Rivethead - Ben Hamper [90]
It ate at Eddie. At times, he seemed to be hypnotized to the board during which he would engage in absurd conversation. I still recall the night he motioned me over to answer a question. His eyes were pinned to the center of the green neon. “Ben, what's the difference between No Lead Gas and Unleaded Gas?”
“Are you serious, Eddie?” I chuckled.
“Could you just tell me the FUCKIN’ DIFFERENCE!” Eddie shouted. He was serious.
“Well, I always assumed that the two were just the same.”
“Then how come my car runs better on the goddamn No Lead?”
I had no idea. I slid back to my job and hit a few rivets. It wasn't any fun.
One of the guys from the plant called me up one morning. It was just after 11:00 A.M. and I was still tryin’ to snooze off a hangover.
“Get outta bed and switch on Channel 5,” the voice demanded. “Your damn bowling buddy is holding a press conference. They broke right in on Hour Magazine!”
“Why?” I mumbled.
My informer wasn't sure. Something to do with plant closings and little pink slips fluttering down on the heads of the working class. There had been rumors of such. I went in and turned on the television.
It was him all right. Roger B. Smith, my elusive bowling foe, GM's resident reducing plan guru. Perhaps the only fella in the entire Western Hemisphere to possess eight million freckles and yet absolutely no sense of humor whatsoever. He looked like Howdy Doody presiding over a hangin’ party—a fiendish combination of power, dread, panic and too much rouge.
Evidently, I had tuned in just after Rog had revealed his roll call of plants headed for extermination. The walking papers having been served, it was now time for the heavy Q & A. The media swarmed in on The Boss, a great sea of gnats luggin’ minicams and mic cables. The ultimate American game show squirming to life with 30,000 potential urchins lined up behind Door Number One.
I sat there in my underwear wondering if I would be among them. I wondered what else I could possibly do for a living. I had no training, no skills, no degrees, no connections. I drank too much to fit into most occupations and I wasn't ambitious enough to have a shot at the rest. Above all, I didn't like poking my head into society. People bothered me. That was the best part of my factory job: never really having to relate to anyone or anything other than the awkward-lookin’ rivet apparatus that hung from the rafters next to my job. We understood each other. We got along just fine.
While I was reflecting on all of this, Roger was doing his best to explain everything to the media. It was very apparent that as far as public speakers went, Smith rated far down the dais, say, right behind a garden hoe or a doorknob. I could sympathize a bit. I'd be a nervous wreck too if I had his lousy job. Shredding people's livelihoods to bits before it was time for lunch had to jangle one's nerves.
What I found most alarming was that Smitty appeared totally confused with the subject matter itself. Specifics like when, where, who, WHY? Jesus, spit it out, boss. Your ass is covered. You ain't one of the gang bein’ upchucked curbside.
Befuddled, Smith began to deflect most of the questions over to his sidekick, GM President Jim McDonald. Now here was a guy who ate decimals and divisors for breakfast, lunch and dinner. A real chatterbox in banker's blue. Jimbo babbled on in the kinda cool-daddy corporate jumble-thump that plain old numbskulls like you and me and the owl in the tree could never hope to untangle. If he was clarifying anything, it still managed to sail about ten feet over my head. (I remember a year or so later, during GM's angry brawl with EDS, it suddenly dawned on me why these stiffs ached so bad in their urge to rid themselves of Ross Perot. It had nothing to do with his loud criticisms or his uppity swagger or even his beguiling hickoid funkiness. Pure and simple, THAT SON-OF-A-BITCHIN’ BILLIONAIRE DARED SPEAK PLAIN OLD ENGLISH! Show that goofball the gate!)
I went into the kitchen and opened a can of beer. On the