Rivethead (29 page)

“Great. I'll give you a call when I get to town.”

I finally made it into work. One of the guys from first shift had already tacked up the
Wall Street Journal
on the bulletin board. Several of my linemates were gathered around readin’ the piece and joking about my face. I wormed in between them.

“One outrageously handsome rivetling, huh?” I snickered.

“Goddamn, Hamper, your face looks like a mudheap,” Joe replied.

“Who's your hair stylist, Beldar Conehead?” Al needled.

The Polish Sex God stepped in. “Shit, whatever you do, don't gaze into those swollen eyes! Prolonged contact with that satanic gaze could cause unspeakable damage to one's soul.”

Dougie wanted to know who Mike Royko was. I told him he was some guy who loved softball and wrote about minor social injustices and made twenty times the money we did.

Janice was reading the article at her desk. Dave Steel stood there reading over her shoulder. As I approached, Dave started shaking his head. “I can't believe how much mileage you're gettin’ out of this factory drivel. This guy acts like you're fuckin’ Steinbeck or something.”

“Mama didn't raise no blockhead.” I laughed. “Find a gimmick and milk those udders!”

Right then, the horn blew. The line began to lurch and Dave sprinted off for his inspection job. The rest of us reached above our heads for our rivet guns.

“ALL ABOARD!” Doug shouted.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, FOOL!” Eddie responded on cue. Ah, home sweet home.

I bought two cases of beer for the guys that night. We got stupid and rowdy and started acting like a bunch of Cub Scouts in a titty bar. It was forty souls vs. that old stubborn time clock and we beat its ass rather soundly. Nothing like a strange new distraction and a bellyful of beer to nudge on the night.

The Mike Royko of the rivetheads. Hell, whatever. It kept us laughin’. All I knew for certain was that for one crazy shift in the midst of a frigid Michigan winter the crew had plenty to gnaw on. Something that brought us closer, something silly and offbeat, something that reached out for the rivetheads and spoke their names, something that attached our oily grins to a small piece of the puzzle, a visibility or something, and something was better than nothing.

On Tuesday, Joel Bernstein called to tell me he was staying at the Hyatt Regency in Flint. He asked that I come down and join him for lunch. I had a bad feeling about this encounter. I had problems with strangers, especially when sober, and from what I'd seen of
60 Minutes,
these guys didn't appear to be the most amicable bunch of bubs on television. I should have insisted on Mark's Lounge. There was something in that dark Naugahyde shack that made me feel almost human.

I drove downtown and waited for Bernstein in the lobby of the Hyatt. He came down the elevator carrying a large duffel bag. He looked more like a paratrooper than an influential television producer. “Ben Hamper?” he asked.

“Um, yes,” I answered, fumbling to light another cigarette.

“Let's find a restaurant. We can talk over lunch.”

We took a table over in the corner of this glitzy eatery on the main floor of the Hyatt. There were plenty of plants and too much sunlight. I felt exposed and nervous. Bernstein sat across from me in total silence. I stared out the window at the derelicts who were trooping by on the Saginaw Street bridge. I wondered how I was doing so far.

Finally, Bernstein spoke. He asked if I would describe some of the recent subject matter contained in my Rivethead column.

I mentioned such things as GM's deceptive Quality humbug, their annoying habit of promoting only suck-asses and snitches, their reliance on childish propaganda gimmicks and their southbound extermination scheme. I mentioned the Howie Makem farce and the brainwashing message boards.

Bernstein's face became visibly red. “I'm telling you right now,” he huffed, “I didn't come all the way out here to do an anti-GM piece. I have no axe to grind with those people.”

“Well, if you read the
Wall Street Journal
story, you had to know I took the view of an assembly worker. What did you think I was writing about? The glorious advent of robotics?”

“I'm just explaining that I have no interest in doing a rip job on General Motors.”

“Fine,” I said, “let's talk about something else.”

We sat there for several minutes without speaking. Jesus, what was wrong with this guy? Here he represented the most popular muck-slingin’ television mouthpiece in all America and he seemed to be taking the stance that GM was some sort of hands-off sacred cow. The thought occurred to me that GM was probably their leading sponsor, their most consistent meal ticket.

Our conversation resumed, a confrontational tone firmly implanted:

“If you're such a popular writer in this town, how come no one has come over to greet you?”

“I can only assume they're intimidated by the presence of such an esteemed visitor.”

“Do your columns elicit
any
reaction from your co-workers?”

“In most cases, mainly laughter.”

“Then you are an ENTERTAINER!”

“Aren't all writers?”

“From what you were saying a minute ago, I was under the impression that there was some type of social significance to your writing.”

Outside the window, a vagrant was pushing an old shopping cart across the bridge. I looked at him closely. He seemed utterly content. There was no hint of anger or discord. There was no sign of crossfire. There wasn't much of anything. I swelled with a sudden sense of envy.

The interview was headed nowhere. It seemed increasingly evident that, besides his producer's title, Joel Bernstein was sworn to another duty—to run interference for the impending spine-removal tactics of a Mike Wallace or an Ed Bradley. If you managed to weather his test run, perhaps they would fly in the heavy artillery and your mama would get to see you squirm in prime time.

I knew I'd failed the test run when Bernstein pointed out my obvious discomfort with simple conversation. It was true. Talking with people that I really didn't know tended to make my insides twist and shout. Maybe that's why I had taken up typing.

“How would you handle it if Harry Reasoner was sitting in my place and the camera was rolling in on you?” the producer demanded.

By this point, I'd ceased to give a shit. “I'd make sure that I was drunk,” I replied.

Bernstein almost flew out of his chair. “NOT ON
60 MINUTES
YOU WON'T!”

So be it. To be honest, it all sounded pretty farfetched from the outset: beer-stoked Rivet Line smartass cavorting across the Quasars of the Free World…Diane Sawyer dodgin’ filthy palms next to the pool table in Mark's Lounge…the steering gear man sermonizing atop a crateful of lugnuts…Howie Makem bounding through the murk like a ridiculous drum major…Rivet Hockey and Dumpster Ball bein’ thrust upon a confused republic weaned on tee ball and putter golf. Do not attempt to adjust your set. Do not attempt to call your cable company. That rumble you hear is only Edward R. Murrow swiveling in his grave.

We gave it up and Bernstein walked with me out to my Camaro. He mentioned that there was always the possibility that a segment could be worked out at a later date. He handed me one of his business cards and told me to stay in touch. I said I would. Both of us were liars. As I drove off around the corner, flung the card in the direction of a couple bag ladies standing on Saginaw Street. May it serve them well, I chuckled to myself.

Alongside the debacle with
60 Minutes,
I managed to cross wires with folks from National Public Radio, Random House, Esquire, Embassy Productions, Playboy, Penthouse, Voice of America and
U.S. News & World Report.
Each of them rang up needin’ a piece of this week's rage—the Autoworker/Journalist. I understood. Having your face displayed on the front page of the
Wall Street Journal
lent a sudden legitimacy to whatever the hell you were doing. All at once you were pronounced fit for active duty in the phone directories of the Mighty Big. It just happened to be my time. Next week it would be the Fry Cook/Opera Tenor or the Bank Clerk/Porn Stud.

After a few weeks, the phone calls went away. I returned to sleeping past noon, safe in the knowledge that the hounds had picked up a new scent out on the power lines. It was fine with me. After all, I already had my hands full. There were muffler hangers to attach, spring castings to insert, rivets to be mashed. There were clocks to duel and antics to explore.

Idiot labor may not have been much to fall in love with, but it beat the hell out of flailing around on someone's conference line. High wages, low thought requirement, beholden to only those you chose. What the rest of the world wanted was their own problem. Ambition maimed so many of them. I'm sure they had their own reasons for grasping for the next rung, but it all seemed so bothersome and tedious.

In contrast, working the Rivet Line was like being paid to flunk high school the rest of your life. An adolescent time warp in which the duties of the day were just an underlying annoyance. No one really grew up here. No pretensions to being anything other than stunted brats clinging to rusty monkeybars. The popular diversions—Rivet Hockey, Dumpster Ball, intoxication, writing, rock ‘n’ roll—were just reinventions of youth. We were fumbling along in the middle of a long-running cartoon.

Having asserted this, it always came as a personal shock and frustration whenever a core member of our cast slipped away. I felt betrayed and abandoned. The Rivet Line may have been a shithole but, for chrissakes, it was
our
shithole! I couldn't grasp the flimsy rhetoric of those who became bent on relocation. All I could understand was my obstinate devotion to the setting. Relocation was the equivalent of graduating. It seemed so futile and adult-like.

Jerry and Janice decided to move on. Neither were especially excited to go, but they had fallen victim to that weird undertow that sometimes swirls by in a shoprat's career—one that murmurs deceitful lies, one that maintains that a change of scenery will induce a grand rebirth. Assembly lines being the monotonous hangouts they are, confusion often takes advantage. You can outwit yourself. You can envision things that aren't really there. Persecution preys on pondering minds. Right becomes wrong. Suddenly, one man's sandbox becomes another man's quicksand.

Jerry left first, opting to take his pastel muscle shirts and heat-seeking libido onto the first shift. This left a tremendous gap in our Rivet Hockey league, not to mention a string of forlorn barmaids and a half pint of Root Beer Schnapps under the passenger seat of my Camaro.

I tried to talk some sense into him, warning him at great length about the dealings that awaited the Day Men—the alarm clocks, the brutal hangovers, the rednecks decked out in camouflage goon suits, the endless lunkspeak about trout bait, Willie Hernandez, faggots, spooks, kikes, dykes, nips, spies, hemorrhoids, Jesus and power tools.

The Polish Sex God would have none of it. He argued that now he would have his workday over by 2:30
P.M
. and be able to prowl for kicks and chicks the rest of the night.

“It doesn't work like that,” I told him. “First shift only works for the married guys. They have a very rigid system—rush home, drink three beers, eat supper, watch
Wheel of Fortune,
hop the old lady and be sound asleep by 9:00. Clean, decent American living. A bar hound like you will never beat the clock. You'll miss so much work, your ass will be out on Van Slyke within a month.”

Jerry left anyway and maybe it was best for all concerned. Lately, he had developed this terrible knack for hijacking his co-workers at lunchtime and not returning them for the completion of the shift. What would happen is that we'd all pile into his van at lunch break, begin hammering the beer and stare off silently into the city lights. Five minutes before we were due back on our jobs, Jerry would rev up the van and turn to whoever was crammed in back. “Who wants to go back in there?” he'd demand. For those who wanted to avoid certain penalizing, this was a cue to haul ass. Halftime desertion was something Jerry never joked about. You either bailed out or were taken hostage. Terry, Herman and I often went along. Eddie, Doug and Al always scrambled for the door. We had much more fun than they did. We had the penalties on our records to prove it.

The night Janice left, I had a lump in my throat the size of a croquet ball. For three years, she had been my neighbor, my soundboard, my confidante and best friend. When she had first arrived on the Rivet Line, Janice was vulnerable and naive. There were times I thought she'd never make it. I was dead wrong. She transcended the token female role and became one of the boys—a description she was utterly comfortable with.

On Friday nights, we had this routine where I'd pull my car up close to the exit doors and the two of us would sit there drinkin’ beer while scrutinizing the workers as they fled from the plant. We laughed like idiots, pretending to be able to forecast their destinies. Janice handled the women and I covered the guys. It went something like this:

“Take a look at this goof,” I observed. “Not a lot going on here. He will drive home cautiously, take a long shower, eat two chicken pot pies and tune in an old episode of
Kojak.
This man should be put on life support. No wonder his wife joined a motorcycle club and never said goodbye.”

Janice would spot one. ‘A definite party bimbo. I predict she is en route to a large house where she will become intoxicated on sloe gin and make a complete ass out of herself dancing to the
Big Chill
soundtrack. Eventually, she will wind up having intercourse with the first guy who offers her a long line of cocaine.”

After the parking lot had emptied and all the beer was gone, we would go have breakfast at some greasy diner. Amidst the clamor of our drunken co-workers, we would drink black coffee and talk for hours—about anything, about everything, about nothing at all.

On that last night as Janice prepared to crunch her last rivet, the croquet ball in my throat had grown to the size of a grapefruit. I tried to appear busy and unconcerned. It would be over soon and Janice would stop by and say something sweet. I was sure I'd begin blubberin’. Not that Janice wouldn't understand. She's probably start bawlin’ too. I just didn't want the rest of the crew to catch the Rivethead in the throes of some Jimmy Swaggart meltdown.