100 People in 100 Days:vi. Matthew Libb

Matt Libbs’s left eye was watering. He figured it was due to the fecal matter that he had unthoughtfully poked into his eye. He had been working seventeen straight hours at the factory and the ass sweat had really started loosening up any unwiped feces in his sphincter, which in turn caused the loosened stool to began to run down his crack. The itch was something fierce. Matt could have handled the itch, the sweat, the subtle stench of shit rising from him if it was hour sixteen or even fifteen of his shift. But this kicked in around hour twelve. At first he thought about the shame of some supervisor or higher-up watching him dig his hand in his pants on the factory surveillance system. But soon the irritant became a major annoyance and Matt could no longer put off what he must do.

He took a deep breath and quickly looked around him. No one was in his direct presence so Matt took his left hand and crammed it done the back of his pants, straight between the crack of his cheeks. He rubbed it up and down and then quickly pulled the hand out before anyone could catch a glimpse of what he was doing. He gave his hand a wipe onto his jeans and then rubbed his left eye that had caught a bit of sweat that had dripped from his forehead. Matt then interlocked his fingers and cracked his knuckles preparing to go back to inserting three screws into the slots of a tiny piece of airplane that he built over and over every shift.

He looked at his fingers as he cracked the knuckles. He noticed around the edge of the nails on his left hand was a brown sludge. He hoped it was lubricant from the electric driver that he used; but he was almost positive that it was shit around his fingertips. He closed his eyes, opened them, and picked up his electric tools and started placing the screws into their allotted slots.

Matt spent the rest of his shift in silence like every other shift he ever worked at the factory, except at his lunch break. This night had the added annoyance of an itch that had started in his left eye. Then the eye began to water and a steady stream of tears would gather around the eyes until Matt would wipe, which in turn only caused the eye to feel even more irritated.

After his shift was over at the factory, Matt packed his belongings from the factory floor. He went into the bathroom and went into a stall. He sat down on the toilet, dropping his pants, and began wiping his crack with what seemed like sandpaper rather than toilet paper. When he was done cleaning himself down there, we went and washed his hand. He looked in the mirror and his left eyes was a bright red.

On the way home, Matt figured a story. If his wife asked about the eye, it was a spark. Lots of metal-on-metal action at the factory. He was being stupid. Forgot to put on his safety glasses. Stupid mistake. He wouldn’t make it again.