Now and on Earth (4 page)

"Got a ride home?" he asked.

"No, I haven't," I said.

"Why don't you walk down here with me to my car?" I said thanks, I'd appreciate it, and we walked along together, working our way through the double stream of traffic that was already beginning to flow toward Pacific Boulevard.

"What do you think of that guy, Moon?" he asked. "Did you ever see anybody so screwy in your life?"

I laughed. "He's got his peculiarities, all right."

"He's crazy," said Gross, "and I don't care who tells him I said so. He's been riding me ever since I went to work here."

I was rather anxious to divert the conversation to another subject. "Have you been here quite a while?"

"I've been in the plant four months. I only started in the stockroom three weeks ago. I worked down in Drophammer the rest of the time."

"You like this work better?"

"I'd like it if Moon wasn't so crazy and wouldn't ride me all the time. I ain't used to that riding. He don't like me because Personnel put me in there without asking him about it. I went over and talked to the personnel man, see; told him about my education, and how I wanted a chance to use it. We had a real nice talk. He's a nice fellow. He's quite a sports fan, and when he found out I was All-American, he really got interested. A few days after that they fired the bookkeeper they had in the stockroom-even Moon admits he wasn't any good-and gave me the job."

He stopped and opened the door of an old Chevrolet sedan.

"What do you think of Murphy?" he said, one foot on the running board.

"How do you mean?" I said.

Gross snorted. "Did you ever see anyone that looked more like a Mexican in your life?"

"Well-no."

"And he calls himself Murphy! I think they ought to do something about that, don't you?"

"Why-I don't know."

"Say," said Gross, "didn't you just get through saying he was a Mexican?"

"Yes," I said. "I mean-"

"Well, all right, then," he said.

He climbed into the car, settled himself, and looked at me with veiled amusement.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. This isn't my car; it belongs to another guy. I don't know just when he'll be out, and I think he's going to have a load. Maybe you'd better go on."

"Thanks," I said. "I'll do that."

"Any time I've got my own car," he called after me, "I'll be glad to give you a ride."

"Thanks," I said, without turning around.

I knew he was laughing, and it embarrassed me. It always embarrasses me to see meanness in others, even when it is directed at me. I wince for them.

It wasn't until late that night that I thought about what I'd said and how it would sound repeated to Murphy. And I was confident that it was going to be repeated. It was, because it just isn't natural for me to do or say anything without trouble ensuing. Of course, I could protect myself by going to Murphy first and explaining that Gross had put words in my mouth. But then what if Gross didn't intend to tell Murphy, after all? I'd have started something. Murphy would confront Gross with my story, and I would be called as a witness. If Gross admitted it, I'd be a tattletale. If he said I was lying-well, what could I do?

I don't think I'm actually afraid of Gross. I've had my ears batted down so many times that I know there's nothing to be less fearful of than physical pain. I am only afraid of him in that he can worry me, and I do not know how I can stand much more. I've got to pull myself together.

The next morning, right after I had crossed Pacific and started down the dirt road, a car began to honk behind me. To hear a car horn in San Diego is an unusual thing; I think there's an ordinance against it. I looked around; it was Moon. He was driving a late model Buick, and the front door was swinging open. I hopped in.

When we reached the plant, he parked in a reserved space. And I thanked him and started to get out.

"Wait a minute, Dillon-Dilly. It's only six-thirty."

We lighted cigarettes, and he looked at me appraisingly. He is about thirty, I think.

"We're about the same size, Dilly."

I said yes, we were, wondering what was coming next. I don't think Moon is screwy, as Gross puts it. I think he simply says and does whatever is on his mind.

"I've got the edge on you for weight, though," I said. "I can't put on any weight," he said. "I can't stop sleeping with my wife."

I laughed.

"Every time I think I'm going to," he said, "she fixes me a big batch of egg sandwiches. I told her last night that that was going to have to last a while, and this morning she fixed me six egg sandwiches for my lunch. You'd think she'd been living in China instead of me."

"You were in China?"

"Eighteen months in the interior. Petty officer. The last of my hitch in the navy… Ever do any clerical work, Dilly?"

"Yes. It's not in my line, but I've done it."

"The trouble with keeping records in a place like this," he said, "is that you've got to know parts. Just being a bookkeeper and a typist and so on isn't enough. Now Gross had four months' experience in another plant before he came here, so he knows parts pretty well. At least he should know them pretty well."

"I certainly don't know much about them," I said. "I'll have to show you around a little," he said. "I've been pretty busy before or I'd've already done it. You remind me of it some time today."

I went into the plant feeling, somehow, better than I had felt in a long time. Of course, I should know, by now, that no one is going to do anything for me unless there is a catch to it. But I keep right on getting caught with my guard down.

The boys in Purchased Parts had received several kegs of bolts and washers, and we had got in very few parts; so I was delegated to help them put their parts in the bins. Thus I witnessed another example of the humor of Busken and Vail.

All these small parts are magnafluxed; that is, they are dipped in a blue-dye bath. Partly to prevent corrosion, I believe; partly to show up any flaws which they may have. Of course, the dye rubs off easily. By the time I had worked five minutes, my hands were dripping with the stuff.

Well, a youth in a white shirt came up to the counter. One of the stock-chasers. Vail quickly slipped on a pair of gloves. Busken darted around behind the racks and went through the gate.

"Why, if it isn't my old pal, Jack!" said Vail heartily, striding forward with his right hand extended and tugging at the glove thereon. "Where you been keeping yourself, Jack?"

"Now, none of your jokes," said Jack, extending his hand nonetheless. "I'm in a-"

Vail immediately shed his gloves and seized the outthrust hand, massaging it vigorously.

"How are you, Jack, ol' boy, ol' boy?" he demanded, rubbing in the dye. "I say, ol' boy, do you think it'll rain? Do you think-"

"You son-of-a-bitch!" snarled Jack. "Leggo, goddammit! I told you I was in a-"

Busken stepped up behind him, and slapped him on the back, clamped two blue palms against the white shirt-sleeves, giggling.

"Why, what's the matter with Jack, he, he?" he inquired. "He, he, he-did 'oo get '00 'ittle hands dirty?"

"Yes, I did!" snapped Jack. "This crazy son-of-a-bitch -" Then he saw the havoc that had been done to his shirt. "Why, you bastard!" he yelled. "Look what you done to my shirt! God damn you, if I-"

Vail seized the left hand also; held both in a firm grip. "Jack's just tired," he informed Busken. "He's been out in the heat too long. You come inside, Jack. It's twenty degrees cooler inside."

He leaned back and pulled, trying to pull the hapless Jack across the counter. Busken was almost dancing with glee.

"Throw me the broom, Dilly!" he chortled. "We'll give ol' Jack-he, he-a prostate. Want a nice massage, Jackie? He, he!"

I handed him an ordinary kitchen broom, and, standing well out of kicking range, he drew the worn straws slowly between Jack's buttocks. Jack writhed and shrieked with laughter and rage. Busken tickled him delicately upon the testicles. Jack leaped high into the air.

As Busken worked the tormenting broom-and I have never seen anyone put more enthusiasm into a task- Vail tugged. So, gradually, Jack began to slide across the counter.

Midway in the process, Moon came up and stood watching, neither amused nor unamused. Vail turned to him, inquiringly.

"Want something?"

"How long you going to be busy here?"

"Oh, we'll have him over in a minute."

"Better hurry it up. It's about time for the guard to come around."

A moment or so later, Jack was pulled inside. He was a wreck. He could do nothing but stand and curse, and even that not very effectively.

"You'd better get on out of here," observed Moon. "No one's supposed to be in here but employees of the department."

"Damn it!" screamed Jack. "Didn't you see what happened? Do you think-?"

"Well, you go on, now," Moon repeated. "I'm supposed to keep you fellows out of here, and I'm going to do it."

Jack went out the gate muttering, tucking in his ruined shirt.

"You come with me, Dilly," said Moon. "I want you to do some typing."

I walked around to Gross's desk with him. "Let Dilly have your stool, Gross," he said. "I want him to do some typing."

Gross got to his feet. "I can do it."

"You go help Murphy take those propellers over to Service."

Gross reddened. "I thought I was supposed to be the bookkeeper around here."

"Who said you weren't?"

"Well-what're you-why are you- Oh, hell!" He strode off, scowling.

"Now this is a shortage report you're going to type, Dilly," said Moon, handing me two hand-inscribed pieces of paper. "A first- release shortage report. The first release is for twenty-five ships, the second for fifty, and so on. As we really get organized and step up production the size of the releases gets bigger."

"Then, this shortage report," I said, "it's intended to show the parts you need to complete twenty-five ships?"

"That's it. Ordinarily you'd have to take the shortages from the books, but since you're new, I've done it. Look. Here's your first item- -a bulkhead bracket, Number F-1198. We use four of those to a ship. We've issued forty to Final Assembly, and we have forty-three in stock. That gives us a shortage of seventeen. Twenty-five ships would require a hundred parts, and eighty-three from a hundred leaves seventeen."

"I get it," I said.

"Good. Give me an original and four copies, and let's see how fast you can turn them out."

I scoured my hands on my pants, fitted carbon and paper into the typewriter, and got to work. I was nervous, naturally, and the typewriter wasn't all it should have been. But I knocked out that shortage report-composed almost entirely of symbols and figures-in less than half an hour. And it didn't have a single mistake in it.

Rather proudly I handed it to Moon.

He looked at it, looked at me. "What are these smudges?"

"Why, I guess they're from the bolts I was handling," I said. "They're not very bad, are they?"

The question was rhetorical as far as I was concerned. The pages were practically spotless.

"I can't send anything to the office that looks like this," said Moon.

"Well," I said, "I'll wash my hands and do it over."

"Let it go."

"But I don't mind," I protested. "If I haven't done it right, I want the chance to do it over again."

"Let it go," he repeated. "I'll have Gross do it."

"But, listen-"

"I've got another job for you, anyhow."

I spent the rest of the day making parts boxes-probably the most unpleasant job the mind could conceive. The boxes are shipped to us in the form of flat cardboard cutouts. You take one of these, crimp the ends and sides, and smear the back flap with glue. Then you bring the flap over quickly, smearing yourself to the elbows, weight it with sandbags, and stand it on the floor to set. When the back flap is firmly attached, you shake out the sandbags, apply glue to a tough board which fits beneath the front flap, and do the same thing all over again. The box is then complete except for attaching the handle. The screws for the handle, of course, usually split the wood, since you have inserted it with the grain the wrong way, and the job has to be done over.

That glue was like some a guy was supposed to have sold at Ranger, Texas, during the boom; Pop told me about it. Some old farmer had made it up from a secret recipe, and he used to drive around the drilling wells in a horse and buggy peddling it. It would stick anything together. If a man got his hand cut off, he could stick it on with this glue and it would be as good as it ever was. If a string of pipe parted, a little glue would patch it up. The way Pop told it-and I heard the yarn so many times I used to get up and walk out when he'd start on it-it was like this: One day when the farmer was passing a well the driller pulled the rig in, and one of the guy-wire stakes whizzed through the air and hit the farmer's horse, slicing it in two. The farmer wasn't alarmed, of course; he knew what the situation called for. He simply got out a pot of glue and stuck the horse together again. As it happened, however, he didn't stick the two halves together as they originally were. He got two legs pointing one way, two another. But it worked out all right. After that the animal was indefatigable. When he became tired of walking on two of his legs, the farmer would turn him over and let him walk on the other two.