Wheels (3 page)

They faced each other across the desk.
"I'm willing to hear your version of what happened," the assistant plant
chief said, "but don't waste time because the way this reads"
he fingered
the red-tabbed grievance report
you've cooked us all a hot potato
.”

"The hell I cooked it
!”

Parkland glared at his superior; above the
bruise his face flushed red. "I fired a guy because he slugged me.
What's more, I'm gonna make it stick, and if you've got any guts or
justice you'd better back me up
.”

Matt Zaleski raised his voice to the bull roar he had learned on a factory
floor. "Knock off that goddam nonsense, right now
.”

He had no intention
of letting this get out of hand. More reasonably, he growled, "I said
simmer down, and meant it. When the time comes I'll decide who to back and
why. And there'll be no more crap from you about guts and justice.
Understand
.”

Their eyes locked together. Par
kland's dropped first.
"
All right, Frank," Matt said. "Let's start over, and this time give it
to me straight, from the beginning
.”

He had known Frank Parkland a long time. The foreman's record was good and
he was usually fair with men who worked under him. It had taken something
exceptional to get him as riled as this.
"There was a job out of position," Parkland said. "It was steering column
bolts, and there was this kid doing it; he's new, I guess. He was crowding
the next guy. I wanted the job put back
.”

Zaleski nodded. It happened often enough. A worker with a specific
assignment took a few seconds longer than he should on each operation. As
successive cars moved by on the assembly line, his position gradually
changed, so that soon he was intruding on the area of the next operation.
When a foreman saw it happen he made it his business to help the worker
back to his correct, original place.
Zaleski said impatiently, "Get on with it
.”

Before they could continue, the office door opened again and the union
committeeman came in. He was a small, pink-faced man, with thick
lensed
glasses and a fussy manner. His name was Illas and, until a union election
a few months ago, had been an assembly line worker himself.
"Good morn
ing," the union man said to Za
leski
He nodded curtly to Parkland, without speaking.
Matt
Zaleski waved the newcomer to a chair. "We're just getting to the
meat
.”

"You could save a lot of time," Illas said, "if you read the grievance
report
.”

"I've read it. But sometimes I like to hear the other side " Zaleski
motioned Parkland to go on.
"All I did," the foreman said, "was call another guy over and say, 'Help
me get this man's job back in position.'"
"And I say you're a liar!
" The union man hunched forward accusingly; now
he swung toward Zaleski. 'What he really said was 'get this boy's job
back.' And it so happened that the person he was speaking of, and calling
'boy,' was one of our black brothers to whom that word is a very offensive
term
.”

"Oh!
for God's sake
!
" Parkland's voice combined anger with disgust. "D
’
you
think I don't know that? D'you think I haven't been around here long
enough to know better than to use that word that way?
"But you did use it, didn't you
.”

"Maybe, just maybe, I did. I'm not saying yes, because I don't remember,
and that's the truth. But if it happened, there was nothing meant. It was
a slip, that's all
.”

The union man shrugged. 'That's your story now
.”

.It
's no story, you son-of-a-bitch!
"
Illas stood up. "Mr. Zaleski, I'm here officially, representing the United
Auto Workers. If that's the kind of language . .
.”

'There'll be no more of it," the assistant plant manager said. "Sit down,
please, and while we're on the subject, I suggest you be less free
yourself with the word 'har.'
Parkland slammed a beefy fist in frustration
on the desk top. "I said it was no story, and it isn't. What's more, the
guy I was talking about didn't even give a thought to what I said, at
least before all the fuss was made
.”

"That's not the way he tells it," Illas said.
"Maybe not now
.”

Parkland appealed to Zaleski. "Listen, Matt, the guy
who was out of position is just a kid. A black kid, maybe seventeen.
I've got nothing against him; he's slow, but he was doing his job. I've
got a kid brother his age. I go home, I say, Where's the boy?' Nobody
thinks twice about it. That's the way it was with this thing until this
other guy, Newkirk, cut in
.”

Illas persisted, "But you're admitting you used the word 'boy.'"
Matt Zaleski said wearily, "Okay, okay, he used it. Let's all concede
that
.”

Zaleski was holding himself in, as he always had to do when racial
issues erupted in the plant. His own prejudices were deep-rooted and
largely anti-black, and he had learned them in the heavily Polish suburb
of Wyandotte where he was born. There, the families of Polish origin
looked on Negroes with contempt, as shiftless and troublemakers. In
return, the black people hated Poles, and even nowadays, throughout
Detroit, the ancient enmities persisted. Zaleski, through necessity, had
learned to curb his instincts; you couldn't run a plant with as much
black labor as this one and let your prejudices show, at least not
often. just now, after the last remark of Illas, Matt Zaleski had been
tempted to inject: So what if he did call him "boy"? What the hell
difference does it make? When a foreman tells him to, let the bastard
get back to work. But Zaleski knew it would be repeated and maybe cause
more trouble than before. Instead, he growled, "What matters is what
came after
.”

'Well," Parkland said, "I thought we'd never
get to that. We almost had the job back in place, then this heavyweight,
Newkirk, showed up
.”

"He's another black brother," Illas said.
"Newkirk'd been working down the line. He didn't even hear what happened;
somebody else told him. He came up, called me a racist pig, and slugged
me
.”

The foreman fingered his bruised face which had swollen even more
since he came in.
Zaleski asked sharply, "Did you hit him back
.”

"No
.”

"I'm glad you showed a little sense
.”

I had sense, all right," Parkland said. I fired Newkirk. On the spot.
Nobody slugs a foreman around here and gets away with it
.”

"We'll see about that," Illas said. "A lot depends on circumstances and
provocation
.”

Matt Zaleski thrust a hand through his hair; there were days when he
marveled that there was any left. This whole stinking situation was some
thing which McKernon, the plant manager, should handle, but McKernon
wasn't here. He was ten miles away at staff headquarters, attending a con
ference about the new Orion, a super-secret car the plant would be
producing soon. Sometimes it seemed to Matt Zaleski as if McKernon had al
ready begun his retirement, officially six months away.
Matt Zaleski was holding the baby now, as he had before, and it was a
lousy deal. Zaleski wasn't even going to succeed McKernon, and he knew it.
He'd already been called in and shown the official assessment of himself,
the assessment which appeared in a loose-leaf, leather-bound book which
sat permanently on the desk of the Vice-president, Manufacturing. The book
was there so that the vice-president could turn its pages whenever new
appointments or promotions were
1
considered. The entry for Matt Zaleski, along with his photo and other
details, read: "This individual is well placed at his present level of
management
.”

Everybody in the company who mattered knew that the formal, unctious
statement was a "kiss off
.”

What it really meant was: This man has gone
as high as he's going. He will probably serve his time out in his
present spot, but will receive no more promotions.
The rules said that whoever received that deadly summation on his docket
had to be told; he was entitled to that much, and it was the reason Matt
Zaleski had known for the past several months that he would never rise
beyond his present role of assistant manager. Initially the news had
been a bitter disappointment, but now that he had grown used to the
idea, he also knew why: He was old shoe, the hind end of a disappearing
breed which management and boards of directors didn't want any more in
the top critical posts. Zaleski had risen by a route which few senior
plant people followed nowadays -factory worker, inspector, foreman,
superintendent, assistant plant manager. He hadn't had an engineering
degree to start, having been a high sc
hool dropout before World War II
.
But after the war he had armed himself with a degree, using night school
and GI credits, and after that had started climbing, being ambitious,
as most of his generation were who had survived Festung Europa and other
perils. But, as Zaleski recognized later, he had lost too much time; his
real start came too late. The strong comers, the top echelon material
of the auto companies-then as now-were the bright youngsters who arrived
fresh and eager through the direct college-to-front office route.
But that was no reason why McKernon, who was still plant boss, should
sidestep this entire situation, even if unintentionally. The assistant manager hesitated. He
would be within his rights to send for McKernon and could do it here and now
by picking up a phone.
Two things stopped him. One, he admitted to himself, was pride; Zaleski
knew he could handle this as well as McKernon, if not better. The other:
His instinct told him there simply wasn't time.
Abruptly, Zaleski asked Illas, 'What's the union asking
.”

"Well, I've talked with the president of our local . .
.”

"Let's save all that," Zaleski said. "We both know we have to start
somewhere, so what is it you want
.”

"Very well," the committeeman said. 'We insist on three things. First,
immediate reinstatement of Brother Newkirk, with compensation for time
lost. Second, an apology to both men involved. Third, Parkland to be
removed from his post as foreman
.”

Parkland, who had slumped back in his chair, shot upright. "By Christ
!
You
don't want much
.”

He inquired sarcastically, "As a matter of interest, am
I supposed to apologize before I'm fired, or after
.”

"The apology would be an official one from the company," Illas answered.
-Whether you had the decency to add your own would be up to you
.”

"I'll say it'd be up to me. Just don't anyone hold their breath waiting
.”

Matt Zaleski snapped, "If you'd held your own breath a little longer, we
wouldn't be in this mess
.”

"Are you trying to tell me you'll go along with all that
.”

The foreman
motioned angrily to Illas.
"I'm not telling anybody anything yet. I'm trying to think, and I need
more information than has come from you two
.”

Zaleski reached behind
h
im for a telephone. Interposing his body between the phone and the other
two, he dialed a number and waited.
When the man he wanted answered, Zaleski asked simply, "How are things
down there
.”