Chapter 2. Factory Work

“Green Team, you’re on break for thirty minutes.” A voice boomed over the intercom. “Blue Team. Back on duty.”

I released the lever on my sewing machine, raising the needle out of the denim cloth. I stood up and stretched to the sky. My back protested, aching in that same spot it always did. Right in the middle. People in faded green overalls made their way to the break room. My coworkers. The people who I sat among for twelve hours a day, but didn’t really know. We faced the same direction, and it was too loud in the factory for chit-chat. Not the best environment to socialize. A welcome relief. I was indifferent to most of the Green Team. I loathed a few of them.

We passed rows of workers on our way. The Blue Team in blue overalls. The Brown Team. The Red Team. Humans hunched over sewing machines that buzzed and chirped. Denim jeans and jackets hung over their tables, half stitched. T-shirts sat in piles on tables. Dress shirts sat in bins waiting to be folded, packaged and shipped. Supervisors walked the rows in starched white collared shirts, inspecting for uniformity, leaning over low-level workers. Pointing out mistakes. Scolding.

The break room reminded me of a school cafeteria both in its layout and in its social hierarchy. You’d think that adults would be accepting and friendly. I found them as clicky as middle-schoolers. They sat with the same people every day at the same tables. They gossiped. They laughed at people. They bullied those of us who didn’t understand how to be cool in a sewing factory. I kept to myself.

I looked at the clock in the breakroom. 12:04 p.m. I had twenty-six minutes.

I hustled between tables to the backside of the room.

“Not eating again, Warren?”

“No time, Jenkins,” I said. Jenkins was alright. I didn’t hate him.

A month ago, management had placed three old sewing machines at the back of the break room and announced that we could use them during our breaks for personal projects.

Perhaps they envisioned people fixing a button now and again. Maybe fixing a seam. So far, I was the only one who had used their precious break-time to do more sewing. The others must have thought me insane.

I sat down at an old Singer, and pulled a denim vest out of my backpack. Its edges were frayed. Silver buttons lined the front. I had stitched on band patches that I had found in my dad’s old things. He had bought and saved original memorabilia from Metallica, Kiss, ACDC, Led Zeppelin, and Pantera. My inheritance. These bands hadn’t performed in forty years, and there hadn’t been anything like them since. I had stitched WARREN across the shoulders in black, gothic lettering. This vest needed metal studs, but I couldn't afford them yet. I folded the vest up and shoved it back in my pack. I need to work on someone else’s project today, not my own.

In the past month, since management had given us access to the sewing machines, I had started a little side hustle. A way of making some spending cash that wasn’t tied up in bills and food. Sofia, my sister, had even set up a website for me. And she helped me advertise on some of the forums that people like me spent way too much time on. She was good with stuff like that. I never would have done the tedious work to get a business off the ground.

I pulled a pair of black leather pants out of my pack. A customer had mailed these to Sofia and with specific instructions. A custom order. I placed the pants on the machine and loaded in some red thread I had brought from home. I grabbed a white pencil and began drawing a rose on the right thigh. I made sketches with short strokes. I erased mistakes and re-drew as I went.

Finished, I examined my work. I nodded to myself, proud of the fullness of the flower. The proportions. I glanced at the clock. 12:16 p.m.

I arranged the right pant leg below the needle and put light pressure on the petal. I moved the pants in slow arcs while the needle raised and lowered at its slowest speed. I had the stem stitched, four thorns protruding, when somebody pulled me from my zone.

“Warren!” A man’s voice hollered. He hollered at me again. It was Tony.

The room got quiet, people stopping to listen.

I paused, rolling my eyes up. “What?” I yelled back, my jaw clenched.

Tony wanted to have a big public conversation. My favorite.

“They’re getting rid of those machines,” Tony said. “You’re gonna have to eat lunch with the rest of us.” He laughed.

I turned. Tony sat with his usual group. “How do you know?” I felt my face getting hot.

He smiled and shrugged. “Can’t reveal my sources.”

“Bullshit,” I said, turning back to my work.

The din of the room got louder as people went back to their conversations.

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Then I felt someone behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. Tony was there.

“It’s true,” he said. “I’m friends with a girl on the Blue Team that’s dating one of the supervisors. They don’t like what you’re doing here.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m just a nice guy,” Tony said.

Uh huh. The nicest.

He turned and walked back to his table and his friends. The bastard brigade. Then, he raised his voice loud enough for half the room to hear. “Maybe you should go up to management and use your special powers to figure out the truth.”

His lunch table started laughing.

I turned to the wall so they couldn’t see my face. I closed my eyes, trying to block them out and took a deep breath.

On my first day at the factory, Tony had invited me to sit down at his lunch table. In an attempt to make friends, I had opened up to them. Big mistake. They asked me questions about myself and I opened up about my life. Like a fool. I had told them how I lived with my older sister. How we watched this old sitcom together where the lead character could tell when people were lying. In the show, he could read micro-expressions on peoples’ faces and body language. Sofia and I practiced with each other, trying to spot when each other wasn't telling the truth. Or hiding something. I told all this to Tony and his friends.

Since then, this table had teased me about it whenever they got the chance. They called me ‘Mindreader’ and pretended like I was intruding into their thoughts. One time, they made tin-foil hats and wore them in the break room and announced to everyone on the Green Team that they were protecting themselves from me.

Lesson learned. Don’t overshare. Give people just enough.

I couldn’t seem to get back into my project, so I stuffed the pants back into my pack. If Tony was telling the truth, I wouldn’t be able to keep my side hustle. A panic rose within me, bubbling up to the surface.

There was something about working a job that had no room for growth. Some of the people on the green team had worked in this factory for twenty years. Sewing. It almost required a person to numb themself to the world. That’s what I had done for the past four years since graduating high school: push the reality of factory work into a corner of my brain and ignore it. Sofia and I had to eat, so I worked. We had to make rent, so I hunched over a sewing machine all day. With this side hustle, I had become alive in the smallest way. It had given me a path forward. What if the business took off? What if I could buy my own sewing machine and work for myself? And with one little comment, Tony had threatened that possibility.

I grabbed my pack and headed for the door, nearly running someone over.

“Hey! Watch out!”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Go get 'em, Warren,” I heard Tony say. Laughter.

I turned and headed up the stairs toward the manager’s office. I paused, took a deep breath, and knocked.

“Come in,” I heard her say.

The manager sat at her desk, typing away. She was a short woman with a wide face and an expensive-looking haircut.

She looked up, her face serious.

“Hello Ma’am,” I said.

“Hello Warren. How may I help you?”

I doubt she recognized me. My uniform had my name stitched over the breast pocket.

On the walk up here, my frustration had transformed into something else. A feeling like no matter what said or did here, no good would come of it.

“Ma’am, I have a question.” I paused. If I offended this woman, I would lose my job. In the four years that I had worked at the factory, I had never approached management about anything. Our financial situation was too precarious. Why was I doing this? Yet, the words came out.

“Is management getting rid of the sewing machines in the break room?”

“Where did you hear that?” she asked, avoiding the question.

“Is it true?” I asked again. Seriously, where was my confidence coming from?

The answer came out reluctantly, like a thread that wouldn’t go through the eye of a needle. “Yes.”

“Why?”

She glanced at the pack on my shoulder. It was the slightest of glances, less than a second.

“Is it because I’ve been using them?” I asked.

She nodded her head in the affirmative, but only for an instant. “No, of course not. We put those there as a perk for our employees. You’re supposed to use them.”

She nodded, even though her words said the opposite. They had placed those sewing machines in the break room and been proud to tell us all that we could use them, like it was this great perk. But when a worker actually started to use them for personal projects, even during break time, it must have bothered management. Maybe it set the wrong tone. Work is for work. Not for play.

Perhaps I should have pushed further. Called her a liar. Flipped over the table and stormed out. What would Alice Cooper have done?

I nodded in thanks and left the office.