Rivethead - Ben Hamper [94]
9
IT WASN'T EVERY AFTERNOON THAT I RECEIVED LONG-DISTANCE phone calls from folks at the Wall Street Journal. I didn't remember having any friends who worked there and I was certain that I didn't owe these people any money.
All the same, there was this guy on the line from Chicago who needed to talk with the Rivethead. He said his name was Alex and that he had enjoyed the piece I had written for the December issue of Harper's. He mentioned that he was working on a story for the Wall Street Journal about blue-collar writers—whatever the hell they were. He seemed convinced that the Rivethead qualified as such. (In time, I was able to surmise that a “blue-collar writer” was just about anyone tricky enough to get his junk into print without having to stay sober, suck ass, show up at house fires, hold a degree or learn his way around a word processor. Nothin’ to it. Hi Mom!)
This Alex guy was full of questions and I did my best to supply him with answers. “What do your co-workers think about your articles?” he asked.
“The ones who can read seem to like it.”
“What has been management's reaction?”
“They only react when I fuck up a rivet. Very seldom, I might add.”
“Where do you take your lunch break?”
“In my car.”
“Is that where you take down notes?”
“That is where I take down beer and wade through chronic lines of bullshit.”
“Do you consider yourself a factory worker or a writer?”
Yechhh.
Why anyone at the Wall Street Journal would be intrigued by all of this snooze was beyond me. What was happening? Had all the E. L. Hunts and Teddy Turners knocked off early and disengaged their cellular phones? Had the movers and shakers suddenly petrified? Was I the last available mortal for the angleworms of the press mob to collide against? January always brought out the bleak.
I had to cut Alex short. It was time to go hit rivets. Before I hung up, Alex mentioned that he would like to come to Flint to continue our conversation. Like to come to FLINT? Obviously, I was dealing with a journalist accustomed to lowbrow thrills.
Whatever his goals were, Alex said that he would be arriving in town the next week. He asked that in the meantime could I see what I could do about obtaining a pass for him to accompany me to my job at GM Truck & Bus. He was very excited about the idea of catching the Rivethead in the midst of his mooring. Confused, I agreed to give it a try.
Having never been in this position before, I had no idea of my first move in gaining clearance for an outside visitor. Through eight-plus years on the assembly line, no one I knew had ever expressed an interest in watching me swing my dead ass around while pinchin’ a rivet gun. For this, I was extremely grateful.
Not that the situation didn't occasionally come about with my linemates. Every now and then, one of the workers would feel compelled to bring in his wife or his children or some dolled-up galfriend as if by showing them the horrible nothingness of the layout proved indubitably, once and for all, that he'd endure any kind of daily martyrdom in return for their fondness and favors.
I can remember right after Hogjaw got married. Two days into his goddamn honeymoon, he came paradin’ his bride through the department, showing her the different jobs, demonstrating various machinery and introducing her to all his shoprat chums. It struck me as one of the saddest things I had ever witnessed—inside or outside a General Motors facility.
I decided to approach my foreman to see if he knew the proper formula for obtaining an official visitor's pass. I described for him the mysterious “blue-collar writer” angle and banged him over the head a half dozen times with the phrase “for inclusion in the Wall Street Journal.” Gino looked unimpressed. It was apparent that the Wall Street Journal wasn't a part of his regular reading rotation. “The Walleye Journal?” Gino mulled. “Why do they wanna know anything about you?”
He had me there.
I could already see that securing this pass was going to be a real task. Shit, why couldn't someone