Specimen Days

It was after the lunch hour when his sleeve caught in a clamp. He'd allowed his mind to drift. The tug was gentle and insistent as an infant's grip. He was already reaching for another clamp and saw that a corner of his shirtsleeve was in the serrated mouth of the first, pinched tight between clamp and plate. He pulled instinctively away, but the clamp held the fabric with steady assurance. It was singular and passionate as a rat with a scrap of gristle. Lucas thought for a moment how well the machine was made the jaws of the clamps were so strong and sure. He tugged again. The clamp didn't yield. Only when he turned the pin, awkwardly, with his left hand, did the clamp relax itself and give up the corner of his sleeve. The cloth still bore the imprint of the clamp's tiny toothmarks.

Lucas looked with mute wonder at the end of his sleeve. This was how. You allowed your attention to wander, you thought of other things, and the clamp took whatever was offered it. That was the clamp's nature. Lucas looked around guiltily, wondering if Tom or Will or Dan had noticed. They had not noticed. Dan tapped with a wrench on his machine. He struck it firmly but kindly on the flank of the box that held its workings. The wrench rang on the metal like a church bell.

Lucas rolled his sleeves to his elbows. He went on working.

It seemed, as he loaded the plates onto the belt, that the machines were not inanimate; not quite inanimate. They were part of a continuum: machines, then grass and trees, then horses and dogs, then human beings. He wondered if the machine had loved Simon, in its serene and unthinking way. He wondered if all the machines at the works, all the furnaces and hooks and belts, mutely admired their men, as horses admired their masters. He wondered if they waited with their immense patience for the moment their men would lose track of themselves, let their caution lapse so the machines could take their hands with loving firmness and pull them in.

He lifted another plate from the bin, lined it up, fastened the clamps, and sent it under the teeth of the wheel.

Where was Jack? Didn't he want to know how well Lucas was doing his work? Lucas said, as the plate went under the wheel, "Urge and urge and urge, always the procreant urge of the world."

* * *

Jack didn't come to him until the workday's end. Jack looked at Lucas, looked at the machine, nodded, and looked at Lucas again.

"You've done all right," he said. "Thank you, sir." "You'll be back tomorrow, then." "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

Lucas extended his hand to Jack and was surprised to see that it shook. He had known his fingers were bleeding; he hadn't known about the shaking. Still, Jack took his hand. He didn't appear to mind about the shaking or the blood.

"Prodigal," Lucas said, "you have given me love therefore I to you give love!"

Jack paused. His iron face took on three creases across the expanse of its forehead.

"What was that?"

"Good night," Lucas said.

"Good night," Jack replied doubtfully.

Lucas hurried away, passed with the others through the cooking room, where the men with the black poles were shutting down their furnaces. He found that he could not quite remember having been anywhere but the works. Or rather, he remembered his life before coming to the works as a dream, watery and insubstantial. It faded as dreams fade on waking. None of it was as actual as this. None of it was so true. Align, clamp, pull, pull again, inspect.

A woman in a light blue dress waited outside the entrance to the works. Lucas took a moment in recognizing her. He saw first that a woman stood at the entrance and thought that the works had summoned an angel to bid the men goodbye, to remind them that work would end someday and a longer dream begin. Then he understood. Catherine had come. She was waiting for him.

He recognized her a moment before she recognized him. He looked at her face and saw that she had forgotten him, too.

He called out, "Catherine." "Lucas?" she said.

He ran to her. She inhabited a sphere of scented and cleansed air. He was gladdened. He was furious. How could she come here? Why would she embarrass him so?

She said, "Look at you. You're all grime. I didn't know you at first."

"It's me," he said.

"You're shaking all over." "I'm all right. I'm well."

"I thought you shouldn't walk home alone. Not after your first day."

He said, "This isn't a fit place for a woman on her own."

"Poor boy, just look at you."

He bristled. He had set the wheel turning. He had inspected every plate.

"I'm fine," he said, more forcefully than he'd meant to. "Well, let's take you home. You must be starving."