Feet shuffled past the pink 63 Chevy, through the gate and into Roundly's. Waldo's feet was among 'em. All the boots made sounds, but the people in them didn't. There was some unwrit rule you had to be as miserable as sin before the siren sounded. These was folks that resented their lives being interrupted by work. They ignored each other till they was forced to be workmates.
Waldo looked at faces he'd been seeing all his life. They'd started off as little round red faces, then went through being pimply, then smooth, then hairy, till they ended up miserable, no-hope faces walking to Roundly's like they was walking to reckoning day. He remembered his grandma telling him how every time you smile at someone and they don't smile back, a bird drops out the sky.
Thirty-eight years ago he tried to smile at everyone in the morning but them faces stayed sour as unwashed milk cartons. So thirty-eight years ago he stopped smiling too. There was too few birds in the sky as it was.
After 7 you might get the odd grin. That's when folk's engines kicked in like old VW vans on cold mornings. Once they started being sociable there was the chance of a conversation or two. But don't you go confusing 'sociable' with 'friendly'. Weren't really no-one on friendly terms at Roundly's. Best buddies arriving at the plant together was likely to be knifing each other by the third week. It was just that kind of place. Some said it was the ball fumes.
Waldo got more bad feeling than most. It wasn't cause he was a nasty person. He was probably the nicest guy at Roundly's. It wasn't cause he was black. He'd been around so long, most people had forgot what color he was (and we'll get on to colour later). Only young punks passing through town tried the 'nigger' thing on him. But they didn't last long at Roundly's. No-one with the initiative to be racist could survive the mind-numbing work at that damn factory.
Waldo had been there since his 27th birthday. He'd done every job in the plant. He knew the habits of every bit of machinery and, you can't take it away from the guy, he could tell you the weight of a pool ball just by looking at it. With all his experience and patience, old Mr. Roundly's alcoholic daughter had no hesitation, or choice, but to name him Quality Control Officer (that's QCO). A position he'd held for seventeen years.
Well, I guess from what you've heard so far, you'd of worked out that the word 'quality' and the word 'Roundly's' ain't exactly kissing cousins. Wasn't nobody in Mattfield could have took the responsibility of being QCO as serious as Waldo did. He didn't let you get away with nothing shoddy. Roundly's probably lasted as long as it did thanks to Waldo. But it didn't make him the most popular guy there. Why would you want to make a billiard ball round when you get paid the same for making it egg-shaped?
Waldo wasn't nothing if he wasn't dedicated. Roundly's owed him a lot. But there comes a time for all men great and small to reach the end of their careers, and Waldo was two months away from making the workers at Roundly's real happy.
-o-
Waldo carried his belly over to his locker like he was a few days away from giving birth to a medicine ball. He'd had the gut for so long he couldn't imagine being without it. But recently he'd started to notice something about his health. He didn't have none. He'd eaten junk all his life and turned into a big piece of junk himself. He couldn't breath good cause of the lard around his lungs. He was tuckered out just walking the six blocks to work. But he was gonna get in shape for his retirement, starting real soon.
Stage one was diet. Into his locker he put two very long peanut butter and honey sandwiches - baguettes they call 'em - six bananas, four Snickers bars and two cans of Coke. The bananas was his idea. He figured once he got used to them, he could cut down, maybe even leave out the Snickers. The honey was Jessie Jackson's idea. In his wilder, less knowledgeable days, Waldo would of plastered jelly on his sandwich. But he heard the reverend on the wireless once saying that jelly was just fruit coloring soaked in sugar for a month. He convinced half the black mid-west that this was another white plot to incapacitate the colored masses.
So, Waldo, not wanting to be incapacitated for Judgement Day, switched to honey.Honey was after all 100% pure natural sugar with no artificial flavoring or additives. It did concern him for some time that it was pretty much just bee sick, but that was an obstacle he managed to climb over.
He took the industrial goggles and gloves out of the locker and locked it.
"Two more months," he said under his breath. "61 days, 9 1/2 hours, 33 minutes and it'll all be over." He wondered what the people at the resort in Lerdo de Tejada was doing right that minute. Probably not even up yet. Probably sleep to 7:30 or something crazy like that. Go burro-back riding before breakfast. What a life. Them burros was so close he could almost smell them.
But it turned out to be B.O. Bulokavic standing behind him.
"Move your fat arse Waldo."
"Sure, B.O."
On Mondays Bulokavic didn't stink so bad as other days. Rumour had it he even took a shower at weekends, least got close enough to soap to make a difference. Sure if you couldn't get closer 'n handshaking distance on a Monday, you never would all week. He had himself a wife at home. You're probably asking yourself how she could of stood all that stinking. Tell the truth she didn'tknow he smelt bad on account of her not having a nose. Serious.
Seems she got caught in her papa's lawn mower when she was a littl'un. It mashed her head up something horrible. They hurried her off to the hospital in South Bend and the doctors there did a pretty worthy job of stitching her back together. But there weren't nothing they could do about her nose. They reckon the chickens must of got it. So they just plugged the hole and sent her home.
She come out of it looking okay, if you don't think noses are important for looks. At high school she noticed B.O. He was a good-looking boy and she couldn't understand why the girls stayed away from him. She figured B.O was his initials. Getting wed suited the both of them. At the ceremony, B.O. read a poem he'd writ. The line everyone recalls went;
'Between her eyes and headin south, ain't nothin till you reach her mouth."
It was real pretty that. But I'm letting myself get side slapped here. This book ain't about B.O. It's about Waldo. Good story though, eh?