Invisible man - Ralph Ellison [77]
"All right," he said. "I'm a busy man. What you want?"
"I'm looking for Lucius," I said.
He frowned. "That's me -- and don't come calling me by my first name. To you and all like you I'm Mister Brockway . . ."
"You . . . ?" I began.
"Yeah, me! Who sent you down here anyway?"
"The personnel office," I said. "I was told to tell you that Mr. Sparland said for you to be given an assistant."
"Assistant!" he said. "I don't need no damn assistant! Old Man Sparland must think I'm getting old as him. Here I been running things by myself all these years and now they keep trying to send me some assistant. You get on back up there and tell 'em that when I want an assistant I'll ask for one!"
I was so disgusted to find such a man in charge that I turned without a word and started back up the stairs. First Kimbro, I thought, and now this old . . .
"Hey! wait a minute!"
I turned, seeing him beckon.
"Come on back here a minute," he called, his voice cutting sharply through the roar of the furnaces.
I went back, seeing him remove a white cloth from his hip pocket and wipe the glass face of a pressure gauge, then bend close to squint at the position of the needle.
"Here," he said, straightening and handing me the cloth, "you can stay 'til I can get in touch with the Old Man. These here have to be kept clean so's I can see how much pressure I'm getting."
I took the cloth without a word and began rubbing the glasses. He watched me critically.
"What's your name?" he said.
I told him, shouting it in the roar of the furnaces.
"Wait a minute," he called, going over and turning a valve in an intricate network of pipes. I heard the noise rise to a higher, almost hysterical pitch, somehow making it possible to hear without yelling, our voices moving blurrily underneath.
Returning, he looked at me sharply, his withered face an animated black walnut with shrewd, reddish eyes.
"This here's the first time they ever sent me anybody like you," he said as though puzzled. "That's how come I called you back. Usually they sends down some young white fellow who thinks he's going to watch me a few days and ask me a heap of questions and then take over. Some folks is too damn simple to even talk about," he said, grimacing and waving his hand in a violent gesture of dismissal. "You an engineer?" he said, looking quickly at me.
"An engineer?"
"Yeah, that's what I asked you," he said challengingly.
"Why, no, sir, I'm no engineer."
"You sho?"
"Of course I'm sure. Why shouldn't I be?"
He seemed to relax. "That's all right then. I have to watch them personnel fellows. One of them thinks he's going to git me out of here, when he ought to know by now he's wasting his time. Lucius Brockway not only intends to protect hisself, he knows how to do it! Everybody knows I been here ever since there's been a here -- even helped dig the first foundation. The Old Man hired me, nobody else; and, by God, it'll take the Old Man to fire me!"
I rubbed away at the gauges, wondering what had brought on this outburst, and was somewhat relieved that he seemed to hold nothing against me personally.
"Where you go to school?" he said.
I told him.
"Is that so? What you learning down there?"
"Just general subjects, a regular college course," I said.
"Mechanics?"
"Oh no, nothing like that, just a liberal arts course. No trades."
"Is that so?" he said doubtfully. Then suddenly, "How much pressure I got on that gauge right there?"
"Which?"
"You see it," he pointed. "That one right there!"
I looked, calling off, "Forty-three and two-tenths pounds."
"Uh huh, uh huh, that's right." He squinted at the gauge and back at me. "Where you learn to read a gauge so good?"
"In my high-school physics class. It's like reading a clock."
"They teach you that in high school?"
"That's right."
"Well, that's going to be one of your jobs. These here gauges have to be checked every fifteen minutes. You ought to be able to do that."
"I think I can," I said.
"Some kin, some caint. By the way, who hired you?"
"Mr. MacDuffy," I said, wondering why all the questions.
"Yeah, then where you been all morning?"