Tough Day for the Army (5 page)

Beast!

In all, 23,736 cows and bulls were observed, and 284 (1.2%) had signs of returning to sensibility after hanging on the bleed rail. Cattle that were
obviously
not insensible after a single shot and were restunned prior to hoisting were not tabulated as they are outside the immediate scope of this research, but this researcher estimates their number to be in excess of 1,000, of which a small percentage required more than a second stunning.

Bleeding, leg removal, skinning, scalding, head removal, and chemical dehairing, among others.

The most common indicator of animals returning to sensibility after hanging on the bleed rail consisted of movement of the tongue out and then back in and twitching of the nose. In a single case (#4557), tongue movement, puffing of the cheeks, vocalization (mooing, bellowing, low moaning, and squeals), limb movement (thrashing, really), and twitching of the nose were all present even after multiple (9) restunning attempts.

PROTESTOR
: I see you! You're being judged! I am judging you!

RESEARCHER
: Please, I'm just trying to… can you move back?

PROTESTOR
: How many today? How many dead today? How many killed?

RESEARCHER
: Please, I just want to get through.

PROTESTOR
: I know your name. I know where you live. You have children!

RESEARCHER
: Is that a threat?

PROTESTOR
: It is what it is.

The leading indicator of a potential return-to-sensibility problem was “soft-sounding” shots, which may be an indicator of an underpowered stunner. Further investigation revealed that cartridges for the stunner were stored in a damp supply room near the slaughter floor, thus causing a certain percentage of shots that fall below the effective bolt speed of 65m/s.

100.

Other prevalent causes for the failure to render animals insensible with a single stunner shot included: bent firing pins, stunner damage (case #4557), improper stunner maintenance, dirty stunner trigger, and inexperienced operation (case #4557).

Do cows have names that they call each other in cow language?

Braless for sure. Each morning as she rushed the car, waving her sign and yelling, her breasts banged into each other beneath her loose peasant blouse. Once, as she pounded a fist on the hood of this researcher's car, this researcher caught a glimpse of a thick thatch of hair at her pit. She was plain and beautiful. Pure. Her scent is unknown. The plant really obliterated everything around. Has the researcher spoken of that already?

That's strange. What is that? Do you smell something? Yes? Is that a good smell or a horrible smell? Horrible, definitely horrible. Is that really coming from my husband? It is!

Further investigation suggested that the stunner was probably damaged when the cocking mechanism struck the side of the stunning box, as can happen when the rod sticks in the animal's head and the stunner is jerked out of the operator's hand. Careful maintenance of the rubber bumpers that retract the rod can help prevent the rod from sticking in the head.

Abnormal, overly thick skulls can also be blamed for return-to-sensibility problems in a small handful of cases, most notably case #4557.

You were thinking meat, but no, believe it or not, it's television. Like a lot of Americans, this researcher used to find television soothing, particularly at the end of the day, once the kids were down and it was just the researcher and his wife on the couch, watching some show where nothing important would happen, but it was a real pleasure to watch those unimportant things happening. Lately, these people on the screen make him angry and he fidgets and makes sighing noises that annoy his wife.

Mr. Clampsin recently began his twenty-third year at Plant #5867, and has spent the past seven years as foreman of the stunning/bleeding operation. Mr. Clampsin believes that in his time at Plant #5867 he has “seen it all” and that this researcher was about the “millionth” of “his kind” to “come sniffing around.”

When questioned about the possibility of storing the replacement stunner cartridges in the relatively dry front office, Mr. Clampsin asked the researcher if he was a “company man” or a “narc.” When informed that this researcher is employed by the company, Mr. Clamp-sin responded that no one he was acquainted with was going to “traipse over to the next county past hell and gone and take a hit on the production quota just so every last one of next week's hamburgers has its brains scrambled right.”

Cleave. Once the cattle are stunned and hung on the bleed rail they are cleaved apart, by hand, because there is no machine that can do it with the speed and precision necessary, given the inherent variation among cattle. Robots can build cars, but they can't render meat. The thing about cleave, though, is that the word means two opposite things at once. It means to split apart, but also it means “to cling to.” How can two things be the same thing, but also their opposites?

You just wouldn't believe.

“Nam.”

A time, before this researcher was married, when he and his future wife lived in the apartment without much furniture, the one with the large, southeast-facing sliding glass doors that allowed the sun to flood inside and warm the worn wood floors so in the mornings she would stand barefoot, looking out, sipping a cup of tea, and this researcher was behind her looking at her body bared through her nightclothes by the sun and he held his breath so it would not catch in his throat and make a noise that would disturb the picture in front of him.

Q
: How long had you been operating the stunner, and where had you worked previously within the plant?

A
: I spent most of the time at the sluicer end, and that is a place you do not want to spend much time. It takes one of two things to get to the stunner floor: seniority, or a union leadership position, of which I had neither. Fortunately, there is a third way, and that way is having dirty pictures of the plant manager having sex with a woman who is not his wife which I had several copies of, as well as the negatives. I also have a computer, scanner, and the plant manager's e-mail address. My wife knows how to work all that stuff. You do the math.

Q
: In your own words, please recount the incident involving Case #4557.

A
: Here's the deal. Running the stunner wasn't as straightforward as raking entrails down the sluicer bins, but it seemed simple enough: cow comes in, head gets clamped, aim the bolt, and fire away. Simple as pie, seemingly. Turns out it's more art than science.

Q
: Can you amplify what you mean by “more art than science?”

A
: Amplify? Say it louder? Is the tape not working? Check! Check! One two! How's that?

Q
: (Unintelligible)

A
: Anyway, these cows are like snowflakes. Looking at a whole field of them you'd be hard-pressed to notice any individual number, but it turns out that no two are quite exactly alike, so while the diagrams on where to aim the stunner and the training video and the guidelines on how much pressure to apply are all well and good, it isn't that simple. Every one has a soft spot, and a millimeter can really make a difference, and the experienced guys just know how to do it. Clampsin warned me it wasn't as easy as it looked, but I was desperate to get out of that sluicer. Sluicer ain't fit for your worst enemy. My mama always said I'm my own worst enemy, though, so maybe me being back there makes a lot of sense.

WIFE
: Are you cold?

RESEARCHER
: No.

wife
: Why are you shaking?

RESEARCHER
: (No response)

wife
: Are you OK?

RESEARCHER
: (No response)

wife
: Are you crying?

Come here, let me show you something. I said, come here! If you're going to get sick, just get sick; it'll all wash down into the same place. Happens all the time. Bend over. Hold your knees, breathe deep. That's it. Now, come here. Look at that. Big as a basketball, practically. That's that big bastard's heart. And the blood. The blood was coming out of a high-pressure artery, and when you think about it, he'd just survived a murder attempt, so you can bet that that fucker was pumping big-time. You ever been to the drag races and seen an oil line blow when one of them dragsters is coming off the line? It's kind of like that. Shit's amazing, isn't it? Could you imagine such a thing?

… about the kids is because I wanted you to think about the world we're going to leave behind, not because I'd do anything to hurt anyone. I do this because I don't want anyone getting hurt. You think I look like a fool, but whose [
sic
] the foolish one?

In my experience, people like to kick up a lot of fuss, and the ones who kick up the most fuss, in general, don't know shit about shit. That whole fucking war they sent me to was fuss after fuss, and not a god-damned soul knew fuck-all about it, but everyone had an opinion anyway, and for the most part, same is true here. People just do not want to know about this shit, perfect case in point being you. You wouldn't be here if those hippies hadn't gotten their hemp undies in a bunch, that look on your face makes that plain as day. Not that I blame anyone. Apparently, people more important than me have declared that this is “necessary,” so here I am, which is kind of the story of my life.

My daddy always said that “Choices have consequences and bad choices have bad consequences.” First time he said it was after I spent my Christmas money on some plastic piece-of-shit toy that Daddy had warned me would fall apart before I got home and did indeed break when I dropped it on the ground exiting the car. The last time was after I'd wrapped my car around an oak, which I'd done because I'd lost the girl I loved and drank too much over the sorrow, and that's what got me kicked out of college once and for all, which is how the army got their hands on me. When I left for basic, I said good-bye to Daddy, who was sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper, and he said, without looking up, “It's been nice knowing you,” which I choose to think meant he was worried about what was going to happen to me over there, rather than something else.

So what I'm saying is that I've learned how to live with the consequences of my choices, but what
this
place is about is the consequences of other people's choices, which is the messed-up part. Those hippies are a pain in the ass and I don't like having to wash off the cow shit they throw at my car every morning, and I'm not trying to argue that there's an equivalence between what went on during that war, or any other war and what's going on here, but you've got to admit, they have a point.

After firsthand observation of 16 operating days it has been determined that Plant #5867 operates within acceptable tolerances and practices for the safe and humane processing of commercial beef cattle.

Ewww, I never slept with Barry!

I love you too.

I do.

I think your shirt's on backwards.

You don't have to go back if you don't want to. We'll be fine.

This is not to say that practices and procedures could not be improved, because the ways (if not the means) Plant #5867 could be improved are almost too numerous to list, and yet this researcher finds himself at a loss as to where to begin. This researcher's experiences at Commercial Beef Slaughter Plant #5867 have reinforced the notion that when it comes to judging things, it's the standard by which we're judging that matters most. This researcher has been to his share of grade school music recitals, and no one would mistake what goes on there for true artistry, and yet the “music” can and does bring the audience to tears. We call the gap between perfection and acceptability the “tolerance.” That's another interesting word, isn't it? How tolerant are we, really? Are we tolerant of the right things?