Page 60 - WTP Vol. X #5

War & Peace in the Window Factory (continued from preceding page)
fight! The men were laughing, ducking, and flinging wads of putty at each other and at passers-by. At the moment, these normally impassive assemblers behaved like kids throwing spitballs in a classroom. Tyler recognized that the job really did get to them from time to time.
“They’re just letting off steam,” Gus said when Tyler told him what he’d witnessed. “Sometimes you just gotta let go. Best not to let the inspector see them, though.”
Kind of pathetic. But, on reflection, Tyler decided in their place he’d probably have fired a few rounds of putty himself.
Such antics were the exception. Most of the time the workers labored steadily, indeed, relentlessly. Jack- pot. Sand more sashes. Jackpot. Punch more holes. Jackpot. Set more nails. Jackpot. If you worked hard enough and fast enough you could tally it every night. The men just kept going.
Sometimes Gus grumbled and scratched, but he never said much. Of course, over the whirring and grinding of the sander they couldn’t communicate anyway. Tyler might just as well have tried shouting into a jet engine.
Once in awhile, however, Gus and Tyler took their meal break together. And Gus opened up a bit. He even teased Tyler. “Man ought to have a real lunch bucket and thermos, not a little paper bag like the one you got there, Tyler. And you outta drink black coffee. It’ll put hair on your chest.”
Tyler just grinned. A strange measure of manliness, he thought. But he went out and purchased a bucket the next day. And a thermos, even though he de- tested coffee.
When Gus did open up, he exhibited understated pride in his job. “Been here nearly thirty-five years,” he said. “Never missed work except that one time I had pneumonia and that other time I got my hand stuck in the sander.”
That answered one question. Tyler had been reluc- tant to ask about the missing finger.
Tyler had another question. “I don’t see any women here,” Tyler said. “How come?”
“Man’s work. There was some of them here during the war. But when the boys come home, the girls went back to keep house. Just the way it is. Man’s
work.” Gus subscribed to the prevailing view.
There had been no people like Gus in Tyler’s classes at Wilherst. Tyler’s father had indeed steered him into another world.
One night near summer’s end, Tyler said to Gus, “How do you and the other men put up with the routine? I mean doing the same thing over and over. Don’t the younger men at least want other jobs? To do something else?”
Gus drilled him with a look of disdain. “It’s the hand we’re dealt. It’s honest work. Tyler, you sound like you still got a case of the swelled head.”
Tyler wished he’d kept his mouth shut. “I didn’t mean...” He wasn’t sure what he meant; but whatever it was, it didn’t come across well.”
“Some folks are more favored, some are luckier. That don’t make them better; just remember that.”
Tyler kept slogging away through War and Peace, but he also worked his tail off on the job. If he had to
be a robot, a robot he would be. And he relished his workmates’ recognition on the rare occasions they deigned to extend it. He was not sure why; it made no difference in the grand scheme of things. Still, he paced himself and when his shift ended, he yelled, “Jackpot” before anyone else. He grinned when Gus said, “You done good tonight, Tyler.”
As summer neared its end, Tyler had only managed about 400 pages of the novel. People occasionally still asked, “What’s the use of reading something like that? Is it gonna make you rich?” He began to wonder himself why he read on. At the same time, he knew that, at least from some of the guys, he’d earned a
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