The new guy wasn’t much to look at. Quiet. Big eyes. Slim. Bipedal, but only mostly. A dusting of dull skin integument that was halfway between scales and feathers and halfway to something else entirely.
“Everyone pull your dicks out of your ears and listen up: this is Jhairi,” said Kurt, “our new line inspector. His qualifications are blah blah blah blah blah, he’ll start work on lines 12a through 12c come Thursday, in the meantime he’ll be shadowing Rox – that’s you, Rox – so he knows his head from his ass or whatever else he’s got.”
Rox was me.
“Also he’s got some instinctual sensitivities, so uhh don’t make direct eye contact with him or corner him or make sudden movements near him or sneak up on him or grab his nose or whatever bullshit. Now, coffee rota: Rox isn’t buying because the new guy’s shadowing her; Clarke is up Monday to Wednesday; Eunice is up Thursday to Friday. Known issues: the belt on 7d is cracked, so don’t-” and so on and so forth and on and on and on because a Monday morning meeting put Kurt in a fine and high drone fit to burrow your skull through from ear to ear, which was probably why it took me a good two minutes after leaving the meeting to realize the new guy was standing right behind me.
“JESUS.”
“Jhairi,” he corrected quickly. Everything about him was quick, and what wasn’t quick was quiet. His voice sounded like a cross between a whimper and a whippoorwill. My teeth tried to grind themselves just looking at him.
“Jhairi,” I said. “Sure. New guy Jhairi. Follow me and watch what I do, and for the love of fuck don’t try to do anything yourself.”
He did and he didn’t and by the time Wednesday’s shift was over he was carefully checking marks and making eye assessments and everything was looking smooth enough – more than smooth enough for his first few days on the job. Those big eyes weren’t just for show and his fingers may have been stubby but they were precise and strong.
So I told him to report to Kurt the next day and considered the matter settled and maybe I’d have to care about Jhairi once a week on Monday meetings, the same as anyone else.
***
The very next day I got called down to take over line 12a. It had been riddled with production errors all morning, and when I got there I saw why: fuckin’ Clarke. She was standing just on the far side of the belt from Jhairi, leaning on the observation stand, and chattering in a really friendly way that was in no manner at all real.
Who’d have thought having to pay for coffee one rota early would make you such a spiteful little fucker.
“C’mon,” she was saying. “C’mon. Be polite to your seniors, don’t they have manners where you’re from? Don’t ignore me now, c’mon, c’mon. Just look at me now and then. Heck, you don’t even have to say anything, just make eye contact and nod. C’mon.”
I cleared my throat. “Got a problem?” I asked.
Jhairi’s ears swivelled through one hundred and eighty degrees and back. “Sorry,” he whispered.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him, Rox,” said Clarke. “I just came up here to introduce myself – what with us being line-neighbours and all – and he won’t so much as meet my eyes.”
“It’s a sensitivity thing, remember?” I said.
“Ooooohhh. A SENSITIVITY thing. Jesus, you buy that? Kurt was just saying that so HR wasn’t on his ass, no need for that kinda bull down here on the floor. What, just ‘cause he was born some kind of fancy alien sheep-birdie means we’ve got to treat him like a delicate little rabbit? Might as well call Jhairi a wuss to his face, right Jhairi?”
New tactic. “Clarke? Line 11d is backed to fuck and back.”
“SHIT! Why didn’t you-“
“Well, you seemed busy.”
She left, swearing left right and center.
“You okay?” I asked Jhairi. I tried to emphasize my sincerity while looking sort of up and to the left of his ears.
“It’s better now,” he said. And yeah, his fur was lying back down. When had it started puffing up?
“Okay. Just you know, you know you can talk to me if this stuff happens? Right?”
“Yes.”
Clarke was twice as mad when line 11d wasn’t backed to fuck and back, but there was a time and a place to call your coworker a lying weaselly scumshit to her face and the second half of your shift wasn’t it. And so peace returned, and there was only one day left until the weekend, so everything was going to be just fine.
***
I celebrated Friday by rolling out of bed fifteen minutes late and decided to treat myself by getting dressed extra-slow before trudging out of the dorms down to the breakfast station.
Me and coffee and Clarke made three. Then I heard a little whispery mumble from behind her, and no wait that was Jhairi. Four people.
“That’s good coffee,” she was telling him. He was crammed between her and the coffee machine, her arms a fence around his body, knuckles resting against the cheap painted plaster wall. “I paid for it. I only buy the best for my people. And you’re my people, Jhairi. You and me work the same job, practically work the same belts. We watch each other’s backs. You saying you’re too good for my coffee is like saying you’re too good to watch my back. You really too good to watch my back, Jhairi?”
“No,” said Jhairi. Sort of.
“Then why the fuck you don’t want my coffee?”
“You’re blocking it, that’s why,” I growled directly into Clarke’s ear. “Back off and let me at the sugar before I bite my way to it.”
She jumped half a foot up and to the side, releasing Jhairi from his corner. “JESUS! How long you been standing there, Rox?”
“Feels like five years. Piss off and leave me alone with my lifelong romantic partner.”
Her mouth opened.
“The COFFEE, dumbass. Don’t make me ask again.”
She didn’t make me ask again.
“That was very very close,” said Jhairi.
“If you won’t talk to me about this stuff, try HR,” I told him. “Don’t bother with Kurt; the guy thinks going through the motions is going above and beyond. Just don’t sign your name on anything, that’s how they get you, confidentiality or no.”
“That was very very very close,” whispered Jhairi. He shivered from toes to crown in one long ripple, each feather-ette rising and falling in perfect rhythm. “Thank you. Thank you. It’s alright. I’ve got it under control.”
“Are you-”
Jhairi looked at me, or at least a few inches above me and a bit to one side. “I think I am. Thank you very much.”
And he left.
Well. The weekend could heal all manner of wounds, from stress to new-job-woes to Clarke’s grousing over paying out for coffee. Anyone could heal from anything with enough booze.
***
It was a bad Monday from the start. I’d maybe overdone it a touch trying to burn away the old week, and there’d been a few times I’d mistaken Sunday for Saturday, and I’d gone to bed a little earlier in the morning than I planned.
So when I woke up and rolled out of bed into yesterday’s clothes and sprayed myself down with deodorizer until I smelled less medicinal, I was in no mood to make conversation. I stamped down to the meeting room without even the energy to get a coffee, slouched into my chair, grunted a greeting at everyone else, and stared at nothing right in front of my face.
Clarke walked in, looking as bad as I felt.
Jhairi was on the other side of the table, and I grunted a more specific greeting at him. He looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and I wondered if he’d overpartied or abstained. The first weekend you usually did one or the other, and that could tell you a lot about a new coworker.
Clarke walked by me, brisk and quick like someone with places to be and hangovers to coffee.
His eyes were real glisteny – woops, I was looking at his eyes, sorry Jhairi, my bad – and his body was tense. A coffee cup was clutched in his hands, untouched. I hoped he hadn’t taken it just to fit in. Nobody needed that kind of hassle.
Clarke walked by Jhairi and with a single slightestt stoop whisked the chair out from under his descending rear as quick as a greased lizard and resumed her stride.
And that was a dick move, but a classic one, well-executed. Guy falls over, we all rib her for being a shithead, she laughs a bit, new guy admits it’s a little funny, maybe everything’s fine. Maybe.
But Jhairi’s eyes were so damned big, and he must’ve seen that flicker, and it must’ve been in just the right place, and she’d only just hurried past him when he saw her retreating back and the next thing there was blood everywhere and Clarke’s throat was in Jhairi’s mouth and the rest of Jhairi’s mouth was full of apologies and Kurt was standing up and yelling at us all at the top of his nicotine-parched lungs.
“I told you! I only went and TOLD you stupid fuckers! Don’t you go messing with predatory sensitivities! No direct eye contact, no fencing him in, and NO SUDDEN MOVEMENTS! Do you have ANY IDEA how many seminars we’re all in for now?!”