Belly

The belly is open and it is not supposed to be.

I have two minutes before the issue window. The mesh is rolled. The floor has a scrape of dust that was not there when I locked it. Ten pieces are in a pile that is not a pile I built. Soft bags. Hard cases. Labels facing the wall like someone who has never been told how a label faces. A navy truck is still ticking on the ramp. Loadmaster. The kind of man who thinks a cage is a hallway with a lock he can borrow.

I turn on the cage light. Navy on the metal. Dust on the concrete. Ivey Lift is the week and Ivey Lift does not get to invent my floor.

He is in the aisle with a clipboard that is not a ticket. Tall. Thirty-six if the face is honest, which I am not in a mood to be at 04:58. A shirt that has learned toner and a little jet fuel. He looks at the pile like the pile is a favor he did me.

"I need ten," he says.

"You have ten. You dumped them. That is not an issue. That is a mess I am going to bill."

"They're going in the nine-seat at six. I didn't want to wait on a window."

"The window is the only reason those pounds exist in this building. You wait on it or you pay for using the floor like a ditch." I take a ticket pad off the nail. I write dump-in in the block where a name usually goes. I write 10 pieces, no ticket, 04:58. I write Ivey Lift load / cage use. I do not ask his name yet. Names on a dump-in come after the hour is a number.

He looks at the pad. He looks at the clock over the cage door. 04:59.

"I can have them on the cart before your people show."

"You can have them on the cart when I issue them. You can stand on the ramp until 06:00 if you want to be a gentleman about a theft. If you touch that pile again I add the touch."

He does not touch the pile. He has that much. He puts the clipboard under his arm and he looks at my hands. I am already putting the first bag back into a stack that faces the aisle. Label out. Strap up. The way Pax taught the cage before Pax decided I could run a window without him standing in it.

"Rafi Dew," he says. "Loadmaster. They assigned me in for the lift."

"Noa Flint. I issue. I do not host. If a loadmaster wants a desk they can have the FBO Junie already told them is full." I hang the ticket on the clip that faces the door so Pax will see it when Pax is a person who drinks the bad coffee and not a person who is still in a bed. "The dump-in is billed to the lift. Not to your mouth. I invoice the pound. I invoice the hour the pound sat on a floor I had not opened."

04:59 becomes 05:00. I open the window because the clock opened it. I do not open it because a man is in my aisle. Dell Hake is first, which is how Dell is first. Ramp. Two carts. Straps already scuffed. He looks at the pile that is not my pile and he looks at me and he does not make it a joke.

"Window," I say. "You're on it. Fort Ivey bags left. Don't step on the dump."

Dell takes what he signed for last night. I initial the issue. He initials the take. That is a window. That is not a hallway. I write the pounds on the sheet because pounds are the only story a belly believes. Forty. Sixty-two. A hard case that is ninety-one and does not get to lie about ninety. I do not let a cart leave with a number I did not write.

A fueler wants a box of rags that was supposed to live in the FBO closet. I do not issue rags from cargo. I write FBO on a slip so the cage does not pretend it grew a janitor. The fueler is an adult with a face that has learned 05:00. He does not ask why there is a man in the aisle with a clipboard and no ticket. I do not offer the why.

Rafi Dew stands where I told him to stand, which is not on the issue line. He watches straps. He watches my pen. He has the look of a person who is used to being the person who watches. Loadmaster is a job that thinks watching is work. Cargo is a job that thinks watching is how you miss a count.

Beck Quill comes for a medical case and a pouch of documents that are not the documents on the dump pile. I issue Beck. I do not let Beck step around the pile like the pile is furniture. Beck steps over it and makes a face I ignore. Faces are not tickets. Beck flies the nineteen-seat to Mesa Wells at a time that is a time. The case goes in the belly because I wrote the belly. The pouch goes in the cockpit bag because I wrote the bag. I do not let a captain invent a location.

05:11. 05:18. 05:27. I keep the window. I do not speed it up to make a loadmaster comfortable. Comfort is how dump-ins become policy.

Junie Calvo is not at the desk yet. Junie comes at 05:40 on a Thursday if the phone has not called her first. The desk light is still off. The toner smell from the ops copy is yesterday's. I can live with yesterday's toner. I cannot live with ten pieces that learned the floor.

"If you need those in the nine-seat at six, you get them at 06:00," I say, without looking at him, because looking is a courtesy I bill. "I will issue them to a name on a ticket. Your name if your name is the name. A flight number if a flight is the truth. I will not issue a pile you built in the dark."

"I can write the ticket."

"You can write it at 06:00. You can write it standing on the ramp. You cannot write it on my pad. My pad is the window."

He laughs once, short, the sound a man makes when he has been told no in a building that does not care about his section. I do not take the laugh. I issue a crate of machine parts to a face I know from last week's Fort Ivey and I make the face sign the strap like the strap is the only story we are telling. Eighty-eight pounds. I write eighty-eight. I do not write about.

05:40. Junie's car in the lot. Desk light. She looks through the mesh and she sees the pile and she sees the man and she sees the ticket on the clip. She does not come in. Junie does not come in during a window unless the window is on fire. Ivey Lift is a week of extra freight. It is not a fire. It is pounds.

"Flint," she says, through the mesh. "That his dust?"

"It's a dump-in. I billed it."

"Good." She looks at Rafi. "FBO is full. You can stand on the ramp like the rest of assigned-in until she tells you the window is a window. Don't smile at me. I have a desk."

He does not smile. He has that much too.

Dell comes back for a strap he forgot to put on the first ticket. I add the strap. I do not add a speech about forgetting. Forgetting is a second line. I charge the second line to the same lift. Dell knows. Dell leaves.

05:48. I can hear a second navy in the lot. Assigned-in likes to arrive in pairs when a lift is new and a cage looks like a place you can set a coffee. I look at the clock. I look at the line. I have two more faces and a Mesa Wells pouch that is going to be late if I let the second truck invent a conversation.

I pull at 05:52.

I should have them until 05:59. I pull because I have seen extras start early when a body is new and useful and a week has a name that makes men think a lock is a suggestion. I will not have a pouch in the door when a second clipboard arrives. I will have an invoice.

"Window's pulled," I say, to the last face, a woman on the fuel truck who wanted one more case and is not going to get it from a pulled window. "FBO at 06:10 if Junie is a person who can walk. Not from me."

She takes what she has. She does not argue a pull with a person who writes dump-ins at 04:58. She goes. The ramp takes her.

I roll the mesh to the latch that means closed and not inviting. I leave the dump pile where it is so it can be a pile I photographed. I photograph it. Time in the corner. 05:53. Ten pieces. Dust. His clipboard in the frame because I want the clipboard in the frame. I send the photo to the ticket folder on the desk machine and I send a copy to Pax so Pax does not have to believe my handwriting alone.

Rafi is still in the aisle.

"You're closed," he says.

"The window is pulled. The cage is not a lounge. You can wait on the ramp until 06:00 and I will issue your ten to a ticket you write like an adult. If you write it like a favor I will bill the favor."

"I wasn't trying to do you a favor."

"I know. You were trying to do a six o'clock a favor with my floor. The six o'clock can have a ticket. The floor already has a number."

I hang the pad back on the nail. I wipe the counter because dust from a dump-in travels if you let it be a story. I do not wipe his shirt. I do not look at his mouth long enough to make a mouth a problem. I look at the clock. 05:55. Five minutes of a window I pulled and I will still bill the hour because the hour was opened by a pile and a truck that ticked. I will bill the pounds because the pounds sat. That is the job. I open at 05:00 because that is when the pounds exist. I pull it. I bill the hour.

He goes to the ramp. He does not apologize. Apologies are speeches. He is not a speech man, which is the only useful thing I have learned about a loadmaster since 04:58.

I write the invoice language on a second sheet because a ticket on a clip is a start and a door is how Pax reads a morning. Dump-in. Ten pieces. 04:58. Window interrupted. Hour billed to Ivey Lift / cage use. Pounds billed as sat. Due on the lift, not on a handshake. I sign Flint. I do not sign a feeling.

Junie comes to the mesh with a mug that is not for me. I do not drink it. I look at the mug like a mug.

"He the new one they parked on us for the lift?"

"He's a dump-in with a name. Rafi Dew. I billed the hour. I billed the pounds."

"Pax will laugh," Junie says. "Then Pax will keep the paper. Don't let him sort your stacks. A loadmaster that sorts stacks starts thinking the cage is a section."

"I didn't let him sort. I let him stand."

"Stand is fine. Stand is a ramp. Keep him a ramp until six."

I keep him a ramp until six. I can see him through the mesh, on the bumper of the navy, writing a ticket the way a man writes a ticket when he has been told his clipboard is not a key. The second truck arrived and found a pulled window and went to the FBO to be angry at a full desk. I do not go to the FBO. The FBO is not my window.

At 06:00 I open the latch because 06:00 is a different clock. I issue ten pieces to Rafi Dew, loadmaster, Ivey Lift. I make him count them. I make him face the labels. I make him sign a take that matches a dump he already did, which is the only kind of justice a cage gets before breakfast. I write the pounds. I write the total. I write the nine-seat as the nine-seat and not as a wish.

"You billed me for putting them on the floor," he says, not quite a question.

"I billed the lift for using a window I had not opened. You can be offended on the ramp. You can be useful at six. Those are your choices. Don't dump again. If you dump again I write a second hour and I copy Paige."

He signs. His handwriting is blocky and late, like a person who learned forms in a different county. He looks at my initials. He looks at the clock. He takes the ten like a man who has decided not to argue a strap.

"I'll be in the cage," he says. "They said the FBO can't hold another table."

"You'll be in the cage when I say the cage has a chair that is not my counter. Today you have a bumper. If ops wants you in my aisle they can send a sentence I can file. Until then you are 06:00 and a ticket."

He takes that. He takes the ten to the navy. He does not look back to see if I am watching the looking-back. I am not. Watching a truck leave is a minute I already put on a ticket.

I restack what he did not ruin. I write the rest of the morning on the pad: Dell strap, Beck case, fueler FBO, dump-in hour, ten issued at 06:00 to a name, pounds sat. I paperclip the photo print Junie will make when Junie is a person who remembers the desk machine. I put the invoice sheet on top.

Pax's door is still closed. Pax comes late on a Thursday if the night went long on a hydraulic. I will put the paper on the door. I will not wait to explain the paper. Explaining is how a dump-in becomes a story about a man who was trying to help.

The lot is already hot at breakfast. Dust on the hoods. A cell over the mesa that is not my cell, not from here. Ivey Lift is west if west is Fort Ivey and a nine-seat that wants a belly I already wrote. Ivey Lift can have its pounds. I have a cage and a pulled window and an hour that exists on paper.

I hang the pad. I drink water from the tap that tastes like a pipe. I do not make the pipe a mood. I look at the ten empty places on the rack and I fill them from the back stock so the next window does not inherit a hole a loadmaster invented at 04:58.

He can have 06:00. He cannot have 05:59. I write that on the inside of the ticket folder so I cannot be kind about it later when the lift is louder and a face has learned my name.

Kind is how a dump-in becomes a chair.

I do not set a chair.