The Lifers
Edgar Million
The Lifers
Copyright 2014 Edgar Million
The Lifers – A Ghost Story
There are different rules for night-time tribes.
Night work pays well but messes with my body clock no end, so even on days when not on shift I find myself up and alert at all hours, staring into walls, drinking disgusting cups of frothy Ovaltine. Mum offers me one of her sleeping pills sometimes, but I don’t like the deathly sleep which accompanies them. Like being sealed in concrete.
I settle for restlessness.
Each summer and winter when I’ve come home from school I have taken on some sort of night shift, as it allows me to write in peace in my spare moments, and this was maybe the fourth or fifth time I’ve signed up.
This Summer will be the last time.
After what she told me, I don’t know if I feel safe anymore.
The shifting hours always shuffle my sense of reality, but the camaraderie of my previous postings usually made up for it. The nights were fun, peppered with enjoyable incident. Like the time it started to snow outside the window and Jake, the night shift manager, a human Labrador of a man, had the idea to open a window, grab handfuls of snow which were heaped on the window sill, and to start throwing snowballs inside the office, launching an all-out indoor snow fight, trying to hit each other but miss the computers.
Or heading off at 6am to an all-night bar to drink shots until noon, blearily watching the rest of the world outside the window, greyly making their way into their working days.
There was none of that in my new posting.
From the first night at GrewTech the climate was different.
The room where the small call centre sat could have employed a hundred telephone operatives, did so during the day I was told in my interview, although I never saw this, exiled as I was to the darkness.
Our four desks sat in a brightly lit pod at the heart of the darkened office. The uninhabited work spaces surrounding us like a shadow of the daytime world. Traces of those other people surrounded us in the shadows. Half-drunk cups of coffee adorned with the company logo; photos of gurning children whose parents we exiles would never encounter, and sometimes I would fool myself into thinking figures lurked just out of sight, witnessing our toil.
The lights throughout the building were motion sensor controlled and as you entered the blackness of the room it split open around you, in a manner reminiscent of being tracked onstage by a spotlight, the lights behind you quickly dimming as you pass.
If you sit still enough for long enough at your desk you find yourself consumed by complete darkness and need to wave a hand to activate the sensors and re-ignite the oscillating cubes strip lighting dotted across the grey, speckled ceiling above.
From a distance we resemble an island of people in the darkness. A bleak cold white spot. This is how I perceive it now, though I admit my memory may be colored by everything else; by stories heard in the darkness.
But no, from the very first it seemed to go wrong. Something seemed to be wrong in this place.
***
Arriving at 7pm, seven to seven being my allotted hours, six days on and four days off, I used the pass I’d been given at my interview to enter through the side door; the flashy looking, glass and chrome revolving entrance reserved for those in possession of proper levels of vitamin D.
The manager, Tom, a lanky crop headed man who’d interviewed me wearing a grey nylon shirt which was just beginning to strain under the stirrings of a middle aged paunch, had been meant to meet me for the first hour of the first night, just the first night, to show me the ropes, as it were, but as I arrived I felt the tremor of a new text message in my handbag, so with a tale of a sick child, a temperature unchecked by infant Tylenol, I made my way up alone, clutching my entry fob and a makeshift identity pass handed to me by the elderly security guard, Mickey, an ancient, greasy man who lunged in to gawp unashamedly down the my top as he handed me the entry card, the faint odor of menthol fogging him and clogging my nostrils.
Mickey grinned at me, lecherous, a broken smile with teeth like well-spaced gravestones along a crooked church path, then he eased back into a crimson office chair, never once taking his eyes from my chest. I resolved to ensure I wore heavy jumpers and coats when I passed him in future.
Creep.
The interior of the elevator was wood panelled and claustrophobic, with room for no more than three or four normally proportioned people. Even on my own I felt as though I should hold my breath or risk draining the space of oxygen before reaching my destination.
There was another lift, for daytime use, but this was deactivated at night to save money or energy or something, so the ancient coffin space was my only option, juddering and shuddering as it went up or down. Each time entered I wondered if this would be the night when it would finally trap me in the unreachable darkness.
They were already there when I arrived that first night; would always be there as I stepped out onto the carpet tiled office floor. My new colleagues would always be there waiting for me. Always early; always ready to go, seated expectantly, well before the lines switched from the daytime service to ours.
Opening the door on that first night I observed the island of light in the cold blackness, three people seated around a pod of desks built for four. For a moment I had the feeling they waited for the one who would complete them, but they would soon disavow me of this illusion.
The path ahead of my lit as I approached, then disappeared in my wake, as I felt buffeted by a blast of cold, my skin electrified by the chill, and I searched the ceiling in search of the malfunctioning air con unit.
My new co-workers peered at me grimly over the low level dividers around their desks, and I found myself directed to the spare desk with a grunt, the eldest of the company handing me an instruction manual which would be the full extent of any training I was to receive that or any night, and a tatty Bluetooth headset, which I set about cleaning with alcohol scented screen-wipes until it was vaguely tolerable, then inserted it into my ear, momentarily cold and wet as it touched my ear canal.
I pressed the button on the black tower of my old/new PC and my fingers tingled at the slight hum of the machine awakening. While I waited for it to complete its stirrings I tried to familiarize myself with my new surroundings, all the time closely examined by my mute colleagues.
One, a man-boy a little older than myself, maybe twenty three or four, his chubby face too old to still be able to be described as having puppy fat just gaped at me lewdly over the top of his monitor, discreetly ogling, me which I supposed was an improvement on the security guard downstairs, while the female member of their troupe, a small eyed, round faced woman in her fifties, overweight and misshapen, with skin which had been so ravaged by acne in her youth that it now resembled the surface of the moon, leant over and whispered something into the ear of the eldest member of the group, a sallow faced man in a crumpled dark green suit with thinning hair waxed back across his forehead.
He could have been thirty or sixty, but I didn’t like to ask. My guess was the latter. I imagined he’d been there forever, in the same suit, the life being sucked out of him, leaving only this yellow shiny, thin haired stain of a man..
We were the night shift tech support line for an electronics company, and the training was minimal since we were primarily telling people how to turn on their new tablets and phones, either that or telling drunk teenagers who had hit the help button on their gadget to bugger off and stop prank-calling us.
I spoke to people from all over the country and explained to them how to use their new toys, but if I'd expected to be welcomed into the call centre ‘fold’, then soon enough
I'd be disappointed.
The other three, the lifers, as I came to think of them, mutely went about their tasks, muttering to each other and occasionally giving me dirty looks; ignoring my efforts at small talk and blankly gawking at me.
The office space remained icy cold, and when I asked if there were any heaters we could use, Todd, he of the green suit and yellow skin, told me they weren’t allowed.
“Health and safety, darlin’,” he drawled scornfully, then looking pointedly at my chest, “stick a sweater on tomorrow.”
Man-Boy, real name Steve, nodded in agreement and grinned, whilst Moonface, Irene, just scowled, and I self-consciously pulled the sides of my top together, but somehow felt more naked under their gaze.
“Health and safety?” I responded, “might want to take a look at this headset,” I told them “and that lift. It’s a death-trap.”
“Poor little you,” Man-Boy spat, “is there anything good in your life?”
“You mean apart from the warmth I’m in the glow of, from my friendly new co-workers?” then deciding a conciliatory tone might be more appropriate, I tried again, “do you like working the night shift, then?”
More scowls, a lengthy pause, then Moonface responded that at least it kept her from being in bed with some man called Dek, or Deck, or Deek, who I assumed was her husband or boyfriend, a despicable man, I was to learn night by night, at least by Moonface’s standards.
I reckoned this accommodation was mutually agreeable to both parties; I couldn’t imagine waking to the unpainted version of her uneven mug would be anything except terrifying, but I kept this thought to myself.
Man-Boy and Yellow just continued staring at me.
Early on I realized The Lifers were a closed club, a union of fools, so I withdrew from their company, and concentrated on the callers. There would be two or three months of this, max, then I could leave them to their ongoing misery. Good riddance and all that.
Most of our calls were from insomniacs and drunks, or late night pervs trying to take the adult content lock off, but at least they talked to me. Voices in the darkness, beaming all the way across America just to speak to me.
Not like The Lifers, silently judging me. Lonely night owls calling into the darkness.
I even started to get regulars, and they made the night bearable.
A guy called Barry from Michigan who was unashamedly obsessed by pornography featuring Soccer Mom's, but who was friendly and non-threatening, and May, a fifty-something homemaker down in Maine, googling cookery tips and uses for vinegar as a cleaning agent.
“Doesn’t your house just end up smelling of vinegar,” I asked her.
“Indeed it does honey,” she laughed, “and tonight I’m looking for something to get rid of the darned smell.”
She gave me cleaning tips which I told her I’d pass on to Mom, and described a darling Grandson who she only gets to see about once a year thanks to her errant sons on-off relationship with the mother of the bright faced child.
These calls cheered me somewhat, helped me to ignore them.
One girl phoned almost every night, just asking me how I was getting on. The calls are free for them, of course, but she said she was from Newark, which is just down the road and each time she’d goes on about how she just loves these gadgets and technology. She didn’t really want advice, so we’d talk about the on little tweaks and tricks hidden within the devices. Half the time she knew more than me.
“Every time you think this is the best thing you’ve ever seen, they manage to come up with something new. Totally fetch.”
Her voice was there every night, waiting for me.
Cassandra.
Cassie.
Later she’d admit she was calling mostly because she was lonely, but in the beginning she tried to maintain a light, breezy air. It take long before she began to open up.
“I feel I can really talk to you. You really hear me. You should be a shrink or something. You hear me.”
***
In the night, she told me, she felt disconnected, set adrift by those who had tormented and done her wrong. Who had mistreated her. The night didn’t allow her sleep, so she stalked the darkness and stewed about what they had done to her. It was nice to have a friendly voice to speak to though, she told me.
There were lots of Cassie’s out there. From across the continent their voices drifted to me. Some nights I felt more like the Samaritans than tech support, but mostly it was okay, teaching technophobes how to download songs or use YouTube, and hearing the slight cheer in her voice as Cassie connected.
“Hi,” Cassie would begin brightly, “busy night?”
“Not so much,” I told her, “even the insomniacs go off to sleep on slow Tuesday nights.”
“Not me,” she responded, “I never sleep.”
“Never?” I asked, “you have to sleep sometimes, though, maybe you just don’t notice. Must feel horrible. I’m a night owl, but I sleep well enough during the day.”
“I never sleep,” she said again, then added, “not since, not since it happened…”
“Since what happened,” I hesitated to ask this, at risk of obtaining a little too much insight into the life of someone I barely knew, but she simply responded that she didn’t like to talk about. Not yet anyway.
A man I figured. Or a boy? Pretending to be a man. Do they ever truly grow up, these boys? Or is the man face just a mask. Who knows? I figured Cassie would tell me in time or she wouldn’t. I enjoyed her company though, despite the shadow which seemed to hang above her.
Mostly our conversations went on like this, dancing back and forth between sadness and inanity. Sometimes she’d talk about her favourite TV programmes, and how she thought Sheldon from Big Bang Theory was cute, but always our conversations crept back to this thing, the story she withheld, how she’d been wronged, and how someone had done her wrong, although exact details were still not forthcoming.
I told her since she was awake anyway, she should get a job somewhere like this, “not here though,” I added quietly, “there are better places to work than here.”
She told me she'd consider it.
***
If I’d initially hoped things at GrewTech would improve with time then I’ve been disappointed. Nearly a month has now passed and the atmosphere remains mutinous. If anything my isolation from their lonely tribe is even more pronounced.
Each night I approach the island of light where I spend my nights, The Lifers before me, as usual waiting for my approach, black eyes burning into me, the cold of the room creeping into my bones, despite the layers of clothing I now wear each night, and it is with a heavy sense of dread that I reach the pod.
Cold air; my breath visible. Colder than ever it seems and I wonder if they’re doing it on purpose, literally trying to freeze me out.
I haven’t seen my ‘manager’ Tom since my interview.
I have the feeling he avoids this lot in the same way I would, if I could. Maybe he’s as uncomfortable in the chill glare of The Lifers as I am. Certainly, he’s been ignoring my texts asking if someone could take a look at the Air Con.
Sometimes, some days, as the scorching sunshine roasts the other side of my heavy curtains, I dream of their eyes upon me, leering at me with malicious intent, waking with a start from my sleep, as the dusky golden light drains off into night. I like call centre work because normally you take nothing home with you. There is no overhang from your working day. No worries about tasks you’ve failed to complete. You disconnect the call and all is gone.
Even here, though pulling the duvet over my head, the night shift remains with me and as I awake it’s as though I never even left, and I consider just chucking it in, not going back. But I know I won’t, as I hear Mum down the hall in the kitchen, brewing fresh coffee to bring me round for the night ahead, followed by dinner for breakfast. I suppose I will stick with it. I need the cash if nothing else.
It’s a strange existence, night work; in some ways it doesn’t surpri
se me my co-workers are pocked by their alternate reality. There are different rules for us nocturnal beasts. I’m just a tourist to them.
This is their life.
***
I noticed something curious about the island tonight.
It’s not the whole room which is icy cold, it’s just the Island, just the work area where we all gather, and I know it’s stupid, but part of me has begun to wonder if the cold emanates from my colleagues themselves; iciness in their hearts, surrounding us.
Ridiculous. Melodramatic. But that’s the problem with being a creative writing major working the graveyard shift. It exaggerates real life and magnifies an already overactive imagination, but part of me is certain it’s not just invention. Because cold surrounds them, pours out of their malevolent slack jawed faces, and also because I’ve started to notice something I don't quite understand yet, they seem to radiate something else when they look in my direction, something approaching fear. Not just hatred. Not just fear, but terror.
They hate me, because on some level they fear me.
It makes no sense, but I’m sure I’m correct.
Lately I’ve began to take Cassie’s calls away from the desk, the range on the Bluetooth allowing me to sit in the break room and become a little more candid about my life here. I’m grateful to have someone to talk to. A friendly voice in the darkness, but there is a cost to this transaction, and when I return to my desk the looks I receive are even more glowering than usual, and Yellow in particular looks as though I’ve been stealing his White Out inscribed stationery from his desk.
“I don’t know if I can make it through the summer here,” I’d tell Cassie. “Last year I was working in the big CCTV control centre in town and that was really good fun, spying on the city - eyes in the sky watching the nightlife dwindle to nothing more than Saturday night drunks fighting over doorway space with bums. I applied again this summer, but they were fully staffed.”
“Sounds a bit voyeuristic.”
“You make it sound like a bad thing,” I laughed, “but you’re right though, that is part of the appeal. I remember one night watching this guy standing outside a bar downtown, wearing a shiny grey suit, his briefcase on a table, talking animatedly on his phone and strutting back and forth on the sidewalk, and all the while this other fella edged behind him towards his briefcase.”