Testing the Current

by William McPherson

  The foreman looked at Tommy’s father. “Shall I let him?” he asked. “Sure,” said his father. “Let him try it.”

  “Here, Tommy,” the foreman said, gesturing toward the panel of levers, “bring your hand over here and give it a try.”

  “Me?” Tommy didn’t believe it. He glanced toward his father and back to the foreman.

  “Nobody else,” the foreman said. “You can do it. Don’t you want to?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Tommy, facing the panel of levers that controlled the furnaces. There were a lot of levers and knobs and dials.

  “Okay. Put your hand on this one—it’s for the Number One furnace, the closest one,” the foreman said, “and wait until I tell you. When I let you know, you just pull this handle gently toward you, and then when I give you the signal, push it back.” Tommy put both his hands on the lever, preparing to summon all his strength. “You don’t have to jerk it,” the foreman cautioned him, “just go slow and easy, slow and easy like it’s a lady.” The foreman laughed. “It’s a lot easier than you think. You’ll get the hang of it right away.”

  Tommy stood there watching the foreman. His father nodded and the foreman said, “Now! Give it to her quick!” Tommy jerked the handle toward him, and it gave a start. It moved a lot more easily than he had thought. “Slow! Easy,” the foreman called out. “Just real smooth, boy, real slow and smooth like I told you.” Tommy pulled it slowly toward him. It really was easy. When he pulled the lever toward him, the long crane swung down from the ceiling over the furnace, the men behind the shields all moved back, and when Tommy had pulled it as far as it would go, the foreman said, “Now give it a good hard twist,” and Tommy did with all his strength and the mouth opened and poured its white powders into the furnace and the furnace flared with a white light. It was like magic. Right then Tommy decided he would be a chemist when he grew up. “Now turn it back,” the foreman said, and as Tommy did the flowing powders trickled to a stop, the mouth closed, and the crane began to bend in half and fold slowly back to its place in the roof. “Can I do it again,” Tommy asked.

  “Not yet,” the foreman said. “We’ve got to see how this mix works. But if your father says it’s okay, you can do it again later, or some other time.”

  The foreman and Tommy’s father started talking. “Why are we getting these surges, Andy?” his father asked. But the foreman didn’t know. He had a hunch there was a problem with one of the transformers.

  “What in the hell is that furnaceman doing?” Tommy’s father suddenly exclaimed. They all looked. The middle furnaceman on Number One had his rod plunged deep into the furnace. Tommy’s father ran out onto the floor. He didn’t even have a protective suit on. When he opened the door, the heat and the crackling roar of the furnaces, muffled in the control room, blasted them. “That’s your father for you,” the foreman said. “He don’t miss much around this place.” Tommy’s father ran right over to the furnaceman, grabbed the end of the rod, and began raising it. Tommy could see that it took a lot of strength, and when he got it up, the long tip of the rod glowed whiter than the furnace. His father gestured at the furnaceman. Then he took the furnaceman’s gloves and began moving the rod slowly back and forth just under the surface. He stopped, gave the furnaceman’s gloves back to him, and made him do it. He talked to him for a few minutes, moving his hands a lot, and then came back to the control room.

  “You keep an eye on that one, Andy. He could get us in a lot of trouble doing it like that when the mix has just been added. It’s all in the timing. Why, little Tommy here could do better than that.”

  “He’s the new man,” Mr. Anderson said. “I’ll watch him good. You’ve got to treat those furnaces like a lady,” he repeated, “and even then you never know what Number One will do. She’s acting strange.”

  Tommy’s father said he’d talk to Simpkin about the transformer. Mr. Simpkin was the electrical foreman. He’d talked to him already, he said, but he’d do it again. “If we’re not careful, somebody’ll get hurt around here.”

  The foreman agreed. “Nothing wrong with the product, though,” he said.

  “No,” said his father, “there’s nothing wrong with the product. The product tests all right. But there sure as hell is something wrong with Number One. Ease up on that lever,” he told Mr. Anderson, who was operating the control for Number Three. “You don’t want to overdo it.” He peered through the glass. Tommy peered through the glass, too, but he couldn’t tell if there was a problem or not. Since he’d never seen the furnaces before, he didn’t know what to look for. They all looked pretty hot to Tommy. So he just watched, and listened to his father and the foreman talk. Even in the control room it was very hot. They were all sweating. It was hard to believe that outside great drifts of snow covered the ground, and the snowbanks were so high along the walks to their house that Tommy couldn’t see over them. Snow would never last in here, Tommy thought; it would all turn into boiling water.

  “Okay, Tommy,” his father said. “Let’s get out of here. This place is hot enough to make your blood boil, and we can’t have that, young fellow. Call me, Andy, if there’s any trouble.”

  “Come again, Tommy,” Mr. Anderson said, “and I’ll put you back to work. I could use some good help.”

  Tommy and his father returned to his father’s office, where his father took off his smock and Tommy’s shirt and put the goggles away. While they were inside, the men had washed Tommy’s father’s car. It was waiting for them, black and gleaming, by the door, and they drove out of the plant by the main gate. It was almost dark.

  “I want to go see Simpkin for a minute,” his father said. “You’ll have to come with me, but you wait in the car.” They drove over to Mr. Simpkin’s house, which was in another part of town but not too far from their own house. It faced a big field and, far away at the other end of the field, the lime dump where the lime the plant couldn’t use because it wasn’t pure enough was piled up like a range of mountains. Tommy could see it shining whitely in the dusk.

  “I think I’ll be a chemical engineer when I grow up,” Tommy said. He thought his father would like that, but his father didn’t say anything. He was thinking.

  Tommy looked off toward the lime dump. The lime dump was absolutely, strictly off limits to everyone. Lime could burn, and once a long time ago the daughter of someone Tommy’s parents knew had been burned to death playing there. It was a terrible thing. There was a pond right next to the dump, though Tommy had never seen it, and she had rolled down the mountain of lime and straight into the pond, but she hadn’t drowned; she’d burned to death. Tommy didn’t understand how the lime could burn when it didn’t look hot and water put out fires. “It doesn’t make sense that lime can burn,” he said to his father. “Why wouldn’t the water put out the fire?”

  “Well,” his father said, “you know pepper? It’s like pepper. Pepper burns if you get too much of it. Or like iodine. You know how it stings?” Then his father looked at him and said, “If you don’t understand that lime is dangerous and burns, then you’d better not be a chemical engineer. I’m not sure you’re smart enough. You might blow something up.”

  His father was cross again. Tommy didn’t say anything, but he thought sometime he’d show him that he was smart enough. He was only seven, but he’d be eight in almost two months. He’d grow up and he’d put chemicals together and he’d make them burn and then he’d put out the fire with chemicals of his own. Why, he wondered, did his father have to be cross like that? He could be so nice one minute, and the next thing you knew he’d say something mean, like that. So Tommy retreated into his own thoughts as they drove up to Mr. Simpkin’s house.

  While his father parked the car, Tommy saw the most extraordinary thing. Through the Simpkins’ front window he could see Mrs. Simpkin, sitting in a chair by a round table, bathed in lamplight. Mr. Simpkin was standing behind her silently brushing his wife’s long hair. It was not beautiful hair, just a kind of mixed dark gray, and Mr. Simpkin brushed
from the top of her head to its ends, which were so long they hung in soft waves over the back of her chair. Her hair would have come to her waist if she were standing, Tommy thought, and it shone dully in the lamplight, like silver that was a little tarnished; like heavy satin. The two of them were facing a corner of the room near the window, so their faces were almost in profile. They were not smiling; neither of them appeared to be speaking, and yet they did not look unhappy—nor happy, either. They were just there in the amber light, like figures in a painting, Mrs. Simpkin sitting back, her left arm resting on the table, Mr. Simpkin brushing with his right hand and lifting the hair a little with his left. Tommy felt as if he shouldn’t be looking, it seemed such a private moment, but it was so beautiful he couldn’t move his eyes away, and he felt privileged to witness it. As Mr. Simpkin brushed, tiny sparks flew from Mrs. Simpkin’s hair, like the static electricity Tommy could make by sliding his feet across the carpet in his living room. Then, if he touched a piece of metal, he would get a tiny shock, not unpleasurable. He wondered if they could feel the sparks that flew between them, the tiny tingling shocks. Tommy’s father had gotten out of the car. Tommy wanted to say, “Stop! Don’t do it,” but his father was already on their porch and knocking at their door. For a moment Mrs. Simpkin looked alarmed, and Mr. Simpkin put the brush on the table. He helped his wife off the chair. She leaned against him as they moved somewhere toward the back of the house, out of sight. Mrs. Simpkin was sick; they called her an invalid, like Mrs. Matson, and Mr. Simpkin had to take care of her a lot. Tommy was sorry his father had disturbed the picture, and he thought that if he were too dumb to be a chemical engineer, then maybe he’d be a painter so he could capture the mellow light, the gesture of the hand, and the pewter hair. He knew, though, that he couldn’t draw very well. Mr. Sedgwick’s friend Miss Moore, his kindergarten teacher, had told him that. Mr. Simpkin came to the door and he and his father stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind them. They must have stayed in the hall talking, because Tommy didn’t see them in the living room, which was empty now, save for the light, the table, and the chair. His father stayed for a long time in Mr. Simpkin’s hall—at least, it seemed like a long time to Tommy; he was getting cold—and when he came out they drove directly home.

  So the night the furnaces blew up, Tommy knew all about them. It happened at the very end of January, only a few weeks after he’d gone to the furnace room and pulled the lever and made things move and the furnace flame. He was proud of that. After supper Tommy went back to his room. He put out the light and returned to the window. The curtains were still tied back. For a long time he stared into the billowing smoke and the flames, subsiding now, as if to impress them forever on his memory. His mother found him standing there at the window when she came to put him to bed. It was a school night, she said, unfastening the curtains and drawing the shade, and already past his bedtime.

  Tommy went to bed, but he did not fall asleep. He was listening for his father to come home, which he finally did, but not until after the telephone had rung many times. Margie called, wanting to know what had happened, and David went off to see her. Many of his parents’ friends called: Mr. Sedgwick and Mr. Hutchins and Mr. Wolfe. They all wanted to know what had happened, but his mother didn’t know any more than they did. She talked to Mr. Wolfe a long time from the telephone in her bedroom, and then Tommy heard her say that she had to get off the phone. “Mac may be trying to call and he’ll wonder who on earth I’ve been talking to all this time.” She said she’d try to see him tomorrow, but if she couldn’t tomorrow, then soon.

  Finally his father did call. He talked to his mother for only a few minutes. Tommy called her and she came into his room. “What happened?” he asked her.

  “Well,” she said, then stopped. Tommy could tell she was very upset. “Well,” she began again, “there was a violent surge in the Number One furnace and it blew up. Oh, Tommy,” she said, and tears ran down her cheeks, “it was terrible. Three men were killed.” She almost whispered it.

  “Killed? You mean three men are dead?” Tommy thought of the liquid fire he saw the afternoon he went to the furnace room. He knew it was a dangerous place, but he hadn’t realized how truly dangerous it was.

  “I shouldn’t have told you,” his mother said, “but I just couldn’t help it. Oh, poor Daddy! It’s awful for him. And the poor men. . . .”

  “Was one of them Mr. Anderson?” Tommy asked.

  “Your father didn’t mention him,” his mother said.

  “Was one of them the man Daddy talked to that day I went to the plant with him, the new furnaceman who wasn’t doing it right?”

  “I don’t know,” his mother said. “I don’t know who they were. Daddy’s gone now to see their families. He’ll be home very late. I’m going to fix you some warm milk. It’ll help you sleep. I’ll wait up for Daddy.”

  His mother left the room and returned a few minutes later with a glass of warm milk. Ordinarily Tommy hated warm milk, but he didn’t mind it so much tonight. His mother tucked him in and kissed him good night, and told him she would be nearby if he needed her. She was going to be in her bedroom. When she left, Tommy heard her close her bedroom door. Then he heard her giving the operator a telephone number, but Tommy couldn’t hear the number so he didn’t know who she called, but she was still talking when Tommy fell asleep, lulled by the soft blurred murmurings of her voice.

  Tommy was asleep when his father at last came home, but he woke up when he heard them talking. His father’s voice was loud. He was very angry and upset. “God damn it,” he said, “God damn it! That transformer was supposed to be fixed. God damn it!” His father was yelling. “And that new furnaceman didn’t know what he was doing! He didn’t know the power. He didn’t know what he was fooling with!”

  Oh, no, Tommy thought. Oh, no. Tears came to his eyes. He liked the new furnaceman. He liked the way he looked. He seemed like such a nice man. He just wanted to do it right but he didn’t know how.

  “He must have hit an electrode,” his father said. “Nothing could stand up to the current in that arc. Christ, his rod just melted away, just melted away...and he’s dead. He and Jim and Johnny.” Everything was silent for a moment. “I’m ruined.”

  Tommy could hear his mother’s quiet murmuring. “For Christ’s sake,” his father shouted. “I don’t mean that I’m ruined. They’re ruined. Ruined! Three men dead. I should have known. I should have seen it coming. I knew that transformer wasn’t right. I knew that furnaceman didn’t understand the power. He didn’t know how to handle it. And I’m left with the wreckage.”

  His mother murmured again. “No,” his father said. “Not the plant. That’s easily fixed. Of their families! They had families—don’t you understand?” Tommy heard his father walk out of their bedroom, and he heard his mother call, “Don’t fix yourself another drink. Please, don’t fix another drink.” She was pleading. “You don’t need it. You’ll be better without it.” But Tommy heard his father come back upstairs a few minutes later and he could hear ice clinking in his glass. “I know when I need a drink or not,” he said to Tommy’s mother, very coldly. “You let me decide that. You decide what to bid at the country club. You decide the favors for Luke Wolfe’s parties, that—”

  “Hush,” his mother interrupted, “you’ll wake Tommy.” She sounded awfully sad, but angry too, and Tommy heard her shut their bedroom door. He couldn’t hear words anymore, just the sound of voices, and eventually he fell asleep. He didn’t mind that his mother had unfastened the curtains and pulled the shade. He didn’t need to look at the fire in the sky; he remembered it well enough.

  That night he dreamed his terrible dream again, but he didn’t call out when it pulled him reluctantly, groggily from his sleep. When he woke up and went to school the next morning, the whole town was covered with a fine gray dust, but the fires were out.

  Tommy’s father was right. The plant was easily fixed. The two furnaces that had been shut down when Number One blew up were
gradually started up. It was a slow, careful process, but they were working in just a few days, and the familiar glow was back in the sky a week after his parents had gone to the funeral of the three men. There was just one funeral for the three of them. They were all Catholics, and it was held in the Catholic church one morning when Tommy was in school. They prayed for them and their families the next Sunday in his church, too. The Number One furnace took longer to fix, but not so long as Tommy would have thought. It was back in operation in a little over a month, and the glow in the sky was bright as ever.

  After the two furnaces were working, Tommy’s father went away. He had to talk to some engineers in New York to try to figure out exactly what had happened so that it would never happen again. He was also going to arrange for some help for the families of the men who were killed. You couldn’t leave them with nothing, his father said. He wouldn’t have that. It seemed as if his father were gone a long time, and except for a few days when Tommy had the croup again, he went to school every day, and played Monopoly with Jimmy Randolph and Amy Steer, and played with Jimmy’s lead soldiers, and he could hardly wait for spring, when Jimmy might let him try his new bicycle.

  Tommy wasn’t much interested in school. His mind wasn’t on his work. It never was. For the most part, school was easy and it was also boring. They went over the same things again and again: how to print letters, how to add, how to read. Tommy was already trying to teach himself to write script, like his mother but with a pencil, and he was smart enough to figure out how to add. It was easy, once you got the idea. Often his teacher just let him read by himself, and that was all right. He was getting better at it all the time, and the books he loved were a lot more exciting than school. He would have read all day, if Miss Case had let him, but sometimes she made him pay attention, especially during the arithmetic lesson. Tommy wanted to learn about geography, but that wasn’t supposed to happen until fourth grade, when they would go upstairs. Sometimes she got angry with him if he asked too many questions or if he was talking too much while she was trying to teach. She said he was disturbing the class with his chatter, and to some of his questions she said she didn’t have answers. “Nobody has all the answers,” she said. “God does,” Tommy replied. “Yes,” she said, “but nobody else.” Still, Miss Case had a lot more answers than he did. She even had a boyfriend; his brother John had seen them at the movies one night before Christmas. Miss Case never pulled his chin, though, the way she did Carl Smith’s, who she said was saucy when he talked back to her. Tommy liked Miss Case and he thought she liked him, too, even if he did talk too much and ask too many questions. He couldn’t help asking questions, any more than he could keep his nose out of a book—that’s what his mother said: “Tommy’s always got his nose in a book”—once he’d learned what interesting things happened in them. The day he came home from the library, the library his grandfather had even built, with a book called Appointment with Death, his mother called Miss Pratt, the librarian, and told her, right in front of Tommy, not to let him take out books like that. “He’s a high-strung child,” she told her, “and he’s got too much imagination as it is. If he starts reading books like this, his father says none of us will be safe.” She laughed when she said that; she didn’t want Miss Pratt to feel bad, so she made a joke, but she made Tommy mad and he bet his father had never even said it; he wasn’t even home. His mother didn’t trust Tommy to return the book; she did it herself. But Tommy had already looked at it and decided it wasn’t as interesting as its title. Probably it was too hard for him, he thought, but sometimes he liked things that were hard, and he did like mysteries, even if, as his mother said, they caused his imagination to race too feverishly. It was his imagination, and he liked it. Yes, the interesting things in his life went on in books, Tommy thought, or at home, among the swimmers in his inland sea. They hardly ever happened at school.