Now and on Earth (18 page)

I'm sure, of course, that Gross isn't putting himself out any merely to favor me. I'm just about to get my new system set up, although I've not solved that one problem I spoke about, and he knows that Baldwin is pleased with it. And, in me, I think, he sees someone on whose coattails he can ride.

But clubbing up with Gross hasn't helped me any with Moon, personally, that is. I think he is doing all he can about Frankie. He wasn't at all bad when I first spoke to him about it.

He stood rapping my desk with a ruler, looking off absent-mindedly toward the final-assembly line. At last he said,

"You're sure it was my fault, Dilly?"

"I'm sure," I said. And nothing more. When you've lived like we have, when you put yourself on a spot of this sort, you've got to take that kind of question.

"I guess it was, all right," he said. "How much do you think it'll take?"

"A hundred dollars, anyhow."

He nodded. "You think you can get it done for that? When my wife was-"

"I'm not sure," I said. "I just supposed we could."

"Well, I think I can get a hundred."

"You ought to be able to," I said, taking courage.

He nodded again. "It looks that way, don't it, Dilly? I'm running better than seventy-five dollars a week. But I'm paying for that car, and we bought us a houseful of furniture here a while back, and I've been sending money to my brother's folks. It looks that way, but when you try to lay your hands on even a hundred dollars-all in one chunk-it's not easy."

"We'll have to have it, Moon."

"I said I'd try to get it. I'm pretty sure I can."

Well, it was a couple days later that I started riding with Gross, and as soon as Moon learned of it he got me off in a corner.

"Did you tell Gross about this?"

"Of course not," I said. "Why the hell should I, Moon?"

He didn't say anything for a minute, and when he did, he didn't answer my question.

"Are you after my job, Dillon?"

"After your-!" I burst out laughing.

"Are you or not?"

He was serious. I couldn't believe it, but he was. "No, Moon," I said. "I positively am not. Why-what in the name of God would I want with your job?"

"You're drawing seventy-five cents an hour. I'm getting twice that much."

"But I don't like this work, Moon."

"You'd like a dollar and a half an hour wouldn't you?"

"Not if I had to stay here to get it. I'm a writer-at least I used to be. If I took your job, it'd mean I couldn't ever get away. I wouldn't have the excuse that I could make more writing. It would be the end of my writing."

"How much were you making before you came here- on this fellowship you told me about?"

"Twenty-one hundred a year."

"Well, but my job pays almost twice that much."

"I know, Moon," I said. "But-"

"But what?" he said, staring at me somberly.

"Why, goddammit, didn't I just tell you-"

"Keep your voice down. Are you trying to tell everybody in here about it?"

"I'm through talking," I said. "Think what you want to."

A few days later he came around again.

"If you don't want my job, what are you working so hard for? Why'd you want to learn blueprints and set up this new system and-"

"Would you rather I hadn't?" I said. "Would you rather I just sat here and let things go to hell like they were going? If you would, just say so. I'm getting pretty goddamned tired of working my head off for a bunch of numbskulls who don't appreciate it and won't lift a finger to help me."

"I just asked, Dilly."

"And I told you. Think what you want to, do what you want to."

I am pretty confident of one thing: He doesn't dare fire me. He might make things so uncomfortable for me that I couldn't stay, but-I don't think he would even do that. We've been inquiring around, you see, and 250 dollars seems to be about the minimum for the job we need doing. And Moon is undoubtedly figuring on my paying a good share of it. If I lost my job…

I have already seen one man "crowded down the line"-a new man in our department. It was a vicious and fascinating piece of business.

He was an honor-graduate from high school. Perhaps that was the trouble. Perhaps he was a little too eager to show his knowledge of things in general, for that is one way of getting your ears knocked down very quickly in here. Knowledge is taken for granted here. You don't flaunt it. You use it. He hadn't been here three days before I was aware that everyone had it in for him. And that he wasn't going to last.

Moon, say, would set him to sweeping the floor. When he got up in the Purchased-Parts Department Busken would call him over to help shelve some parts. The kid would have worked at this for an hour or so when Moon strolled around.

"I thought I told you to sweep the floor."

"Well-Mr. Busken asked me to-"

"Well-hurry it up."

It was then Busken's turn:

"All right. Go on. I won't ask you to help me again."

"Why? What's the matter, Mr. Busken?"

"Go on. I didn't think you'd go around griping to Moon just because I asked you to give me a hand."

Naturally, that alarmed the kid. He didn't want people mad at him. He insisted on staying and helping, working frantically so that he could still get the floor swept. And invariably when he did get the broom in his hands again, there was Murphy or Gross needing assistance.

If he hesitated:

"Hey, Moon! What's the matter here? Can't I have a little help?"

"Sure you can. Grab ahold there, Shorty. You won't get your hands dirty."

If the kid didn't hesitate, but grabbed ahold at once:

"When are you going to get this floor swept?"

"Well-Mr. Mur- Right away, sir."

That night, of course, the floor wouldn't be swept.

Dolling brought the kid's dismissal slip down the third week of his probation. It said:

General attitude… Sullen Helps others? Unwillingly Competence? Seldom completes assignments Remarks… Wholly unsatisfactory

And it was all true. But I don't think a brighter, faster, better-natured boy ever walked into the plant.

It is even easier to "crowd a man down the line" in the assemblies. The parts for the different positions are being changed constantly. Time-study may learn that a part that has been put on in Position 1 can be better handled at Position 3. And when a new part is turned out, it may have to be put on "at the door" or "in the yard," because the planes have progressed that far and they cannot be returned, say, to Position 2 where the part would normally be integrated.

Under these circumstances it is obviously easy to make a competent man look the opposite (although it is seldom done, now, because of the shortage of skilled workers). And when he is called on the carpet, he has no alibi. There has been another shift in parts. He has no more to do than he should easily accomplish.

I feel extremely sorry for the time-study men. Life for them is utter hell. They go from department to department, timing the workers in their various operations. And no one likes to be timed, and everyone makes it as difficult as possible.

The worker may flatly refuse. "Get the hell away from me. I don't want to be bothered now."

And the time-study man may not reply in kind, or call the foreman-except as a last resort. He must time the process, yes, but it will be very bad for him if he causes a skilled worker to throw down his tools and walk out. Anyone can tell time; everyone cannot run a rivet-gun or assemble a control column.

He laughs, pleasantly. "Got to keep 'em flying, huh? Want me to drop back after lunch?"

No answer.

"Ha, ha. Like to have me drop back after lunch?"

"I don't give a damn what you do."

He comes back after lunch: "All set? Ha, ha. Fine, fi-"

"Get away from me!"

"Please. I've got to-"

"You heard me. Clear out!"

The time-study man calls the foreman. "I'm sorry. Your man won't let me time him."

"Oh yeah? What's the matter, Bill?"

"Aw the son-of-a-bitch keeps getting in my light, Mac."

"Yeah?… Look, you. You go back to the office and tell 'em if they want this process timed, they can send a man down that knows how to do it. Now scram!"

And so it goes.

Time-study men come and go rapidly. Today I saw one, a poorly dressed hungry-looking fellow of about forty-five, who probably will not be here very long. Someone had constructed a replica of a sanitary napkin from gauze and waste, dipped it in red paint, and stapled it to the back of his coat. He could see the men grinning as he passed and feel something flopping and splashing against his rear. But he couldn't see it or reach it, so he concluded, I guess, that the men were merely in a good humor and that the other was his imagination. When the office sees him, I imagine they'll let him out. If not, I'd think he'd be too humiliated to come back.

Down in the foundries it is even worse. The drophammer men like nothing better than to catch a timehound in the narrow aisle between their implements. Then it is-
bang! bang! bang!-
and the jolts are enough to throw him off his feet and the pressure enough to deafen him.

He has white-hot washers dropped into his pockets. Oily waste is speared to his coattails and set afire.

And he may find-the guards may find-when he leaves that night that he is carrying out some expensive tool or part.

Yes, they know-the office knows. But no one is going to discharge or even reprimand an essential worker because of a time-study man. I said once before that you could get away with anything here if you were good enough; but I didn't mean it literally. I do when I say it now.

I have never yet gone into the toilet when there was not someone asleep on the stools; the sleepers were (and are) particularly numerous during the afternoon. The guards used to take their badge-numbers, and it would mean a three-day layoff. But now they wake them up and that is the end of the matter. It used to be that you could hardly find a place to smoke at noon because of the restricted areas and planes in the yard (you aren't supposed to smoke within twenty feet of a plane). Now, however, if the guards see you smoking where you shouldn't be-and they don't go out of their way to see you-they approach very slowly so that you will have time to finish before they arrive. No more tickets are handed out for such things as running in the aisles. The incessant practical joking is generally winked at. A riveter will take a paper cup of water and pour it into the tailcone where his bucker-up lies prone and helpless. The guard sees it, takes a step forward, then remembers and turns away. I feel pretty sorry for the guards, too.

I think I told you of the guard who accosted me when I first went to work here. Well, a few days ago he came up to my window, and he was no longer in natty khaki and Sam Browne. He was wearing unionalls-just another parts boy.

I looked at his badge.

"What do you want with nose-over posts? They're not put on at your station."

"Well-my lead-man sent me after them."

"Who is your lead-man?"

He told me.

I gave him a suspicious stare. "Where is he now?"

"Well-I don't know just where right now."

"Better find him. And make it snappy. We're all here to work, you know."

Yes, I think he did recognize me; and I felt ashamed of myself afterwards. He'd already been punished enough for lacking tact and diplomacy.

I don't know.

I don't know why I can't like the job better, get interested in it. Working conditions couldn't be better. The pay is at least fair. Everything within reason that can be done for the worker is done. We're turning out four planes a day now, but we have the men to do it with. The speed-up has slowed down. I don't have to worry about my past bobbing up.

It's not pleasant to work in a department where the others are unfriendly, but I've worked where the atmosphere was much colder and not minded particularly. I minded, but it wasn't enough to make me want to get up and pull out. Of course, those were writing jobs and-

Still, I don't know.

Out in the yard at noon when a plane goes over, everyone looks up. They stop eating and talking to look up at a plane that they have seen in the plant at least a thousand times and the counterparts of which are all around them. And then the discussions about torque and drag and potential efficiency, and the arguments anent the merits of liquid- and air-cooling, and the minute comparisons of the different kinds of rudder tabs and shockstruts and tail pants and-God knows what all. And the little groups drawing diagrams in the dust and slapping their notebooks, and-well, goddammit, it's crazy. It's infuriating. You'd think there was nothing more important in the world than-