Rivethead - Ben Hamper [24]
“In other words, you're greasin’ the foreman's liver.”
“Something like that.” Bud grinned.
Here I had been told to be on my most saintly behavior. What a lousy joke. My very own supervisor was suckin’ down the brew three nights a week twelve feet behind my back. Once he'd finish, Brown untangled himself from his makeshift hooch cellar, punctuated the occasion with a large belch, gave Bud a nod and walked on down the line to check up on the rest of the department.
It was apparent, in the wake of my own supervisor's misconduct, that Bud's double-up urgings couldn't be as jeopardizing to my career as I had originally believed. If the foreman could squat around chuggin’ beers during line time, most everything else would have to be tolerated. I already had enough on Brown to assure his silence.
“About time we started combining these pussy jobs,” I told Bud.
“Now you're comin’ around.” Bud gleamed.
He showed me how to operate his spot-welder. It wasn't an easy task. First you had to yank the machine down a large pulley and position the two tips of the welder in between the truck bed and the wheel well. Once you had it situated, you dragged it over to the right corner of the wheel well and began firing the trigger. Every inch or two you smacked out a weld—ideally, twenty-four welds per truck. All the while, sparks would be spray in’ all over the place. When a job was completed, you jerked the spot-welder free, stood back and let it bounce back up the pulley.
I gave it a try. I tugged. I groped. I strained in anger. I couldn't get the damn thing to budge more than a half inch every cycle. I ended up putting about fifty-five welds in the wheel well. Someone out there was gonna have a right rear wheel well toasted to the crisp. The sparks were gobbling me. They came pouring down on my head, sizzling what was left of my sparse crop of hair. Finally, I had dragged the welder down so far out of the normal path that I was halfway into Robert's area. He stood there waiting to weld on his splash shield. He didn't look pleased at all. Just before I was convinced he was gonna jab me with the red tip of his mig-welder, Bud bailed me out.
“Relax,” he said. “You're trying to outmuscle the thing. The welder will do all the work if you just hold it lightly and go for the ride. The more you fight the damn thing, the more grief it's gonna give you.”
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,