4.06.2014

Oscar

[from Slime Line: Adventures In Fish Processing]

Oscar was short and pale and prematurely bald. He had extraordinarily bushy eyebrows that partly obscured his eyes. Oscar took videos of himself having intercourse with Eskimo women from the town. The videos showed only his penis penetrating their vaginas. He showed the videos to anyone who would look at them. The native women were fat and most were very hairy.

Oscar was given the job of washing racks with a pressure hose. He was too dimwitted for anything else. For 16 hours a day Oscar squeezed a pressure washer gun and aimed it at the dirty metal racks. Oscar said nothing when he began to lose feeling in his right hand. He started switching between hands for each rack.

After two months both Oscar's hands were useless. He could no longer squeeze the pressure hose. He could no longer hold silverware at the cookhouse.

The cannery nurse sent Oscar to the hospital where he was diagnosed with the worst carpal tunnel they had ever seen. Within the week they operated on him. He was returned to the cannery with six inch scars from the middle of each palm to past his wrists. The hands were bandaged and did not move at all now.

Oscar's useless hands qualified him for workmen's compensation. The cannery gave Oscar $25 a day as a food, housing and medical allowance. The company lawyers wanted to head off any potential lawsuit and were preparing a settlement for him.

But Oscar disappeared before the lawyers contacted him. Aaron heard he was living in a car outside Austin, Texas. Oscar left the doors open because of his useless hands and everything he owned had been stolen. Without an address Oscar stopped receiving his disability stipend. Then his phone was shut off. That was the last anyone heard of Oscar.
 
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