The Unknown Industrial Prisoner (21 page)

As he looked from his high window in the Termitary block he saw a thickset prisoner coming in the blue gates, clocking his time card, waddling down the concrete walk to his little change shed in the vast Puroil yard, coming out changed a minute later, eating his morning apple, making for a row of twelve-inch pipes under the eye of his foreman. He didn't know Herman the German by name, but he saw this incredible man lifting the pipes by the ends—surely there were cranes for this work—and moving them to new positions a little further on. Suddenly, as one of the pipe ends dropped near another (the man must have been careless) he lifted one hand stupidly and looked at his extended finger. The foreman looked away quickly; better not to see anything. The Wandering Jew couldn't see from this distance, but Herman must have hurt himself, for he put one finger in his mouth as if he had nipped the flesh. Old fool! He looked for a moment at his own fingers and felt a small thrill of pain as he imagined the same thing happening to him. Then Herman moved out of his line of vision, obscured by large projections on the southern side of the Termitary, designed to shield the offices from the direct rays of the sun. It was designed in the Northern Hemisphere.

He looked east to the wharf area, reached for his binoculars. There was an overalled prisoner standing on the wharf, casting with a fishing rod. Casting? Why would a fisherman cast on the greasy Eel River, where the eels lie down because they're gummed up with—not to be admitted—petro-chemical residues? He pulled over his binocular stand, laid the glasses on the felt supports, clamped them in position and focused again. After a few minutes he saw the reason. The man was fishing for seagulls with a floating bait. There was a white fluttering in the air, gone, rising into the air again, perhaps twenty feet, then the fisherman reeled the bird in, quickly wrung its neck and shoved it into a sack beside his feet.

Seagull stew. The Wandering Jew had heard of men catching ducks on a floating bait—casting along the surface—but never seagulls. There was no end to their inventiveness. If only it could be applied to Puroil business, at no extra expense, his own record would look much brighter.

He sheathed the binoculars and walked impressively round his desk, glanced at the pastel-painted walls. How cheaply the place was decorated. No better than any suburban box. At home he relished his marble stairs, urned flowers, shining cedar floor and sunken bath; the private trappings of power were exactly to his taste. It was all too easy for men without taste or means to pretend asceticism.

The man born to be boss. Before the mirror he practised a few expressions within the limits of today's mould. Situational Sensitivity. Style Flexibility. Openness—Candour. Change Readiness. He made his face darken with love, clear with pity, then redden with indigestion, his dullest passion. His features returned elastically to the expression fixed by the mask.

On the wall behind his desk was the refinery chart; his function was listed at the apex of the pyramid. But there was a difference. When he looked at it, it was obvious that only his name was above ground; the tree, invisible, was the line of responsibility above him to the Australian, the British, the World Boards. Below him the functions were a root complex gripping deep into the human soil of the Puroil community. Below that there was nothing: nothing but the anonymous earth and stones and clay—everything that was not Puroil. He looked away from the chart to the money plants outside his window, the plants the chart represented by magic means. The new cracking plant had to go well. It was the money-spinner of the refinery; his whole future was bound up with it. Damn their flimsy rotors.

He decided to make his rounds, went to the car instead of calling for the chauffeur so that no advance notice could be spread of his threatened visit, put on the safety hat marked ‘Ref. Mgr.' and set off quickly for the cracking plant. He was not the type of manager who spoke freely to prisoners, so he needed the ‘Ref. Mgr
.
' branded in large letters. No prisoner who insulted or bumped him could have as excuse the plea that he didn't know the Manager by sight.

 

THE HUMAN RUG As the Wandering Jew's foot hit the control-room floor, the Slug—though he hadn't seen the manager come in—lay sleekly prostrate. A group of sensory cells in that yellow greasy head enabled him to detect the approach of the species Boss at a great distance. One day the Wandering Jew had met him in the washroom and the Slug, keen for an investiture in the toilet or a whispered consultation in the confessional, said good morning, clammily. The Jew mumbled suspiciously, Morning. That brief contact had been enough for the Slug to get the wave-length of his hat. He could home on that wave-length any time and spread himself rug-like under the feet of whoever wore it.

Others saw the hat and sounded the alarm.

‘Look out! Wandering Jew!'

Some scrambled, others shifted from one buttock to the other, some grunted, others didn't move. Terrazzo had found a face in some cracks in the cement wall and was filling in the outline. He didn't leave his work. Mogo said, ‘I don't recognize bosses. When one man tells another what to do, that's not equality.'

Outside, he watched teams of fitters readying the last of the power recovery turbines for this start-up attempt. He crossed two fingers for luck. Last time they were delayed by a demarcation dispute. An operating man touched a wrench with his foot. The fitters claimed this was done on purpose and all engineering tools should be handled, and kicked, by engineering men only, for once this very thing had been done to deprive a fitter's mate of his employment. A scab had kicked some tools from one job to another, a quarter-mile away, to save the expense of having a fitter's mate carry them and to be able to say he didn't pick them up himself. Fitters didn't carry tools, they used them; they had assistants for the carrying. With luck there would be nothing like that this time.

And no more ball-ups with Workers' Compensation. A man from another plant, hungry for overtime, had worked his first night shift of the week at his own plant, then accepted a double shift on the cracker, from seven to three in daylight. He was last in bed on the Friday morning and by noon Saturday had been without sleep for twenty-nine hours. He stood watching several panel instruments with orders to give the alarm if certain things happened. Asleep on his feet, he reeled backwards many times, and recovered his balance. The time he didn't he fell back and fractured his skull. It was better to blame a slippery floor and get in a dig at the operators who mopped it than to admit the man had done too much overtime. It was like admitting the need to recruit more labour. The Unions were suspicious, but the company was so nice to the man in hospital that he maintained the floor was slippery. It was a close one.

Several drops of moisture fell on his upturned face as he took off his hat and looked with pride upward at the mighty structures. Rain? Probably a small leak, not worth mentioning. He didn't see Far Away Places, two hundred feet above, buttoning his fly. He had taken to peeing from the top rather than have the Glass Canoe on his back.

The Wandering Jew made for the dark blue gates in his dark blue Mercedes. The winter sky, too, was a merciless blue, flaming ice-cold down out of the sun. The flare, on its tall mast pulsing bright, low, bright low. The refinery's visible heartbeat.

 

BUILDING BLOCKS The Wandering Jew pressed a button, the door opened and the Whispering Baritone footed quietly over the carpet and stood at his right hand. He jerked his jaw so the skin right down to his neck lifted and sat more comfortably on his collar. His face was an even brick-red from collar to the roots of his hair. He wore heavy black glasses.

‘What's this about the men putting up signs?'

‘I get them taken down each morning.'

‘Try leaving them there, they'll soon drop the idea.'

‘They seem to be answers to the signs we erect, the signs for their protection; Look—Safety First—No Smoking—Think. Signs of proven value.'

‘Why do they answer our signs with theirs?'

‘They think our signs menace them.' The Baritone was a psychologist.

‘Laughable.'

‘They have the vague idea they want to be free. Sometimes I think the freedom they really want is the utter freedom they'd have outside our family circle.' He pointed dramatically outside the window to the blue gates. ‘Out there they could be free of all our disciplines. Free to be hungry. If only they had the ability to see themselves as replaceable parts of an economy, instead of as individuals and mortal with one life to live.'

The Wandering Jew glanced out the window. ‘You can go a long way in this organization while you think and talk Puroil.' His tongue wedged firmly in his cheek. The Whispering Baritone knew it but was grateful for the gesture. ‘But do try to get rid of any bitterness you may feel towards the rank and file. We want you to realize your potentialities, to attain the limit of your capabilities. We're training you for more and more responsibility.'

The Whispering Baritone beamed.

‘We aim to put the round pegs in round holes and the square pegs in square holes. Remember my motto: Man's fate is himself!' The pathetic lectured man listened. He said the same things to his own subordinates, upon whose shoulders he sat squarely preventing their rise, as the Wandering Jew sat on his.

‘We must always remember, though,' he continued, practising aloud, ‘that we are mistaken if we feel that we alone are the company. We are composed of those who work for us and when we forget that, our own body turns on us and just as in the case of the human body slowly poisoned by what it takes in, so we are devoured by the individuals who compose our corporate body. We contain the seeds of our own defeat. Therefore—we must understand these individuals. You don't; I don't; but every day can bring its lesson to be digested.'

The Whispering Baritone found it impossible to break in at this stage in the great man's spiel.

‘Once upon a time humans were the centre of the universe. Larger than life. But now industrial man is detached from the earth, from others, even from basic life itself. One's own body is replaceable, one's life. Property is disappearing, common to more people. Oneness with self is disappearing. The world is usable, therefore we will use it, bend it, break it, replace it. Man is usable. We must not fear to use up our human resources, for we have vast reservoirs of manpower. Remember: the earth is no longer sacred or to be feared. Let us play with it. Man is no longer sacred: let us use him. Religion's grip has relaxed. We—you and I, the managers of the world—we are the future; they down there are our building blocks. But when you feel too safe, in the words of the poet: Take a bucket and fill it with water, put your arm in it up to the wrist; pull it out,and the hole that's remaining is a measure of how you'll be missed.'

There was a ghastly pause. What had he meant?

‘Thank you, sir,' the Baritone said nevertheless. He didn't know how to go on. He retreated from the room, head inclined, rump first.

 

THE UNKNOWN INDUSTRIAL PRISONER A court official called to see the Garfish to garnishee One Swallow's wages for a debt on a pair of wrought-iron gates he had ordered in a moment of drunken affection for his family. One Swallow was a chronic drunk who looked sober each day till he had his first drink, then fell over as if he'd just had twenty. Since the man wanted something—was a supplicant—the Garfish kept him waiting and while he waited he saw the Colonel's art gallery silhouetted on the ledge at the back of the office. Ignoring the stares of the office workers, which were enough to deter ordinary prisoners, the man marched up to the Colonel, looked at the gallery of sculptures and mobiles and pointed.

‘What is it?' He pointed at the masterpiece.

‘The Unknown Industrial Prisoner, chum.'

‘I'll buy it.'

‘Who are you?'

‘Welding is my hobby.'

‘What you want sculpture for?'

‘Make a full-size copy and enter it in a competition.'

‘Tell you what I'll do. I'll bring it out to your place Saturday and watch you work. What's the address?'

The man left his card. The Garfish hurried to fix him up once he invaded the office. His rule was push those who would yield and yield to those who pushed.

 

A NOURISHING MEAL The Python curled round in his low chair. He was so near the floor it seemed impossible for him to uncoil and strike from that position; so still, he appeared frozen or dead. But trickery gave him some life; he lived by it. He knew the impression of helplessness he gave from his low seat. He could feel rise in him, when a victim was within reach, the urge to crush the weak, hear them scream then whimper and finally swallow them whole. After all, how does a man stay alive but by killing his neighbour? Beating him for the best job, the nicest girl, was simply a modern substitute for doing him in. How does a man climb higher but by climbing on others' backs? Or how rich but by impoverishing his friend? How strong but by weakening his brother?

A man in overalls knocked at the door. Keep him waiting. The man knocked three times before the Python said, ‘Come in.' He let him stand for a few minutes without inviting him to speak, then at last looked the man up and down, missing nothing. It was Blue Hills. The offensive smell of sour gas radiated from his prison clothes.

‘I'd like to see about getting off shift, please. I want to get on day work,' said Blue Hills hesitantly.

‘What's your name first.' He enjoyed putting them through the whole drill.

‘Blue Hills.'

‘You want to resign?' He sat back, twirling his pencil horizontally between his sharp front teeth.

‘No. Day work.'

‘Don't you like the money on shift?'

‘Yes, I like the money—'

‘Why leave it?'

‘Money isn't everything. I want the wife—'