J. Powers - The Stories of J.F. Powers

When they were ready to see him, Mr Newman hustled into a small glass office and stood before a young man. A sign with wooden letters indicated that he was Mr Shanahan. Mr Shanahan was reading a letter. Mr Newman did not look directly at Mr Shanahan: it was none of Mr Newman’s business — Mr Shanahan’s letter — and he did not want to seem curious or expectant of immediate attention. This was their busy season.

Mr Shanahan, still reading the letter, had noiselessly extended a hand toward Mr Newman. A moment later, only then, Mr Newman saw the hand. Caught napping! A bad beginning! He hastened to shake the hand, recoiled in time. Mr Shanahan had only been reaching out for the application. Mr Newman gave it to Mr Shanahan and said, “Thank you,” for some reason.

“Ah, yes. Have a seat.” Mr Shanahan rattled the application in one hand. “What kind of work did you want to do?” Evidently he expected no answer, for he went on to say, “I don’t have to tell you, Mr Newman, there’s a labor shortage, especially in non-defense industries. That, and that alone, accounts for the few jobs we have to offer. We’re an old-line house.”

“Yes,” Mr Newman said.

“And there aren’t any office jobs,” Mr Shanahan continued. “That’s the kind of work you’ve always done?”

“Yes, it is,” Mr Newman said. Mr Shanahan sucked a tooth sadly.

Mr Newman was ready now for the part about the company letting him know later.

“How’d you like a temporary job in our shipping room?” Mr Shanahan said, his eyes suddenly watchful.

For an instant Mr Newman succeeded in making it plain that he, like any man of his business experience, was meant for better things. A moment later, in an interesting ceremony which took place in his heart, Mr Newman surrendered his well-loved white collar. He knew that Mr Shanahan, with that dark vision peculiar to personnel men, had witnessed the whole thing.

“Well…” he said.

Mr Shanahan, the game bagged and bumping from his belt, got cordial now. “How are you, pretty handy with rope?”

He said it in such a flattering way that Mr Newman trembled under the desire to be worthy. “Yes, I am,” he said.

“But can you begin right away?” It was the final test.

“Yes, I can!” Mr Newman said, echoing some of Mr Shanahan’s spirit. “You bet I can!”

“Well then, follow me!”

Mr Shanahan guided Mr Newman through a maze of departments. On an elevator, going down, he revealed what the job paid to start. Mr Newman nodded vigorously that one could not expect too much to start. Mr Shanahan told him that he didn’t have to tell him that they were a firm known far and wide for fair dealing and that if (for any reason) Mr Newman ever left them, it should be easy to get another position, and… Out of the elevator and in the lower depths, Mr Shanahan said he would like to make sure Mr Newman understood the job was only temporary. After the Christmas holidays things were pretty slow in their line. Otherwise, they would be glad to avail themselves of his services the year round. However, the experience Mr Newman would get here might very well prove invaluable to him in later life. Mr Newman nodded less vigorously now.

They came to a long table, flat against a wall, extending around a rafterish room fitted out for packing: tough twine and hairy manila rope on giant spools, brown paper on rollers, sticking tape bearing the company’s name, crest, and slogan: “A modern house over 100 years young .”

Several men were packing things. Mr Shanahan introduced Mr Newman to one of them.

“This is your boss, Mr Hurley. This is Mr Newman. Mr Newman’s pretty handy with rope. Ought to make an A-1 packer.”

“Well…” Mr Newman said, embarrassed before the regular packers.

He shook Mr Hurley’s hard hand.

“I sure hope so,” Mr Hurley said grimly. “This is our busy season.”

When Mr Shanahan had gone Mr Hurley showed Mr Newman where he could hang his coat. He told him what he would have to do and what he would be held responsible for. He cited the sad case of the shipment sent out last week to Fargo, North Dakota. The company had lost exactly double the amount of the whole sale, to say nothing of good will. Why? Faulty packing! He urged Mr Newman to figure it out for himself. He told Mr Newman that haste made waste, but that they were expected to get incoming orders out of the house on the same day. Not tomorrow. Not the next day. The same day. Finally Mr Hurley again brought up the case of the shipment sent to Fargo, and seemed pleased with the reaction it got. For Mr Newman frowned his forehead all out of shape and rolled his head back and forth like a sad old bell, as if to say, “Can such things be?”

“All right, Newman, let’s see what you can do!” Mr Hurley slapped him on the shoulder like a football coach sending in a substitute. Mr Newman, gritting his false teeth, tackled his first assignment for the company: a half-dozen sets of poker chips, a box of rag dolls, 5,000 small American flags, and a boy’s sled going to Waupaca, Wisconsin.

Mr Newman perspired… lost his breath, caught it, tried to break a piece of twine with his bare hands, failed, cut his nose on a piece of wrapping paper, bled, barked his shin on an ice skate, tripped, said a few cuss words to himself… perspired.

“We go to lunch at twelve in this section,” Mr Hurley told him in a whisper a few minutes before that time. “If you want to wash up, go ahead now.”

But Mr Newman waited until the whistle blew before he knocked off. He had a shipment he wanted to get off. It was ten after twelve when he punched out.

There was no crowd at the time clock and he had a chance to look the thing over. He tried to summon up a little interest, but all he felt with any intensity was the lone fact that he’d never had to punch a clock before. It had always been enough before that he live by one.

On his lunch hour he did not know where to go. The company had a place where you could eat your lunch, but Mr Newman had neglected to bring one. Quite reasonably he had not anticipated getting a job and starting on it the same day. After the usual morning of looking around, he had expected to go home and eat a bite with Mrs Newman.

He walked past a lunch stand twice before he could make certain, without actually staring in the window at the menu painted on the wall, that hamburgers were ten cents and coffee five. He entered the place, then, and ordered with assurance that he would not be letting himself in for more than he could afford. He did not have any money to spare. Would it be better, he wondered, to have payday come soon and get paid for a few days’ work, or could he hold out for a week or so and really have something when he did get paid? Leaving the lunch stand, he walked in the direction of the company, but roundabout so he would not get back too soon. Say about fifteen minutes to one. That would give him time to go to the washroom.

“Where did you eat your lunch?” Mr Hurley asked him the first thing. “I didn’t see you in the lunchroom.”

“Oh, I ate out,” Mr Newman said, gratified that he’d been missed until he saw that he had offended Mr Hurley by eating out. “I didn’t bring my lunch today,” he explained. “Didn’t think I’d be working so soon.”

“Oh.” But Mr Hurley was still hurt.

“I heard they let you eat your lunch in the building,” Mr Newman said, giving Mr Hurley his chance.

Mr Hurley broke down and told Mr Newman precisely where the employees’ lunchroom was, where it wasn’t, how to get there from the shipping room, how not to. There were two ways to get there, he said, and he guessed, as for him, he never went the same way twice in a row.

“You know how it is,” Mr Hurley said, with a laugh, tying it in with life.