Wheels

Chapter 18

The OJL advertising agency, in the person of Keith Yates-Brown, was nervous and edgy because the documentary film Auto City was proceeding without a shooting script.

"There has to be a script," Yates-Brown had protested to Barbara Zaleski on the telephone from New York a day or two ago. "If there isn't, how can we protect the client's interests from here and make suggestions?"

Barbara, in Detroit, had felt like telling the management supervisor that the last thing the project needed was Madison Avenue meddling. It could transform the honest, perceptive film now taking shape into a glossy, innocuous melange. But, instead, she repeated the views of the director, Wes Gropetti, a talented man with enough solid credits behind him to make his viewpoint count.

"You won't grab the mood of inner city Detroit by putting a lot of crud on paper because we don't know what the mood is yet," Gropetti had declared. "We're here with all this fancy camera and sound gear to find out."

The director, heavily bearded but diminutive in stature, seemed like a shaggy sparrow. He wore a black beret which he was never without, and was less sensitive about words than he was with visual images. He went on, "I want the inner city jokers, broads, and kids to tell us what they really think about themselves, and how they look on the rest of us lousy bums.

That means their hates, hopes, frustrations, joys, as well as how they breathe, eat, sleep, fornicate, sweat, and what they see and smell. I'll get all that on film - their mugs, voices, everything unrehearsed. As to language, well let the crud fall where it may. Maybe I'll prick a few people in the ass to get them mad, but either way they'll talk, then while they do, I'll let the camera wander like a whore's attention, and we'll see Detroit the way they see it, through inner city eyes."

And it was working, Barbara assured Yates-Brown.

Using cinema verite technique, with a handheld camera and a minimum of paraphernalia to distract, Gropetti was roaming the inner city with a crew, persuading people to talk frankly, freely, and sometimes movingly, on film. Barbara, who usually accompanied the expeditions, knew that part of Gropetti's genius lay in his instinct for selection, then making those he chose forget that a lens and lights were focused on them. No one knew what the little director whispered into ears before their owners began talking; sometimes he would bend his head down, confidentially, for minutes at a time. But it produced reactions: amusement, defiance, rapport, disagreement, sullenness, impudence, alertness, anger and once - from a young black militant who became impressively eloquent - a blazing hatred.

When he was sure of a reaction, Gropetti would spring instantly back so that the camera - already operating at the director's covert signal - would catch full facial expressions and spontaneous words. Afterward, with limitless patience, Gropetti would repeat the process until he had what he sought - a glimpse of personality, good or bad, amiable or savage, but vital and real, and without the clumsy intrusion of an interviewer.

Barbara had already seen rushes and rough cuts of the results, and was excited. Photographically, they had the quality and depth of Karsh portraits, plus Gropetti's magic mix of vibrant animation.

"Since we're calling the film Auto City," Keith Yates-Brown had commented when she told him all that, "maybe you should wise up Gropetti that there are motorcars around as well as people, and we'll expect to see some - preferably our client's - on the screen."

Barbara sensed that the agency supervisor was having second thoughts about the over - all authority she had been given. But he would also know that any film project needed to have someone firmly in charge and, until the OJL agency removed or fired her, Barbara was.

She assured Yates-Brown, "There will be cars in the picture - the client's.

We're not emphasizing them, but we're not concealing them either, so most people will recognize the kind they are." She had gone on to describe the filming already done in the auto company's assembly plant, with emphasis on inner city hard core hiring - and Rollie Knight.

During the assembly plant filming, other workers nearby had been unaware that Rollie was the center of the camera's attention. Partly, this was out of consideration for Rollie, who wanted it that way, and partly to keep the atmosphere realistic.

Leonard Wingate of Personnel, who became interested in Barbara's project the night they met at Brett DeLosanto's apartment, had arranged the whole thing without fuss. All that anyone in the plant knew was that a portion of Assembly was being filmed, for purposes unexplained, while regular work went on. Only Wes Gropetti, Barbara, and the camera- and soundmen realized that a good deal of the time they appeared to be shooting, they were not, and that most of the footage taken featured Rollie Knight.

The only sound recording at this point was of assembly plant noises while they happened, and afterward Barbara had listened to the sound tape played back. It was a nightmare cacophony, incredibly effective as a background to the visual sequence.

Rollie Knight's voice, which would be dubbed in later, was to be recorded during a visit by Gropetti and the film crew to the inner city apartment house where Rollie and May Lou, his girlfriend, lived. Leonard Wingate would be there. So - though Barbara did not report the fact to Keith Yates-Brown - would Brett DeLosanto.

On the telephone, Keith Yates-Brown had cautioned, "Just remember we're spending a lot of the client's money which we'll have to account for."

"We've stayed within budget," Barbara reported. "And the client seems to like what we've done so far. At least, the chairman of the board does."

She heard a sound on the telephone which could have been Keith Yates-Brown leaping from his chair.

"You've been in touch with the client's chairman of the board!" The reaction could not have been greater if she had said the Pope or the President of the United States.

"He came to visit our shooting on location. The day after, Wes Gropetti took some of the film and screened it in the chairman's office."

"You let that foul-mouthed hippie Gropetti loose on the fifteenth floor!"

"Wes seemed to think that he and the chairman got along well."

"He thought so! You didn't even go yourself?"

"I couldn't that day."

"Oh, my God!" Barbara could visualize the agency supervisor, his face paling, a hand clapped to his head.

She reminded him, "You told me yourself that the chairman was interested, and I might report to him occasionally."

"But not casually! Not without letting us know here, in advance, so we could plan what you should say. And as for sending Gropetti on his own . . ."

I was going to tell you," Barbara said, "the client's chairman phoned me next day. He said he thought our agency had shown commendable imagination - those were his words - in getting Wes Gropetti to begin with, and urged us to go on giving Wes his head because this was the kind of thing which ought to be a director's film. The chairman said he was putting all that in a letter to the agency."

She heard heavy breathing on the line. "We haven't got the letter yet.

When it comes . . ." A pause. "Barbara, I guess you're doing fine."

Yates-Brown's voice became pleading. "But don't, please don't, take chances, and let me know anything instantly about the client's chairman of the board."

She had promised that she would, after which Keith Yates-Brown - still nervously - repeated that he wished they had a script.

Now, several days later and scriptless as ever, Wes Gropetti was ready to film the final sequence involving hard core hiring and Rollie Knight.

Early evening.

Eight of them, altogether, were packed into the stiflingly hot, sketchily furnished room.

For Detroit generally, and especially the inner city, it had been a baking, windless summer day. Even now, with the sun gone, most of the heat - inside and out - remained.

Rollie Knight and May Lou were two of the eight because this was where - for the time being - they lived. Though the room was tiny by any standard, it served the dual purpose of living and sleeping, while a closet-sized "kitchen" adjoining housed a sink with cold water only, a decrepit gas cooker, and a few plain board shelves. There was no toilet or bath. These facilities, such as they were, were one floor down and shared with a half dozen other apartments.

Rollie looked morose, as if wishing he had not agreed to be involved with this. May Lou, childlike and seeming to have sprouted like a weed with skinny legs and bony arms, appeared scared, though she was becoming less so as Wes Gropetti, his black beret in place despite the heat, talked quietly to her.

Behind the director were the camera operator and soundman, their equipment deployed awkwardly in the confined space. Barbara Zaleski stood with them, her notebook opened.

Brett DeLosanto, watching, was amused to see that Barbara, as usual, had dark glasses pushed up into her hair.

The camera lights were off. Everyone knew that when they went on, the room would become hotter still.

Leonard Wingate, from the auto maker's Personnel department and also the company's ranking Negro executive, mopped his perspiring face with a fresh linen handkerchief. Both he and Brett were backed against a wall, trying to take as little space as possible.

Suddenly, though only the two technicians had seen Gropetti's signal, the lights were on, the sound tape running.

May Lou blinked. But as the director continued to talk softly, she nodded and her face adjusted. Then swiftly, smoothly, Gropetti eased rearward, out of camera range.

May Lou said naturally, as if unaware of anything but her own thoughts,

"Ain't no good worryin', not about no future like they say we should, 'cos it ain't ever looked as if there'd be one for some like us." She shrugged. "Don't look no different now."

Gropetti's voice. "Cut!"

Camera lights went out. The director moved in, whispering in May Lou's ear once more. After several minutes, while the others waited silently, the camera lights went on. Gropetti slid back.

May Lou's face was animated. "Sure they took our color TV." She glanced across the room toward an empty corner. "Two guys come for it, said we hadn't made no payments after the first. One of the guys wanted to know, why'd we buy it? I told him, 'Mister, if I got a down payment today, I can watch TV tonight. Some days that's all that matters.'" Her voice slipped lower. "I shoulda told him, 'Who knows about tomorrow?'"

"Cut!"

Brett whispered to Leonard Wingate beside him, "What's this all about?"

The Negro executive was still mopping his face. He said, low-voiced,

"They're in trouble. The two of them had some real money for the first time in their lives, so they went wild, bought furniture, a color TV, took on payments they couldn't meet. Now, some of the stuffs been re-possessed. That isn't all."

Ahead of them, Gropetti was having May Lou and Rollie Knight change positions. Now Rollie faced the camera.

Brett asked, still speaking softly, "What else has happened?"

"The word is 'garnishee,'" Wingate said. "It means a lousy, out-of-date law which politicians agree ought to be changed, but nobody does it."

Wes Gropetti had his head down and was talking to Rollie in his usual way.

Wingate told Brett, "Knight's had his wages garnisheed once already. This week there was a second court order, and under the union agreement two garnishees mean automatic dismissal."

"Hell! Can't you do something?"

"Maybe. It depends on Knight. When this is over, I'll talk to him."

"Should he be spilling his guts on film?"

Leonard Wingate shrugged. "I told him he didn't have to, that it's his private business. But he didn't seem to mind, neither did the girl.

Maybe they don't care; maybe they figure they can help somebody else.

I don't know."

Barbara, who had overheard, turned her head. "Wes says it's part of the whole scene. Besides, he'll edit sympathetically."

"If I didn't think so," Wingate said, "we wouldn't be here."

The director was still briefing Rollie.

Wingate, speaking softly but his voice intense, told Barbara and Brett,

"Half the problem with what's happening to Knight is our own attitudes - the establishment's; that means people like you two and me.

Okay, we help somebody like these two kids, but as soon as we do, we expect them to have all our middle-class values which it took us years of living our way to acquire. The same goes for money. Even though Knight hasn't been used to it because none ever came his way, we expect him to handle money as if he'd had it all his life, and if he doesn't, what happens? He's shoved into court, his wages garnisheed, he's fired.

We forget that plenty of us who've lived with money still run up debts we can't manage. But let this guy do the same thing" - the Negro executive nodded toward Rollie Knight - "and our systems all set to throw him back on the garbage heap."

"You're not going to let it happen," Barbara murmured.

Wingate shook his head impatiently. "There's only so much I can do. And Knight's just one of many."

Camera lights were on. The director glanced their way, a signal for silence. Rollie Knight's voice rose clearly in the quiet, hot room.

"Sure you find out things from livin' here. Like, most of it ain't gonna get better, no matter what they say. Besides that, nuthun' lasts." Unexpectedly, a smile flashed over Rollie's face; then, as if regretting the smile, a scowl replaced it. "So best not to expect nuthun'. Then it don't hurt none when you lose it."

Gropetti called, "Cut!"

Filming continued for another hour, Gropetti coaxing and patient, Rollie speaking of experiences in the inner city and the auto assembly plant where he was still employed. Though the young black worker's words were simple and sometimes stumbling, they conveyed reality and a true picture of himself - not always favorable, but not belittling either. Barbara, who had seen earlier sequences filmed, had a conviction that the answer print would be an eloquently moving document.

When camera lights went out after the concluding shot, Wes Gropetti removed his black beret and mopped his head with a large, grubby kerchief.

He nodded to the two technicians. "Strike it! That's a wrap."

While the others filed out, with brief "goodnights" to Rollie and May Lou, Leonard Wingate stayed behind. Brett DeLosanto, Barbara Zaleski, and Wes Gropetti were going on to the Detroit Press Club for a late supper, where Wingate would join them shortly.

The Negro executive waited until the others had passed through the mean hallway outside, with its single, low-wattage light bulb and peeling paint, and were clattering down the worn wooden stairway to the street below. Through the hallway door, the odor of garbage drifted in. May Lou closed it.

She asked, "You want a drink, mister?"

Wingate started to shake his head, then changed his mind. "Yes, please."

From a shelf in the miniscule kitchen, the girl took a rum bottle with about an inch of liquor in it, which she divided equally between two glasses. Adding ice and Coke, she gave one to Wingate, the other to Rollie. The three of them sat down in the all-purpose room.

"There'll be some money coming to you from the film people for using your place tonight," Wingate said. "It won't be much; it never is. But I'll see you get it."

May Lou gave an unsure smile. Rollie Knight said nothing.

The executive sipped his drink. "You knew about the garnishee? The second one?"

Rollie still didn't answer.

"Somebody tol' him today at work," May Lou said. "They said he don't get his paycheck no more? That right?"

"He doesn't get part of it. But if he loses his job there'll be no more checks anyway - for anybody." Wingate went on to explain about garnishees - the attachment of a worker's pay at source by court order, which creditors obtained. He added that, while auto companies and other employers detested the garnishee system, they had no choice but to comply with the law.

As Wingate suspected, neither Rollie nor May Lou had understood the earlier garnishee, nor was Rollie aware that a second one - under company-union rules - could get him fired.

"There's a reason for that," Wingate said. "Garnishees make a lot of work for the payroll department, which costs the company money."

Rollie blurted, "Bullshit!" He got up and walked around.

Leonard Wingate sighed. "If you want my honest opinion, I think you're right. It's why I'll try to help you if I can. If you want me to."

May Lou glanced at Rollie. She moistened her lips. "He wants you to, mister. He ain't been himself lately. He's been . . . well, real upset."

Wingate wondered why. If Rollie had learned about the garnishee only today, as May Lou said, obviously he had not been worrying because of that. He decided not to press the point.

"What I can do," the executive told them, and you must understand this is only if you want it, is have someone look over your finances for you, straighten them out if we can, and try to get you started fresh."

He went on, explaining how the system devised by Jim Robson, a plant personnel manager for Chrysler, and copied nowadays by other companies - worked.

What they must do, he informed Rollie and May Lou, was give him, here and now, a list of all their debts. He would hand these to a senior Personnel man in Rollie's plant. The Personnel man, who did this extra curricular job on his own time, would go over everything to see how much was owing. Then he would phone the creditors, one by one, urging them to accept modest payments over a long period and, in return, withdraw their garnishees.

Usually they agreed because the alternative was pointed out: that the man concerned would lose his job, in which event they would receive nothing, garnishee or not.

The employee - in this case Rollie Knight - would then be asked: What is the minimum amount of money you can live on weekly?

Once this was decided, Rollie's paycheck would be intercepted each week and routed to the Personnel Department. There, every Friday, he would report and endorse the check over to the Personnel man making the arrangements. The Personnel man's office - Wingate told them - was usually crowded with fifty or so workers who had been in financial trouble and were being helped to straighten out. Most were grateful.

Afterward, the Personnel man would deposit Rollie's paycheck in a special account - in the Personnel man's name since the company took no official part in the arrangement. From this account he would issue checks to creditors for the sums arranged, giving Rollie another check - for the balance of his wages, on which he must live. Eventually, when all debts were cleared, the Personnel man would bow out and Rollie would receive his paycheck normally.

Records were open to inspection and the service operated solely to help workers in financial trouble, without charge of any kind.

"It won't be easy for you," Wingate warned. "To make it work, you'll have to live on very little money."

Rollie seemed about to protest, but May Lou interjected quickly, "We kin do it, mister." She looked at Rollie, and Wingate was aware of a mixture of authority and childlike affection in her eyes. "You'll do it," she insisted. "Yes, yo' will."

Half-smiling, Rollie shrugged.

But it was clear that Rollie Knight was still worried - really worried, Leonard Wingate suspected - about something else. Once more he wondered what it was.

"We've been sitting here," Barbara Zaleski said as Leonard Wingate joined them, "speculating on whether those two are going to make it."

Barbara, the only one in the group who was a Press Club member, was host to the other three.

She, Brett DeLosanto, and Wes Gropetti had waited at the bar. Now, the four of them moved to a table in the dining room.

As press clubs went, Detroies was among the best in the country. It was small, well-run, with an excellent cuisine, and membership was sought after. Surprisingly, despite an exciting day-to-day affinity with the auto industry, the club's walls were almost bare - self-consciously, some thought - of mementos of the tie. The only one, which greeted visitors on entering, was a downbeat front page from 1947, its headline reading:

FORD DEAD

Dies in Oil-Lit, Unheated House

War and space travel, in contrast, were represented prominently, perhaps proof that newsmen sometimes suffer from hyperopia.

When they had ordered drinks, Wingate answered Barbara's question.

"I wish I could say yes. But I'm not sure, and the reason is the system.

We talked about it earlier. People like us can cope with the system, more or less. Mostly, people like them can't."

"Leonard," Brett said, "tonight you've been sounding like a revolutionary."

"Sounding isn't being one." Wingate smiled dourly. "I don't think I have the guts; besides, I'm disqualified. I've a good job, money in the bank.

As soon as anyone has those, they want to protect them, not blow it all up. But I'll tell you this: I know what makes people of my race revolutionaries."

He touched a bulge in the jacket of his suit. It was a collection of papers May Lou had given him before he left. They were invoices, time payment contracts, demands from finance companies. Out of curiosity, Wingate had gone over them briefly in his car, and what he had seen amazed and angered him.

He repeated to the other three the substance of his talk with Rollie and May Lou, omitting figures, which were private, but apart from that the others knew the story anyway, and he was aware they cared.

He said, "You saw the furniture they had in that room."

The others nodded. Barbara said, "It wasn't good, but . . ."

"Be honest," Wingate told her. "You know as well as I do, it was a bunch of shoddy junk."

Brett protested, "So what! If they can't afford much . . ."

"But you'd never know they couldn't, not from the price they paid." Once more, Wingate touched the papers in his pocket. "I just saw the invoice, and I'd say the invoice price is at least six times what the furniture was worth. For what they paid, or rather signed a finance contract for, those two could have had quality stuff from a reputable outfit like J. L. Hudson's or Sears."

Barbara asked, "Then why didn't they?"

Leonard Wingate put both hands on the table, leaning forward, "Because, my dear innocent, well-to-do friends, they didn't know any better. Because nobody ever taught them how to shop around or buy carefully. Because there isn't much point learning any of that if you've never had any real money.

Because they went to a white-run store in a black neighborhood, which cheated them - but good! Because there are plenty of those stores, not just in Detroit, but other places too. I know. We've seen other people travel this route."

There was silence at the table. Their drinks had come, and Wingate sipped a neat Scotch on the rocks. After a moment he went on, "There's also a little matter of the finance charges on the furniture and some other things they bought. I did some figuring. It looks to me as if the interest rate was between nineteen and twenty percent."

Wes Gropetti whistled softly.

Barbara queried, "When your Personnel man talks to the creditors, the way you said he would, can he (to anything to get the furniture bill or finance charges lowered?"

"The finance charges, maybe." Leonard Wingate nodded. "I'll probably work on that myself. When we call a finance outfit and use our company's name, they're apt to listen and be reasonable. They know there are ways a big auto manufacturer can put the squeeze on, if we take a mind to.

But as to furniture . . ." He shook his head. "Not a chance. Those crooks'd laugh. They sell their stuff for as much as they can get, then turn their paper over to a finance company at a discount. It's little guys like Knight - who can't afford it - who pay the difference."

Barbara asked, "Will he keep his job? Rollie, I mean."

"Providing nothing else happens," Wingate said, "I think I can promise that."

Wes Gropetti urged, "For Christ sake, that's enough talk! Let's eat!"

Brett DeLosanto, who had been unusually quiet through most of the evening, remained so during the meal which followed. What Brett had seen tonight - the conditions under which Rollie Knight and May Lou lived; their cramped, mean room in the run-down, garbage-reeking apartment house; countless other buildings in the area, either the same or worse; the general malaise and poverty of the major portion of the inner city - had affected him deeply. He had been in the inner city before, and through its streets, but never with the same insight or sense of poignancy he had known within the past few hours.

He had asked Barbara to let him watch tonight's filming, partly from curiosity and partly because she had become so absorbed with the project that he had seen little of her lately. What he had not expected was to be drawn in, mentally, as much as he had.

Not that he had been unaware of ghetto problems of Detroit. When he observed the desperate grimness of housing, he knew better than to ask: Why don't people move somewhere else? Brett already knew that economically and socially, people here - specifically, black people - were trapped. High as living costs were in the inner city, in suburbs they were higher still, even if the suburbs would let blacks move there - and some wouldn't, still practicing discrimination in a thousand subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Dearborn, for example, in which Ford Motor Company had its headquarters, at last count didn't have a single black resident, due to hostility of white, middleclass families who supported wily maneuverings by its solidly established mayor.

Brett knew, too, that efforts to aid the inner city had been made by the well-meaning New Detroit Committee - more recently, New Detroit Inc. - established after the area's 1967 riots. Funds had been raised, some housing started. But as a committee member put it: "We're long on proclamations, short on bricks."

Another had recalled the dying words of Cecil Rhodes: "So little done - so much to do."

Both comments had been from individuals, impatient with the smallness of accomplishment by groups - groups which included the city, state, and federal governments. Though the 1967 riots were now years away, nothing beyond sporadic tinkering had been done to remedy conditions which were the riots' cause.

Brett wondered: If so many, collectively, had failed, what could one person, an individual, hope to do?

Then he remembered: Someone had once asked that about Ralph Nader.

Brett sensed Barbara's eyes upon him and turned toward her. She smiled, but made no comment on his quietness; each knew the other well enough by now not to need explanations of moods, or reasons for them. Barbara looked her best tonight, Brett thought. During the discussion earlier her face had been animated, reflecting interest, intelligence, warmth.

No other girl of Brett's acquaintance rated quite as high with him, which was why he went on seeing her, despite her continued, obstinate refusal to join him in bed.

Brett knew that Barbara had gained a lot of satisfaction from her involvement with the film, and working with Wes Gropetti.

Now Gropetti pushed back his plate, dabbing a napkin around his mouth and beard. The little film director, still wearing his black beret, had been eating Beef Stroganoff with noodles, washed down generously with Chianti. He gave a grunt of satisfaction.

"Yes," Brett said, "do you ever want to get involved - really involved - with subjects you do films about?"

The director looked surprised. "You mean do crusading crap? Chivvy people up?"

"Yes," Brett acknowledged, "that's the kind of crap I mean."

"A pox on that! Sure, I get interested; I have to be. But after that I take pictures, kiddo. That's all." Gropetti rubbed his beard, removing a fragment of noodle which the napkin had missed. He added, "A buttercup scene or a sewer - once I know it's there, all I want axe the right lens, camera angle, lighting, sound sync. Nuts to involvement! Involvement's a full-time job."

Brett nodded. He said thoughtfully, "That's what I think, too."

In his car, driving Barbara home, Brett said, "It's going well, isn't it? The film."

"So well!" She was near the middle of the front seat, curled close beside him. If he moved his face sideways he could touch her hair, as he had already, several times.

"I'm glad for you. You know that."

"Yes," she said. "I know."

"I wouldn't want any woman I lived with not to do something special, something exclusively her own."

"If I ever live with you, I'll remember that."

It was the first time either of them had mentioned the possibility of living together since the night they had talked about it several months ago.

"Have you thought any more?"

"I've thought," she said. "That's all."

Brett waited while he threaded traffic at the Jefferson entrance to the Chrysler Freeway, then asked, "Want to talk about it?"

She shook her head negatively.

"How much longer will the film take?"

"Probably another month."

"You'll be busy?"

"I expect so. Why?"

"I'm taking a trip," Brett said. "To California."

But when she pressed him, he declined to tell her why.