The Redemption Factory (2 page)

P
AUL
G
OODMAN
FELT
like a condemned man while walking across the sodden grass leading towards the abattoir. A rosary of knots clung to his stomach, tightening at each step he took. Rain and cold nipped wickedly against his skin, stinging it. An involuntary shiver touched his spine and bowels, caused not by the weather, but by the thought that within a matter of minutes, he would be inside the building; inside the huge belly of the beast.

The abattoir was located near Flaxman’s Row, the
so-called industrial area beside an abandoned train station where dilapidated carriages sat glued together with rust and age. The dark, brooding weather matched his mood as he prepared himself for whatever lurked before him …

Outside the abattoir’s gate, he gazed over the building. It was a mammoth, nondescript grey cement structure, a place covered in soot – darkened stones begging to be demolished.

Dove-grey smoke drifted upward from a massive chimney stifling the air and veiling the sky, like a ghost, formless yet controlled, as if the building was a living being, breathing steam.

There
was
something deceptively quiet and intimidating about the place, something eerily unsettling because it carried no direction of either sound or presence, like a delightful calmness, haunting, yet chillingly causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end.

Paul steeled himself, unconvincingly, as he walked, trying to settle his stomach with deep breaths, before making his way cautiously to the enormous main gate with its mural of strange, biblical-looking characters.

Each character seemed possessed with exaggerated muscular form of impossibly precise features mixing with harmony and attributes.

“Very nice,” whispered Paul mockingly. An inscription beneath the mural read
House Of Redemption
. “Creepy. What a place …”

Seconds later, he entered a makeshift office housed by a flea-market table and two battered chairs. The walls, once an enthusiastic blue, were now tired and defeated with only a few drab flakes of paint still visible. Thick films of dust settled on
shelves of unread books, most of which appeared to be about butchering.

The place reeked of confinement mingling with a suffocating odour of dead carpet, neglected body odour and the urine stench of flowers left in water too long – a smell normally associated with churches. It made him wonder how any human being could voluntary cope with such stench. More importantly, how the hell would he manage, if he got the job? He didn’t
want
the job; he
needed
it.

An unruly pool of shadows lounged in the room as light splintered in from a cracked window resting on the face of an unhealthy looking young woman – who was about the same age as Paul – occupying one of the chairs, varnishing her fingernails. So skinny, she resembled a stick insect. Her head was enlarged, disproportionately, and drooped burdensomely on her skinny frame, like an over-sized daffodil. Tiny bald spots speckled through her thin, greasy hair and Paul noticed a scant line of discoloration where hair had recently been removed.

Her skin was stony-white and moist with perspiration, like the sheen of patent leather. There was something terribly weird about the texture of the skin, though not by the multitude of tiny pinhole-dots mapping her face – presumably destroyed by acne – but by the reflective gleam of light sporadically released from it, reflecting like miniature rhinestones nesting there. For a brief, terrible second, it made Paul think of his mother’s skin, how it always glistened in the morning sunlight as the alcohol rose to the surface, seeping through her pores …

“What d’ya want?” asked the young woman who, not bothering to glance in Paul’s direction, continued on her
fingernails, seemingly fascinated by them. A faint odour, like a residue of hospital, of medicines and disinfectant and illness, oozed from an opening in her shirt. Each time she moved, the odour became sharper. It was an odd smell, and made him uncomfortable, gripping him with the feelings of his first day at school, the loneliness which had engulfed him in that imposing place, the shame and humiliation upon realizing he had wet his pants in his anxiety. A simple shame; but a shame that would remain forever.

Paul found the young woman loathsome, but cleared his throat, as if dislodging phlegm would ease the tension with one good cough. “I’ve come for a job. I was told there was one up for grabs.”

“Yea? Who told you that?” She had yet to look at Paul.

“Stevie Foster. Told me on Thursday that there was a –”

“That weasel never told the truth in his life,” she interrupted, still not looking in his direction. Her shrill voice was coiled with resentment and smothered anger. “Told me he had a two-pound dick.”

Paul didn’t know if he should laugh or continue with the conversation. His nerves got the better of him. “No one has a dick that heavy. It would be massive.” He began to laugh nervously.

“Weight? Who said anything about
weight?
Oh, he
has
a two-pound dick. His problem is that it’s the
size
of a
two-pound
coin,” she replied, not missing a beat. “Stevie’s problem is that he can’t keep a secret or lie convincingly.”

Paul grinned.

“What’s your name?” she asked, boringly, blowing on the dampness of her fingernails.

“Paul Goodman.”

For the first time, the young woman looked up. Her eyes – focused and intent – were the greenest he had ever seen – as green as the skin of an iguana. They looked hungry, ready to eat. But something beyond hunger hid in there. Something cunning and malevolent. “Are you?” she asked, smiling a smile that was neither pleasant nor natural, but smug and slightly sinful.

Immediately, Paul thought of a snake, its bad skin flaking on the table. He wondered how such a massive head simply did not break away from the neck. She looked the type of woman who asked for trouble out of pure boredom.

“Am I what?” asked Paul.

“A
good
man.” She laughed, but a laugh meant to hurt. “I prefer my men
bad. Very
bad …” Pushing herself away from the table’s lip, the young woman walked towards a door directly behind Paul, knocking once before entering. A moment later, she reappeared. “You can go in …
good
man. Shank will see you. But don’t say a word until he speaks to you. Understand? He doesn’t like to be disturbed while he’s
thinking
.” She smirked, and once again Paul thought of a snake.

Directly outside the door, a burly figure stood, unmoving. He was dressed entirely in black. From ear to ear, a horseshoe of bristles shadowed what little skin his face revealed. His demeanour was that of confident bouncer waiting for some fool to step out of line and there was little doubt in Paul’s mind that this was the legend known as Taps.

He had earned the nickname Taps as a young enforcer for the local gangsters in the neighbourhood. Any time someone couldn’t understand ‘pay up’, Taps was sent to teach them
elocution lessons, usually with a baseball bat, but sometimes with only his bare hands, the size of dogs’ heads. The victim would be beaten to an inch of his life, a bloody pulp of bones and blood. Released from hospital, the victim, if fortunate, would emerge balanced on crutches, tap tap tapping his way home.

Taps never once killed anyone – an envious achievement considering the numerous bodies he transformed. Some said he was lucky never to have killed, but they were wrong. Luck had nothing to do with it. He was a professional, a brilliant surgeon-in-reverse who knew precisely when to stop.

Paul smiled feebly and nodded. Taps ignored him.

Shank’s office was badly lit and it took a moment for Paul’s eyes to focus, moving on the blurred features.

On a table sat a bust of a severed pig’s head, its languid tongue resting between yellow and bloody teeth. A tiny plaque beside the bust read:
It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend: William Blake (1757–1827).

Skeletal statues lined the room. One particular figure was so repulsive Paul could not look at it directly, momentarily averting his eyes from it.

A female skeleton held a tiny skeletal frame of a baby in its hand. It was a shrine to the Virgin and her son, and in a perverse way, the scene evoked love stripped, literarily, to the bone. The bones had been bleached so thoroughly their lines held dark, almost carbon shadows.

Paul found the scene repulsive, almost sacrilege despite his irreligious views.

Repulsive
, yes, but thoroughly
compulsive
as he glanced at it again, allowing his eyes to rest upon it.

The figure of Shank sat behind a desk. He appeared massive. Even while being seated, his bulk dwarfed the room. His head housed not a stitch of hair and immediately Paul thought of the lollipop-sucking cop from an old TV show. Shank’s skin had the pinkish tone of a healing wound. A trellis of wrinkles covered it in thick layers guarding eyes as dark as the undersides of decayed leaves.
He has the look of a total bastard
, thought Paul.

A cigar smouldered in an ashtray, long forgotten by its owner.

Shank appeared engrossed in a jigsaw puzzle on the table. It looked like an unfinished picture of an angel.

Paul found it strange for such a large man to be doing jigsaw puzzles – and puzzles of angels, into the bargain. The puzzle held the same withered appearance as the large painting on the outside of the abattoir and similar in design to the paintings on the wall.

“Blake,” replied Shank, as if reading Paul’s mind. “All the pictures in here and throughout the building are from the brilliant mind of William Blake. The greatness of any painting is measured by its ability to keep surprising us, revealing something new every time we go back to look at it. If you look closely enough, you can see a woman’s face on the chest of the angel, over in the corner. If you look hard enough, you can see all sorts of things …”

Shank’s voice was deep, confident with power.

Not knowing what to say, Paul said nothing while he stared at the angel’s chest, searching for a woman’s face.

He failed to find it.

“You’ve come for a job in my abattoir?” said Shank,
glancing up from his task.

His eyes are impossibly black, like milk-less coffee
, thought Paul.
They have no pupils.

“Yes. I was hoping –”

“Hoping? Ha! I would leave that at the door, Mister Goodman. Only reality exists here, not tidy little words like hope. Think you can handle working in a place like this? Think that just
any
person can work in this place? Think
you
can work in the House of Redemption?” asked Shank, holding a piece of the jigsaw puzzle between finger and thumb, seemingly debating its niche. “Think you can work in a place without hope, and that you’ve got the stomach for it, Mister Goodman?”

Stomach wasn’t part of the equation – a paycheck was. “I don’t have any problems with my stomach,” replied Paul, his words full of false confidence. He hardly recognised his own voice. It sounded like tin, shaky, cowardly.

Shank gently placed the jigsaw piece into place and nodded to himself. “This place is like a jigsaw puzzle, Mister Goodman. One piece out of place and nothing is achieved. We are all soldiers in the same trench, all fighting the same battle.”

There was arrogance in Shank’s voice that seemed strangely justified as he reached for a cloth to wipe his hands. “Well, tell you what, Mister Goodman. I’ll do a deal with you. I’ll show you about the place, and if you don’t vomit or faint …” Shank smiled a tight smile, forced and devious and immediately Paul thought of the girl with bad skin and large head, the girl who resembled a snake. “Okay?”

Paul nodded.

“Let’s go,” commanded Shank, laughing. “Let us prepare for the shadows of the dead.”

Paul moved for the door, but not before Shank told him to wait, he had something for him.

“Here. Put this on. Don’t want your head getting hurt, do we?” Shank handed Paul a yellow hardhat. “All would-be recruits wear
yellow
until they have proven their worth. Green is for the apprentices; red for the qualified butchers. Black, like this one I’m wearing, is for the boss. There only is one black hat in here. Understand, Mister Goodman?”

Paul nodded. He wished he were some place other than here. What he would give to be in the Tin Hut, playing snooker, listening to his best friend, Lucky, talking a load of shit.

“Oh,” continued Shank, stopping at the door. “You just could be blessed to spot one or two gold hats. Those are … warriors.” He smiled a scary smile. “They are people who were born to be butchers of creatures … blood and death is second nature to them. They are dedicated to their craft. So, a little piece of advice: if you do happen to see a gold hat – pretend you didn’t. Avoid their attention without causing unpleasantness. That’s one of the important survival skills in here. They don’t like people staring at them. No, not one bit …” Shank laughed.

A shiver touched Paul despite the freezing temperature already mounting in the room and throughout the building. He wished Shank would stop lecturing. It sounded degrading, full of malice.

Resigned, Paul placed the hardhat on his head, knowing it was two sizes too big, and walked out the door and up the
stairs, directly behind Shank. He knew he looked stupid in the yellow, oversized hardhat, but realised this was all part of the game played by Shank.