Slaveboarding

The summer before I started university, I got a job at my grandad’s factory. He ran two companies from it: one was a machining company that made, among other things, parts for Formula 1 cars; the other, where I would be working, was a sheet-metal fabricators. Recently, the site had been burgled a lot, and my grandad was losing money and contracts.

As he took me in for my first day, I looked out at the grey streets, the boarded-up houses, the men outside the pubs and bookies, the tough-looking kids on the estates, and thought how much I'd hate to live in a place like that.

He had one of the workers – a boy with prominent front-teeth – show me the job. It was called ‘slaveboarding,’ which turned out to mean repairing pallets.

‘This is One-Tooth,’ he said. ‘He might look like he's had a lobotomy, but he's a good lad, really. Aren't you? Say "Yes, John."'

'Yes, John,' said One-Tooth.

‘If he bothers you – and he probably will – just clip him round the ear like you would a horse.' He turned and spoke under his breath, so only I could hear him. ‘Thick as pig shit, honestly. Wear earplugs. Whistle. You’re going to be sick of him.’

*

I soon found out what he meant: One-Tooth never stopped talking. Almost as soon as we were alone, he started telling me about his life.

He took out his phone and showed me pictures of his wife and daughter. The kid was a few months old. She’d changed his life, he told me.

Before her, he'd been bad – done things that would haunt him until the day he died. Like once, he’d stolen a car, driven it the wrong way down the A50 and crashed into an old couple, killing them both and also his mate in the passenger seat.

I'm not making excuses like, he said, but I didn't have it easy.

He told me then about how his dad had left when he was twelve; how it had been good-riddance, though, as he was a drunk, didn’t work, and had once molested One-Tooth’s sister on holiday in Great Yarmouth; how he’d fallen in with some older kids in the area; how he’d left school at fifteen with no qualifications; how he’d stolen cars and broken into houses; and how he’d met his lady and his daughter had been born and finally, he’d changed his ways.

One of his role-models, he said, was my grandad. Now there was a man who knew how to make real money. Now there was a man who worked for his family.

On the way back, my grandad asked me how I’d found One-Tooth.

‘He’s all right,’ I said. ‘He seems like he’s from a rough background.’

‘Oh, pondlife. But he’s a damned hard worker. Give him anything to do and he’ll do it. Oh, he’s rough as they come – been in prison, what have you. He’s got a wife and kid at home, and he’s got himself on the straight and narrow for them, I think. I told him when I hired him, I said: I don’t care what you’ve done before, if you’re a hard worker you'll do all right with me. But listen. One fucking slip up and you’re out. We’ve had him three months and - touch wood - he’s been good as gold.’

*

The next day One-Tooth was waiting for me, grinning at his work-bench – and the next, and the next. The factory was robbed again, and my grandad lost five grand. ‘If I catch the vermin,' he said, 'I’ll shoot them.'

One-Tooth was no less talkative than on the first day.

He told me the world was run by a committee of international elites who controlled all governments and media, and who were behind all wars, diseases, and catastophes.

He told me never to trust a woman when she said she was on the pill.

He told me how to rob a house: when to go; where and how to enter; what to look for.

After the first week, I felt like I knew him as well as I'd ever known anyone outside my family.        

*

One Monday a few weeks later, my grandad called a meeting. We stood in the yard and he spoke to us from the top of the stairs that came down from the offices.

‘In case you didn’t know,’ he said, ‘we've had another break-in – a big one. We lost over ten grand’s worth of metal. It looks like someone might be helping them from the inside – telling them when to come, where to look. Now, I’m not accusing anyone, but if you know anything, come and see me and it’ll be confidential.’

I looked at One-Tooth. He was on his phone.

That afternoon, I put down my sander down, walked up to the offices, and knocked on my grandad’s door.

‘Hey up,’ he said. ‘What is it, son?’

‘It’s about the break-ins,’ I said, my heart pounding. ‘Have you thought that maybe One-Tooth might have something to do with them?’

Back in the warehouse, One-Tooth was in a strange mood. He talked less, didn't whistle or smile, and as the silence continued, I sensed a darkness come over him.

I asked what he thought of the robberies.

He said there were a lot of scumbags in the world – people who would always choose stealing over hard honest work. He said the world was full of scumbags, and it sometimes got him so down he couldn’t wash himself or get out of bed, or move. When he felt like that, he said, he’d think of killing himself and his daughter because life was pointless anyway.

Later, he gave me some advice: 'Never start a fight with me,' he said. 'There'd be no contest: I'd maul you.'

We waited out the rest of the day in silence.

*

When I got to work the next morning, he wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the rest room and he wasn’t at his work-table. I was starting to think he’d been sacked when I saw him walk down from the offices, climb into one of the vans on the yard, and drive away.

When he wasn’t back at lunchtime, the men started asking where he was. I told them what had happened; that I’d assumed he must be making a delivery.

‘He never normally does,’ said one of them.

In the afternoon, I was working on a slaveboard and listening to my headphones when my grandad tapped me on the shoulder.

‘Do you know where he went?’ he said.

The day ended and he still wasn’t back, and he wasn’t back the next morning, either.

In the morning, two officers came and asked questions – they wanted to know if Philip had hinted that he might do something like this, or if he’d ever given anyone cause to think he might be suicidal. I told them everything I knew.

A new week began, and there was still no news.

‘Maybe he is dead,’ said my grandad in the car. He paused. ‘I didn't accuse him; all I did was ask a few questions.’

Late on Tuesday morning, I was working at my table when some of the men ran out into the yard. I followed, and there he was, in jogging bottoms and a cap.

We all watched as my grandad came down the steps. One-Tooth met him at the bottom and handed him an envelope. My grandad took it, put his arm round him, and led him up the stairs.

We went back to work.

At lunchtime, I was on my way to buy a paper when I ran into him. He was walking back across the yard.

‘Hey up, kid,’ he said.

‘How's it going?’ I said. 'Aren't you working today?’

‘Nah. Off home, I am.’

I nodded. There was a silence.

‘All right, mate,’ he said, finally. ‘I'll see you around.’ He walked away, and called, ‘Have a good life.’

I watched until he rounded a corner and was out of sight. I found out later that he'd driven up to Blackpool and sat at the end of the pier thinking the old dark thoughts. He'd stayed in a B&B there. The envelope had contained money for the petrol, but my grandad had rejected it and sacked him on the spot.

A couple of weeks later, I finished my last slaveboard, walked up to the offices, and quit.

*

Now fifteen years have passed. I went to university, got a job, married - the usual things. My grandad is dead, but the business remains in the family.

After One-Tooth was sacked, the robberies continued. I don't know if he had anything to with them, and it hardly seems to matter anymore. Sometimes I wonder where he is now. Is he still alive - one of the gaunt, belligerant faces you see outside Wetherspoons in the middle of the day? Or did he make the best of it - use his brains and become a man like my grandad after all?

And what about his daughter? Where is she today?