However, a curious thing happened on our path to the curb. On the last night before we were to be released, Henry Jackson came stridin’ through our department and pulled Dave aside. Dave was told that he wouldn't be a part of the layoff. Instead, Henry Jackson had personally arranged it so that Dave would be shipped over to the Pickup Line to work. What made this especially cruel was the fact that there were several workers who didn't
want
to be laid off. Family men who could have used the monetary security of a firm forty-hour work-week. Henry Jackson wasn't interested in such sensible arrangements. He was too entangled in his personal vendettas.
Dave was seething. He wanted out the door with the rest of us. It wasn't to be. David had an attitude problem. It seemed odd that GM would want someone like that to remain behind and tend to business. Then again, Idi Amin was never really known for his rational logic.
On my way out, I stopped to wish Dave the best. He was hardly in a talkative mood. I told him that someday we would both laugh at this ill turn. It seemed strange that I was trying to soothe the rage of a man who was doomed to
keep
his job while all around me there were scores of dejected workers shuffling for the exit bemoaning the loss of theirs.
There was so much that I just didn't understand. Less each day, in fact.
Meanwhile, I was becoming somewhat of a favorite read in the pages of the
Flint Voice.
I was being prodded on by my editor who saw me as some kind of Chuckie Kuralt from Septicland. He was obviously using me as a loony wedge to pry between all the weighty prattle regarding police atrocities, chemical dump sites, women's rights and the ongoing conflicts in Central America and the Middle East. I knew nothing of this shit. That suited Mike Moore just fine. He even temporarily stopped pestering me about writing shoprat chronicles. I was grateful.
As the official
Voice
buffoon, I was enlisted to cover a series of oddball events. I wrote about gettin’ drunk and bounced from an Osmond Family concert. I was assigned to undergo the head-whackin’ miracle cure at an Ernest Angley revival hoedown. I did an interview with Buddy Holly, who, curiously enough, had been dead for over twenty fuckin’ years. I wrote about having intercourse with a woman who damn near dejeweled me after lathering through an Elvis impersonator show. In short, serious goddamn journalism that the nuns had never taught me.
Then came the “Toughman Contest” assignment. Nothing on the face of this planet could have been more representative of the Flint Experience than this human cockfight. An old-fashioned, city-sanctioned bloodletting. Total lunkhead theater. (For the unfamiliar, a “Toughman Contest” is an event where people pay money to watch any asshole off the street try to pulverize any other asshole off the street in hopes of winning a thousand-dollar grand prize.) Several states had outlawed these contests for their sheer primitivism. But this was Michigan. Better yet, this was Flint. Let the pummeling begin.
I remember insisting that I not have to attend this carnage by myself. I surely wasn't going to invite my girlfriend along and no one else I knew was this hard up for kicks. My companions for this ugly venture turned out to be Molly, the world's most sorely underpaid office manager, and Mike Moore, her camera-totin’ boss.
We took our seats just as two heavyweights entered the ring. The fighter in the blue corner was introduced as “representing GM Truck & Bus.” I immediately stood and applauded. Opposing my gallant union brother was a two-legged mobile home with a Pancho Villa mustache who appeared ready to gnaw through the breastplate of the next thing that moved. The odds looked bad for the good guys.
The bell sounded and the two hulks came out charging. It didn't take long to realize that defense was a worthless priority to these toughmen. They attacked in a continual forward lurch, arms flailing like crazed pistons, legs spread wide and wobbly, their careless chins poking straight ahead like heat-seeking greeting cards. It was total global warfare with nothing held in reserve. A kamikaze rage that had about as much to do with the true art of pugilism as slam-dancing had with classical ballet.
By the third and final round, neither of the boys had much left. Both fighters looked as if they were sleepwalkin’ back to the boneyard. Bloodied and swollen, they staggered to and fro in each other's arms, occasionally separating to launch one last feeble attempt at a haymaker. At the same time, the crowd was screeching for a kill. “Hit him with your purse, you pussy!” shouted one fine American down below us. Nothing short of decapitation was gonna soothe the bloodlust of these patriots.
I remember glancing over at Molly. She had her hands over her eyes. I turned my attention to the crowd and looked at them dispassionately. They roared like hyenas in a feeding frenzy, insatiable in their need for pain and turmoil. Malt liquor eye sockets bulging behind shrunken leisure suits. A night on the town for the dead and dying.
Flint, glorious Flint. I think I understood their grief and what it was that attracted them so to this ridiculous mayhem. They certainly weren't here as spectators of sport, for this “Toughman Contest” could hardly qualify as anything more than organized barbarism. I believed they were all here to commit some kind of weird personal exorcism. The toughmen were just convenient foils for the true meat-grinders of the world: the landlords, the foremen, the cops, the judges, the nagging spouse, the fools in charge. Violence as one glorious teething ring for the benumbed and trampled masses.
Flint, with all of its automotive start-ups and shutdowns. All the uncertainty and paranoia and idle tension. It wasn't so strange. It was a real wonder we weren't
all
being fitted for loincloths and nose bones. Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio, our lonely ratpack wants to KICK YOUR SAGGIN’, COFFEE-BREWIN’ ASS!
We sat through several more bouts. I began to warm to the commotion and repeated calls for blood. Mike rejoined us. For the past hour he had been snapping photos at ringside. “It smells like piss and vomit down there,” he offered. Molly put her hands back over her eyes.
Curiously, my editor thought that it would be a great idea if I accompanied him back down and interviewed some of the crowd near the action. Naturally, I refused.
“Ben, a good reporter sticks his nose right into the story.”
“In piss and vomit?” I moaned.
“Just come down and talk to some of these people,” he pleaded. “A journalist has to move around.”
“Listen. I'm not a journalist, I'm not a reporter—I'M A SHOPRAT! Just like 90 percent of these losers. When will you get this through your head?”
The answer, of course, was never. Moore continued to spur me on toward the next deadline. He began to swap and sell my pieces to other underground rags. I knew nothing of this network of left-leanin’ publications other than the fact that they paid rather poorly—if at all. Moore assured me that this was fine. The important thing was that I was gaining recognition. I assured him that beer money was a higher priority.
Not everyone was taking a shine to my writing hobby. I became aware of this one morning as I scanned through the
Flint Journal.
Under a headline that read “Fluent Settlement Sought” was the announcement that the
Flint Voice,
Michael Moore and Ben Hamper were being sued for libel in Genesee Circuit Court by an establishment called the Good Times Lounge.
The article I had written regarding the Good Times Lounge was almost a year old. In it, I had noted that the Good Times Lounge was without a doubt the rowdiest launch pad in town. A real thug palace full of biker scum and dopeheads and heavy metal retards who, for the sheer heck of it, would pounce on the clientele and proceed to change a chump's face from gorgeous to goulash. “What this place lacks in ambience it makes up in ambulance,” I observed at the time. For such findings, I was being shook down for ten thousand dollars. Ditto Michael Moore and the
Voice.
On the day of our hearing, I waited for Moore in the court lobby. Fifteen minutes late, he came bustlin’ through the big glass doors wearin’ these horribly faded jeans and a worn-out flannel shirt that appeared to have been heisted from the bedroom clutter of Eb, the kindly farmhand on
Green Acres.
So much for dazzling the court with dapper threads.
I shook my head and groaned. “Who's the judge in this case, Junior Samples?”
“Oh, sorry, I couldn't find anything clean,” Moore understated.
The courtroom seemed to be a busy place this day. A parade of legal dogs flowed back and forth through the hallway as we sat waiting and wondering when it would be our turn to fidget before the robe. Moore seemed to enjoy the atmosphere, engaging in small talk with a few of the assembled litigants. I slouched next to him fumbling for cigarettes, a complete basket case. I yearned to be back on the old pinup job, engulfed up to my elbows in muffler hangers and rivets and total nothingness. There were never any surprises awaiting the pinup man.
At last, our lawyer motioned us into the courtroom. It seemed as though we were sitting in pews. No one smiled. I could smell foul lies and old tears. The court typist stared blankly ahead as if she had just been sentenced to hang for omitting a comma.
The judge weaved his way through the hopelessly legal introduction to the case. When he finished, our lawyer stood and prepared to begin his opening remarks. All at once, the judge stopped him—leaning back with a huge grin, fixing his eyes directly on Moore and me.
Holy shit, I shuddered. He's laughing at us! We're guilty as sin. We reek of guilt and ooze with fault. Oh, sweet Jesus, I'll probably wind up in a cell with some droolin’ psychopath who ain't had any rump since LBJ croaked. This couldn't be happening. The court typist looked up at us with dead floating porpoise eyes. She'd probably been a fuckin’ nun! I felt like swan-divin’ right out the third-story window. Whatever happened to justice for all?
The judge finally spoke: “Gentlemen, I feel it is only fair to both parties that I disqualify myself from this case immediately.” Huh? The judge went on to explain that he'd once rented office space from my editor's grandfather, that he was good friends with my editor's parents, that his wife had served on some stupid committee with my editor, and that he had once purchased ad space for his reelection in the
Flint Voice.
Why couldn't this guy just have kept his yap shut? Here we had a judge in our hip pocket and he was bailin’ out on us. Forget the damn photo album, let's gavel this libel bullshit right out through the metal detectors. The bottom line was that we were INNOCENT MEN. Who cared about these untidy incidentals? Just because so-and-so knows so-and-so doesn't mean the Good Times Lounge was suddenly the Vatican.
Urrrgh. The case was rescheduled for the next month, supposedly with a judge who hadn't been Mike Moore's Cub Scout leader, poker buddy or gay lover.
While awaiting the next hearing, we were pleasantly shocked to learn that the Good Times Lounge had suddenly dropped the whole lawsuit. Apparently, the owner had shut the place down and moved away to Alaska. It seemed like a terrific relocation to me. This whole business of attorneys and plaintiffs and motions was making me one goddamn nervous wreck.
My editor realized this and, with it, an opening. He asked if I would meet him at his office. I drove out and he put it to me: “Instead of dealin’ with all of this other nonsense, how about writing a factory column each issue?”
I didn't hesitate. “Sounds like a solid career move,” I agreed.
I was eventually reeled back into the GM nest. However, this time, a big curveball was awaiting me. I was told to report for duty at 6:00
A.M
. the following morning. Something had to be terribly wrong. Six
A.M
. was the start-up time for the first shift. First shift was always reserved for the old-timers—guys who enjoyed wakin’ with the roosters and rollin’ into the plant with industrial-sized buckets of convenience store coffee splashin’ all over their floorboards.
Considering my comparatively low seniority, how did I figure in with this pack? I was a relative youngster. I didn't have fake choppers or war tattoos or Benny Goodman on eight-track. I hated fuckin’ coffee. I hated birds tweetin’ and alarm clocks and disc jockeys reciting the wind chill factor. There was just no figurin’ General Motors. When it came time to make a move, I think they just threw darts at a board or yanked on straws.
To compound my misery, I was told to report to the Axle Line. The Axle Line was only a short distance from the Rivet Line; however it may as well have been a thousand miles away. The Axle Line area was eerie. The lighting was a very dingy yellow. The workers looked like ghouls dippin’ between fog banks. Just as disturbing was the awkward silence. Instead of the normal bashing and crashing, all you could hear was this annoying clicking sound like a far-off game of marbles.
My new foreman, a Mr. Hurley, scribbled down my name and number. He told me to follow him to my new placement. “Have you ever operated a hoist before, Hamper?” he asked.
“No, sir,” I answered. “My specialty is riveting.”
“Sorry, no rivets down here, pal.”
I followed the boss as we weaved our way through countless piles of axles. Each one appeared to be a different shape or design. They lay there atop each other like missiles ready for launch.
“Hamper, this is Mark Garrison,” Hurley said. “You will be replacing Mark on the rear axle hoist job.”
This Garrison fella was bustin’ it so hard that he didn't have time to turn around for any formal greetings. He flung his right hand over his shoulder and I gave it a slap. It was only forty-five minutes into the shift and the poor bastard's shirt was already soaked through.
Hurley left us alone. In order to talk with Garrison, I had to race back and forth while he dragged his hoist around searching for the next axle that coincided with his schedule sheet. Once located, he hoisted the axle into the air and hustled back to the outstretched arms of the axle carrier. With one mighty heave, he slid the axle into place. Immediately, he pivoted and glanced at his schedule. It was time to fly off in the direction of another brand of axle. I could only shake my head. This job made thumping rivets look like a day at the Playboy Mansion.