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Read Ebook: All Day Wednesday by Olin Richard Schelling George Illustrator
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Ebook has 161 lines and 7307 words, and 4 pages
"No."
"Well, what's it about?"
"About a guy who thinks he might commit suicide."
"Yes." Jory turned a page.
"No. No sex or nothing."
Ernie laughed. "Well, it sounds pretty stale to me."
Jory sighed and gave up reading. He put the book down. "No, it isn't stale. The book does depress me, though." He pushed it to one side.
His eyes traveled around the cafeteria; he thought for a moment then said: "Do you ever get the feeling, Ernie, that your life has gotten stuck? That you are just going round and round, caught in one single groove--that you just repeat the same scene, day after day?"
Ernie shook his head. "Nah. I never feel like that."
"I do. I get to feeling it bad, sometimes. Why do you suppose that is, Ernie?"
Ernie considered the question for a moment. "Well," he said helpfully, "it might mean you're cracking up."
Jory laughed. "Thanks. But when I need an analyst I'll go out and hire one. No, I think I feel that way because life has somehow become a lot more futile than it need be."
Ernie shrugged and let it go. He wiped the last trace of spaghetti sauce from his plate. Jory got funny moods--probably because he read so much, Ernie suspected--but he was a good man. All the guys in the plant figured Jory for a regular guy. He liked to read some pretty funny books, but so what? It was his eyesight, wasn't it?
Ernie remembered something else. "Hey," he said to Jory as he lit a cigarette, "Harrigan over in the tool room told me that you write stories. That right?"
"Yeah. But I don't have as much time for it as I once did."
"You ought to stay home nights like I do. Then you'd have time." Ernie paused and added piously, "It makes you sharper on the job, too."
Jory started to laugh but caught it in time. He worked on the line next to Ernie, and had witnessed the foul-up this morning. He said, "What do you do until bedtime? Watch TV?"
"Every night. Boxing is good on Fridays. Monday night ain't so hot. Wednesday, tonight, will be good. Lots of Westerns.
"You ought to try it. Come to think of it you look sort of tired. You shouldn't go out drinking week nights."
Jory shrugged. "Maybe I will try it. What are your favorite programs?"
Ernie told him.
"Say," Ernie asked, "do you make any money writing stories?"
"Once in awhile. If I sell the story I'm working on now, I think I'll lay off for a couple of months and get a cabin down in Mexico. The fishing will be good at Vera Cruz--" He stopped and frowned. "No. I guess I won't. I can't."
"Why can't you?"
"Something I forgot. Never mind."
"No," Ernie persisted, "you were saying--"
"Forget it."
"Oh, I get it. You're afraid to lay off because they might not hire you back?"
"Nuts. There's always some place that is hiring. You'd be surprised at some of the jobs I've had, Ernie." He grinned. "As far as that goes, I might get laid off here before I want to go."
"What makes you say that?"
"Look around you. How many men are working today?"
Now that his attention was called to it, Ernie glanced around the cafeteria. Normally, it was packed during the lunch hour. Today, it was less than three-quarters full.
"So? Some of the guys are out sick, that's all."
"There won't be much work this afternoon. We got most of it out this morning."
"It's some new bug. Like that flu thing last winter." But Ernie's voice, as he said it, was defensive. In Ernie's book, a layoff was a bad thing.
Inside, Ernie's mind began to calculate the possibilities. It was a thing Ernie's mind always did when it was confronted with the unexpected. His mind didn't like to work, but Ernie liked the unforeseen even less.
It was unlikely that the entire plant would be shut down. In that case what supervisors would want him to stay on? He ran through the list of his superiors and immediately came to Rogers.
Ernie winced. After this morning, Rogers would post him for the layoff for sure. He could take it to the union, but--Ernie stopped and looked suspiciously at Jory.
He looked around the cafeteria again. The tables on the edges of the floor were deserted and empty. To Ernie's eyes it suddenly looked as if the men who were eating had purposely gathered so they could be close together. They sat with their backs hunched, turned on the empty spaces behind them.
Even the noise, compared to the usual din of the cafeteria, seemed to be different. It echoed and fell flat. Ernie didn't like it. He felt funny. The overly familiar cafeteria had suddenly become strange.
A feeling began to grow in him that, somehow, the cafeteria was wrong. "It ... looks funny," he said.
Jory became alert. "What looks funny?"
"I don't know ... the room."
"What's wrong with the room?" Jory bent over. His eyes were intent, but his voice stayed low. He spoke with great care.
"I ... don't know. It looks funny. Empty. Older. No, wait--" And the feeling was gone. Ernie shook his head. It was the old, crowded and not too clean cafeteria, again.
He turned to Jory. "Well, they better not! I was out of work six months on the last layoff." He paused and marshaled a last, telling argument: "I can't afford it!"
Ernie said grumpily, "I don't like 'mights'. Why can't they leave a man alone and let him do his work? Why do they gotta--"
Jory stood up and grinned. "Come on, Ernie. What do you need money for? I mean, other than to keep up the payments on your TV?"
Ernie rose. "Don't be such a guy," he grumbled. "We better get back. If I come in late from lunch, I've had it."
It was a quarter of a mile across the plant yard to where they worked. They walked in silence for the first few yards. Ernie thought his own thoughts and listened to the sound of their feet on the gravel.
Presently, Jory said, "Ernie, you watch the fights. Do you remember back when they had the Rico-Marsetti bout?"
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