One summer I worked at a meat packing and processing plant called JilSom. It was run by Irwin Goldfarb, a man who was given the job because his family didn’t know what else to do with him, who always drove a Corvette paid for in cash until someone gave up trying to explain and simply told him leasing through the company was better, who had two black, foresty eyebrows trying to mate along a ridge like a mogul where his forehead met his face, spent as much time under the hair dryer as did his wife but never with her, and yelled during staff meetings that God Damn It, It Was A Good Thing He Was Around Because His Company Was Being Run Into The Ground By The Flunkies He Had Working For Him And They Were Lucky To Have Their Jobs Anyway.
I wondered if he’d ever been to New Zealand.
He said this each week to his senior staff. Obviously he was correct because his senior staff, being vilified thus each and every week, never left. He also made it a point to let the workers, especially those spending their first day on the job, know how he felt towards his staff.
One of his staff, Jones, a man in charge of receiving and lorrying – placing things in the warehouse-size freezer so they could be found quickly and orderly – confided in me one day he was going to be president of the company in five years. He told me this in front of his crew. He was a Santa Claus-sized man with a blonde Van Dyke beard and eyes cold blue like the freezer he spent much of his time in. When he spoke, his voice was not careful or poised. It was always full of surety upon demand. He knew where everything was in his warehouse-size freezer and his voice let you know he knew. In his freezer, he was right. His voice, outside the cold of those four frost-covered walls, was something slightly else.
His office was on the other side of the building from Irwin’s. One day, as I was crossing the building to drop off some paperwork, Irwin came out of the shadows to me. “Where’re you going?”
I kept to myself pretty much although I knew I frightened him without knowing why. The longer I was with JilSom, the more his voice gained accusation.
“Receiving.”
“Tell Jones I want to see him.”
“Okay.”
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Previous entries in The Book of the Wounded Healers (A Study in Perception) series
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