Wildcat
Page 5
Cranston Journal editor Tom Finnegan was alone in the newsroom as he imagined the day of his brother Bobby’s accident yet another time. This was the way Tom always pieced it together. There was the oil on the floor that Bobby had explained made him fall. Usually there was a guy assigned to mop up the oil and panel lube every hour, but Bobby’s area was shorthanded that day and went without. Then there was the horseplay—the firecrackers, glove balls, water bags, fire extinguisher fights—it was just the way the place was, a way to break the monotony and stupidity of the simple, yet brutal atmosphere in the plant. But more importantly and strangely was the press cycling when it did, the feared “random cycle” that can happen anytime on a press and which is something most people can spend a lifetime in a pressroom and never witness.
In the hospital, Bobby kept high spirits. His wife and babies were there everyday to see him, and they, after all, were what his life was about. What more could a good Catholic boy from a large Catholic family need but family? And taking care of your family was everything—putting the food on the table and the dresses on his two pretty, red-headed daughters and a smile on wife Katie’s face. When she had gotten pregnant in the spring of their senior year, Bobby didn’t hesitate—they got married immediately with a gay, spring church wedding full of pretty little nieces and serious little nephews carrying flowers and rings and more. The baby was just a little bit early was all anyone needed to know, and that was good enough.
Tom Finnegan gazed out his office door at the rows of typewriters and composing tables in the newsroom. When it was quiet here it was such an unnatural state for the place, usually filled with the clack-clacking of the typewriters and the bustle of young folks hustling copy here and there to the editors or layout or composing. He wondered if it had gotten quiet at the factory the day Bobby lost his arm. He thought not, that the monster of a plant, always working people seven days a week, holidays, holy days, everyday, would surely not take notice of the blood and bone of a young man who was still a little boy to Tom Finnegan, the oldest of the Finnegan clan of nine children. No, the plant did not pause for Bobby Finnegan.
He was writing an editorial for the Sunday paper about the General Motors stamping plant. The day before, for the Thanksgiving Day edition, he had personally written the headline for the wildcat strike of Wednesday: “Once Again: Violence Strikes.” Tom Finnegan found it amusing, if sardonically so, to listen to the other community leaders speak of the money spigot that the GM plant was to them. No one could deny the benefit of the multimillion dollar payroll the plant provided or the tax that payroll generated for the school system. And realistically, if General Motors had required the annual sacrifice of a virgin, it is likely that the Chamber of Commerce would have okayed it, with the stipulation, as with all things requiring sacrifice, that the virgin come from the other side of the tracks, or even better, be imported.
At the Chamber or Kiwanis or country club, he heard over and over what ingrates the uneducated masses working at the plant were. A wildcat strike was illegal. Call in the National Guard. Show them who is boss. Tom used to try to present an opposing view, the actual reality of the plant, the working conditions of the job, and the disregard for human rights by GM, but they always laughed him off as a raving Irishman who needed to be getting on with his life, that it was his granddaddy who had fled the potato famine and, “Pinch yourself, Tom, you really are the editor of a very large American newspaper.” But they didn’t know his little brother, or, if they had, could not remember him. They could not comprehend that Bobby had taken a forty cent an hour cut in pay from his job bagging groceries at Big Bear to go to GM, and that the only reason the men made good wages was because of the overtime. Bobby didn’t work it all, and he still averaged seventy hours a week.
Only one person from the plant had at first been involved when Bobby lost his arm, a young fellow named Milt Jeffers, Bobby’s union representative. “We’re just getting the paperwork right,” he told Bobby’s wife, and Tom Finnegan, who happened to be in the hospital room that evening. “I expect the first check will be cut in a few days and we’ll get started on rehab.” They all thanked Milt, and he went on his way.
Fuck, there was nothing the young Milt Jeffers could do. Deals were always being made, but he wasn’t yet the dealmaker. First the company said Bobby violated shop rule #3 about putting any body part in a die pinch point. Then they said it was horseplay, a violation of shop rule #27. But the strangest thing was the random press cycle. For sure, Eddie had not cycled the press; there were enough eyes in the area to know that for sure. A General Motors press just cycles and takes off a man’s arm.
The day the registered letter came from GM, Bobby was in good spirits. Just he and Katie and the girls were in the room, and Bobby was getting ready to go home the next day. He eagerly tore open the envelope and scanned its contents quickly. The color was gone from his face when he tucked it away and turned back to Katie and their plans. Later when Katie had gone for the day, he took the envelope out and read the letter again. He was fired! GM had fired him for horseplay, which caused his accident!
Tom had helped Bobby in dealing with the company, most of it through Milt Jeffers. He was dumbfounded at the outcome. Bobby was permanently disabled and unable to make a living, and GM had fired him? The personnel director refused to see him. The shop chairman at the time, along with Milt Jeffers in a meeting, said the matter was in step two, and explained the lengthy grievance procedure. Ultimately, it did not matter about the steps. A month later, Katie found Bobby in the basement. He had courteously set a folding chair near the floor drain, removed the drain cover, and tilted his head back before shooting himself through the mouth.
Chapter 4
A Profane Man