Page 49 - WTP Vol. X #5

“Any questions?”
Tyler suppressed the desire to ask how at his age Conway occupied such a mediocre position. Instead, he said, “Well, I was wondering when I might meet Mr. Acton and the other senior officers.”
Conway responded with an expression of incredulity. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
“I just wanted to be certain there wasn’t some mis- take about my job, especially about this night shift. I mean that’s when I sleep.”
“The plant has two shifts now during the busy sea- son. That’s why we take on extra workers. Four to 12:30, that’s it. Bring your card. I’ll show you where to punch in.”
Racks of cards bracketed the time clock near the workers’ entrance. “Best to be on time,” Conway said. “Otherwise, they might dock your pay.”
Tyler considered the pay of $1.14 an hour laughable. And he deemed the regimentation represented by the clock to be oppressive.
“Surprised we don’t have to wear a number,” he said.
Conway disregarded the sarcasm. “Let’s go meet the foreman.”
As they stepped onto the factory floor, hot wet air washed over them. And the noise of machines—clat- tering, whirring, clanging, pounding—forced the men to stand close to hear each other. To the uninitiated Tyler, it seemed like bedlam.
The section foreman, Jack Peters, was a tall man with slicked-back black hair and thin, unsmiling lips. Out- fitted in dark blue work pants and shirt, he mumbled a brief greeting. “You’ll be an assistant on a sanding machine. We expect a day’s work for a day’s pay. No clowning around. Do your job and you’ll be okay. Oh, yeah. Two ten-minute breaks and twenty-five min- utes for your meal.”
Tyler experienced another surge of unease. “But what am I supposed to...?”
“Gus will explain. Come with me.” “Who’s Gus?”
“Guy you’ll be working with. Over there behind the sanding machine.”
Tyler had never encountered, never imagined, such a machine. With a green metal housing, the contriv- ance measured six feet wide and twelve feet long. It loomed before him like a giant box, topped with large tubes that funneled away the dust it generated. The machine featured waist-high openings at opposite ends. At one end, the operator fed partially finished wooden frames onto a conveyor belt that passed through the machine. At the other end the helper, soon to be Tyler, retrieved the sanded frames and stacked them on wooden pallets.
Gus spotted them, shut off the power, and emerged from behind the sander. A man who’d been helping him raised a hand and sauntered away.
Gus was a short, compact man, and Tyler thought, old, old enough to be my grandfather. Gray-haired and gray-eyed, he squinted through heavy lensed specta- cles perched atop a battered nose. His face was deep- lined and worn-looking, like weathered wood. His hands, too, looked worn; his nails chipped and dirty. He had on bib overalls, a denim shirt, and thick-soled work shoes. When he spoke, Tyler detected a hint of “the old country,” maybe Germany. He could only be, Tyler surmised, an uneducated man.
“Ain’t much to it,” Gus said. “You just stack ‘em up and some fella comes by with a forklift or hand cart and hauls ‘em away. Button right there if you have to stop the belt.”
“You mean I start right now?”
“What did you think? Time’s awastin.’ We’re goin’ for jackpot.”
“Jackpot?”
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