One of the men to get two letters was the Great White Father. He wouldn’t go up to haggle over a lump sum.
‘Let them come for me. If the Wandering bloody Jew wants to arsehole me, let him do his own dirty work. One day they’ll be so efficient they’ll run out of consumers to burn their silly product.’
A HEALTHY ECONOMY It was another recession year, but dividend payments were high and profits rose, though understated because of loopholes in depreciation laws. At Puroil, too, after the installation of new equipment and a stable electricity supply, profits rose: the cracker was running. Puroil’s reaction was to crack down even further, to keep profit rising at a faster rate. The next figure was expected to be double the last. Extensive oil fields were discovered in Australia; the price of petrol rose.
In no way was technical change benefiting those directly concerned in the change. In the mines, manpower fell and productivity rose, but those working at the coal face were no better off. Natural-gas production rose, operating crew numbers fell; dividends increased, but the operators still chased the cost of living. Car production per worker rose, so did prices with each new model. Wages didn’t. The general standard of living was rising, but rising so much faster for the élites that the poor were getting poorer. Yet on paper it was progress. There was no equality of sacrifice. Labour productivity was increasing steadily, wages were a decreasing proportion of the value of production. Manhours were falling, but there were no price reductions, no decline in the cost of living, no automatic increase in the standard of living, no automatic absorption of the unemployed into industry. Productivity growth is not the same as progress, and seems to yield worse conditions to the ever-increasing mass of humans at the bottom of the pile.
A few hundred years before, men were driven off the land into industry. Now industry was driving them out. What was the next stop? In the waterless inland there were dams unbuilt, roads unmade, yet there were oceans of water underground, enough to irrigate a hundred million acres for a century. But after the roads and dams were made and the water piped up, what then? Constant wars to sop up the surplus?
And in privileged parts of the world private speculators were threatening the currencies of great nations, reminding uneasy populations that what happened once, forty years before and could never happen again, could quite easily happen again.
One segment want profits, the rest want a wage. Is that all? Is this the whole purpose of industry? Paid prisoners, no more? Where does the community come in, or is industry the whole community? Is there no place for the feeling that each can give his share of service for the well-being of all? But there is no ideology that can induce these desirable feelings in the country’s human components.
The total proceeds of the country’s production are distributed unjustly, but these total proceeds are so small compared to the effort available to produce them: two causes for anger.
Large-scale industry, as time goes on being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, can’t be left to itself. The community sees its advertising everywhere but its account books nowhere, yet everything it does in the privacy the law allows affects the lifetimes of every man, woman and child in the community, all who by their consumption of its products support it.
22
ESCAPE ROUTES
HOT SPOTS The hot spots on the outside skin of the catalyst regenerator were bigger. The Samurai came in from his weekend off and demanded to know what was to be done about them.
‘There’ll be no decisions made today, hot spots or no hot spots,’ said the Slug, and the Samurai wondered where he got his sudden strength. It was because of his own recent reluctance to take action on behalf of any of his fellows, and his tendency to keep to himself. Like a jackal, the Slug sensed this stand-off attitude as weakness and isolation; he had no means of understanding a man who could lay down his arms for a while, then take them up again when he felt like fighting. He interpreted everything he saw in terms of a man doing his utmost to his own advantage, only ever stopped by a force outside himself. The Samurai seemed to him to have been disabled by some larger power and now fair game for any sniper. He wondered later when he noticed no one else sniping at the Samurai; then, feeling that his action isolated him from the mass of men, he quickly side-stepped back into the ranks and aimed no more darts at the Samurai. The Samurai didn’t trouble to argue about the hot spots.
‘For the sickies they didn’t pay me,’ said the Samurai aloud, as he commenced to take his usual slice off production. The hot spots didn’t seem to get worse. They were promptly forgotten.
ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST In another part of the refinery, the Governor of the colony was arriving to open a new plant. Clerks wore dustcoats and directed traffic, eager middle-responsibility persons thrust their way forward to be nearest to the vice-regal car. The Governor would never know them or ever want to, but the great thing was to be seen there by Puroil people. In some mysterious way, known to all primitive people, there was virtue in being physically near the great and revered personage. Magic flowed from his body, his garments, his Rolls Royce, to the lower orders.
Eventually he was conducted to a place a little above them where he stood and spoke nonsense to office workers who knew nothing about the plant. Looking round at the attractive lawns and the native trees and shrubs, he was pleasantly impressed. The Whispering Baritone saw him look, and knew that the money spent on gardens was worth every cent. Word would get back to London from this man who, after all, had the power to dismiss State premiers and dissolve governments. Some two or three men who would operate the plant were there, insignificant beside the throng who escaped work for an hour to hear the Governor. Taking advantage of this diversion, other enterprising prisoners were at the stores like rats. Voracious, enthusiastic, undaunted rats.
The Governor described the energy tensions that create the illusion of a solid substantial company. He used words such as co-operation, team-spirit, unselfishness, harmony. He avoided words like orders, discipline, dismissal, obedience, lower costs and retrenchment.
OVERHEARD IN A LOCKER-ROOM ‘Did you hear about the Python?’
‘What about the mongrel of a thing?’
‘Someone flattened him.’
‘What with?’
‘Lump of pipe. Back of the neck.’
‘Is he a good Python?’
‘What?’
‘Is he dead?’
‘No. Just knocked out. When they took him up to Calamity Jane, she found needle marks on him.’
‘Needle? What sort of needle?’
‘Hypo. Someone had been at him with a hypo.’
‘Is he a narcotic?’
‘You mean an addict?’
‘Yeah. Hooked.’
‘No. Someone was at him.’
‘Did you get a letter?’
‘No. You?’
‘I got two. Don’t know what I’ll do now. I’m a bit old to go looking for a job.’
The Samurai listened in silence and thought of Cheddar Cheese and his lost market for blood. In his mental eye he saw Cheddar taking some of his blood back from those he gave it to, filling a stolen hypodermic with his own blood and jabbing massive doses of it into the Python while he was unconscious. He must have wanted to get even before he left. He had been invited to go up for the golden handshake. Leukemia-pity was out of fashion now; since the tobacco companies rode out the lung-cancer scare it was all heart disease and organ transplants.
CHEDDAR CHEESE Cheddar heard them, too. Pulling on week-old socks after shaking out catalyst dust. To himself, quietly and reasonably, he said, What none of you ever say is I’m dying. I read in the Puroil house journal how some joker ran round a football field four times in under four minutes and what did he get? Time off to do his Certificate then three years at Cambridge. I’m dying: that’s not such a popular achievement. I suppose they reckoned I’d get time off shortly. Now they’re making sure of it.
He looked at the envelope on his locker shelf. The letter lay inside it, its
typed words ready again to leap out at his throat the moment he opened it.
180 DEGREES Night shift and the Twinkler down in the mouth. The Great White Father patted his head. The Twinkler had taught the Western Salesman his own job, so they gave it to the Western Salesman. What made it worse was that they’d taken SK back who knew nothing, and made him a foreman immediately. His first action was to confiscate all newspapers, even those belonging to the other foremen. Several almost told him what to do, but remembered times had changed and kept their mouths shut. He threatened to report any further breaches. SK would go far.
‘Fancy them demoting a good man like you. Poor little Twinkling Star. Being good isn’t enough. You have to survive and if you do it right you survive whole. You come through, at the end of your life, with a whole skin.’ He laughed uncontrollably. ‘That’s the joke. Survive! A whole skin. Die of natural causes.’ And in a quieter voice, ‘Die because of death, the Great Defender who never misses a tackle.’
The Beautiful Twinkling Star said sadly, ‘And death shall have no dominion.’ He thought he remembered it was Isaiah. One of the prophets, anyway.
‘Not bloody much it won’t,’ replied the Great White Father harshly. ‘The whole stinking universe’—he shook a fist at the sky and the myriad galaxies not completely masked by the structures of the refinery, ‘is the dominion of death.’ He belted the good man between the shoulder blades. ‘That’s why we laugh at the whole shebang! And give it the sign!’
He gave the sign with all fingers, viciously, to every part of the night sky.
‘This life is nothing,’ said the Star. ‘It’s a trial for the life to come.’
‘I believe it! For Oblivion!’ he shouted. But there was a look of sneering about him. ‘It was a rotten joke for your Bloke to pull. We should never have been put here,’ he snapped angrily, with fierce and unshakeable conviction.
‘God is love,’ said the Beautiful Twinkling Star softly, with calm and unshakeable conviction.
FUNKHOLES The Brown Snake was supposed by the prisoners to be about to be liquidated by the young graduate Industrial Officer he was showing around. That was the usual pattern; you prepared the rope, constructed the scaffold and placed the noose round your own neck so the hangman’s work was easy. Only the lever remained to be pulled and you couldn’t do that with your hands tied.
But he slipped away into a safe hole. The Puroil Sales company, a separate entity, had made room for him for the three years he had to go till retirement. He wasn’t even faced with the usual reduction in salary which would have forced down his pension rate. He knew a few secrets. Pixie wasn’t so lucky. He was dispatched, trembling, to a re-training centre in Victoria. Oliver Twist, lacking a powerful patron, started to worry. He was forty: the company would be looking for reasons to let him go free.
The Garfish, who laid the ground-work for the no-stoppage clause and the pool of operators and had written the stand-down clause into the award, was robbed of the Industrial Relations job. The young graduate walked straight into it. The Garfish shook his hand, smiled, and promised every assistance. Like hell. He regarded the job as his own funkhole. He’d keep trying for it, even if it meant letting things go sour for Puroil so the new boy would get the chop.
They called him Crack Hardy. They meant you might as well crack hardy as put in a sickie. It was a common gambit: you start off hard and ruthless and when you finally smile or become generous you get more credit for it than the man who is sunny all the time. He picked it up in psychology lectures.
THE KILLER Why didn’t they take their action openly? Revolt, strike, direct action. But it was the money, the time-payment instalments, the mortgage on the house. On the sly, you could get your own back and still get your money. And it was their friends. You couldn’t team up with your friends: they would run and tell the boss.
Sabotage hurt them both; it hurt the company and it hurt the men. But that self-inflicted hurt was better than getting no money. Strikes meant you lost the lot, and there were bills; the baker, milk, groceries. You had to eat every day. They had thrown away their right to refuse work with every gadget they bought on time payment.
Usually, they would do their little sly sabotages one at a time. It would be like ordinary things going wrong and there was plenty of it; the company cared no more for the equipment than the men. Carelessness, it looked like. But what if men happened to do all their nasty little acts at the same time? There wouldn’t be enough men to go round to keep the lid on.
And the last-minute addition to the previous Agreement just before it went to be printed—the clause agreeing never to leave the plants unmanned; sufficient men to keep them running; that was the killer. It looked so reasonable when you read it. But it meant the men were powerless. If you couldn’t threaten strike, you couldn’t get your case heard right away—you might wait years to get the thing heard before a court. The meaning of it was starting to seep into the minds of the men.
MUCK REPLACES ETERNITY ‘Who is it keeps writing DNR everywhere?’ asked the Ant. Someone was getting at the men’s overalls stencilling the sinister letters on their chests, on their white safety helmets, on their time cards. He watched the lined, smiling face of the Great White Father and tried to hide the admiration he felt. It was hard to imagine he was marked down to go. If he didn’t take the lump sum in the fortnight, they would sack him for nothing. Funny how people twelve thousand miles away had so much say.
‘It used to be ETERNITY, then it was MUCK. Maybe it’s the same joker but he’s lost his faith,’ said the Ant.
‘Could be the same. Maybe he’s working out details now—a new do-it-yourself religion. All the way from ETERNITY to MUCK to DO NOT RESUSCITATE.’
Far Away Places, writer of the word MUCK, stenciller of DNR, was standing on the topmost point of the cracker, looking west. ‘The sunlight loves me,’ he said to himself, feeling its blessing on his face. His cough wasn’t so bad now. At home he often thought his favourite apple-tree must feel like this in the sun. Cared for. Warm. Loved.
He played sweetly on his piece of trumpet, imagining that the tunes he made floated out over the huddled, cowed houses and broke gently in pieces, falling in blessing on each one. Like the sun. He looked with profound distaste at the columns and plants beneath him. The whole enterprise was muck. Not absolutely necessary to life. And the humans. What was the use of them all?
FOR SALE ‘The Colonel’s in the news.’
‘The slob in the pay office?’
‘Yes—the male whore-house man.’
‘Did he do in the Whispering Baritone?’
‘No. He’s a sculptor.’
‘A what?’
‘What are they when they’re at home?’
‘Chisellers. You know, big bronzes—’
‘And a big bronze to you.’
‘Up on pedestals. Only he’s a welder. You know, bits of this and that and give it a name.’
‘Has he got his welding ticket?’
‘No. That’s for welding pipes and joints and patio rails. This man’s an artist, you don’t need tickets to be an artist.’
‘You mean bits of half-inch plate, a bike chain and welding droppings? That sort of thing?’
‘That’s it. He’s won a competition. Thousand dollars. For a hundredweight of welding scrap.’
‘What name did he give it?’
‘Unknown Industrial Prisoner. Says here it’s symbolic of the intense pressures on modern industrial man and the sense of compression and isolation in a confined space.’
‘Why do they think so much of bits and pieces? They can come here any day of the week and give sculpture prizes to everything in the place—scrap or construction. What’s so special?’
‘They never see any of this. This is all strange to them. They live in another world. They’d run round like mad picking up scrap all day if they came here. They see all sorts of things in lumps of metal and rods and steel points nearly touching. The feel of steel gets ’em, too, I think. And
how heavy it is. All that. The colour.’
‘Christ.’
‘There’s tons of it here.’
‘Where do they live if they never see lumps of steel?’
‘They only go where it’s civilized.’
‘Whaddya mean? The whole guts of their civilization’s built on lumps of steel. This is where it all starts!’
‘They only see the big buildings and the finished job. Big offices, nice cafés, art galleries, everything nice for ’em.’
‘But we’re only a few miles away. Why can’t they come and have a look at as much steel as they want, then they won’t think there’s anything special in it.’
‘I keep telling you—they’re in another world!’
‘But a few miles…’
‘Might as well be another planet.’
‘They don’t want to see this end of the works.’
‘That’s their trouble, all right.’
‘Why should they? The Colonel gets a grand out of making a statue of us. We’re the industrial prisoners.’
‘Puroil might give him a scholarship or time off or something.’
‘No chance. They only help athletes. Good, clean amateur sport. Got to watch their image.’
‘It says here they’re going to put it in an art gallery.’
‘Good. The Colonel can go and stand alongside it. Some rich bastard might buy both.’
THE MOMENTUM OF SMALL BODIES At the Home Beautiful the Great White Father walked outside, stooped right down and put his ear to the ground. The Angry Ant looked puzzled.
The Unknown Industrial Prisoner Page 42