Wheels

Thus, a production line worker's ambition, like that of a prisoner, was centered on escape. Absenteeism was a way of partial escape; so was a strike. Both brought excitement, a break in monotony - for the time being the dominating drive.

Even now, the assistant plant manager realized, that drive might be impossible to turn back.

He told Illas, "Remember, we made an agreement. Now, I want this thing cleaned up fast." The union man didn't answer, and Zaleski added, "Today should do you some good. You got what you wanted."

"Not all of it."

"All that mattered."

Behind their words was a fact of life which both men knew: An escape route from the production line which some workers chose was through election to a full-time union post, with a chance of moving upward in UAW ranks. Illas, recently, had gone that way himself. But once elected, a union man became a political creature; to survive he must be re-elected, and between elections he maneuvered like a politician courting favor with constituents. The workers around a union committeeman were his voters, and he strove to please them. Illas had that problem now. Zaleski asked him, "Where's this character Newkirk?"

They had come to the point on the assembly line where this morning's blow-up had occurred.

Illas nodded toward an open area with several plastic-topped tables and chairs, where line workers took their meal breaks. There was a bank of vending machines for coffee, soft drinks, candy. A painted line on the floor served in lieu of a surrounding wall. At the moment the only occupant of the area was a husky, big-featured black man; smoke drifted from a cigarette in his hand as he watched the trio which had just arrived.

The assistant plant manager said, "All right, tell him he goes back to work, and make sure you fill in all the rest. When you're through talking, send him over to me. "

"Okay," Illas said. He stepped over the painted line and was smiling as he sat down at the table with the big man.

Frank Parkland had already gone directly to a younger black man, still working on the line. Parkland was talking earnestly. At first the other looked uncomfortable, but soon after grinned sheepishly and nodded. The foreman touched the younger man's shoulder and motioned in the direction of Illas and Newkirk, still at the lunch area table, their heads close together. The young assembly worker grinned again. The foreman put out his hand; after hesitating briefly, the young man took it. Matt Zaleski found himself wondering if he could have handled Parkland's part as gracefully or as well.

"Hi, boss man!" The voice came from the far side of the assembly line.

Zaleski turned toward it.

It was an interior trim inspector, an oldtimer on the line, a runtish man with a face extraordinarily like that of Hitler. Inevitably, fellow workers called him Adolf and, as if enjoying the joke, the employee - whose real name Zaleski could never remember - even combed his short hair forward over one eye.

"Hi, Adolf." The assistant plant manager crossed to the other side of the line, stepping carefully between a yellow convertible and a mistgreen sedan. "How's body quality today?"

"I've seen worse days, boss man. Remember the World Series?"

"Don't remind me."

World Series time and the opening days of the Michigan hunting season were periods which auto production men dreaded. Absenteeism was at a peak; even foremen and supervisors were guilty of it. Quality plummeted, and at World Series time the situation was worsened by employees paying more attention to portable radios than to their jobs.

Matt Zaleski remembered that at the height of the 1968 Series, which the Detroit Tigers won, he confided grimly to his wife, Freda - it was the year before she died - I wouldn't wish a car built today on my worst enemy."

"This special's okay, anyway." Adolf (or whatever his name was) had hopped nimbly in and out of the mist-green sedan. Now, he turned his attention to the car behind - a bright orange sports compact with white bucket seats. "Guess this one's for a blonde," Adolf shouted from inside the car. "An' I'd like to be the one to screw her in it."

Matt Zaleski shouted back, "You've got a soft job already."

"I'd be softer after her." The inspector emerged, rubbing his crotch and leering; factory humor was seldom sophisticated.

The assistant plant manager returned the grin, knowing it was one of the few human exchanges the worker would have during his eighthour shift.

Adolf ducked into another car, checking its interior. It was true what Zaleski had said a moment earlier: an inspector did have a softer job than most others on the line, and usually got it through seniority. But the job, which carried no extra pay and gave a man no real authority, had disadvantages. If an inspector was conscientious and drew attention to all bad work, he aroused the ire of fellow workers who could make life miserable for him in other ways. Foremen, too, took a dini view of what they conceived to be an overzealous inspector, resenting anything which hold up their particular area of production. All foremen were under pressure from superiors including Matt Zaleski - to meet production quotas, and foremen could, and often did, overrule inspectors. Around an auto plant a classic phrase was a foreman's grunted, "Let it go," as a substandard piece of equipment or work moved onward down the line - sometimes to be caught by Quality Control, more often not.

In the meal break area, the union committeeman and Newkirk were getting up from their table.

Matt Zaleski looked forward down the line; something about the mist-green sedan, now several cars ahead, caused his interest to sharpen. He decided to inspect that car more closely before it left the plant.

Also down the line he could see Frank Parkland near his regular foreman's station; presumably Parkland had gone back to his job, assuming his own part in the now settled dispute to be over. Well, Zaleski supposed it was, though he suspected the foreman would find it harder, from now on, to maintain discipline when he had to. But, hell!-everybody had their problems. Parkland would have to cope with his.

As Matt Zaleski recrossed the assembly line, Newkirk and the union committeeman walked to meet him. The black man moved casually; standing up, he seemed even bigger than he had at the table. His facial features were large and prominent, matching his build, and he was grinning.

Illas announced, "I've told Brother Newkirk about the decision I won for him. He's agreed to go back to work and understands he'll be paid for time lost."

The assistant plant manager nodded; he had no wish to rob the union man of kudos, and if Illas wanted to make a small skirmish sound like the Battle of the Overpass, Zaleski would not object. But he told Newkirk sharply, "You can take the grin off. There's nothing funny." He queried Illas, "You told him it'll be even less funny if it happens again?"

"He told me what he was supposed to," Newkirk said. "It won't happen no more, not if there ain't no cause."

"You're pretty cocky," Zaleski said. "Considering you've just been fired and unfired."

"Not cocky, mister, angry!" The black man made a gesture which included Illas. "That's a thing you people, all of you, won't ever understand."

Zaleski snapped, "I can get pretty damned angry about brawls upsetting this plant."

"Not deep soul angry. Not so it burns, a rage."

"Don't push me. I might show you otherwise."

The other shook his head. For one so huge, his voice and movements were surprisingly gentle; only his eyes burned - an intense gray-green. "Man, you ain't black, you don't know what it means; not rage, not anger. It's a million goddamn pins bein' stuck in from time you was born, then one day some white motha' calls a man 'boy,' an' it's a million 'n one too many."

"Now then," the union man said, "we settled all that. We don't have to get into it again."

Newkirk dismissed him. "You hush up!" His eyes remained fixed, challengingly, on the assistant plant manager.

Not for the first time, Matt Zaleski wondered: Had the whole free-wheeling world gone crazy? To people like Newkirk and millions of others, including Zaleski's own daughter, Barbara, it seemed a basic credo that everything which used to matter - authority, order, respect, moral decency - no longer counted in any recognizable way. Insolence was a norm - the kind Newkirk used with his voice and now his eyes. The familiar phrases were a part of it: Newkirk's rage and deep soul angry were interchangeable, it seemed, with a hundred others like generation gap, strung out, hanging loose, taking your own trip, turned on, most of which Matt Zaleski didn't comprehend and - the more he heard them - didn't want to. The changes which, nowadays, he could neither keep pace with nor truly understand, left him subdued and wearied.

In a strange way, at this moment, he found himself equating the big black man, Newkirk, with Barbara who was pretty, twenty-nine, college educated, and white. If Barbara Zaleski were here now, automatically, predictably, she would see things Newkirk's way, and not her father's.

Christ! - he wished he were half as sure of things himself.

Tiredly, though it was still early morning, and not at all convinced that he had handled this situation the way he should, Matt Zaleski told Newkirk brusquely, "Get back to your job."

When Newkirk had gone, Illas said, "There'll be no walkout. Word's going around."

"Am I supposed to say thanks?" Zaleski asked sourly. "For not being raped?"