Rivethead - Ben Hamper [74]
The steering gear man never spoke up. Not for a while, at least. Then, ever so slowly, his resolute facade began to fade. He had found a confidant. It wasn't me. It wasn't anyone. The steering gear man found the bottle.
He chose his spots at first. A few cocktails at lunch, a couple slugs during a line stop. I would lean over to put in my spring casting and the heavy aroma of bad whiskey would hover between us. The booze made the steering gear man sweat more than ever. I'd sneak a peek as he spun in his screws and the poor bastard would be drippin’ like a faucet. He'd be hummin’ to himself and I wanted for all the world to believe he was happy. If anyone deserved a shot at happiness, drunk-induced or otherwise, it was the steering gear man.
The drinking began to escalate quickly. Oftentimes, he would arrive at work already packin’ a snootful. He began to talk. Not with me, not with any of the other workers, not with the guy who delivered his stock—only to himself. There began a running dialogue that sputtered beneath the din, private confabs and secret asides, a drunken litany of some damn shit that I could never untangle.
The mutterings driveled on as the weeks limped off to the grave. And, layer by pickled layer, the steering gear man began to unravel. He no longer seemed the impervious soldier, the tragic hero of my yellow notebook. It became a regular routine for him to show up for work completely trashed. On these occasions, he somehow managed to stagger out the shift operating on nothing more than ingrained reflex.
Before long, he was gettin’ so plastered that we all had to chip in to keep him from falling too far behind. The spring man would tighten down his screws for him while Randy, the leftside muffler hanger man, and I would take turns hittin’ his rivets at the front of the frame. These rivets at the front of the frame were right at groin level. The way the steering gear man kept leanin’ into the frame for balance scared the shit out of Randy and me. We were afraid he was gonna rivet his dick off leanin’ in like that. Vasectomy via rivet gun surely would've been the most painful way of shuttin’ down the old baby wand imaginable.
Not long after this pattern of super stupor developed, the matter was resolved in a very ugly way. It happened on a Saturday. I remember the steering gear man showed up absolutely goosed to the gills. Randy and I helped him get rollin’. We were becoming awfully tired of coverin’ for his sorry ass. We decided it would be better if we just let him sink or swim, disfigurement or castration be damned.
Twenty minutes into the shift, the steering gear man started yellin’ out for our foreman. It was the first time any of us had heard him actually speak aloud. Gino came striding over. Thank God, I thought, the crazy shit was gonna turn himself in. It would've been the wise move.
Gino and the steering gear man huddled secretly for a few moments. Then Gino started motioning for one of the utility men to come over and take the job. The steering gear man untied his work apron, turned it around and fastened it on backwards. He grabbed his lunch pail and headed for the exit, the apron flowing behind him like a burlap skirt. Things weren't adding up.
Gino came walking by on his way back to his office. He was doing a rather poor job of concealing the fact that he was shakin’ with laughter. I asked him what the deal was.
“A slight accident,” Gino answered, attempting to brush by me.
“A slight accident! He didn't chop anything off, did he?”
Gino shook his head. “Nothing like that.”
“What'd he do?” I groaned, “piss his drawers?” I'd seen it happen before.
My foreman completely burst. “Um, something like that.” Cackle, cackle.
Something like that? Wait a minute. The huddle of secrecy…the bowlegged shuffle…the sudden exit…the backwards apron! Jesus, it couldn't be!