Per Petterson - It's Fine By Me

First I tidy up around my post, chuck the rags soaked with white spirit in the red bin and throw all the other junk in the waste container. Then I take out a book from my bag and go behind the machine and sit down on a stack of pallets and open it. Right in front of me, the large double door is open to the next hall. The presses have been going all day, and it’s hot. Behind me, Samuel is standing at the belt taking the folded sheets out of the stacker, and then he works them on the vibration plate and lays them on the pallet. He is singing aloud to himself with his earplugs pushed well in. I try to catch what it is he’s singing, but he must have made up the song himself, because it’s like nothing ever known to the human race. I read and smoke and take an occasional look into the next concourse. Everything is running and humming. Jonny is standing by the console on Number Three with his finger on the button pushing up the speed. He is way behind schedule and will have trouble with management if he doesn’t deliver. Suddenly the paper flies, there is a bang and it catches fire. Jonny leaps screaming into the air, and his team run up the stairs to the gallery to put the fire out, and I put my book down, it is ten minutes past nine, and Jonny lets loose an ear-splitting howl that cuts through the drone of machinery, it’s like an animal’s scream, and he grabs a pallet, he is a discus thrower now, Jonny so small, the pallet so big, but it takes off, it takes off like a flock of sparrows through the hall and crashes against the foreman’s window, it’s like the sun lighting up a shower of glass, and then everything grows quiet, even though the other presses are still working. Now he’s a goner. I close the book and start to run.

I get there at the same time as the foreman: he is out of his office looking petrified, and I come from the opposite direction. I get there first, push in between the foreman and the press and block his path and start picking up sooty paper and fragments of glass.

‘Where’s Jonny?’ he says. I straighten up and feign a bewildered look. ‘Jonny? Who’s that? Does he work here?’ I mutter under my breath, not knowing if he can hear me or not. With Jonny gone into thin air and the whole crew on the gallery, I just couldn’t stand by and do nothing. The foreman casts around, but there is no one to talk to, so he turns to me, small bits of glass crunching under his shoes.

‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ he says. ‘Why aren’t you on Number Five where you belong?’

‘There was a paper break here, so I thought I could give a hand.’

‘Give a hand? You should be doing your own damn work!’ He is losing it, everyone is looking away, and I realise he is not going to say anything about the window even though he is up to his knees in broken glass and I am the only person around. But I’m not going to back down now, and that makes me feel calm.

‘I am doing my own work,’ I say.

‘What do you mean? Are you being insolent?’

‘I am not being insolent.’ I am just saying I do my work. No one can say any different.

‘I’ll tell you one thing, Sletten. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. You’re a troublemaker, are you not?’

‘You can call me whatever the hell you like, but you can’t say I don’t do my work.’

I crossed the line there. But this day started too well. I must have been an idiot to think it was going to last.

I drop what’s in my hands and walk towards the hall, where I can see Samuel’s back. He still stands singing and has not heard a thing. I start to count. When I get to five, the foreman shouts:

‘SLETTEN!’ I stop and turn round.

‘YOU’RE FIRED! YOU CAN GO HOME, NOW!’

‘Kiss my arse,’ I say.

That was quick. I go in past Samuel, and my legs are trembling. There is air instead of bones inside them. It’s a strange feeling. I can ask old Abrahamsen to help me get a job at the harbour. I am strong, I can lift sacks. I don’t know. What is certain is that my mother will be beside herself. I walk past the soundproof room where Goliath is sitting by the console filling in today’s log. He looks up as I pass. I don’t look back, just go to fetch my book and then on to my place at the rolls star and put the book in my bag. The old roll will soon be empty. I could just go away and let it run out, but everything has been so perfect today, and no one can say I don’t do my job, even if I don’t have it any more. I go over and swivel the star round, start up a new roll and when it’s up to the right speed, I let the splice go. It sticks. Davidsen, the foreman, can go hang himself. It’s a little early to make a join if you want to save paper, but it’s better than having the press run empty, and I don’t want to wait. I want to leave now.

When the join has gone through the web and been taken out at the folder, I grab my bag and walk along the press. Goliath looks up again, he sees the bag, he looks surprised and comes to the door.

‘That join was a little early, wasn’t it?’

‘I didn’t want to wait. I’m leaving.’

‘Leaving? Hell, you’ve only just got here. You’ve been away for more than a week.’

‘I’ve been fired.’

‘What are you talking about? No one gets fired from my team without me being told about it.’

‘Maybe so, but just the same, I was fired five minutes ago, by Davidsen.’

‘Goddamnit. HARALD!’ Harald comes running in with blue ink dripping from his spatula. He has been stirring one of the tubs, and now it’s running down his trousers. ‘YES?’ he shouts over the drone of the machine.

‘Stop the press. Nice and easy. And don’t move a fucking finger until I’m back.’ He heads for the door. Then he stops and turns to me.

‘And you stay right here.’

‘Don’t make any trouble for my sake. I don’t give a shit about Davidsen.’

‘Sometimes you’re such a fathead, Audun, it’s painful to watch. If you gave a little less of a shit, maybe you would get on better. But I can’t lose a good roll man because of some useless foreman. So you stay right here. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Fine.’ Goliath pulls up his shoulders and rushes out the door, and the roar of the press subsides, the valves let out steam, and the web of paper goes white, and then it stops and it’s quiet. Samuel looks up from his post by the stacker, he is still singing, and now I can hear what song it is, it’s ‘Johansen’s Jumper’. Trond looks up from the book he is reading. He borrowed it off me, and I borrowed it off Arvid. He’ll get it back, one day.

‘What’s that noise?’ Trond says.

‘It’s Samuel singing.’

‘Oh, shit.’

I stay at my post by the rolls star. This is just crap. I want to get out of here. You do it yourself, or you leave. That’s the way it is, and I want to go.

‘What’s going on?’ Trond says. ‘Why have we stopped?’ I shrug and stay there. I am the only person sitting. The others are standing, scratching their heads, and then Goliath and the foreman come in through the door. They are yelling at each other. Goliath is waving his arms around as he walks towards the press. I grab my bag and stand up.

‘Sit back down,’ Goliath says. ‘This is a fag break.’ He fetches his chair from inside the soundproof room and places it right in the middle of the floor with his back to the foreman. The others do the same, and they sit down, take out their tobacco and roll cigarettes. Davidsen is the only person standing now, and his face is beetroot-red.

‘Hey, Odd!’ he shouts. ‘Start the press now!’

Goliath lights his cigarette, inhales and blows out.

‘Jesus, that was really wonderful,’ he says. ‘Today it’s been one thing after another, I haven’t even had the time to smoke a cigarette. We’re spoiling management, that’s what we’re doing.’