Labor Day

By Joseph Farley

In the future, humans enriched with cockroach DNA dominate the planet. The old humans, fast-tracked for extinction, scurry to and from impoverished homes at the beck and call of the new elite, the magnates and managers that control all.  The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. Capitalism thrives as labor unions are outlawed, and

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peasantry Press
• Release date: May 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9780994021045

Book preview

LABOR DAY

Joseph Farley

Labor Day

Copyright© 2016 by Joseph Farley

Printed in the United States of America

This title is also available as a paperback. Visit www.peasantrypress.com for information.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places, persons (living or dead), or actual events is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, except for brief quotations, without written permission from the publisher.

Cover Design: Peasantry Press

ISBN 978-0-9940210-3-8 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-9940210-4-5 (e-bk.)

PEASANTRY PRESS

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

www.peasantrypress.com

Chapter One - A Late Supper

Chapter Two - Conspirators All

Chapter Three - Work Will Set You Free

Chapter Four - With A Dirge In The Heart

Chapter Five - Under The Skin

Chapter Six - Gears and Chains

Chapter Seven - Tarot and Poker

Chapter Eight - Prelude

Chapter One - A Late Supper

La Contessa was a restaurant that had seen better days, but the old dame kept a good face about her. The ceilings were high, making heating and cooling a nightmare. This problem was solved by not turning on the heat in winter or the air conditioning in summer. Three ancient ceiling fans did see service in hot weather, but these vibrated so much and shook the dining room with such violence that they gave unwary customers the impression that the establishment was a brick and plaster zeppelin about to take flight. The thin red carpet had not been replaced in years and had faded and worn down in spots, from repeated foot traffic, to little more than threads. The worst spots were near the front entrance, in the vicinity of the kitchen and in the corridor leading to the rest rooms. Oil paintings, stained with layers of cooking oil and candle smoke, hung in gilded frames on various walls. Most were copies of famous works from museums, but a few were originals acquired by the first owner of La Contessa many years before. These originals included a portrait of the founder and a view of the exterior of the restaurant as it had appeared nearly a century ago. The sign had been a bright white on a black background surrounded with glowing bulbs. The bulbs had flashed off and on in a manner that created an illusion of motion, as if a multi-segmented caterpillar, made of glass, were crawling around the edges of the sign. The caterpillar was long dead, and what was left of the sign barely clung to life. But in the painting, even under the layer of fossilized vegetable oil that coated every surface of the restaurant, the sign still sang out La Contessa and the caterpillar of light seemed to writhe with life.

  The wall behind the cash register was crowded with two dozen signed photographs of celebrities and persons of local distinction who had once eaten there. The names of most of these smiling faces were unfamiliar to the average diner nowadays. But the pictures remained in their frames, providing atmosphere, nostalgia and maybe a bit of kitsch, each providing a glimpse of a foreign time with out-of-date fashions and sensibilities. A careful eye would observe that the basic uniform of the waiters had not changed much. The figures carrying trays in the background of one photo wore black pants, pressed crisp and creased, a stiff white shirt, a black vest and a small bow tie. The attire of the present staff looked basically the same, although somewhat shabbier, representative of the general decline that had so long gripped the nation and most of the world.

  Polished wooden tables filled the dining space in rows. Each table was surrounded by four matching chairs, each of which had its own extra layer of vegetable oil, forming a yellow and brown lacquer attractive to even the most discriminating cockroach. The tables were covered with white cloths, on top of which were set fine china and goblets for wine. If a visitor were to look closely, he or she would see that the furniture showed signs of repair and that many of the dishes bore cracks.

  La Contessa had built its reputation during its golden era by serving high cuisine, and it had been able to charge exorbitant prices for the entrees on its menu. The chefs were trained in Europe and demonstrated culinary skills rarely tasted, and more rarely appreciated, on this part of the North American continent. La Contessa had served only the finest meats, the freshest vegetables, the most fragrant wines. Since its heyday, the owners had, of necessity, had to alter their menus and staffing policies in order to keep pace with current realities and expectations. La Contessa remained a specialty restaurant. Prices remained high. That much was the same.

  The present head cook was a veteran of the prison system. There, he had mastered the art of masking the pungent flavor of rancid meat, on those rare occasions when meat was served behind bars.

  The restaurant had been constructed for electric light. Gold and black sconces bearing light bulbs clung to the walls at regular intervals. Dusty lamps hung from the ceiling, positioned to illuminate four tables at a time. These lights were rarely used anymore, due to the high cost of electricity and the rolling brown-outs caused by the overtaxed and deteriorating power grid. Candles were more romantic and, at the end of the day, cheaper. This was especially so since the owners made their own candles from accumulated fat drained from cooking pots. A smelly, pale yellow candle sat in a glass orb at the center of each table, available to provide a glow or attract insects.

  Pinprick cameras were imbedded in the walls and concealed in lamps. Some of these cameras worked. Many did not, being leftovers from old and forgotten surveillance efforts, perhaps having been placed there to capture a record of a single lunch meeting of suspicious characters. The ancient lenses were blinded by caked-on dirt and cooking oil. Three of the cameras were known to, and operated by, management. These three cameras were well maintained and used to watch the register, the front door, and the kitchen. The rest of the cameras had been placed there, at one point or another, either by the police or the National Harmony Bureau. The finding of any of them by restaurant staff or clientele would have been a shock, but not a total surprise. Being watched, especially in public places, was an accepted fact. It was part of life.

  On this particular evening, as on many evenings, there were scattered figures seated at tables, but most tables were unoccupied. The frequent sound of automobiles, trucks, and buses on the road outside trickled through the walls and sometimes shook the dishes and paintings. Among the diners was an attractive woman, between thirty and forty-five, in an expensive-looking blue dress with red bangles. She was seated at a table against the wall. Her arms, fingers and neck were littered with jewelry. Opposite her sat a well-dressed man, slightly older, in an expensive-looking gray suit. They were laughing and chatting over their meal. There were plates with steak and lobster, goose liver, caviar and various fancy treats set before them. Their wine glasses were full and a chilled carafe was ready at hand.

  Thomas Fried was dining alone at another table. He was aware of the couple’s opulent meal. He could hear the noise they made but could not make out the words. The sound forced him, at times, to look in their direction. On closer inspection, Fried saw the man had multifaceted eyes like an insect. As Fried watched, the man slobbered a dark liquid onto the lobster before him.

  Roach, Fried thought. He turned away.

  The headwaiter leaned on a rostrum at the front of the restaurant. He wore a black tuxedo-like outfit with a white shirt and black bow tie. He was mostly bald, with black hair on the sides. He had a thin black mustache. He was making changes to a stack of menus, using a bottle of correcting fluid with a brush applicator and a calligraphy pen. The pen made an audible scratching noise as he wrote.

  A pair of waiters in black vests and bow ties leaned against a back wall, looking bored. Both had white aprons around their waists. They were in Fried’s direct line of sight. Fried did not recognize the language they were using. He suspected it was French or a derivative of French, but it could just as easily have been Italian, Romanian, or another language of which Fried was equally ignorant. One of the waiters stuck his pinky in his ear and twisted it around. When the waiter extracted the finger, he took a look at it. Seeing that there was an extra something on it, the waiter wiped his hand across his apron. This he did without any break in his conversation with his coworker, who had no change of expression or tone. The waiters turned and looked at Fried, who, embarrassed by their gaze, looked away.

  The waiters continued to stare at Fried, a man in a worn, plaid suit coat, seated alone at a table, jaws working on something chewy. In a hidden room somewhere in the world, a curious or bored intelligence officer zoomed a camera onto Fried’s face, studying his large flat nose, his almond-shaped eyes, the black curls of his hair, graying at the edges and thinning at the top, and his café con leche complexion. The intelligence officer watched as Fried’s jaws moved up and down. Even during hard times for La Contessa, Fried appeared out of place. He appeared close to fifty and definitely not of the class normally associated with La Contessa’s clientele. He was an interloper, an adventurer.

  The waiters were no longer talking. The pen paused in the headwaiter’s hand as if he were disturbed by the end of the murmur in the back of the room. This silence was contagious as the other diners paused, one by one, in their conversations, as if in anticipation of something magical and wonderful. In this growing silence, the sound of one man chewing seemed amplified. That man was Thomas Fried. He tried to savor the rare taste of meat, not knowing how long it would be before he experienced it again. His jaws continued to move, forcing teeth down on the stringy chunk of animal flesh. He swallowed and broke the spell. There was a clatter of cutlery elsewhere in the room. Conversation started again. Fried lifted a fork with something pink on it and put it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed.

  He took up his glass of wine. The glass was no bigger than a shot glass, much smaller than those used by the other patrons. This was a costly indulgence, Fried knew it, but this was real wine made from grapes, no concoction of chemicals brewed in a lab. He put the glass to his lips. He savored the odd bouquet, lacking any afterglow of tetracycline. He put down the glass and took up his knife and fork. Fried looked at his plate to see what was left of the rodent. Not much. He had saved the tail for last. It always made a good end of a meal.

  One of the waiters came over to Fried’s table and stood next to him. The waiter bent toward Fried until their faces almost touched. The waiter was thin with greasy blond hair. He had a large nose with a bump in it. His forehead was scarred with pockmarks.

  Is everything to your satisfaction, man sewer? the waiter asked, smiling with yellow teeth.

  The end of a thin pink tail was dangling from Fried’s mouth. Fried felt awkward and embarrassed. He did not like the waiter’s smile. Fried sensed he was being mocked, but he was not sure. He sucked the tail into his otherwise closed mouth, as if it were a noodle, and swallowed. This action brought a grin of amusement to the generally grim and stoic features of a bored agent who was scanning a console with dozens of monitors, in a dark room in some city, most likely the same one where Fried resided, but possibly a different one on the other side of the world.

  Fine, Fried said. Excellent as usual.

  The waiter asked, Care for dessert?

  Fried shook his head while wiping his mouth with a black cloth napkin.

  Cloth napkins were less expensive than paper napkins in the long run, since they could be washed and reused indefinitely. If you were frugal, like the owners of La Contessa, you used dark napkins, black if possible. Black hid the stains, even the fresh ones. This made it easier to reuse the napkins several times before washing. The owners of La Contessa never washed their napkins, not unless they received complaints from customers, preferably in writing.

  No, thanks, Fried said to the waiter, once his mouth was unencumbered. Just bring me the check.

  The waiter made a slight bow. He disappeared in the vicinity of the cash register and returned with a hand-held device. Fried read the details. He inserted his bank stick into the device and pressed several buttons.

  When the bill was settled and Fried was out of earshot, the waiter cursed him for being a cheap customer and providing a low tip. As tips went at La Contessa, Fried had given the waiter a diminutive amount, but Fried had thought he had been generous. He had been very generous in terms of the amount of cash he had, even if it were not the typical fifteen percent. Dinner at La Contessa was a luxury he could ill afford but found necessary on occasion. A man had to splurge once in a while. It had been just a small taste of the rich life, a little bit of sin to help him get through the normal days of empty pockets and self-denial.

  Fried stepped out of the restaurant. He stood in the doorway under the current sign for La Contessa – Fine Old World Cuisine, below which flashed a digital display We sell meat. Meat, real meat, was hard to get. It had taken Fried several months of scrimping to save up for a broiled mouse, the cheapest item on the menu.

  It was twilight. Fried glanced back at the lighted window of the restaurant. Despite the curtains, he could see the tables inside. He saw the sumptuous meals being served to better-heeled clients. Fried’s mouth began to salivate. His stomach gurgled. He felt a bit nauseous. Fried thought it better not to think of meat or any other kind of food for a while.

  He looked both ways and started to cross the green painted street. Most streets were painted green, it being a better reflector of sunlight than black asphalt. The color was also supposed to have a calming effect on drivers and pedestrians. There was data that proved this was true, if you trusted the numbers. To Fried and most people, it seemed that crime and accidents were always on the rise.

  Fried walked half a block before his belly rebelled. He found a trashcan and heaved into it, emptying his stomach of a good portion of his expensive dinner. He stared at the partially digested chunks of meat, the chewed sections of mouse tail glistening with bile. He wondered if he had wasted his money. No, he concluded. It was meat, and that was hard to come by. It had been worth it if only for the memory of that rare taste.

  The sound of vehicles made Fried refocus on where he was. He glanced at the brick wall behind the trashcan. The wall was covered with fresh graffiti. One scrawl in large letters attracted his attention. It read Union 4 Ever! in large red letters and underneath it were the words Labor Day. Fried shook his head and kept walking. He knew the authorities would be searching for the hooligan who had written those words. The government had no patience with treason.

  The city was everywhere, spilling across the horizon. There were thousands of high rises, many reaching to the clouds. Bridges linked some of the buildings at various altitudes. Some of these bridges were clear tubes; people in them looked like the inhabitants of an ant farm when viewed from the streets below. Other bridges were rectangular and box-like. Some were transparent, others opaque. There were bridges with designs, sculptures and murals that marked the location of trendier addresses. In the poorer sections of town, bridges, if they existed, were simple affairs, often improvised by landlords or tenants. Many were jury-rigged suspension bridges made from steel cables and metal planks. At every layer of the city, there was life and commerce. Markets, restaurants, repair shops, clothing stores, offices, churches and temples were interspersed with apartments and server hotels.

  Fried did not live in a high rise. He lived on the second story of a two-story building. This did not mean he was rich. He was not wealthy. It did not mean he was impoverished. There were many worse off than Fried. It just meant that his home was in an older section of town that had not yet been completely bulldozed and replaced by towers. The area around La Contessa was also old. The soot-covered buildings of brick and steel spoke of a much earlier time, a faded industrial age glossed over in schoolbooks, a time of many nations in competition, each with its own rules and regulations regarding manufacture, trade, the environment, working conditions and salaries. That was before the era of global standardization. Laws and economic and political systems had been blended and smoothed over to near oneness under the watchful eyes and thoughtful guidance of the World Oversight Committee. Individual nation states still existed in theory, but their borders blurred and their individual histories, languages and cultural idiosyncrasies were gradually coalescing. The idea of nation was still important, especially when it came to regional politics. It was an idea that could be, and was, manipulated to achieve desired ends. That is, ends desirable to those in power, but not necessarily desirable to the rest of the population.

  La Contessa and its environs had been built in an age of nations that were haves and have nots. Now, at least in theory, all nations were equal. There were still haves, but the overwhelming majority of the population had been merged with steady downward pressure into the have nots. Even among the have nots, there were those who had even less. There was nothing and next to nothing, with the latter being more desirable than the former.

  The wealthy, the ruling classes, always had more in any system. More land, more spending money, more luxuries, more power, more clout, more legal thugs and rented muscle to enforce their decisions and protect their interests. The wealthy, the top one or two percent, especially the top half percent, were doing as well or better than they ever had. There were plenty of smiles among the plutocrats. It was the rest of society that had reason to grumble. Not that grumbling alone ever did any good.

  It was a long walk to the subway entrance. The system had not been updated in living memory. The expense associated with construction of new tunnels and laying of track was considered prohibitive. Besides, the two-percenters did not take the subway. They drove or were chauffeured.

  The city did not look down. It looked up to the sky and beyond. As Fried walked, the sun set behind distant skyscrapers, but, even with the