Unless I was going there I wouldn't have really noticed it. Sure, I would have seen it, but I would have swore it was abandoned. Four long white buildings, each with a door, one with a mailbox, the office. A locked door. The blinds were closed and flies were pleading against the glass to get out. It was hot, Sacramento Valley hot, I could feel it reflecting off the building. I tried another building. A herd of air ran over me, light blistered the horrible speckled floor. The chickens were in cages, long rows of cages, white squinting chickens. More air, this time from behind me as the room began gasping. I was stuck in its throat. "Shut the door!" said a voice, not from a chicken. I simply let go and it slammed behind me. Darkness again, airless again. Some chickens begged, some chickens whimpered, some were resigned, some were just feathers. A man walked the aisle toward me. Grubby, pot bellied, speckled, bothered. "You're here for the job?"
"I am, I..." He looked through me, then at me. Me, in my Levi's and sneakers. Fifteen and soft, not a farm kid, undeserving.
"Over there's a shovel and a wheelbarrow. Get it and find me." He didn't have paperwork or want to know my name. The Town Employment Center said for me to have him sign a form. I returned to where we were and with my eyes now adjusted found him at the end of an aisle. "Clean out under the cages, put it outside at the pile. Keep the door closed."
Under the battery was a pile of brown and white droppings I had stopped looking at the chickens. If the cages were four feet off the ground then the manure stood three. It fanned into the aisles. Four buildings, four rows of cages each.
I parked the wheelbarrow at the end of a row. The man had left, and my sweat searched for breezes. I would start here, finish one row at a time. I stuck the spade into the pile and broke the crust. It was liquid inside. A terrible ooze ran over the shovel, the pile deflated as it ran into the aisle. I put the shovel against the wheelbarrow. I backed out of the room. I got on the bike. He never saw me again.