The cursor pulses hot green against the black terminal. A few quick taps execute the script. I watch the simulation unfold on the screen. Then, a stocatto barrage of keystrokes: Simulation number 39…no change from 38…The pX protein displays kinetics suggesting diffusion as the primary mechanic of nucleus traversal. In the presence of DNA breaks the molecular kinetics change and the molecule activates a cascade catalyzing repair complex formation…
I stop and lean back in the creaky lab chair. I interlace my fingers behind my skull, sigh deeply and consider the ceiling.
We travel by Buick leaving suburban safety behind. The car pulls into the reserved spot, “For management only”, it reads. My father and I step out and walk toward the building. I’m 12 years old and going to work.
It takes 40 seconds to walk from car seat to factory entrance. As we walk my brain floods with feelings, ideas and a hell of a lot of confusion. I look up as I walk. The single-story white house-looking facade masks the hum of activity happening in the subterranean city-block - the tip of an iceberg.
I’m the only kid here. That’s the most obvious difference. I’m also not here because I need to support my family. To say I want to be here is a stretch, but it’s my choice. This was the best solution available to the question, “What will you do with your summer?”. I was acting partially in response to my loathing of suburban comfort. And I didn’t fit in with any obvious groups at school, or have any real friends, so I wasn’t missing out on much. I resented - in a fuzzy way - what my peer groups were doing with their families (fancy camps, country clubs) and wanted none of it. This was my mild form of protest. No, I come from workers. I want to get my hands dirty. I’ve orbited this place in a strange gravity since I was a toddler. It’s time to go in and explore.
But the biggest difference is that my grandfather built this place. What once was a hollowed textile mill is now one of the largest metallizing & electroplating factories in America. Dizzying numbers of pieces [think: coat hangers, lighting fixtures, reflectors, toy trophies, handles, thermos caps, cosmetic tubes, furniture knobs, bottle caps, computer logos] processed each week. It’s fitting this work on seldom considered parts should happen in a subterranean shop by anonymous souls.
On the walk over I get a slight vertigo as my life roles go to war. It feels like a barrage of call-and-response volleys, each one starts in my head with a taunting but earnest “who am I?”, which then meets with a gut punch: (1) grandson of the revered/feared ‘Nat’, holder of patents, president of the Electroplaters society, war hero, iron-fisted leader of this place; (2) son of the lead engineer; (3) sheltered private school nerd coming to see how the other side lives (my personal feedback spiral in which I thought about what I thought they were thinking about me); (4) Scrawny Jew?; (5) golden boy, quick to learn (6) loser, working for $9/hour instead of enjoying my summer and making friends (7) …
We approach the men standing outside. They drink Dunkin Donuts coffee and smoke cigarettes. I have no idea what they’re talking about, might as well be a foreign language. It’s 5:05am, a cool start to what I can already tell will be a balmy June day in Rhode Island.
We enter the heavy glass doors with a strong pull. I always go fast so I’m the puller, not sure why it matters to me but it does more than it should. A neutral beige carpet dominates the lobby and it’s totally silent. Our entrance via this doorway identifies us as separate. The guys outside enter via larger doors directly onto the shop floor. Upstairs is for executives and their secretaries. I see paper, computers, desks and offices.
As I head downstairs I’m conflicted. I feel uneasy because in lineage I’m a part of the upstairs world with its higher pay and less muscular work. Is it laziness or entitlement? But in practice I spend my time downstairs, that’s what I know better. Despite the knots in my stomach there’s something intriguing about the upstairs. On the shop floor I can understand the changes to a piece of plastic and the work a machine or a worker performed on it. But it’s harder to connect the upstairs with a tangible output. That intrigues me. I don’t know that I could ever make sense of this type of complexity.
If I were more inclined toward taxonomies - as a butterfly collector - the fastest way to sort the people here would be by looking at the hands [callouses, palm lines/finger prints etched with dark stains: downstairs], [clean palms: upstairs]. But then I realize this isn’t quite right. My father’s palms have always been calloused and etched in grease, it’s as natural to me as his ‘M’ shaped pattern baldness. I don’t know where he fits. By extension I have no idea where I fit either. Am I a downstairs or an upstairs person?
We head down through a dark wooden door that leads to the stairwell. The pathway is so narrow that it feels like a secret passage. Circular lilly pads extruded from the maroon rubber cover the stairs (for grip on rainy days, I wonder)? The long stairwell ends in 5 dangling and overlapped clear heavy plastic panels, like in a large grocery freezer section meant to trap the cold air. I see it as an airlock separating the outside world from a metallic jungle.
I take a large step through and bounce on the floor. The heavy steel sheets that make up the floor here are about 4 feet to a side and bowed with tension (like holding the edges of an index card between thumb and forefinger). I peer a moment at the gaps between them and wonder a moment what’s below. I explore my new powers, bouncing a bit higher with each step. It’s not quite Armstong on the moon, but that’s how I feel. The springy energy transfers through my hard-soled boots, propelling me along my y-axis. Industrial bouncing: absently I file this away as a good use of the term, “paradox”. Awe fills me as I wonder how a person could build a world so different, so complicated, and wondrous. As I walk I feel like I’m on a safari, new sights around each corner.
The vapors are overwhelming. It’s hot in here and the noxious paint fumes mix with other harsh industrial chemicals, degreasers and masculine morning routines (aftershave, hair gel and occasional foreign bodyodor). It’s loud too. Beeping machines and timers seem to direct people. Men shout orders to each other over the background noise. Tinny, high-pitched intercom vibrations rise above all else and bounce off the metallic surfaces. “Manny 62346, Manny 62346”. Click! Phones are strategically placed around the factory, physical addresses describing this maze. The message is a catenation of location + person.
Even I, the new guy, can tell who the most essential people are. I keep a small checkered black and white notebook in my backpocket ($0.49 at CVS). I don’t know when I started this habit but it’s been one since I remember. I quantify respect simplistically as the frequency of names called over the intercom. Top of the list, on a dedicated page, is ‘Moti’, my father. The next name down the list is not even close. That’s a source of pride for me. He knows every bit of machinery. In fact, he’s conceived most of them himself. I think a moment about how this pride relates with the idea of respect, then on a new page I write - Respect has two parts: (1) earning it, then (2) using it. The former is highly specific to the group code, like a mating dance…
I refine the idea and continue scribbling: a) it should be obvious to an outside observer by watching the group dynamics, b) you can get things from your own group with it. My imagination wanders to the time I saw my father dealing with a hard problem on a machine that stumped him and another engineer. He signalled me and we walked upstairs together. He had a quick chat behind a wall with someone in whispers - the upstairs is always quiet, even when things break. I hang nervously in a corner, drinking alone from a slippery conical paper cup I drew from the stack on the water cooler. Five minutes later he shoots me a glint with his eye and we head back to work. The following day I notice a swarm of men at the site fixing the intractable problem. Respect in action.
Hmm, I think, he earns respect downstairs then transfers it upstairs. To my list I add:c) you can get things from other groups with it.
We stop in the middle of this meteallic jungle. My father confers with Joe D., the foreman who seems to run several areas here, judging by the number of people coming to him for instructions (and he’s 4th on my list). They will decide who could use an extra pair of low-skill hands for the next 6 hours. I have no say in the decision but that doesn’t matter. My small body fills with a giddy excitement as I wait - a new day, a new world to explore.
This is the moment of anticipation when my curiosity peaks. Every work area has it’s own unique culture. Some of the immediate questions: would the room have posters on the wall with bakini-clad females behind a tool chest (they allow this?)? Would there be a radio, and if so would it be playing modern rock, oldies? Would there be wise-cracking bantor between the guys, seriousness or just silence? Would there be a window*?
Joe turns to me and asks if I’d like to do some welding today. “Definitely!” I proclaim, more excited than intimidated though both are present in ample proportion. We start walking down the large walkway through various work areas. I’ve spent days in some of them while others remain mysteries for another day.
We pass by the immersion baths. We’ve always walked past this area but today, for whatever reason, we step up and walk through it directly. This is where parts get dipped into different sequences of liquid to impart color, texture and etc. My father points out some features he finds interesting as we walk. The baths sit elevated atop large areas of palates arranged in circular patterns. Large muscular black men dominate this area. They lift large racks of metal and dunk them, assisted by some crane-like machines, into baths described by opaque white plexiglass material filled with colored solutions: tourquoise, rust, algae or clear. I look to the bottom of one tub curious if light would travel through them and think how beautiful - like colorful poisonous National Geographic frogs. A wave of lightheadedness comes over me and I resist passing out by smelling the concentrated solvents. No matter the size of the biceps under white t-shirts - and most are large - I can’t imagine how a person stays here all day. I looked down at my shoes walking above the slotted wooden palettes, noticing solvent drips sinking into the unfinished wood.
I notice this particular detail as I drift to the time my grandfather went to a competitor’s liquidation event. They were selling all the equipment as they were going out of business. He bought nothing but offered to take their wooden throwaway palettes. One less thing to clear out they figured so they gave them to him. He distilled out the gold drippings that had absorbed into the soft wood and made a mini fortune from that insight. Magic. I whip out my notebook: “respect comes over time in seeing what others miss”.
My father and I exit the wooden area and move down a familiar corridor but turn a corner toward an alley I hadn’t seen before. Staccato blue electricity rips the air, illuminating the otherwise dark room. Instinctively I cover my ears as we approach. We enter the shop and I notice a man covering his face with a black mask. I look down to avoid, what, blindness? The lightning stops. I unseal palms from my ears. Still silent. I look up. The man slides the mask above his head and inspects his work by eye. A pause. he looks over, then.
“Moti. How are you. Who is this?” he asks in a loud voice, looking at me. Everyone shouts down here, independent of context. “This is my son. He’ll be helping you today. Please put him to work. If he misbehaves you know where to find me.” A laugh. “Sure thing”. He turns to me. “Ok kid, you got a name?”. He extends a giant hand and we shake. “Hi… Ari”, I managed. “Let’s have some fun.” He said. My name is “Big Bird”. I didn’t ask him why they called him that. But this frames my focus as he does resemble an ostrich with his curly blond hair and large glasses. I associated him with Sesame Street.
We move over to a large metallic table with some steel rectangles on it. BB hands me an extra mask and set of thick gloves. I put them on while he grabs the welding handle and gestures that I should watch him. I slide on the mask and see only black and think I’ve done something wrong. Then he starts it up and I see the fire tracing a line through the thick sliver of black glass. I hear the welding but it doesn’t bother me as when I couldn’t see it. I watch, hypnotized, as he connects pieces of metal to one another. It seems so basic to attach one piece of metal to another. He hands me the handle and I notice it’s attached to a large tank (“oxygen”). I depress the trigger and a thin silver filament extends like a snake’s tongue. When I touch it to the steel it will electrify and melt, combining the desired parts.
For the next hours I slip into a sense of freedom as I master this technique. My weld lines progress nicely from globular to smooth and even to well proportioned lines. The key is filament progression vs. snake-handle movement rates. It’s not hard, just requires practice. My fingers internalize the feeling.
A deep peace overcomes me. Completed racks stack one onto the next on the table. There’s a satisfaction I derive from manipulating steel that I never would have considered but now seems obvious. I’ve always seen metal as a hard/permanent/immutable material and yet here I was, having my way with it. This is power I think. At some point I notice an industrial-grade dolly for me to load up with these steel rectangles. A man returns once they’re loaded up and rolls steel tonnage with ease across the metallic floors (aha! The metal flooring helps these cages roll!). Out comes the notebook: the manipulation of steel is power….
“So what do you like to do kid?”, BB asks. I look up. “Not sure. I kind of like working with my hands.” I say. “Nah”, he cuts in, “you got better things coming, kid. You don’t want to be like me, or these guys. Look at us”. I cringe inside, as he stabs my relative privilege like a dagger. Damage control - I wasn’t ready to admit (to anyone) that I wanted to do science - that would just add a layer of difference, too high-falutent. I’d never bridge the gap. Engineering seemed like a good middle-ground for connection. “I mean that I like to build things” I said. “That’s good, kid” he said.
A loud buzz shakes me - my timer. I stare at the blinking cursor. I sit back up and continue working.
*I hate windows here. They threaten my excitement by showing me something better and reveal the flaws in this place, in my own thinking. The green shrubbery that Pawtucket in summer offers titillates me (with fantasies of playing ball, bar-b-que, summer love) in ways that become infinitely more agitating than the fumes and noises - to those at least I can acclimate. But I can never adjust to the juxtaposition of fantasy vs. industry. It’s one or the other. To have both simultaneously introduces a small tear in an otherwise nicely sealed working-is-great summer worldview. Windows here fill me with cold anxiety for all I’m missing out on. No tweleve year old should be doing these jobs. I should be having fun with kids my own age, and etc.