Metal Parade, Inc. Part 4

Esmerelda paced down the hall, avoiding ironcrunching, visibly tense. After 4 cups of coffee she was finally lucid. "Sheheeeera!" she trilled.
"Hey girl!" Shehera greeted warmly. "What's up?"
"Oh my god," she rushed. "They kept me here last night till...guess?"
"7:30? Again?"
"9!" she bulged. "I didn't get out of here till after 9:00! Can you believe it?! Metalcrunching is making me insane!"
"Yeah it is! Are you at least getting extra credit for your sweat?"
"NO! According to Ant, 'No overtime, kid. Ya paycheck is what it is.' Fucking dicks! I can't ironcrunch anymore. This pit is taking over and ruining my life!"
"Dude, that's not even legal. You should turn them over to the Smithguards."
Esmerelda pondered this. "Nooo!" she gasped.
"I can't stand it! Everything in this pit runs on garbage and intimidation. It's my second week, and already I'm sending out smoke signals to get the hell out of here."
"Yeah me too," though she'd been there for six months. Her hate quickened. "Whatever you do, don't talk to Ant. He's a rat!"
"How so?"
Esmerelda fumed. "The other day I was talking to him about that fight with Marlene.." She never exhumed the reason, but the previous week Shehera witnessed Esmerelda, standing in the causeway between the frontpit and the yard, screaming, "FUCK YOU MARLENE, YA STUPID WHORE!" as did three shocked clients. "...you know, because Ant's good for advice sometimes. He's blunt." Blunt, or habitually obtuse? Shehera pondered. "Later that day, I heard him telling Dan everything." She growled. "He's a RAT!"
"Ugh." Shehera was disgusted. Not a rare sentiment at Metal Parade. "Awful. I wouldn't worry about it, though. As long as it doesn't interfere with business they can't hold it against you." Esmerelda looked dubious.
The mail came. The usual assortment to and from nom de guerres, plus a letter addressed to Dan from the Head Smithguard. Esmerelda gasped. "Wonder what that is?!"
"Karma?" They chuckled apprehensively. "Oh, we can dream, can't we?" Shehera exhaled. "Wanna walkabout while I unload this junk?"
"Sure!" And they were off.

The minute they entered the yard, Ant rose above the din: "Watch it, Marlene. I'M the driver. You? You're my mule. Remember that." Esmerelda, who discreetly savored Marlene's humiliation, beamed triumphantly along with the grunts.
After delivering the loads, they headed to the dump. "They MUST get off choking on this, don't you think?" Esmerelda posited. "The taste of iron can't be that good, can it? They could be dregs at regular yards if they wanted! It's sick!"
"The grunts, yeah. There's obviously something wrong with someone who stays in a place like this by choice. Anyone with any self-respect at all would avoid this place like a biohazard unless they were desperate." Shehera washed her hands.
"Fucking metalfreeze!" Esmerelda blurted in anger as she slammed down her purse.
"It's a shame, really. Most of these dregs would be pretty cool if they weren't career con artists. I feel dirty just directing traffic in this gilded trash heap. Every other phone call is an angry victim of iron loss! I'm sick of having to cover for people like Len."
Esmerelda gasped. "Oh my god, I meant to ask you! Did you fuck Lenny? I heard that you went to his hole after the final whipcrack yesterday." Lenny aint so discreet after all.
Shehera let out an angry belly laugh. "Hell, NO!" she snarled.
"But you did go to his crib? Cause he was bragging to the guys that you did."
"Yeah."
"Why?" Esmerelda squirmed. "He's creepy and he smells wierd."
"Check it out - he invited me over to smoke under the pretense of 'just friends'. Under the same pretense, I accepted. He's nice enough. Decent sense of humor, sometimes. Why not? Obviously I suspected a hidden agenda." She became austere. "But he invited me as a FRIEND, and I hung out as a friend. Nothing more. If he's mad that his little after hours bait-and-switch scheming didn't work, then fuck him!"
"Woah," Esmerelda replied, digesting the logic. "Well...I guess that makes sense."
"Shehera flashed a sly grin. "It's no big deal. Thinking he can mine women like he mines customers...nope! It didn't work, so he's spreading a rumour about himself that it did to LOOK like a stud. What a dumbass!" She dried her hands intently. " And besides, what kind of loser has to try and trick a girl into fucking him anyway?! There are millions of horny women in this city, and if he can't find even ONE who ACTUALLY likes him, than he should go buy a hooker with all that 'bling' he brags about constantly. Whatever. I just played a player, that's all." She cackled. "Ant's right about one thing: They're beyond saving." She mocked his headshake. "They're far beyond saving."
"Yeah, girl," Esmerelda said warily. "Just be careful, ok? You don't want to get sucked into stupid games with guys on a vendetta. It won't work." She sighed. "Don't become counter-predatory. You're better than that."
Shehera mulled it over. "Your right. I've got better things to do than get sucked into idiotic games. What the hell was I thinking?" She continued to rub her hands raw. "And god, now everyone thinks I fucked...Len!" She grimaced. “This nuthouse is warping my mind.”
"I know you didn't," Esmerelda consoled. "And Len lies so much that most people probably don't even believe that you hung out with him after hours!"
"You think they care about what's true? These gossips will believe whatever entertains them the most." She grabbed a light, becoming flippant. "Oh well! Speaking of smoke, lets go out for some," adding in mock drama," '...for tomorrow, we may die!'"
"Or this landfill will finally get shut down by the Smithguard!" And they shared a nervous laugh.
They waited for the elevator. "It's too bad that the institutions designed to protect us dregs mirror the boiler rooms that pay them off. We're all screwed." Shehera panicked inside after blurting that out, afraid that she had just signed her own pinkslip. Sam was behind them - uncharacteristically silent - the entire time. Another spy for Dan, I suppose. As much as she hated Metal Parade, she DID need iron, after all.
Esmerelda met her friend's gaze, making light of the tension. They giggled at the absurdities, just short of tears.

©M. F. Lemoine

Metal Parade, Inc. Part 5

Shehera glided and galumphed through work, ostensibly in a haze. Everyone assumed she was perpetually high. The office aberration, her whole constitution was outre - especially in a metalcrunching environment. Jim, her favorite miner who had fled the previous week, used to joke, "Commune's that way, m'dear. Boy, you're really lost if you've ended up here!" A Stockade causalty, he fled Metal Parade after his last big deal. He had saved up just enough metal to survive as an ascetic for a few years, living his dream of becoming a full-time painter.
He confided in her one day on a smoke break: "After the Stockade cracked, I lost everything. I lost my chariot, had to break my lease on Plantation Ave. and move in with my brother and sister-in-law, sold basically everything..." He sniffed. "...but the worst part was...was losing my friends. Or rather who I thought were my friends. It was devastating, to be honest." His head shook in residual bitterness. "I get ejected, and suddenly they don't know me from Adam. Since I'm not in the field, I'm out of the gang. Buncha jerks." He inhaled. "I should've seen it coming, though. Down at the Stockade, everything is metal. And everyone. However these were men I confided in; men I thought would be there for me through tough times, as they always had. We spent so much time together over the years that I considered them brothers. Hah! If you can't make them metal, they don't give a damn whether you're doing great or about to slice your wrists. They're too busy drowning in booze and powder, getting clam-" He flustered. "excuse my language - collecting toys to outdo eachother with, showing off their trophy families, taking their mistresses on lavish vacations..." His eyes cast downward in shame. "Story of my life. My former one. I guess everyone's just doing the best that they know how to, but it still hurts sometimes. So many years I could've been making art, desecrated because I flushed myself into a sewer of metal. And when it was all over, I was broken. I had a whole life, an entire identity, deleted before my very eyes. Nothing left but static."
He looked outward. "It was a blessing. A genuine blessing. I had so much to unlearn. After the pain of loss eased, it was liberating! This time next month, I'll be living my life as it was meant to be lived." He shined, irreducibly content.
"That's inspiring," Shehera mused.
" Sorry. You didn't come out here to hear the sob story of an old man," he muttered sheepishly. "Although I'm sure you'll hear many more sad and disturbing things in this purgatory.”
Shehera hesitated. "How exactly did you end up at Metal Parade?"
"An Ad on Bob's Mess," he laughed. "Go figure. My prayers to reputable companies all went unanswered. My iron was dangerously low, and I needed some fast. Who ends up here otherwise?" They laughed. "How did YOU end up here?"
"A friend."
"A friend?!" Jim repeated sarcastically. "In this place?" They laughed.
"My old driver was a monster, and old co-dregs unsociable. I needed a change."
Jim looked alarmed. "You sure this isn't the same cheese, different mousetrap?"
"Oh." Shehera ruminated for a moment. "Well, metal is metal, right?"
"In the short term...yes." Jim was uneasy. "But you can't be in a pit like this for too long without it messing with you. This kind of environment will distort your outlook, your values..." He puffed harder. "Metal is important; you HAVE to have metal. But you also have to have a purpose outside of yourself. Otherwise the excess metal turns you into an overgrown infant, living only to satiate every little impulse and urge. Look at most of these miners: no goals. Just delusions of becoming a millionaire."
Shehera chanced to ask him, "How long have you been doing this for?"
"I've been in ironwork in some form or another for over 25 years now." He angered. "It's all I know how to do to make metal in this mess of a society. As for this place..." He drew a breath. "Metal Parade has been, in 26 months: long hours of torture, a lot of good luck, a lot of holding my tongue, and I'm DONE. Pimping out metal brings out the worst in everyone involved." Shehera cringed, thinking of how many people Jim must've screwed to earn top commission. "The thrill of the catch is a trap. 'Get the metal, and get out!' That's been my philosophy here." He looked at her in gravity. "Don't you get stuck."
She laughed. "Never!"

Shehera stamped out the butt. She welled with compassion. "Good luck in the City of Love. I'm glad you're finally free."
"Thank you," Jim replied quietly, and grinned. Bowing nobly as he backed away, his last words to her: "I'll see you on the Seine."

©M. F. Lemoine