The Unknown Industrial Prisoner (33 page)

He went home and snatched a few hours' sleep in the afternoon, but woke around five, sick. Mrs Blue Hills must have given him her husband's cold.

Trying savagely to go to sleep, he did drop off into a dream of a world of fantastic order: a world where there was no waste of men or materials, not even of love.

He was threshing about still when the Great White Father broke in on him drunk. He had left his Home Beautiful for a day in a fit of night-shift horrors. He was shouting drunk, and seeing the Samurai looking sick, was full of panaceas.

 

A PARALLEL Down on the plant—though it might have been on another, harsher planet—the Glass Canoe grudgingly gave Far Away Places a hand with a large, tight block valve. Abusing him all the time.

‘You sure you're not using our lavatory? A man like you, rotten with disease, ought to be careful.'

Far Away didn't mind, he was glad to have the big man's help. The valve was dangerous and hot; the air rippled and shimmered above it. There was not a safety poster in sight.

Far Away admired the eruption of energy each time the big man took the strain on his heavy wheel key. The top of his overalls was open, tanned chest showing, the red-brown tits set in a dark hair-mat moving along with the slabs of muscle underneath. Those hairs—they were so shiny. The man's body was in beautiful condition. Far Away Places eyed the sweat running down his neck and gathering in bright crystal drops under his chin. Was he resentful of this man who had tortured him and even now was abusing him in time with his pulls on the wheel key? Side by side with resentment was admiration—for the Glass Canoe's strength, the electric energy, the rhythmic flow of his efforts on the heat-stiff steel.

What a sly thing is a man! This admiration for strength co-existent with resentment for ill-treatment was like a population's half-willing, half-unwilling subjection to a strong leader.

 

THE COMFORT OF INDIFFERENCE None of the various grades of prisoners was aware of it, but while the hours and years of their detention passed, the captive moon swung round the tiny earth, the tides slid in and out obediently and the piece of galaxy in which our solar system nestled comfortably swung slowly in the nothingness that enveloped all existence and this nothingness tugged gently at all that had substance; prying loose, looking for weakness, drawing all things to it.

And perhaps, although it may not be considered in good taste to mention the fact, we might remember that the tiny earth which entertains us as guests, or lice, upon its surface while its present chemical state endures somewhere between the unbearable heat of the past and the unbearable cold of the future—this nice little home of ours is dying under us. We are now clever enough to measure by just how much our day is lengthening, and just when we shall draw the moon in to us as a ring of rocks and dust, and when we shall fall unnoticed into the sun. And cheerfully set out this information for children to understand, in books with coloured pictures showing the future final disaster. Just like a fairytale.

We don't know when we came here, or where we came from; we're having a free ride through space and call it life. And we are now aware that the earth is indifferent to us. She is not complimented when we set aside areas of natural beauty for ourselves, nor concerned when we wreck our surroundings. Her fate is sealed. We may as well plunder, exploit, bomb, bulldoze, alter, shift, drain, kill—anything—for all she cares.

 

QUICK RESULTS Nevertheless, despite the obliteration to come, we carry on as if life is important. If we don't, our attitude and behaviour become conspicuous.

The plant was readied again as if gasoline was important. Safety was discussed and circularized as if human life was important. The Spotted Trout did great strokes proving to hosts of innocent people how safe the plant and how kind Puroil was.

Three weeks—and the plant still starting up. If they had sense enough while the plant was down to do all the work notified as faulty or dangerous instead of rediscovering it when the plant was on the way up. But the pressure was on the brass from Melbourne, London, Europe to skimp on maintenance and show a quick result.

11
THE COLOUR BAR OF MIND

MUCK A saboteur at work. In every book in use in the distillation plants, ethylene, cat cracker, pump-houses, utilities, the word
MUCK
appeared in crude capitals. It was in and on books, overalls, drums of products in the yards, on the bodies and doors of trucks. On tanks.

Alone in splendour sat the Great White Father. His Home had not been defaced by
MUCK
. Oblivion was not muck, it was a solid product and of infinite use for as long as history extended. ‘Not that our life and graduation as humans was a cosmic joke: it was simply a mistake. There is an ingredient in us we cannot use. This ingredient looks upward to a life without greed and hate. And greed and hate are necessary to keep our digestions balanced, our bodies in the pink, our identity separate, private property intact and our economy healthy. We are a spoilt batch—a monkey batch, the distillation boys say. Our life, for which we are not properly equipped, is better spent in the oblivion of alcohol or drugs. Death will come sleepily, the shock cushioned, a pleasant continuation of drugged sleep.'

He was talking to himself. His long, brown, confident fingers played with a small pearly button from Cinderella's blouse sleeve. It had come off while he was performing his regular test.

‘I want a state of mind among them. Where all is permitted.' He was an idealist. ‘They've been pushed so far back on themselves by the society we inherit that the only place they can hope for freedom is in their minds. Organized capitalist society is one without opposition or alternatives, its members have as little power over their government as the members of totalitarian societies. And their children are still taught pathetic nonsense about the ballot box being a remedy. What I have here is an underground movement opposing the official government of their lives, the federal, the state, the country, the local council, the union, the company, their next employer. What they want is to go on living, not too keenly, not too laboriously, with as little thought for anyone else as possible. Keeping their heads down, hoping the nasty things happen to others. Minding their own business when they want to and not having anyone pry into it. The only way is to teach them to enter the kingdom of oneself. Oppose everything, not outwardly but in their heads. Never oppose themselves.

‘They are prisoners of their own image of themselves. Half the time you see them doing things they've copied from other people, and you think it's a mannerism, then after a while there's nothing left but mannerism. They've become the thing they copied. That's where I step in. I'll make them love this little taste of indulgence and oblivion so they'll think of nothing else, and treat everything else as so much illusion. No matter what happens to them—they may be redundant next week—they will feel self-sufficient, not because they can hold their heads up in this silly world, but because they are in my world, inside their heads, and there they are princes. Princes of the blood, with me their king. That's what they miss: the colour, the natural subordination to a king whose authority is unquestioned and whose orders coincide with their desires. Democracy is a treadmill for them, a grey, colourless place in which those favoured by birth and brains and a different metabolism forge ahead and take by brute force of intellect and personality the prizes of the obvious world; they need not equality, because they can never be equal, but a purple and gold monarchy. The purple in their mind's eye: the gold in the amber of their beer.'

 

THE ENFORCER It's like being in the lodge. When you're here at Puroil, you can't afford to speak of anything but the job or the weather or something harmless; nothing that would cause dispute, no political discussion, no religious arguments. Not that this lot or any lot of worker chappies could say anything worth listening to: if they had anything in their skulls they wouldn't be working here. I can't afford to let my tongue wag, either, or some bright spark will be quoting me and I'll be up on the carpet getting the boot right up the arse and when the next promotion comes, little old Enforcer won't be the pea, he'll be the peanut. I think I'm a decent person and a fair person and a kind person. But right now I'm sick. It makes you want to throw it all up rather than put up with this ugliness. Puroil has a decent, fair record, and it's always been kind to its people. Why do they always go against the company? It's almost as if they wanted to keep fighting the boss. As if they thought the company hated them and they're always trying to get back. But the company doesn't hate them; we take every care of them. As far as humanly possible. Puroil is good to the staff. We are civilized here; after all, it's a big company, old enough to have its little quaint ways. That's why all this ugliness—this stoppage nonsense—hurts so much. I almost wish I hadn't heard the rumour. It reminds a man there is a terrible side to life. Like having a viper in your bosom. Just because the company rejected all their silly demands. Still, you can't afford to talk too much about controversial things, someone's only got to dob you once and your name's Mud. Once they've got it in for you they never forget. Neither do I; there's still four people working here that I owe something. It doesn't matter to me if the Corpse gets the sack, I'll get him. I'll get him.

He had reached the wharf and rubbered along, peering inside the fogged windows of the amenities hut.

 

ADRIFT Blue Hills had walked a little way from the plant in the cooling air when he saw the Enforcer struggling in the darkness with two or three shadowy prisoners right on the edge of the wharf compound. The light was bad: safe enough for working, but not for defending yourself. Blue Hills was humane enough to go to his superior's aid, several mild pokes about the body were sufficient to show the assailants the Enforcer was not alone. Fearing the light, the prisoners backed off into the shadows and Blue Hills, breathing with difficulty because of the tension of the moment, turned to face the intended victim. He knew it was a member of the commanding class and expected only grudging thanks. The men were undoubtedly going to throw the Enforcer in the polluted river. With any luck he would have impaled himself on the shore debris of stray timber and bottles. Unfortunately, Blue Hills had left himself wide open by leaving his plant.

‘You're a fair way from the cracker compound,' grated the Enforcer. Blue Hills tried not to puff, he didn't want to show he was in need of air. They might work him towards the gate if they thought he was cracking up.

‘Following the crude-oil line,' lamely.

‘Better follow it back again. This is as far as it goes,' said the Enforcer. ‘I'll let it go this time, but don't let me catch you off the job again, night shift or no night shift. The Company has rules and I'm here to enforce them.'

Blue Hills slunk away, although he didn't feel like slinking; he felt more like calling the Enforcer a pommy bastard. He didn't. It was better to creep off with your tail between your legs.

‘Go on! Shake a leg!' called the Enforcer.

Blue Hills hurried some more and bent his head forward in penitence. It was no joke to be forty-five with fifty not far away and them looking to get rid of the oldies. At that age it was much safer to be in chains than to be free.

‘Bloody colonial crap,' muttered the Enforcer in a low voice. The word colonial was taboo, but you could still think it or say it quietly.

Next thing he was flying like a bird. His former assailants came from the shadows, came at a rush and bore him off his feet, bore him over the last few yards of solid ground, over the steel retaining wall into the river. He didn't land with a splash, but with a thump on a small black barge which moved off immediately into deep water. Two other avengers with company rag round their heads were pulling on a rope from the end of the wharf and soon the barge was moving fast by the wharf, out into Clearwater Bay. At two in the morning the bay was a lonely place. He would be lucky if he got back by daylight.

Blue Hills looked back, but one of the assailants threw a piece of shale after him and he took the hint.

‘That'll teach the Enforcer to come snooping around,' said one.

‘The other barnacles on the bot of progress at least ring up to alert you before they come,' said the other in a tone of grievance.

‘Not him. He carries the whole company on his shoulders.'

‘There was no barge pole on that thing, was there?'

‘No. The current's got him now.'

‘Don't go telling Blue Hills you saw him there. He's learnt nothing from the Enforcer's little lesson. He might put us in.

It was true. Blue Hills didn't understand that some men are not swayed from their duty to the company by any amount of mercy, pity, humanity and helping hands, but will look for an opening to gain from the weakness of any man stupid enough to help them. Gratitude had no place in manuals of official conduct and was represented by no entries in the company's books.

 

STILLSONS SAYS ALL RIGHT, MUM Poor Stillsons. They transferred him from the new plant to the old. He couldn't believe it the first day. He had no wife or girl or men friends; the company was the sum of his expectations.

On the second day, returning to home and mother, he went to his bedroom and made a small model of the cracker in corks of different shapes, linking the columns with sharpened match sticks. When the main vessels were connected, he went to Mum's sewing basket and took her little blue tin of pins, the one with black paper inside to keep the pins from rusting.

He carefully stabbed pins into the cork columns. The fat regenerator took most of them—it was a champagne cork: he picked it up in the street one day and wondered what it was. He'd never touched a drop, he had to ask Mum what it was for.