Rivethead (8 page)

It took some doing, but within two or three days I was an accomplished spot-welder. I found out how to tilt the machine so that the sparks flew out sideways and not straight down on my head. There was something very hale and manly about husking that mean hunk of hell once you got the hang of it. It gave me a sense of complete reign—King Rat, Ball-Buster Goliath, the hysteric bombardier makin’ flame-broiled waffle mince out of the rib cage of BAD TRUCK POWER. This crunchin’ dinosaur was my bitch. A flame-snortin’, black goose Magnum. In comparison, my air gun was strictly Hasbro. A snifflin’ little insect flittin’ around the buttocks of the bull.

Bud had certainly been right. Doubling-up jobs, whenever and wherever possible, made the utmost sense. This arrangement totally destroyed the monotony of waiting for that next cab to arrive. When it was my turn to handle the two jobs, I'd be so busy with my work that I wouldn't have time to agonize over the crawl of the clock. I patterned myself a brisk routine and the minute hand whirled by.

When it was Bud's turn at the grind, I would hop the line and read paperbacks next to Roy at the workers’ picnic bench. It was like being paid to attend the library. Roy was extremely jealous of my sweet setup. He was locked into the old up and down and the clock was already beatin’ him senseless. He nagged and nagged at Dan-O, his neighbor, to work out a similar setup. Dan-O always turned him down. He was too busy concocting practical jokes to mess with a new routine.

The more shortcuts I learned, the more Bud and I would lengthen our tours of duty. We went from doubling-up for an hour at a time to two hours. The longer the layover between times up at work, the more time we had to sprawl out and investigate methods of passing time. I read two newspapers, a magazine and a good chunk of novel every evening. Bud spent most of his time off horsing around with Dan-O or doing homework for college classes he was taking during the day.

At times, I got bored and restless sittin’ on my ass in the middle of the Jungle. With my job securely covered, I occasionally set out wandering throughout the factory. I was completely overwhelmed by the size of the plant. It was the largest truck-producing facility in the entire world. I could only compare it to some huge, metallic ant farm, doomed and domed-over, a clamorous burg with a tall tin roof.

I walked for miles down the various aisleways and corridors with no idea of where I was headed or where I might end up. One night I might end up in the Tire Bay watchin’ the beer bellies wobble as they hustled tire after tire off the conveyor line. The men down there were in constant motion. They looked very depressed. I could recall that look from the visit to my own father's job. Car, windshield. Truck, radial. Repetition as strangulation. Shit, how'd I get so lucky?

The next night I might end up on the Final Line checkin’ out the finished product as they raced the engines and spanked life into those gleaming, overpriced Suburban and Blazer newborns. Way the hell down at the end of the Final Line you could see the sun setting. I would follow the rays and dip outside the door of this giant womb to lean against the wall and smoke cigarettes. No one knew who I was. I didn't know them either. That was part of the beauty. There were so many of us shoprats that we were all just part of some faceless herd. I could have been an inspector or a rookie or a guard or Roger Smith Jr. No one gave a shit.

As a summer progressed and the weeks slid slowly by, my pal Roy was beginning to unravel in a real rush. His enthusiasm about all the money we were makin’ had dissipated and he was having major difficulty coping with the drudgery of factory labor. Unable to arrange a double-up system with Dan-O, he wallowed in the slow-motion injustice of the time clock. His job, like mine, wasn't difficult, it was just plain monotonous. We hadn't even put in our ninety days yet (the minimum amount of service required for a worker to apply for sick leave) and Roy was already fast on the track to wiggin’ out.

We had been able to conquer the other annoyances. We adjusted to the heat and grew accustomed to the noise. After a while, we even got used to the claustrophobia of the wheel wells. The idea that we were being paid handsome wages to mimic a bunch of overachieving simians suited us just dandy. We had no lofty career goals. In America, or at least in Flint, as long as the numbers on your pay stub justified your daily bread, there was nothing more to accomplish.

The one thing that was impossible to escape was the monotony of our new jobs. Every minute, every hour, every truck and every movement was a plodding replica of the one that had gone before. The monotony gnawed away at Roy. His behavior began to verge on the desperate. The only way he saw to deal with the monotony was to numb himself to it. When the lunch horn sounded, we'd race out to his pickup and Roy would pull these enormous joints from the glove box. “Take one,” he'd offer. Pot made me nervous so I would stick to the beer from his well-stocked cooler or slug a little of the whiskey that was always on hand.

The numbing process seemed to demand more every night. We'd go out to the truck and Roy would burn two joints at a time. He'd snort coke whenever he could find it. “I don't know if I'm gonna make my ninety days,” he'd tell me. It was all part of Roy's master plan. Once he reached his ninety days’ seniority, he would round up a reliable quack, feign some mystery injury (spinal aggravations were the most popular malady) and, with all the paperwork, semiretire to an orbit of singles bars, dope dens and sick pay benefits. The old invisible Ozzie Nelson work ethic festering deep into the wounded psyches of the young.

But Roy never did make his ninety days. To those who were on hand during his last days of service, it came as no real surprise. We all realized that Roy was cracking up.

There was the classic evening Roy took a hit of some powerful acid and ended up barfin’ his guts out all over the floor next to his job. Tune in, turn on and build trucks. At first, I thought Roy was actually gonna make it. There was much merriment radiating from his side of the wheel well. Everything was a hoot or a holler. It was a shame it couldn't last.

I returned from one of my aimless jaunts around the factory and Bud pulled me aside. “What the fuck is wrong with Roy?” he asked.

“Why, is there a problem?”

“Well, for one thing, he's speakin’ total gibberish. His face looks like a ghost and he's sweatin’ like a butcher. I swear the dumbshit's on some crazy drug trip.”

I jumped into the next wheel well and looked over at Roy. The merriment was certainly gone. He looked horrible. The goblins of psychedelic had parked their paranoia machine smack dab in the center of Roy's cranium.

For the next hour, I tried mightily to keep him together. I told him if he could just make it to the lunch horn, we'd get him out of here and settle everything with Brown. We'd concoct some story about how Roy got terribly ill and had to be raced home to bed.

We both tried our damndest—Roy forging on while I counted down the minutes. It was all in vain. Just five minutes to go before the hour, Roy let loose. The puke shot everywhere. Dan-O bravely stepped in to handle Roy's job as he went tearing off for the exit. Jesus, did it reek.

Brown came down to check on the commotion. I told him that Roy had been sick right from the beginning of the shift but, not wanting to abandon his post, tried desperately to make it to the lunch break.

“That's what I call dedication,” Brown declared.

At that, I could have puked myself. “I'll say,” I said.

A few nights later came the infamous incident involving the sacrificial rodent. Roy had managed to capture this tiny mouse that had been sneaking around one of the stock bins. He fashioned an elaborate cardboard house for the creature and set it on his workbench. He fed the mouse. He gave it water. He built windows in the house so his pet could watch him doin’ his job. Any worker who passed through the area was given a personal introduction to the mouse. For all the world, it seemed like a glorious love affair.

I never figured out whether it was due to the dope or the drudgery or some unseen domestic quarrel, but things sure switched around in a hurry after the lunch break. Roy would rush through each job, run back to his workbench, and start screaming at the mouse through the tiny cardboard windows. When asked what the problem was, Roy insisted that the mouse was mocking the way he performed the job. He ranted and raved. He stomped and cursed. He put his arms around the mouse condo and shook it violently.

Finally it was over. Before any of us could react or shout him down, Roy grabbed the mouse by the tail and stalked up the welder's platform. He took a brazing torch, gassed up a long, blue flame and, right there in the middle of Jungleland, incinerated his little buddy at arm's length. Then he went right back to work as if nothing had happened.

Then, the day before he quit, Roy approached me with a box-cutter knife sticking out of his glove and requested that I give him a slice across the back of the hand. He felt sure this ploy would land him a few days off.

Since slicing Roy didn't seem like a solid career move, I refused. Roy went down the line to the other workers where he received a couple charitable offers to cut his throat, but no dice on the hand. He wound up sulking back to his job.

After a half dozen attempts on his own, Roy finally got himself a gash. He waited until the blood had a chance to spread out a bit and then went dashing off to see the boss. The damage was minimal. A hunk of gauze, an elastic bandage and a slow, defeated shuffle back to the wheel wells.

After that night, I never saw Roy again. Personnel sent up a young Puerto Rican guy to help me do the Right Guard commercial and the two of us put in our ninety days without much of a squawk.

The money was right, even if we weren't.

4

D
URING THE SUMMER AND FALL OF
1977,
THE TRUCK PLANT
was hummin’ six days a week, nine hours per shift. All of this overtime added up to one gorgeous stream of income. There was the time-and-a-half money. There was the second-shift premium bonus and there were frequent cost-of-living adjustments. It seemed like every time I turned around, the paymaster was stuffin’ another wad of currency into my waistband.

Any dumb hireling was bound to adopt a sweet craving for this kind of repetitive generosity. I was certainly no exception. I had been poor all my life, then suddenly I couldn't turn my head without bumping into another financial windfall. I'd get up in the afternoon, start rummaging through my drawer for a fresh set of skivvies, and there would be a couple of $100 bills I'd forgotten about. Howdy, Mr. Franklin. By chance, you haven't seen a pair of sweat socks in there minus a hole in the toe?

These were truly prosperous times at our plant and they were enriching us all. Roger Smith was browsing for yachts, my General Foreman was looking at property in the Upper Peninsula, several of my linemates were seen swapping Kessler's for Crown Royal, and I was devoting a miniature fortune to punk records, girlfriends and bar tabs.

It seemed no matter how many we pushed out the door, we just couldn't assemble those fad-happy recreational vehicles fast enough to suit a slobberin’ public who'd gone cold turkey throughout the recession of the embargo years. Here they came: pent-up, petrol-guzzlin’ Americans with their waverin’ hard-ons barging through showrooms on lurkin’ prowl for a chrome-laden beastie to bulldoze down the boulevard. Suburbans and Blazers, the elixir of the hog masses.

We built and we built. Demand was so high that the Corporation would have surely had us working on Sundays if our local union agreement hadn't prohibited it. Besides, six days was plenty. A seven-day workweek would have guaranteed a work force that was subhuman at best—a slaughterhut full of foul-smellin’ mutants who couldn't tell dusk from dawn nor harmony from homicide.

It was during this boom period that I attended my first of the annual “State of the Factory” addresses. The presentation was to keep us informed on just where our plant stood in relation to efficiency, quality rating, cost procedure, worker attendance and overall sales. We were also to be apprised on the condition of our dreaded dogfight with the Japanese and, our main source of competition, the bullies at Ford with their sleek fleets of pickups and sub-snuff Ford Broncos.

We were herded next door to this mammoth hangar called the Research Building. I have no idea what kind of research went on there, but it's a fair bet that the place was at least a partial foil for all the legions of smock-clad highbrows who weaved around the assembly line each evening trying their damndest to look brilliant and concerned about who knows what. I stuck by Bob-A-Lou, who was an old pro at these corporate hoedowns. He told me to settle in for an hour's worth of propaganda, cheerleading and high-tech gibberish that would gladly float right over my head. We made a quick beeline for the free doughnuts and Pepsi. Whatever was on the agenda, it sure beat working.

“There's the Plant Manager now,” Bob-A-Lou mumbled through his forth or fifth jelly doughnut. He was pointing toward the stage which, by this time, was completely overrun with about two dozen clones in drab neckties.

“Which one is the chief?” I asked Bob-A-Lou, hopelessly confused.

“The John Wayne look-alike,” he said.

“Oh, yeah.” I laughed. “All that's missin’ is the pistol and spurs.”

“I can positively assure you of one thing,” Bob-A-Lou said while assaulting a new doughnut. “Sometime during his spiel, he's gonna tell us that he will be regularly touring the plant, pausing to listen to any of our gripes or suggestions. He will pledge to be visible and accessible. Just remember I told you so.”

“Bullshit, I presume.”

“You better know it. In all my years here, I've yet to see his face in the factory. He's probably afraid that he'll scuff one of his cuff links or something.”

The pep rally began. The Plant Manager started by back-patting everybody in the galaxy. Up with us, down with them! He introduced a steady parade of weasels who dutifully took their bows. The Plant Manager was a very happy man. Outside the back of the building, I could envision a Brinks truck carting away his company bonus. We received jelly doughnuts and warm pop. Up with us, down with them!