The Pile

In theory, there are the sorters and the carriers. In reality, there is just the pile. Arturo learns this on his second shift. It’s hard work, bundling the legs together and loading them onto the pallets, but he needs the job. Even for strong men, it’s exhausting, especially since they have to also unload the bundles into the freezer at the other end.

“Where are the sorters?” Arturo asks when he sees that nobody has come to sort through yesterday’s pile.

“Ha!” says Hans. “You’re it, kid.”

There aren’t any labels so it’s a matching game.

“Get a move on, kid!” hollers Hans when the matching efforts slow things down. “No one’s going to care in the end.”

Hans is short man with surprising strength though he’s a good head shorter than Arturo. He pats Arturo on the arm. “It will be mechanized at some point, but for now it’s the old fashioned heave-ho!” His laugh is hammy, but not practiced, showing a mouth short on teeth. He’s an ugly man, with reddish-grey hair, a ruddy face. He chews his gums unconsciously while he works. Arturo likes him, anyway.

At lunch, Arturo discovers that Hans has dentures, which he slips in before biting into a ham sandwich. “No dental implants for this old work horse,” he says. “No benefits. The pay is shit. But it might open doors if you keep at it.”

It’s true that the job doesn’t pay much, but Arturo’s mother secured it for him through the connections she made when she worked at Fantasia. She’d been one of its top earning attractions. Now, like most retired princesses, she works in town. She’s a coach and one of the lucky ones. Most of the Cinderellas ended up as cleaners. A select few married well, but there are always more princesses than princes.

“They try to hook you with their happily-ever-afters, but most of us were just in it for the clothes,” his mother’s told him more than once.

Arturo finished trade school last August, but has had no luck finding skilled work. He still lives with his mom. There are too many workers, and not enough work.

“There’s work at Fantasia,” his mom told him at breakfast about a week before his first shift. “Looks like the Belles have had their day. They’ve been around a long time.”

Arturo’s mother was a Cinderella, but there is a need for constant rotation so that the clients still come, and the Cinderella castle was finally bulldozed to make room.

“Do you think they’ll get rid of the Belles too?” asked Arturo.

“Oh no, not yet,” said his mother. “They’re still earning, you know. But their time will come.” She lifted the tea pot and poured out the brown liquid.

“So, what are they building?” he asked.

“Something aquatic.”

“I’m not sure I’d be any good at building aquariums.”

“Sorry, honey, it’s just menial work.”

Arturo chewed his toast thoughtfully while she described the job. If his dad was still around, he’d probably help him find something better, but his dad left before Arturo could form a real memory of him. Even successful women like his mom are pretty limited in their influence.

“So, should I tell them you’ll take it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It sounds kind of… grim.”

“It is not for the feint of heart. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty.”

So Arturo accepted the job and went to work. The worksite is way at the back in an area hidden by the great stone wall surrounding the compound. It’s like a maze, getting back there, like a shipping dock, with container after container stacked and covered in different coloured tarps. It takes Arturo a good week to find his way to the worksite alone. Hans is the only other person he works with. Hans tells him what he knows about the place, which is quite a bit, but not the parts that most interest Arturo.

Although the name of the resort isn't official yet, it’s rumored to be Under the Sea. The concept of Fantasia’s features is always some variation of the same: the clients enjoy fishing, golfing and whatever else during the day, and the pleasantries of the youthful maidens at night. The trick is to transition to a new attraction before the last one gets old.

The mermaids are a step up in complexity. For the Cinderella it was a foot modification, for the Belles just a couple of ribs. This is more ambitious, since the legs need to be amputated completely. The parents are told that they can be reattached if the children later change their minds, but that this is rare. Being a mermaid is something the kids can feel deep inside them, a calling. Still, the families are given $30,000, an annual pass to Fantasia PG, and an assurance that the procedure is entirely reversible. The girls are each given the same promise and a heart-shaped locket with their photograph on one side, and a photograph of the real Arielle on the other. They can go back to being land mammals anytime they choose.

“A stupid lie,” says Hans, “but the parents choose to believe it.” It’s obvious: the girls will grow but their legs will remain eleven. The lie was even more obvious before. “Before they built the freezer container, the legs were hung on meat hooks. Imagine that!” Hans laughs, heaving another pallet onto the belt. “Walking into a meat cooler and finding a bunch of girls’ legs hanging there beside the roasts.”

Hans tells Arturo lots of things, in his slurred toothless voice. The crudeness of their job is not reflected in the rest of the operation. It’s a complex process making the Arielles, requiring the surgical removal of the legs, the selection of a proper fin and the careful adaptation of the seam, that place that marks the boundary between the human and the aquatic. If done well, it’s more blur than line. No one not directly working on their creation is supposed to see them until the first show, but Hans has a few friends who are working closer to the main attraction.

Hans can’t tell Arturo what happens to the girls after the legs are removed, where they are kept, whether they live on land, in the water, or somewhere more amphibious. Until one day, Arturo sees for himself on his walk to the site. The tarp has started to slide off one of the containers. It doesn’t take much, just a quick, furtive tug to reveal no container after all, but an aquarium. The girl is about twelve or thirteen, breast buds visible through the moss coloured bandages. She breathes through her newly formed gills, in a way that looks forced, almost desperate, the way a fish tries to breathe when its hooked and on land. Her hair spreads out around her, a reddish tint to it and of the same soft, unhealthy texture as cotton candy. What fascinates him most is the place where the scales fade, where the glimmering fish flesh meets the rubbery pink skin. For a second, they just look at each other, her face pale and eyes wide, her mouth opening and closing. Then she darts towards the glass, and strikes against it, hard, with the palm of her hand.

He’s not sure if she is trying to scare him off or if she wants him to help her, but the hollow sound startles him. He runs away, worried that someone will see, afraid of what will happen if they do.

They work steady for the rest of the week, carrying legs to the corrugated freezer container which conceals the pile. Arturo says nothing about the girl to Hans.

Friday evening, Hans takes his gloves off. “This is the last of them. At least for a while. They don’t want too many mermaids just yet. Need to see if they pay first, if you know what I mean.”

Arturo goes home, glad that he’s done. But there are no other jobs posted and he knows he’s back to square one. Two weeks and he’s almost desperate when he gets the call.

“There’s a gig for you. Carpentry. Building the cook’s house,” says Hans.

“That’s great!”

“But, listen kid. We need your help with a dirty job first.” Hans tells him the generator failed on the weekend, and since it’s only operating the freezer with the legs, nobody noticed until Monday. This, combined with the fact that it is warmer than usual for April, means that the legs have started to decompose.

“I need you,” says Hans.

When Hans first opens the door, a heavy stench propels Arturo back. He runs to the side of the warehouse, retching into the dirt.

“Here, take this,” says Hans. “Sorry I didn’t give it to you before.” It’s a military grade gas mask. “It’ll help with the smell.”

Masked and suited, Arturo studies the pile. Frozen, the legs were mottled and blue, covered in ice crystals. It didn’t take long for familiarity to blunt Arturo’s initial disgust. In fact, the legs were beautiful in a sinister way, a sight so pitiful it was almost moving. But now that the legs are rotting, his disgust returns.

The legs at the bottom, thawed, have a soupy texture to them where the blood once congealed. The flesh has sagged. Water molecules, he remembers, expand when frozen, which might explain why the legs are wrinkled and white like defrosted chicken. Already, rats have set up nests nearby. They’d been a problem even before, sneaking into the freezer while they were loading. There had been distinctive nibbles in the previously frozen flesh, but now Arturo can hear them in the pile, snacking on the meat. The pile itself is starting to sag, its structural integrity compromised by its melting components, and it makes, as it shifts, a soft, almost imperceptible squishing sound.

“Jesus,” says Arturo. “What are we going to do?”

“What can we do?” says Hans. “We gotta burn the pile.”

“I’m not moving it,” says Arturo. “No way.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll burn it on site.”

All afternoon, they work in the sun. First they dismantle what they need of the warehouse. “Boss doesn’t want the site too exposed,” says Hans. So they take off the roof and one of the walls. The effect is that it looks like a stage, the legs piled high against the three enclosed sides. They douse the stage in Kerosene which they pump out through a firehose. The smell of fuel mingles with the smell of carrion. When Hans throws in the match, it goes slow, like a BBQ. The rats squeal out. When the bonfire is really going, Arturo stands back and takes off his mask. The rancid smell gives way to the cookout. Puffs of black cartoon-like smoke chug up to the heavens, and there’s the grim and festive sound of crackling fat.

Arturo remembers the girl’s face, the mouth blinking open and closed, unclear whether it was trying to screem or speak. There was no air in there, no way to make a sound that would carry, her mouth a dark hole, not even a bubble escaping. The chain around her neck, its heartshaped locket lost in the wispy strands of orange hair.

Hans has taken his cap off, and holds it in front of his chest. He smiles weakly showing a row of false teeth. For a few long seconds, the men look at each other. Then Hans pats Arturo’s arm a few times. “It’s a job. That’s all it is. You do what you’re told. Don’t waste too much time. It’s not good to let the work pile up.”