Wheels

"You're new, aren't you?"

"Yeah." For Cri-sake! - it was always the same. Questions, gabbing, never an end. Even when Whitey kicked your ass, he dressed it up with bullshit.

"What you did was sabotage. You know the consequences?"

Rollie shrugged. He had no idea what "sabotage" meant, though he didn't like the sound of it. With the same resignation he had shown a few weeks earlier, he accepted that his job was gone. All that concerned him now was to wonder: What more could they throw at him? From the way this honky burned, he'd stir trouble if he could.

From behind Parkland, someone said, "Frank - Mr. Zaleski."

The foreman turned. He watched the approaching stocky figure of the assistant plant manager.

"What was it, Frank?"

"This, Matt." Parkland held up the twisted bolt.

"Deliberate?"

"I'm finding out." His tone said: Let me do it my way!

"Okay." Zaleski's eyes moved coolly over Rollie Knight. "But if it's sabotage, we throw the book. The union'll back us up, you know that. Let me have a report, Frank." He nodded and moved on.

Frank Parkland wasn't sure why he had held back in exposing the man in front of him as a saboteur. He could have done so, and fired him instantly; there would have been no repercussions. But momentarily it had all seemed too easy. The little, half-starved guy looked more a victim than a villain. Besides, someone who knew the score wouldn't leave himself that vulnerable.

He field out the offending bolt. "Did you know what this would do?"

Rollie looked up at Parkland, towering over him. Normally he would have glared back hate, but was too tired even for that. He shook his head.

"You know now."

Remembering the shouts, activity, siren, flashing lights, Rollie could not resist a grin. "Yeah, man!"

"Did somebody tell you to do it?"

He was aware of faces watching from the line, no longer smiling.

The foreman demanded, "Well, who was it?"

Rollie stayed mute.

"Was it the one who accused you?"

The worker with the Afro hairdo was bent over, decking another engine.

Rollie shook his head. Given the chance, there were debts he would pay back. But this was not the way.

"All right," Parkland said. "I don't know why I'm doing this, but I think you got suckered, though maybe I'm the sucker now." The foreman glared, begrudging his own concession. "What happened'll go on the record as an accident. But you're being watched, remember that." He added brusquely.

"Get back to work!"

Rollie, to his great surprise, ended the shift fitting pads under instrument panels.

He knew, though, that the situation couldn't stay the way it was. Next day he was the subject of appraising glances from fellow workers, and the butt of humor. At first the humor was casual and tentative, but he was aware it could get rougher, much rougher, if the idea grew that Rollie Knight was a pushover for pranks or bullying. For someone unlucky or inept enough to get that reputation, life could be miserable, even dangerous, because the monotony of assembly line work made people welcome anything, even brutality, as a diversion.

In the cafeteria on his fourth day of employment there occurred the usual melee at lunch break in which several hundred men rushed from work stations, their objective to get in line to be served, and, after waiting, hastily swallow their food, go to the toilet, wash off their dirt and grease if so inclined (it was never practical to wash before eating), then make it back to work - all in thirty minutes. Amid the cafeteria crowd he saw the worker with the Afro hairdo surrounded by a group which was laughing, looking at Rollie speculatively. A few minutes later, after getting his own food, he was jostled roughly so that everything he had paid for cascaded to the floor where it was promptly trampled on - apparently an accident, too, though Rollie knew better. He did not eat that day; there was no more time.

During the jostling he heard a click and saw a switchblade flash. Next time, Rollie suspected, the jostling would be rougher, the switchblade used to nick him; or even worse. He wasted no time reasoning that the process was wildly illogical and unjust. A manufacturing plant employing thousands of workers was a jungle, with a jungle's lawlessness, and all that he could do was pick his moment to take a stand.

Though knowing time was against him, Rollie waited. He sensed an opportunity would come. It did.

On Friday, last day of his working week, he was assigned again to lowering engines onto chassis. Rollie was teamed with an older man who was the engine decker, and among others at adjoining work stations was the worker with the Afro hairdo.

"Man, oh man, I feel somethin' creepycrawly," the latter declared when Rollie joined them near the end of a meal break, shortly before the line restarted. "You gonna give us all a special rest today?" He cuffed Rollie around the shoulders as others nearby howled with laughter. Someone else slapped Rollie from the other side. Both blows could have been good-natured, but instead slammed into Rollie's frailness and left him staggering.

The chance he had planned and waited for occurred an hour later. As well as doing his own work since rejoining the group, Rollie Knight had watched, minute by minute, the movements and positions of the others, which fell into a pattern, but now and then with variations.

Each engine installed was lowered from overhead on chains and pulleys, its maneuvering and release controlled by three pushbuttons - UP, STOP, DOWN - on a heavy electric cord hanging conveniently above the work station. Normally the engine decker operated the pushbuttons, though Rollie had learned to use them too.

A third man - in this instance the Afro hairdo worker - moved between stations, aiding the other two as needed.

Though the installation team worked fast, each engine was eased into place cautiously and, when almost seated, before the final drop, each man made sure his hands were clear.

As one engine was almost lowered and in place, its fuel and vacuum lines became entangled in the chassis front suspension. The hangup was momentary and occurred occasionally; when it did, the Afro hairdo worker moved in, reaching under the engine to clear the tangled lines. He did so now. The hands of the other two - Rollie and the engine decker - were safely removed.

Watching, choosing his moment, Rollie moved slightly sideways, reached up casually, then depressed and held the DOWN button. Instantly, a heavy, reverberating 'bang!' announced that half a ton of engine and transmission had dropped solidly onto mounts beneath. Rollie released the button and, in the same movement, eased away.

For an infinitesimal fraction of a second the Afro hairdo worker remained silent, staring unbelieving at his hand, its fingers out of sight beneath the engine block. Then he screamed - again and again - a shrieking, demented wail of agony and horror, piercing all other sounds around, so that all men working fifty yards away raised their heads and craned uneasily to see the cause. The screams continued, fiendishly, unceasing, while someone hit an alarm button to stop the line, another the UP control to raise the engine assembly. As it lifted the screams took on a new excruciating edge, while those who were nearest looked with horror at the squashed, mangled jigsaw of blood and bones which seconds earlier had been fingers. As the injured worker's knees buckled, two men held him while his body heaved, his face contorted as tears streamed over lips mouthing incoherent, animal moans. A third worker, his own face ashen, reached for the mashed and pulpy hand, easing loose what he could, though a good deal stayed behind. When what was left of the hand was clear, the assembly line restarted.

The injured worker was carried away on a stretcher, his screams diminishing as morphine took hold. The drug had been administered by a nurse summoned hurriedly from the plant dispensary. She had put a temporary dressing on the hand, and her white uniform was blood-spattered as she walked beside the stretcher, accompanying it to an ambulance waiting out of doors.

Among the workers, no one looked at Rollie.

The foreman, Frank Parkland, and a plant safety man questioned those closest to the scene during a work break a few minutes later. A union steward was present.

The plant men demanded: What exactly happened?

It seemed that no one knew. Those who might have had knowledge claimed to have been looking some other way when the incident occurred.

"It doesn't figure," Parkland said. He stared hard at Rollie Knight.

"Somebody must have seen,"

The safety man asked, "Who hit the switch?"

No one answered. All that happened was an uneasy shuffling of feet, with eyes averted.

"Somebody did," Frank Parkland said. "Who was it?"

Still silence.

Then the engine decker spoke. He looked older, grayer, than before, and had been sweating so that the short hairs clung damply to his black scalp. "I reckon it was me. Guess I hit that button, let her drop." He added, mumbling, "Thought she was clear, the guy's hands out."

"You sure? Or are you covering?" Parkland's eyes returned, appraisingly, to Rollie Knight.

"I'm sure." The engine decker's voice was firmer. He lifted his head; his eyes met the foreman's. "Was an accident. I'm sorry."

"You should be," the safety man said. "You cost a guy his hand. And look at that!" He pointed to a board which read:

THIS PLANT HAS WORKED

1,897,560 MAN HOURS

WITHOUT AN ACCIDENT