The Time Thief - Michael Thomas, ebook
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MICHAEL THOMASTHE TIME THIEFTHE STRANGER APPEARED at the crest of the knoll.Mark and his friends, playing tag through the carcass of the abandoned Model T,did not see or hear him approach, but Mark gradually sensed the man's presencethe way a disturbing thought lingers at the edge of consciousness beforebursting full blown into the mind.The steering wheel was safe and Mark rested his hands on the wheel while theMellon twins, their scrawny red-headed bodies looking like waltzing carrots,scampered away from pudgy and flat- footed Joey Hanson. Soot from the blastfurnaces coated the rusting car, turning Mark's fingertips black where theytouched the wheel. He wiped his hands on his knickers, then with a spidery kindof feeling knew that he was being watched, caught at playing hookey from theeighth grade even before he looked up and saw the man. At first the stranger wasjust a silhouette on the hill framed by the saw-toothed battlements of the FordRouge Plant. Black smoke from the coke ovens momentarily blotted out the sun,transforming the man from silhouette to hawk-faced stranger. As Joey and theMellon twins climbed through the car to Mark's side, he pointed at the man andthey watched as the stranger slowly descended the hill toward them."Service Department?" Joey whispered."Must be," Pete Mellon said."Hobo," Mark guessed."Must be," Paul Mellon said.The man reached the foot of the hill, stuck his hands on his hips and grinned atthe boys. He wore a brown leather aviator's jacket, threadbare and ripped, and ahat with the brim shadowing his forehead. He was thin with deep-set eyes andsunken cheeks, convincing Mark that he was indeed a hobo, probably having justridden the rails from out west to find work at the Ford Plant."Excuse me, boys, but is that the Ford Rouge Plant?" the stranger asked."That's Ford's," Mark said.The Mellon twins stifled laughter over anyone being so dumb as to not knowFord's."They hirin?" the man asked."Maybe," Joey said. "But they'll only start you at $6 a day.""Yeah," Mark said. "My dad started at $6 a day and he worked his way up toalmost $10 a day doing tool and die and then they fired him. They just hired himback and made him start at $6 again.""Least he got hired back," Joey said. "My old man got laid off and hasn't workedfor six months."Mark blushed and studied his shoes; he should have been happy that his fatherwas back to work, but he felt awkward, almost ashamed of the fact around hisfriends whose fathers were still jobless and broke. The Mellon family took inboarders, Joey's mother cleaned houses to make sure they had food. So Markshould have felt lucky, but actually felt ashamed, a feeling which had becomehis natural state.For as long as he could remember his father had swung on a demented pendulumbetween working overtime six days a week and losing his job. With each swing ofthe pendulum, Mark's shame grew worse; it always seemed as if his father losthis job because there was something wrong with him or with the family. The firsttime it happened, men from the Ford Sociological Department came to inspect thehouse and the family to make sure they were living decently and were deservingof his father's profit-sharing bonus. No one knew exactly what standards oldHenry Ford thought were befitting a bonus, but whatever they were, the men insuits who poked and prodded through the dirty laundry and examined the pantryfor liquor bottles found no evidence that Mark's family lived up to theirquality control. Not only did his father lose his profit-sharing bonus, he losthis job. Now, the Sociological Department was gone, but in the ten years since,his father had been rehired five times and lost his job four times, always forsome reason that implied it was the man's own fault, or the family's fault, andeach time Mark's shame grew deeper."Sounds like things are tough around here," the stranger said."Mister, where you been?" Joey laughed, puckering his pudgy face. "It's hardtimes. But things is gonna change. There's gonna be a march on the plant andthey say thousands of guys is gonna .... "Mark jabbed an elbow into Joey's ribs."Ow! What's the big idea?""You shouldn't go talking to strangers about things," Mark whispered.Pete Mellon's eyes formed discs beneath his mop of red hair. "Yeah. He might bea Service Department spy.""Service Department spy," his brother said.The stranger chuckled to himself, his lips curling upward, bunching his thinface into a death's head grin. "Has there ever been a march on the plant?""Guess not," Mark said.The man nodded, more to himself than to the boys. "Then this is the fight one,"he said. "It's 1932." He tipped his hat and said, "Much obliged. You boys haveyourself a good day." He started back up the hill, hesitated, turned and tosseda quarter to each boy."Geez, thanks, mister," Joey called after him.Mark fingered his quarter and watched the stranger disappear over the rise ofthe hill as if the smoke and flames and massive walls of the plant were a dragonthat had swallowed the man whole.Then the man reappeared and beckoned them with a crook of his finger."Let's run," Pete Mellon said."Run," Paul said."I ain't going up there," Joey said.Drawn for some reason he could not understand, Mark climbed the hill and stareddown with the stranger at the plant. It stretched like its own dark city all theway to the Rouge River where freighters docked and skeletal gantries unloadedthe ore. Lines of smokestacks carved a fence pattern across the sky, thebuildings housing the assembly lines crowded each other like the caves of somerace of toiling dwarves, and over all the smoke from the blast furnaces wrappedthe plant in a shroud.The stranger pointed and said, "Is that Miller Road down there?""Yep," Mark said.The stranger nodded. "By the way, do you know .... "The man hesitated, thenshook his head. "Never mind. It's better if I find him myself."Mark waited, but the man only went on staring at the craggy summits of the blastfurnaces. At last, Mark turned and raced down the hill. It was a warm day forMarch, but Mark shivered. With a start, he realized he was frightened, notknowing why, only knowing the stranger's appearance was an omen, as unlucky aswalking under a ladder.THE BOYS DEBATED what to do with their quarters, the Mellons wanting to seeScarface and Joey and Mark holding out for parfaits at Henderson's Drug Store.At last the parfaits won and the boys sat at the counter, eating withlong-handled spoons, speculating about the stranger."Maybe he's a communist," Pete Mellon said."I still think he's Service Department," Joey Hanson said."He's just a hobo," Mark said.As they talked, Mark's conviction about the man weakened. Something about thestranger, something knowing in the sunken eyes made him sure the man was muchmore than a hobo. But he couldn't believe the man was one of the goons from theFord Service Department. Goons always wore suits and ties. Still, there wassomething not quite right about the man. Maybe Joey was right, maybe the guy wasa spy trying to find out about the Hunger March.He sipped melted ice cream from the bottom of the glass with a straw, thensmelled aftershave and his mood brightened."How's my favorites?" Randy Randolph said. He sat on a swivel stool at thecounter, played with one of his ruby rings, straightened his tie, smoothed hisgreased-back hair. Randy had the look of an eager Doberman pinscher and justabout as much fashion sense, but to Mark he was as heroic as Charles Lindbergh.Randy started out life like them, living off the Ford Plant like rats living offa garbage dump, but now Randy dressed better than a politician and had no fearof layoffs or the Service Department. Randy was the lord of numbers; his mastersweren't foremen, but the kind of guys you saw in movies, riding the runningboards of cars, Tommy guns in hand.Randy made a quarter appear from behind Mark's ear, then repeated the sleight ofhand, pulling a stack of white cards from behind Mark's other ear. Randy fannedhimself with the cards and grinned."I'll sell twice as many as last week," Mark said."I'll beat you any day of the week," Joey said.The Mellons leaped for the cards."Hold up there," Randy said. "There's plenty for everybody."Mark pocketed his allotment of cards; he would be on Miller Road at shiftchange, ready to sell the betting cards to plant workers, eager to impressRandy, just as eager to collect his five percent commission. Other runners onlymade two percent, but Randy took care of his runners, paid better, acted asbuddy, confidant and father figure to Mark and his friends.Randy ordered a chocolate shake, ruffled Mark's hair for no reason, then forceda comb through his own grease-caked hair.Joey climbed onto the stool next to Randy. "Hey Randy, you gonna be in themarch?""March?" Randy asked."The march on the plant. You know."Mark sensed they should keep quiet, but this was Randy, after all, and he didn'twant to loose his spot as Randy's number one pal. "There's gonna be thousands,"Mark said."That a fact?" Randy said. "I suppose your dads will be there, right in thefront row.""You bet," Mark said.Randy shook his head. "Suckers," he said. "It's all a sucker's game. Rememberwhat I told you guys. You don't want to be the ones buying the cards, you wantto sell them. Nobody gets rich playing the cards and nobody gets rich working insome factory. You think marching on Ford's is going to make things better? Fatchance. And even if it does, your fathers will just be replacing one master withanother. I got this cousin who works in a mine. They got a union. You know whatthat means? It means they still work in the mines onl...
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