Slum Enterprise - Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

Father Stemm arrived in Mexico early last fiscal year. The Executive team that appointed him as the plant director had high confidence in his potential. Father Stemm was an empty mold in which the Execs took for granted. They molded him into a hardass who could work long hours without rest. The plant was located on top of the biggest hill that overlooked the peasant shack living quarters of its inhabitants. There was a lot of work to be done, the Execs needed a robotic machine.

A first class flight was booked, Father Stemm flew deep into the interior of Mexico. The flight attendees noticed his oddly shaped skull and massive scars lining his bald head. He sat back in his lounge seat with a miniature T.V screen and ‘call’ service button in hand sipping on endless fruity cocktails. 

When the Execs put him through the training program, the military style methods pushed Father Stemm to an over indulging drinking habit. He admired the view from the window seat, he stared at the pretty flight attendants who took turns serving him drinks and snacks because all of them couldn't stand the strange behavior and mangled look he had.

Father Stemm landed on a dirt runway in the late afternoon in Mexico city. As he gathered his things from the overhead storage unit he stumbled down the plane's staircase into the sunblazing yellow and red environment. It was dry and hot, the wind blew guts of dust into his eyes. He was escorted away by small men with dark brown faces in ragged plaid shirts and cargo pants. The Mexican terminal workers gazed up at Father Stemm, he was very tall in comparison and had a weird head that reflected the sun. 

In the terminal, everything smelled of humid damp stagnant water. No air moved and it was sticky. He hoped his assigned escort would get him out quickly to the car, he still had a few hours drive in the countryside to get to town. Finally, they reached a taxi cab parked at the terminal drop off points, the escort shoved his bags in the trunk and loaded Father Stemm into the back seat and slammed the door. The escort said a few words in Spanish and smacked the top of the taxi with rust around the wheel wells. 

The driver floored it and sped off through the slums of Mexico city. Soon things looked less populated and congested. The sun was red and still emitted a powerful heat. Father stem hung onto the backset door handle to counteract the wild jerkily turns the driver was keen on taking. Fast but efficient, the taxi arrived at the outskirts of town in 2 hours.

Everything looked more run down then in the city slums. Tiny shacks with cheap panelling acting as walls line the outskirts. Father Stemm didn't even think they had electricity. He saw children running around playing games he wasn't familiar with. Faces began to appear from the shack doors, they looked poverty stricken and worn out. Everyone seemed skeptical and never liked when outsides came through. Main street was further in the town slums. Run down bars, one grocery store and 2 competing strip clubs facing each other on either side of the street. There was one stop light that controlled the nonexistent flow of traffic.

The cartels had done a number. Once a more lively place in terms of underground cartel operations, a small skirmish between rival gangs wiped out most surviving infrastructure. The cab stopped at the stop light and said in broken English that this was his stop. 

“50 meters down the road, up the hill, hotel.” the driver said.

Father Stemm jumped out and grabbed his bangs from the back. The driver extended his hand and gave him his open palm. Father Stemm reached in his jacket pocket, grabbed some random assortment of bills and tipped the driver. The driver smiled and said “Adidios” and floored the cab leaving a giant bloom of dust for him to cough and choke on. Father Stemm picked up his bags from the red dirt ground and walked to the hotel surveying the surroundings.

Lee knew what had happened to the Mexico plant. Stan Hentz, the proprietor of all information company related, got bored one day testing and called Lee over to his area when he was making his daily lab walkthroughs.

“Lee, come here, I got to tell you something.” Stan said in a loud whisper. Lee skidded and changed his walking direction to meet Lee over in the labs back corner.

“Whats the scoop?”

“You know Father Stemm, first name Remy?”

“Yeah, what about it, last I heard was that Execs promoted and shipped him down to Mexico. From the town hall it seemed like he was doing well.” Lee said.

Stan paused and started to smile sadistically. “Right, now get this…he died over there, along with most of the plant workers.”

Lee shook his head and didn't believe what he was hearing, it's not everyday that a higher up dies and it isn't huge news.

“The entire plant collapsed on him and the floor line workers. 400 total are the initial numbers, they're still digging through the rubble.” Stan said. He began to shake with excitement. Lee knew that the chaos would provide ample entertainment for his masochist attitude for months to come. 

Life in general was a subscription for Stan. If he was in charge there would be massive changes pumped through with executive orders. He would set up arenas for blood sport and perfect a quantum computer to hack every major system that holds the modern Life System together. A world where dueling, swords and load muskets was legalized between the hours of 8pm and 2am. He wanted a world of people walking the walk if they wanted to talk the talk.

Stan continued into the excruciating details of the plant collapse. Lee reflected on what the CEO said about Father Stemm, and how it was answered to the auditorium crowds that all was well. Stan, almost out of breath, finished the story with climatic explosions. Lee stood there taking it all in. The test machines hummed and rattled in the background. Sounds of oil draining back into sump tanks and filter samples popping inside the steel enclosed tombs bursting beneath. His team members were all scattered throughout the lab.

It was a grueling story. Father Stemm suffered a horrific demise months after he arrived at the plant. Long hot Mexican summer months all alone in the above floor office near the plants ceiling beams in a little thin sheet metal enclosure with a window AC unit with window blinds shut most of the time. 

The office looked down on all the manufacturing lines and workers moving material around to different steps in the products manufacturing cycle. Forklifts manned by young Mexican kids drove too fast. OSHA had no jurisdiction here, a complete mad house. Father Stemm couldn't even get the employees to work. The tough guy persona he put on made them all laugh at him. “Gringo calvo tonto” they would say to his face and walk outside for their tenth 15minute smoke break. The floor supervisor ran the show, only when dead lines were approaching would the line workers kick it in high gear (now smoking inside instead) to hit the production quotas.

Only the Execs cared for the vessel in which the brain hovers above. The world's pleasures and promises will never come gracefully. It's all luck and a sliver of intense hard work. The lucky few to break the traditional mode of the lower class upbringing are few and far between. The Execs created and rigged the game, they can and will finesse all the low life cogs and manipulate them to squeeze out every last drop of for the shareholder. Give the cogs a smidge of hope and they will hold onto it till the end. All of their lives, the schools and universities promised young futile minds a rag to riches story, the fruits of the American landscape. 

Lee knew it was a desolate void, a void of true beauty that paid no attention and was fair and indifferent to everything. He could never reveal this idea to anyone even if it made him isolated against the standard model of thinking. Only his wife Annie, understood what he meant. Lee never saw the strip malls or family Chinese restaurants, or the highrise apartments popping up in cheap excellence all over the city, or the gun stores, liquor stores, the parks and playgrounds with rusty swings that squeaked, the ramblers of houses invading against highway lanes, the bars, smoke shops, markets, bowling alleys, book stores, thrift shops, old school bricked buildings, post offices, city lake beaches, music halls and venues, the loneliness of downtown streets, all the street lights changing while no cars sit to await their directions, the homeless shelters, the garbage burning plant, all the smoke stacks of old breweries, the assortment of people, all shapes and sizes and colors. The homeless make signs with industrial size black sharpies and sniff them afterwards and nod on the street corners with a black dog named “pickles” licking in the air for a phantom bowl of water, they enter a huffing dream of nightmares, a nightmare that's better than the nightmare of reality.

Lee doesn't look at any of these things anymore, he simply can't. He looks at the trees, the birds flying above heading south for winter, small rodents stealing crumbs of food from chewed out plastic garbage cans, chipmunks with fat cheeks looking to the sky to avoid the hawk's gaze. Lee loved to stare at the sky and watch the clouds dance and drift along. 

He would sit peacefully on his back in the backyard and stare at the sky until it turned deep pink and orange and let it fade to a blue tint of night in the urban city neighborhoods. He listened for the orchestration of the insects hidden in the weeds and flower pots. 

During the day, Lee loved the buzz saw of the cicadas, at night the steady chirp of the cricket and croak of a frog who lost his way from the nearby pond. Insects would land on his skin, he wouldn't move, instead he would aim his eyes and watch them crawl in sporadic directions. He admired their different body shapes and colors, the blue night tint and back porch light would shimmer on their buggy husks. 

Deep into the nights Lee would think about being a tree in his next life. Reinencarnated not fully into consciousness would be ideal. A tree, alive, could still experience and communicate through chemical changes and pheromone releases. The roots could connect with the hidden neural network of plant systems beneath the crust.

How does anyone stand the hours? The screens didn't do anything for him anymore, they only told him how to be, and that being was of pure anxiety and dread. The whole world was not connected, but with the whole world connected now there were too many problems to solve, because there were too many problems to see. The focus was lost, there wasn't any true cause to live for, no purpose of direction. The rot was eating away from the inside out.

Lee wished he could have been a fly on the wall in Father Stemms Office.

It had been true that Father Stemm was miserable sitting in his office. The sight of poor cartel stricken Mexican families working in a soulless factory depressed him. Father Stemm could only think:

“IM A CONSUMER WHORE, FILTRATION IS FOR YOU AND ME, WOULD YOU WANT YOUR PREVIOUS CHILDREN BREATHING IN THE CRUEL POLLUTANTS OF LIBERAL POP STARS JET EXHAUST. EVERYTHING MUST BE CLEANED, OUT FILTERS TRAP 99.99% OF ALL CONTAMINATION, EITHER IN THE AIR OUR IN THE FLUIDS YOU DRINK. A BUYER OF GREEN EARTH SOLUTIONS PRODUCT CAN BE CONFIDENT BY CHOOSING YOUR NEXT FILTRATION SYSTEM WITH US.”

Lee stared above at his office ceiling, loathing the sight of 24 by 24 inch white paneling with cheap fluorescent light fixtures with a pure white filter screen to matte the shine, Lee tried to step into the mind of Father Stemm. “He must be feeling the same way I'm feeling right now,” Lee thought. “How long he must have felt being down in the unfamiliar Mexican landscape surrounded by vice and corruption working with people who hated your guts.”

Father Stemm was tricked in wage slavery and brainwashed and rebuilt to follow any order and complete any horrid job at will. The Execs made so many promises which turned out to be all lies in the end. Mounds of cash, but to spend where? Corporate career progression, where too? Friends and family, none. Father Stemm was king in his high tower until death.

Over time, Father Stemm began to become more deranged. He became unrecognizable due to the lack of sleep. His drinking problem snowballed into every day of the week now blacking out at the local whore house (the one that was south of main street, he didn't like the A squad girls at the north). He was unshaven and the bald head was oozing some sort of infected puss. He stopped wearing his trademark suit jackets and started to arrive at his office in dirty sweatpants and t-shirts with yellow piss stains. Pointing out the top of his work bag, the line workers could swear they spotted the end caps of liquor bottles, though not confirmed. After work hours he would stumble down the steps from his office and leave through the back exits to try and avoid any and all conversation with the line supervisors looking for feedback on performance.

A drink in his hand, staring at a girl swinging on a shiny well lubricated pole in the hazy darkness of neon and the loud thump of sensual Mexican dance music. Father Stemm is the best tipper in town, the working ladies flock to him in the back alleys. Afterwards, they wipe their mouths and touch up the makeup to cover the forming bruises. He had a reputation for violently jerking in a neanderthal way which resulted in flailing limbs smacking against faces full of manhood. 

He awakes on yet another couch in some shack out in the slums surrounding the manufacturing plant. He pushes the naked women next to him on the floor. She did not wake up, still breathing heavily from a deep boozy sleep. Father Stemm has a sudden sharp attack, his body begins to tingle, his hands and feet lock up, he feels his throat begin to swell. “Time to leave,” he said.

Up the stairs and out the door, the kids were up and playing with sticks in the sand outside the front door. He looked saddened watching their faces smile as they made imaginary lands in the cool red dirt ground. Father Stemm walked like a person with cerebralpalsy and flung himself inside his 1 bed room apartment next door to the plant. The plant casted a large overhanging shadow on the apartment in the morning hours. The only morning lights that shine through his non light blocking curtains are the plants spot light posts lining the borders every 100m. Security was tight, they needed to keep out the cartel and thieves. Father Stemm opens the tiny fridge, empty bottles and beer cans pour out onto the floor. He digs his way to the back to find a shooter of booze. He slams it to stop the shakes and anxiety attack. “Not time for work yet, too early.” He burped.

After a nightmare fueled sleep on the floor next to the open tiny fridge (this acted as supplemental AC). The alarm clock on the nightstand in the room was loud enough to wake him. 

He smelt of cheap liquor and sorrow, but didn't  bother to shower. He drags himself back to the office, he draws the blinds to view the floor activity below. He thinks to himself that he is truly alone in this world with no love to give or receive. All he does is boss "insubordinates" around and get laughed at behind his back. Even the Execs on online calls have expressed major concern for his well being. “Everybody is this god forsaken plant just wants to act on the only opportunity they have in life…working here so they don't starve, so they can save up and get a pocket screen to provide unlimited dopamine hits right to the jugular vein.” Father Stemm talked out loud for no one to hear.