Arthur Hailey - Wheels

Hurtling around a bend in the building, a yellow truck with flashing red beacon swung into sight. It was a crash repair unit carrying a three-man crew with tools and welding gear. One drove, his foot against the floor; two others hung on, bracing themselves against welding cylinders in the rear. Forward on the line a foreman had arms upraised, signaling where the break had happened. The truck tore past Rollie Knight's work station - a blur of yellow, red, its siren at crescendo. It slowed, then stopped. The crew tumbled out.

In any car assembly plant an unscheduled line stoppage is an emergency, taking second place only to a fire. Every minute of line production lost equates a fortune in wages, administration, factory cost, none of which can ever be recovered. Expressed another way: when an assembly line is running it produces a new car roughly every fifty seconds. With an unplanned stoppage, the same amount of time means the full cost of a new car lost.

Thus the objective is to restart the line first, ask questions after.

The emergency crew, skilled in such contingencies, knew what to do. They located the chain drive break, brought the severed portions together.

Cutting free the broken link, they welded in another. Their truck had scarcely stopped before acetylene torches flared. The job was hasty. When necessary, repairmen improvised to get the line moving again. Later, when production halted for a shift change or meal break, the repair would be inspected, a more lasting job done.

One of the repair crew signaled to a foreman - Frank Parkland - connected by telephone with the nearest control point. "Start up!" The word was passed.

Power, which had been cut by circuit breaker, was reapplied. The chain drive clanked over cogs, this time smoothly. The line restarted. Seven hundred employees, most of them grateful for the respite, resumed work.

From the stoppage of the line to its restarting had occupied four minutes fifty-five seconds. Thus five and a half cars had been lost, or more than six thousand dollars.

Rollie Knight, though scared by now, was not sure what had happened.

He found out quickly.

The foreman, Frank Parkland - big-boned, broad-shouldered - came striding back along the line, his face set grimly. In his hand was a twisted four-inch bolt which one of the repair crew had given him..

He stopped, asking questions, holding up the mangled bolt. "It came from this section; had to. Some place here, between two sets of cogs. Who did it? Who saw it?"

Men shook their heads. Frank Parkland moved on, asking the questions over again.

When he came to the group decking engines, the young worker with the Afro hairdo was doubled up with laughter. Barely able to speak, he pointed to Rollie Knight. "There he is, boss! Saw him do it." Others at adjoining work stations were laughing with him.

Though Rollie was the target, he recognized, instinctively, no malice was involved. It was merely a joke, a diversion, a rambunctious prank. Who cared about consequences? Besides, the line had only stopped for minutes.

Rollie found himself grinning too, then caught Parkland's eye and froze.

The foreman glared. "You did it? You put this bolt in?"

Rollie's face betrayed him. His eyes showed white from sudden fear combined with weariness. For once, his outward cockiness was absent.

Parkland ordered, "Out!"

Rollie Knight moved from his position on the line. The foreman motioned a relief man to replace him.

"Number?"

Rollie repeated the Social Security number he had learned the day before.

Parkland asked his name and wrote it down also, his face remaining hard.

"You're new, aren't you?"

"Yeah." For Cri-sake! - it was always the same. Questions, gabbing, never an end. Even when Whitey kicked your ass, he dressed it up with bullshit.

"What you did was sabotage. You know the consequences?"

Rollie shrugged. He had no idea what "sabotage" meant, though he didn't like the sound of it. With the same resignation he had shown a few weeks earlier, he accepted that his job was gone. All that concerned him now was to wonder: What more could they throw at him? From the way this honky burned, he'd stir trouble if he could.

From behind Parkland, someone said, "Frank - Mr. Zaleski."

The foreman turned. He watched the approaching stocky figure of the assistant plant manager.

"What was it, Frank?"

"This, Matt." Parkland held up the twisted bolt.

"Deliberate?"

"I'm finding out." His tone said: Let me do it my way!

"Okay." Zaleski's eyes moved coolly over Rollie Knight. "But if it's sabotage, we throw the book. The union'll back us up, you know that. Let me have a report, Frank." He nodded and moved on.

Frank Parkland wasn't sure why he had held back in exposing the man in front of him as a saboteur. He could have done so, and fired him instantly; there would have been no repercussions. But momentarily it had all seemed too easy. The little, half-starved guy looked more a victim than a villain. Besides, someone who knew the score wouldn't leave himself that vulnerable.

He field out the offending bolt. "Did you know what this would do?"

Rollie looked up at Parkland, towering over him. Normally he would have glared back hate, but was too tired even for that. He shook his head.

"You know now."

Remembering the shouts, activity, siren, flashing lights, Rollie could not resist a grin. "Yeah, man!"

"Did somebody tell you to do it?"

He was aware of faces watching from the line, no longer smiling.

The foreman demanded, "Well, who was it?"

Rollie stayed mute.

"Was it the one who accused you?"

The worker with the Afro hairdo was bent over, decking another engine.

Rollie shook his head. Given the chance, there were debts he would pay back. But this was not the way.

"All right," Parkland said. "I don't know why I'm doing this, but I think you got suckered, though maybe I'm the sucker now." The foreman glared, begrudging his own concession. "What happened'll go on the record as an accident. But you're being watched, remember that." He added brusquely.

"Get back to work!"

Rollie, to his great surprise, ended the shift fitting pads under instrument panels.

He knew, though, that the situation couldn't stay the way it was. Next day he was the subject of appraising glances from fellow workers, and the butt of humor. At first the humor was casual and tentative, but he was aware it could get rougher, much rougher, if the idea grew that Rollie Knight was a pushover for pranks or bullying. For someone unlucky or inept enough to get that reputation, life could be miserable, even dangerous, because the monotony of assembly line work made people welcome anything, even brutality, as a diversion.

In the cafeteria on his fourth day of employment there occurred the usual melee at lunch break in which several hundred men rushed from work stations, their objective to get in line to be served, and, after waiting, hastily swallow their food, go to the toilet, wash off their dirt and grease if so inclined (it was never practical to wash before eating), then make it back to work - all in thirty minutes. Amid the cafeteria crowd he saw the worker with the Afro hairdo surrounded by a group which was laughing, looking at Rollie speculatively. A few minutes later, after getting his own food, he was jostled roughly so that everything he had paid for cascaded to the floor where it was promptly trampled on - apparently an accident, too, though Rollie knew better. He did not eat that day; there was no more time.

During the jostling he heard a click and saw a switchblade flash. Next time, Rollie suspected, the jostling would be rougher, the switchblade used to nick him; or even worse. He wasted no time reasoning that the process was wildly illogical and unjust. A manufacturing plant employing thousands of workers was a jungle, with a jungle's lawlessness, and all that he could do was pick his moment to take a stand.