Arnie's old man worked the second shift on the line, standing eight to ten hours a day fixing roll bar after roll bar to one four-door chassis after the next. It wasn't a job with a lot of variety, but he wasn't the sort of man who needed much of that. The job kept him and Arnie and Arnie's mom fed, clothed, and under a roof, and that was enough. Some thousand-odd times each day, the pneumatic drill sped up to however many RPMs and back with a sound like an overgrown kazoo, and it was from a couple decades of that happening, what made Arnie's old man go a bit hard of hearing.
Arnie walked to school and sat up at the front, because he wasn't much of a reader and it helped to keep close up. He was doing a times table and counting up sixes on his fingers when something struck him in the back of the head. He yelped with surprise and forgot his math problem.
"I saw that!" said Mrs. Carver. "Now you get up here, and you give me that pea shooter!"
Tanner Edwards stood up slowly and walked over, glowering.
"You're sitting in the corner for the rest of the day, mister." She walked over to Tanner's desk and began moving it towards the wall.
Tanner looked at Arnie like it was Arnie's fault Tanner had shot him. Arnie looked down, at his workbooks, at the numbers. He tried to think of how many times to add sixes together to get forty two. The numbers blinked out as Tanner's fist crashed into the side of his head. Arnie jumped out of his seat and tackled him.
Mrs. Carver turned around, pushed her cat-eye glasses up to the bridge of her nose, and sighed at the fracas.
The principal looked at Arnie, who sat fidgeting, counting the tacks in the fringe of the leather-upholstered armrest. Arnie counted 'one, two, three' in his head, 'one, two, three' so many times he didn't know how many.
"I've called your father," said the principal, "but there's no answer. His work number, as well, to no avail. Hard to get a working man on the line, it would seem. Foreman doesn't think it's fair to use up his break minutes before their time." He touched the corner of his moustache. "Look at me, Arnold." Arnie did as he was told. "Mrs. Carver tells me you hit that Edwards boy. Bloodied up his nose. And I know he hit you first, but that doesn't mean I can just call it settled and done." Arnie looked at the principal's shiny forehead and said nothing. "Now, seeing as you live within six blocks of the schoolhouse, the rules allow that I can send you home as a disciplinary measure in accordance with what's laid out as appropriate for this situation. Can I send you home, Arnold?" The principal leaned forward and raised his eyebrows. Arnie sat up straight. He looked around, then looked at the principal and nodded.
When he walked out the door and far enough on that nobody was watching, he decided he didn't want to go home. He wanted to see his dad, and to sit in the car, and to hear the few words of advice he knew his old man would have about this. "Bullies are like balloons," his old man had said before, "they look real big until you pop 'em." Well, he'd popped Tanner Edwards, now what? Arnie walked along the dirt path towards the automotive factory. He knew where there was a part of the fence to climb over, and the big bay doors that were always open during the day. He knew where to find his old man.
The factory floor hummed with machinery and the sounds of labor. Pounding engines running and stamping sheet metal forms, pneumatic this and that whistling and the staccato shot of spot riveters all came together in a kind of harmony that made Arnie's young heart lift up with joy. He sat down near the door and looked at the grassy field and the sun-filled sky outside, and then to the working men and the enormous machines, the sparks and motion that lay further in, every part of it alive with rhythm, with purpose. He wanted to be a part of it, to make this music every day. That was it, he thought. He was through with school. He'd had enough of school.
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