Rivethead - Ben Hamper [69]
“Is something wrong, Henry?”
“I've only been searchin’ for your ass for three days now. Hamper, you don't belong over here. You were assigned to the body drop area. I suppose you think you're so clever you can just pick your own setup, am I right? Sorry, your ass is mine, Rivethead.”
Terrific. Of all the idiots in the plant, Jackson would have to turn out to be one of the slim minority who was acquainted with my Rivethead persona. This didn't bode well at all. Just the way he had pronounced that title told me that I had catapulted right to the top of the Henry Jackson endangered feces list.
There was absolutely no use in tryin’ to explain anything to Jackson, so I hollered down the line to my foreman to come and straighten this mess out. As soon as he arrived, Jackson shoved his finger at me and barked “This man does not belong here!”
“I'm afraid he stays put, Henry. The General Foreman sent him over personally.”
Jackson helped himself to one of my cigarettes lying on my workbench and glared at me as if I was some kind of repulsive tumor. “Watch your step, Rivethead,” Jackson snapped as he took off for the aisle and his next appointment with meddlesome tyranny.
I asked my foreman what Jackson was doing here in the first place. Like me and so many others around me, Jackson was a second-shift fixture. What were we all doing here lumped together on days? My foreman looked at me curiously. He explained that everyone was temporarily workin’ the day shift until they got this military vehicle off the ground. I felt very stupid. I was so out of it, I hadn't even paid attention to the fact that the factory seemed to be bulging at its seams and that I hadn't been able to find a parking spot within three blocks of the plant. Something about 6:00 A.M. brought out the dunce in me.
I had another question. “After this is all running smoothly, will I be able to retain this job on the second shift?”
“The job's all yours,” the boss replied. “A Mr. Donlan will be your night supervisor.”
Damn, things were falling together perfectly. I had a pussy job, an upcoming reunion with Gino Donlan and my beloved second shift, and, until then, a loafer's life sittin’ around doin’ absolute zilch while the brass sorted through the confusion of the new military vehicles.
Feeling relieved, I decided to stroll down and visit Dave on the rail-pull. I found him sleeping in one of the empty stock bins, a newspaper covering his face. I gave the bin a hard kick and Dave scrambled to his feet. “Let's hit the cafeteria,” I said. “You could use a coffee.”
“I could use a change of scenery more than anything else,” he grumbled.
We went downstairs to the workers’ cafeteria. The place was an absolute zoo. Radios blared, voices shouted, fists banged on Formica. Tablesful of old geezers were tossin’ spades and suckin’ on sausage links. The young guys were lined up by the phones waitin’ to rouse their women out of bed with giddy tittle-tattle about how they were all bein’ paid to lounge on their butts. There was nothin’ like a prolonged line stoppage to goose up the morale of the natives.
Dave and I found a couple seats in the back. Dave was eager to tell me about his brief fling as a desperado. Three days sprung from the jaws of the rivet tips.
“Christ, I was a renegade,” Dave mourned. “Just after you fellated that General Foreman into sending you back to the Rivet Line, he sent me upstairs to the paint department. It was great. Just me and these old coots—no noise, no filth, no bustin’ ass. I was rivet-free. The foreman even said he might have room for me.”
“Let me guess,” I injected. “Then Idi Amin showed up to piss on your parade.”
“Yeah, that bastard came pokin’ around and ruined everything. Right when I thought I'd escaped the Rivet Line once and for all, I spot Jackson waddlin’ around the corner like a bloodhound from hell. He must spend a third of his time just seein’ to it that