It’s become a regular thing, now. Maybe once a week, we lie down together, and I talk about the way his hands move when he performs a particular task, or the way the skin around his eyes stretches or folds when he looks around. It seems to give him a kind of peace, like he’s reassured to know I’m looking back at him as hard as he’s looking at me. I think maybe that’s the reason he first took a shine to me, back at the club. It’s weird to think of him as having insecurities, but I can only respond to the reality that presents itself—at least if I want to maintain this thing.
We’re thinking about getting a dog, or maybe a large rabbit. The man of no scent preference has valiantly agreed to clean any litter boxes, so long as I buy the food.
David has a thousand parts that could wear out, and for some of them, he’s the first real test. The fact is, one day I’ll have to get used to someone who breathes, and sweats, and pees. Maybe that’s a good thing. Until then, I’ll spend my days awake and my nights asleep, and in between, I’ll dream I can upload.
(2012)
MEN OF IRON
Guy Endore
Born Samuel Goldstein in 1901, Guy Endore was an American novelist and screenwriter, His screenplay for The Story of G.I. Joe (1945) was nominated for an Oscar. His novel Methinks the Lady… (1946) was the basis for Ben Hecht’s screenplay for Whirlpool (1949). Endore had a successful career in Hollywood, at least to begin with, scripting Mark of the Vampire and The Curse of the Werewolf (based on his novel The Werewolf of Paris: the nearest werewolf literature ever came to a classic like Dracula). Investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, but never subpoenaed, Endore nevertheless found himself blacklisted by the major studios. Still he chiselled away, writing under the pseudonym Harry Relis. His last credit was the 1969 TV movie Fear No Evil. He died in Los Angeles the following year.
"We no longer trust the human hand," said the engineer, and waved his roll of blueprints. He was a dwarfish, stocky fellow with dwarfish, stocky fingers that crumpled blueprints with familiar unconcern.
The director frowned, pursed his lips, cocked his head, drew up one side of his face in a wink of unbelief and scratched his chin with a reflective thumbnail. Behind his grotesque contortions he recalled the days when he was manufacturer in his own right and not simply the nominal head of a manufacturing concern, whose owners extended out into complex and invisible ramifications. In his day the human hand had been trusted.
"Now take that lathe," said the engineer. He paused dramatically, one hand flung out toward the lathe in question, while his dark eyes, canopied by bristly eyebrows, remained fastened on the director. "Listen to it!"
"Well?" said the director, somewhat at a loss.
"Hear it?"
"Why, yes, of course."
The engineer snorted. "Well, you shouldn’t."
"Why not?"
"Because noise isn’t what it is supposed to make. Noise is an indication of loose parts, maladjustments, improper speed of operation. That machine is sick. It is inefficient and its noise destroys the worker’s efficiency."
The director laughed. "That worker should be used to it by this time. Why, that fellow is the oldest employee of the firm. Began with my father. See the gold crescent on his chest?"
"What gold crescent?"
"The gold pin on the shoulder strap of his overalls."
"Oh, that."
"Yes. Well, only workers fifty years or longer with our firm are entitled to wear it."
The engineer threw back his head and guffawed.
The director was wounded.
"Got many of them?" the engineer asked, when he had recovered from his outburst.
"Anton is the only one, now. There used to be another."
"How many pins does he spoil?"
"Well," said the director, "I’ll admit he’s not so good as he used to be… But there’s one man I’ll never see fired," he added stoutly.
"No need to," the engineer agreed. "A good machine is automatic and foolproof; the attendant’s skill is beside the point."
For a moment the two men stood watching Anton select a fat pin from a bucket at his feet and fasten it into the chuck. With rule and caliper he brought the pin into correct position before the drill that was to gouge a hole into it.
Anton moved heavily, circumspectly. His body had the girth, but not the solidity of an old tree trunk: it was shaken by constant tremors. The tools wavered in Anton’s hands. Intermittently a slimy cough came out of his chest, tightened the cords of his neck and flushed the taut yellow skin of his cheeks. Then he would stop to spit, and after that he would rub his mustache that was the color of silver laid thinly over brass. His lungs relieved, Anton’s frame regained a measure of composure, but for a moment he stood still and squinted at the tools in his hands as if he could not at once recall exactly what he was about, and only after a little delay did he resume his interrupted work, all too soon to be interrupted again. Finally, spindle and tool being correctly aligned, Anton brought the machine into operation.
"Feel it?" the engineer cried out with a note of triumph.
"Feel what?" asked the director.
"Vibration!" the engineer exclaimed with disgust.
"Well, what of it?"
"Man, think of the power lost in shaking your building all day. Any reason why you should want your floors and walls to dance all day long, while you pay the piper?"
He hadn’t intended so telling a sentence. The conclusion seemed to him so especially apt that he repeated it: "Your building dances while you pay the piper in increased power expenditure."
And while the director remained silent the engineer forced home his point: "That power should be concentrated at the cutting point of the tool and not leak out all over. What would you think of a plumber who brought only 50 percent of the water to the nozzle, letting the rest flood through the building?"
And as the director still did not speak, the engineer continued, "There’s not only loss of power, but increased wear on the parts. That machine is afflicted with the ague!"
When the day’s labor was over, the long line of machines stopped all together; the workmen ran for the washrooms and a sudden throbbing silence settled over the great hall. Only Anton, off in a corner by himself, still worked his lathe, oblivious of the emptiness of the factory, until darkness finally forced him to quit. Then from beneath the lathe he dragged forth a heavy tarpaulin and covered his machine.
He stood for a moment beside his lathe, seemingly lost in thought, but perhaps only quietly wrestling with the stubborn torpidity of his limbs, full of an unwanted, incorrect motion, and disobedient to his desires. For he, like the bad machines in the factory, could not prevent his power from spilling over into useless vibration.
The old watchman opened the gate to let Anton out. The two men stood near each other for a moment, separated by the iron grill, and exchanged a few comforting grunts. Then they hobbled off to their separate destinations, the watchman to make his rounds, Anton to his home.
A gray, wooden shack on a bare lot was Anton’s home. During the day an enthusiastic horde of children trampled the ground to a rubber-like consistency and extinguished every growing thing except a few dusty weeds that clung for protection close to the house or nestled around the remnants of the porch that had once adorned the front. There the children’s feet could not reach them, and they expanded a few scornful coarse leaves, a bitter growth of Ishmaelites.