Rivethead - Ben Hamper [43]
I waited until I got back to my Camaro to look over my TRA check. The greed factor was already consuming me. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I held my breath as I glanced over to the amount line. My eyes immediately popped out. Flashing back at me was a check in Bernard Hamper's name for TWENTY-SEVEN HUNDRED AND 00 DOLLARS. Jesus, was I ever glad I had voted for Mr. Carter.
I sped home to the house I shared with my brother Bob. I proudly unveiled my TRA check. Bob looked at it and shook his head. “Generous Motors strikes again.” He chuckled. “What are you gonna do with all that money? Or need I ask.”
“Ask not! As your eldest brother, it is my considered opinion that we call up the crew and convene the next several evenings in one overindulgent cesspool of liquor, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll trash. It's the very least we can do to show appreciation to that peanut-shuckin’ commander in chief and the fierce Japanese who, in emergency tandem, saw fit to impregnate my coffer twenty-sevenfold.”
What other route was there for a young, unemployed party buffoon who didn't give a rip about his bank balance but to squander such a silly gift of generosity on crud that would help dissolve his nightly ennui? It was like free money. Like hittin’ up the Lotto. When all was burned and buried, I had managed to hold back just enough to pay off the loan on my car.
The most silly irony in being laid off during this period was that I was now actually making more money by not going to work. When you sat down and averaged in the TRA windfall, I was coming out about twenty bucks per week to the better. It really dampened your enthusiasm for any rapid return to the ranks of the employed. Hell, being rehired would effectively mean taking a cut in pay.
During my layoff I paid a visit to my aunt's house for her annual family reunion cookout. My grandfather was there, holding court, drinkin’ beer with my uncles, and discussing the world at large. I attempted to stay on the fringe, fully aware that my grandfather was bound to switch the subject over to General Motors once he spotted me. He had put in so many years at GM that, though he'd been retired for more than a decade, the shop remained his favorite oratorical topic. He could talk factory until your ears turned blue. I anticipated these conversations with a most definite lack of zeal.
My grandfather saw me and approached. “Y'know, I've been readin’ in the newspaper about all of that TRA money you guys are receivin’.” Uh-oh, prepare to enter the time tunnel. “Pretty good money for not havin’ to work at all.”
“You won't hear me complaining,” I replied.
“I should say not. Christ, you boys today are gettin’ a free ride. In my early years at GM, you were left high and dry when they pulled a cutback. There wasn't no unemployment check or SUB pay and there sure as hell wasn't any of this TRA junk. You scraped up work anywhere you could—tendin’ bar, moppin’ floors, sellin’ apples. You didn't have no pamperin’ union wipin’ your ass at every turn. Shit, no. Back then a foreman could run you right out the door for no reason at all. The next day his brother-in-law would be doin’ your job.”
My grandfather went on and on. I couldn't help but get a little pissed-off. He took it too far, making it sound like I should feel a terrible guilt over all the benefits I was getting. Christ, I couldn't help it if I was born too late to scrounge and suffer. What the hell was I supposed to do? Refuse unemployment insurance? Turn down pay hikes? Demand the removal of my fan? Insist that GM stop paying me such bloated wages and return me to the damn stone age?
It was an uncomfortable stalemate. Two generations of shoprats who