Arthur Hailey - Wheels

Going around to the back of the car, he dived into the trunk, two more bolts in band, the wrench still with him.

He shouted back, "Get the idea?" The other man worked on one more car, then, responding to renewed signals from the foreman, and with an "All yours, bub," he disappeared.

Despite the noise, the dozens of people he could see close by, Rollie had never felt more lonely in his life.

"You! Hey! Get on with it!" It was the foreman, shouting, waving his arms from the other side of the line.

The car which the first man had worked on was already gone. Incredibly, despite the line's apparent slowness, another had appeared. There was no one but Rollie to insert the bolts. He grabbed a couple of bolts and jumped into the car. He groped for holes they were supposed to go in, found one, then realized he had forgotten the wrench. He went back for it. As he jumped back in the car the heavy wrench dropped on his hand, his knuckles skinned against the metal floor. He managed to start turning the single bolt; before he could finish, or insert the other, the wrench cord tightened as the car moved forward. The wrench would no longer reach.

Rollie left the second bolt on the floor and got out.

With the car after that, he managed to get two bolts in and made a pass at tightening them, though he wasn't sure how well. With the one after that, he did better; also the car following. He was getting the knack of using the wrench, though he found it heavy. He was sweating and had skinned his hands again.

It was not until the fifth car had gone by that he remembered the third bolt he was supposed to insert in the trunk.

Alarmed, Rollie looked around him. No one had noticed.

At adjoining work positions, on either side of the line, two men were installing wheels. Intent on their own tasks, neither paid the slightest heed to Rollie. He called to one, "Hey! I left some bolts out."

Without looking up, the worker shouted back, "Forget it! Get the next one.

Repair guys'll catch the others down the line." Momentarily he lifted his head and laughed. "Maybe."

Rollie began inserting the third bolt through each car trunk to the chassis. He had to increase his pace to do it. It was also necessary to go bodily into the trunk and, emerging the second time, he hit his head on the deck lid. The blow half-stunned him, and he would have liked to rest, but the next car kept coming and he worked on it in a daze.

He was learning: first, the pace of the line was faster than it seemed; second, even more compelling than the speed was its relentlessness. The line came on, and on, and on, unceasing, unyielding, impervious to human weakness or appeal. It was like a tide which nothing stopped except a half-hour lunch break, the end of a shift, or sabotage.

Rollie became a saboteur on his second day.

He had been shifted through several positions by that time, from inserting chassis bolts to making electrical connections, then to installing steering columns, and afterward to fitting fenders. He had heard someone say the previous day there was a shortage of workers; hence the panic - a usual thing on Mondays. On Tuesday he sensed more people were at their regular jobs, but Rollie was still being used by foremen to fill temporary gaps while others were on relief or break.

Consequently, there was seldom time to learn anything well, and at each fresh position several cars went by before he learned to do a new job properly. Usually, if a foreman was on hand and noticed, the defective work would be tagged; at other times it simply went on down the line.

On a few occasions foremen saw something wrong, but didn't bother.

While it all happened, Rollie Knight grew wearier.

The day before, at the end of work, his frail body had ached all over.

His hands were sore; in various other places his skin was bruised or raw. That night he slept more soundly than in years and awakened next morning only because the cheap alarm clock, which Leonard Wingate had left, was loudly insistent. Wondering why he was doing it, Rollie scrambled up, and a few minutes later addressed himself in the cracked mirror over a chipped enamel washbasin. "You lovin' crazy cat, you dopehead, crawl back in bed and cop some Zs. Or maybe you fixin' to be a white man's nigger." He eyed himself contemptuously but had not gone back to bed. Instead he reported to the plant once more.

By early afternoon his tiredness showed. Through the previous hour he had yawned repeatedly.

A young black worker with an Afro hairdo told him, "Man, you sleeping on your feet." The two were assigned to engine decking, their job to lower engines onto chassis, then secure them.

Rollie grimaced. "Them Wheels keep coming. Never did see so many.~

"You need a rest, man. Like a rest when this mean line stops."

"Ain't never gonna stop, I reckon."

They maneuvered a hulking engine from overhead into the forward compartment of one more car, inserting the driveshaft in the transmission extension, like a train being coupled, then released the engine from suspension. Others down the line would bolt it into place.

The worker with the Afro hairdo had his head close to Rollie's. "You want this here line stopped? I mean it, man."

"Oh, sure, sure." Rollie felt more like closing his eyes than getting involved in some stupid gabfest.

"Ain't kiddin'. See this." Out of sight of others nearby, the worker opened a fist he had been holding clenched. In his palm. was a black, four-inch steel bolt. "Hey, take it!"

"Why so?"

"Do like I say. Drop it there! He pointed to a groove in the concrete floor near their feet, housing the assembly line chain drive, an endless belt like a monstrous bicycle chain. The chain drive ran the length of the assembly line and back, impelling the partially completed cars along the line at even speed. At various points it sank underground, rose through extra floors above, passed through paint booths, inspection chambers, or simply changed direction. Whenever it did, the moving chain clanked over cog points.

What the hell, Rollie thought. Anything to pass the time, to help this day end sooner - even a bunch of nothing. He dropped the bolt into the chain drive.

Nothing happened except that the bolt moved forward down the line; in less than a minute it was out of sight. Only then was he aware of heads lifting around him, of faces - mostly black - grinning at his own. Puzzled, he sensed others waiting expectantly. For what?

The assembly line stopped. It stopped without warning, without sudden sound or jolting. The change was so unremarkable that it took several seconds before some, intent on work, were aware that the line was now stationary in front of them instead of passing by.

For perhaps ten seconds there was a lull. During it, the workers around Rollie were grinning even more broadly than before.

Then, bedlam. Alarm bells clanged. Urgent shouts resounded from forward on the line. Soon after, somewhere in the depths of the plant a siren wailed faintly, then increased in volume, growing nearer.

The other hands who had watched, surreptitiously, the exchange between Rollie and the worker with the Afro hairdo knew what had happened.

From Rollie Knight's work station the nearest chain drive cog point was a hundred yards forward on the line. Until that point, the bolt he had inserted in a link of the chain had moved uneventfully. But when it reached the cog, the bolt jammed hard between cog and chain, so that something had to give. The link broke. The chain drive parted. The assembly line stopped. Instantly, seven hundred workers were left idle, their wages at union scale continuing while they waited for the line to start again.

More seconds ticked away. The siren was nearer, louder, traveling fast.

In a wide aisle alongside the line, those on foot - supervisors, stock men, messengers and others - hastily moved clear. Other plant traffic, fork-lifts, power carryalls, executive buggies - pulled aside and stopped.