Heather

There's really nothing left. A truck pulled up last night and we watched a couple of guys in jeans and Iron Maiden t-shirts carrying the fancy office chairs from the executive suite out of the front office and load them up. They even took the plastic plants that sat by the reception. The metal filing cabinets were wheeled out the night before. The warehouse is empty, and now the front office is disappearing, too. We're sitting and watching our cubicles and the blue plastic chairs from the lunchroom make their way from the front door to plain white cube vans. The guys in the Iron Maiden t-shirts don't even look at us.
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There aren't many of us left. Some of us stay because of the strike pay. It's not much. Only about a hundred and fifty dollars a week. Have you ever tried to buy groceries for two kids on that much? But it's better than nothing. That's what we say to each other. We sit out here on plastic lawn chairs and drink coffee and talk. And wait. Some of us have left. Jenny from payroll got a cleaning job at the hospital three weeks ago and quit. "It's not that I want to," she said. "But I have to make my mortgage." She brought donuts and she carefully put the bags down on the ground, trying to explain. "I'm really sorry." She pauses. "Good luck." Then she waved and got back into her car and left. She was the first to go, and when she went, others followed her. A couple of the college kids said they were moving back home. Some of us just gave up. Some of us got sick of shuffling around in circles all day while cars honked or threw empty soda cans at us as they drove by.
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I don't even really know why I'm still here.
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This morning, like every morning, Jorge brings coffee. We don't make runs to Starbucks anymore. Well, we do. But only when we really need to use the bathroom, and we buy something small so that we can say we're customers. I'm partial to those honey salted almonds that come in a little foil sleeve. But the rest of the time, we drink the coffee that Jorge brews in the morning. He pours it into an ancient red and white thermos and brings it with him, swinging it from the handle as he shouts good morning and says it's a bright new day. Every day. The thermos says Marlboro on one side, and I wonder if it's even safe to drink the coffee from it. You'd think the plastic would have broken down by now. Or something. But it's still hot, even after a couple of hours sitting outside on a little plastic table that belongs to my wife's patio set.
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"I think that's the last of it," he says. He's watching the Iron Maiden guy hauling out the table from the lunchroom.
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"Yeah," I say.
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"I bet they're going to close it down." He means the company. That's we've heard: that they might end up declaring bankruptcy. What that means is that they'll probably close down and open up as something new in a few months. Or just take the whole shebang overseas. That's how it happens.
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"Hey," I say.
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"What?"
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"They're even taking the garbage cans." And we look, and they are. One of the Iron Maiden guys has them stacked, one stuck into another, and then another, and so on. Another guy comes out with the little blue bins we keep under the desks for paper and cans. I don't know why, but it makes me want to cry. It has such a feeling of finality, as I sit in my lawn chair, shivering. I thought that maybe office chairs and filing cabinets made sense. That's valuable stuff. But the garbage cans and the recycling bins aren't worth anything. Not really. You can get them for a couple bucks at Wal-Mart. You wouldn't pay money to pack them up unless you really meant it.
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"So that's really it," Jorge says. I expect him to crack a joke or say something about how it's going to be okay. He's the cheerful one. He's always been that way. He's the guy who can tell jokes in staff meetings that make the managers laugh. We expect him to keep us laughing. But he's just watching, with a sad look on his face, and I'm suddenly more scared than I've been this whole time. I'm never going to find another job. Not one like this. Nobody hires forty-eight year olds. Not these days.
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"Yeah," I say.
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We watch. We don't say anything more. After a little while, Jorge goes to the thermos on the little plastic table and fills up his travel mug. He still doesn't say anything, but his hands are shaking.
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So are mine.