Free Rivethead by Ben Hamper Page B

reek.
    Brown came down to check on the commotion. I told him that Roy had been sick right from the beginning of the shift but, not wanting to abandon his post, tried desperately to make it to the lunch break.
    “That's what I call dedication,” Brown declared.
    At that, I could have puked myself. “I'll say,” I said.
    A few nights later came the infamous incident involving the sacrificial rodent. Roy had managed to capture this tiny mouse that had been sneaking around one of the stock bins. He fashioned an elaborate cardboard house for the creature and set it on his workbench. He fed the mouse. He gave it water. He built windows in the house so his pet could watch him doin’ his job. Any worker who passed through the area was given a personal introduction to the mouse. For all the world, it seemed like a glorious love affair.
    I never figured out whether it was due to the dope or the drudgery or some unseen domestic quarrel, but things sure switched around in a hurry after the lunch break. Roy would rush through each job, run back to his workbench, and start screaming at the mouse through the tiny cardboard windows. When asked what the problem was, Roy insisted that the mouse was mocking the way he performed the job. He ranted and raved. He stomped and cursed. He put his arms around the mouse condo and shook it violently.
    Finally it was over. Before any of us could react or shout him down, Roy grabbed the mouse by the tail and stalked up the welder's platform. He took a brazing torch, gassed up a long, blue flame and, right there in the middle of Jungleland, incinerated his little buddy at arm's length. Then he went right back to work as if nothing had happened.
    Then, the day before he quit, Roy approached me with a box-cutter knife sticking out of his glove and requested that I give him a slice across the back of the hand. He felt sure this ploy would land him a few days off.
    Since slicing Roy didn't seem like a solid career move, I refused. Roy went down the line to the other workers where he received a couple charitable offers to cut his throat, but no dice on the hand. He wound up sulking back to his job.
    After a half dozen attempts on his own, Roy finally got himself a gash. He waited until the blood had a chance to spread out a bit and then went dashing off to see the boss. The damage was minimal. A hunk of gauze, an elastic bandage and a slow, defeated shuffle back to the wheel wells.
    After that night, I never saw Roy again. Personnel sent up a young Puerto Rican guy to help me do the Right Guard commercial and the two of us put in our ninety days without much of a squawk.
    The money was right, even if we weren't.

4
    D URING THE SUMMER AND FALL OF 1977, THE TRUCK PLANT was hummin’ six days a week, nine hours per shift. All of this overtime added up to one gorgeous stream of income. There was the time-and-a-half money. There was the second-shift premium bonus and there were frequent cost-of-living adjustments. It seemed like every time I turned around, the paymaster was stuffin’ another wad of currency into my waistband.
    Any dumb hireling was bound to adopt a sweet craving for this kind of repetitive generosity. I was certainly no exception. I had been poor all my life, then suddenly I couldn't turn my head without bumping into another financial windfall. I'd get up in the afternoon, start rummaging through my drawer for a fresh set of skivvies, and there would be a couple of $100 bills I'd forgotten about. Howdy, Mr. Franklin. By chance, you haven't seen a pair of sweat socks in there minus a hole in the toe?
    These were truly prosperous times at our plant and they were enriching us all. Roger Smith was browsing for yachts, my General Foreman was looking at property in the Upper Peninsula, several of my linemates were seen swapping Kessler's for Crown Royal, and I was devoting a miniature fortune to punk records, girlfriends and bar tabs.
    It seemed no matter how many we pushed out the door, we just