Robert Bennett - The Company Man

“No,” said McClintock, bewildered.

“Great. Grand,” he said, and began studying a report that, if Samantha was right, he had read twice already.

After several more minutes McClintock asked, “Why am I here, exactly?”

“Promotion, this says,” Hayes said. He slapped the paper. “You’re up for one, it seems. I’m to screen you.”

“To what?”

“To screen you. I’m Staunton, Andrew Staunton, Personnel.” He stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” said McClintock, shaking.

“Great,” said Hayes. Samantha noticed he no longer spoke with an English accent. This was harder, American, inner-city.

“Did you say I’m up for a promotion?” McClintock asked.

“Seems that way,” said Hayes.

“To overseer?”

“That would be the one, it says,” said Hayes. “But there’s just a few general questions we need to ask first. You know, a procedure they send me around to have everyone go through. It’s nothing, just hoops everyone has to jump through. I’ve got a bunch more scheduled for today, very basic stuff. All right?”

“Sure,” said McClintock, still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

They did start out basic. They went over his job title, amount of time worked at McNaughton, marriage status, children, current wages, expected wages. Health, date of birth. Output. But eventually they shifted slightly, just slightly. Any issues on the line, Hayes asked. Problems with workers? Accidents, even? When? How long ago? Specific reasons for each? Were you present for these occurrences? McClintock became noticeably perturbed by these questions. He sat up straight in his chair and blinked as he tried to focus on Hayes and insisted that he ran a clean ship, you know, and he wasn’t sure what all these questions were about but he didn’t like them one bit. He’d been working diligently for more than thirty years and he didn’t like having such accusations tossed in his face at the crack of dawn. Hayes immediately understood. Course not, course you don’t, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t run a clean ship, but no career goes by without a blotch or two. “It’s just for the records,” Hayes explained. “Just for records. I hate record-taking as much as you do.” Then Hayes took a deep, exhausted breath, glanced surreptitiously at Samantha, and leaned forward to softly ask McClintock something. Samantha could not hear what he’d said, but McClintock looked astonished. Then he half-smiled in disbelief and nodded. Hayes produced a small porcelain thermos from his coat and took a sip and passed it to McClintock, who drank deeply. Samantha opened her mouth and wondered if she should say something. Hayes did not look at her to communicate any message and so she chose to stay quiet.

From then on the two men were like brothers. They sat the same way in their chairs, the familiar bar slouch with their elbows on the table and their chests propped up against the edge. They talked the same and they laughed the same and they took the same dismissive attitude to Hayes’s questions. It stopped being an interview and started becoming a conversation. Hayes didn’t seem interested in the man’s accidents but in his war stories.

Then Hayes asked, “This one incident, about four months ago. Fella who got burned by the conduit. Remember that?”

“God, who wouldn’t,” said McClintock. “I remember. I never heard so much screaming. Everyone was shook up for weeks.”

“What the hell was that about? How does something like that happen?”

“Tricky job. They just happen. It’s part of it.”

“So there’s no specific reason?”

“People get tired. They go out one night, can’t sleep, come in, and don’t know what they’re doing. And they pay for it.”

“That’s how they all are?” asked Hayes. “Just honest mistakes?”

“Pretty much.”

Hayes watched him closely. His eyes took on a dreamy look, filmed over and sightless as if seeing someone else entirely. “What about that one with the hands?”

McClintock looked at him uneasily. “How’d you know about that?”

“Rumor mill,” said Hayes. “Something that vicious, well, you hear about it.”

“He got them caught in the cincher. It happens.”

“I can see one hand getting caught. But both? That’s a little odd.”

“It was odd. It was horrible, too.”

“Did you see it?”

“No. No, I didn’t see the accident. I saw them wheeling Tommy away, though. Belts around his wrists and cloth all over them. He’d passed out.”

“Who did see it?”

McClintock thought for a moment then and shook his head. “It’s the strangest thing.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know who saw.”

“You don’t?”

“No. Sometimes…” He tried to think again, but the words would not stop coming now. “Sometimes I can’t trust the boys who are down there. You know? They said it was an accident. I wasn’t there, I didn’t see. They said it was. But I couldn’t be sure. Tommy never said who did it. He died not long after. Infection. But he was scared when he was alive. And Tommy was never…”

“Never what?”

“Never liked so much.”

“Why not?”

“Some damn thing,” said McClintock. “I don’t know. Something about wages. They don’t talk to me about those things, you know? I’m their boss, not their friend.”

“I know. You’re right. But they should still trust you that much.”

“They should. They absolutely should. I’ve never done them wrong before. Not ever. I’ve fought for them time and time again, I’ve fought to keep jobs and shifts and wages. Things keep getting scarcer down there, moving labor around. But you look at them and they’re all looking right back at you and you can see it. Right there. They don’t trust you. They don’t trust anyone who’s not with them. Who’s not suffering same as them. But I was on the line way back and I suffered plenty. I just survived long enough to get up to where I am. You know?”

Hayes watched him silently, eyes still unfocused. Then he said, “They were for Mickey, and Tommy wasn’t.”

McClintock nodded. “They were. Tommy didn’t want to truck with it. Didn’t care for it.”

“Who were the ones involved?”

“I don’t know.”

“But who would be likely?”

“Naylor and Walton, I’m almost sure. Those bastards. The fucking bastards. And Evie’s always palling with them, too. The past few months I got no idea what’s going on with those boys.”

Hayes nodded. “I see,” he said. “All right.”

He asked more questions. Asked about the social life of McClintock’s team, about where they went to drink. Not professional stuff, just two boozers chatting and loafing. Sure, said McClintock, they hang at the Third Ring Pub, down where Southern meets the Shanties. Hayes asked about girls and McClintock said sure, they have a few, what working man doesn’t? Rumor had it John Evie had a few boys, but he couldn’t say for certain. Peggy had been Naylor’s girl, maybe still was, off and on. Little redheaded thing, he said, he’d seen her with him more than a few times. Got to be a good fuck, but any fuck’s a good fuck if you’ve been as dry as he had, and he prodded Hayes with an elbow and the two of them laughed. More names breezed by, just idle gossip being passed along. And in the corner of the room Samantha wrote them all down, every single one.

At the end of the three hours Hayes and McClintock both wobbled to their feet and helped one another to the door, laughing and stumbling. They went to the hallway to chat and left Samantha to finish up her notes. When she was done Hayes returned, sober and distracted again, hardly drunk at all.

“Who’s Mickey?” she asked. “I don’t have any record of a Mickey in here.”