Bruce Finds His Rainbow. Part 3

That day Bruce found out something that all afternoon shift workers know – there is nothing to watch on daytime television. He realised that he would need to fill his day with some productive activities or else go mad.

After breakfast he decided he would tidy up his room. When he got to his wardrobe he found that there were a couple of pairs of jeans that were still good but a size too small. He changed the direction of his life that day when he decided that rather than throwing them out, he would use his time in the daylight to exercise and slim into them. After lunch with his mother he rode into town to the cycle shop where he bought a lighting kit for his bike as well as a night jacket with reflective bars on the back and front. He also got good gloves as he was sure that it would get cold riding home.

At four he put together a bag with his work clothes and cycled into work. That evening he was put on an electric flatbed truck and had to transfer the smaller boxes into the racks. He was shown how the racks had four shelves for each category and that he was to add new boxes on shelves going up until he had filled the top one. By that time there should be room on the lowest to start again. This ensured that the turn-over did not leave any old stock. He was fascinated as it got really dark outside as the warehouse was lit with bright safety lights and he could see all the other workers by the reflective shirts and flashing lights on the vehicles. It was a magical scene for him and he loved the intimate atmosphere it created.

It took him a while to latch on to the numbering system but the racks were sequential and this made it easier. The guys called him for breaks and he met Jack, Tom, Peter, George and Alf, his co-workers. Later in the shift, after they had cleared the incoming goods and stacked it all away, they went to a shelf where there were a half a dozen clipboards, one each. He was told that these were for the next day so that the trucks can be loaded from the first minute of the day shift. Because he was driving the flatbed he was given a clipboard with a list of boxes needed and where they should be put.

The delivery area was made up of a number of sections, each dedicated to a truck run. The first three had two marked out areas and he was told that you had A1 and A2, B1 and B2 and C1 and C2. This allowed them to put out the goods for six trucks to be loaded during the day. The day shift would get their own stocks should there be more than the six. The other areas were D, E, F and G and there was a stock area next to each one where he would put the boxes he picked. Once again he was in among the stacks, this time working from the clipboard and picking all of the small boxes for A1. When he had finished the stock for C2 he started on the smaller loads, able to put enough boxes for D and E on the truck together. When he went to unload them he found that there were opened boxes of the products as well as each bay having a bin to put empty boxes. Jack, with a forklift, was taking these out one by one to empty into a big rubbish container.

Thus he saw, for the first time, what the contents of all these boxes were. He saw cartons of hair shampoos and conditioners, nail polish and remover, lipsticks, foundations, eye liner, mascara, moisturisers and other things he had no idea about. Inside the boxes he had moved around for weeks now was a whole rainbow of coloured cartons. He also saw that the girls in these bays had already laid out the next day deliveries. He finished his clipboard a half an hour early so Tom told him to get a forklift and help Peter, who was a bit behind. Peter gave Bree the last page of his clipboard list to look for and, between them, they finished everything up. Over the course of the week he fitted in with this crew who were happy to work almost silently but was chatty enough when they had spare time. He also was given the task of wheeling the needed racks into place when they finished the heavy work early. With the small bays he saw that the contents of the racks were put into long cardboard boxes for delivery so they fitted into the smaller vans easily.

He was still waking up at nine in the morning so had time for breakfast with his mother before getting his riding gear and cycling, first just into the town, and then by longer ways. On Tuesday morning of the third week he was sitting in a small café in the town centre when a lady, who was buying a take-away coffee, came up to him and said “Excuse me, but I see that is a SupplyMode cap you are wearing, do you work there?” He told her he did and she sat down at his table and carried on “I hope you don’t think I am being forward but I am in a bit of a pickle. You see, I own that shop across the road and I am supplied by your employer. They deliver to me on Tuesday and Thursday but I find it terribly difficult to unpack the latest shipment as well as looking after customers. Would you be a doll and help me out, I will pay you in kind.”

He told her that he was currently working the afternoon shift but would be happy to help her while he could. She told him that she was the Joy of Joys’ Fashion Boutique and said that she thought that Bree was a lovely name, having read it off his cap. He had finished his drink so she picked up her coffee and they went over the road. She took him through to the rear of the shop where the stock was unloaded and asked him if he could firstly unload the smaller boxes of cosmetics and put them out on shelves in the shop where he would see others.

This appealed to his dislike of chaos and he set to with vigour. For the rest of the morning he reduced the stock out back and filled the shelves up front, making sure that everything was tidy and in proper lines on the shelves. They then stopped for lunch, Joy going over to the café and bringing back drinks and sandwiches. He was then told to take the contents of the long boxes out, strip off the brown paper and hang the clothes on racks in the storeroom first. This became the watershed moment of his day when he picked the first item out, stripped off the brown paper to reveal a beautiful emerald green dress. As he took it over to the rack he felt the material and wondered at the softness of it. More dresses and skirts followed from that box, which he then put out in the bin with the smaller boxes. The last box held blouses and tops and all were bright colours and patterns. Everything was like nothing he had ever seen his mother wear. He rolled the racks into the shop area so that Joy could set them out as she wanted.

He said he had to get home to get ready for work and she showed him a notebook she had started with the name ‘Bree’ on the front. She said that he would get three pounds an hour as credit towards purchases in future and asked him to be there on Thursday. He went and got his bike and rode home, thinking “Why would I be buying anything from her, I’m not a girl.”

That day, when he got to work, Mr Jackson came out of his office and asked him if he would be happy to continue with this shift as the whole crew were happy with the way he pitched in and made things easier for everyone. He readily agreed as he was finding that having all day to do things appealed to him and when he got home after a full days work, he slept like a baby. That night he had a dream where an emerald green dress floated in front of him, calling out “Bree, Bree, I’m yours.” On that Thursday he told Joy that he would be able to help out for the foreseeable future and she gave him a hug and said she was happy about that.

A couple of weeks later he called in to start work with Joy at ten and was told that the delivery had not arrived yet. He made a cup of tea and tidied around the storeroom when there was a toot from outside. He put up the roller door and one of the firms vans was outside with a couple of girls wearing pink SupplyMode coveralls standing by it. Joy told them that she had customers out front and that Bree would help them unload. He helped the girls unload the van and checked the delivery docket against the shipment. Before they left one of the girls asked if he was the Bree that was working in the warehouse in the evenings and, when he said he was, they said that the girls in the loading section were very happy with the neat way he laid out their boxes, unlike some who would just drop them willy-nilly.

The following Monday when he got to the point of picking up the clipboard to get the supplies to the bays he found a note clipped to his sheet. It told him that the girls from sections D to G had put together a carton of damaged goods together for him and said it would be in the Bay G area. When he went home that night there was a box balancing on his crossbar and he had left the note on the Bay G bench with ‘Thank you, Bree’ written on it. He left the box in the kitchen when he went to bed.

When he got up for breakfast he found that his mother had opened the box and had placed all of the contents on the table. There was shampoo and conditioner with torn labels, dented cans of hair spray, nail polish with chips on the caps and other similar items. His mother had a note in her hand which she showed him. It read “Thank you, Bree, for the work you do. From the girls of D2G.” He had to explain that these were all damaged in transit and written off by insurance so the girls that did the van loading were allowed to take things home. He said that she could use what she could and she immediately told him to take the good shampoo and conditioner to his room and to take his old stuff to his fathers’ space in the bathroom. She put all the items she couldn’t use back into the carton and said he should hang on to it in his room or else his father might get the wrong idea.

This comment highlighted something that was slowly happening while he worked the late shift. He now only saw his father on weekends and was spending a lot more quality time with his mother. They were now much more accepting of each other and chatted like old friends now. His time with Joy was bringing him closer to knowing what girls thought and liked to wear and he had started to buy himself more colourful shirts. Of course, the first time his mother had seen him in his original red one she nearly fainted but was coming around to seeing her grey boy growing into a brighter man. She was also seeing him lose weight with all of his work and cycling and he had already been able to get into those smaller jeans. This created its own problem of what to do with the stuff that was now too big!

Marianne G 2021