Rivethead - Ben Hamper [126]
I begin walking down the line when it suddenly hits me: the jobs all look unchanged, but the faces are entirely different. There's the pinup jobs, but no Tommy or Earl. There's the frame rollover job, but no Cam or Hogjaw. There's the rail-pull jobs, but no Big Red or Willie. And where are Al and Dougie and Paul? The place looks the same but, from a human aspect, it has been almost totally gutted.
Eddie and Dick are still around. We shake hands and swap information about our old cronies. I ask them whatever happened to Paul, my double-up sidekick.
“He got laid off soon after you left,” Eddie says. “He works plumbing and heating now.”
“What about Jehan?”
“Got pulled over with a gun and a mess of dope. He's been in jail for months.”
“Well, what about Terry and Matt and Joe?”
“They've been out on the street for nearly a year now,” Dick reports. “Ever since they shut down the Pickup Line, it's been here today, gone tomorrow.”
I look over at my old job. Some new guy's leanin’ there at my bench. My faithful rivet gun dangles at his hip. It infuriates me. It's like seein’ your wife bein’ kissed by a total stranger. As far as I'm concerned, that damn rivet gun is private property.
I go over to the guy and tell him I'll catch the next job. He looks at me perplexed and says “Be my guest.” I grab a front wheel spring casting, four rivets and position old faithful. Click, click, click, click. I still have the touch for whatever that's worth. The rivet gun hums like a contented child. I look over at Eddie and Dick and they're both smiling. It's sad and confusing. I almost feel like I belong here. Almost.
I ask Eddie if he feels like drainin’ a few Budweisers at break time. I have a twelve-pack in my Camaro and nowhere else I have to be.
We park it back by the barbed wire fence and the railroad tracks. The stars mingle with the smokestacks and the sky whispers winter. I tell Eddie all about my inglorious swan song. I tell him about the volleyball wars out at the clinic.
“You can't tell me you'd rather be playin’ volleyball than bustin’ up a shin with some Rivet Hockey.” Eddie chuckles between chugs.
No, I can't. Nor can I tell him that the only ones who are gonna survive thirty years on an assembly line are those who can consistently blot out the gradual and persistent decay of the trick. There really isn't anything gallant or noble about being a factory hack. The whole arrangement equals nothing more than lousy prostitution. Thinking tears you apart. Start peering at the walls too closely or leaning on the clock too heavily and the whoremaster reality of all this idiocy will surely gobble your ass up whole. The demons aren't demons. The demons are you.
“Just about time for that ‘All Aboard,’” I tell Eddie. “I'll drive you up to the gate.”
“You gotta drop by more often, Ben. Next time I'll try and swing a double lunch and we can have a go at some Hennessy.”
“We'll do that,” I lie.
I drive away feeling lucky or something like it.
“Do you ever wonder who built the car you drive? Do you think about the personal toll it extracts from those individuals who spend the best years of their lives in a hot, dirty, dehumanizing factory? Well, you know, they're paid so well for their ‘unskilled’ labor. They should feel lucky they even have a job! In this book, Ben Hamper tells what a lucky guy he is.”
—FROM THE FOREWORD BY MICHAEL MOORE, AUTHOR OF THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER DUDE, WHERE'S MY COUNTRY?
RIVETHEAD
Not since Hunter Thompson has an American writer delivered the kind of open-throated, full-barreled blast of truth and gritty reality that Ben Hamper unleashes in this journey through the belly of the American industrial beast. A former assembly-line riveter at GM's Truck and Bus division who rose to national prominence on the pages of Esquire, Harper's, and Mother Jones, Hamper—a.k.a. The Rivethead—uses a hard-edged, driving prose style