It was Saturday and I love Saturdays. The one day a week I didn’t have some drudgery or task or responsibilities to deal with. Saturday was my day. And I relished it.
Rolling out of bed greeting the crack of 3 am with a smile, may seem too early for some but for me it was a luxury. When you work a 12-hour night shift your entire sleep cycle changes. There were studies on how that type of reversal of the circadian rhythm can have long term health consequences but what could I do. The night shift at the local HyFab was as good a job as I could expect to get. Not until I managed to get to the Inner Ring, my constant goal.
My room was cramped and uncomfortable. My bed was just a window seat with a bit more cushion. A window that had long ago been painted black.
Not that any sun would blare through it now. No matter if it were shining with noon time brightness.
But it did mean that some poor sap before me probably had the night shift as well. They may have slept in this same area. How many more things did we have in common?
Would we share the same death just like we shared the same coffin of a room next to the water heater and mop bucket?
Sleeping on a cabinet bench under a window, where the tools and cleaning supplies were kept. Made for a less than optimal sleeping arrangement so I was very stiff. It amplified the aches and pains. So even my 22-year-old frame resounded with pops and creeks. The echoes so fierce even the old men on the corner nodded in appreciation.
A good stretch and a yarn in the predawn dark was just what I needed.
The house seemed quiet in this broom closet turned bedroom. A temporary state of affairs, easily shattered. If I want to keep it that way I will have to be careful.
I moved to the floor inset mop sink. It made for a decent enough improvised shower, with a garden hose attached to the facet. I even had optional spray patterns with nozzle attached.
Drying off was easy enough all I had to do was pull on the hand above at the right time and warm air from the climate control system blasted me like the gale from a midsummer great storm. It isn’t till then that I take off my nightly hair protector. Which is definitively not a bonnet. Just making that clear.
My short locs bouncing around the shaved sides of my head. It will take a lot of adjusting to get used to not having those locs. But my chosen future is worth the big chop.
I grab the one loc closest to my left eye. And I stare at the small cowrie shell that danged from that loc tip. The only adornment I had in my hair.
Such simple styles went against the in fashion of the day in the Prefabs. Men especially young men generally had locs and or braids. Any other style that didn’t require precision constant cutting for grooming. Only those with credits could afford a reliable barber.
Mainly because it was impossible to obtain a license to cut hair in The Prefabs. So, men either shaved it off or grew it out. If you think to yourself that’s an odd restriction to place on an entire community then I had news for you that’s just the beginning.
Not only were barber services restricted but so too were hair products in general. Nearly every single hair product was considered contraband. Everything from dyes to wigs to holding gels. It made absolutely no sense. Some folks claim there was virulent strain of lice some years back. An issue for some few members of the prefabs perhaps. But hardly would it have developed into an epidemic.
But as always necessity bred innovation. And no one is more motivated to innovative than a youth attempting to set himself apart from the competition.
I couldn’t tell you who was the first to start applying different items to the braids and locs. Such traditions stretched farther back in history than the forced immigration of my people to America. It was culture it was traditions, those feelings and ways that seem to be steeped in the very blood of a people. Written into the very fabric of our souls.
There is no new thing under the sun, they say. A statement I take to heart. Even in my limited time I can see the circular nature to change. A spiral that meanders and wraps about itself in the intricate patterns of existence. I digress. A habit I indulge in often. But my waxing philosophically is not what you wish to hear.
As always, we make it do what it does. And it this case that came in the form of styles that didn’t need primping as much. We adorned those longer styles with metal scraps trinkets shells and wrappers. Things anyone in the inner rings of Omni would consider trash and refuse. Which happened to be how we in the Prefabs gained our most popular nomenclature.
Scraps.
Scraps are what we are given. Scraps are what we survive on. Scraps are what we are. We live on less while the average resident in the Inner Rings lives on more than they ever need.
Grabbing some clean clothes that were hanging over the boiler to dry. I greeted with an ominous hiss and pop for the large brown metal pressure vessel. The sound set me to immediate alert.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Don’t you fucken dare Bessy. You have been chugging along for 7 months without a cough or a whistle. I got plans today. Plans that don’t include purging your gullet just because you got a little hot under the collar. So, you straighten up and run true. You hear me.” The hiss slowly subsided and transformed into a gurgle and pop before returning to the usual base tone rumble. I checked the dials and gauges to see that everything was running the razors edge of tolerance. Right on the line between functioning pressurized steam producer and 35 Ton pipe bomb. Just as nature intended.
“That’s a good girl, Bessy.” I cooed giving the overgrown explosive hazard the love and affection she adored. I was greeted with a loud purr as her blower throttled up.
“Stop it girl, you are going to make a brown man blush if you keep whispering such sweet nothings into my ear. You be good now.”
It doesn’t matter what you wear everything feels better on your body after it’s been contact dried by a roaring boiler. Even my well warn green dickie cargo pants and my black padded elbow base layer long sleeve shirt.
Work clothes really the same stuff I would wear to the HyFab but they are the best clothes I have. And today is a bit of a special day. Today is the day I tell a certain young lady that she can braid my hair.
It’s a bit of an ongoing tradition in the PreFabs. To those that look like us. Those whose hair are dressed and styled as ours. For young men to show their interest in pursuing more than casual conversion with the fairer sex. Those of us that are so inclined to partner with another make that partnership known with simple sign, easy for anyone to see. A braid or loc styled by that particular person. Personalized with whatever she wants to put in your hair.
We don’t have much and we maybe Scraps but we are not trash. Scraps are still useful. Especially if you need to mark your territory.
And so, we men maintain our hair with natural products produced and sold by the older mothers. Such things can’t be bought with mere money. No amount of Omni Credits will get you a drop of Old Ma Annie’s prized bees wax. No, you have to provide Old Ma Annie with services rendered if you want your palm pot of her home made loc gel.
Like the palm pot that sits on a place of honor on my locker as we speak. All of my friends, and would be rivals have asked me what possible service could I have rendered?
As it was well known that Ma Annie was an ornery type. More likely to greet those that sought her goods with her walking cane than a pot of wax. Though truth be told she is more inclined to tell you to mind your own wax than to offer her own.
The secret to my success and their folly is a common aspect that I have great experience in. You see, I know what the ladies like.
Not like that, get your mind out of the gutter. I just know what it takes to make a woman happy.
I am not making this sound any better. Anyway.
The home-grown natural oils, herbs, and wax from bees cultivated by these women are so ingrained in the ecosystem of the PreFabs that the bees developed migration patterns based on the position of these green houses.
Too bad all of it was about to change. Hard to believe it has been 10 years already.
Nothing like pulling on boiler dried clothes to make you forget about future troubles. Dressed in my armor of style as ready as I can be. I leave my little hovel as quietly as I can. I walked up the steps with fear and trepidation weighing on my heart, seizing my breath.
The danger was palatable as I opened the door and scanned the area with a critical eye. The coast was clear but I couldn’t let my guard down. Defeat was often snatched from the jaws of victory, made possible by the over confident. I was under no such illusions as my opposition was by far my better.
Creeping through the hallway on my way to the kitchen, I passed the barracks like hall where the young ones slept. Their door was closed and locked, it seemed a bit excessive, but The Old Man told me long ago that he didn’t play games when it came to security. He didn’t when I lived in those barracks and he didn’t know that I was in the basement.
I guess once a Hardnock kid always a Hardnock kid.
It was way too early for the little ones to be up and their door locked form the inside. Only the old man had the key and he slept with it under his pillow. It was a good practice given the numbers of missing in the Prefabs seemed to increase by the day.
I reached the kitchen and eased my way in, hoping the dark of the predawn to keep me covered. The click of the lights flickering on was like dashing hot oil on my ambitions. I wanted to scream. But I held my tongue. No use making matters worse. I turned slowly to confirm the inevitable. The Old Man, he was sitting at the large table a grizzled with age his patchy beard stark grey on his brown aged face.
His eyes hooded and the corners heavily wrinkled. You never see The Old Man’s eyes. Not that he was blind or anything. He just never seemed to have a reason to open them wide. He was built like a wiry old fighter with muscles tougher than cow hide. The type of man that would have made a great cowboy. But now the only doggies he seemed to rustle were the lost and dejected children of the prefabs.
I jabbed may hands into my pockets and sighed blowing a stray loc out of my sight. The Old Man just took a sip from a handmade coffee mug. It was terrible construction. The type of thing that would never come mass produced out of a Hyper Fabricators. The one thing besides the man clothes that I never seen him share. Scratch that there was that one time by the Square that I saw The Old Man give a vagrant the very shirt off his back.
Now that man was looking at me with indifference on his face as if he wasn’t surprised at all. He turned and grabbed a mug from the counter and placed it on the seat next to him. Steam rose from the mug just like his own. I rolled my eyes what made me think that I could get out of here with anything less than a stern talking to.
Well best to get the suck over quick. It leaves more time to enjoy the good.
I walked over not showing how dejected I was at getting caught. Fooling no one but myself with my performance. Taking the offered seat and the welcome cup of Shoom. I took a quick sip and weariness I didn’t know I carried evaporated from me like a flash in a pan.
The hot drink zipped through my body like a electric jolt from one sip. The Old Man drank two pots of the stuff a day. Anything more than a cup would have me bouncing off the walls. The Old Man nodded scratched as his neck covered in a fine carpet of white hairs. We sat there in silence for a few moments longer. I don’t know if it was the Shoom or just my own anxiety that got the better of me but I broke the silence first.
“I aim to the join the Exemplars.” I said it with what I like to think was confidence, with bravado. But really it probably came out more of a whimper than a roar.