by Nick Frost
The job was this: you’d sit on a stool peering through the window of the giant machine, every two seconds the machine would hiss, a hydraulic head would spin round and you’d have to put a tiny, threaded, plastic head onto one of the valves. The machine would hiss again, take away your valve and replace it with a new one. That was it. That’s what you did all night, for six hours.
I think I’ve always been able to shut parts of my brain down and thus nullify certain brands of monotony. Which was very useful for this type of work. On the right of the machine was a small white counter, it told you how many valves you’d done in a minute. It helped with my boredom. I spent hours trying to break my own record.
I must admit I’ve always kind of loved every job I’ve done no matter how shit it was. Whatever, I’ve always given it my all, a trait I inherited from watching my dad over the years. However, there were two exceptions to this:
1) Working in a warehouse that dealt with car parts. Hated it. Itchy shirt. Lasted two shifts.
2) Barman in Tony Roma’s (St Martins Lane). Hated the manager and told him to fuck himself after four hours.
I’ve always felt life is too short to stay in shit jobs. Fortunately my dad was very supportive of this view. He’d say, ‘There’s always a job somewhere if you look hard enough.’ I still believe that to be true.
The plastic factory has a small kitchen, little Plancha grill, hob, kettle, tea, coffee, milk etc. However, in the fridge was a veritable Aladdin’s cave of delights. Cheese! Fucking cheese! Amazing. Some kind of ham, turkey, chicken, eggs and meat, delicious meat! Steak to be more accurate, beautiful thin minute steaks. Part of the deal of this shit shift was you could take, prepare and eat whatever you wanted. I’d usually make a big omelette with lots of cheese and ham, or I’d have a rare steak with a fried egg on top and mill of fresh black pepper.
Those breaks were actually pretty nice, sitting alone, silent, save for the comforting ping of the atomic reactor, enjoying a cheese-heavy omelette. After my shift ends and before leaving I grab a bag and stick some cheese and ham in it. I wrap it up and stuff it down the front of my boilersuit for later.
I’m not sure when it starts or how but I think I know why, the dangling twin carrots of boredom and hunger. I become a cat burglar. I never burgled houses for money or jewellery, no, the only thing I’d ever steal, the only thing I wanted at the time was food and my quarry was the fridge inside that plastic factory.
The old disco on the kibbutz was under the gymnasium and the walk home led me past Elcam. One night I am walking home pretty drunk when I see the factory looming up before me. An idea crackles into existence. I was fucking hungry after all that drinking. That was the thing about kibbutz, there was no food anywhere after hours unless you’d squirrelled shit away or bought Cup-a-Soups from the shop. Eating after disco usually meant all of us crammed into the common room eating round after round of cheap ketchup and toast.
But tonight would be different. In my state I decide to see if the door is locked. It isn’t. The factory is silent, no night shift during the Sabbath! The door to the kitchen is also unlocked. The fridge is full and I begin my raid. I make lots of sandwiches; rifling through a drawer, I find a carrier bag and stuff it full of cheese and Jewish turkey-ham, there was so much they’d never notice. I make my exit and casually trudge back to the common room and plomp the sandwiches down onto the counter. It’s gone in moments and there is much happiness and rejoicing! I feel like Robin Hood but with sandwiches.
Over the next weeks I raid the factory twice more in this manner, filling up with sandwiches and cold cuts. It was a dream, as a group we were in clover. We had all the sandwiches we’d ever need. One drunken night I set off on a raid. I try the door to find it locked. Locked? WTF? Questions reverb around my mind. Why, why was it locked, why now? I would not, could not, let this deter me. I had customers that were relying on me, that needed the good shit I could get.
I knew of another door in another part of the factory and thought I’d give it a go. Bingo. It was open. Suckers! I found a set of dark stairs that took me up to the plastic factory and completed my raid. Would this be my last? Were they catching on to me? Did they keep count? Take stock? No? They might? They might now? I should stop. I can’t stop. I won’t stop. I need it. I need cheese and curious white ham-style turkey meat. NEED IT. I need that buzz of burglary, and the curious white ham-style turkey meat. Nothing’s gonna stop me. NOTHING!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAH! Meat.
Next time I try the door, it’s locked again, no fluke, those fuckers know. The downstairs door is still open though, what chumps. I sprint silently up the stairs taking two steps at a time, through the dark corridor to the break room. I turn the handle to the kitchen door. It’s locked! This is a problem. I panic briefly then shut it down. Think. Turn back, end this now. I can’t. At this point I question whether this is about the cold cuts or the thrill of the crime. Go home, you’ve had a good run. In the kitchen door near the bottom is a panel probably twenty-four inches square. In the panel are slats of frosted glass. I have an idea. I gently tug upwards at one of the slats, joy of joys, it gives, it simply slides out, I lay it gently on the floor and get to work on the others. That done, I crawl through the new hole, fill up with booty, re-slat the hole and I’m gone. Textbook meat theft.
This could be my life’s greatest work. In fact, I’d say apart from my son and my accent in Hot Fuzz (which was flawless and for which I received no recognition), this series of robberies was the greatest thing I’ve ever done.
The last one I do ends in stalemate. I get to the door and the slats have been removed, replaced by a square of plywood nailed over the hole. Who was the genius that’d bested me? I considered mule kicking the plywood away and doing a crude snatch and grab. I didn’t, I couldn’t, it wasn’t my way, and it wasn’t elegant or clever enough, not for me. I learnt a valuable lesson that day about the business of cold-cut theft: know when to walk away. This was my time. My career as a thief of cold meats and cheeses was over. The Case of the White Ham was closed. Or so I thought . . .
The next day there’s a message on the notice board. An unscheduled volunteer meeting had been called that afternoon, after work. Balls. My creeping fear is confirmed. It is a meeting about the theft of food from the plastic factory. They didn’t know who had done it but whoever it was should stop immediately. I’m sure Vicki’s gaze lingered over me for a second. Paranoia. It was over. For days after, lots of us suffer comedowns, cold turkey, cold ham, cold cheese. It was okay. We were okay. For a time, I’d been someone, I’d been a champion of the people, a hero to some, villain to others. Now? Well now I was just like every other civilian craving a sandwich. I still have the memory though, the memory of those heists, and it still tastes so fucking sweet.
After assignments like apple picking, apple packing and plastics came the more specialised jobs, jobs you got if either the Israelis liked you or you’d been in the country a while. Working in the fishponds and in the cotton fields were both great jobs. Each offered a great deal of kudos. I should probably offer up a note on kibbutz fashion here. There wasn’t any and therein lay the fashion. Newbies wore their own clothes to work, jeans, shorts, Ts, tops, dresses, and skirts, whatever. Oh, I have a theory on why English holidaymakers always stand out so much while abroad. We always buy brand-new clothes! We look ridiculous. Anyway, on kibbutz everyone gets issued with work boots so usually they got worn; however, trainers were also acceptable.
The longer you were on kibbutz, the more you wanted to look like an Israeli; this transformation happened pretty quickly for me, I bought in. I loved it from the off. There was a big box with old secondhand work clothes in Vicki’s office that we were allowed to rummage around in. I found some absolute gems. Ideally you’d want to wear a T-shirt with Hebrew writing on it, something from a factory, something denoting heavy industry, a happy apple in a hat, perhaps a giant tractor tyre smiling? This would be combined with blue canvas work pants tucked into wor
k boots (military style) and a blue canvas work jacket. I looked like a poster boy for Chairman Mao’s dig for victory campaign. The clothes always had to be worn with a healthy covering of earth or dust. Instead of wearing a belt, I had an old shoelace that I’d cleverly knotted between two belt loops. I’ve never looked cooler or felt more comfortable. I’m not a fashionable person so to live somewhere where everyone essentially dresses the same was absolute bliss to me.
Looking like a farmer also set you apart from the newer volunteers. It was a badge of honour. The only time you changed out of this garb was during disco night when everyone would get dolled up. Which in itself was also kind of fun.
Although my hair was long and parted in the middle I made the decision one day to shave it all off. Bald. Number zero. It was a decision I quickly regretted. After being ‘in-country’ for months I’d got a lovely tan everywhere except for under my raver’s bob. For weeks I had to suffer the embarrassment of walking around looking like I was wearing a grey swimming cap.
Working in the cotton fields was some of the hardest physical work I’ve ever done. Cotton was an hour’s drive north-east. I loved that drive. Because of the travelling time (which was included in our workday, bonus!) we had to leave really early (4 a.m.). The cotton fields were down in the Bekaa Valley so it was much hotter than our mountaintop kibbutz. We’d usually finish by 11 a.m. and at that point the temperature was already into the low hundreds.
The drive from the kibbutz was beautiful. We hugged the Lebanese border until we were south of Kiryat Shmona (the Town of the Eight). There was a great bar there called Bar Hash. Buses from all the kibbutzim across the north would bring volunteers to party. The place was pretty spectacular. It seemed to be a vast amphitheatre, an open-air stadium for lunacy. Through the middle of the place ran a small river. The DJ booth was a VW Beetle covered in thousands of tiny mirrors. It was very, very cool.
Once I ordered chips at the bar and when they came I ripped open packets of salt and sprinkled them on top. The Israeli bartender looked at me weird.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Why are you putting sugar on top of the chips?’
Balls, it was sugar. Front it out. I leaned in and shouted over the music.
‘It’s what we do in England.’ I winked and headed off to throw my sugarfries into a bin.
During the drive down to the fields most people would catch up on their sleep. I tried not to, I preferred to sit in silence and watch the stunning sunrises. Those dark blues and vivid oranges as the sun shimmered through the atmosphere over Syria were the nicest sunrises I think I’ve ever seen.
I spent two weeks working in cotton and I only did one job. Sadly that wasn’t picking the cotton itself, wrong season. What I did was less fancy and a lot more gruelling. There were five of us and for six hours a day we walked behind a tractor pulling giant rocks out of the sun-baked earth and tossing them into a trailer. I loved that job. It was a big fucking field, by my reckoning I’d say a kilometre wide by three of four kilometres long, it really was the hardest work. I love any job where, when I finish, I’m shattered and gasping for a cold one. This job, like many on the kibbutz, guaranteed both. We had such a laugh, I felt like a prisoner on a chain gang plus you finished work at eleven o’clock! Brilliant. I’d heard by all accounts that harvesting was pretty nice too, they let trusted volunteers drive big fucking tractors. Foolish.
Fish was also totes sweet. A similar gig to cotton in terms of time, workday and location, fish was also kudos-heavy! It was a chance to hang with the Israelis, smoke dangerously strong cigarettes and drink thicker and blacker than thick, black coffee.
The kibbutz had several giant fishponds, each housed fish at different phases of their development. Once the inhabitants of a pond had reached maturity, they lifted up giant nets from the base of the lake and funnelled the delicious carp into a corner, up a conveyor and into the back of large water-filled trucks. My job was to stand in neck-deep water hauling the net in and helping the fish up the chute.
When the temperature is over 100 degrees, the best place to be is in neck-deep cold water, it was heaven. If there was a downside it would be the stink of fish, which was difficult to remove. You’d also find large, shield-like scales in the weirdest of places. Every now and again big, heavy carp would try and escape. These rogues, some weighing almost 30lb travelling upwards of 20 knots, smashing you in the chops can be really painful. The final downside and the worst one for me was their screaming. I can still hear it sometimes at night. Apart from that, it was ace.
There were three other jobs I did, two were amazing and very cool, very kudos-heavy. One was absolutely awful, where to start? Good first. The kibbutz had a small museum and art gallery. I thought at the time (and probably still do secretly) that I wanted to be a painter, an artist like my dad, he was such a talented watercolourist. I painted some childish pictures and became friendly with the tiny old man who curated the collection; they were shit paintings but he seemed to like them, seemed to like the fact I showed some interest in art. He supplied me with paper and acrylics and one day offered me a job. Sweet! No more hard labour for me, no more intense heat or 6 a.m. starts. Instead I was to be surrounded by cool cool culture. Jubbly.
I was essentially an odd-job man, which was great and I was eager to learn. Back then I was much better with my hands than I am now. I’m terrible now, I think I just can’t be arsed.
My job was varied, anything from digging holes to fixing toilets, sometimes I’d help collate the collection, sometimes I’d whitewash wooden cubes ready to display the museum’s many sculptures. If I was a good boy I’d get to help hang the new exhibitions. Sometimes Old Tiny – I call him this as he was old and very tiny, a bit like a Jewish Yoda – would bring in cookies and cakes for us to have with our coffee at break time. It was very nice. Nice work in a beautiful building in the middle of a forest.
Often, and this was my favourite part, Old Tiny would go out and leave me to my own devices. There was a little radio that wafted out classical music, the only music allowed to be played in the museum. I’d sneak into the storeroom and look through the hundreds of canvases they had there. I loved it so much. Sometimes I’d play a game where, turning up the radio, I stalked the silent, empty galleries holding a large claw hammer pretending I was Patrick Bateman. HELP ME.
My other favourite job was with Michel. Michel was the most laidback man I’d ever known. Sometimes speaking seemed like too much of a bother – instead he’d gesture and make noises. His eyes were mega droopy and he had a massive red Afro of loose bouncy curls, he also loved reggae. It’s amazing now looking back that I never imagined he was a pothead. How did I not see it?
He was the kibbutz plumber and heating engineer. I was essentially his plumber’s mate. We had a tiny van and we’d bomb about fixing radiators. It was sweet, after the summer and before autumn we overhauled the boilers ready for the winter. Any job where I get to use Swarfega at the end of a shift is all right with me. Eventually I’m trusted enough to drive the van and have my own tools.
I dressed like an Israeli. I spoke some Hebrew; I had my own van with tools. Finally my transformation was complete. I felt like I belonged. I was an Israeli heating engineer and plumber, I was happy. Home seemed like a million miles away.
The Girls’ toilet and shower had a savage blockage at one point during a hot day at the end of the summer. The place had become like a Woodstock for bluebottles. I was tasked with crawling under the building, which frightened me anyway (the thought of snakes and big fucking spiders a constant fear in my mind, even now), finding the main sewage pipe, opening it and clearing the blockage. It really couldn’t be easier.
I find the pipe in the intense heat and fiddle to get the elbow free, it pops off and I shine a torch inside. I see nothing. Michel finds a coat hanger, unfolds it and hands it to me. Suspicious. I stick the bent wire inside the pipe and I ram hard. There’s a hiss, a rush of dead air grabs hold of my features like a Face-Hugger, a gurgle,
the sound of a thick liquid now moving freely and in a moment I’m covered in a foul broth of shits, pisses, condoms and almost a thousand used tampons. Holy. Fucking. Christ. I lie there for about thirty seconds while this fluid glues itself to me. After a while it stops, I casually screw the elbow cap back on and shuffle out. Michel laughs at me. Hilarious. I’m hosed down while people point and laugh.
This was nothing compared to the hen house. Chickens was the worst job in my life. It was terrible. They knew no one wanted to work there so they’d wait outside the disco at 3 a.m. and snatch people as they came out. It’s what the old navy would call a pressgang. We’d become crazed, senseless ship rats, leaping this way and that, over hedges, under vans, anything to avoid working with the chickens.
There were four houses, two hundred metres or so in length. Each housed chickens at different stages of development. The birds went from little chicks to fully grown hens in three short months. I’m no bird farmer but this seemed very quick to me. They weren’t battery hens in the truest sense I guess – they weren’t caged – but there were almost twenty thousand birds crammed inside.
We wore white coats, and white dust masks that would usually be soaked in cheap cologne. I was told the reason for the 3 a.m. start was so all the chickens would be asleep. It felt like clearing a ghetto, the irony was not lost.
We’d sneak into the hen house, the smelliest, hottest place in the world, to be confronted by a sea of white feathers. Thousands of hens sat in their own acrid shit fast asleep. The large double doors to the mega-coop would open. The lights would be put on but dimmed so as not to rouse suspicion among the hens. A low caging vehicle would then be driven into the house and it’d be game on.