The Morning the Whole Plant Stood Outside

I opened the door. Marge was at the wheel with her hair in curlers under a scarf. Sal sat beside her in his mask, a yellow hard hat in his lap and his dented steel thermos between his knees. He rolled down the window.

“Get your hard hat,” he said.

“My what?”

“Your hat, Dwayne. It’s in that box.”

“Sal, I don’t work there.”

“Humor me.”

I dug mine out of the box on the hall table. Renata stood at the foot of the stairs in her robe, and I noticed she had her good coat on underneath it, and a stadium blanket over her arm.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m following in my own car,” she said. “I said we’d call Tuesday. I never said who.”

I got into the back of the Buick with the hard hat on my knee, and Marge backed out of the drive without a word.

It was four miles into Tilden, clear and bitterly cold, 31 degrees by the bank sign. We passed Dot’s Corner Cafe, which doesn’t open until 6, with every light blazing.

Then we came around the bend by the feed store, and I saw the plant.

Every light in it was on. The lot was nearly full, and cars were parked on the grass and down both shoulders of Mill Street. But nobody was inside. The bay doors were shut, the presses were dark, and through the front windows I could see the empty time clock.

And on the sidewalk along the fence, shoulder to shoulder, stood the people.

I counted later with Lou. 54 people who worked at Hartwell stood on that sidewalk in the cold, some of them straight off third shift. They held their cups and their hard hats. Not one of them had punched in.

And behind them, out into the street, was a good part of Tilden.

Dot Mayfield from the cafe had set up a folding table with two big coffee urns and a stack of doughnuts. Pastor Dave stood with Father Mike from St. Anne’s, both saying nothing, which for those two is a feat. Orville Tate from the feed store had come with two farmers in coveralls. A deputy named Wade Prather sat in his cruiser at the end of the block, and Nan Collier from the Tilden Courier stood on a bumper with her camera.

Marge stopped the Buick at the curb. Sal opened his door a crack and stayed put, and Marge came around and tugged his mask straight over his nose.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re fine when I say you’re fine. The heater stays on until you’re needed.”

My legs didn’t want to hold me. Benny Dunn came across the sidewalk with his hard hat in his hand, and I saw his eyes were red.

“I told you not to,” I said, and my voice came out thin.

“I know you did.” He shrugged. “I was on the floor at four, Dwayne. Third shift, hand to hand, every man. Don’t punch out, don’t punch in, meet at the fence. Then I stood at the lot gate and told first shift as they pulled in. Tammy did the wives and the second shift. Nobody listened to you. You gave us a lot of practice.”

Lou Brandt stepped up next, 61 years old, built like a fire hydrant, home from Kentucky and not slept. He shook my hand with both of his. He had a blue binder under his arm, the contract, and a page from the company’s own handbook folded open with a paragraph highlighted in yellow.

“Article 14 and page 41,” he said. “Don’t thank me. Thank Benny, and Tammy, and the church ladies.”