Wheels

Chapter 14

"You know what this scumbag world is made of, baby?" Rollie Knight had demanded of May Lou yesterday. When she hadn't answered, he told her.

"Bullshit! There ain't nuthun' in this whole wide world but bullshit."

The remark was prompted by happenings at the car assembly plant where Rollie was now working. Though he hadn't kept score himself, today was the beginning of his seventh week of employment.

May Lou was new in his life, too. She was (as Rollie put it) a chick he had laid during a weekend, while blowing an early paycheck, and more recently they had shacked up in two rooms of an apartment house on Blaine near 12th. May Lou was currently spending her days there, messing with cook pots, furniture and bits of curtaining making - as a barfly acquaintance of Rollie's described it - like a bush tit in the nest.

Rollie hadn't taken seriously, and still didn't, what he called May Lou's crapping around at playing house. Just the same he'd given her bread, which she spent on the two of them, and to get more of the same, Rollie continued to report most days of the week to the assembly plant.

What started this second go around, after he had copped out of the first training course, was in Rollie's words - a big Tom nigger in a fancy Dan suit, who had turned up one day, saying his name was Leonard Wingate. That was at Rollie's room in the inner city, and they had a great big gabfest in which Rollie first told the guy to get lost, go screw himself, he'd had enough. But the Tom had been persuasive. He went on to explain, while Rollie listened, fascinated, about the fatso white bastard of an instructor who put one over with the checks, then got caught.

When Rollie inquired, though, Wingate admitted that the white fatso wasn't going to jail the way a black man would have done, which proved that all the bullshit about justice was exactly that - bullshit! Even the black Tom, Wingate, admitted it. And it was just after he had - a bleak, bitter admission which surprised Rollie - that Rollie had somehow, almost before he knew it, agreed to go to work.

It was Leonard Wingate who had told Rollie he could forget about completing the rest of the training course. Wingate, it seemed, had looked up the records which said Rollie was bright and quick - witted, and so (Wingate said) they would put him straight on the assembly line next week, starting Monday, doing a regular job.

That (again, as Rollie told it) turned out to be bullshit, too.

Instead of being given a job in one place, which he might have managed, he was informed he had to be relief man at various stations on the line, which meant moving back and forth like a blue-assed fly, so that as soon as he got used to doing one thing, he was hustled over to another, then to something else, and something else, until his head was spinning. The same thing went on for the first two weeks so that he hardly knew since the instructions he was given were minimal - what he was supposed to be doing from one minute to the next. Not that he'd have cared that much. Except for what the black guy, Wingate, had said, Rollie Knight - as usual - was not expecting anything. But it just showed that nothing they ever promised worked out the way they said it would. So ... Bullshit!

Of course, nobody, but nobody, had told him about the speed of the assembly line. He'd figured that one for himself - the hard way.

On the first day at work, when Rollie had his initial view of a final car assembly line, the line seemed to be inching forward like a snail's funeral. He'd come to the plant early, reporting in with the day shift. The size of the joint, the mob flooding in from cars, buses, every other kind of wheels, you name it, scared him to begin with; also, everybody except himself seemed to know where they were going - all in one helluva hurry - and why. But he'd found where he had to report, and from there had been sent to a big, metalroofed building, cleaner than he expected, but noisy. Oh, man, that noise! It was all around you, sounding like a hundred rock bands on bad trips.

Anyhow, the car line snaked through the building, with the end and beginning out of sight. And it looked as if there was time aplenty for any of the guys and broads (a few women were working alongside men) to finish whatever their job happened to be on one car, rest a drumbeat, then start work on the next. No sweat! For a cool cat with more than air between his ears, a cincheroo!

In less than an hour, like thousands who had preceded him, Rollie was grimly wiser.

The foreman he had been handed over to on arrival had said simply,

"Number?" The foreman, young and white, but balding, with the harried look of a middle-aged man, had a pencil poised and said peevishly, when Rollie hesitated, "Social Security!"

Eventually Rollie located a card which a clerk in Personnel had given him.

It had the number on it. Impatiently, with the knowledge of twenty other things he had to do immediately, the foreman wrote it down.

He pointed to the last four figures, which were 6469. "That's what you'll be known as," the foreman shouted; the line had already started up, and the din made it hard to hear. "So memorize that number."

Rollie grinned, and had been tempted to say it was the same way in prison. But he hadn't, and the foreman had motioned for him to follow, then took him to a work station. A partly finished car was moving slowly past, its brightly painted body gleaming. Some snazzy wheels! Despite his habit of indifference, Rollie felt his interest quicken.

The foreman bellowed in his ear: "You got three chassis and trunk bolts to put in. Here, here, and here. Bolts are in the box over there. Use this power wrench." He thrust it into Rollie's hands. "Got it?"

Rollie wasn't sure he had. The foreman touched another worker's shoulder. "Show this new man. He'll take over here. I need you on front suspension. Hurry it up." The foreman moved away, still looking older than his years.

"Watch me, bub!" The other worker grabbed a handful of bolts and dived into a car doorway with a power wrench, its cord trailing. While Rollie was still craning, trying to see what the man was doing, the other came out backward, forcefully. He cannoned into Rollie. "Watch it, bub!"

Going around to the back of the car, he dived into the trunk, two more bolts in band, the wrench still with him.

He shouted back, "Get the idea?" The other man worked on one more car, then, responding to renewed signals from the foreman, and with an "All yours, bub," he disappeared.

Despite the noise, the dozens of people he could see close by, Rollie had never felt more lonely in his life.

"You! Hey! Get on with it!" It was the foreman, shouting, waving his arms from the other side of the line.

The car which the first man had worked on was already gone. Incredibly, despite the line's apparent slowness, another had appeared. There was no one but Rollie to insert the bolts. He grabbed a couple of bolts and jumped into the car. He groped for holes they were supposed to go in, found one, then realized he had forgotten the wrench. He went back for it. As he jumped back in the car the heavy wrench dropped on his hand, his knuckles skinned against the metal floor. He managed to start turning the single bolt; before he could finish, or insert the other, the wrench cord tightened as the car moved forward. The wrench would no longer reach.

Rollie left the second bolt on the floor and got out.

With the car after that, he managed to get two bolts in and made a pass at tightening them, though he wasn't sure how well. With the one after that, he did better; also the car following. He was getting the knack of using the wrench, though he found it heavy. He was sweating and had skinned his hands again.

It was not until the fifth car had gone by that he remembered the third bolt he was supposed to insert in the trunk.

Alarmed, Rollie looked around him. No one had noticed.

At adjoining work positions, on either side of the line, two men were installing wheels. Intent on their own tasks, neither paid the slightest heed to Rollie. He called to one, "Hey! I left some bolts out."

Without looking up, the worker shouted back, "Forget it! Get the next one.

Repair guys'll catch the others down the line." Momentarily he lifted his head and laughed. "Maybe."

Rollie began inserting the third bolt through each car trunk to the chassis. He had to increase his pace to do it. It was also necessary to go bodily into the trunk and, emerging the second time, he hit his head on the deck lid. The blow half-stunned him, and he would have liked to rest, but the next car kept coming and he worked on it in a daze.

He was learning: first, the pace of the line was faster than it seemed; second, even more compelling than the speed was its relentlessness. The line came on, and on, and on, unceasing, unyielding, impervious to human weakness or appeal. It was like a tide which nothing stopped except a half-hour lunch break, the end of a shift, or sabotage.

Rollie became a saboteur on his second day.

He had been shifted through several positions by that time, from inserting chassis bolts to making electrical connections, then to installing steering columns, and afterward to fitting fenders. He had heard someone say the previous day there was a shortage of workers; hence the panic - a usual thing on Mondays. On Tuesday he sensed more people were at their regular jobs, but Rollie was still being used by foremen to fill temporary gaps while others were on relief or break.

Consequently, there was seldom time to learn anything well, and at each fresh position several cars went by before he learned to do a new job properly. Usually, if a foreman was on hand and noticed, the defective work would be tagged; at other times it simply went on down the line.

On a few occasions foremen saw something wrong, but didn't bother.

While it all happened, Rollie Knight grew wearier.

The day before, at the end of work, his frail body had ached all over.

His hands were sore; in various other places his skin was bruised or raw. That night he slept more soundly than in years and awakened next morning only because the cheap alarm clock, which Leonard Wingate had left, was loudly insistent. Wondering why he was doing it, Rollie scrambled up, and a few minutes later addressed himself in the cracked mirror over a chipped enamel washbasin. "You lovin' crazy cat, you dopehead, crawl back in bed and cop some Zs. Or maybe you fixin' to be a white man's nigger." He eyed himself contemptuously but had not gone back to bed. Instead he reported to the plant once more.

By early afternoon his tiredness showed. Through the previous hour he had yawned repeatedly.

A young black worker with an Afro hairdo told him, "Man, you sleeping on your feet." The two were assigned to engine decking, their job to lower engines onto chassis, then secure them.

Rollie grimaced. "Them Wheels keep coming. Never did see so many.~

"You need a rest, man. Like a rest when this mean line stops."

"Ain't never gonna stop, I reckon."

They maneuvered a hulking engine from overhead into the forward compartment of one more car, inserting the driveshaft in the transmission extension, like a train being coupled, then released the engine from suspension. Others down the line would bolt it into place.

The worker with the Afro hairdo had his head close to Rollie's. "You want this here line stopped? I mean it, man."

"Oh, sure, sure." Rollie felt more like closing his eyes than getting involved in some stupid gabfest.

"Ain't kiddin'. See this." Out of sight of others nearby, the worker opened a fist he had been holding clenched. In his palm. was a black, four-inch steel bolt. "Hey, take it!"

"Why so?"

"Do like I say. Drop it there! He pointed to a groove in the concrete floor near their feet, housing the assembly line chain drive, an endless belt like a monstrous bicycle chain. The chain drive ran the length of the assembly line and back, impelling the partially completed cars along the line at even speed. At various points it sank underground, rose through extra floors above, passed through paint booths, inspection chambers, or simply changed direction. Whenever it did, the moving chain clanked over cog points.

What the hell, Rollie thought. Anything to pass the time, to help this day end sooner - even a bunch of nothing. He dropped the bolt into the chain drive.

Nothing happened except that the bolt moved forward down the line; in less than a minute it was out of sight. Only then was he aware of heads lifting around him, of faces - mostly black - grinning at his own. Puzzled, he sensed others waiting expectantly. For what?

The assembly line stopped. It stopped without warning, without sudden sound or jolting. The change was so unremarkable that it took several seconds before some, intent on work, were aware that the line was now stationary in front of them instead of passing by.

For perhaps ten seconds there was a lull. During it, the workers around Rollie were grinning even more broadly than before.

Then, bedlam. Alarm bells clanged. Urgent shouts resounded from forward on the line. Soon after, somewhere in the depths of the plant a siren wailed faintly, then increased in volume, growing nearer.

The other hands who had watched, surreptitiously, the exchange between Rollie and the worker with the Afro hairdo knew what had happened.

From Rollie Knight's work station the nearest chain drive cog point was a hundred yards forward on the line. Until that point, the bolt he had inserted in a link of the chain had moved uneventfully. But when it reached the cog, the bolt jammed hard between cog and chain, so that something had to give. The link broke. The chain drive parted. The assembly line stopped. Instantly, seven hundred workers were left idle, their wages at union scale continuing while they waited for the line to start again.

More seconds ticked away. The siren was nearer, louder, traveling fast.

In a wide aisle alongside the line, those on foot - supervisors, stock men, messengers and others - hastily moved clear. Other plant traffic, fork-lifts, power carryalls, executive buggies - pulled aside and stopped.

Hurtling around a bend in the building, a yellow truck with flashing red beacon swung into sight. It was a crash repair unit carrying a three-man crew with tools and welding gear. One drove, his foot against the floor; two others hung on, bracing themselves against welding cylinders in the rear. Forward on the line a foreman had arms upraised, signaling where the break had happened. The truck tore past Rollie Knight's work station - a blur of yellow, red, its siren at crescendo. It slowed, then stopped. The crew tumbled out.

In any car assembly plant an unscheduled line stoppage is an emergency, taking second place only to a fire. Every minute of line production lost equates a fortune in wages, administration, factory cost, none of which can ever be recovered. Expressed another way: when an assembly line is running it produces a new car roughly every fifty seconds. With an unplanned stoppage, the same amount of time means the full cost of a new car lost.

Thus the objective is to restart the line first, ask questions after.

The emergency crew, skilled in such contingencies, knew what to do. They located the chain drive break, brought the severed portions together.

Cutting free the broken link, they welded in another. Their truck had scarcely stopped before acetylene torches flared. The job was hasty. When necessary, repairmen improvised to get the line moving again. Later, when production halted for a shift change or meal break, the repair would be inspected, a more lasting job done.

One of the repair crew signaled to a foreman - Frank Parkland - connected by telephone with the nearest control point. "Start up!" The word was passed.

Power, which had been cut by circuit breaker, was reapplied. The chain drive clanked over cogs, this time smoothly. The line restarted. Seven hundred employees, most of them grateful for the respite, resumed work.

From the stoppage of the line to its restarting had occupied four minutes fifty-five seconds. Thus five and a half cars had been lost, or more than six thousand dollars.

Rollie Knight, though scared by now, was not sure what had happened.

He found out quickly.

The foreman, Frank Parkland - big-boned, broad-shouldered - came striding back along the line, his face set grimly. In his hand was a twisted four-inch bolt which one of the repair crew had given him..

He stopped, asking questions, holding up the mangled bolt. "It came from this section; had to. Some place here, between two sets of cogs. Who did it? Who saw it?"

Men shook their heads. Frank Parkland moved on, asking the questions over again.

When he came to the group decking engines, the young worker with the Afro hairdo was doubled up with laughter. Barely able to speak, he pointed to Rollie Knight. "There he is, boss! Saw him do it." Others at adjoining work stations were laughing with him.

Though Rollie was the target, he recognized, instinctively, no malice was involved. It was merely a joke, a diversion, a rambunctious prank. Who cared about consequences? Besides, the line had only stopped for minutes.

Rollie found himself grinning too, then caught Parkland's eye and froze.

The foreman glared. "You did it? You put this bolt in?"

Rollie's face betrayed him. His eyes showed white from sudden fear combined with weariness. For once, his outward cockiness was absent.

Parkland ordered, "Out!"

Rollie Knight moved from his position on the line. The foreman motioned a relief man to replace him.

"Number?"

Rollie repeated the Social Security number he had learned the day before.

Parkland asked his name and wrote it down also, his face remaining hard.

"You're new, aren't you?"

"Yeah." For Cri-sake! - it was always the same. Questions, gabbing, never an end. Even when Whitey kicked your ass, he dressed it up with bullshit.

"What you did was sabotage. You know the consequences?"

Rollie shrugged. He had no idea what "sabotage" meant, though he didn't like the sound of it. With the same resignation he had shown a few weeks earlier, he accepted that his job was gone. All that concerned him now was to wonder: What more could they throw at him? From the way this honky burned, he'd stir trouble if he could.

From behind Parkland, someone said, "Frank - Mr. Zaleski."

The foreman turned. He watched the approaching stocky figure of the assistant plant manager.

"What was it, Frank?"

"This, Matt." Parkland held up the twisted bolt.

"Deliberate?"

"I'm finding out." His tone said: Let me do it my way!

"Okay." Zaleski's eyes moved coolly over Rollie Knight. "But if it's sabotage, we throw the book. The union'll back us up, you know that. Let me have a report, Frank." He nodded and moved on.

Frank Parkland wasn't sure why he had held back in exposing the man in front of him as a saboteur. He could have done so, and fired him instantly; there would have been no repercussions. But momentarily it had all seemed too easy. The little, half-starved guy looked more a victim than a villain. Besides, someone who knew the score wouldn't leave himself that vulnerable.

He field out the offending bolt. "Did you know what this would do?"

Rollie looked up at Parkland, towering over him. Normally he would have glared back hate, but was too tired even for that. He shook his head.

"You know now."

Remembering the shouts, activity, siren, flashing lights, Rollie could not resist a grin. "Yeah, man!"

"Did somebody tell you to do it?"

He was aware of faces watching from the line, no longer smiling.

The foreman demanded, "Well, who was it?"

Rollie stayed mute.

"Was it the one who accused you?"

The worker with the Afro hairdo was bent over, decking another engine.

Rollie shook his head. Given the chance, there were debts he would pay back. But this was not the way.

"All right," Parkland said. "I don't know why I'm doing this, but I think you got suckered, though maybe I'm the sucker now." The foreman glared, begrudging his own concession. "What happened'll go on the record as an accident. But you're being watched, remember that." He added brusquely.

"Get back to work!"

Rollie, to his great surprise, ended the shift fitting pads under instrument panels.

He knew, though, that the situation couldn't stay the way it was. Next day he was the subject of appraising glances from fellow workers, and the butt of humor. At first the humor was casual and tentative, but he was aware it could get rougher, much rougher, if the idea grew that Rollie Knight was a pushover for pranks or bullying. For someone unlucky or inept enough to get that reputation, life could be miserable, even dangerous, because the monotony of assembly line work made people welcome anything, even brutality, as a diversion.

In the cafeteria on his fourth day of employment there occurred the usual melee at lunch break in which several hundred men rushed from work stations, their objective to get in line to be served, and, after waiting, hastily swallow their food, go to the toilet, wash off their dirt and grease if so inclined (it was never practical to wash before eating), then make it back to work - all in thirty minutes. Amid the cafeteria crowd he saw the worker with the Afro hairdo surrounded by a group which was laughing, looking at Rollie speculatively. A few minutes later, after getting his own food, he was jostled roughly so that everything he had paid for cascaded to the floor where it was promptly trampled on - apparently an accident, too, though Rollie knew better. He did not eat that day; there was no more time.

During the jostling he heard a click and saw a switchblade flash. Next time, Rollie suspected, the jostling would be rougher, the switchblade used to nick him; or even worse. He wasted no time reasoning that the process was wildly illogical and unjust. A manufacturing plant employing thousands of workers was a jungle, with a jungle's lawlessness, and all that he could do was pick his moment to take a stand.

Though knowing time was against him, Rollie waited. He sensed an opportunity would come. It did.

On Friday, last day of his working week, he was assigned again to lowering engines onto chassis. Rollie was teamed with an older man who was the engine decker, and among others at adjoining work stations was the worker with the Afro hairdo.

"Man, oh man, I feel somethin' creepycrawly," the latter declared when Rollie joined them near the end of a meal break, shortly before the line restarted. "You gonna give us all a special rest today?" He cuffed Rollie around the shoulders as others nearby howled with laughter. Someone else slapped Rollie from the other side. Both blows could have been good-natured, but instead slammed into Rollie's frailness and left him staggering.

The chance he had planned and waited for occurred an hour later. As well as doing his own work since rejoining the group, Rollie Knight had watched, minute by minute, the movements and positions of the others, which fell into a pattern, but now and then with variations.

Each engine installed was lowered from overhead on chains and pulleys, its maneuvering and release controlled by three pushbuttons - UP, STOP, DOWN - on a heavy electric cord hanging conveniently above the work station. Normally the engine decker operated the pushbuttons, though Rollie had learned to use them too.

A third man - in this instance the Afro hairdo worker - moved between stations, aiding the other two as needed.

Though the installation team worked fast, each engine was eased into place cautiously and, when almost seated, before the final drop, each man made sure his hands were clear.

As one engine was almost lowered and in place, its fuel and vacuum lines became entangled in the chassis front suspension. The hangup was momentary and occurred occasionally; when it did, the Afro hairdo worker moved in, reaching under the engine to clear the tangled lines. He did so now. The hands of the other two - Rollie and the engine decker - were safely removed.

Watching, choosing his moment, Rollie moved slightly sideways, reached up casually, then depressed and held the DOWN button. Instantly, a heavy, reverberating 'bang!' announced that half a ton of engine and transmission had dropped solidly onto mounts beneath. Rollie released the button and, in the same movement, eased away.

For an infinitesimal fraction of a second the Afro hairdo worker remained silent, staring unbelieving at his hand, its fingers out of sight beneath the engine block. Then he screamed - again and again - a shrieking, demented wail of agony and horror, piercing all other sounds around, so that all men working fifty yards away raised their heads and craned uneasily to see the cause. The screams continued, fiendishly, unceasing, while someone hit an alarm button to stop the line, another the UP control to raise the engine assembly. As it lifted the screams took on a new excruciating edge, while those who were nearest looked with horror at the squashed, mangled jigsaw of blood and bones which seconds earlier had been fingers. As the injured worker's knees buckled, two men held him while his body heaved, his face contorted as tears streamed over lips mouthing incoherent, animal moans. A third worker, his own face ashen, reached for the mashed and pulpy hand, easing loose what he could, though a good deal stayed behind. When what was left of the hand was clear, the assembly line restarted.

The injured worker was carried away on a stretcher, his screams diminishing as morphine took hold. The drug had been administered by a nurse summoned hurriedly from the plant dispensary. She had put a temporary dressing on the hand, and her white uniform was blood-spattered as she walked beside the stretcher, accompanying it to an ambulance waiting out of doors.

Among the workers, no one looked at Rollie.

The foreman, Frank Parkland, and a plant safety man questioned those closest to the scene during a work break a few minutes later. A union steward was present.

The plant men demanded: What exactly happened?

It seemed that no one knew. Those who might have had knowledge claimed to have been looking some other way when the incident occurred.

"It doesn't figure," Parkland said. He stared hard at Rollie Knight.

"Somebody must have seen,"

The safety man asked, "Who hit the switch?"

No one answered. All that happened was an uneasy shuffling of feet, with eyes averted.

"Somebody did," Frank Parkland said. "Who was it?"

Still silence.

Then the engine decker spoke. He looked older, grayer, than before, and had been sweating so that the short hairs clung damply to his black scalp. "I reckon it was me. Guess I hit that button, let her drop." He added, mumbling, "Thought she was clear, the guy's hands out."

"You sure? Or are you covering?" Parkland's eyes returned, appraisingly, to Rollie Knight.

"I'm sure." The engine decker's voice was firmer. He lifted his head; his eyes met the foreman's. "Was an accident. I'm sorry."

"You should be," the safety man said. "You cost a guy his hand. And look at that!" He pointed to a board which read:

THIS PLANT HAS WORKED

1,897,560 MAN HOURS

WITHOUT AN ACCIDENT

"Now our score goes back to zero," the safety man said bitterly. He left the strong impression that this was what mattered most.

With the engine decker's firm statement, some of the tenseness had eased.

Someone asked, "What'll happen?"

"It's an accident, so no penalties," the union man said. He addressed Parkland and the safety man. "But there's an unsafe condition at this work station. It has to be corrected or we pull everybody out."

"Take it easy," Parkland cautioned. "Nobody's proved that yet."

"It's unsafe to get out of bed in the morning," the safety man protested. "If you do it with your eyes closed." He glowered again at the engine decker as, still deliberating, the trio moved away.

Soon after, those who had been questioned returned to work, the absent worker replaced by a new man who watched his hands nervously.

From then on, though nothing was ever said, Rollie Knight had no more trouble with his fellow workers. He knew why. Despite denials, those who had been close by were aware of what had happened, and now he had the reputation of being a man not to cross.

At first, when he had seen the smashed, bloody hand of his former tormentor, Rollie, too, was shocked and sickened. But as the stretcher moved away, so did the incident's immediacy, and since it was not in Rollie's nature to dwell on things, by the next working day - with a weekend in between - he had accepted what occurred as belonging in the past, and that was it. He did not fear reprisals. He sensed that, jungle law or not, a certain raw justice was on his side, and others knew it, including the engine decker who protected him.

The incident had other overtones.

In the way that information spreads about someone who has achieved attention, word of Rollie's prison record leaked. But rather than being an embarrassment, it made him, he discovered, something of a folk hero - at least to younger workers.

"Hear you done big time," a nineteen-year-old from the inner city told him. "Guess you give them whitey pigs a run before they gotcha, huh?"

Another youngster asked, "You carry a piece?"

Although Rollie knew that plenty of workers in the plant carried guns at all times - allegedly for protection against the frequent muggings which occurred in toilets or in parking lots. Rollie did not, being aware of the stiff sentence he would get if, with his record, a firearm were ever discovered on him. But he answered, noncommitally, "Quit buggin' me, kid," and soon another rumor was added to the rest: The little guy, Knight, was always armed. It was an additional cause for respect among the youthful militants.

One of them asked him, "Hey, you want a joint?"

He accepted. Soon, though not as frequently as some, Rollie was using marijuana on the assembly line, learning that it made a day go faster, the monotony more bearable. About the same time he began playing the numbers.

Later, when there was reason to think about it more, he realized that both drugs and numbers were his introduction to the complex, dangerous understratum of crime in the plant.

The numbers, to begin with, seemed innocent enough.

As Rollie knew, playing the numbers game - especially in auto plants - is, to Detroiters, as natural as breathing. Though the game is Mafia controlled, demonstrably crooked, and the odds against winning are a thousand to one, it attracts countless bettors daily who wager anything from a nickel to a hundred dollars, occasionally more. The most common daily stake in plants, and the amount which Rollie bet himself, is a dollar.

But whatever the stake, a bettor selects three figures - any three - in the hope they will be the winning combination for that day. In event of a win, the payoff is 500 to 1, except that some bettors gamble on individual digits instead of all three, for which the odds are lower.

What seems to bother no one who plays numbers in Detroit is that the winning number is selected by betting houses from those combinations which have least money wagered on them. Only in nearby Pontiac, where the winning number is geared to race results and published parimutuel payoffs, is the game - at least in this regard - honest.

Periodically, raids on the so-called "Detroit numbers ring" are made much of by the FBI, Detroit police, and others. RECORD NUMBERS RAID or BIGGEST RAID IN U.S. HISTORY are apt to be headlines in the Detroit News and Free Press, but next day, and without much searching, placing a numbers bet is as easy as ever.

As Rollie worked longer, the ways in which numbers operated in the plant became clearer: janitors were among the many taking bets; in their pails, under dry cloths, were the traditional yellow slips which numbers writers used, as well as cash collected. Both slips and cash were smuggled from the plant, to be downtown by a deadline - usually race track post time.

A union steward, Rollie learned, was the numbers supervisor for Assembly; his regular duties made it possible for him to move anywhere in the plant without attracting attention. Equally obvious was that betting was a daily addiction which a majority of workers shared, including supervisors, office personnel, and - so an informant assured Rollie - some of the senior managers. Because of the immunity with which the numbers game flourished, the last seemed likely.

A couple of times after the crushed fingers incident, Rollie received oblique suggestions that he himself might participate actively in running numbers, or perhaps one of the other rackets in the plant. The latter, he knew, included loan sharking, drug pushing, and illegal check cashing; also, overlapping the milder activities, were organized theft rings, as well as frequent robberies and assaults.

Rollie's criminal record, by now common knowledge, had clearly given him ex-officio standing among the underworld element directly involved with crime in the plant, as well as those who flirted with it in addition to their jobs.

Once, standing beside Rollie at a urinal, a burly, normally taciturn worker known as Big Rufe, announced softly, "Guys say you dig okay, I should tell you there's ways a smart dude can do better 'n the stinkin' sucker money they pay square Joes here." He emptied his bladder with a grunt of satisfaction. "Times, we need help guys who know the score, don't scare easy." Big Rufe stopped, zipping his fly as someone else came to stand beside them, then turned away, nodding, the nod conveying that sometime soon the two of them would talk again.

But they hadn't because Rollie contrived to avoid another meeting, and did the same thing after a second approach by another source. His reasons were mixed. The possibility of a return to prison with a long sentence still haunted him; also he had a feeling that his life, the way it was now, was as good or better than it had been before, ever. A big thing was the bread. Square Joe sucker money or not, it sure corralled more than Rollie had known in a long time, including booze, food, some grass when he felt like it, and little sexpot May Lou, whom he might tire of sometime, but hadn't yet. She was no grand door prize, no beauty queen, and he knew she had knocked around plenty with other guys who had been there ahead of him. But she could turn Rollie on. It made him horny just to look at her, and be laid pipe, sometimes three times a night, especially when May Lou really went to work, taking his breath away with tricks she knew, which Rollie had heard of but had never had done to him before.

It was the reason, really, he had let May Lou find the two rooms they shared, and hadn't protested when she furnished them. She had done the furnishing without much money, asking Rollie only to sign papers which she brought. He did so indifferently, without reading, and later the furniture appeared, including a color TV as good as any in a bar.

In another way, though, the price of it all came high-long, wearying work days at the assembly plant, nominally five days a week, though sometimes four, and one week only three. Rollie, like others, absented himself on Monday, if hung over after a weekend, or on Friday, if wanting to start one early; but even when that happened, the money next payday was enough to swing with.

As well as the hardness of the work, its monotony persisted, reminding him of advice he had been given early by a fellow worker: "When you come here, leave your brains at home."

And yet . . . there was another side.

Despite himself, despite ingrained thought patterns which cautioned against being suckered and becoming a honky lackey, Rollie Knight began taking interest, developing a conscientiousness about the work that he was doing. A basic reason was his quick intelligence plus an instinct for learning, neither of which had had an opportunity to function before, as they were doing now. Another reason - which Rollie would have denied if accused of it - was a rapport, based on developing mutual respect, with the foreman, Frank Parkland.

At first, after the two incidents which brought Rollie Knight to his attention, Parkland had been hostile. But as a result of keeping close tab on Rollie, the hostility disappeared, approval replacing it. As Parkland expressed it to Matt Zaleski during one of the assistant plant manager's periodic tours of the assembly line, "See that little guy? His first week here I figured him for a troublemaker. Now he's as good as anybody I got."

Zaleski had grunted, barely listening. Recently, at plant management level, several new fronts of troubles had erupted, including a requirement to increase production yet hold down plant costs and somehow raise quality standards. Though the three objectives were basically in-compatible, top management was insisting on them, an insistence not helping Matt's duodenal ulcer, an old enemy within. The ulcer, quiescent for a while, now pained him constantly. Thus, Matt Zaleski could not find time for interest in individuals - only in statistics which regiments of individuals, like unconsidered Army privates, added up to.

This - though Zaleski had neither the philosophy to see it, nor power to change the system if he had - was a reason why North American automobiles were generally of poorer quality than those from Germany, where less rigid factory systems gave workers a sense of individuality and craftsmen's pride.

As it was, Frank Parkland did the best he could.

It was Parkland who ended Rollie's status as a relief man and assigned him to a regular line station. Afterward, Parkland moved Rollie around to other jobs on the assembly line, but at least without the bewildering hour-by-hour changes he endured before. Also, a reason for the moves was that Rollie, increasingly, could handle the more difficult, tricky assignments, and Parkland told him so.

A fact of life which Rollie discovered at this stage was that while most assembly line jobs were hard and demanding, a few were soft touches. Installing windshields was one of the soft ones. Workers doing this, however, were cagey when being watched, and indulged in extra, unneeded motions to make their task look tougher. Rollie worked on windshields, but only for a few days because Parkland moved him back down the line to one of the difficult jobs - scrabbling and twisting around inside car bodies to insert complicated wiring harnesses. Later still, Rollie handled a "blind operation"- the toughest kind of all, where bolts had to be inserted out of sight, then tightened, also by feel alone.

That was the day Parkland confided to him, "It isn't a fair system. Guys who work best, who a foreman can rely on, get the stinkingest jobs and a lousy deal. The trouble is, I need somebody on those bolts who I know for sure'll fix 'em and not goof off."

For Frank Parkland, it was an offhand remark. But to Rollie Knight it represented the first time that someone in authority had leveled with him, had criticized the system, told him something honest, something which he knew to be true, and had done it without bullshit.

Two things resulted. First, Rollie fitted every out-of-sight bolt correctly, utilizing a developing manual skill and an improved physique which regular eating now made possible. Second, he began observing Parkland carefully.

After a while, while not going so far as admiration, he saw the foreman as a non-bullshitter who treated others squarely - black or white, kept his word, and stayed honestly clear of the crap and corruption around him.

There had been few people in Rollie's life of whom he could say, or think, as much.

Then, as happens when people elevate others beyond the level of human frailty, the image was destroyed.

Rollie had been asked, once more, if he would help run numbers in the plant. The approach was by a lean, intense young black with a scar-marred face, Daddy-o Lester, who worked for stockroom delivery and was known to combine his work with errands for plant numbers bankers and the loan men. Rumor tied the scar, which ran the length of Daddy-o's face, to a knifing after he defaulted on a loan. Now he worked at the rackets' opposite end. Daddy-o assured Rollie, leaning into the work station where he had just delivered stock, "These guys like you. But they get the idea you don't like them, they liable to get rough."

Unimpressed, Rollie told him, "Your fat mouth don't scare me none. Beat it!"

Rollie had decided, weeks before, that he would play the numbers, but no more.

Daddy-o persisted, "A man gotta do something to show he's a man, an' you ain't." As an afterthought, he added, "Leastways, not lately."

More for something to say than with a specific thought, Rollie protested,

"For Cri-sakes, how you fixin' I'd take numbers here, with a foreman around."

Frank Parkland, at that moment, hove into view.

Daddy-o said contemptuously, "Screw that motha! He don't make trouble. He gets paid off."

"You lyin'."

"If I show you I ain't, that mean you're in?"

Rollie moved from the car he had been working on, spat beside the line, then climbed into the next. For a reason he could not define, uneasy doubts were stirring. He insisted, "Your word ain't worth nothin'. You show me first."

Next day, Daddy-o did.

Under pretext of a delivery to Rollie Knights work station he revealed a grubby, unsealed envelope which he opened sufficiently for Rollie to see the contents - a slip of yellow paper and two twenty-dollar bills.

"Okay, fella," Daddy-o said. "Now watch!"

He walked to the small, stand-up desk which Parkland used - at the moment unoccupied - and lodged the envelope under a paperweight. Then he approached the foreman, who was down the line, and said something briefly. Parkland nodded. Without obvious haste, though not wasting time, the foreman returned to the desk where he took up the envelope, glanced briefly under the flap, then thrust it in an inside pocket.

Rollie, watching between intervals of working, needed no explanation.

Nothing could be plainer than that the money was a bribe, a payoff.

Through the rest of that day, Rollie worked less carefully, missing several bolts entirely and failing to tighten others. Who the hell cared? He wondered why he was surprised. Didn't everything stink? It always had. Wasn't everybody on the take in every way? These people; all people. He remembered the course instructor who persuaded him to endorse checks, then stole Rollie's and other trainees'money. The instructor was one; now Parkland was another, so why should Rollie Knight be different?

That night Rollie told May Lou, "You know what this scumbag world is made of, baby? Bullshit! There ain't nothing in this whole wide world but bullshit."

Later the same week he began working for the plant numbers gang.