Rivethead - Ben Hamper [87]
Carefully, I sliced the article from the Tribune with my box-cutter knife. As I was doing so, Doug was taking a seat at the end of the table to mark his production schedule for the day. I scooted over. Information this urgent had to be shared.
“Dougie, have you seen today's issue of Pravda?” I asked. He shook his head and continued marking his manifest. It was never a polite idea to interrupt a linemate as he was totaling up his schedule. This kind of outside interference could cause omissions and oversights that would show up in errors later in the job operation. Schedule-marking was a solemn, all-absorbing event.
Big shit. I flung the article down in the middle of Doug's manifest. “You must read this, right now!” I insisted.
Dougie picked up my clipping and read it through. He didn't appear to be much amused. After all, this was a Friday afternoon and no one really thawed out until about lunch break when the horn would blow and we'd gallop off to the liquor store.
“Didn't she get mashed in a car wreck?” Dougie replied while returning to his schedule.
I moaned. “Naw, you're thinkin’ of her sister, Barbara, the gloomy blonde. Louise is the frisky one. The brunette. The sister who does all those White Rain hair spray commercials.”
“Doesn't she play the fiddle?” Dougie mused. Now we were gettin’ somewhere.
“You better believe it,” I yelled.
“So what about her?”
“WHAT ABOUT HER? Is that all you've got to say? Jesus, Doug, you just read the article. You must realize the significance here. Today we will be building a truck for a goddamn celebrity. Someone we can attach a face to.”
“Sorry, I still don't get it. Fill me in later, I've got to finish marking my schedule.”
“The hell with your schedule,” I exclaimed while shoving off.
Soon, the line began to roll and we moved to our stations. In between jobs, I raced up and down the line apprising my co-workers of the impending approach of the Mandrell Sister Suburban. I dangled my clipping in front of their faces in hopes that it would generate for them the same type of enthusiasm I was delighting in.
Their reactions varied. While some appeared marginally enthused, the majority merely shrugged and peered back at me as if I'd finally teetered over the brink. Alas, my reputation as one who was given to occasional flights of madness, gibberish, delirium and amphetamine prattle had preceded me.
However, not this time. I was clean. I was in complete control. I understood completely the whence and the wherefores. I understood that Louise Mandrell was having a General Motors four-wheel Suburban built today. It was to be loaded. It was to be black and silver. These were inescapable truths. I couldn't help it if it was a Mandrell Sister as opposed to someone who would have been more shoprat vogue—someone like Merle Haggard, Richard Petty or Traci Lords. At least it was SOMEBODY!
The basis for all this mania was simple. For nearly a decade I had toiled away for the GM Truck & Bus plant. In all this time never, but never, had I encountered one human soul who had either purchased, ordered, leased or even hot-wired a General Motors Suburban. Every night the frames would roll by—thirty-eight jobs to the hour—and it would mystify the hell outta me as to where all these beasts were headed.
My Rivet Line pals were just as confused. We would often look up from our jobs in the middle of another shift and ask “Who buys all these things?” Obviously, someone had to be doin’ it and we were tremendously grateful to them. We had mouths to feed and bar tabs to resolve. Still, it often seemed like the trucks we were assembling just vanished out the door—thousands of them, millions of them—lurching into some enormous