11
They enter the box sector, but stop in the lounge, which has a large window that faces the desensitization room. The place is so white it blinds them.
He has them wait there and the shorter man asks why they can’t go in. The taller man takes a seat. He answers that only authorized staff wearing the required uniform can go in, that all the necessary measures are taken to ensure the meat isn’t contaminated.
Sergio, one of the stunners, waves to him and then comes into the lounge. He’s dressed in white, and has on black boots, a face mask, plastic apron, helmet and gloves. Sergio gives him a hug. “Tejo, where have you been, mate?”
“On the meat run, dealing with clients and suppliers. Let me introduce you.”
He goes for the occasional beer with Sergio. He thinks he’s a genuine guy, one who doesn’t smirk at him for being the boss’s right- hand man, who’s not trying to get something from him, who has no problem telling him what he thinks. When the baby died, Sergio didn’t look at him with pity, or say, “Leo is a little angel now.” He wasn’t silent around him, not knowing what to do, and he didn’t avoid him, or treat him any differently. Sergio hugged him and took him to a bar and got him drunk and didn’t stop telling him jokes until the two of them laughed so hard they cried. The pain was still there, but he knew that in Sergio he had a friend. Once he asked him why he worked as a stunner. Sergio answered that it was either the heads or his family. It was the only thing he knew how to do and it paid well. Whenever he felt remorse he thought of his children and how the work enabled him to give them a better life. He said that even though the prohibition of original meat didn’t eliminate overpopulation, poverty and hunger, it did help fight them. He said that everything has a purpose in this life and the purpose of meat is to be slaughtered and then eaten. He said that thanks to his work, people were fed and that was something he was proud of. Sergio kept talking, but he couldn’t listen any longer.
They went out to celebrate when Sergio’s eldest daughter started university. He asked himself, while they raised their glasses in a toast, how many heads had paid for the education of Sergio’s children, how
many times he’d had to swing a club in his life. He offered Sergio the chance to work by his side, as his assistant, but the man was blunt: “I prefer striking.” He valued the answer and didn’t ask for an explanation because Sergio’s words are simple, clear. They’re words that don’t have sharp edges.
Sergio goes up to the applicants and shakes their hands. “His job is one of the most important, stunning the heads. He strikes them unconscious so their throats can be slit. Go ahead and show them, Sergio,” he says and tells the men to climb up steps that have been built below the window. This way they’ll be able to see what happens inside the box.
Sergio enters the box room and gets up onto the platform. He grabs the club. Then he shouts, “Send in the next one!” A guillotine door opens and a naked female, barely twenty years of age, walks in.
She’s wet and her hands are held behind her back with a cable tie.
She’s been shaved. Inside the box there’s very little space. It’s almost impossible for her to move. Sergio places the stainless steel shackles, which run along a vertical rail, around the female’s neck and clamps them shut. The female trembles, shakes a little, tries to free herself.
She opens her mouth.
Sergio looks her in the eye and pats her a few times on the head, almost like he’s petting her. He says something to her they can’t hear, or sings to her. The female becomes still, she calms down. Sergio raises the club and hits her on the forehead. It’s a sharp strike. So swift and silent it’s crazy. The female is knocked unconscious. Her body goes slack and when Sergio opens the shackles, it falls to the ground.
The automatic door opens outwards and the base of the box tilts to expel the body, which slides onto the floor.
An employee enters and binds her feet with straps that are attached to chains. He cuts the cable tie holding her hands together and presses a button. The body is raised and transported face down to another room via a system of rails. The employee looks up into the lounge and waves at him. He doesn’t remember the man’s name, but knows he hired him a few months back.
The employee gets a hose and rinses off the box and floor, which have been splattered with excrement.
The taller applicant climbs down from the steps and takes a seat on a chair, his head hanging. Now is when this man vomits, he thinks, but the man gets up, composes himself. Sergio comes in with a smile, proud of the demonstration. “So what did you think? Who wants to give it a try?” he says.
The shorter man steps forward and says, “I do.”
Sergio laughs loudly and says, “Not so fast, mate, it’ll be a while before you’re doing that.” The man looks disappointed. “Let me explain a few things to you. If you strike them dead, you’ve gone and ruined the meat. And if you don’t knock them unconscious and they’re alive when they go to the slaughter, you’ve also ruined the meat. Got that?” He gives the man a hug and shakes him a little, laughing. “Kids today, Tejo. They want to take on the world and don’t even know how to walk.” All of them laugh, except for the shorter applicant. Sergio explains that beginners use a captive bolt pistol. “There’s a smaller margin of error, but the meat doesn’t turn out quite as tender. That make sense? Ricardo, he’s the stunner who’s taking a rest outside at the moment, uses the pistol and is training to use the club. He’s been here for six months.” Sergio finishes off by saying, “The club is only for those who know what they’re doing.”
The taller man asks Sergio what he said to the meat, why he spoke to it. “Meat,” he thinks with surprise, while they wait for Sergio’s answer, and wonders why the man called the stunned female that, and not a head, or a product. Then Sergio says that every stunner has his secret when it comes to calming down the heads. He says that every new stunner has to find his method.
“Why don’t they scream?” the man asks.
He doesn’t want to answer, he wants to be somewhere else, but he’s there. Sergio is the one who says something: “They don’t have vocal cords.”
The shorter applicant climbs up the steps and looks into the box room again. He puts his hands up against the window. There’s eagerness in his gaze. There’s impatience in it.
He thinks this man is dangerous. Someone who wants to assassinate that badly is someone who’s unstable, who won’t take to the routine of killing, to the automatic and dispassionate act of slaughtering humans.