock, tossed him aside, and continued his journey.