Wheels (52 page)

Brett was touched, and flattered, but uncertain how to answer.
His uncertainty was based on a decision reached, alone in his Los
Angeles hotel room, the previous night. It was now mid-August, and Brett
had decided: at year end, unless something happened drastically to
change his mind, he would quit the auto industry for good.
On the way back East, by air, be made another decision: Barbara Zaleski
would be the first to know.

Chapter
twenty-two

Also in August-while Brett DeLosanto was in California-the Detroit
assembly plant, where Matt Zaleski was assistant plant manager, was in a
state of chaos.
Two weeks earlier, production of cars had ceased. Specialist contractors
had promptly moved in, their assignment to dismantle the old assembly
line and create a new one on which the Orion would be built.
Four weeks had been allotted for the task. At the end of it, the first
production Orion-job One-would roll off the line, then, in the three or
four weeks following, a backlog of cars would be created, ready to meet
expected demands after official Orion introduction day in September.
After that, if sales prognostications held, the tempo would increase,
with Orions flowing from the plant in tens of thousands.
Of the time allowed for plant conversion, two weeks remained and, as
always at model changeover time, Matt Zaleski wondered if he would
survive them,
Most of the assembly plant's normal labor force was either laid off or
enjoying paid vacations, so that only a skeleton staff of hourly paid
employees reported in each day. But far from the shutdown making the
life of Matt Zaleski and others of the plant management group easier,
workloads increased, anxieties multiplied, until an ordinary production
day seemed, by comparison, an unruffled sea.
The contractor's staff, like an occupying army, was demanding. So were
company headquarters engineers who were advising, assisting, and sometimes hindering the contractors.
The plant manager, Val Reiskind, and Matt were caught in a crossfire of
requests for information, hurried conferences, and orders, the latter
usually requiring instant execution. Matt handled most matters which
involved practical running of the plant, Reiskind being young and new.
He had replaced the previous plant manager, McKernon, only a few months
earlier and while the new man's engineering and business diplomas were
impressive, he lacked Matt's seasoned know-how acquired during twenty
years on the job. Despite Matt's disappointment at failing to get
McKernon's job, and having a younger man brought in over him, he liked
Reiskind who was smart enough to be aware of his own deficiency and
treated Matt decently.
Most headaches centered around new, sophisticated machine tools for
assembly, which in theory worked well, but in practice often didn't.
Technically, it was the contractor who was responsible for making the
whole system function, but Matt Zaleski knew that when contractor's men
were gone, he would inherit any inadequate situation they might leave.
Therefore he stayed close to the action now.
The greatest enemy of all was time. There was never enough to make a
changeover work so smoothly that by pre
-
assigned completion date it could
be said: "All systems go
.”

It was like building a house which was never
ready on the day set for moving in, except that a house move could be
postponed, whereas a car or truck production schedule seldom was.
An unexpected development also added to Matt's burdens. An inventory
audit, before production of the previous year's models ceased, had
revealed stock shortages so huge as to touch off a major investigation.
Losses from theft at any auto plant were always heavy. With thousands
of
workers changing shifts at the same time, it was a simple matter for
thieves-either employees or walk-in intruders-to carry stolen items out.
But this time a major theft ring was obviously at work. Among items
missing were more than three hundred four-speed transmissions, hundreds
of tires, as well as substantial quantities of radios, tape players, air
conditioners, and other components.
As an aftermath, the plant swarmed with security staff and outside
detectives. Matt, though not remotely implicated, had been obliged to
spend hours answering detectives' questions about plant procedure. So
far there appeared to be no break in the case, though the Chief of
Security told Matt, "We have some ideas, and there are a few of your
line workers we want to interrogate when they come back
.”

Meanwhile the
dete
ctives remained underfoot, their
presence one more irritant at an
arduous time '
Despite everything, Matt had come through so far, except for a small
incident concerning himself which fortunately went unnoticed by anyone
important at the plant.
He had been in his office the previous Saturday afternoon, seven-day
work weeks being normal during model changeover, and one of the older
secretaries, Iris Einfeld, who was also working, had brought him coffee.
Matt began drinking it gratefully. Suddenly, for no reason he could
determine, he was unable to control the cup and it fell from his hand,
the coffee spilling over his clothing and the floor.
Angry at himself for what he thought of as carelessness, Matt got
up-then fell full length, heavily. Afterward, when he thought about it,
it se
e
med as if his left leg failed him and he remembered, too, he had
been holding the coffee in his left hand.
Mrs. Einfeld, who was still in Matt's office, had helped him back into
his chair, then wanted to summon aid, but he dissuaded her. Instead,
Matt sat for a while, and felt some of the feeling come back into his
left leg and hand, though he knew he would not be able to drive home.
Eventually, with some help from Iris Einfeld, he left the office by a
back stairway and she drove him home in her car. On the way he persuaded
her to keep quiet about the whole thing, being afraid that if word got
around he would be treated as an invalid, the last thing he wanted.
Once home, Matt managed to get to bed and stayed there until late Sunday
when he felt much better, only occasionally being aware of a slight
fluttering sensation in his chest. On Monday morning he was tired, but
otherwise normal, and went to work.
The weekend, though, had been lonely. His daughter, Barbara, was away
somewhere and Matt Zaleski had had to fend for himself. In the old days,
when his wife was alive, she had always helped him over humps like model
changeover time with understanding, extra affection, and meals which-no
matter how long she waited for him to come home-she prepared with
special care. But it seemed so long since he had known any of those
things that it was hard to remember Freda had been dead less than two
years. Matt realized, sadly, that when she was alive he had not
appreciated her half as much as he did now.
He found himself, too, resenting Barbara's preoccupation with her own
life and work. Matt would have liked nothing more than to have Barbara
remain at home, available whenever he came there, and thus filling-at
least in part h
er mother's role. For a while after Freda's death Barbara
had seemed to do that. She prepared their meal each evening, which she
and Matt ate together, but gradually Barbara's outside interests revived, her work at the
advertising agency increased, and nowadays they were rarely in the Royal Oak
house together except to sleep, and occasionally for a hurried weekday
breakfast.

Months ago Barbara had urged that they seek a housekeeper, which
they could well afford, but Matt resisted the idea. Now, with so much to do
for himself, on top of pressures at the plant, he wished he had agreed.
He had already told Barbara, early in August, that he had changed his mind
and she could go ahead and hire a housekeeper after all, to which Barbara
replied that she would do so when she could, but at the moment was too
busy at the agency to take time out to advertise, interview, and get a
housekeeper installed. Matt had bristled at that, believing it to be a
woman's businesseven a daughter's-to run a home, and that a man should not
have to become involved, particularly when he was under stress, as Matt
was now. Barbara made it clear, however, that she regarded her own work
as equally important with her father's, an attitude he could neither
accept nor understand.
There was a great deal else, nowadays, that Matt Zaleski f ailed to
understand. He had only to open a newspaper to become alternately angry
and bewildered at news of traditional standards set aside, old moralities
discarded, established order undermined. No one, it seemed, respected
anything
anymore
-including constituted authority, the courts, law,
parents, college presidents, the military, the free enterprise system, or
the American flag, under which Matt and others of his generation fought
and died in World War 11.
As Matt Zaleski saw it, it was the young who caused the trouble, and
increasingly he hated
most of them: those with long hair you couldn't tell from girls (Matt still
had a crewcut and wore it like a badge); student know-it-alls, choked up
with book learning, spouting McLuhan, Marx, or Che Guevara; militant blacks,
demanding the millennium on the spot and not content to progress slowly; and
all other protestors, rioters, contemptuous of everything in sight and
beating up those who dared to disagree. The whole bunch of them, in Matt's
view, were callow, immature, knowing nothing of real life, contributing
nothing . . . When he thought of the young his bile and blood pressure rose
together.
And Barbara, while certainly no rebellious student or protestor,
sympathized openly with most of what went on, which was almost as bad. For
this, Matt blamed the people his daughter associated with, including Brett
DeLosanto whom he continued to dislike.
In reality, Matt Zaleski-like many in his age group-was the prisoner of
his long-held views. In conversations which sometimes became heated
arguments, Barbara had tried to persuade him to her own conviction: that
a new breadth of outlook had developed, that beliefs and ideas once held
immutable had been examined and found false; that what younger people
despised was not the morality of their parents' generation, but a facade
of morality with duplicity behind; not old standards in themselves, but
hypocrisy and self-deception which, all too often, the socalled standards
shielded. In fact, it was a time of question, of exciting intellectual
experiment from which mankind could only gain.
Barbara had failed in her attempts. Matt Zaleski, lacking insight, saw the
changes around him merely as negative and destroying.
In such a mood, as well as being tired and having a nagging
stomach
ache, Matt came home late to find Barbara and a guest already in
the house. The guest was Rollie Knight.
Earlier that evening, through arrangements made for her by Leonard
Wingate, Barbara had met Rollie downtown. Her purpose was to acquire
more knowledge about the life and experiences of black people-Rollie in
particular-both in the inner city and with the hard core hiring
program. A spoken commentary to accompany the documentary film Auto
City, now approaching its final edited form, would be based, in part,
on what she learned.
To begin, she had taken Rollie to the Press Club, but the club had been
unusually crowded and noisy; also, Rollie had not seemed at ease. So,
on impulse, Barbara suggested driving to her home. They did.
She had mixed a whisky and water for each of them, then whipped up a
simple meal of eggs and bacon which she served on trays in the living
room; after that, with Rollie increasingly relaxed and helpful, they
talked.
Later, Barbara brought the whisky bottle in and poured them each a
second drink. Outside, the dusk-climaxing a clear, benevolent dayhad
turned to dark.
Rollie looked around him at the comfortable, tastefully furnished,
though unpretentious room. He asked, "How far we here from Blaine and
12th
.”