A Working Stiff's Manifesto by Iain Levison Page B

conveyor belt line work. Best of all, it is dry. The crab are already cased by the time the boxes come down to case-up. The case-up crew packs them into freezers or, even better, loads them onto a Japanese freighter, which means you get to work outside. I’ve only been here two days and figured case-up jobs went to people who’d worked here for months, even years.
    â€œYou want a case-up job?” Hale asks.
    â€œHell, yeah.”
    â€œI’m the supervisor of the deck crew,” he says. “I’ll talk to Rick tomorrow.”
    The next day, I’m standing on the slime line when the Filipino woman next to me smiles at me. “What is your name?” she asks.
    I tell her, and we chat for a while as we pack the crab crates. She has been in America for six months and is trying to learn English, and she asks me to teach her some words for various things. Chatting, even in tortured English, makes the time go by quicker. We break for lunch, and I go up to the lunchroom and sit at the Americans’ table, which is fairly small, and she walks by and smiles at me.
    â€œYou’d better watch out,” one guy tells me. “Don’t be talking to her.” This guy, who I know as Mike, is a big, bearded bear of a man, a truck driver from Seattle who has lost his driver’s license after a drunk driving conviction. He’s up here for a year, until he gets it back.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œHer husband’s crazy. He works down on the slime line too. He’ll punch holes in your rain gear if he sees you talking to her.”
    â€œJust talking?”
    â€œJust talking. I was teaching her some English last week, and I came back from break and my gear was all punched full of holes. Just a theory, but I think that’s what happened.”
    A Filipino walks by, looks at me, the same fellow I had seen punching holes in the rain gear the first night on the boat, and I nod to Mike.
    â€œThat him?”
    â€œThat’s him.”
    â€œHe did punch holes in your gear. I saw him do it.”
    Now this guy is pissed. “Why the fuck didn’t you say something?”
    â€œTo who? I had just gotten off the plane. I didn’t know what I was getting involved in.”
    He shrugs. “Guarantee you, when you go back to work after lunch, you got holes in your gear.”
    â€œLet’s get the fucker.”
    â€œRight on.”
    Sure enough, I get back from lunch and my gear has about ten pin pricks in it. We are all gearing up to walk back to the slime line, and the little Filipino fellow walks past me without saying a word. While people are pulling on their rain gear all around me, I rear back and thump him on the head. He falls forward, then springs up, enraged. He is about to charge me when Mike grabs him from behind. The whole thing is spontaneous, but it looks beautifully choreographed. Mike is holding him and I rip into him, pummeling away at his ribs and face for about five seconds, then I stop, Mike lets go, he falls to the floor, and we both step over him.
    As I am walking away, I notice a group of Filipinos who were too surprised by the speed of the whole incident to step forward and stop it. I am aware of their eyes as I walk back to the slime line.
    I am packing crates again, this time with two Americans standing next to me, when I get a tap on the shoulder. It is Rick, the line supervisor.
    â€œTake your rain gear off, get a coat, and go topside. Help with the loading.”
    I leave immediately. I peel off my gloves, my now worthless rain gear full of tiny pin pricks, my boots, all the plastic and rubber crap issued to me the moment I got off the plane, deducted from my first paycheck. The gloves I toss in a big metal glove bin. The rain gear goes in the trash. I am aware that the Filipinos are still watching me as I walk out.
    Topside there is fresh air and none of the factory noise—the air compressors, the forklifts, the constant whirring of the