Rivethead

I wasn't home the day GM finally called. It was a Saturday and I was planted on a barstool up at Jack Gilbert's Wayside Inn. I didn't expect to get called in on a weekend, so I left the house with no instructions to where anyone could reach me. My little brother, a real wiseacre, told them that I could be reached at any number of North Flint area bars. I'm sure this tickled them pink.

Fortunately, I had given GM my in-laws' number as a backup and my sister-in-law came racing into the Wayside where I was in the process of getting shit-faced with her boyfriend Rick.

"Shit," I hollered, "it's about time those bastards rang me. On a weekend, no less. That gives me and the old Ricker here time to do some much-deserved celebrating. Did they mention what time they needed me on Monday?"

"No, no, no! They want you to work TODAY! The said to be there at four and to wear some work boots if possible." "TODAY? Saturday? It is Saturday, isn't it? Four o'clock? WORK BOOTS?"

This was some heavy shit. To be called in during the middle of the weekend smelled like an emergency. GM was now in the midst of one of their all-time boom-boom quota years, so I supposed reinforcements were needed on Saturdays, Sundays, Salad days- any time was the right time. This also marked the first time I ever remembered being asked out on a Saturday night by a corporation.

"Wear something sexy, ratboy," Rick laughed. "And don't forget to write."
I hustled home. I didn't have any work boots, so I just threw on a pair of old Converse hightops alond with a T-shirt and a pair of filthy jeans. My head was reciting all the advice my distant aunt had filled me with: Keep your guard out for troublemakers. Don't be coerced into drinking. Be on time. Do everything you're told, try to do extra, don't engage in horseplay, address your supervisor as "sir." Check, check, check.

Before we were to begin working, the group I was hiring in was instructed to meet for a physical examination in the plant hospital. We were a sluggish-looking crew. There were about twenty of us all together- each person chain-smoking and staring at the floor, waiting in silence to be pronounced fit for active drudgery. We resembled some awkward casting call for the next Maynard G. Krebs. I had a strong hunch that there wasn't a marketable skill among us.

A doctor came out and directed us into a single-file line. The urine test was up first. We were each handed a small vial and told to line up for the restroom.
The guy standing in front of me kept looking over his shoulder at me. When it was his turn to enter the can, he spun around and asked me if it would be all right if I donated a little of my urine for his vial. He seemed to be very stressed. This was long before drug testing was ever common in the workplace. I wondered what the big deal was.

"I just can't get it to flow right now," the guy claimed. Apparently, the fear was that the Company might look down upon any prospective serf who was incapable of bringing forth the pee when it mattered most. No piss, no job, ingrate!

I didn't care much for the idea of passing around my piss with a total stranger. It didn't seem like a solid career move. Besides, for all either of us knew, I might be holding on to a bad batch. I had a long, painful bout with hepatitis when I was twelve. My formative years were spent wolfing down a wide variety of menacing chemicals. I drank like a sieve. I had an ulcer that ate at me like a cordless drill. Hell, who'd wanna take a crapshoot on the chance that any of that might come floating to the surface of their corporate dossier?

Evidently, this guy. He returned from the john and, true to his work, the vial he held before me was completely empty. "C'mon," he said. "Just a squirt. I'll pay you for it."

Christ, that did it. "Gimme the thing," I groaned. It probably wasn't the most noble act of giving one had ever made on behalf of the needy Union brother but, somehow, it sure seemed like it at the time.

We were almost through with our urine samples when a member of our group, a late arrival, walked into the hospital and began to speak with our overseer. I sensed that the guy was in deep shit. He kept apologizing over and over- something to do with getting messed up in traffic and being detained. Judging by his performance, I doubted he was lying.

It didn't matter. The man with the clipboard wasn't buying a single word. He stood there shaking his head from one side to the other- just another weasel in a short-sleeve shirt, deputized to protect the staus quo. He did his job well.

The realization that he'd blown his big audition seemed to overwhelm the late guy. He looked down at the floor, his voice started braking and, right there in front of everyone, he began to cry. It all came spillin' out- what was he gonna tell his family and who would understand? For the sons and daughters of the assembly line 1977 wasn't the best of years to go fumblin' the family baton.

We stood there clutching our little vials of piss as they escorted him out. We had been on time. We were going to build trucks for the GM Truck & Bus Division. The man with the bow tie and clipboard had written down all our names. Our friend had been ten minutes late. He had already proven himself undeserving of a hitch on the screw train. There could be no exceptions.

Ten years later, I found myself still thinking about the late guy. On those terribly humid shifts when the parts just weren't going together right and the clock was taking two steps back for every step forward, exhausted and desperate, I'd see him over by the pool table in the bar across the street. He'd have a cold beer in his hand and a grin a mile wide. I would imagine myself walking up to him with my safety glasses, my locker key and my plastic identification badge held out in my hand. "Here, it's all yours, buddy," I'd say. I need a cold one,"

Shoprat alcohol consumption was always a hot debate with those who just didn't understand the way things worked inside a General Motors plant. While not everyone boozed on a daily basis, alcohol was a central part of many of our lives. It was a crutch not unlike the twenty cups of coffee millions of other Americans depend on to whisk them through their workday. We drank our fair share of coffee, but the factory environment seemed to lend itself toward something that was a great deal more potent and rejuvenating.

I frequently found myself defending this custom with nonfactory aquaintances. They conveniently put the blame for everything square in the laps of those who drank on the job: "NO WONDER the Japanese are moppin' up the market floor with your asses! NO WONDER my new vehicle farts like a moose full of chickpeas! NO WONDER the rear end of my Chevy Suburban rattles like a Hari Krishna in a cement mixer! NO WONDER they want to phase out all you juicers and replace you with robotics!"

The criticisms came from all sources- friends, neighbors, retirees, relatives, the local media. It was a popular bandwagon full of self-righteous dickheads and know-nothings. The yappin' hypocrisy that never ceased to amuse: "ITS THOSE OVERPAID, SPINELESS, FACTORY HACKS AND THEIR DEMONIC CRAVING FOR FIREWATER! THEY REPRESENT TOTAL HUMILIATION TO THE GREAT AMERICAN WORK ETHIC! THOSE ONGRATES CAN'T BE SATIFIED WITH THEIR GARGANTUAN PAYCHECKS OR THE FACT THAT THEY POSSESS MORE MEDICAL COVERAGE THEN EVEL KNIEVEL COULD PISS AWAY IN A MILLION UNSUCCESSFUL BUS HURDLES! TO TOP IT OFF, THEY'RE ALL CODDLED AND PROTECTED BY A UNION THAT WOULD PROBABLY EMBRACE RICHARD SPECK AS JUST A MISUNDERSTOOD DRIFTER WITH A HARMLESS YEN FOR VODKA A ROPE TRICKS!"

Oftentimes, the Flint Journal, the unofficial GM gazette, would devote large portions of their editorial page to the miserable whines of these blowhards. "I worked in the plant for thirty-six years and never once needed to rely on alcohol..." "I think that it is an outrage that my neighbor, a GM employee, spends half of his shift sitting in a bar..." "The autoworker of today is weak and corrupt and..." Blah, blah, blah.

It's one thing to be harangued by those who have gone before- the forebears, the sit-down strikers, the providers of the torch, my very own grandfather- but to be put through the verbal shredder by townsfolk who've never even seen the innard of an auto factory, well, that was a different matter. Their pious deductions always made me squirm.

The total farce of it all is that given our jobs, these same moany denizens would be lined up right next to us at the gate. They'd lose that sacred work ethic baloney and clasp on to Louie's coveralls faster than you can say "the mercury reads 118 in the Paint Department tonight." Keep in mind, the grass is always greener on the other side until it's your turn to jump the fence and chop the shit down.

There is simply no need for apologies. Hell, when you get right down to it, General Motors management doesn't even pay much heed to the drinking habits of its own work force. They realize it would be a massive and futile effort on their part to attempt to stymie a widespread tradition. And moreover, they really don't give a good goddamn who's tippin' and who isn't just as long as the parts keep flowing by in their assigned locations. Start sending down inferior product and then drinking would become an issue.

Drinking right on the line wasn't something everyone cared for. But plenty did, and the most popular time to go snagging for gusto was the lunch break. As soon as that lunch horn blew, half of the plant put it in gear, sprinting out the door in packs of three or four, each pointed squarely for one of those chilly coolers up at one of the nearby beer emporiums. Talk about havoc. It was like some nightly cross between the start of the Indy 500 and chute-surfin' out of the fuselage of a burning jet. Engines racing. Tires squealing. Pedestrians somersaulting over car hoods.

I half expected one night to find Marlon Perkins propped in a jeep near the gate narrating this frantic migration: "Notice, friends, the fleet mobility of our subjects. The wide eyes and gaping mouths are timeless clues that another pilgrimage to the watering hole is well under way."

A half hour is all most workers had. Make no mistake, this small opportunity to bust open the monotony of shop grind helped many guys avoid cracking up, cracking skulls, missing work or mutating into supervisional bullies. A jumbo of beer certainly wasn't gonna save anyone's life, but the odds were it would certainly enhance it. John DeLorean himself proved that factory critters can't triumph above the ordinary on black coffee and Twinkies alone. Hell no. On a clear day, you can see General Motors and, if you squint a little harder, you can also see a frosty quart of Budweiser just as plain as the cocaine attache case at the end of the motel bed.

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