Rivethead - Ben Hamper [85]
“Yeah, I suppose,” Eddie replied, content to drop it for the moment, but hardly convinced of anything that would smooth his doubts on the matter.
The summer rolled on and we broiled in the heat, smuggling our fair share of amusement wherever we could find it. Jerry had decided to try out the lock-nut job a few spots down. Taking his place was one of the college kid “interns” GM hired each summer to cover for guys who were off on their vacations. His name was Mark, a chubby kid bound for med school. For the time being, he belonged to us. We taught him how to play Rivet Hockey and Dumpster Ball. We even got him to sample an occasional beer. Before long, he fit right in like a true-blue rivetling.
I remember one day I was just mindin’ my own business, molestin’ yet another series of rivets, when our little greenie started yellin’ “Holy shit…HOLY SHIT!” I looked over at Mark and he was motioning frantically over my shoulder. Could it be? Roger Smith? Had he relented and come to answer the dogged plea of the Hamper ancestry? Tonight, we bowl?
I turned around slowly. What I was gazing at was not Roger Smith. Standing only ten feet behind me was none other than Howie Makem, his big swollen cat head teetering in the haze. The men began to howl deliriously. It had been a few years since the last known Howie sighting. We continued to roar our lungs out as Howie Makem strutted down the aisle and out of view.
“THE DEAD HAVE RISEN! THE DEAD HAVE RISEN!” I shrieked. I looked over at Mark. His mouth was hangin’ open like an oven door. He appeared to be in a state of shock.
“What the hell was THAT?” Mark cried.
Introductions seemed in order, yet how did one go about telling a traumatized bystander that the large CAT he'd just seen strolling near his job was the living messiah of the masses and the secret to a Quality work plan all wrapped into one blur of fur? My guess was you didn't even try.
“That was a big cat, Mark. He must be lookin’ for that mouse we've been seein’ around here lately.”
Mark asked for a cigarette. I had never seen him smoke before. “Oh,” he said.
After that sighting, I saw Howie on a few more occasions. The news appeared to be bad. For one thing, Howie looked absolutely terrible. He seemed to have fallen prey to some dreadful disease. One night, I actually saw Howie propped up in a fork truck, waving his feeble paw back and forth, apparently too weak to complete his rounds on foot. I screamed “Howie!” and that gigantic noggin of his tilted toward me, a hideous mask of pain. It hit me right there at my workbench: My God, I think Howie's dying!
How true it all appeared. Just another giant struggling valiantly against the gravedigger's spade. Death didn't give a shit. Death never paused for John Wayne. It chewed on him like a warm Swanson dinner. Howie, nine lives and all, was not immune. All our heroes died.
Just about the time we were preparing weepy eulogies for the ultimate passing of Howie Makem, he came firm’ out of the chute again. What the fuck was GM up to? Howie was more alive and antimated than ever. It was all too much. Even I, possibly Howie's greatest fan, began to cool in my affection for our schizophrenic mascot. We didn't want drama, we needed something to laugh at.
A severe Howie Makem backlash developed. Instead of the customary cheering that greeted Howie, he was now bein’ heckled unmercifully. Whenever he appeared in the vicinity of the Rivet Line, he did so at grave personal risk. We would load up on rivets and toss them at his generous skull.
A horrible realization began to bother me. After a Howie sighting, I'd lean back on my bench and think to myself: SOMEONE is in that head. SOMEONE whose wife and kids lie sound asleep in another part of town while the stars shine down and the trucks pile up and Daddy haunts the halls in his kitty costume. SOMEONE who was forced to go through twelve worthless years of the American Education System only to wind up jerry-riggin’ the same old acid flashback night after night. There should be exemptions made for men who aspire to