Rivethead - Ben Hamper [109]
“Shit, your own national magazine,” I remarked. “Sounds like a solid career move.”
“Yeah, I suppose,” he said.
“Then why the long face?”
“It would mean leaving Flint. San Francisco is a long, long way.”
Flint for Frisco? Most locals would've somersaulted naked through a barn fire for that type of option. Not Moore. He had this goofy love affair with Flint. I, for one, could empathize with him completely. For as sure as he was being beckoned to the West Coast, I was beginning to hear the first faint boot stomps of those rat-snatchers from Pontiac. They were startin’ to reel in those rotten transfer signatures. It was looking more and more like Mike and I were on our way out of the city limits—one half torn, the other fully shredded.
A couple days later, Moore called to tell me he had decided to accept the editor's position at Mother Jones. I was hardly amazed. It was the right decision. Now it was my turn to feel subdued and morose. Without Mike Moore, the pliers were applied to the damn uvula and the next sound heard would be the Michigan Voice becoming the Michigan Mute. I wondered what would become of my festering literary hobby. By no master plan of my own, I had become extremely reliant on the Rivethead journals as an outlet for a good deal of my frustrations and malcontent.
Just before he was to leave town, Mike phoned me. He had a proposal he wanted to discuss. “If it meets with your approval, I would like for you to get started on your first article for Mother Jones. I'm hoping to use it for the cover story of my first issue.”
“I'm gonna be writin’ for Mother Jones’!” I sputtered. “Wait, you mean I'M GONNA BE WRITIN’ FOR MONEY?”
“Eight hundred fifty dollars a column,” Mike replied. “The cover story will probably net you sixteen hundred.”
Jesus, lug that headstone back beyond the boxcars, Quasimodo. The Rivethead once again walks among us! Go home and have that typer greased. Put the Budweisers within arm's reach. Fall to your knees! We have witnessed the resurrection of the gimmick that wouldn't die. Fetch those tattered teats, those chapped udders, those benign and bottomless milk sacs. Farmer Rivethead is taking his cow to market. Do not question the outlandish logic behind such a command. Far dumber shits have hit gold, I swear it.
Further oddness was to follow. On his last night in town, Moore came to see me on the Rivet Line. His flight to San Francisco was to leave the next morning and this is how he had chosen to spend his final hours in Flint. I was puzzled. Certainly, there had to be more attractive options—dinner with old friends, one more TV interview, a family farewell, gettin’ drunk, gettin’ laid, gettin’ some sleep, ANYTHING.
After my initial sense of confusion, I think I understood. For a guy who was born and raised in this Greaseball Mecca, there could be no more fitting place to go to round up an apropos swan song for one's formative years than the oily altars of General Motors. Although Moore had never worked in the factory it didn't necessarily exclude him from being a semishoprat. The same went for everybody else in this town. There were chunks of these people orbiting from one end of the building to the other. The laughs and tears of their ancestors’ struggle were entombed here. The good times and the bad times and all the messy in betweens.
For Mike's visit to the truck plant, I made sure to advise him on the appropriate wardrobe. “Wear those faded jeans you always have on, put on your Tiger cap and, please, leave those ugly bifocals at home.”
For extra precaution I insisted on the following: “If anyone happens to stop you, tell ‘em your name is Henderson and that you work in Cab Shop. If they pester you for identification, tell ‘em that your ID badge is upstairs in your lunch bucket. Refrain from using large words. Itch your testicles freely. At all times, act surly and miffed.”
I waited for Mike in a predesignated area of the North Unit parking lot. I was working on a quart of beer and had an extra one waiting for him. He didn't