Clyde Short:

As unkind as it is to say, Clyde Short was ugly. His name did not fit him any better than the baggy overalls or plaid shirt that drooped down his frame as though his shoulders were mere coat hangers. He was a long six feet tall, meaning he was a fraction of an inch over six feet from head to toe. He was as thin as a rail, bug eyed, buck toothed and jug eared. He also had a protruding adam’s apple that bobbed when he spoke. His gauntness made his larger than average hands and feet look gigantic. His uncle Charley said he looked like something from the bone yard. Even his mother said there was no way to pretty him up. Furthermore, his clothes and his slow drawl made him appear to be every bit the country bumpkin.

Times were hard. His folks did not need his mouth to feed. They did not need the model A Ford either. So he paid what he could afford to pay for the car and headed west. His destination was California. He really wanted to see the ocean, and he understood that folks were doing pretty well in that state. He literally worked his way across the country, picking up whatever odd jobs he could find to pay for the gasoline and a meal now and then. This was not easy because people were always reluctant to hire such a scarecrow. Somehow he managed. He arrived at Long Beach dead broke.

Hal Birch had a machine shop. His business had barely survived the worst of the depression, but things were looking up. There was a war in Europe and lend lease was allowing the allies to buy more war materials from the U.S. Hal seized the opportunity. He converted his machine shop into a factory to make shell casings for mortar rounds. He was standing on the loading dock watching his men struggling to load the trucks. A model A Ford pulled onto the property and stopped near the loading dock. Out of the car stepped a scarecrow.

“Need some help?” the scarecrow asked.

Although Hal could use another man he almost said no. The kid was so thin that a strong wind could probably break him. It was difficult to imagine him having the strength to load trucks.

“Those boxes are heavy. Do you think you can handle it?”

“I ain’t no stranger to hard work. If it needs movin’, I’ll move it.”

Hal gave the kid a good looking over. He was no more than twenty years old. Most kids his age were quick and agile. They also had endurance. Maybe he could put the kid on the packing line. He should be able to keep up with the flow if he had eaten recently.

“What’s your name?”

“Clyde Short.”

“I’m Hal. Follow me.”

They walked to Hal’s office. Hal handed Clyde the employment form and Clyde signed it. They then walked to the front of the factory and Clyde entered his name and the time on the appropriate line of the sign in sheet. It was a short walk from there to the packing line.

“Martin!”

“Yeah, Hal! The man that replied was forty some odd years old. He was short and stocky with a bulldog smoking pipe protruding from his round face. Most of the men where Clyde was from smoked corncob pipes when they were at work. If they owned a pipe made of briar they either inherited it or had some spare cash when they bought it. It was a prized possession, and they did not want to risk breaking its stem at work. So they put it on the mantle and smoked it while relaxing after dinner.

“Martin, this is Clyde. Start him off in packing and rotate Ben to the dock for now.”

There was no handshake or unnecessary words, which was fine with Clyde. He wasn’t much of a talker anyhow.

“Ben this is Clyde. Show him how to pack. Then rotate to the loading doc!”

The look on Ben’s face said he was not too happy about rotating to the loading doc early. He picked up a pair of gloves and handed them to Clyde.

“Here you go, Okie. Nothing complicated about it. Put one of the gloves on your weak hand to start out.” Ben picked up a mortar round casing to demonstrate what he was saying. “Cover the threads with one or more of your fingers, and turn the casing a couple of times like this. If the thread snags your glove it has a burr or rough spot and you toss it in the reject pile. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. This one’s all right. You don’t find a bad one often. It’s important to put them in the box right. The guys loading the powder don’t have time to look or turn them, and we catch hell if they’re not packed right. They stand in the box this way. Now start packing!”

Clyde quickly fell into a rhythm. Ben left for the loading dock. The rounds were heavier than they looked. Clyde had to lift with his left hand for a while to give his right hand a rest. He inspected and packed for two hours. Then the whistle blew to signal lunch time. He walked to his car and lit his corncob pipe. He could only afford to smoke two bowls a day. One after lunch and one after whatever he could afford to eat at the end of the day.

Hal had to walk past Clyde’s car to get to his. “Where’s your lunch?” he asked.

“Don’t have one.”

Hal sighed. “Well, I can’t have you passing out on me from hunger. Come on!”

Clyde reluctantly followed. They drove to a nearby diner.

“Order anything you want. It’s on me.”

“You should take it out of my pay.”

“I like your attitude, but if I do that it will take you too long to get on your feet.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

A waitress came to the table and took their orders. Clyde ordered a hamburger and coffee.

“You’ll be learning something new when we finish lunch.”

Clyde grinned.

“I thought you’d like that. The tasks are repetitive, and I’ve found out it’s better to rotate my workers after a few hours to keep them from burning out.”

The waitress brought the meals, and Clyde lit into the hamburger as though he had not eaten in days. This was understandable because it had been almost thirty hours since his last meal. Not that he was counting the hours. He had learned not to do that.

“I understand you did well at packing. How are you getting along with the other workers?”

Clyde knew it always took a while for people to get over his looks enough for him to prove himself to them, but that is not what a boss wants to hear. “I haven’t given it much thought,” he said. “I reckon holdin’ up my end of the log is doing right by them though.”

Hal smiled. “It’s doing right by everyone.”

“I won’t let you down.”

“I’m sure you won’t.”

Hal discretely watched Clyde several times during the day. The kid learned new tasks quickly, and he seemed to have an instinct for reducing the motions it took to perform each of the tasks assigned to him. At the end of the day Clyde was standing by his model A. He had his corncob pipe in his mouth but was putting off lighting it. Hal walked up to him.

“Where are you staying tonight?”

“I was hoping I could sleep in my car here.”

“No good. The cops check my lot, and we can’t have you getting arrested for vagrancy.”

“Tough place to live.”

“It’s all right. I’ve got a place for you to stay. The rent’s cheap, and you can pay it weekly, starting with the paycheck you’ll get this Friday.”

“You sure they’ll trust me to do that.”

“It’s my place.”

“That’s really kind of you.”

“Nonsense. It’s not making me any money sitting there empty.”

Clyde followed Hal to the property. Much to Clyde’s delight the place was near the beach. An oil field bordered the property, and flames shooting out of the stack of a topping plant would obviously light up the night. It was the oil field and topping plant that had spoiled Hal’s plan for the place. His property held a large house and six small bungalows. He had built the bungalows thinking he could rent them out to people who wanted to stay at the beach during their vacations. The rotten egg smell from the topping plant soon made that plan impractical. Four of the bungalows were now rented out to workers at the factory. The main room of the one where Clyde would be staying had two beds, a gas cooking stove, a small refrigerator and a sink. The other room was a bathroom. Clyde could not have been more pleased if it had been a palace. There were still a lot of folks back home who did not have electricity or indoor plumbing.

“Come to the main house for dinner after you move in your things.”

“That’s right neighborly of you.”

“Your first week’s rent includes dinner, and I’ll have my wife pack a lunch for you.”

Clyde took a shower, put on his cleanest dirty shirt and slicked back his hair. Hal opened the door and introduced Clyde to his wife, Laura, and his children, Alice and Brandon.

“Pleased to meet you all. I hope I didn’t keep you waitin’ dinner on me.”

“Not at all,” Laura said. “I just put it on the table.”

Hal said the grace, and they started passing the food around the table.

Clyde helped himself to the pot roast. He smiled as he put some gravy on the mashed potatoes. “I’m a lucky man tonight. What with this meal and you kind folks invitin’ here.”

“Think nothing of it,” Laura said. Where are you from?”

“Kentucky, but folks at the factory seem to think it’s Oklahoma.”

Hal did not look pleased. “I’ll bet you’re not the only one they’re calling Okie.”

“No sir, I’m not.”

“I’ve been trying to discourage that.”

“So it’s not a polite name.”

“Far from it. It’s used by people to tell folks who escaped the dust bowl that they’re not welcome here.”

“I’ve been called worse things, and by total strangers.”

Laura smiled, but there was no joy in it. “People are far too mean.”

“That must be upsetting to someone with your kind heart.”

“Thank you for saying I have a kind heart. I think you do too.”

“A fella who looks like me has to display kindness or they’d run him outta town.”

This made everyone laugh. After dinner they walked into the living room. The men lit their pipes and Laura served them an after dinner coffee.

“I’d turn on the news now, but my radio conked out this morning.”

“Probably a tube. Bet I can fix it for you.”

“Where’d you learn about radios?”

“I picked up a book on electrical things, and I enjoy tinkerin’.”

“Well, tinker away.”

Clyde was able to fix the radio, and when a switch on one of the lathes broke he was also able to fix that. One day he walked into Hal’s office. “If we can get some ramps with rollers on ‘em, I think we could speed up the loadin’ of the trucks.”

“How do you figure?”

“The doc is just a tad higher than the truck beds. It ain’t much but it’s enough. Pull the hand trucks up to the ramp. Set the boxes on the rollers and just let ‘em roll. With no one carryin’ we can put a man in the truck to help the driver stack.”

“How much time do think that will save?”

“Don’t know. I think we should test it without letting the trucking company know what we’re doin’.

“Why the secrecy?”

“I’m guessing the high mileage rate is to compensate for the time they spend at the doc. If we can get ‘em to lower the mileage and charge us an hourly fee at the dock we’ll come out ahead because they’ll be figurin’ how long it normally takes.”

“All right, I know where I can borrow a truck. It’s your project.”

Clyde’s test went well. The trucks were loaded much quicker, but he thought the men worked faster than they would on daily basis so he left himself some wiggle room. Clyde bought some new clothes so that his appearance would let the trucking company know he was part of management. It was some hard haggling but he got what he wanted. He presented the contract to Hal with a big grin on his face.

“Here’s what we’ve been payin’ per round trip and here’s what we’ll be payin’.

“I can’t believe how low the hourly rate is. How did you get them to do that?”

“They were figurin’ a longer loadin’ time. We’ll have our men do the stackin’ to keep their drivers from gold brickin’. The drivers will go for it because it means they won’t have to heft the cargoes.”

“Human nature.”

“Yes sir. And my good looks played a part in it. No one wants to believe that someone who looks as goofy as I do can get the better of ‘em in a deal.”

Hal was laughing. “Then I guess there are some advantages to not being pretty.”

“Damn few, but I make the most of what there is.”

After the Japanese bombed Pear Harbor, Hal landed an even bigger contract with the government. Clyde tried to join the army.

“I recon I ought to kill some of those damn Japs for what they done to us,” he told Hal.

“Yes, but don’t hate them all. The ones I know here are good people. They consider themselves to be Americans now. I’m afraid this war is going to be very hard on them.”

“I suppose you’re right about that. Folks are too riled up to look beneath the surface. Some of the men fighting us probably don’t have a choice either.”

Fortunately Clyde had flat feet. The army doctor thought he was too fragile to be a soldier anyhow. The factory was now full of female workers because most of the men were serving in the military. Clyde married one of the female workers. She was no raving beauty, but she was not downright ugly. Because of the housing shortage Clyde and his bride lived in the little bungalow they rented from Hal. As bad as the smell from the topping plant might have been there were people who had it far worse. Some of the oil workers were actually camped out in the oil fields. Hal was making so much money and Clyde was so valuable that he let Clyde buy an interest in the company. When he became an old man Clyde liked to tell the story about how an ugly country mutt became an industrialist. He always laughed as he finished the story: “And I did it in the glamour capital of the world!”

First published in macsbackporch.fictionforall.com on Nov. 25, 2010