Now and on Earth Page 19

  Moon, say, would set him to sweeping the floor. When he got up in the Purchased-Parts Department Busken would call him over to help shelve some parts. The kid would have worked at this for an hour or so when Moon strolled around.

  “I thought I told you to sweep the floor.”

  “Well—Mr. Busken asked me to—”

  “Well—hurry it up.”

  It was then Busken’s turn:

  “All right. Go on. I won’t ask you to help me again.”

  “Why? What’s the matter, Mr. Busken?”

  “Go on. I didn’t think you’d go around griping to Moon just because I asked you to give me a hand.”

  Naturally, that alarmed the kid. He didn’t want people mad at him. He insisted on staying and helping, working frantically so that he could still get the floor swept. And invariably when he did get the broom in his hands again, there was Murphy or Gross needing assistance.

  If he hesitated:

  “Hey, Moon! What’s the matter here? Can’t I have a little help?”

  “Sure you can. Grab ahold there, Shorty. You won’t get your hands dirty.”

  If the kid didn’t hesitate, but grabbed ahold at once:

  “When are you going to get this floor swept?”

  “Well—Mr. Mur— Right away, sir.”

  That night, of course, the floor wouldn’t be swept.

  Dolling brought the kid’s dismissal slip down the third week of his probation. It said:

  General attitude? Sullen

  Helps others? Unwillingly

  Competence? Seldom completes assignments

  Remarks Wholly unsatisfactory

  And it was all true. But I don’t think a brighter, faster, better-natured boy ever walked into the plant.

  It is even easier to “crowd a man down the line” in the assemblies. The parts for the different positions are being changed constantly. Time-study may learn that a part that has been put on in Position 1 can be better handled at Position 3. And when a new part is turned out, it may have to be put on “at the door” or “in the yard,” because the planes have progressed that far and they cannot be returned, say, to Position 2 where the part would normally be integrated.

  Under these circumstances it is obviously easy to make a competent man look the opposite (although it is seldom done, now, because of the shortage of skilled workers). And when he is called on the carpet, he has no alibi. There has been another shift in parts. He has no more to do than he should easily accomplish.

  I feel extremely sorry for the time-study men. Life for them is utter hell. They go from department to department, timing the workers in their various operations. And no one likes to be timed, and everyone makes it as difficult as possible.

  The worker may flatly refuse. “Get the hell away from me. I don’t want to be bothered now.”

  And the time-study man may not reply in kind, or call the foreman—except as a last resort. He must time the process, yes, but it will be very bad for him if he causes a skilled worker to throw down his tools and walk out. Anyone can tell time; everyone cannot run a rivet-gun or assemble a control column.

  He laughs, pleasantly. “Got to keep ’em flying, huh? Want me to drop back after lunch?”

  No answer.

  “Ha, ha. Like to have me drop back after lunch?”

  “I don’t give a damn what you do.”

  He comes back after lunch: “All set? Ha, ha. Fine, fi—”

  “Get away from me!”

  “Please. I’ve got to—”

  “You heard me. Clear out!”

  The time-study man calls the foreman. “I’m sorry. Your man won’t let me time him.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s the matter, Bill?”

  “Aw the son-of-a-bitch keeps getting in my light, Mac.”

  “Yeah?…Look, you. You go back to the office and tell ’em if they want this process timed, they can send a man down that knows how to do it. Now scram!”

  And so it goes.

  Time-study men come and go rapidly. Today I saw one, a poorly dressed hungry-looking fellow of about forty-five, who probably will not be here very long. Someone had constructed a replica of a sanitary napkin from gauze and waste, dipped it in red paint, and stapled it to the back of his coat. He could see the men grinning as he passed and feel something flopping and splashing against his rear. But he couldn’t see it or reach it, so he concluded, I guess, that the men were merely in a good humor and that the other was his imagination. When the office sees him, I imagine they’ll let him out. If not, I’d think he’d be too humiliated to come back.

  Down in the foundries it is even worse. The drop-hammer men like nothing better than to catch a time-hound in the narrow aisle between their implements. Then it is—bang! bang! bang!—and the jolts are enough to throw him off his feet and the pressure enough to deafen him.

  He has white-hot washers dropped into his pockets. Oily waste is speared to his coattails and set afire.

  And he may find—the guards may find—when he leaves that night that he is carrying out some expensive tool or part.

  Yes, they know—the office knows. But no one is going to discharge or even reprimand an essential worker because of a time-study man. I said once before that you could get away with anything here if you were good enough; but I didn’t mean it literally. I do when I say it now.

  I have never yet gone into the toilet when there was not someone asleep on the stools; the sleepers were (and are) particularly numerous during the afternoon. The guards used to take their badge-numbers, and it would mean a three-day layoff. But now they wake them up and that is the end of the matter. It used to be that you could hardly find a place to smoke at noon because of the restricted areas and planes in the yard (you aren’t supposed to smoke within twenty feet of a plane). Now, however, if the guards see you smoking where you shouldn’t be—and they don’t go out of their way to see you—they approach very slowly so that you will have time to finish before they arrive. No more tickets are handed out for such things as running in the aisles. The incessant practical joking is generally winked at. A riveter will take a paper cup of water and pour it into the tailcone where his bucker-up lies prone and helpless. The guard sees it, takes a step forward, then remembers and turns away. I feel pretty sorry for the guards, too.

  I think I told you of the guard who accosted me when I first went to work here. Well, a few days ago he came up to my window, and he was no longer in natty khaki and Sam Browne. He was wearing unionalls—just another parts boy.

  I looked at his badge.

  “What do you want with nose-over posts? They’re not put on at your station.”

  “Well—my lead-man sent me after them.”

  “Who is your lead-man?”

  He told me.

  I gave him a suspicious stare. “Where is he now?”

  “Well—I don’t know just where right now.”

  “Better find him. And make it snappy. We’re all here to work, you know.”

  Yes, I think he did recognize me; and I felt ashamed of myself afterwards. He’d already been punished enough for lacking tact and diplomacy.

  I don’t know.

  I don’t know why I can’t like the job better, get interested in it. Working conditions couldn’t be better. The pay is at least fair. Everything within reason that can be done for the worker is done. We’re turning out four planes a day now, but we have the men to do it with. The speed-up has slowed down. I don’t have to worry about my past bobbing up.

  It’s not pleasant to work in a department where the others are unfriendly, but I’ve worked where the atmosphere was much colder and not minded particularly. I minded, but it wasn’t enough to make me want to get up and pull out. Of course, those were writing jobs and—

  Still, I don’t know.

  Out in the yard at noon when a plane goes over, everyone looks up. They stop eating and talking to look up at a plane that they have seen in the plant at least a thousand times and the counterparts of which are all
around them. And then the discussions about torque and drag and potential efficiency, and the arguments anent the merits of liquid- and air-cooling, and the minute comparisons of the different kinds of rudder tabs and shock-struts and tail pants and—God knows what all. And the little groups drawing diagrams in the dust and slapping their notebooks, and—well, goddammit, it’s crazy. It’s infuriating. You’d think there was nothing more important in the world than—

  Oh, sure. I do know.

  It doesn’t make sense to me any more than polishing a paragraph for two hours would make sense to them. I don’t want it to make sense. If it ever does, I will give up. That will be the end.

  Yes, and I am going to get out of it. I will get out of it. As soon as I see Frankie clear of this mess, I am clearing out. They can all do what they please, but I am leaving, I mean it.

  If I only knew what to do about Roberta; she is the main problem. I had always thought before that I was the only one who was that way. But now I know that she is, too. And I don’t know what she would do. I know there would never be any other man for her.

  And Jo has been extremely nervous lately. She seems to sense that I am about ready to take flight, and she will not leave me alone for a minute. She is on the arm of my chair, squeezing my hand, bringing me things, and talking to me from the minute I get home until I go to bed. We can hardly make her go to bed any more before I do. I don’t know what Jo would do if I left. I am the only one there who understands her and speaks her language.

  Then Shannon. I think I could do something with Shannon if I had the time. Perhaps if I could get her off by herself for a few hours each evening—I don’t see how I could, but—

  And Mack is trying to learn some new jokes. They still deal with biteys, and they’re hardly hilarious. But if he doesn’t have anyone to encourage him, he’ll never make any progress. Mack looks a lot like the pictures of me when I was his age. He’ll grow into one of those big slow extremely sensitive boys. And he’s going to need a sense of humor. He’s going to have to have it.

  And Mom’s heart has been bad. I’d hate to think that anything I did made it worse. Made it fatal.

  I’ve been thinking. I might take a room some place here in town. Something just big enough for a typewriter and a table and a bed. I could do my own cooking and washing, so it wouldn’t cost very much. I don’t think I’d mind writing another thriller if I knew I could use the money to get into some real writing. Roberta could have my unemployment compensation, and I’d finance myself with a few pulps. Of course, it would be kind of difficult living right in the same town with them and not seeing them. And if I did see them, why—

  Oh I don’t know.

  Things could be worse, I guess. Mom has been hinting that Marge should come out. Walter has had his salary attached by about a dozen different creditors, and they’ve barely got enough to live on, and he’s treating her pretty wretchedly, it seems. But I put my foot down there. I simply had to.…

  Well, there goes the telephone. But Moon is catching it. And, evidently, I’m going to catch it about something. I wonder—

  “You tell your mother not to call me here any more, Dillon.”

  “My mother?”

  “Yes, your mother. If she calls down here one more time, why—why you’ll—she’ll—”

  I got off my stool. “What?”

  “Well—she just can’t do that, Dilly. We’re not supposed to get outside calls in here. You know that. If that’d been a girl on the switchboard that didn’t know me—”

  “I didn’t know Mom was going to call you. If I had, I’d’ve told her not to.”

  “I’m doing all I can, Dilly. You know I am.”

  “Mom’s getting worried, Moon. So am I. You can’t let these things go forever.”

  “I know it, Dilly. I went to two different loan places last night, and I couldn’t do any good. I owe so much money they don’t think I’m a good risk. Besides they’re afraid I might be—”

  He broke off the sentence, and a look that I could not define came into his eyes. “Don’t say anything more now. Your fr— Gross is watching.”

  When Gross drove me home, he asked me what Moon and I had been talking about. Gross isn’t at all reticent about inquiring into things that he wants to know. Particularly when they are none of his business.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “I thought I heard him say something about your mother.”

  “Well.”

  “Does Moon go to your house quite a bit?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve got a sister, ain’t you?”

  I can’t like the guy. I feel sorry for him, but I can’t like him. So of course I had to be thrown right up against him where I couldn’t get away.

  “What did you eat for breakfast?” I said. “Did you and your wife get together last night? How much rent do you pay? What kind of underwear do you have on? Do you think it’ll rain, and what in the hell will you do about it?”

  He grinned sheepishly. “I guess I’m always butting in where I hadn’t ought to be. I just like to talk.”

  We didn’t say anything more until we stopped in front of the house.

  “I do appreciate riding with you,” I said. “Are you sure a dollar a week is enough?”

  “Oh, sure. I’d carry you for nothing, Dilly. You’re the only friend I got in the plant.”

  “See you in the morning then,” I said. “Good night.”

  Mom was peeling potatoes, and by the way her hands were moving I knew that she was building herself up to jump me before I could say anything to her.

  “I called that Moon fellow,” she announced. “I told him he’d better show up here with that money or it would be too bad. The idea of a married man running around—”

  “Moon’s doing all he can, Mom,” I said. “And you mustn’t call him down there any more. It’ll just make him mad.”

  “He won’t get any madder than I am,” said Mom.

  “But you mustn’t, Mom. You might cause him to lose his job. Then we would be in a pickle.”

  “I thought you said they thought so much of him they wouldn’t let him quit?”

  “They do; they did. But if someone keeps calling down there when he’s trying to work—”

  “Well if he don’t want to be called, he’d better get the money.”

  I poured myself a drink. “There’s no use arguing, I guess.”

  “No, there’s not.”

  “We’ll have to face it, Mom. Moon can’t get the whole two hundred and fifty. I think it’ll be a darn tight squeeze for him even to get half of it. We may as well make up our minds that Frankie is going to have to borrow part of the money.”

  Mom rinsed the potatoes, covered them with water, and placed them on the stove. She got hamburger out of the icebox and began making it into patties.

  “She’ll have to, Mom,” I said.

  “She can’t, Jimmie.”

  “Why not? She always has borrowed when—”

  “Well”—Mom turned and looked at me defiantly—“she’s got to borrow money for Marge to—”

  I put my glass down with a bang. “Mom! Are you out of your mind? How the hell—what will we—oh, my—”

  “She’s already sent it, Jimmie. And if Marge isn’t welcome here, if you can’t make a place for your own sister when you’ve got a good job, and—”

  Her veined red hands went up to her eyes, and I did not curse or storm. The curtain had risen again, and I saw those hands transforming bits of bread into fish and steamboats; saw them slipping food from her plate, food that she was starving for, to take up to the cold room so that a little boy there might laugh a little longer. And I saw the little girl again, smiling, patient, tossing a ball by the hour, a ball made from an old stocking…

  “She’ll be welcome, Mom,” I said. “Anything I’ve got she can have.”

  And I meant it. And there wasn’t much else to say.

  22

  Yes, the children always did stand o
ff by themselves and whisper when I approached. And grown people did stop their talk when I went into a room. Well, there’s nothing very unusual about that. I didn’t know how to play. I was shy and sullen and I made people uncomfortable.

  The first thing that really meant anything—that inclined me to think that something or someone was working against me—happened when I was fifteen; after I’d been hopping bells for a few months.

  I didn’t go to school that morning. I waited downtown at the street-car stop where I knew Pop would get off; and when he did, I grabbed him and took him into a restaurant, into one of the booths. He was freezing up toward me, even at that time, but he saw that I wasn’t drunk, just excited, and he came along.

  “Pop,” I said, “did you ever hear of a man named S—?”

  “I knew him very well,” said Pop. “He and I and President Harding crossed the country together on Harding’s private train. Let’s see…Gaston Means was in the party, too, and Jake Hamon—”

  “Never mind that now,” I said impatiently. “What became of S—?”

  “No one knows. He was president of a small insurance company. After Harding’s death he disappeared with a million and a half dollars in negotiable securities. They never found either him or them.”

  “How much would the bonding company—or the security company or whatever it is—pay to get that stuff back, Pop? How much?”

  “I should think they’d pay 10 per cent gladly. Say a hundred and fifty thousand.”

  “That’s the way he figured it,” I said. “Our share would be seventy-five thousand. That’s what he told me, Pop.”

  Pop looked at me sharply. “Who told you?”

  “S—. He’s here in town, Pop. He’s at the hotel. And he’s on the snow. I took him up a—I took him up some cigarettes last night, and he kept looking at me and asking questions, and finally he asked me if my name was Dillon, and if you weren’t my father. And he said you were the only man in the world he’d trust. And Pop, he’ll tell us where the stuff is hidden. And all he wants is half of the reward and a promise that they won’t prosecute him, and—and it’ll be all right, won’t it, Pop? You’ll do it, won’t you?”