Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [429]
She noticed that the tramp, who had lost the strength to stand up, had not lost the respect for the meaning of the things spread before him. He did not pounce upon the food; he fought to keep his movements slow, to unfold his napkin, to pick up his fork in tempo with hers, his hand shaking—as if he still knew that this, no matter what indignity was ever forced upon them, was the manner proper to men.
“What was your line of work—in the old days?” she asked, when the waiter left. “Factories, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, ma.‘am.”
“What trade?”
“Skilled lathe-operator.”
“Where did you work at it last?”
“In Colorado, ma.‘am. For the Hammond Car Company.”
“Oh ... !”
“Ma.‘am?”
“No, nothing. Worked there long?”
“No, ma.‘am. Just two weeks.”
“How come?”
“Well, I’d waited a year for it, hanging around Colorado just to get that job. They had a waiting list too, the Hammond Car Company, only they didn’t go by friendships and they didn’t go by seniority, they went by a man’s record. I had a good record. But it was just two weeks after I got the job that Lawrence Hammond quit. He quit and disappeared. They closed the plant. Afterwards, there was a citizens’ committee that reopened it. I got called back. But five days was all it lasted. They started layoffs just about at once. By seniority. So I had to go. I heard they lasted for about three months, the citizens’ committee. Then they had to close the plant for good.”
“Where did you work before that?”
“Just about in every Eastern state, ma.‘am. But it was never more than a month or two. The plants kept closing.”
“Did that happen on every job you’ve held?”
He glanced at her, as if he understood her question. “No, ma.‘am,” he answered and, for the first time, she caught a faint echo of pride in his voice. “The first job I had, I held it for twenty years. Not the same job, but the same place, I mean—I got to be shop foreman. That was twelve years ago. Then the owner of the plant died, and the heirs who took it over, ran it into the ground. Times were bad then, but it was since then that things started going to pieces everywhere faster and faster. Since then, it seems like anywhere I turned—the place cracked and went. At first, we thought it was only one state or another. A lot of us thought that Colorado would last. But it went, too. Anything you tried, anything you touched—it fell. Anywhere you looked, work was stopping—the factories were stopping—the machines were stopping—” he added slowly, in a whisper, as if seeing some secret terror of his own, “the motors ... were ... stopping.” His voice rose: “Oh God, who is—” and broke off.
“—John Galt?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, and shook his head as if to dispel some vision, “only I don’t like to say that.”
“I don.‘t, either. I wish I knew why people are saying it and who .started it.”
“That’s it, ma.‘am. That’s what I’m afraid of. It might have been me who started it.”
“What?”
“Me or about six thousand others. We might have. I think we did. I hope we’re wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for twenty years. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. There were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to run the factory. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody—almost everybody—voted for it. We didn’t know. We thought it was good. No, that’s not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need. We—what’s the matter, ma.‘am? Why do you look like