“You were told to be prompt,” he spouted. “There can be NO EXCEPTIONS.”
The realization that he'd blown his big audition seemed to overwhelm the late guy. He looked down at the floor, his voice started breaking and, right there in front of everyone, he began to cry. It all came spillin’ out—what was he gonna tell his family and who would understand? For the sons and daughters of the assembly line, 1977 wasn't the best of years to go fumblin’ the family baton.
We stood there clutching our little vials of piss as they escorted him out. We had been on time. We were going to build trucks for the GM Truck & Bus Division. The man with the bow tie and clipboard had written down all our names. Our friend had been ten minutes late. He had already proven himself undeserving of a hitch on the screw train. There could be no exceptions.
Ten years later, I found myself still thinking about the late guy. On those terribly humid shifts when the parts just weren't going together right and the clock was taking two steps back for every step forward, exhausted and desperate, I'd see him over by the pool table in the bar across the street. He'd have a cold beer in his hand and a grin a mile wide. I would imagine myself walking up to him with my safety glasses, my locker key and my plastic identification badge held out in my hand. “Here, it's all yours, buddy,” I'd say. “I need a cold one.”
Immediately, the jukebox would stop playing. Everyone in the bar would turn toward me and begin to laugh. The late guy would slip his arm around the waitress and they both would shake their heads. “You were told to be prompt,” he would say. “There can be no exceptions.”
I was assigned to the Cab Shop, an area more commonly known to its inhabitants as the Jungle. Lifers had told me that on a scale from one to ten—with one representing midtown Pompeii and ten being then GM Chairman Roger Smith's summer home—the Jungle rates about a minus six.
It wasn't difficult to see how they had come up with the name for the place. Ropes, wires and assorted black rubber cables drooped down and entangled everything. Sparks shot out in all directions—bouncing in the aisles, flying into the rafters and even ricocheting off the natives’ heads. The noise level was deafening. It was like some hideous unrelenting tape loop of trains having sex. I realized instantly that, as far as new homes go, the Jungle left a lot to be desired. Me Tarzan, you screwed.
I had been forewarned. As our group was being dispatched at various drop points throughout the factory, the guy walking beside me mumbled about our likely destination. “Cab Shop,” the prophet said. “We're headed for Cab Shop.” Perplexed, I wondered if this meant we would be building taxis.
The group trudged on, leaving a few workers in each new area. We stopped by the Trim Line. The Axle Line. The Frame Line. The Tire Line. The Receding Hairline. When we arrived at the Motor Line, my friend with the bashful bladder hopped off. “Thanks,” he told me. It was kind of strange. All we had in common was a small, useless vial of urine. “Have a nice career,” I offered.
Soon, all but two rookies had been planted—the prophet and me. We took a dark elevator upstairs and, when the gate opened, the prophet let out a groan. “Goddamn, I knew it! The bastard's lettin’ us off in Cab Shop.” I had to agree with the prophet. Our overseer did seem like a bastard. Just the way he had gleefully shot down that late guy made me hate his guts. Not only was he a bastard, he made for one lousy Johnny Appleseed. We stood at the foot of the Jungle. We were doomed. There could be no exceptions.
“Here you are, boys—the Cab Department,” our overseer spoke. “In this area you are advised to wear clothing made from a nonflammable fabric. Also, you will need to purchase a pair of steel-toned work boots, available at fair cost in the shoe store next to the workers’ cafeteria.” He grinned. “Good luck, boys,” he said and walked away.
A pudgy, slick-dressed black guy directed us down the line toward our job setups. This was Brown, our foreman. As we tagged along behind him, the workers paused to give us the razz. We were fresh blood, ignorant meat. “Turn around before it's too late,” someone shouted. “Hey, Brown, let ‘em hang tailgates,” another chimed in. Hang tailgates? Christ, that sounded like a ball-buster.
Our foreman stopped next to a big red-haired guy and a man in a filthy welder's cap. He pointed at me and informed me that I would be replacing the guy in the welder's cap. The guy seemed elated. “It's about goddamn time you got me outta here.” The guy in the welder's cap looked at me and smiled. He had very few teeth. “My name's Gary and this is Bud,” he said, pointing to the big redhead. “You'll love it here, just love it.” Both of them laughed.
It turned out that my fellow rookie, the prophet, would be working directly across from me. His name was Roy and he'd come to Flint from Oklahoma to live with his brother and find work in the factory. It seemed like an awfully long haul just to wind up in this dreaded Jungle. Anyway, I felt glad for his presence. Having a greenie like myself across the line could only help during this assimilation process.
For the entire shift, I was asked to do nothing but stand back and examine how Gary performed his job. I was told that I would have three days to learn the job and then it would be all mine. Always the pessimist, I asked Gary what happened if after three days were up I still didn't have a handle on the job. “Then they give you the Van Slyke shuffle.” He chuckled. Van Slyke was the street the factory was located on.
“I'll have it down in a day,” I told Gary. “I've seen enough of the street.”
Gary and Bud worked their jobs together. They combined them so that one of them was working while the other guy sat out and read the paper or did a crossword. I figured the job couldn't be too difficult if one of them had the time to complete both jobs while the other guy lagged around doin’ nothin’.
This form of combo workmanship was termed “doubling-up,” a time-honored tradition throughout the shop that helped alleviate much of the boredom. Bud assured me that once I got my job down at a steady pace, he would teach me his job and we could survive much easier with a double-up arrangement. I nodded hesitantly, wanting only to conquer one detail at a time.
At the end of my first shift, I walked out of the lot with Roy. His martyr's grumble about bein’ stashed in the Cab Shop had quickly vanished.
“Fuckin’ A, Ben, do you realize we just grossed about $100 for standin’ around doin’ absolutely nothin’?”
“A $100 gross?” I repeated.
“Sure, this is Saturday. Saturday means time and a half. You can also include our night shift premium. A hundred dollar gross for watchin’ a bunch of dipshits tinkerin’ around!”
“Yeah, but don't forget starting next week you and I will be the dipshits.”
“Hell, those jobs they gave us are pussy detail. Once we get settled in, we'll be sittin’ on our asses half the time while bringin’ home three or four bills a week. It's a highway robbery. I'm gonna go get drunk. Care to join me?”
“I'll pass this time,” I told Roy. “See you Monday.”
Our jobs were identical—to install splash shields, pencil rods and assorted screws with a noisy air gun in the rear ends of Chevy Blazers and Suburbans. To accomplish this, we worked on a portion of the line where the cabs rose up on an elevated track. Once the cabs were about five feet off the ground, Roy and I ducked inside the rear wheel wells and busted ass. Standing across from each other in those cramped wheel wells always reminded me of the two neighbors in the Right Guard commercial who met every morning in their communal medicine cabinet. “Hi, guy! Care for a scoop of sealer on that pencil rod?”
Within a shift and a half, I had already conquered my new job. The foreman turned Gary loose and I was on my own. After I fastened down my required parts with my air gun, Bud jumped into the wheel well with his bulky spot-welder and zapped the truck bed and wheel well together. Sparks flew out in these crazy curvatures and danced to dust. Tiny clicking explosions dash-dotted the atmosphere like some jumpy Morse code. It was sorta like Nam without the Motown soundtracks and mosquito netting.
Bud introduced me to some of the nearby natives. There was Dan-O, the resident prankster, who mig-welded the truck beddings. He constantly chewed cigars while keeping up a running racial tease with the black guy who worked next to Bud and me.
Another was a guy they all called Bob-A-Lou. He had this gleaming crew cut and a belly that hung down halfway to his knees. Bob-A-Lou worked down the line a bit and it was fairly obvious that whatever he did involved some heavy-duty welding. His T-shirt was dotted with a few thousand burn holes and his forearms were a road map of tiny pink scabs. Bob-A-Lou had a voice like Andy Devine and it was funny to hear him gripe about something. The guy never cursed. “By golly, men, it's a steamer in here today. I wish these goldarn fans would kick out a little more air.” I liked Bob-A-Lou right off.
Then there was Robert, the black guy who worked next to Bud and me. He was the sullen type and I had a hunch he didn't warm up to rookies quickly. I shook his hand and he muttered something to me. “Okay,” I said. Turning away, I asked Bud what the hell Robert had said. “He told you to make sure you keep the fuck out of his area. He doesn't like getting pushed into the hole.” The hole? Bud explained the hole was a term used to describe falling behind. I waved at Robert. Hard work, hold the hole.
By the end of my first week on the job, Bud was already pestering me to double-up jobs with him. I was uneasy about the offer. Doubling-up with Bud meant that I would have to learn how to navigate his fire-breathing spot-welder. I had my reservations about coming within ten feet of that flaming albatross. Besides, I was quite content with my jerky little air gun. The screws and the J-clips shot right in and all you had to do was stand there and hoist the thing like some bad-ass cop pointin’ his piece.
Another consideration was that I was a new hire. I worried about the foreman's reaction to seeing me sitting on my ass half of the day. They liked to refer to this place as Generous Motors, but I had my doubts whether this pet phrase extended itself to greenhorns like myself who lacked the necessary seniority to operate their own scams.
“You're worried about
Brown?
” Bud whined. “Fuck Brown. He don't give a shit what goes on around here as long as the quota's met and the general foreman isn't gnawin’ his nuts.”
And I suppose it was true. One night Brown was hanging around the back of our workbench, scrunched up on a palletful of #202 screws. I was convinced he was here to eyeball me for possible infractions against the rule manual. I moved swiftly from job to job all the while attempting to affix this professional square-jawed look to my face. After about fifteen minutes of this nervous setup, I whispered to Bud asking what Brown was up to.
“By the looks of it, he's giving me the once-over,” I told Bud.
“Is that what you think? Listen, you've got that silly-assed job whipped. Brown doesn't even know you exist.”
“Then WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING BACK THERE?” I demanded.
“He's drinking beer,” Bud said.
“DRINKING BEER? Brown? Our foreman? Where'd he get it?”
“I brought him in a six of Miller's at lunchtime. It's hidden in an empty J-clip box under our bench.”
I looked over at Brown. He had a big dumb smile on his face. Every thirty seconds or so, he'd pivot his head around toward the aisle and then dive-bomb out of view behind our workbench. It was hot in the Cab Shop and I couldn't help but envy his access to a cold beer.
“And I bet there's a payoff for you, right?” I asked Bud.
“Now you're catching on. See, I have information that the Suburban tailgate buildup job will be open in a week or so. I asked Brown about it and he told me he'd seen what he could do when the time comes. I figure some cold beer here and there might help give me a leg up when the job comes open. Brown's a fuckin’ alkie.”
“In other words, you're greasin’ the foreman's liver.”
“Something like that.” Bud grinned.
Here I had been told to be on my most saintly behavior. What a lousy joke. My very own supervisor was suckin’ down the brew three nights a week twelve feet behind my back. Once he'd finish, Brown untangled himself from his makeshift hooch cellar, punctuated the occasion with a large belch, gave Bud a nod and walked on down the line to check up on the rest of the department.
It was apparent, in the wake of my own supervisor's misconduct, that Bud's double-up urgings couldn't be as jeopardizing to my career as I had originally believed. If the foreman could squat around chuggin’ beers during line time, most everything else would have to be tolerated. I already had enough on Brown to assure his silence.
“About time we started combining these pussy jobs,” I told Bud.
“Now you're comin’ around.” Bud gleamed.
He showed me how to operate his spot-welder. It wasn't an easy task. First you had to yank the machine down a large pulley and position the two tips of the welder in between the truck bed and the wheel well. Once you had it situated, you dragged it over to the right corner of the wheel well and began firing the trigger. Every inch or two you smacked out a weld—ideally, twenty-four welds per truck. All the while, sparks would be spray in’ all over the place. When a job was completed, you jerked the spot-welder free, stood back and let it bounce back up the pulley.
I gave it a try. I tugged. I groped. I strained in anger. I couldn't get the damn thing to budge more than a half inch every cycle. I ended up putting about fifty-five welds in the wheel well. Someone out there was gonna have a right rear wheel well toasted to the crisp. The sparks were gobbling me. They came pouring down on my head, sizzling what was left of my sparse crop of hair. Finally, I had dragged the welder down so far out of the normal path that I was halfway into Robert's area. He stood there waiting to weld on his splash shield. He didn't look pleased at all. Just before I was convinced he was gonna jab me with the red tip of his mig-welder, Bud bailed me out.
“Relax,” he said. “You're trying to outmuscle the thing. The welder will do all the work if you just hold it lightly and go for the ride. The more you fight the damn thing, the more grief it's gonna give you.”