Arthur Hailey - Wheels

Though knowing time was against him, Rollie waited. He sensed an opportunity would come. It did.

On Friday, last day of his working week, he was assigned again to lowering engines onto chassis. Rollie was teamed with an older man who was the engine decker, and among others at adjoining work stations was the worker with the Afro hairdo.

"Man, oh man, I feel somethin' creepycrawly," the latter declared when Rollie joined them near the end of a meal break, shortly before the line restarted. "You gonna give us all a special rest today?" He cuffed Rollie around the shoulders as others nearby howled with laughter. Someone else slapped Rollie from the other side. Both blows could have been good-natured, but instead slammed into Rollie's frailness and left him staggering.

The chance he had planned and waited for occurred an hour later. As well as doing his own work since rejoining the group, Rollie Knight had watched, minute by minute, the movements and positions of the others, which fell into a pattern, but now and then with variations.

Each engine installed was lowered from overhead on chains and pulleys, its maneuvering and release controlled by three pushbuttons - UP, STOP, DOWN - on a heavy electric cord hanging conveniently above the work station. Normally the engine decker operated the pushbuttons, though Rollie had learned to use them too.

A third man - in this instance the Afro hairdo worker - moved between stations, aiding the other two as needed.

Though the installation team worked fast, each engine was eased into place cautiously and, when almost seated, before the final drop, each man made sure his hands were clear.

As one engine was almost lowered and in place, its fuel and vacuum lines became entangled in the chassis front suspension. The hangup was momentary and occurred occasionally; when it did, the Afro hairdo worker moved in, reaching under the engine to clear the tangled lines. He did so now. The hands of the other two - Rollie and the engine decker - were safely removed.

Watching, choosing his moment, Rollie moved slightly sideways, reached up casually, then depressed and held the DOWN button. Instantly, a heavy, reverberating 'bang!' announced that half a ton of engine and transmission had dropped solidly onto mounts beneath. Rollie released the button and, in the same movement, eased away.

For an infinitesimal fraction of a second the Afro hairdo worker remained silent, staring unbelieving at his hand, its fingers out of sight beneath the engine block. Then he screamed - again and again - a shrieking, demented wail of agony and horror, piercing all other sounds around, so that all men working fifty yards away raised their heads and craned uneasily to see the cause. The screams continued, fiendishly, unceasing, while someone hit an alarm button to stop the line, another the UP control to raise the engine assembly. As it lifted the screams took on a new excruciating edge, while those who were nearest looked with horror at the squashed, mangled jigsaw of blood and bones which seconds earlier had been fingers. As the injured worker's knees buckled, two men held him while his body heaved, his face contorted as tears streamed over lips mouthing incoherent, animal moans. A third worker, his own face ashen, reached for the mashed and pulpy hand, easing loose what he could, though a good deal stayed behind. When what was left of the hand was clear, the assembly line restarted.

The injured worker was carried away on a stretcher, his screams diminishing as morphine took hold. The drug had been administered by a nurse summoned hurriedly from the plant dispensary. She had put a temporary dressing on the hand, and her white uniform was blood-spattered as she walked beside the stretcher, accompanying it to an ambulance waiting out of doors.

Among the workers, no one looked at Rollie.

The foreman, Frank Parkland, and a plant safety man questioned those closest to the scene during a work break a few minutes later. A union steward was present.

The plant men demanded: What exactly happened?

It seemed that no one knew. Those who might have had knowledge claimed to have been looking some other way when the incident occurred.

"It doesn't figure," Parkland said. He stared hard at Rollie Knight.

"Somebody must have seen,"

The safety man asked, "Who hit the switch?"

No one answered. All that happened was an uneasy shuffling of feet, with eyes averted.

"Somebody did," Frank Parkland said. "Who was it?"

Still silence.

Then the engine decker spoke. He looked older, grayer, than before, and had been sweating so that the short hairs clung damply to his black scalp. "I reckon it was me. Guess I hit that button, let her drop." He added, mumbling, "Thought she was clear, the guy's hands out."

"You sure? Or are you covering?" Parkland's eyes returned, appraisingly, to Rollie Knight.

"I'm sure." The engine decker's voice was firmer. He lifted his head; his eyes met the foreman's. "Was an accident. I'm sorry."

"You should be," the safety man said. "You cost a guy his hand. And look at that!" He pointed to a board which read:

THIS PLANT HAS WORKED

1,897,560 MAN HOURS

WITHOUT AN ACCIDENT

"Now our score goes back to zero," the safety man said bitterly. He left the strong impression that this was what mattered most.

With the engine decker's firm statement, some of the tenseness had eased.

Someone asked, "What'll happen?"

"It's an accident, so no penalties," the union man said. He addressed Parkland and the safety man. "But there's an unsafe condition at this work station. It has to be corrected or we pull everybody out."

"Take it easy," Parkland cautioned. "Nobody's proved that yet."

"It's unsafe to get out of bed in the morning," the safety man protested. "If you do it with your eyes closed." He glowered again at the engine decker as, still deliberating, the trio moved away.

Soon after, those who had been questioned returned to work, the absent worker replaced by a new man who watched his hands nervously.

From then on, though nothing was ever said, Rollie Knight had no more trouble with his fellow workers. He knew why. Despite denials, those who had been close by were aware of what had happened, and now he had the reputation of being a man not to cross.

At first, when he had seen the smashed, bloody hand of his former tormentor, Rollie, too, was shocked and sickened. But as the stretcher moved away, so did the incident's immediacy, and since it was not in Rollie's nature to dwell on things, by the next working day - with a weekend in between - he had accepted what occurred as belonging in the past, and that was it. He did not fear reprisals. He sensed that, jungle law or not, a certain raw justice was on his side, and others knew it, including the engine decker who protected him.

The incident had other overtones.

In the way that information spreads about someone who has achieved attention, word of Rollie's prison record leaked. But rather than being an embarrassment, it made him, he discovered, something of a folk hero - at least to younger workers.

"Hear you done big time," a nineteen-year-old from the inner city told him. "Guess you give them whitey pigs a run before they gotcha, huh?"

Another youngster asked, "You carry a piece?"

Although Rollie knew that plenty of workers in the plant carried guns at all times - allegedly for protection against the frequent muggings which occurred in toilets or in parking lots. Rollie did not, being aware of the stiff sentence he would get if, with his record, a firearm were ever discovered on him. But he answered, noncommitally, "Quit buggin' me, kid," and soon another rumor was added to the rest: The little guy, Knight, was always armed. It was an additional cause for respect among the youthful militants.