Rivethead - Ben Hamper [97]
Your man, my man. My man, your man. I felt like I was playin’ Milton Bradley's Stratego.
Alas, Alex made it inside. With his ever-present guide lurking nearby, he looked like a captured fugitive. It was quite hilarious. We exchanged smiles and he went about his interviews.
The grapevine must have been buzzing, for within moments of Alex's arrival none other than Henry Jackson came strolling down the aisle to toss in his worthless two cents. I could see Alex and Jackson holed up in Gino's office. Not surprisingly, Jackson was doing all the talking.
After Alex managed to escape the brilliant ejaculations of Henry Jackson, he made his way over to my job for observations in riveting. With no member of management in the immediate vicinity, his guide gave us some breathing room, standing out in the aisle like some rigid Aryan lawn jockey. I used this opportunity to ask Alex what Jackson had been dumping on him.
“He was very insistent that you were all his boys,” Alex stated. “He expressed a certain fondness for you, claiming he was a big admirer of your writing talent.”
“That bastard's a lyin’ ass. He hates my fuckin’ guts! I hope you don't print a word he told you. Henry's about as corrupt and insane as they come around here.”
Just then a guy named Joe, the department's resident dopehead moron, came buttin’ in. Alex took him aside and began interviewing him regarding my blue-collar writing expertise. I shook my head and returned to my job. If Joe had read anything in his life, it was probably only the price tag on a coke spoon or a joke on a cocktail napkin. Jesus, this was beginning to suck.
“Well, what did Dopey have to say?” I asked Alex on his return. “Keep in mind that he has never read a single word I've written.”
“He told me you were right on, that your columns were right on, and that the thing he liked best about them was that they were—”
“Right on?” I moaned.
“Actually, he used the word heavy.”
I suggested to Alex that he interview some riveters who actually read my stuff. I pointed out Janice, Terry and Dick. He went to them and began jotting down insights. I hoped he was getting what he was after. Chicago was an awfully long way to come for “right on” and “heavy.”
A few weeks later, Alex Kotlowitz's article about blue-collar writers appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The piece used the Rivethead as its main subject; however there was also mention of a few other scribes of labor—a longshoreman from San Francisco, an assembly worker from Ohio, some poor bastard who worked in a pickle factory—men who I assumed were just as bored as I was. In cases such as these, literature was just an accident waiting to happen.
In the center of the page was a truly demonic-lookin’ sketch of the Rivethead. I looked like a drugged land turtle or a droopy mongoloid. My head came to a sharp point. Even my girlfriend Amy was shocked. “Truly hideous,” she remarked. “You look like a Korean version of Dick Nixon.”
“What's done is done,” I replied. “It is time to begin looting the paper boxes. I will need a copy for every man, woman and child on the Rivetline. Also, several copies for my ancestors and a few more for future propaganda purposes.”
Amy and I spent the early morning ransacking every Wall Street Journal box within the city limits. She'd swerve up to a machine, I'd bail out, slap in the coins, and snatch up a handful of copies. “Drive on,” I ordered. “After today, all this international coverboy shit will rapidly dissipate into wasted nostalgia. Only one man per day gets his face on the cover of the Wall Street Journal and today that wretched face belongs to me.”
When we were done, I thanked Amy for her part in our petty larceny spree and lugged the newspapers into my apartment. Once inside, I grabbed a couple Buds from the fridge and sat down to make a thorough scan of the article. I found myself fascinated by the remarks of the longshoreman. He described in detail how he would have to protect all these