Clocking into Hell: A Novel About Life in a Factory

By Eddie Masters

A view of the inner machinations of the day to day and year to year life at a typical American factory, this rare perspective on an increasingly bygone time of the all too familiar struggles as well as the high points of blue collar laborers, this will be an enjoyable as well as informative read for many who may be curious as to what ordinary middle class workers have to deal with and experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669838678

Eddie Masters

A native of Brooklyn, NY Eddie Masters has lived in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Saugerties NY and has worked in a variety of jobs since his teenage years including as a carpenter’s helper, retail, factory work and bartending as well as doing stand up comedy on the side in the past and worked as an extra in the movie The Thing About My Folks. He is also an aficionado of the history of ancient Rome, has passed the JEOPARDY game show test and has traveled to twenty-five U.S. states, five European countries and seven Caribbean islands. He currently resides in Saugerties, NY.

Book preview

cover.jpg

CLOCKING

INTO HELL

A Novel about life in a factory

EDDIE MASTERS

Copyright © 2022 by Eddie Masters.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/26/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

845150

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

"It’s called the American Dream…’cause

you have to be asleep to believe it."

George Carlin (1937-2008)

Chapter 1

Traveling to the factory on the first day of his new job found Roger Ennis with a myriad of thoughts whizzing through his brain at tachyon speed. Excited at the prospect of making much more money than his previous job, he had no idea what awaited him, nor how long he would be at this new place, nor what it entailed. Channel surfing and coming upon oldies songs playing on his car radio kept him company on the nearly twenty-minute drive to work. Leery thoughts plagued him as well, as he had no idea what he would eventually be doing nor if he would succeed making it past his ninety-day probationary period. Thinking to himself that if he showed up on time every day and took things one day at a time he would have a better chance at making it while pursuing other dreams he had on the side. Otherwise, as he was still in his early twenties, he figured if this didn’t pan out, he could still join the military as they were eager to recruit young men of his age with clean backgrounds and at the very least a high school diploma.

Reporting for duty at work and signing in on his time sheet he would join two other new hires for a day of orientation before being sent to a building that was most in need of new workers as they were going to be ramping up on work hours, which meant that overtime both during the week and on weekends was a real probability, and not just voluntary but mandatory overtime.

Learning basic safety measures such as wearing safety goggles and checking your shoes in for conductivity was a marked contrast to Roger’s previous places of employment, which included general labor and retail. This place manufactured detonators for mining and construction and some buildings even made items for the military. Having government contracts was virtual guaranteed job security Roger would later learn as they always made money even when this company’s commercial products would be slow in sales if the economy happened to be poor at a given time. Roger’s goals were to make and save money, pay off his debts and pay off his usual bills, including car payments and the obscene car insurance payments of nearly $3000 per year he had to make due to the fact he was a young man under the age of 25, despite the fact he had a clean driving record and not only wasn’t he driving a fancy car, but drove a Dodge. You just can’t win, he thought to himself.

Brought down to the building where he would eventually spend over a dozen years of his life, he was introduced to much of the first shift work staff and was given a simple basic task to do for the day, getting him familiar with the product made and how to safely handle it. As he looked around, he saw a good cross section of people; members of his own Generation X, people in their forties and fifties, a couple of African Americans and people who had been in this place since the Eisenhower Administration. That long, Roger thought to himself? Hmph! I’ll only be here a few years tops before I go off and do what I REALLY want to do with my life, even though the pay and benefits here are great, much better than most places in this area. Driving home that day Roger turned on the oldies station and the song Five O’clock World by The Vogues played on the air. Roger smiled to himself as he thought that was a fitting song to drive home to work from especially after his first day on this job.

The two individuals hired the same day as Roger didn’t last a week. They decided this type of job wasn’t for them and they quit. Roger did become good friends with a few others that were hired right after he was; Cliff Nixon, a portly African American man who loved singing, music, guitars and was always in a good mood and longed for the free spirited days of the peace and love 1960’s, Cherie Donnelly, a gorgeous woman a couple of years younger than Roger who looked more like she belonged walking down the aisle of a modeling runway than doing factory work, and Todd Cranmer, a goofy guy who used to address Roger in the same comedic way that Cliff did by calling him Roger, YOU! Cliff also had the Time-Life collection of Mysteries of the Unknown and he and Roger had many a discussion about the topics in those books, particularly the legend of Atlantis.

Getting up early every day was a bit of a challenge to Roger. His previous jobs started around 9 AM at the earliest but this job started at 7:30 AM and was a farther drive away which meant he had to get up at 6:00 AM at the latest. His month on the day shift was a learning experience to say the least and Lorna Bennett, an older lady who’d been employed there for almost twenty years taught him a few pointers. In one particular conversation with Roger, she compared the former plant manager, a man named Barton Hamilton to the current plant manager Dick Bolling. Hamilton was okay, but that Bolling’s a no-good prick! Lorna commented. Roger was thinking at that point and time, Hoo boy, what did I get myself into? I guess I joined here after the good times ended!

By the time he got used to this after a month of training at this place, he was told at a meeting of the building’s staff the Friday before Memorial Day he would be assigned to the dreaded graveyard shift, while Cliff, Cherie and Todd would be assigned to the 4-12 shift. He would find out that the graveyard shift there resembled Halloween in more ways than one.

Going to work at this hour of the night was completely new to Roger, as was some of the motley crew on that shift that he worked with. Does the midnight shift attract the weirdest, ugliest most psycho people on the planet he thought to himself? Sitting on the bench in the men’s locker room putting on his conductive shoes, he was greeted by one of its denizens, a man named Jack Rackham who proceeded to grab him and scream in his face as his unique way to say hello. Having been born and raised for part of his life in the outer boroughs of New York City, Roger was familiar with off the wall individuals and did something which caught Rackham completely off guard; he screamed and yelled right back. Rackham, surprised and amused by this at the same time patted Roger on the shoulder and sounding like he came from the Golden Age of Piracy with his gruff, gravelly voice and rapid-fire delivery told him, You’re alright, buddy! Also looking like he came from that era or to contemporaries looking and acting like a cross between notorious cult leader/murderer Charles Manson and former NFL star Lyle Alzado, Rackham had already gained quite a notorious reputation for himself on the plant; most of the women and about half of the men were deathly afraid of him. Tattooed before it became fashionable, other coworkers said he was a Hell’s Angel wannabe. As time went by Roger would learn how to deal with Rackham and his other coworkers on this shift, in his building and on the plant itself, which when he started employed approximately 450 people.

Roger got to know the other workers much better as time went by, both on this shift and eventually the others. They knew he struggled to stay awake after 3:00 AM as his body then started to shut down. He eventually learned that until he got used to this shift, he would have to washed down Vivarin with Mountain Dew at around that hour, which of course he did. Some of his coworkers like the two mechanics Don Dekuyper and Pete Petulski got along famously with him right away, trading stories about baseball, football, professional wrestling as well as the place they all worked at and all its idiosyncrasies. Though older than Roger by nearly 25 years Don and Roger became good friends as the years went by. Sounding like a cross between John Wayne and the cartoon character Butt-Head, Don was a navy veteran who was low key, devoted to his wife and family yet had a good sense of humor as well. He never learned how to drive a car and he always relied on co-workers for rides to work which was only a few miles from where he lived. Years later Dekuyper admitted to Roger that he was afraid of Rackham as were a good many others on that plant. As the years went by Roger would come to realize Don knew that place for what it was and was always good for a bit of information on what was going on at the plant; firings, quits, transfers, people flunking their drug and alcohol tests, and so forth as well as being a great conversationalist about sports and current events. To top it off Don was also an excellent mechanic and knew how to fix those machines when they malfunctioned.

Originally from New York City, Pete was blond haired bright eyed, always smiling and seemingly in a happy mood. His mechanical skills were not as good as Don’s in part because Don had already been there for nearly 30 years, and Pete had the tendency to be lazy at times but came through when needed. He was also good for a story of the happenings on that plant though at times he had the tendency to exaggerate. Pete was rumored to have had a bit of a shady side as well; heavily tattooed and an attendee of many biker rallies, Petulski was rumored to do both cocaine and alcohol while at work and he was known as the go to guy if you wanted certain things you had to pay monthly fees for free. As the years went by Roger concluded Pete never did anyone else down on the plant dirty though so he never had any reason to be leery of him. One of his good friends and biker buddies on that shift was Ricky Shipley, the quality control worker on midnights. Shipley would be laid off permanently from the Company after a year.

The rest of the staff was a motley crew if ever there was one. Three members of Generation X, two of whom were wearing mullet hairstyles and still in their adolescent phase of development. Roger considered them idiots though as time went by eventually, they all got along. The other normal one of the bunch was named Benny Blades; hyperactive, prone to yelling out outrageous things and karate kicking garbage cans to vent, he had the nickname of surfer boy given his penchant for wearing Ocean Pacific t-shirts. Three of the women who worked there were Stacy Doan, about thirty years old a bit short and squat and notorious for having a whiny, Roseanne Barr sound alike voice and a filthy mouth that would make Andrew Dice Clay blush. She was also reputable for coming up to some guy to talk to them and deliberately rubbing her ample chest against him. Another woman there was Janis Latmas. Older than she appeared she had a long ponytail that reminded her co-workers of the Wednesday Addams character in the old television show The Addams Family. A good worker who would work her fingers to the bone, she nevertheless took no shit from anyone and would tell everyone including management exactly what she thought of them. Indeed, one of the reasons she was on the midnight shift was because of constantly clashing with another employee on the daytime shift who happened to be married to one of the managers there. Then there was Doris Henderson, a bit younger than Roger and whose mother was an old high school classmate of Janis’ and who showed Roger the ropes on what his job entailed and Landra Hill, the team leader who irritated many of the staff for various reasons, some of which were pawning off her work on others, constantly interrupting others’ work so they could help her do her job, and just being too commanding in the way she talked with people. Rounding out the staff were the two managers; Gene Stern, a fifteen-year veteran of the place who was seemingly normal in most ways though sometimes he too would make surprising comments you’d never expect, and Sean Cashdollar, who years earlier worked with Roger’s mother in another place. In the years to come Roger would come to find out that Sean was fired from two previous jobs because of credible accusations of sexual harassment, accusations which would also dog him here and would eventually lead to his dismissal due to a rumored affair with a lower ranking co-worker. No wonder he liked the midnight shift so much Roger remarked to Don Dekuyper years later. Skeleton crew and most of management home asleep in their beds and he’s free to roam and do mostly what he pleases plus he got the shift differential in his paycheck besides.

Summertime was right around the corner and the next few months were almost like a blur. Roger enjoyed the money he was making but the midnight shift was a killer for anyone not used to it even while downing his nightly dose of Vivarin and Mountain Dew. That and the for-the-most-part riff raff he had to work with made him wonder if he was going to make his ninety-day probationary period. Roger’s philosophy was to show up on time, do his job, mind his own business, not get involved in all the bullshit and drama that often goes on in workplaces, and go home. With all of this he was still suspected of being a workplace informant simply because he did those things and he had to deal with that headache on top of everything else. There were also times when raccoons came into the building looking for food. Some people fed them while others threw things at them to chase them from the building. On at least one occasion Benny Blades was bit when he was at the table on his break eating a sandwich when a raccoon walked right up onto the table and tried taking the sandwich out of his hand, biting him in the process. Benny required rabies shots after that. Eventually the raccoons were trapped in non-lethal cages and transferred away from the plant.

Jack Rackham could also be a constant pain in the ass, so Roger just learned to humor him no matter what mood Rackham was in. Rackham had the tendency to be particularly ornery on Monday mornings; he could handle smoking dope and doing drugs, but he couldn’t handle his booze, and Monday morning was the worst day of the week for anyone to deal with him. Once he threw a heavy case of finished detonators at Roger after pretending that he was going to set it on the rolling track. Roger, at about 125 lbs. soaking wet caught it and barely managed not to fall on his backside. At the time Roger was pissed off royally but later he saw the humor in it. Rackham also screamed at Don Dekuyper one Monday morning to FIX THE FUCKIN’ MACHINE!!! at the top of his lungs when it wasn’t working correctly. Still another time he came up behind Janis Latmas and tugged on her long ponytail, upon which she raised her fist and waved it at him, telling him she would punch him if he ever did that again. Another time he came up behind her and grabbed one of her breasts and she really went ballistic, not talking to him for months even though he had been a good friend of her recently departed mother. As scary as Rackham could be to others or as irritating depending on his mood or the substances he was taking into his body, not to mention the fact he’d have been in huge trouble for sexual harassment for letting his hands wander too much if he’d stuck around much longer given the climate of the country at the time, Rackham could also be funny, sometimes unintentionally so. He would often chew tobacco on the job and spit it out into a spit box he had nearby. He would also eat Reese’s peanut butter cups and sardines over the course of a night, laughing about it the whole time like a buccaneer of old, not knowing or caring how horrid his breath smelled due to the combination of tobacco, peanut butter cups and sardines.

One night Rackham asked Roger a question about a mundane subject and Roger knew the answer, which surprised him. Rackham then said to Roger, You’re one sick little mother fucker, you know that? To which Roger replied, So what, Jack? That’s what they said about Charlie Manson! Rackham’s eyes widened and he said with excitement, Charlie Manson! There’s an American hero for ya, buddy! Jack then told Roger that he met Charlie Manson years ago, though he didn’t say when or where. If the story was true, which Roger doubted, he guessed it had to have been in California in the mid to late 60’s before the murders in 1969. Years later Roger told Don Dekuyper this story and he replied, If Rackham says he met Charlie Manson, I believe him! Roger said, If it’s true, something rubbed off, that’s for sure! Another night Janis was ordered by supervisor Sean Cashdollar to help Roger collect the defective detonators produced by the machines during the shift. Rackham was razzing Janis relentlessly about it and Roger was trying his best to keep himself from laughing. Finally, Jack noticed Roger trying to stifle his laugh and yelled out loud enough for everyone on the shift to hear: HE. THINKS. IT’S. FUUUUNNNNNNYYY!!! Finally, Roger busted out laughing, apologizing to Janis as he did.

One night Roger came to work wearing a Spuds McKenzie t-shirt. Jack Rackham noticed and yelled out to Roger, Spuds McKenzie! He fell off a surfboard and got eaten by a shark off Australia!

Jack Rackham. One of the most interesting to say the least, characters Roger would ever meet not only in all his years on that plant but anywhere. He could anger and entertain at the same time even when crossing the line with some of his outrageous language and behavior. Once, one of the midnight shift managers, Sean Cashdollar was telling Rackham about an item that was in the union contract. Rackham had Cashdollar virtually cornered against one of the machines in the building and he yelled at him, What the fuck do you know about what’s in the contract, Cashdollar? Then, BOOM! Punched him in the gut, doubled him over and got away with it to boot. Not only wasn’t he terminated, but he never even got a write up. Rackham also called Roger over to him one night and said, Hey take these scissors. I’ll give ya five bucks if ya cut off Janis’ ponytail! No Jack, I’ll give YOU five bucks if YOU even try! Roger retorted. Janis probably would have severely injured him with a heavy object if he ever did that.

Janis could get very annoyed quite easily at people. Pete Petulski would often go into the office shut the lights and hang out and take a nap while Don Dekuyper did the mechanical work on the machines. One of the reasons he hung out in the office is because it was one of the only rooms in the building that was air conditioned. One day Janis went into the Mechanics Bay and confronted Pete about his slacking off and making Don do all the work. An argument ensued and Janis threw a heavy metallic object at Pete that just barely missed his head. She was reported for it and questioned but nothing came of it. She dodged a possible termination, and it wasn’t the only time she’d throw something at someone down there.

Early one morning one of the day shift mechanics, Hank Gudmensen came in early at 5:30 AM for some overtime. He, Pete Petulski and Jack Rackham all decided to share a bottle of vodka on the job. Everyone in the building heard of it but the only one to report the incident was Sara Mull, who’d been sent to the Manufacturing and Verification Building because she was a loon and a troublemaker wherever else she worked. Everyone else was questioned about it but they all denied knowing anything. The three guys who were drinking knew they had to get rid of the bottle, so Hank Gudmensen decided he was going to throw it into the big dumpster outside. Pete Petulski however knew they’d eventually find it there, so he nixed that idea, demanding, NO! Give me the empty bottle of vodka! He subsequently took a hammer and smashed the bottle into a million pieces, then threw it into the big dumpster so it was now impossible to find.

The next few months of summer went by. Day after day, week after week of machines producing detonators and packing them out in cartons to be shipped out across the country and up into Canada. Some may even had gone overseas. Rote work and sometimes boring, it enabled Roger to save money, pay off a few things and get out of debt while pursuing other dreams he had. Roger passed the time at work by singing, doing voice imitations and telling jokes to his coworkers, entertaining them in the process. One joke he told others thought was funny and it appealed to Petulski the biker.

An old woman walks into a bar where a bunch of Hell’s Angels are hanging out. She walks up to the leader and says to him, Mister, I want to be a Hell’s Angel! He looks down at her and said, Lady you can’t just be a Hell’s Angel, you gotta have certain things and do certain things! She says, Well what do I need and what do I have to do? The Hell’s Angel leader asks, Well, have you got a motorcycle?

Yeah, I’ve got one, she replied

Have you got a black leather jacket? he asked.

Yeah, I’ve got one.

You got any tattoos?

No but I can get one.

Well, have you ever been grabbed by the Fuzz?

She says, No, but I’ve been flung by the tits a few times!

Moments of levity like this always broke up the monotony.

Finally, another worker named Ken Tudwell was hired and he mentioned he wanted to work the midnight shift, so that August he and Roger voluntarily switched with one another. By that time Roger had made his ninety-day probationary period, was back on the day shift, and was able to enjoy at least one month of summer like normal people did, and he was glad. All was right with his world, at least for the time being.

Reporting to the daytime shift on Monday morning, Roger breathed a sigh of relief to himself, thankful he was back living a normal life with normal hours again. Quite a few of his co-workers on this shift had been with the company for many years; indeed at least one of them, a guy named Bert Lafiamma, a thirty-five year veteran of that place who started working there during the first term of the Eisenhower Administration. Roly poly and somewhat humorous in appearance and demeanor he always had a supply of candy nearby and was given the nickname of Kuato by Don Brown, one of the mechanics there due to his resemblance of the character from the movie Total Recall. Then there was Jim Trotta, the team leader on the dayshift who like Don Dekuyper started during the LBJ Administration who also had a friendly air about him and as time went by enjoyed being a ball buster to Roger about various things. His helper was a guy named Matt Schottenheimer, who thanks to his appearance was given the nicknames Papa Smurf, Yukon Cornelius and Yosemite Sam, all cartoon characters. There were the table workers Alice Anderson, an older woman who’d been there nearly 20 years, and Lisa Meister, who’d been there about 5, Jean van Loan and Betty Arionis, two ladies who’d been there five and ten years respectively and pushed out numbers like there was no tomorrow as they got piecework out of the deal, Bobbie Jo Hartman, a somewhat flighty woman who was a decent worker but also prone to doing off the wall things, Sara Mull, an older woman who was hired a month before Roger who was also a table worker and seemed cool at one point but Roger would find out had among other things delusions of reality, as well as the other machine operators namely Stu Bassett who’d been there 8 years, Elsie Lincoln who’d been there five, Tadeusz Majkowski whom everyone called Ted who’d been there for seven years, Kara Dombrowski, a cute short blonde who almost everyone adored and who’d been there for six years, and Mike Svensen who’d been hired just two months before Roger, as well as John Arionis who was Betty’s husband and one of the supervisors on the day shift. There were a few floaters who also helped the operators out, one named Gene Newton who was roughly the size of the old pro wrestler Haystacks Calhoun, Lorna Bennett, an early 60 something woman who’d been there for nearly 20 years and who was a bit loud and daffy who often ran a spooling machine with Ted, and Korey Fleischmann, who brought the detonators to the building and had a penchant for saying outrageous things to people as he had no filters. The three mechanics were Tully Smart, who’d been there for 25 years and had been demoted from the lead mechanics job not too long before Roger got there as thanks to a sexual harassment offense, Abe Mattea, a squat dumpy guy who was a classic type A personality and loved telling silly jokes, Hank Gudmundsen, another mechanic who’d been there many years and was married to Marie who was one of the supervisors on the day shift, and Dan MacArthur, the building manager and another longtime employee who was an Army veteran and Green Beret and who soon was replaced by Walt Hennessy, who’d been both a supervisor and engineer down there and was an all-around good guy respected and well-liked by just about all. Topping off the shift was the quality control member assigned to the building, Jake Hill, a dark-haired mustachioed guy who had a loud, sharp voice, was very opinionated and a huge fan of the NHL’s New York Rangers and the NFL’s New York Giants and married to the midnight shift leader Landra Hill. Roger would come to find out about many of the people who worked down there thanks to Jake, the good, the bad, and the ugly as well as some of the dumb policies they had.

Another young guy they hired just after Roger was a goofball by the name of Bob Remini. He had the face of a clown and a California stoner type voice. In a year’s time he bid out of M&V and went on the Maintenance Crew.

Roger continued to work the same on the day shift as he had on midnights. There was much more work for him to check out and audit for possible defects and other mistakes, but he also benefitted from the veteran workers who been there for many years and gave him tips on what to look out for that most people might miss and to alert the machine operators ASAP. Roger also helped the table workers pack out their products, notably spooled wired detonators and rework which was work that had to be fixed due to a correctible defect, as well as making sure all the dates and codes on each one of the cartons was the same. Roger learned how to pace himself until the first break at 9:30, lunchtime to 12, second break at 2:30 and quitting time at 3:55. Each day got progressively